like part of a long spindle, thick in the middle, drawing to a point forward. The sleeping vision was correct. There are other parts of Ship. Maybe those parts are better off, better organized than this one. Maybe I can escape and cross over.
But that thought is of no use now.
I walk the last hundred meters to the end of the bridge, across the blister. I pause and look back “up,” inboard at the cluster of bubbles, translucent structures turned into homes by others before us—or traps baited with food and water.
Traps laid by something that waits until you sleep.
Despite the shock and the fall, rest and sustenance have made me stronger. My brain is working through a long list of clues and puzzles and problems—until it comes up with something obvious. Something unpleasant but necessary.
I stop, turn around, and walk back along the bridge to where Pushingar hangs lifeless and broken. He doesn’t need his clothing. My lips form conciliatory words as I lug him off the rail and lay him out as straight as I can and strip him.
Soft, meaningless words of apology. I wonder if he knew the name the girl had given him. There’s remarkably little blood staining the fabric, given he was practically disembowele . That’s a word I don’t like—not at all.
The clothes hang on me, but I tuck up the pant legs, roll up the sleeves, and then resume my walk.
Soon the cold will come.
Time once more to chase heat. TRICKS OF THE TRADE
I’ve got some water—two bottles, each half full—and enough food to last maybe a day or two. Though without clocks, time is a shapeless thing. Each spin-up lasts for perhaps four or five hours—no way of being certain. Already I’m hungry. It seems I’ll never stop being hungry.
I’m back in a corridor, but this one is wide and rectangular in cross section. There’s a walkway and a rail on the right side, and to the left, on the other side of a double rail with rungs that can also serve as a ladder, two curved channels extend from the blister to wherever the corridor ends. Giant balls could roll in these channels. Maybe they are tracks for some sort of train or conveyance. I wonder at the size and obvious design and the equally obvious lack of occupants, passengers—colonists.
How many colonists could this ship—perhaps one of three—support, if it were functioning properly? The awful thought occurs to me that perhaps it is functioning properly. Perhaps we’ve all done something wrong and have been transported to this painfully difficult environment as punishment. It could be a prison for useless people, misbegotten servants, filled with things that lay traps and kill.
But things that don’t always eat what they kill—the decayed corpse in the blister.
Only now do I wonder what became of that corpse while we slept. Did something come back and finally finish it off—consume what was left, after waiting a decent interval for it to “ripen”?
I see spots of blood and other tissues and fluids on the floor and on the walls. I stop and examine smears, handprints, and find the tips of a few broken spikes, sharp and orange. Another struggle. Maybe Picker and Satmonk injured whatever it was that killed Pushingar. Why would anything want to carry them this far? Where would it be taking them?
Someplacetoeattheminprivae.Chasingheat,justlikeyou.
The illumination in the corridor dims. Cold is coming. Ahead, I see something large, dark, and broken-looking sprawled across the walkway, draped over the railing. It’s another dead cleaner, like the one in the trash chamber. As I get close, I see that the body has been cut or pulled into several large pieces. The shell has been split. Dark fluid everywhere, leaving an oily sheen.
I see no other bodies, unless they’re stuck underneath the cleaner. I bend over and lift up a flat, limp “paw,” and there’s no sign of human remains. I squeeze past the broken shell and lifeless limbs, the somehow pitiful heads— three of them, as before—with their
But that thought is of no use now.
I walk the last hundred meters to the end of the bridge, across the blister. I pause and look back “up,” inboard at the cluster of bubbles, translucent structures turned into homes by others before us—or traps baited with food and water.
Traps laid by something that waits until you sleep.
Despite the shock and the fall, rest and sustenance have made me stronger. My brain is working through a long list of clues and puzzles and problems—until it comes up with something obvious. Something unpleasant but necessary.
I stop, turn around, and walk back along the bridge to where Pushingar hangs lifeless and broken. He doesn’t need his clothing. My lips form conciliatory words as I lug him off the rail and lay him out as straight as I can and strip him.
Soft, meaningless words of apology. I wonder if he knew the name the girl had given him. There’s remarkably little blood staining the fabric, given he was practically disembowele . That’s a word I don’t like—not at all.
The clothes hang on me, but I tuck up the pant legs, roll up the sleeves, and then resume my walk.
Soon the cold will come.
Time once more to chase heat. TRICKS OF THE TRADE
I’ve got some water—two bottles, each half full—and enough food to last maybe a day or two. Though without clocks, time is a shapeless thing. Each spin-up lasts for perhaps four or five hours—no way of being certain. Already I’m hungry. It seems I’ll never stop being hungry.
I’m back in a corridor, but this one is wide and rectangular in cross section. There’s a walkway and a rail on the right side, and to the left, on the other side of a double rail with rungs that can also serve as a ladder, two curved channels extend from the blister to wherever the corridor ends. Giant balls could roll in these channels. Maybe they are tracks for some sort of train or conveyance. I wonder at the size and obvious design and the equally obvious lack of occupants, passengers—colonists.
How many colonists could this ship—perhaps one of three—support, if it were functioning properly? The awful thought occurs to me that perhaps it is functioning properly. Perhaps we’ve all done something wrong and have been transported to this painfully difficult environment as punishment. It could be a prison for useless people, misbegotten servants, filled with things that lay traps and kill.
But things that don’t always eat what they kill—the decayed corpse in the blister.
Only now do I wonder what became of that corpse while we slept. Did something come back and finally finish it off—consume what was left, after waiting a decent interval for it to “ripen”?
I see spots of blood and other tissues and fluids on the floor and on the walls. I stop and examine smears, handprints, and find the tips of a few broken spikes, sharp and orange. Another struggle. Maybe Picker and Satmonk injured whatever it was that killed Pushingar. Why would anything want to carry them this far? Where would it be taking them?
Someplacetoeattheminprivae.Chasingheat,justlikeyou.
The illumination in the corridor dims. Cold is coming. Ahead, I see something large, dark, and broken-looking sprawled across the walkway, draped over the railing. It’s another dead cleaner, like the one in the trash chamber. As I get close, I see that the body has been cut or pulled into several large pieces. The shell has been split. Dark fluid everywhere, leaving an oily sheen.
I see no other bodies, unless they’re stuck underneath the cleaner. I bend over and lift up a flat, limp “paw,” and there’s no sign of human remains. I squeeze past the broken shell and lifeless limbs, the somehow pitiful heads— three of them, as before—with their
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