Read Online Finity's End - a Union-Alliance Novel by C. J. Cherryh - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: C. J. Cherryh
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alarm switch. Someone was red-faced.
And they were a long way from shelter.
----
----
Chapter IV
The adventurer teetered on the edge of a blue-edged pit.
Fell in. Slid, with heart-stopping swiftness, whipped a scary spiral through stars, and shot out onto an unforgiving desert.
A dinosaur pack was on the horizon. Coming this way.
JR looked around for advantage, kicked the rocks around him.
A purple glow came from under the sand.
That was either another Hell level or a way out. He saw a big rock not so far away, and moved it with improbable strength. Actinic light flooded up at him through the sand, and he eased his feet into it. Slid in and down as the dino pack roared up over his head and lumbering bodies shook the ground. Teeth snapped and hot breath gusted after him.
Snaky purple ropes sprouted tendrils around him as he shot through the shapeless black, retarding his fall.
He shot through their grasp and with a sudden drop his tailbone hit a soft surface. Lights dimmed And brightened. Three times.
Game done.
He took off the helmet, raked a hand through his sweaty hair, and sat there on the floor below the exit chute, breathing hard for a moment. Shaking. Telling himself he was safe. Games were good. Games honed the reflexes. And no one's life depended on him.
The adjacent chute spat out a cousin, Bucklin. And a second one, Lyra.
Equally exhausted, equally shaky. It was a rush, one that didn't mean life and death, but combat-weary nerves didn't entirely believe it.
"Pretty good, for purple lights," Lyra said, out of breath.
"Yeah."
They hadn't done a vid ride since they were kids—vid rides had existed at Earth's Sol Station,, but there'd been, thanks to that station's morality ordinances, only kid themes or mocked-up combat, and they'd seen mostly youngsters doing the one and wouldn't let their potential pilots do the other. This ride mandated at least five feet in height, and adult spacers were doing it, so they'd delved up the chits from their pockets and given it a try, as they said, to test it out and see whether they'd clear the establishment for the three youngest cousins.
JR got to rubbery legs. You had to
work
up there in the sim. Stupid as it all was, it was, as Lyra had said, pretty good for purple lights and dinosaurs. He was sweating and breathing hard. And had a few bruises from knocking into real, though padded, walls.
This place advertised 47 rides, software-dependent. Some were hand-to-hand combat Some were relaxing. Some were workouts. This one, rated chase-and-dodge, proved that true. They were still sweating when they went out to a noisy little soft-bar—no alcohol in this establishment, which had strict rules about doing the ride straight There was a place down in White Sector that didn't check sobriety, and that had a lot wilder adult content than the Old Man would like to know about, JR strongly suspected.
But
Finity
had been gone from Pell too long, out where they'd been had been real ordnance, real guns, and it wasn't sex he was principally worried about as an influence on their youngest crew, although that was a concern with juniors mentally old enough but physically not. What the Old Man restricted most for the juniors on moral grounds were the space combat themes and, in the realm of reality, contact with the rougher element of some docksides. JR, in direct charge of the juniors, didn't want to let the junior-juniors unsupervised into any establishment without knowing what the place was like—or (figuring that even very young
Finity
personnel had reflexes other people might lack) whether there were liabilities to other users.
It was fantastical enough, JR judged. The juniors wouldn't confuse it with reality. It wouldn't give them nightmares—or encourage aggressive behavior.
It didn't mean he and the senior-juniors weren't going to slip down to Red or White Sector when the junior-juniors were safely in their rooms and see what the adult fare was like on the
And they were a long way from shelter.
----
----
Chapter IV
The adventurer teetered on the edge of a blue-edged pit.
Fell in. Slid, with heart-stopping swiftness, whipped a scary spiral through stars, and shot out onto an unforgiving desert.
A dinosaur pack was on the horizon. Coming this way.
JR looked around for advantage, kicked the rocks around him.
A purple glow came from under the sand.
That was either another Hell level or a way out. He saw a big rock not so far away, and moved it with improbable strength. Actinic light flooded up at him through the sand, and he eased his feet into it. Slid in and down as the dino pack roared up over his head and lumbering bodies shook the ground. Teeth snapped and hot breath gusted after him.
Snaky purple ropes sprouted tendrils around him as he shot through the shapeless black, retarding his fall.
He shot through their grasp and with a sudden drop his tailbone hit a soft surface. Lights dimmed And brightened. Three times.
Game done.
He took off the helmet, raked a hand through his sweaty hair, and sat there on the floor below the exit chute, breathing hard for a moment. Shaking. Telling himself he was safe. Games were good. Games honed the reflexes. And no one's life depended on him.
The adjacent chute spat out a cousin, Bucklin. And a second one, Lyra.
Equally exhausted, equally shaky. It was a rush, one that didn't mean life and death, but combat-weary nerves didn't entirely believe it.
"Pretty good, for purple lights," Lyra said, out of breath.
"Yeah."
They hadn't done a vid ride since they were kids—vid rides had existed at Earth's Sol Station,, but there'd been, thanks to that station's morality ordinances, only kid themes or mocked-up combat, and they'd seen mostly youngsters doing the one and wouldn't let their potential pilots do the other. This ride mandated at least five feet in height, and adult spacers were doing it, so they'd delved up the chits from their pockets and given it a try, as they said, to test it out and see whether they'd clear the establishment for the three youngest cousins.
JR got to rubbery legs. You had to
work
up there in the sim. Stupid as it all was, it was, as Lyra had said, pretty good for purple lights and dinosaurs. He was sweating and breathing hard. And had a few bruises from knocking into real, though padded, walls.
This place advertised 47 rides, software-dependent. Some were hand-to-hand combat Some were relaxing. Some were workouts. This one, rated chase-and-dodge, proved that true. They were still sweating when they went out to a noisy little soft-bar—no alcohol in this establishment, which had strict rules about doing the ride straight There was a place down in White Sector that didn't check sobriety, and that had a lot wilder adult content than the Old Man would like to know about, JR strongly suspected.
But
Finity
had been gone from Pell too long, out where they'd been had been real ordnance, real guns, and it wasn't sex he was principally worried about as an influence on their youngest crew, although that was a concern with juniors mentally old enough but physically not. What the Old Man restricted most for the juniors on moral grounds were the space combat themes and, in the realm of reality, contact with the rougher element of some docksides. JR, in direct charge of the juniors, didn't want to let the junior-juniors unsupervised into any establishment without knowing what the place was like—or (figuring that even very young
Finity
personnel had reflexes other people might lack) whether there were liabilities to other users.
It was fantastical enough, JR judged. The juniors wouldn't confuse it with reality. It wouldn't give them nightmares—or encourage aggressive behavior.
It didn't mean he and the senior-juniors weren't going to slip down to Red or White Sector when the junior-juniors were safely in their rooms and see what the adult fare was like on the
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