Raft

by Stephen Baxter

  He had sampled some tough liquors in the Quartermaster's bar, and plenty of them had been stronger than this fizzing wine-sim; but none of them had quite the same effect. Soon the globe lights lining the avenue of cables seemed to emit a more friendly light; Jaen's gravity pull mingling with his was a source of warmth and stillness; and the brittle conversation of his companions seemed to grow vivid and amusing.

  His mood persisted as they emerged from beneath the canopy of flying trees and reached the shadow of the Platform. The great lip of metal jutted inwards from the Rim, forming a black rectangle cut out of the crimson of the sky, its supporting braces like gaunt limbs. The bus wheezed to a halt alongside a set of wide stairs. Rees, Jaen and the rest tumbled from the bus and clambered up the stairs to the Platform.

  The Thousandth Shift party was already in full swing, bustling with perhaps a hundred graduates of the various Classes of the Raft. A bar set up on trestle tables was doing healthy business, and a discordant set of musicians was thumping out a rhythmic sound — there were even a few couples tentatively dancing, near the band's low stage. Rees, with Jaen in tolerant tow, set off on a tour of the walls of the Platform.

  The Platform was an elegant idea: to fix a hundred-yard-square plate to the Rim at such an angle that it matched the local horizontal, surround it by a wall of glass, and so reveal a universe of spectacular views. At the inward edge was the Raft itself, tilted like some huge toy for Rees's inspection. As at the Theatre the sensation of being on a safe, flat surface gave the proximity of the vast slope a vertiginous thrill.

  The space-facing edge of the platform was suspended over the Rim of the Raft, and a section of the floor was inset with sheets of glass. Rees stood over the depths of the Nebula; it felt as if he were floating in the air. He could see hundreds of stars scattered in a vast three-dimensional array, illuminating the air like mile-wide globe lamps; and at the center of the view, towards the hidden Core of the Nebula, the stars were crowded together, so that it was as if he were staring into a vast, star-walled shaft.

  "Rees. I congratulate you." Rees turned. Hollerbach, gaunt, unsmiling and utterly out of place in all this gaiety, stood beside him.

  "Thank you, sir."

  The old Scientist leaned towards him conspiratorially. "Of course, I didn't doubt you'd do well from the first."

  Rees laughed. "I can tell you I doubted it sometimes."

  "A Thousand Shifts, eh?" Hollerbach scratched his cheek. "Well, I've no doubt you'll go much further... And in the meantime here's something for you to think about, boy. The ancients, the first Crew, didn't measure time exclusively in shifts. We know this from their records. They used shifts, yes, but they had other units: a 'day,' which was about three shifts, and a 'year,' which was about a thousand shifts. How old are you now?"

  "About seventeen thousand, I believe, sir."

  "So you'd be about seventeen 'years' old, eh? Now then — what do you suppose these units, a 'day' and a 'year,' referred to?" But before Rees could answer Hollerbach raised his hand and walked off. "Baert! So they've let you get this far despite my efforts to the contrary—"

  Bowls of sweetmeats had been set out around the walls. Jaen nibbled on some fluffy substance and tugged absently at his hand. "Come on. Isn't that enough sightseeing and science?"

  Rees looked at her, the combination of wine-sim and stars leaving him quite dazed. "Hm? You know, Jaen, the stories of our home universe notwithstanding, sometimes this seems a very beautiful place." He grinned. "And you don't look too bad yourself."

  She punched him in the solar plexus. "And nor do you. Now let's have a dance."

  "What?" His euphoria evaporated. He looked past her shoulder at the whirl of dancing couples. "Look, Jaen, I've never danced in my life."

  She clicked her tongue. "Don't be such a coward, you mine rat. Those people are just ex-apprentices like you and me, and I can tell you one thing for sure: they won't be watching you."

  "Well..." he began, but it was too late; with a determined grip on his forearm she led him to the center of the Platform.

  His head filled with memories of the unfortunate gravity dancers at the Theatre of Light and their swooping, spectacular ballet. If he lived for fifty thousand shifts he would never be able to match such grace.

  Luckily this dance was nothing like that.

  Young men eyed girls across a few yards of floor. Those who were dancing were enthusiastic but hardly expert; Rees watched for a few seconds, then began to imitate their rhythmic swaying.

  Jaen pulled a face at him. "That's bloody awful. But who cares?"

  In the low-gee conditions — gravity here was about half its value near the Labs — the dance had a dreamy slowness. After a while Rees began to relax; and, eventually, he realized he was enjoying himself—

  —until his legs whisked out from under him; he clattered to the Platform with a slow bump. Jaen covered her face with one hand, suppressing giggles; a circle of laughter clustered briefly around him. He got to his feet. "I'm sorry—"

  There was a tap on his shoulder. "So you should be."

  He turned; there, with a broad, glinting grin, stood a tall young man with the braids of a Junior Officer. "Doav," Rees said slowly. "Did you trip me?"

  Doav barked laughter.

  Rees felt his forearm muscles bunch. "Doav, you've been an irritation to me for the last year..."

  Doav looked baffled.

  "...I mean, the last thousand shifts." And it was true; Rees could bear the constant sniping, cracks and cruelties of Doav and his like throughout his working day... but he would much prefer not to have to. And, since the incident at the Theatre, he had come to see how attitudes like Doav's were the cause of a great deal of pain and suffering on the Raft; and, perhaps, of much more to come.

  The wine-sim was like blood now, pounding in his head. "Cadet, if we've something to settle—"

  Doav fixed him with a look of contempt. "Not here. But soon. Oh, yes; soon." And he turned his back and walked off through the throng.

  Jaen thumped Rees's arm hard enough to make him flinch. "Do you have to turn every incident into an exhibition? Come on; let's get a drink." She stamped her way towards the bar.

  "Hello, Rees."

  Rees paused, allowing Jaen to slip ahead into the crush around the bar. A thin young man stood before him, hair plastered across his scalp. He wore the black braids of Infrastructure and he regarded Rees with cool appraisal.

  Rees groaned. "Gover, I guess this isn't to be the best shift I've ever had."

  "What?"

  "Never mind. I haven't seen you since not long after my arrival."

  "Yeah, but that's not hard to understand." Gover flicked delicately at Rees's braid. "We move in different circles, don't we?"

  Rees, already on edge after the incident with Doav, studied Gover as coolly as he could. There were still the same sharp features, the look of petulant anger — but Gover looked more substantial, more sure of himself.

  "So you're still skivvying for those old farts in the Labs, eh?"

  "I'm not going to respond to that, Gover."

  "You're not?" Gover rubbed at his nostrils with the palm of his hand. "Seeing you in this toy uniform made me wonder how you see yourself now. I bet you haven't done a shift's work — real work — since you landed here. I wonder what your fellow rats would think of you now. Eh?"

  Rees felt blood surge once more to his cheeks; the wine-sim seemed to be turning sour. There was a seed of confusion inside him. Was his anger at Gover just a way of shielding himself from the truth, that he had betrayed his origins...?

  "What do you want, Gover?"

  Gover took a step closer to Rees. His stale breath cut through the wine fumes in Rees's nostrils. "Listen, mine rat, believe it or not I want to do you a favor."

  "What kind of favor?"

  "Things are changing here," Gover said slyly. "Do you understand what I'm saying? Things won't always be as they are now." He eyed Rees, evidently unwilling to go further.


  Rees frowned. "What are you talking about? The discontents?"

  "That's what some call them. Seekers of justice, others say."

  The noise of the revelers seemed to recede from Rees; it was as if Gover and he shared their own Raft somewhere in the air. "Gover, I was in the Theatre of Light, that shift. Was that justice?"

  Gover's eyes narrowed. "Rees, you've seen how the elite on this Raft keep the rest of us down — and how their obscene economic system degrades the rest of the Nebula's human population. The time is near when they will have to atone."

  Rees stared at him. "You're one of them, aren't you?"

  Gover bit his lip. "Maybe. Look, Rees, I'm taking a chance talking to you like this. And if you betray me I'll deny we ever had this conversation."

  "What do you want of me?"

  "There are good men in the cause. Men like Decker, Pallis—"

  Rees guffawed. Decker — the huge Infrastructure worker he had encountered on his first arrival here — he could believe. But Pallis? "Come on, Gover."

  Gover was unruffled. "Damn it, Rees, you know what I think of you. You're a mine rat. You don't belong here, among decent people. But where you come from makes you one of us. All I'm asking is that you come along and listen to what they have to say. With your access to the Science buildings you could be... useful."

  Rees tried to clear his thinking. Gover was a vicious, bitter young man, and his arguments — the contradictory mixture of contempt and appeal to fellow-feeling he directed at Rees, for example — were simple-minded and muddled. But what gave Gover's words force was their terrible truth. Part of Rees was appalled that such as Gover could so quickly disorient him — but inside him a core of anger flared up in response.

  But if some revolution were to occur — if the Labs were smashed, the Officers imprisoned — what then?

  "Gover, look up."

  Gover raised his face.

  "See that star up there? If we don't move the Raft the star will graze us. And then we'll fry. And even if we were to survive that — look further out." He swept an arm around the red-stained sky. "The Nebula's dying and we'll die with it. Gover, only the Scientists, backed by the organization of the Raft, can save us from such dangers."

  Gover scowled and spat at the deck. "You seriously believe that? Come on, Rees. I'll tell you something. The Nebula could support us all for a long time yet — if its resources were shared equally. And that's all we want." He paused. "Well?"

  Rees closed his eyes. Would sky wolves discuss Gover's case as they descended on the wreck of the Raft and picked clean the bones of his children? "Get lost, Gover," he said tiredly.

  Gover sneered. "If that's what you want. I can't say I'm sorry..." He grinned at Rees with something approaching pure contempt. Then he slid away through the crowd.

  The noise seemed to swirl around Rees, not touching him. He pushed his way through the crush to the bar and ordered straight liquor, and downed the hot liquid in one throw.

  Jaen joined him and grabbed his arm. "I've been looking for you. Where...?" Then she felt the bunched muscles under Rees's jacket; and when he turned to face her, she shrank back from his anger.

  6

  THE SCIENTIST SECOND CLASS STOOD in the doorway of the Bridge. He watched the new Third Class approach and tried to hide a smile. The young man's uniform was so obviously new, he stared with such awe at the Bridge's silver hull, and his pallor was undisputable evidence of his Thousandth Shift celebration, which had finished probably mere hours earlier... The Second Class felt quite old as he remembered his own Thousandth Shift, his own arrival at the Bridge, a good three thousand shifts ago.

  At least this boy had a look of inquiry about him. So many of the apprentices the Second had to deal with were sullen and resentful at best, downright contemptuous at worst; and the rates of absenteeism and dismissal were worsening. He reached out a hand as the young man approached.

  "Welcome to the Bridge," said Scientist Second Class Rees.

  The boy — blond, with a premature streak of gray — was called Nead. He smiled uncertainly.

  A bulky, grim-faced security guard stood just inside the door. He fixed Nead with a threatening stare; Rees saw how the boy quailed. Rees sighed. "It's all right, lad; this is just old Forv; it's his job to remember your face, that's all." It was only recently, Rees realized a little wistfully, that such heavy-handed security measures had come to seem necessary; with the continuing decline in food supplies, the mood on the Raft had worsened, and the severity and frequency of the attacks of the "discontents" were increasing. Sometimes Rees wondered if—

  He shook his head to dismiss such thoughts; he had a job to do. He walked the wide-eyed boy slowly through the Bridge's gleaming corridors. "It's enough for now if you get an idea of the layout of the place," he said. "The Bridge is a cylinder a hundred yards long. This corridor runs around its midriff. The interior is divided into three rooms — a large middle chamber and two smaller chambers toward the ends. We think that the latter were once control rooms, perhaps equipment lockers; you see, the Bridge seems to have been a part of the original Ship..."

  They had reached one of the smaller chambers; it was stacked with books, piles of paper and devices of all shapes and sizes. Two Scientists, bent in concentration, sat cocooned in dust. Nead turned flat, brown eyes on Rees. "What's this room used for now?"

  "This is the Library," Rees said quietly. "The Bridge is the most secure place we have, the best protected from weather, accident — so we keep our records here. As much as we can: one copy of everything vital, and some of the stranger artefacts that have come down to us from the past..."

  They walked on following the corridor to a shallow staircase set into the floor. They began to descend toward a door set in the inner wall, which led to the Bridge's central chamber. Rees thought of warning the boy to watch his step — then decided against it, a slightly malicious humor sparkling within him.

  Nead took three or four steps down — then, arms flailing, he tipped face-forward. He didn't fall; instead he bobbed in the stairwell, turning a slow somersault. It was as if he had fallen into some invisible fluid.

  Rees grinned broadly.

  Nead, panting, reached for the wall. His palms flat against the metal he steadied himself and scrambled back up the steps. "By the Bones," he swore, "what's down there?"

  "Don't worry, it's harmless," Rees said. "It caught me the first time too. Nead, you're a Scientist now. Think about it. What happened when you went down those steps?"

  The boy looked blank.

  Rees sighed. "You passed through the plane of the Raft's deck, didn't you? It's the metal of the deck that provides the Raft's gravity pull. So here — at the center of the Raft, and actually in its plane — there is no pull. You see? You walked into a weightless zone."

  Nead opened his mouth — then closed it again, looking puzzled.

  "You'll get used to it," Rees snapped. "And maybe, with time, you'll even understand it. Come on."

  He led the way through the doorway to the central chamber, and was gratified to hear Nead gasp.

  They had entered an airy room some fifty yards wide. Most of its floor area was transparent, a single vast window which afforded a vertiginous view of the depths of the Nebula. Gaunt machines taller than men were fixed around the window. To Nead's untutored eye, Rees reflected, the machines must look like huge, unlikely insects, studded with lenses and antennae and peering into some deep pool of air. The room was filled with a clean smell of ozone and lubricating oil; servomotors hummed softly.

  There were perhaps a dozen Scientists working this shift; they moved about the machines making adjustments and jotting copious notes. And because the plane of the Raft passed over the window-floor at about waist height, the Scientists bobbed in the air like boats in an invisible pond, their centers of gravity oscillating above and below the equilibrium line with periods of two or three seconds. Rees, looking at the scene as if through new eyes, found himself hiding another grin. One s
mall, round man had even, quite unselfconsciously, turned upside down to bring his eyes closer to a sensor panel. His trousers rode continually toward the equilibrium plane, so that his short legs protruded, bare.

  They stood on a low ledge; Rees took a step down and was soon floating in the air, his feet a few inches from the window-floor. Nead lingered nervously. "Come on, it's easy," Rees said. "Just swim in the air, or bounce up and down until your feet hit the deck."

  Nead stepped off the ledge and tumbled forward, slowly bobbing upright. He reminded Rees of a child entering a pool for the first time. After a few seconds a slow smile spread across the young man's face; and soon he was skimming about the room, his feet brushing at the window below.

  Rees took him on a tour around the machines.

  Nead shook his head. "This is amazing."

  Rees smiled. "This equipment is among the best preserved of the Ship's materiel. It's as if it were unloaded only last shift... We call this place the Observatory. All the heavy-duty sensors are mounted here, and this is where — as a member of my Nebular physics team — you'll be spending most of your time." They stopped beside a tube ten feet long and encrusted with lenses. Rees ran a palm along the instrument's jewelled flank. "This baby's my favorite," he said. "Beautiful, isn't she? It's a Telescope which will work at all wavelengths — including the visual. Using this we can see right down into the heart of the Nebula."

  Nead thought that over, then glanced at the ceiling. "Don't we ever need to look outwards?"

  Rees nodded approvingly. Good question. "Yes, we do. There are ways of making the roof transparent — in fact, we can opaque the floor, if we want to." He glanced at the instrument's fist-sized status panel. "We're in luck; there are no observations currently running. I'll give you a quick guided tour of the Nebula. You should know most of what I'll tell you from your studies so far, and don't worry about the details for now..." Slowly he punched a sequence of commands into the keypad mounted below the sensor. He became aware that the lad was watching him curiously. Maybe he's never seen anyone with such rusty keyboard skills, Rees reflected, here on this Raft of a hundred supply machines—