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Authors: C. J. Cherryh
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the crew. “Who knows anything about the hydroponics?”
“There’s a training tape,” Percy said, “in library. It’s a complicated operation. When the ship is secured—”
“I can do that.” Vivien stirred at my side, muscles tensing. “Lady Dela, I’ll do that.”
Dela looked at her, waved her hand. “See to it.” Viv shivered, with what joy Dela surely had no concept. Sniffed and straightened her back. Dela paced the deck, distracted, with that look in her eyes—panic. It was surely panic. She laughed a faint and brittle laugh and came back and laced her fingers into Griffin’s hand. “So we make the best of it,” she said, looking up at him. “You and I.”
He stood looking at the screens and the horror outside, while my lady Dela put her arms about him. Maybe she was building her fantasies back again, but it was a different look I saw on Griffin’s face, which was not resigned, which was set in a kind of desperation. My jaw still ached where he had hit me in his panic, and I was afraid of this man as I would have been afraid of one of my own kind who had had such a lapse—for which one of us might have been put down. But born-men were entitled to stupidities, and to be forgiven for them.
What was outside our hull didn’t forgive. We were snugged by some attraction up against a huge mass. Even if the big generation vanes were to work in this vicinity as the repulse had—from what little I knew of jump, I knew we dared not try, not unless we wanted to string our components and bits of that mass into some kind of fluxing soup ... half to stay here and half to fly off elsewhere. That mass was going to serve to keep us here, one way or the other.
A wandering instability, a knot in time and space, a ripple in the between that came wandering through our safe solar system and sucked us up. And with who knew what other ships? I almost opened my mouth on that sudden thought—that perhaps we should try to see if we had company in this disaster, if others had been sucked through too; material things seemed to work here, and maybe the com would. And then I thought of some big passenger carrier, short of food and water in relation to its number of passengers, and what that might mean for us , if they did make contact.
No. Old—Percy had said it. Perhaps—the thought went shivering through my flesh while I stared at the screens—others had faced similar moments, had lived out their lives until they decayed, the light eating through them. From what we had seen of the mass, from the insane way in which the ships were fused, one upon the other, they must all be very old, if age meant anything at all here, and that was not the quick eating away of matter by the chaos-stuff.
“Go,” my lady said suddenly, waving her hands at us. “See what’s damaged. Start putting things in order. See to it. Are you going to stand like you’ve lost your wits?”
I looked desperately at Lance and Vivien, turned and went, a last backward look at the screens, and then I hurried out to check the halls and the compartments. My lady now talked as if she had given up her premise that we were dead, and I took some comfort in that while I walked the corridors back to her compartment—only mild damage there. The wine bottle had been mostly empty, the dew had been so generally distributed in null- G that there remained no visible trace of it except on the table-tops and the steel doors. The rest had soaked into the carpet and covered the woodwork, beyond helping. And the glasses were unbreakable, lying where returning G had dropped them. I wiped surfaces, straightened the bed, gathered up fallen towels in the bath. At least there had been no furniture out of its braces. Not so bad. I walked outside, confronted suddenly with the chill corridors, the light G that made my stomach queasy. It came back to me again what my lady had said about eternity being compassed in dying, about the brain spilling all it contained in random
“There’s a training tape,” Percy said, “in library. It’s a complicated operation. When the ship is secured—”
“I can do that.” Vivien stirred at my side, muscles tensing. “Lady Dela, I’ll do that.”
Dela looked at her, waved her hand. “See to it.” Viv shivered, with what joy Dela surely had no concept. Sniffed and straightened her back. Dela paced the deck, distracted, with that look in her eyes—panic. It was surely panic. She laughed a faint and brittle laugh and came back and laced her fingers into Griffin’s hand. “So we make the best of it,” she said, looking up at him. “You and I.”
He stood looking at the screens and the horror outside, while my lady Dela put her arms about him. Maybe she was building her fantasies back again, but it was a different look I saw on Griffin’s face, which was not resigned, which was set in a kind of desperation. My jaw still ached where he had hit me in his panic, and I was afraid of this man as I would have been afraid of one of my own kind who had had such a lapse—for which one of us might have been put down. But born-men were entitled to stupidities, and to be forgiven for them.
What was outside our hull didn’t forgive. We were snugged by some attraction up against a huge mass. Even if the big generation vanes were to work in this vicinity as the repulse had—from what little I knew of jump, I knew we dared not try, not unless we wanted to string our components and bits of that mass into some kind of fluxing soup ... half to stay here and half to fly off elsewhere. That mass was going to serve to keep us here, one way or the other.
A wandering instability, a knot in time and space, a ripple in the between that came wandering through our safe solar system and sucked us up. And with who knew what other ships? I almost opened my mouth on that sudden thought—that perhaps we should try to see if we had company in this disaster, if others had been sucked through too; material things seemed to work here, and maybe the com would. And then I thought of some big passenger carrier, short of food and water in relation to its number of passengers, and what that might mean for us , if they did make contact.
No. Old—Percy had said it. Perhaps—the thought went shivering through my flesh while I stared at the screens—others had faced similar moments, had lived out their lives until they decayed, the light eating through them. From what we had seen of the mass, from the insane way in which the ships were fused, one upon the other, they must all be very old, if age meant anything at all here, and that was not the quick eating away of matter by the chaos-stuff.
“Go,” my lady said suddenly, waving her hands at us. “See what’s damaged. Start putting things in order. See to it. Are you going to stand like you’ve lost your wits?”
I looked desperately at Lance and Vivien, turned and went, a last backward look at the screens, and then I hurried out to check the halls and the compartments. My lady now talked as if she had given up her premise that we were dead, and I took some comfort in that while I walked the corridors back to her compartment—only mild damage there. The wine bottle had been mostly empty, the dew had been so generally distributed in null- G that there remained no visible trace of it except on the table-tops and the steel doors. The rest had soaked into the carpet and covered the woodwork, beyond helping. And the glasses were unbreakable, lying where returning G had dropped them. I wiped surfaces, straightened the bed, gathered up fallen towels in the bath. At least there had been no furniture out of its braces. Not so bad. I walked outside, confronted suddenly with the chill corridors, the light G that made my stomach queasy. It came back to me again what my lady had said about eternity being compassed in dying, about the brain spilling all it contained in random
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