Sailing Bright Eternity

by Gregory Benford

  But he was cutting it close to the tree, still far up its slope. The Consortium board had chosen Andy both for his engineering skills and this grinning, show-off personality, just the thing to perk up their audience numbers.

  His T-shirt flapped and he turned in closer still. She lost sight of him behind the eucalyptus and when he came within view again there seemed to be no separation at all between his body and the tree. Ahead of him a limb stuck out a bit farther than the rest. He saw it and turned his right wing to push out, away, and the wing hit the limb. For an instant it looked as though he would bank down and away from the glancing brush. But the wing caught on the branch.

  It ripped, showing light where the monolayer split away from the brace. Impact united with the change in flow patterns around his body. The thin line of light grew and seemed to turn Andy’s body on a pivot, spinning him sideways.

  The eucalyptus wrenched sideways. It was thin and the wrench of collision pulled it sideways.

  He fought to bring the wing into a plane with his left arm but the pitch was too much. She gasped as his right arm frantically pumped for leverage it did not have. The moment froze, slowed—and then he was tumbling in air, away from the tree, falling, gathering speed.

  The tree toppled, too.

  In the low gravity the plunge seemed to take long moments. All the way down he fought to get air under his remaining wing. The right wing flapped and rattled and kept him off kilter. His efforts brought his head down and when he hit in the rocks near the pool the skull struck first.

  The smack was horrible. She cried out in the silence.

  Andy had not uttered a sound on the way down.