"You've got a hard hull, anyhow," Ranjit said, "coming out here telling me to stop when you need fuel yourself. Supposing I stopped right now. How would you get away? And what would I do? I got a bad heart. About half of it's artificial. That's why I've been living under zero G for fifteen years. I can't go back to Earth. The docs say more than four-tenths G would do for me. Before I got this job, I was living in a hulk orbiting around Titan, just waiting to pass beyond. Now I got something useful to do and something to live for. I may last till I'm 120."
Henry, who had been stupidly smiling at Morna with too much intensity to follow the discussion, jerked his head around and gasped, "You, you can't stand acceleration?"
Ranjit said, "Not enough to go anywhere. I got a bad heart, a very bad heart. About half of it's—"
Vicenzo and Aziz, spacesuited, crowded into the compartment through the doorway in the netting. "Dis is a stickup!" Aziz announced over a loudspeaker on the chest of his suit.
"Don't move," Vicenzo growled, scowling beneath his black bangs.
Since deadly weapons were extremely rare and difficult to obtain, the pair had armed themselves with long, hand-made knives. Vicenzo also carried a cumbersome rocket launcher, a remodeled lifeline tube.
