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he charms; Rigel have
given us the next path out."
"Got it. Charm drives leaving pre-ignition state for hot standby."
came the Captain's reply, the ship shuddering briefly as the magnetic
plasma bottles fired into life in a flip of electronic switch-states,
holding within their annular swirls the myriad swarms of the monsters of
quantum physics.
Flipping my computer into synch with that of the drive' I was treated
to a brief subliminal flash of the triple-starred and skeletonned "Psi
Hazard Warning" logo and the message that prolonged use of inertial
simulators can lead to distortions of mental acuity, followed by a shorm
message from the Hawkins Corporation telling me to have a nice day.
Then came the solid green characters:
++ CHARM DRIVE STATUS - HOT STANDBY ++
++ - HELM CONTROL ++
My vision flipped to an external view of the the ship, a view supplied
by Ryoko's computers directly to my visual cortex. The gravity lines of
local space superimposed themselves in white upon the blackness of
space, a distant ship a red pyramid with the words "CPV890/75 Aleister
Crowley" floating beside it, Rigel 2 a purple distant sphere, red lines
marking incoming and outgoing flight vectors. A green dot flas
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