Read Online Heaven's Reach by David Brin - Free Book Online

up unscrambling the lock and decided on a brute-force approach.
    â€œYou’ll hurry after me?”
    For an answer, she bent and kissed him—once on the forehead in benediction, and again, passionately, on the mouth. “How is that for a promise?” she asked, mingling her breath with his.
    As Ling backed away, a transparent hatch slid over the little cab—built to carry equipment and samples between workstations throughout the Jophur ship. There had been a crude version of such a system back at Biblos, the Jijoan archive, where cherished paper books and messages shuttled between the libraries in narrow tubes of boo.
    â€œHey!” he called. “Where are you sending m—”
    A noise and brilliant flash cut off his question and made Ling spin around. The torch cutter was accelerating, as if the enemy somehow sensed a need to hurry. To Lark’s horror, the arc was over half finished.
    â€œLet me out!” he demanded. “We’re switching places!”
    Ling shook her head as she resumed programming the console. “Not an option. Get ready. This will be wrenching.”
    Before Lark could protest a second time, the wall section abruptly fell with a crash. Curt billowings of sparks and dense smoke briefly filled the vestibule. But soon, Jophur warriors would come pouring through … and Ling didn’t even have a weapon!
    Lark hammered on the clear panel as several things happened in rapid succession.
    Ling knelt to the floor, where scores of infant traeki rings still squirmed in confusion amid shards of their broken vivarium. She emptied her cloth sling, gentlyspilling Asx’s second gift—the wounded crimson torus—to mingle among the others.
    A tall silhouette passed through the roiling cloud to stand in the glowing doorway. The wedgelike torso was unmistakably Rann, leader of the Danik tribe of human renegades sworn to Rothen lords.
    Ling stood. She glanced over her shoulder at Lark, who pounded the hatch, moaning frustration and fear for her.
    Calmly, she reached for the keypad.
    â€œNo! Let me out! I’ll—”
    Acceleration kicked suddenly. Lark’s folded body slammed one wall of the little car.
    Ling’s face vanished in a blur as he was swept away toward Ifni-knew-where.

Dwer
    A RE THEY REALLY GONE? ”
    Dwer bent close to an ancient, pitted window. He peered at a glittering starscape, feeling some of the transmitted chill of outer space, just a finger’s breadth away.
    â€œI don’t see any sign of ’em over here,” he called back to Rety. “Is it clear on your side?”
    His companion—a girl about fourteen, with a scarred face and stringy hair—pressed against another pane at the opposite end of the dusty chamber, once the control room of a sleek vessel, but now hardly more than a grimy ruin.
    â€œThere’s nothin’—unless you count the bits an’ pieces floatin’ out there, that keep fallin’ off this rusty ol’ bucket.”
    Her hand slammed the nearest bulkhead. Streams of dust trickled from crevices in prehistoric metal walls.
    The starship’s original owners must have been oddly shaped, since the viewing ports were arrayed at knee height to a standing human, while corroded instruments perched on tall pillars spread around the oblong room.Whatever race once piloted this craft, they eventually abandoned it as junk, over half a million years ago, when it was dumped onto a great pile of discarded hulks in the dross midden that lay under Jijo’s ocean.
    Immersion in subicy water surely had preserving effects. Still, the
Streaker
crew had accomplished a miracle, reviving scores of these wrecks for one final voyage. It made Rety’s remark seem unfair, all considered.
    There is air in here
, Dwer thought.
And a machine that spits out a paste we can eat … sort of. We’re holding death at bay. For the moment.
    Not that he felt exactly happy about