racing, stumbling over ideas and rough schematics, based on what I saw from the blister, the observation chamber, and remembering my walk in the drowsing dream.
The spindle—Hull Zero One, as the voice called it—rotates like a long, tapering axle within some sort of wheel fixed on the end of a strut. There are probably three parallel hulls at the ends of three struts, spaced equilaterally around the big chunk of dirty ice. The struts connect each hull to rails attached to the ice ball’s wiry, confining cage. The hulls can move forward and aft along those rails.
I think I’m heading forward within Hull Zero One. I could also be in the rear half, moving aft. Orientation is difficult to judge with what little I know.
My best guess as to the size of this hull is that it’s about ten kilometers long and perhaps three kilometers wide at the widest. As to the size of the ice ball, it’s not really a ball. From what I saw, it’s more like a footba , oblong and at least a hundred kilometers long. The ice chunk dwarfs the hulls.
Toobig.Shouldbemuchsmalerbynow.
Something has to push the hulls and the lump of dirty ice through space. Where are the motors? The engines? It seems likely that the engines are pretty powerful and not pleasant to be around. I have to conclude that the two halves of each spindly hull serve very different purposes.
I’m almost certainly heading forward.
What about the sinuous rill, the serpent shape carved into the ice? Now my head realy hurts.
I keep climbing. The outward tug grows weaker. Moving inboard reduces my centrifugal acceleration. The farther I go, the less the spin-up affects me. The effect is gradual but for some reason makes me feel even woozier than the intervals of spin-up and spin-down.
At least the climb gets a little easier.
I can’t think of any reason for spin-up, spin-down. None of what we’ve experienced in the way of weight or lack of weight makes any sense, though I wonder if I might understand the theory behind cooling and heating. The hulls are huge and mostly hollow, with lots of spaces and volumes requiring lots of energy to maintain—assuming they’re uniformly and constantly maintained. If we’re not at the conclusion of whatever voyage we’re making, and the passengers haven’t been awakened…
“ThenImadeyou.”
The voice at the door. This derails my thought process but makes no more sense than anything else, so I rejoin the track I’d been following:
If most of the passengers haven’t been awakened, then the spaces might be heated and allowed to cool at regular intervals, to keep the hull from warping. Or to save energy.
The passengers, the colonists, are all frozen, anyway—perhaps stored near the core, away from the outer hull, where there might be more radiation on a long, long journey.
So who woke up the monsters?
Not enough facts, not enough experience, far too much trauma, yet still not enough to complete my integration.
Climbing toward the core. I look down—and that’s a mistake. My stomach almost spits back the loaf I’ve eaten. I concentrate on where I’m going. My feet are no longer necessary for the climb, so I just pull myself hand over hand.
“Where do these loaves come from? And the voice at the door?” The reverberation of my voice in the huge shaft is hollow but comforting. “Who or what is Ship Control?” The echo is too muddled to use as any sort of indicator as to how far I’ve come.
Spin-down catches me by surprise. My fingers are cramping. I’ve gotten used to reducing the strength of my grip on the rungs, so the gentle lurch and the resulting breeze in the shaft breaks one of my hands loose. I dangle for a moment, pulled more toward my left and the near wall of the shaft than down. I grab hold of the rungs with hands and toes and cling until the last little sensation of weight is gone.
Then, feet pointed toward the center of the shaft, perpendicular to the line of rungs, I continue on. It’s almost like walking on my
The spindle—Hull Zero One, as the voice called it—rotates like a long, tapering axle within some sort of wheel fixed on the end of a strut. There are probably three parallel hulls at the ends of three struts, spaced equilaterally around the big chunk of dirty ice. The struts connect each hull to rails attached to the ice ball’s wiry, confining cage. The hulls can move forward and aft along those rails.
I think I’m heading forward within Hull Zero One. I could also be in the rear half, moving aft. Orientation is difficult to judge with what little I know.
My best guess as to the size of this hull is that it’s about ten kilometers long and perhaps three kilometers wide at the widest. As to the size of the ice ball, it’s not really a ball. From what I saw, it’s more like a footba , oblong and at least a hundred kilometers long. The ice chunk dwarfs the hulls.
Toobig.Shouldbemuchsmalerbynow.
Something has to push the hulls and the lump of dirty ice through space. Where are the motors? The engines? It seems likely that the engines are pretty powerful and not pleasant to be around. I have to conclude that the two halves of each spindly hull serve very different purposes.
I’m almost certainly heading forward.
What about the sinuous rill, the serpent shape carved into the ice? Now my head realy hurts.
I keep climbing. The outward tug grows weaker. Moving inboard reduces my centrifugal acceleration. The farther I go, the less the spin-up affects me. The effect is gradual but for some reason makes me feel even woozier than the intervals of spin-up and spin-down.
At least the climb gets a little easier.
I can’t think of any reason for spin-up, spin-down. None of what we’ve experienced in the way of weight or lack of weight makes any sense, though I wonder if I might understand the theory behind cooling and heating. The hulls are huge and mostly hollow, with lots of spaces and volumes requiring lots of energy to maintain—assuming they’re uniformly and constantly maintained. If we’re not at the conclusion of whatever voyage we’re making, and the passengers haven’t been awakened…
“ThenImadeyou.”
The voice at the door. This derails my thought process but makes no more sense than anything else, so I rejoin the track I’d been following:
If most of the passengers haven’t been awakened, then the spaces might be heated and allowed to cool at regular intervals, to keep the hull from warping. Or to save energy.
The passengers, the colonists, are all frozen, anyway—perhaps stored near the core, away from the outer hull, where there might be more radiation on a long, long journey.
So who woke up the monsters?
Not enough facts, not enough experience, far too much trauma, yet still not enough to complete my integration.
Climbing toward the core. I look down—and that’s a mistake. My stomach almost spits back the loaf I’ve eaten. I concentrate on where I’m going. My feet are no longer necessary for the climb, so I just pull myself hand over hand.
“Where do these loaves come from? And the voice at the door?” The reverberation of my voice in the huge shaft is hollow but comforting. “Who or what is Ship Control?” The echo is too muddled to use as any sort of indicator as to how far I’ve come.
Spin-down catches me by surprise. My fingers are cramping. I’ve gotten used to reducing the strength of my grip on the rungs, so the gentle lurch and the resulting breeze in the shaft breaks one of my hands loose. I dangle for a moment, pulled more toward my left and the near wall of the shaft than down. I grab hold of the rungs with hands and toes and cling until the last little sensation of weight is gone.
Then, feet pointed toward the center of the shaft, perpendicular to the line of rungs, I continue on. It’s almost like walking on my
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