Xeelee: An Omnibus: Raft, Timelike Infinity, Flux, Ring (7 page)

He shook his head, trying to dispel his dizziness. He concentrated on immediate things: the easy pull of gravity, the gleaming surface beneath his feet. He tapped experimentally at the deck. It made a small ringing noise.

‘Take it easy,’ Pallis growled. The big tree-pilot had finished his business and was standing before him. ‘The plate’s only a millimetre thick, on average. Although it’s buttressed for strength.’

Rees flexed his feet and jumped a few inches into the air, feeling the pull as he settled gently back. ‘That feels like half a gee.’

Pallis nodded. ‘Closer to forty per cent. We’re in the gravity well of the Raft itself. Obviously the Nebula Core is also pulling at us - but that’s tiny; and in any event we couldn’t feel it because the Raft is in orbit around the Core.’ He tilted his face up at the flying forest. ‘Most people think the trees are there to keep the Raft from falling into the Core, you know. But their function is to stabilize the Raft - to keep it from tipping over - and to counteract the effects of winds, and to let us move the Raft when we have to . . .’ Pallis bent and peered into Rees’s face, his scars a crimson net. ‘Are you OK? You look a little dizzy.’

Rees tried to smile. ‘I’m fine. I suppose I’m just disconcerted at not being in a five-minute orbit.’

Pallis laughed. ‘Well, you’ll get used to it.’ He straightened. ‘Now then, young man, I have to decide what’s to be done with you.’

Rees felt a coldness prickle over his scalp as he began to think ahead to the moment when he would be abandoned by the tree-pilot, and scorn for himself ran through his thoughts. Had he boldly left his home only to become dependent on the kindness of a stranger? Where was his courage?

He straightened his back and concentrated on what Pallis was saying.

‘ . . . I’ll have to find an Officer,’ the pilot mused, scratching a stubbly chin. ‘Log you as a stowaway. Get you a temporary Class assignment until the next tree goes out. All that paperwork, damn it . . .

‘By the Bones, I’m too tired. And hungry, and dirty. Let’s leave it until next shift. Rees, you can stop over at my cabin until it’s sorted. You too, Gover, though the prospect is hardly enticing.’

The apprentice stared into the distance; he didn’t look around at the pilot’s words.

‘But I don’t have supplies for three growing lads like us. Or even one, come to think of it. Gover, get out to the Rim and get a couple of shifts’ worth on my number, will you? You too, Rees; why not? You’ll enjoy the sightseeing. I’ll go scrape a few layers of dust off my cabin.’

And so Rees found himself trailing the apprentice through the swarm of cables. Gover stalked ahead, not deigning to wait; in all this murky, tree-shadowed world the apprentice was Rees’s only fixed point, and so the miner made sure he didn’t lose sight of Gover’s unprepossessing back.

They came to a thoroughfare cut through the tangle of cables. It was crowded with people. Gover paused at the edge of the thoroughfare and stood in sullen silence, evidently waiting for something. Rees stood beside him and looked around. The clear, straight path was about ten yards wide: it was like looking along a tree-roofed tunnel. The path was lined with light; Rees made out globes fixed to the cables just like the globes in the depths of the star mine.

There were people everywhere, an even stream that flowed briskly in both directions along the path. Some of them stared at Rees’s dishevelled appearance, but most politely looked away. They were all clean and well-groomed - although there were hollow eyes and pale cheeks, as if some sickness were haunting the Raft. Men and women alike wore a kind of coverall of some fine, grey material; some wore gold braid on their shoulders or cuffs, often woven in elaborate designs. Rees glanced down at his own battered tunic - and with a jolt recognized it as an aged descendant of the garments of the Raft population. So miners wore Raft cast-offs?

He wondered what Sheen would say about that . . .

Two small boys were standing before him, gazing with round eyes at his dingy tunic. Rees, horribly embarrassed, hissed to Gover: ‘What are we waiting for? Can’t we move on?’

Gover swivelled his head and fixed Rees with a look of dull contempt.

Rees tried to smile at the boys. They just stared.

Now there was a soft, rushing sound from the centre of the Raft. Rees, with some relief, stepped out into the thoroughfare, and he made out the bizarre sight of a row of faces sliding towards him above the crowd. Gover stepped forward and held up a hand. Rees watched him curiously——and the rushing grew to a roar. Rees turned to see the blunt prow of a Mole bearing down on him. He stumbled back; the speeding cylinder narrowly missed his chest. The Mole rolled to a halt a few yards from Gover and Rees. A row of simple seats had been fixed to the upper surface of the Mole; people rode in them, watching him incuriously.

Rees found his mouth opening and closing. He had expected some wonderful sights on the Raft, but - this? The little boys’ mouths were round with astonishment at his antics. Gover was grinning. ‘What’s the matter, mine rat? Never seen a bus before?’ The apprentice walked up to the Mole and, with a practised swing, stepped up into a vacant seat.

Rees shook his head and hurried after the apprentice. There was a low shelf around the base of the Mole; Rees stepped onto it and turned cautiously, lowering himself into the seat next to Gover’s - and the Mole jolted into motion. Rees tumbled sideways, clinging to chair arms; he had to wriggle around until he was facing outwards, and at last found himself gliding smoothly above the heads of the throng.

The boys ran after the Mole, shouting and waving; Rees did his best to ignore them, and after a few yards they tired and gave up.

Rees stared frankly at the man next to him, a thin, middle-aged individual with a sheaf of gold braid at his cuff. The man studied him with an expression of disdain, then moved almost imperceptibly to the far side of his seat.

He turned to Gover. ‘You call me a “mine rat”. What exactly is a “rat”?’

Gover sneered. ‘A creature of old Earth. Vermin, the lowest of the low. Have you heard of Earth? It’s the place we—’ he emphasized the word ‘—came from.’

Rees thought that over; then he studied the machine he was riding. ‘What did you call this thing?’

Gover looked at him with mock pity. ‘This is a bus, mine rat. Just a little something we have here in the civilized world.’

Rees studied the lines of the cylinder under its burden of furniture and passengers. It was a Mole all right; there were the scorch marks showing where - something - had been cut away. On an impulse he leaned over and thumped the surface of the ‘bus’ with his fist. ‘Status!’

Gover studiously ignored him. Rees was aware of his thin neighbour regarding him with curious disgust—

—and then the bus reported loudly, ‘Massive sensor dysfunction.’

The voice had sounded from somewhere under the thin man; he jumped and stared open-mouthed at the seat beneath him.

Gover looked at Rees with a grudging interest. ‘How did you do that?’

Rees smiled, relishing the moment. ‘Oh, it was nothing. You see, we have - ah - buses where I come from too. I’ll tell you about it some time.’

And with a delicious coolness he settled back to enjoy the ride.

The journey lasted only a few minutes. The bus paused frequently, passengers alighting and climbing aboard at each stop.

They passed abruptly out of the mass of cables and slid over a clear expanse of deck. Unimpeded Nebula light dazzled Rees. When he looked back the cables were like a wall of textured metal hundreds of feet tall, topped by discs of foliage.

The nose of the bus began to rise.

At first Rees thought it was his imagination. Then he noticed the passengers shifting in their seats; and still the tilt increased, until it seemed to Rees that he was about to slide back down a metal slope to the cables.

He shook his head tiredly. He had had enough wonders for one shift. If only Gover would give him a few hints about what was going on—

He closed his eyes. Come on, think it through, he told himself. He thought of the Raft as he had seen it from above. Had it looked bowl-shaped? No, it had been flat all the way to the Rim; he was sure of that. Then what?

Fear shot through him. Suppose the Raft was falling! Perhaps the cables on a thousand trees had snapped; perhaps the Raft was tipping over, spilling its human cargo into the pit of air—

He snorted as with a little more thought he saw it. The bus was climbing out of the Raft’s gravity well, which was deepest at the structure’s centre. If the bus’s brakes failed now it would roll back along the plane in from the Rim towards the Raft’s heart . . . just as if it were rolling downhill. In reality the Raft was, of course, a flat plate, fixed in space; but its central gravity field made it seem to tilt to anyone standing close to the Rim.

When the slope had risen to one in one the bus shuddered to a halt. A set of steps had been fixed to the deck alongside the bus’s path; they led to the very Rim. The passengers jumped down. ‘You stay there,’ Gover told Rees; and he set off after the others up the shallow stairs.

Fixed almost at the Rim was the huge, silhouetted form of what must be a supply machine. The passengers formed a small queue before it.

Rees obediently remained in his seat. He longed to examine the device at the Rim. But there would be another shift, time and fresh energy to pursue that.

It would be nice, though, to walk to the edge and peer into the depths of the Nebula . . . Perhaps he might even glimpse the Belt.

One by one the passengers returned to the bus bearing supply packets, like those which Pallis had brought to the Belt. The last passenger thumped the nose of the bus; the battered old machine lurched into motion and set off down the imaginary slope.

Pallis’s cabin was a simple cube partitioned into three rooms: there was an eating area, a living room with seats and hammocks, and a cleaning area with a sink, toilet and shower head.

Pallis had changed into a long, heavy robe. The garment’s breast bore a stylized representation of a tree in the green braid which Rees had come to recognize as the badge of Pallis’s woodsman Class. He told Rees and Gover to clean themselves up. When it was Rees’s turn he approached the gleaming spigots with some awe; he barely recognized the clean, sparkling stuff that emerged as water.

Pallis prepared a meal, a rich meat-sim broth. Rees sat cross-legged on the cabin floor and ate eagerly. Gover sat in a chair wrapped in his customary silence.

Pallis’s home was free of decoration save for two items in the living area. One was a cage constructed of woven slats of wood, suspended from the ceiling; within it five or six young trees hovered and fizzed, immature branches whirling. They filled the room with motion and the scent of wood. Rees saw how the skitters, one or two adorned with bright flowers, fizzed towards the cabin lights, bumping in soft frustration against the walls of their cage. ‘I let them out when they’re too big,’ Pallis told Rees. ‘They’re just - company, I suppose. You know, there are some who bind up these babies with wire to stunt their growth, distort their shapes. I can’t envisage doing that. No matter how attractive the result.’

The other item of decoration was a photograph, a portrait of a woman. Such things weren’t unknown in the Belt - the ancient, fading images were handed down through families like shabby heirlooms - but this portrait was fresh and vivid. With Pallis’s permission Rees picked it up—

—and with a jolt he recognized the smiling face.

He turned to Pallis. ‘It’s Sheen.’

Pallis shifted uncomfortably in his chair, his scars flaring red. ‘I should have guessed you’d know her. We - used to be friends.’

Rees imagined the pilot and his shift supervisor together. The picture was a little incongruous - but not as immediately painful as some such couplings he had envisaged in the past. Pallis and Sheen was a concept he could live with.

He returned the photo to its frame and resumed his meal, chewing thoughtfully.

At the turn of the shift they settled for sleep.

Rees’s hammock was yielding and he relaxed, feeling somehow at home. The next shift would bring more changes, surprises and confusions; but he would face that when it came. For the next few hours he was safe, cupped in the bowl of the Raft as if in the palm of a hand.

A respectful knock jolted Hollerbach out of his trance-like concentration. ‘Eh? Who the hell is that?’ His old eyes took a few seconds to focus - and his mind longer to clear of its whirl of food test results. He reached for his spectacles. Of course the ancient artefact didn’t really fit his eyes, but the discs of glass did help a little.

A tall, scarred man loomed into semi-focus, advancing hesitantly into the office. ‘It’s me, Scientist. Pallis.’

‘Oh, pilot. I saw your tree return, I think. Good trip?’

Pallis smiled tiredly. ‘I’m afraid not, sir. The miners have had a few troubles—’

‘Haven’t we all?’ Hollerbach grumbled. ‘I just hope we don’t poison the poor buggers with our food pods. Now then, Pallis, what can I do for you - oh, by the Bones, I’ve remembered. You’ve brought back that damn boy, haven’t you?’ He peered beyond Pallis; and there, sure enough, was the skinny, insolent figure of Gover. Hollerbach sighed. ‘Well, you’d better see Grye and return to your usual duties, lad. And your studies. Maybe we’ll make a Scientist of you yet, eh? Or,’ he muttered as Gover departed, ‘more likely I’ll lob you over the Rim myself. Is that all, Pallis?’

The tree-pilot looked embarrassed; he shifted awkwardly and his scar network flared crimson. ‘Not quite, sir. Rees!’

Now another boy approached the office. This one was dark and lean and dressed in the ragged remnants of a coverall - and he stopped in surprise at the doorway, eyes fixed to the floor.

‘Come on, lad,’ Pallis said, not unkindly. ‘It’s only carpet; it doesn’t bite.’