Read "The Snowbank Orbit" by Fritz Leiber online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
Three quarters of a day later Grunfeld felt a spasm of futile fear and revolt as the pressure suit closed like a thick-fleshed carnivorous plant on his drugged and tired body. Relax, he told himself. Fine thing if you cooked up a fuss when even Croker didn't. He thought of forty things to re-check. Relax, he repeated -- the work's over; all that matters is in Copperhead's memory tanks now, or will be as soon as the captain's suited up.
The suit held Grunfeld erect, his arms at his sides -- the best attitude, except he was still facing forward, for taking high G, providing the ship herself didn't start to tumble. Only the cheekpieces and visor hadn't closed in on his face -- translucent hand-thick petals as yet unfolded. He felt the delicate firm pressure of built-in fingertips monitoring his pulses and against his buttocks the cold smooth muzzles of the jet hypodermics that would feed him metronomic drugs during the high-G stretch and stimulants when they were in free-fall again. When.