But I’d seen the process before. The giant south airlock was over 300 meters wide and fifty deep. If a ship could fit in—the Skookum Jim barely would have squeezed in sideways—it could be brought inside the dome; if it didn’t, there was no other way to get it in. The whole process of filling or draining the lock took about an hour. I headed back to NewYou, grabbing some synthetic sushi on the way. I got there just as Pickover was coming out of the workroom. His shirt still had a rip in it, but I presumed his chest was repaired, and he was no longer limping. I let him settle up with Fernandez—at this rate, Rory was going to have to sell a pentapod or two to stay afloat. And then I turned to Fernandez. “Can we take a crack at Dazzling Don now?” “Absolutely,” he replied. Just then, Mac came through the front door. Mercifully, Huxley was no longer with him; Mac himself was carrying the disruptor disk under one arm—maybe he was afraid that Trace wasn’t really dead.
