Read Online Wolf Among the Stars-ARC by Steve White - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Steve White
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relative to the mammoth interstellar ship. It eased through a nonmaterial atmosphere screen and settled onto a cavernous hangar deck. A queasy moment passed before the great ship’s artificial gravity clamped gently down on them. They emerged, and most of the new arrivals, including Rachel, looked slightly apprehensive at having nothing material between them and the vacuum of space. They had all been assured that the atmosphere screen—an application of the same technology that allowed shipboard artificial gravity—was impermeable to atmospheric gasses while permitting the slow passage of massive objects like spacecraft. Still . . .
They were given no time to let it prey on their minds, but were ushered to their cabins. Andrew and Rachel had been assigned quarters on different levels . . . which, he reflected, was probably just as well. He was still getting settled in when the intercom announced departure from orbit. There was only a momentary flutter in weight; the ship followed the standard “aft-equals-down” design philosophy, and the artificial gravity released its hold just as the drive commenced its steady one-gee acceleration. Andrew went on unpacking. Watching Earth recede in the view-aft was no novelty to him.
Later, he went to the lounge for dinner. (The ship was still keeping Earth’s Eastern Standard Time for benefit of its newly arrived passengers but would gradually shift away from it in the course of the voyage so as to eventually conform to the destination planet of Tizath-Asor, thus avoiding a drastic form of “jet lag”; it was yet another way of making interstellar passenger travel practical.) There, the large overhead dome-shaped viewscreen showed the view-aft for the edification of the diners. He spotted Rachel Arnstein, alone at a table, her eyes glued to the shrinking Earth.
“May I join you?” he asked with what he thought was unexceptionable diffidence.
She started. “Oh. Yes. Sure.” But her eyes kept going back to the view-sreen. “I suppose this is old hat for you.”
“Pretty much,” he acknowledged. “But probably not for most of our fellow passengers, from the look of them.”
“No. I notice they’re all human.”
“That’s right. The Spinward Line has yet to provide accommodations acclimatized for Lokaron passengers. Even if it had, they’d probably be amused at the thought of traveling aboard a non-Lokaron shipping line—the first such shipping line in the known galaxy. In fact, I imagine the idea would be too amusing to even seem unpatriotic.”
“They still look down on us, don’t they?”
“In a way—most of them. The wiser ones know better.” Andrew thought of Svyatog. “You can’t blame them, I suppose, given their history; before us, they’d never encountered anybody above the level of pyramid builders. But now, at least, the traditional patronizing attitudes are tempered by a certain respect.”
“Since the war with Gev-Rogov,” she finished the thought for him. The war you fought in , she seemed about to add. But then a steward (live human; the Spinward Line spared no expense) approached, and the moment passed in the flurry of choosing drinks and ordering dinner. The menu held nothing strange or exotic about it, which was hardly surprising given Spinward’s exclusively human clientele.
“So,” said Rachel as a conversation reopener, “I gather that we’re going to take about three days to reach the CNE transition gate.”
“That’s right. It orbits just inside the asteroid belt, which is as deep in the sun’s gravity well as it can be and still function. But we’re in luck; it’s only about thirty degrees ahead of Earth, so at a steady one-g acceleration that’s about how long it should take, even with some maneuvering adjustments that have to be made at the end.” He laughed. “We could have done it in less time if we’d used the Harathon gate—it’s trailing Earth by just a little, so we would only have had to kill our
They were given no time to let it prey on their minds, but were ushered to their cabins. Andrew and Rachel had been assigned quarters on different levels . . . which, he reflected, was probably just as well. He was still getting settled in when the intercom announced departure from orbit. There was only a momentary flutter in weight; the ship followed the standard “aft-equals-down” design philosophy, and the artificial gravity released its hold just as the drive commenced its steady one-gee acceleration. Andrew went on unpacking. Watching Earth recede in the view-aft was no novelty to him.
Later, he went to the lounge for dinner. (The ship was still keeping Earth’s Eastern Standard Time for benefit of its newly arrived passengers but would gradually shift away from it in the course of the voyage so as to eventually conform to the destination planet of Tizath-Asor, thus avoiding a drastic form of “jet lag”; it was yet another way of making interstellar passenger travel practical.) There, the large overhead dome-shaped viewscreen showed the view-aft for the edification of the diners. He spotted Rachel Arnstein, alone at a table, her eyes glued to the shrinking Earth.
“May I join you?” he asked with what he thought was unexceptionable diffidence.
She started. “Oh. Yes. Sure.” But her eyes kept going back to the view-sreen. “I suppose this is old hat for you.”
“Pretty much,” he acknowledged. “But probably not for most of our fellow passengers, from the look of them.”
“No. I notice they’re all human.”
“That’s right. The Spinward Line has yet to provide accommodations acclimatized for Lokaron passengers. Even if it had, they’d probably be amused at the thought of traveling aboard a non-Lokaron shipping line—the first such shipping line in the known galaxy. In fact, I imagine the idea would be too amusing to even seem unpatriotic.”
“They still look down on us, don’t they?”
“In a way—most of them. The wiser ones know better.” Andrew thought of Svyatog. “You can’t blame them, I suppose, given their history; before us, they’d never encountered anybody above the level of pyramid builders. But now, at least, the traditional patronizing attitudes are tempered by a certain respect.”
“Since the war with Gev-Rogov,” she finished the thought for him. The war you fought in , she seemed about to add. But then a steward (live human; the Spinward Line spared no expense) approached, and the moment passed in the flurry of choosing drinks and ordering dinner. The menu held nothing strange or exotic about it, which was hardly surprising given Spinward’s exclusively human clientele.
“So,” said Rachel as a conversation reopener, “I gather that we’re going to take about three days to reach the CNE transition gate.”
“That’s right. It orbits just inside the asteroid belt, which is as deep in the sun’s gravity well as it can be and still function. But we’re in luck; it’s only about thirty degrees ahead of Earth, so at a steady one-g acceleration that’s about how long it should take, even with some maneuvering adjustments that have to be made at the end.” He laughed. “We could have done it in less time if we’d used the Harathon gate—it’s trailing Earth by just a little, so we would only have had to kill our
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