Read Online Summerhill by Kevin Frane - Free Book Online Page B

strong suit, Mr. Summerhill. Before we crashed, though, the lifeboat sure looked like it was about to make a reality jump, yes.”
    Summerhill scratched the end of his muzzle. “You said something earlier about quantum signatures and the lifeboat figuring out where to go.”
    “Yes, that,” Katherine said. “The lifeboats are equipped with a very tiny reality jump drive—like a much smaller version of the one on the Nusquam . It’s only got enough power for a single jump seeing as it’s only meant to be used in emergencies.
    “Since it can only make that one jump, the on-board computer does a scan of everyone on board, and based on that, it calculates the optimal reality for the lifeboat to jump to. The idea is that even if not everybody makes it back home, at least they get someplace safe.”
    Summerhill hummed in thought. “And how well does that usually work in practice?”
    “I couldn’t say,” Katherine replied. “The ship’s never had to launch the lifeboats in the time I’ve been aboard.” She stretched her arms up above her head. “Anyhow, it doesn’t matter what caused the crash, at this point. This thing’s not making another reality jump, which means we’re good and stuck here.”
    The whole matter of dimensional barriers and whatnot was still alien to Summerhill. He’d made it from the World of the Pale Gray Sky to the Nusquam just fine without any sort of reality jump drive; why couldn’t he and Katherine get out of the lifeboat and keep walking until they ended up someplace else, same as he had before?
    Maybe that had just been a fluke. Maybe the World of the Pale Gray Sky had an incredibly thin barrier. But Katherine was right: it didn’t matter. A dog and a hostess weren’t going to repair a complex piece of reality-defying technology. Not with what they had at their disposal now.
    “Come on,” Summerhill said, standing back up. “Let’s pack some food up and get going.”
    Katherine stared at him in confusion. “Get going? Going where?”
    “Outside, to explore the nevereef,” Summerhill replied as he opened the food supply cabinet back up. Wagering that they probably shouldn’t try to head to far afield on their initial trip out, he scooped up only a few of the meal packs and loaded them into one of the bags hanging from the inside of the cabinet door.
    “Explore?” Katherine balked. “Are you kidding me? We should wait here, where it’s safe.”
    “For how long?” Summerhill asked. “Until we run out of food and starve?”
    A look of dread crossed Katherine’s face, as if that thought had just crossed her mind for the first time. “I... Well, no, of course not,” she said as she wrung her hands together. “But we are in a lifeboat. Maybe someone will find us.”
    Summerhill slung the bag of prepackaged food over his shoulder. “Someone like the Consortium?”
    “Oh, bollocks,” Katherine muttered under her breath. “All right, fine. We’ll do it your way. I still don’t know what you expect to find out there, though.”
    “I don’t know what to expect, either. But the point is that what we have here won’t help us; meanwhile, there could be any number of things out there, just waiting to be found.”
    Katherine chuckled as she got to her feet and slipped her pendant back underneath her blouse. She then checked her gun, and kept it in hand afterward. “All right, then, Mr. Summerhill,” she said, motioning with her free hand towards the hatch of the lifeboat. “Lead the way.”
    Seven
    Boundary
    Up close, the polyp structures and stationary tendrils that adorned the nevereef looked even more beautiful. It was just a shame that there was so little time to get a good look at them.
    For the first few seconds after stepping outside the lifeboat, the coral surface supported Summerhill and Katherine just fine. Then, without warning, a series of cracks with the appearance of a giant spiderweb spread out beneath their feet.
    Summerhill barely had time to register