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Page 62
dant, a common precaution in weapons design. But for a distance of a thousand meters around the Device the water and seabottom are contaminated.
At one o'clock on this dark arctic afternoon, a hunting party of Inuit trappers is returning home to Eskimo Point along the frozen shore. They chatter as they slog through freshly fallen snow. The hunt has been a success. Fish have been plentiful and there is caribou meat on the sledges.
At one second after one o'clock, a half dozen kilometers from where they are walking, under the mud at the bottom of the bay, an electronic clock activates the power-up sequence.
The onboard computer boots. Then the primary switches snap on, and the countdown to launch begins.

 
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