Forty-five seconds later, he reached up and snatched at a passing hand-hold, next to a plate marked with the numbers of the lab he sought.
Wrenching the handle of the inspection plate and pushing it free, he climbed out into the deserted lab; made his way out into the corridor, his unwieldy package hanging to his shoulder and runlets of water making a trail behind him—and stepped into the nearby emergency lock.
In the lock he quickly donned one of the emergency spacesuits that hung there, gathered up his bundle again, and stepped out on the catwalk of the inner part of the rim, under the brilliant night sky at the moment, but turning towards its "sunrise." He opened his plastic package.
"Major Elbertson," he said, turning on the Security radio, "you now have five minutes to surrender."
Attaching his suit to the guideline nearby, part of the rim's "hairnet," he crept out over the inside edge of the rim. From this position he had a full view of the glowing bubble that was Hot Rod for the few seconds until the movement of the rim took him past the "sunrise" point and turned him sunwards.
Last time Mike had been out on the rim, the wheel had not been turning. There'd been no reference of up and down, other than the rim itself as an oddly curved floor. Now he felt disoriented. The wheel was spinning, the hub, therefore, seemed "up." And from the edge of the rim where he clung to its hairnet, all directions were down.
The stars seemed to sweep beneath his feet and over his head; and though it was a slow pattern, only twice as fast as the crawl of a second hand around the face of a clock, it was, nevertheless, disorienting.
Bracing himself carefully into the net, with his back wedged firmly against the rim, he adjusted his bizarre "gun" to rest on his knees so that he could sight in the direction that was, to his body's senses, straight down.
Not at all, he thought, like trying to shoot fish in a barrel. More like being the fish and trying to shoot the people outside the barrel.