Raft

16

As the flight through space wore on, again and again Rees was drawn to the hull’s small window space.

He pressed his face to the warm wall. He was close to the waist of the Bridge here: to his left the Nebula, the home they had discarded, was a crimson barrier that cut the sky in half; to his right the destination nebula was a bluish patch he could still cover with one hand.

As the ship had soared away from the Core the navigation team had spent long hours with their various sextants, charts and bits of carved bone; but at last they had announced that the Bridge was, after all, on course. There had been a mood of elation among the passengers. Despite the deaths, the injuries, the loss of the food machine, their mission seemed bound for success, its greatest trial behind it. Rees had found himself caught up in the prevailing mood.

But then the Bridge had left behind the familar warm light of the Nebula.

Most of the hull had been opaqued to shut out the oppressive darkness of the internebular void. Bathed in artificial light, the reconstructed shanty town had become once more a mass of homely warmth and scents, and most of the passengers had been glad to turn inwards and forget the emptiness beyond the ancient walls of the ship.

But despite this the mood of the people grew more subdued — contemplative, even somber.

And then the loss of one of their two supply machines had started to work through, and rationing had begun to bite.

The sky outside was a rich, deep blue, broken only by the diffuse pallor of distant nebulae. The Scientists had puzzled over their ancient instruments and assured Rees that the internebular spaces were far from airless, although the gases were far too thin to sustain human life. “It is as if,” Jaen had told him excitedly, “the nebulae are patches of high density within a far greater cloud, which perhaps has its own internal structure, its own Core. Perhaps all the nebulae are falling like stars into this greater Core.”

“And why stop there?” Rees had grinned. “The structure could be recursive. Maybe this greater nebula is itself a mere satellite of another, mightier Core; which in turn is a satellite of another, and so on, without limit.”

Jaen’s eyes sparkled. “I wonder what the inhabitants of those greater Cores would look like, what gravitic chemistry could do under such conditions…”

Rees shrugged. “Maybe one day we’ll send up a ship to find out. Travel to the Core of Cores… but there may be more subtle ways to probe these questions.”

“Like what?”

“Well, if our new nebula really is falling into a greater Core there should be measurable effects. Tides, perhaps — we could build up hypotheses about the mass and nature of the greater Core without ever seeing it.”

“And knowing that, we could go on to validate whole families of theories about the structure of this universe…”

Rees smiled now, something of that surge of intellectual confidence returning briefly to warm him.

But if they couldn’t feed themselves all these dreams counted for nothing.

The ship had picked up enormous velocity by its slingshot maneuver around the Core, climbing into internebuiar space within hours. They’d traveled for five shifts since then… but there were still twenty shifts to go. Could the ship’s fragile social structure last so long?

There was a bony hand on his shoulder. Hollerbach thrust forward his gaunt face and peered through the window. “Wonderful,” he murmured.

Rees said nothing.

Hollerbach let his hand rest. “I know what you’re feeling.”

“The worst of it is,” Rees said quietly, “that the passengers still blame me for the difficulties we face. Mothers hold out their hungry children accusingly as I go past.”

Hollerbach laughed. “Rees, you mustn’t let it bother you. You have not lost the brave idealism of your recent youth — the idealism which, untempered by maturity,” he said drily, “drove you to endanger your own skin by associating yourself with the Scientists at the time of the rebellion. But you have grown into a man who has learned that the first priority is the survival of the species… and you have learned to impose that discipline on others. You showed that with your defeat of Gover.”

“My murder of him, you mean.”

“If you felt anything other than remorse for the actions you have been forced to take, I would respect you less.” The old Scientist squeezed his shoulder.

“If only I could be sure I have been right,” Rees said. “Maybe I’ve seduced these people to their deaths with false hope.”

“Well, the signs are good. The navigators assure me our maneuver around the Core was successful, and that we are on course for our new home… And, if you want a further symbol of good fortune—” He pointed above his head. “Look up there.”

Rees peered upwards. The migrating school of whales was a sheet of slender, ghostly forms crossing the sky from left to right. On the fringes of that river of life he caught glimpses of plate creatures, of sky wolves with firmly closed mouths, and other, even more exotic creatures, all gliding smoothly to their next home.

Throughout the Nebula there must be more of these vast schools: rank on rank of them, all abandoning the dying gas cloud, scattering silhouettes against the Nebula’s somber glow. Soon, Rees mused, the Nebula would be drained of life… save for a few tethered trees, and the trapped remnants of humanity.

Now there was a slow stirring in the whale stream. Three of the great beasts drifted together, flukes turning, until they were moving over and around each other in a vast, stately dance. At last they came so close that their flukes interlocked and their bodies touched; it was as if they had merged into a single creature. The rest of the school drifted respectfully around the triad.

“What are they doing?”

Hollerbach smiled. “Of course I’m speculating — and, at my age, mostly from memory — but I believe they’re mating.”

Rees gasped.

“Well, why not? What better circumstances to do so, than surrounded by one’s fellows and so far from the stresses and dangers of nebular life? Even the sky wolves are hardly in a position to attack, are they? You know, it wouldn’t surprise me — given these long, enclosed hours with nothing much to do — if we too didn’t enjoy a population explosion.”

Rees laughed. “That’s all we need.”

“Yes, it is,” Hollerbach murmured seriously. “Anyway, my point, my friend, is that perhaps we should emulate those whales. Self-doubt is part of being human… but the main thing is to get on with the business of survival, as best one can. And that is what you have done.”

“Thanks, Hollerbach,” Rees said. “I understand what you’re trying to do. But maybe you need to tell all that to the passengers’ empty bellies.”

“Perhaps. I… I—” Hollerbach collapsed into a bout of deep, rasping coughing. “I’m sorry,” he said at last.

Rees studied the old Scientist with some concern; in the blue internebular light it seemed he saw the lines of Hollerbach’s skull.

The Bridge entered the outermost layers of the new nebula. Thin air whistled around the stumps of the control jets.

Rees and Gord manhandled Nead into the corridor close to the port. The young Scientist’s legs — rendered useless by the smashing of his spine during his fall at closest approach — had been strapped together and stiffened with a length of wood. Nead insisted that he felt nothing below his waist, but Rees saw how his face twisted at each jarring motion.

Studying Nead he felt a deep, sick guilt. The lad was still barely eighteen thousand shifts old, and yet by following Rees he had already been maimed; and now he was volunteering for still more peril. The stumps of snapped rivets at the supply machine’s vacant mount reminded Rees of the sacrifice Roch had made at this place. He was, he found, deeply reluctant to witness another.

“Listen to me, Nead,” he said seriously. “I appreciate the way you’ve volunteered for this mission—”

Nead looked at him in sudden concern. “You have to let me go,” he insisted.

Rees placed a hand on Nead’s shoulder. “Of course. What I’m trying to tell you is that I want to see you fix the new steam jets out there… and then return, safely. We need those jets, if we’re not to fall straight into the Core of this new nebula. We don’t need another dead hero.”

“I understand, Rees.” Nead smiled. “But what can happen? The air out there is desperately thin, but it contains oxygen, and I won’t be out for long.”

“Take nothing for granted. Remember our sensor instruments were constructed ages ago and in another universe, for god’s sake… Even if we knew precisely what they were telling us we wouldn’t know if we could rely on them working here.”

Gord frowned. “Yes, but our theories back up the instrument readings. Because of the diffusion of oxygen-based life we expect most of the nebulae to consist of oxygen-nitrogen air.”

“I know that.” Rees sighed. “And theories are fine. All I’m saying is that we don’t know, here and now, what Nead will find on the other side of that door.”

Nead dropped his eyes. “Look, Rees, I know I’m crippled. But my arms and shoulders are as strong as they ever were. I know what I’m doing, and I can do this job.”

“I know you can… Just come back safely.”

Nead smiled and nodded, the characteristic streak of gray in his hair catching the corridor light.

Now Rees and Gord fixed two steam jets to Nead’s waist by a length of rope. The bulky jets were awkward but manageable in the micro-gravity conditions. Another rope was fixed to Nead’s waist and would be anchored to the ship.

Gord checked that the inner door to the Observatory was sealed, so that the passengers were in no danger; then they exchanged final, wordless handshakes, and Gord palmed the opening panel.

The outer door slid out of sight. The air was sucked from Rees’s chest. Sound died to a muffled whisper and he tasted blood running from his nose. A warmth in his popping ears led him to suspect he was bleeding there too.

The door revealed a sea of blue light far below. They had already passed through the nebula’s outer halo of star-spawning hydrogen and it was possible to make out stars above and below them. Far above Rees’s head a small, compact knot of redness marked the position of the Nebula from which he had flown. It was strange to think that he could raise a hand and block out his world, all the places he had seen and the people he had known: Pallis, Sheen, Jame the barman, Decker… He knew that Pallis and Sheen had decided to live out their remaining shifts together; now, eyes fixed on that distant blur, Rees sent out a silent prayer that they — and all the others who had sacrificed so much to get him this far — were safe and well.

Rees and Gord lifted Nead bodily through the open Port. His legs swinging as if carved from wood, the injured Scientist shoved himself off in the direction of a jet mounting. Rees and Gord waited in the open doorway, the securing rope in their hands.

Nead slowed a few feet short of the jet mount. Rees watched anxiously as Nead scrabbled at the frictionless surface of the hull. Then the mount came within reach and he grabbed at it gratefully, locking his fingers around small irregularities in the iron surface.

He hauled on his ropes. Gord and Rees bundled the first steam jet out of the port and shoved it toward the young Scientist. They judged it well, the package of machinery stopping a few feet short of Nead. With fast but precise motions Nead dragged at his rope and fielded the machine. Now the Scientist had to align the jet, at least roughly, with the Bridge’s axis, and he spent long seconds struggling with the old device’s bulk.

At last it was correct. From a chest pocket Nead dragged out adhesive pads and slapped them against the mount; then, the strain showing on his face, he hauled the machine into place over the pads. Finally he untied the rope from the secured jet and cast it free.

Nead had worked fast and well, but already some thirty seconds had passed. The bulk of the work had still to be performed, and the pain in Rees’s chest was reaching a hollow crescendo.

Now Nead scrambled toward the next mount, over the curve of the hull and out of sight. After unbearably long seconds there was a tugging on one rope. Rees and the mine engineer threw the second steam jet through the hatch. The bulky machine bumped around the hull.

It was impossible to gauge the passage of time. Had only seconds passed since they had launched the machine?

Without reference points time was an elastic thing… Blackness closed around Rees’s vision.

There was a flurry of motion to his right. He turned, his chest burning. Gord had begun to haul on the rope, his face blue now and his eyes protruding. Rees joined him. The rope moved disturbingly easily, sliding unimpeded over the frictionless surface.

A sense of dread blossomed alongside Rees’s pain.

The end of the rope came rushing around the curve of the hull. The line had been neatly cut.

Gord fell back, eyes closing, the effort he had expended apparently pushing him over the brink into unconsciousness. Rees, his vision failing, placed his palm over the door’s control panel.

And waited.

Gord slumped against the door frame. Rees’s lungs were a jelly of pain, and his throat tore at the empty air…

A blur before him, hands gripping the rim of the door frame, a face contorted around blue lips, a stiff body with strapped legs… Nead, he realized dully; Nead had returned, and there was something he had to do.

His arm, as if independent of his will, spasmed against the port’s control panel. The port slid shut. Then the inner door opened and he was pulled backwards into the thickening air.

Later Nead explained, his voice a rasp: “I could feel I was running out of time, and I still wasn’t finished. So I cut the rope and kept going. I’m sorry.”

“You’re a bloody fool,” Rees whispered. He struggled for a while to raise his head from his pallet; then he gave up, slumped back, and drifted back to sleep.

With Nead’s jets they guided the ship into a wide, elliptical orbit around a hot yellow star deeper inside the new nebula. The great doors were hurled open and men crawled around the hull attaching climbing ropes and fixing fresh steam jets. Thin, bright air suffused the musty interior of the ship; the stink of recycled and tanked air was dispelled at last and a mood of celebration spread among the passengers.

Even the ration queues seemed good-humored.

The bodies of those who had not survived the crossing were lifted from the ship, wrapped in rags and dropped into the air. Rees glanced around the knot of mourners gathered at the port. He observed suddenly what a mix of people they were now: there were Raft folk like Jaen and Grye, alongside Gord and other miners; and there was Quid and his party of Boneys. They all mingled quite unselfconsciously, united by grief and pride. The old divisions meant nothing, Rees realized; in this new place there were only humans…

Eventually the Bridge would move on from this star but these bodies would remain here in orbit for many shifts, marking man’s arrival in the new world, before air friction finally carried them into the flames of the star.

Despite the influx of fresh air Hollerbach continued to weaken steadily. At length he took to a pallet fixed before the Bridge’s window-like hull. Rees joined the old Scientist; together they gazed out into the new starlight.

Hollerbach fell into a fit of coughing. Rees rested his hand on the old man’s head, and at last Hollerbach’s breathing steadied. “I told you you should have left me behind,” he wheezed.

Rees ignored that and leant forward. “You should have seen the release of the young trees,” he said. “We just opened the cages and out they flew… They’ve spread out around this star as if they were born here.”

“Perhaps they were,” Hollerbach observed drily. “Pallis would have liked that.”

“I don’t think any of us younger folk realized how green leaves could be. And the trees seem to be growing already. Soon we’ll have a forest big enough to harvest, and we’ll be able to move out: find whales, perhaps, fresh sources of food…”

Now Hollerbach began to fumble beneath his pallet; with Rees’s help he retrieved a small package wrapped in grubby cloth.

“What’s this?”

“Take it.”

Rees unwrapped the cloth to expose a finely tooled machine the size of his cupped hands; at its heart a silver orb gleamed, and around the orb multicolored beads followed wire circles. “Your orrery,” Rees said.

“I brought it in my personal effects.”

Rees fingered the familiar gadget. Embarrassed, he said: “Do you want me to have it when you’re gone?”

“No, damn it!” Hollerbach coughed indignantly. “Rees, your streak of sentimentality disturbs me. No, I wish now I’d left the bloody thing behind. Lad, I want you to destroy it. When you throw me out of that door send it after me.”

Rees was shocked. “But why? It’s the only orrery in the universe… literally irreplaceable.”

“It means nothing!” The old eyes glittered. “Rees, the thing is a symbol of a lost past, a past we must disregard. We have clung to such tokens for far too long. Now we are creatures of this universe.”

With sudden intensity the old man grabbed Rees’s sleeve and seemed to be trying to pull himself upright. Rees, frowning, laid a hand on his shoulder and gently pressed him back. “Try to rest—”

“Bugger that,” Hollerbach rasped. “I haven’t time to waste on resting… You have to tell them—”

“What?”

“To spread. Fan out through this nebula. We’ve got to fill every niche we can find here; we can’t rely on relics of an alien past any more. If we’re to prosper we must become natives of this place, find ways to live here, using our own ingenuity and resources…” Another coughing jag broke up his words. “I want that population explosion we spoke of. We can’t ever again risk the future of the race in a single ship, or even a single nebula. We have to fill this damn cloud, and go on to the other nebulae and fill them as well. I want not just thousands but millions of humans in this damn place, talking and squabbling and learning.

“And ships… we’ll need new ships. I see trade between the inhabited nebulae, as if they were the legendary cities of old Earth. I see us finding a way even to visit the realms of the gravitic creatures…

“And I see us one day building a ship that will fly us back through Holder’s Ring, the gateway to man’s home universe. We’ll return and tell our cousins there what became of us…” At last Hollerbach’s energy was exhausted; the gray head slumped back against its rag pillow, eyes closing slowly.

When it was over Rees carried him to the port, the orrery wrapped in the stilled fingers. Silently he launched the body into the crisp air and watched it drift away until it was lost against the background of the falling stars; then, as Hollerbach had wished, he hurled the orrery into the sky. Within seconds it had vanished.

There was a warm mass at his side — Jaen, standing quietly with him. He took her hand, squeezing it gently, and his thoughts began to run along new, unexplored tracks. Now that the adventure was over perhaps he and Jaen might think about a new kind of life, of a home of their own—

Jaen gasped. She pointed. “My god… look.”

Something came lunging out of the sky. It was a compact, pale green wheel of wood, like a tree six feet wide. It snapped to a halt mere yards from Rees’s face and hovered there, maintaining its position with rapid flicks of rotation. Short, fat limbs snaked out of the trunk, and what looked like tools of wood and iron were fixed at various points to the rim. Rees searched in vain for the tree’s tiny pilots.

“By the Bones, Rees,” Jaen snapped, “what the hell is it?”

Four eyes, blue and shockingly human, snapped open in the upper surface of the trunk and fixed them with a stern gaze.

Rees grinned. The adventure, he realized, was far from over.

In fact, it might barely have begun.