Read Online Raising The Stones by Sheri S. Tepper - Free Book Online

in the fuel feed on that 1701 cultivator over there. We had a driver sick from gozon fumes.”
    “Anybody hurt?”
    “Just the driver. He was kind of woozy and angry, that’s all.”
    “You’re lucky,” said Theor Close. “We had an operator on Pedaria get a good whiff of gozon and kill three people before they finally stopped him.”
    “Funny the chemists can’t come up with something safer,” said Sam.
    “They have. It just isn’t as efficient. With the proper safeguards, gozon is all right.” Theor Close took a protective mask from his tool kit, put it on, then opened the pod hatch on the 1701 and drew out the pod. “Where shall I put this?”
    Sam looked around and indicated a bare work bench standing to one side.
    Theor laid the pod upon it, then returned to the pod hatch. “If you’ve got fumes, likely the problem is in the seal-valve unit. That was the problem on Pedaria. We’re redesigning the whole assembly, and you’ll have these replaced very soon.”
    “And until then?”
    “Until then, we’ll fix this one.” Theor inserted himself into the hatch and mumbled to himself. Then he came out, with an audible pop, and said to Betrun Jun, “Will you look at it? There’s got to be a flaw in the sphincter-gasket, but I can’t find it.”
    A settler drove into the barn on a small multipurpose tractor towing a spray unit behind it.
    Betrun inserted himself into the hatch. After a time, he said, “You can’t find one because there isn’t one.” His voice reverberated in the closed space, before he popped out, like a ferf out of a hole. “Are you sure this is the unit, Sam?”
    “This is the one,” said Sam, firmly, checking the number painted on the hatch against the one on his list.
    The man at the door began to back the tractor.
    Jun took another look and popped out again. “The flaw has to be in the fuel pod itself. Where did you put it?”
    Sam turned, seeing the pod and the bench and the tractor all in one terrible vision, the sprayer hitting the table, the table falling, the faulty pod going over with it, and the cloud of violet mist that erupted from it, catching the tractor driver in its midst.
    “God,” whispered Theor Close, jerking open his tool kit and finding another mask. He shoved it at Sam, who took it almost without thinking. Sam’s eyes were fixed on the driver, who had gone completely blank-faced, like a manikin. Then, slowly, the blankness was replaced, first with craftiness, then with rage. The driver looked around and saw the three of them. He began, slowly, to get down from the tractor.
    “He’ll kill us if he gets a chance,” said Betrun Jun, almost calmly. “Us or anything else he can find.”
    The man picked up a steel brace bar from the floor and came toward them. He was a very large man, Theor thought. A very large man, moving with the inexorability of a robot.
    “Hever,” said Sam. “Give me the bar.”
    “He won’t hear you,” whispered Close. “He can’t. He’s all shut in on himself.”
    “Hever,” said Sam again. “Give me the bar. Give it to me.” He moved away from the others, drawing the driver’s eyes after him, his feet dancing slowly to one side, so the driver would not lose sight of him.
    “Is there an antidote,” asked Sam, almost conversationally.
    “No,” said Close. “Not here.”
    “Do you have something that will put him out?” asked Sam.
    “No,” said Close. “Not with me.”
    “What the hell good are you?” asked Sam, still dancing. “There’s an emergency medical kit on the wall over there. That red thing. You’ll find a full kit of painkillers, in slap ampules. You think you could get your hands on those?”
    “You have a weapon on your belt,” Jun pointed out. “You’ve got a plate cutter.”
    “You have some particular reason for wanting Hever dead?” Sam asked, his voice conveying slight astonishment. “Or maimed? He will come out of this, won’t he?”
    “Eventually,” said Close, from a dry