Read Online Zima Blue and Other Stories by Alastair Reynolds - Free Book Online Page A

own enquiries. I'm not sure what they told you, but I promise you that we're safe and sound and that we're coming home. I'm calling from somewhere called Saumlaki Station, a repair facility on the edge of Schedar Sector. It's not much to look at: just a warren of tunnels and centrifuges dug into a pitch-black D-type asteroid, about half a light-year from the nearest star. The only reason it's here at all is because there happens to be an aperture next door. That's how we got here in the first place. Somehow or other Blue Goose took a wrong turn in the network, what they call a routing error. The Goose came in last night, local time, and I've been in a hotel since then. I didn't call last night because I was too tired and disorientated after coming out of the tank, and I didn't know how long we were going to be here. Seemed better to wait until morning, when we'd have a better idea of the damage to the ship. It's nothing serious - just a few bits and pieces buckled during the transit - but it means we're going to be here for another couple of days. Kolding - he's the repair chief - says three at the most. By the time we get back on course, however, we'll be about forty days behind schedule.'

    I paused, eyeing the incrementing cost indicator. Before I sat down in the booth I always had an eloquent and economical speech cued up in my head, one that conveyed exactly what needed to be said, with the measure and grace of a soliloquy. But my mind always dried up as soon as I opened my mouth, and instead of an actor I ended up sounding like a small-time thief, concocting some fumbling alibi in the presence of quick-witted interrogators.

    I smiled awkwardly and continued: 'It kills me to think this message is going to take so long to get to you. But if there's a silver lining it's that I won't be far behind it. By the time you get this, I should be home only a couple of days later. So don't waste money replying to this, because by the time you get it I'll already have left Saumlaki Station. Just stay where you are and I promise I'll be home soon.'

    That was it. There was nothing more I needed to say, other than: 'I miss you.' Delivered after a moment's pause, I meant it to sound emphatic. But when I replayed the recording it sounded more like an afterthought.

    I could have recorded it again, but I doubted that I would have been any happier. Instead I just committed the existing message for transmission and wondered how long it would have to wait before going on its way. Since it seemed unlikely that there was a vast flow of commerce in and out of Saumlaki, our ship might be the first suitable outbound vessel.

    I emerged from the booth. For some reason I felt guilty, as if I had been in some way neglectful. It took me a while before I realised what was playing on my mind. I'd told Katerina about Saumlaki Station. I'd even told her about Kolding and the damage to the Blue Goose . But I hadn't told her about Greta.

    It's not working with Suzy.

    She's too smart, too well attuned to the physiological correlatives of surge tank immersion. I can give her all the reassurances in the world, but she knows she's been under too long for this to be anything other than a truly epic screw-up. She knows that we aren't just talking weeks or even months of delay here. Every nerve in her body is screaming that message into her skull.

    'I had dreams,' she says, when the grogginess fades.

    'What kind?'

    'Dreams that I kept waking. Dreams that you were pulling me out of the surge tank. You and someone else.'

    I do my best to smile. I'm alone, but Greta isn't far away. The hypodermic's in my pocket now.

    'I always get bad dreams coming out of the tank,' I say.

    'These felt real. Your story kept changing, but you kept telling me we were somewhere . . . that we'd gone a little off course, but that it was nothing to worry about.'

    So much for Greta's reassurance that Suzy will remember nothing after our aborted efforts at waking her. Seems that