She was distracted, plotting her next course and chewing sugary raisins. Her sled was coasting through a series of connected ellipses, bound for nearside. Earth was rising, a glinting crystal globe above the warped moon.There was a thump she felt more than heard. The horizon tilted crazily. She slammed forward into her harness and the sled began to fall.Her clipboard spun away, there was the shriek of metal on metal; the sled was tumbling. She snatched at the guidestick and thumbed on the maneuvering jets. The right was dead. Some on the left responded. She brought them up to full impulse. Something was rattling, as though working loose. The sled lurched again, digging her harness into her.The rotation slowed. She was hanging upside down, looking at the blunted peak of a gray-brown mountain as it slid by, uncomfortably close. She was still falling.The sled was rectangular, all bones and no skin. She could see the forward half and it seemed undamaged. Everything she had heard came literally through the seat of her pants, conducted along the struts and pipes of the sled’s rectangular network.
