Read Online Beyond the Farthest Suns by Greg Bear - Free Book Online

chair. Her eyes had puffed with crying. She was very young, he thought. Fourteen, fifteen? Perhaps younger. She wasn’t what he would call beautiful, but there was a simple regularity to her features which produced a pleasing effect. It was a face which any man could grow to love over the years far more than any rubber-stamp beauty. “Listen,” he said. “You know how to take care of yourself on this thing?”
    She nodded as she ate. “Why?”
    â€œI just wanted to know. I’m not …” But he shook his head and filled his mouth with food, chewing and smiling, shaking his head. Could he feel the creeping dis­integration of his flesh? Would he hide in a locked sealed cabin the last few hours, so she wouldn’t see?
    Karen stood up and asked if he’d picked out a room yet. His look of surprise irritated her. Did he think she was concerned about him? No. She was dead inside. She couldn’t be concerned about anything any more.
    â€œNot yet,” he said.
    â€œWell, you’d better find one.”
    â€œOK,” he said. He took both trays and left, standing in the door frame for a moment, as he had stood before. “You’ll be all right, Karen?” His questions were curiously accented in the middle, as though each query were half a statement of fact.
    â€œYes,” she said.
    He went to find a cabin and get some sleep.
    When Alista came awake, he shut off the net that had held him in place during the night and kept him warm in the mesh pajamas he’d borrowed. He put everything in its place as though the occupant would be back soon. He had chosen the first officer’s cabin, feeling more comfortable in the room of a man who had faced risks as his official duty. If such a man’s time came in such a meaningless way, that was his gamble.
    A passenger’s cabin would have made Alista nervous.
    He found Karen in the lounge cleaning up the scattered cards and taking out the spilled nail polish with solvent. “Damn,” she said. “It eats the carpet, too.”
    â€œDo you want breakfast?” he asked.
    â€œI’ve fixed some already,” she said.
    â€œI’ll get some more myself then.”
    â€œYours is all ready. It’s in the warmer.”
    â€œThank you.” Looking around the compartment, he com­mented that it looked better and she shrugged.
    â€œYou put them all outside?” she asked.
    He nodded.
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œYou know.” He looked at her sternly. She looked away and took a deep breath.
    When he had finished his food he tapped the orange lump with his finger and it came to life, protruding eyes on stalks and waving palps. “Ever seen anything like Jerk before?”
    Karen shook her head. She didn’t want to look at it, or ask any questions, or have it explained to her.
    â€œWhen I get back from the control room I’ll tell you about Jerk. I’m going to shut down the computer and cut the servos. We lose a little battery power each time they switch on the engine pumps.”
    â€œYou stopped the fuel feed?” she asked.
    â€œI did,” Alista said, taking hope from the un­prompted question.
    He checked the ship’s position by shooting the sun rising over the bloated arc of Hesperus and taking an angle from distant bright Sirius. Comparing his findings with the computer, the ma­chine followed his calculations to three figures. The ship’s brains weren’t scrambled, then. He threw out his own paper and questioned the guidance systems about their position and orbital velocity.
    Their speed was increasing. They were approaching Perihesperon. In a few minutes they’d make their first pass through the lunar belt at—he checked the readout—twenty-two thousand kilo­meters per hour. At that velocity it would be useless to try to dodge moonlets with the ship’s maneuvering and docking engines.
    He didn’t feel old, watching the