Up they get, to the very top of the Barrier. Daytime tourists get their marvellous view of the ocean this way; Miles sees it only incidentally as he leans over the railing to look down at the narrow ledge below. There are ladders, of course; retracted and locked up for the night, of course. Rather than fuss with the ladder controls, Miles gets out his Dendarii-issue gravitic grappler, attaches it to the railing, squirms into the ribbon harness, and lets himself down the outside of the wall on a thin, thin wire, trying not to think about what would happen if any part of this arrangement broke sufficiently to let him fall.
At the bottom, he unharnesses himself and hits the control to make the contraption reel back up for Galeni; once they're both down, he hits a second control, and the grappler lets go of the railing up above and slurps itself neatly back onto its reel for later use. Miles folds it up and pockets it again, then draws one of his stunners.
"This way," he says, nodding along the ledge to the right. "What have you got? I brought two stunners."
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Up they get, to the very top of the Barrier. Daytime tourists get their marvellous view of the ocean this way; Miles sees it only incidentally as he leans over the railing to look down at the narrow ledge below. There are ladders, of course; retracted and locked up for the night, of course. Rather than fuss with the ladder controls, Miles gets out his Dendarii-issue gravitic grappler, attaches it to the railing, squirms into the ribbon harness, and lets himself down the outside of the wall on a thin, thin wire, trying not to think about what would happen if any part of this arrangement broke sufficiently to let him fall.
At the bottom, he unharnesses himself and hits the control to make the contraption reel back up for Galeni; once they're both down, he hits a second control, and the grappler lets go of the railing up above and slurps itself neatly back onto its reel for later use. Miles folds it up and pockets it again, then draws one of his stunners.
"This way," he says, nodding along the ledge to the right. "What have you got? I brought two stunners."