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

her short-term memory isn't quite as fallible as we'd like.

    'It's funny you should say that,' I tell her, 'because, actually, we are a little off course.'

    She's sharper with every breath. Suzy was always the best of us at coming out of the tank.

    'Tell me how far, Thom.'

    'Farther than I'd like.'

    She balls her fists. I can't tell if it's aggression, or some lingering neuromuscular effect of her time in the tank. 'How far? Beyond the Bubble?'

    'Beyond the Bubble, yes.'

    Her voice grows small and childlike.

    'Tell me, Thom. Are we out beyond the Rift?'

    I can hear the fear. I understand what she's going through. It's the nightmare that all ship crews live with on every trip. That something will go wrong with the routing, something so severe that they'll end up on the very edge of the network. That they'll end up so far from home that getting back will take years, not months. And that, of course, years will have already passed, even before they begin the return trip.

    That loved ones will be years older when they reach home.

    If they're still there. If they still remember you, or want to remember. If they're still recognisable, or alive.

    Beyond the Aquila Rift. It's shorthand for the trip no one ever hopes to make by accident. The one that will screw up the rest of your life, the one that creates the ghosts you see haunting the shadows of company bars across the whole Bubble. Men and women ripped out of time, cut adrift from families and lovers by an accident of an alien technology we use but barely comprehend.

    'Yes,' I say. 'We're beyond the Rift.'

    Suzy screams, knitting her face into a mask of anger and denial. My hand is cold around the hypodermic. I consider using it.

    A new repair estimate from Kolding. Five, six days.

    This time I didn't even argue. I just shrugged and walked out, and wondered how long it would be next time.

    That evening I sat down at the same table where Greta and I had met over breakfast. The dining area had been well lit before, but now the only illumination came from the table lamps and the subdued lighting panels set into the paving. In the distance, a glass mannequin cycled from empty table to empty table, playing 'Asturias' on a glass guitar. There were no other patrons dining tonight.

    I didn't have long to wait for Greta.

    'I'm sorry I'm late, Thom.'

    I turned to her as she approached the table. I liked the way she walked in the low gravity of the station, the way the subdued lighting traced the arc of her hips and waist. She eased into her seat and leaned towards me in the manner of a conspirator. The lamp on the table threw red shadows and gold highlights across her face. It took ten years off her age.

    'You aren't late,' I said. 'And anyway, I had the view.'

    'It's an improvement, isn't it?'

    'That wouldn't be saying much,' I said with a smile. 'But yes, it's definitely an improvement.'

    'I could sit out here all night and just look at it. In fact sometimes that's exactly what I do. Just me and a bottle of wine.'

    'I don't blame you.'

    Instead of the holographic blue, the dome was now full of stars. It was like no view I'd ever seen from another station or ship. There were furious blue-white stars embedded in what looked like sheets of velvet. There were hard gold gems and soft red tinges, like finger smears in pastel. There were streams and currents of fainter stars, like a myriad neon fish caught in a snapshot of frozen motion. There were vast billowing backdrops of red and green cloud, veined and flawed by filaments of cool black. There were bluffs and promontories of ochre dust, so rich in three-dimensional structure that they resembled an exuberant impasto of oil colours; contours light-years thick laid on with a trowel. Red or pink stars burned through the dust like lanterns. Orphaned worlds were caught erupting from the towers, little sperm-like shapes trailing viscera of dust. Here and there I saw the tiny eyelike knots of birthing solar systems. There