Raft xs-1

by Stephen Baxter

  So it was over; and Decker was stranded. He turned his attention back to his opponent and began to squeeze away the man’s life.

  On the abandoned Raft the killing went on for many hours.

  15

  The crowded ship’s first few hours after the fall were nearly unbearable. The air stank of vomit and urine, and people of all ages swarmed about the chamber, scrambling, shrieking and fighting.

  Rees suspected that the problem was not merely weightlessness, but also the abrupt reality of the fall itself. Suddenly to face the truth that the world wasn’t an infinite disc after all — to know that the Raft really had been no more than a mote of patched iron floating in the air — seemed to have driven some of the passengers to the brink of their sanity.

  Maybe it would have been an idea to keep the windows opaqued during the launch.

  Rees spent long hours supervising the construction of a webbing of ropes and cables crisscrossing the Observatory. “We’ll fill the interior with this isotropic structure,” Hollerbach had advised gravely. “Make it look the same in every direction. Then it won’t be quite so disconcerting when we reach the Core and the whole bloody universe turns upside down…”

  Soon the passengers were draping blankets over the ropes, fencing off small volumes for privacy. The high-technology interior of the Bridge began to take on a homely aspect as the makeshift shanty town spread; human smells, of food and children, filled the air.

  Taking a break, Rees made his way out of the crushed interior to what had formerly been the roof of the Observatory. The hull was still transparent. Rees pressed his face to the warm material and peered out, irresistibly reminded of how he had once peered out of the belly of a whale.

  After the fall from the Raft the Bridge had rapidly picked up speed and reoriented itself so that its stubby nose was pointing at the heart of the Nebula. Now it hurtled down through the air, and the Nebula had turned into a vast, three-dimensional demonstration of perspective motion. Nearby clouds shot past, middle distance stars glided toward space — and even at the limits of vision, many hundreds of miles away, pale stars slowly drifted upwards.

  The Raft had long since become a mote lost in the pink infinity above.

  The hull shuddered briefly. A soundless plume of steam erupted a few yards above Rees’s head and was instantly whipped away, a sign that Gord’s ramshackle attitude control system was doing its job.

  The hull felt warmer than usual against his face. The wind speed out there must be phenomenal, but the virtually frictionless material of the Bridge was allowing the air to slide harmlessly past with barely a rise in temperature. Rees’s tired mind ambled down speculative alleyways. If you measured the temperature rise, he reasoned, you could probably get some kind of estimate of the hull’s coefficient of friction. But, of course, you would also need some data on the material’s heat conduction properties—

  “It’s astonishing, isn’t it?”

  Nead was at his side. The younger man cradled a sextant in his arms. Rees smiled. “What are you doing here?”

  “I’m supposed to be measuring our velocity.”

  “And?”

  “We’re at terminal velocity for the strength of gravity out here. I estimate we will reach the Core in about ten shifts…”

  Nead delivered his words dreamily, his attention taken up by the view; but they had an electric effect on Rees. Ten shifts… in just ten shifts he would stare at the face of the Core, and the destiny of the race would be made or lost.

  He pulled himself back to the present. “We never did get to finish your training, did we, Nead?”

  “Other events were more pressing,” Nead said drily.

  “Let’s find a home where we will always have time to train people properly… time, even, to stare out of the window—”

  Jaen started talking even before she reached them. “…And if you don’t tell this insufferable old buffoon that he’s left his sense of priorities back on the Raft, then I won’t be responsible for my actions, Rees!”

  Rees groaned inwardly. Evidently his break was over. He turned; Jaen bore down on him with Hollerbach following, hauling himself cautiously through the network of ropes. The old Scientist muttered, “I don’t believe I’ve been spoken to like that by a mere Second Class since— since—”

  Rees held his hands up. “Slow down, you two. Start from the top, Jaen. What’s the problem?”

  “The problem,” Jaen spat, jerking her thumb, “is this silly old fart, who—”

  “Why, you impudent—”

  “Shut up!” Rees snapped.

  Jaen simmering, made a visible effort to calm down. “Rees. Am I or am I not in charge of the Telescope?”

  “That’s my understanding.”

  “And my brief is to make sure that the Navigators — and their Boney so-called assistants — get all the data they need to guide our trajectory around the Core. And that has to be our number one priority. Right?”

  Rees rubbed his nose doubtfully. “I can’t argue with that…”

  “Then tell Hollerbach to keep his damn hands off my equipment!”

  Rees turned to Hollerbach, suppressing a smile. “What are you up to, Chief Scientist?”

  “Rees…” The old man wrapped his long fingers together, pulling at the loose flesh. “We have left ourselves with only one significant scientific instrument. Now, I’ve no wish to revisit the arguments behind the loading of this ship. Of course the size of the gene pool must come first…” He thumped one fist into his palm. “Nevertheless it is at precisely this moment of blindness that we are approaching the greatest scientific mystery of this cosmos: the Core itself—”

  “He wants to turn the Telescope on the Core,” Jaen said. “Can you believe it?”

  “The understanding to be acquired by even a superficial study is incalculable.”

  “Hollerbach, if we don’t use that damn telescope to navigate with we might get a closer look at the Core than any of us have bargained for!” Jaen glared at Rees. “Well?”

  “Well what?”

  Hollerbach looked sadly at Rees. “Alas, lad, I suspect this little local difficulty is only the first impossible arbitration you will be called on to make.”

  Rees felt confused, isolated. “But why me?”

  Jaen snapped, “Because Decker is still on the Raft. And who else is there?”

  “Who indeed?” Hollerbach murmured. “I’m sorry, Rees; I don’t think you have very much choice…”

  “Anyway, what about this bloody Telescope?”

  Rees tried to focus. “All right. Look, Hollerbach, I have to agree that Jaen’s work is a priority right now—”

  Jaen whooped and punched the air.

  “So your studies must fit in around that work. All right? But,” he went on rapidly, “when we get close enough to the Core the steam jets will become ineffectual anyway. So navigation will become a waste of time… and the Telescope can be released, and Hollerbach can do his work. Maybe Jaen will even help.” He puffed out his cheeks. “How’s that for a compromise?”

  Jaen grinned and punched him on the shoulder. “We’ll make a Committee member of you yet.” She turned and pulled her way back into the interior of the chamber.

  Rees felt his shoulders slump. “Hollerbach, I’m too young to be a Captain. And I’ve no desire for the job.”

  Hollerbach smiled gently. “That last alone probably qualifies you as well as anyone. Rees, I fear you must face it; you’re the only man on board with first-hand experience of the Belt, the Raft, the Bone world… and so you’re the only leader figure remotely acceptable to all the ship’s disparate factions. And after all it has been your drive, your determination, that has brought us so far. Now you’re stuck with this responsibility, I fear.

  “And there are some hard decisions ahead. Assuming we round the Core successfully we will face rationing, extremes of temperature in the unknown regions outside the Nebula — even boredom will be a life-threatening hazard! You will have to keep
us functioning in extraordinary circumstances. If I can assist you in any way, of course, I will.”

  “Thanks. I don’t much like the idea, but I guess you are right. And to help me you could start,” he said sharply, “by sorting out your differences with Jaen yourself.”

  Hollerbach smiled ruefully. “That young woman is rather forceful.”

  “Hollerbach, what do you expect to see down there anyway? I guess a close view of a black hole is going to be spectacular enough…”

  A flush of animation touched Hollerbach’s papery cheeks. “Far more than that. Have I ever discussed with you my ideas on gravitic chemistry? I have?” Hollerbach looked disappointed at the curtailing of his lecture, but Rees encouraged him to continue; for a few minutes, he realized gratefully, he could return to his apprenticeship, when Hollerbach and the rest would lecture him each shift on the mysteries of the many universes.

  “You will recall my speculation on a new type of ‘atom,’ ” Hollerbach began. “Its component particles — perhaps singularities themselves — will be bonded by gravity rather than the other fundamental forces. Given the right conditions, the right temperature and pressure, the right gravitational gradients, a new ‘gravitic chemistry’ will be possible.”

  “In the Core,” Rees said.

  “Yes!” Hollerbach declared. “As we skirt the Core we will observe a new realm, my friend, a new phase of creation in which—”

  Over Hollerbach’s shoulder there loomed a wide, bloodstained face. Rees frowned. “What do you want, Roch?”

  The huge miner grinned. “I only wanted to point out what you’re missing. Look.” He pointed.

  Rees turned. At first he could see nothing unusual — and then, squinting, he made out a faint patch of dull brown amid the upward shower of stars. It was too far away to make out any detail, but memory supplied the rest; and he saw again a surface of skin streched over bone, white faces turning to a distant speck in the air—

  “The Boneys,” he said.

  Roch opened his corrupt mouth and laughed; Hollerbach flinched, disgusted. “Your home from home, Rees,” Roch said coarsely. “Don’t you feel like dropping in and visiting old friends?”

  “Roch, get back to your work.”

  Roch did so, still laughing.

  Rees stayed for some minutes at the hull, watching until the Boneys’ worldlet was lost in the haze far above. Yet another piece of his life gone, beyond recall…

  With a shudder he turned from the window and, with Hollerbach, immersed himself once more in the bustle and warmth of the Bridge.

  Almost powerless, its soft human cargo swarming through its interior, the battered old ship plunged toward the black hole.

  The sky outside darkened and filled up with the fantastic, twisted star sculptures observed by Rees on his first journey to these depths. The Scientists left the hull transparent; Rees gambled that this would distract the helpless passengers from their steadily worsening plight. And so it turned out; as the shifts passed a growing number spent time at the great windows, and the mood of the ship became one of calm, almost of awe.

  Now, with closest approach to the Core barely a shift away, the Bridge was approaching a school of whales; and the windows were coated with human faces. Rees discreetly made room for Hollerbach; side by side they stared out.

  At this depth each whale was a slender missile, its deflated flesh an aerodynamic casing around its internal organs. Even the great eyes had closed now, so that the whales plummeted blind into the Core — and there were row upon row of them, above, below and all around the Bridge, so many that at infinity the air was a wall of pale flesh.

  Rees murmured, “If I’d known it would be as spectacular as this I wouldn’t have got off last time.”

  “You’d never have survived,” Hollerbach said. “Look closely.” He pointed at the nearest whale. “See how it glows?”

  Rees made out a pinkish glow around the whale’s leading end. “Air resistance?”

  “Obviously.” Hollerbach said impatiently. “The atmosphere is like soup at these depths. Now, keep watching.”

  Rees kept his eyes fixed on the whale’s nose — and was rewarded with the sight of a six-foot patch of whale skin flaring into flame and tumbling away from the speeding animal. Rees looked around the school with new eyes; throughout the hail of motion he could see similar tiny flares of burning flesh, sparks of discarded fire. “It looks as if the whales are disintegrating, as if air resistance is too great… Perhaps they have misjudged their path around the Core; maybe our presence has disturbed them—”

  Hollerbach snorted in disgust. “Sentimental tosh. Rees, those whales know what they’re doing far better than we do.”

  “Then why the burning?”

  “I’m surprised at you, boy; you should have worked it out as soon as you climbed aboard that whale and studied its spongy outer flesh.”

  “At the time I was more interested in finding out whether I could eat it,” Rees said drily. “But…” He thought it through. “You’re saying the purpose of the outer flesh is ablation?”

  “Precisely. The outer layer burns up and falls away. One of the simplest but most efficient ways of dispersing the heat generated by excessive air resistance… a method used on man’s earliest spacecraft, as I recall from the Ship’s records — records which are, of course, now lost forever—”

  Suddenly fire blazed over the hull’s exterior; the watching passengers recoiled from a sheet of flame mere inches from their faces.

  As soon as it had begun it was over.

  “Well, that was no planned ablation,” Rees said grimly. “That was one of our steam jets. So much for our attitude control.”

  “Ah.” Hollerbach nodded slowly, his brow furrowed. “That’s rather earlier than I expected. I had entertained hopes of retaining some control even at closest approach — when, of course, the ship’s trajectory may most easily be modified.”

  “I’m afraid we’re stuck with what we’ve got, from this point in. We’re flying without smoke, as Pallis might say… We just have to hope we’re on an acceptable course. Come on; let’s talk to the navigators. But keep your voice down. Whatever the verdict there’s no point in starting a panic.”

  The members of the navigation team responded to Rees’s questions according to their inclinations. Raft Scientists pored over diagrams which showed orbits sprouting from the Core like unruly hair, while the Boneys threw bits of shaped metal into the air and watched how they drifted.

  After some minutes of this, Rees snapped, “Well?”

  Quid turned to him and shrugged cheerfully. “We’re still too far out. Who knows? We’ll have to wait and see.”

  Jaen scratched her head, a pen tucked behind her ear. “Rees, we’re in an almost chaotic situation here. Because of the distance at which we lost control, our final trajectory remains indeterminately sensitive to initial conditions…”

  “In other words,” Rees said, irritated, “we have to wait and see. Terrific.”

  Jaen made to protest, then thought better of it.

  Quid slapped his shoulder. “Look, there’s not a bloody thing we can do. You’ve done your best… and if nothing else you’ve given old Quid a damn interesting ride.”

  Hollerbach said briskly, “And you’re not alone in those sentiments, my Boney friend. Jaen! I presume your use of the Telescope is now at an end?”

  Jaen grinned.

  It took thirty minutes to adjust the instrument’s orientation and focus. At last Rees, Jaen, Hollerbach and Nead crowded around the small monitor plate.

  At first Rees was disappointed; the screen filled with the thick black cloud of star debris which surrounded the Core itself, images familiar from observations from the Raft. But as the minutes passed and the Bridge entered the outermost layers of the material, the sombre cloud parted before them and the debris began to show a depth and structure. A pale, pinkish light shone upwards at them. Soon veils of shattered star stuff were arching over the hull, making the Bridg
e seem a fragile container indeed.

  Then, abruptly, the clouds cleared; and they were sailing over the Core itself.

  “My god,” Jaen breathed. “It’s… it’s like a planet…”

  The Core was a compact mass clustered about its black hole, a flattened sphere fifty miles wide. And, indeed, it was a world rendered in shades of red and pink. Its surface layers — subjected, Rees estimated, to many hundreds of gravities — were well-defined and showed almost topographical features. There were oceans of some quasi-liquid material, thick and red as blood; they lapped at lands that thrust above the general spherical surface. There were even small mountain ranges, like wrinkles in the skin of a soured fruit, and clouds like smoke which sped across the face of the seas. There was continual motion: waves miles wide crisscrossed the seas, the mountain sheets seemed to evolve endlessly, and even the coasts of the strange continents writhed. It was as if some great heat source were causing the Core’s epidermis to wrinkle and blister constantly.

  It was like Earth taken to Hell, Rees thought.

  Hollerbach was ecstatic. He peered into the monitor as if he wished he could climb through it. “Gravitic chemistry!” he croaked. “I am vindicated. The structure of that fantastic surface can be maintained solely by the influence of gravitic chemistry; only gravitic bonds could battle against the attraction of the black hole.”

  “But it all changes so rapidly,” Rees said. “Metamorphoses on a scale of miles, happening in seconds.”

  Hollerbach nodded eagerly. “Such speed will be a characteristic of the gravitic realm. Remember that changing gravity fields propagate at the speed of light, and—”

  Jaen cried out, pointing at the monitor plate.

  At the center of one of the amorphous continents, etched into the surface like a mile-wide chessboard, was a rectangular grid of pink-white light.

  Ideas crowded into Rees’s mind. “Life,” he whispered.

  “And intelligence,” Hollerbach said. “Two staggering discoveries in a single glance…”

  Jaen asked, “But how is this possible?”