Fall of the White Ship Avatar by Brian Daley Read Free Book Online Page B

file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry%20kruis...y%20-%20Fall%20of%20the%20White%20Ship%20Avatar.htm (27 of 242)23-2-2006 17:03:12
    [Fitzhugh 3]-FALL OF THE WHITE SHIP AVATAR
    was nice to have time for the amenities again.
    Floyt turned the rimed glass in his hand and got to something that had concerned him. "Alacrity, see here. I know this Perlez fellow, your father's mentor, is supposed to help you, and I'm not trying to play Miraculo the Mindreader, but something about this situation is just eating you up."
    Alacrity sampled the drink. "Not bad. Frozen, uh, banana daquiri? Except it doesn't really taste like bananas."
    Floyt leaned his head against a power panel. "They're something called fidberries, from some planet named Anybody's Guess. The potables report is pretty bleak; a few hundred milliliters of perfumey-smelling vodka left and a half case of that defanged beer with neothanol in it. Plus an inhaler of updust, and of course that swill the whole ship reeks of."
    Floyt held up a bottle whose label read "Old Four Smokes Wallop." "Some kind of drugged liquor, or nostrum, or whatever."
    Unstoppered, it was the source of the stomach-turning odor that permeated the Whelk; the Golem's bunk in particular smelled of it.
    Alacrity took a whiff of the Old Four Smokes Wallop and made an awful face. "Ug, I'd rather be sober!
    Pour it out, will you?"
    Floyt restoppered the bottle. "No argument."
    "So like that oldtime Earther said, we have to survive on food and water?"
    "And not an awful lot of food," Floyt said. "We're going to be eating protein paste on crackers after a while, I should think."
    The computers began running the transitional sequence. Alacrity sipped again. Floyt looked to the forward viewpane; this would be the first time he'd ever actually watched while a starship went superluminal.
    "I'm not really that worried," Alacrity blurted. "At least, no more than usual. It's just—everything's riding on this. I'm sure I can trust Lord Marcus—except, aside from you, I don't trust anybody, really."
    The Breakers cut in and the Lightning Whelk's Hawking Effect generator seemed to vibrate the vessel like a banjo string. Floyt drew a quick, deep breath as he felt again that peculiar impression of velocity without movement. Then there was the profound over-the-top sensation. The Hawking generator put the Whelk beyond normal limitations and the outboard screens went blank.
    Alacrity raised his glass and clinked with Floyt. "Breakers!"
    file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry%20kruis...y%20-%20Fall%20of%20the%20White%20Ship%20Avatar.htm (28 of 242)23-2-2006 17:03:12
    [Fitzhugh 3]-FALL OF THE WHITE SHIP AVATAR
    There was nothing to see out the forward viewpane, but Floyt's brain insisted on imposing images. Or, if you listened to certain scientific popularizers, as-yet-undiscovered forces and influences were transferring information directly to his mind in some enigmatic way.
    "No music," he realized suddenly. "I meant to find 'The Planets' and put on 'Venus, Bringer of Joy.' "
    "Trite as hell, but it's a favorite of mine, too," Alacrity confessed. "That and 'Brainwire.' Oh, well, too late now. Tell you what I did find while I was poking around the data banks and memory files: whoever Plantos was, he liked current events. He left us with the latest news packets, bought on Luna about four hours ago."
    "Where? Let's screen them!"
    The fastest that news could travel between the stars was the speed of a starship, so news traveled slowly, filtering through the Third Breath over a period of weeks or months. No one really had any coherent idea of all that the human race was doing, especially out where the frontiers were ballooning. So people were always hungry to hear news and tales of strange new doings and places. Literature, drama, history, and the rest had taken a decided backseat; the traveler's journal and explorer's diary commanded Homo sapiens' attention as never before. People who could observe, survive, and come