Read Online Kinder des Schicksals 4 (Xeelee 9): Resplendent by Stephen Baxter - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Stephen Baxter
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wordless rustle of the foraging people at the forest
fringe, it grew dark, quiet. Grass ropes wrapped around her legs,
tugging, yielding with reluctance as she passed. This was a drab,
still, lifeless place, she thought. In a forest like this there ought
to be texture: movement, noise, scent. So, anyhow, her flawed
memories dimly protested.
She came to a particularly immense tree. It was a tangle of grassy
ropes, melding above her head into a more substantial whole that rose
above the surrounding vegetative mass and into the light of the sky.
But a low mist lay heavily, obscuring her view of the tree’s upper
branches.
She felt curiosity spark. What could she see if she climbed above
the mist?
She placed her hand on the knotted-up lower trunk, then one foot,
and then the other. The stuff of the tree was hard and cold.
At first the climbing was easy, the components of the ’trunk’
loosely separated. She found a way to lodge her bad arm in gaps in
the trunk so she could release her left hand briefly, and grab for a
new handhold before she fell back. But as she climbed higher the ropy
sub-trunks grew ever more tangled.
High above her the trunk soared upwards, daunting, disappearing
into the mist. When she looked down, she saw how the ’roots’ of this
great structure dispersed over the forest floor, branching into
narrower trees and vine-thin creepers and at last clumps of grass,
melting into the underlying dust. She felt unexpectedly exhilarated
by this small adventure -
There was a snarl, of greed and anger. It came from just above her
head. She quailed, slipped. She finished up dangling by her one
hand.
She looked up.
It was human. Or, it might once have been human. It must have been
four, five times her size. It was naked, and it clung to the tree
above her, upside down, so that a broad face leered, predator’s eyes
fixed on her. Its limbs were cylinders of muscle, its chest and
bulging belly massive, weighty. And it was male: an erection poked
crudely between its legs. She hadn’t been able to see it for the
mist, until she had almost climbed into it.
It thrust its mouth at her, hissing. She could smell blood on its
breath.
She screamed and lost her grip.
She fell, sliding down the trunk. She scrabbled for purchase with
her feet and her one good hand. She slammed repeatedly against the
trunk, and when she hit the ground the wind was knocked out of
her.
Above her, the beast receded, still staring into her eyes.
Ignoring the aches of battered body and torn feet, she blundered
away, running until she reached the openness of the beach. For an
unmeasured time she lay there, drawing comfort from the graininess of
the dust.
The craft was called a GUTship.
As finally assembled, it looked something like a parasol of iron
and ice. The canopy of the parasol was the surface ferry, now serving
as a habitable lifedome, and the ’handle’ was the GUTdrive unit
itself, embedded in a block of asteroid ice which served as reaction
mass. The shaft of the parasol, separating the lifedome from the
drive unit, was a kilometre-long spine of metal bristling with
antennae and sensors.
In a hundred subtle ways the ship showed its age. Every surface in
the lifedome was scuffed and polished from use, the soft coverings of
chairs and bunks were extensively patched, and many of the major
systems bore the scars of rebuilding. The design was centuries old.
The ship itself had been built long before the Occupation, and
lovingly maintained by a colony of refugees who had seen out the Qax
era huddled in the asteroid belt.
GUT, it seemed, was an acronym for Grand Unified Theory. Once,
Gemo whispered, unified-theory energy had fuelled the expansion of
the universe. In the heart of each GUT engine asteroid ice was
compressed to conditions resembling the initial singularity - the Big
Bang. There, the fundamental forces governing the structure of matter
merged into a single unified superforce. When the matter was allowed
to expand
fringe, it grew dark, quiet. Grass ropes wrapped around her legs,
tugging, yielding with reluctance as she passed. This was a drab,
still, lifeless place, she thought. In a forest like this there ought
to be texture: movement, noise, scent. So, anyhow, her flawed
memories dimly protested.
She came to a particularly immense tree. It was a tangle of grassy
ropes, melding above her head into a more substantial whole that rose
above the surrounding vegetative mass and into the light of the sky.
But a low mist lay heavily, obscuring her view of the tree’s upper
branches.
She felt curiosity spark. What could she see if she climbed above
the mist?
She placed her hand on the knotted-up lower trunk, then one foot,
and then the other. The stuff of the tree was hard and cold.
At first the climbing was easy, the components of the ’trunk’
loosely separated. She found a way to lodge her bad arm in gaps in
the trunk so she could release her left hand briefly, and grab for a
new handhold before she fell back. But as she climbed higher the ropy
sub-trunks grew ever more tangled.
High above her the trunk soared upwards, daunting, disappearing
into the mist. When she looked down, she saw how the ’roots’ of this
great structure dispersed over the forest floor, branching into
narrower trees and vine-thin creepers and at last clumps of grass,
melting into the underlying dust. She felt unexpectedly exhilarated
by this small adventure -
There was a snarl, of greed and anger. It came from just above her
head. She quailed, slipped. She finished up dangling by her one
hand.
She looked up.
It was human. Or, it might once have been human. It must have been
four, five times her size. It was naked, and it clung to the tree
above her, upside down, so that a broad face leered, predator’s eyes
fixed on her. Its limbs were cylinders of muscle, its chest and
bulging belly massive, weighty. And it was male: an erection poked
crudely between its legs. She hadn’t been able to see it for the
mist, until she had almost climbed into it.
It thrust its mouth at her, hissing. She could smell blood on its
breath.
She screamed and lost her grip.
She fell, sliding down the trunk. She scrabbled for purchase with
her feet and her one good hand. She slammed repeatedly against the
trunk, and when she hit the ground the wind was knocked out of
her.
Above her, the beast receded, still staring into her eyes.
Ignoring the aches of battered body and torn feet, she blundered
away, running until she reached the openness of the beach. For an
unmeasured time she lay there, drawing comfort from the graininess of
the dust.
The craft was called a GUTship.
As finally assembled, it looked something like a parasol of iron
and ice. The canopy of the parasol was the surface ferry, now serving
as a habitable lifedome, and the ’handle’ was the GUTdrive unit
itself, embedded in a block of asteroid ice which served as reaction
mass. The shaft of the parasol, separating the lifedome from the
drive unit, was a kilometre-long spine of metal bristling with
antennae and sensors.
In a hundred subtle ways the ship showed its age. Every surface in
the lifedome was scuffed and polished from use, the soft coverings of
chairs and bunks were extensively patched, and many of the major
systems bore the scars of rebuilding. The design was centuries old.
The ship itself had been built long before the Occupation, and
lovingly maintained by a colony of refugees who had seen out the Qax
era huddled in the asteroid belt.
GUT, it seemed, was an acronym for Grand Unified Theory. Once,
Gemo whispered, unified-theory energy had fuelled the expansion of
the universe. In the heart of each GUT engine asteroid ice was
compressed to conditions resembling the initial singularity - the Big
Bang. There, the fundamental forces governing the structure of matter
merged into a single unified superforce. When the matter was allowed
to expand
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