Read Online Xeelee: An Omnibus: Raft, Timelike Infinity, Flux, Ring by Stephen Baxter - Free Book Online Page B

‘I’m sorry, Pallis; we’re overpopulated as it is.’
    ‘I know that, sir, and I’m having the forms processed right now. As soon as a tree is loaded he could be gone.’
    ‘Then why bring him here?’
    ‘Because . . .’ Pallis hesitated. ‘Hollerbach, he’s a bright lad,’ he finished in a rush. ‘He can - he gets status reports from the buses—’
    Hollerbach shrugged. ‘So do a good handful of smart kids every shift.’ He shook his head, amused. ‘Good grief, Pallis, you don’t change, do you? Do you remember how, as a kid, you’d bring me broken skitters? And I’d have to fix up little paper splints for the things. A damn lot of good it did them, of course, but it made you feel better.’
    Pallis’s scars darkened furiously; he avoided Rees’s curious gaze.
    ‘And now you bring home this bright young stowaway and - what? - expect me to take him on as my chief apprentice?’
    Pallis shrugged. ‘I thought, maybe just until the tree was ready . . .’
    ‘You thought wrong. I’m a busy man, tree-pilot.’
    Pallis turned to the boy. ‘Tell him why you’re here. Tell him what you told me, on the tree.’
    Rees was staring at Hollerbach. ‘I left the Belt to find out why the Nebula is dying,’ he said simply.
    The Scientist sat forward, intrigued despite himself. ‘Oh, yes? We know why it’s dying. Hydrogen depletion. That’s obvious. What we don’t know is what to do about it.’
    Rees studied him, apparently thinking it over. Then he asked: ‘What’s hydrogen?’
    Hollerbach drummed his long fingers on the desk top, on the point of ordering Pallis out of the room . . . But Rees was waiting for an answer, a look of bright inquiry in his eyes.
    ‘Hmm. That would take more than a sentence to explain, lad.’ Another drum of the fingers. ‘Well, maybe it wouldn’t do any harm - and it might be amusing—’
    ‘Sir?’ Pallis asked.
    ‘Are you any good with a broom, lad? The Bones know we could do with someone to back up that useless article Gover. Yes, why not? Pallis, take him to Grye. Get him a few chores to do; and tell Grye from me to start him on a bit of basic education. He may as well be useful while he’s eating our damn food. Just until the tree flies, mind.’
    ‘Hollerbach, thanks—’
    ‘Oh, get out, Pallis. You’ve won your battle. Now let me get on with my work. And in future keep your damn lame skitters to yourself!’

4
    A handbell shaken somewhere told him that the shift was over. Rees peeled off his protective gloves and with an expert eye surveyed the lab; after his efforts its floor and walls now gleamed in the light of the globes fixed to the ceiling.
    He walked slowly out of the lab. The light from the star above made his exposed skin tingle, and he rested for a few seconds, drinking in gulps of antiseptic-free air. His back and thighs ached and the skin of his upper arms itched in a dozen places: trophies of splashes of powerful cleaning agents.
    The few dozen shifts before the next tree departure seemed to be flying past. He drank in the exotic sights and scents of the Raft, anticipating a return to a lifetime in a lonely cabin in the Belt; he would pore over these memories as Pallis must treasure his photograph of Sheen.
    But what he’d been shown and taught had been precious little, he admitted to himself - despite Hollerbach’s vague promises. The Scientists were an unprepossessing collection - mostly middle-aged, overweight and irritable. Brandishing the bits of braid that denoted their rank they moved about their strange tasks and ignored him. Grye, the assistant who’d been assigned the task of educating him, had done little more than provide Rees with a child’s picture book to help him read, together with a pile of quite incomprehensible lab reports.
    Although he’d certainly learned enough about cleaning, he reflected ruefully.
    But occasionally, just occasionally, his skitter-like imagination would be snagged by something. Like that series of