Hull Zero Three by Greg Bear Read Free Book Online

Little beige flakes have been blowing around us for the last few minutes. I realize it’s snow. Snow is swirling.
We stand. We walk. One by one, beginning with Pushingar, we run forward—I think, I hope. I have no idea where we’re going and suspect neither does the little girl. Maybe Pushingar or the other two know something, but they’re not talking—just running.
The floor is getting very cold. It’s starting all over again, variations on a nasty theme. Chasing heat, staying alive, seeking food—seeking answers really low on the list of my frustrated basic drives.
Minutes of running. Maybe only seconds. But something visible ahead—a wall. A wall curving off in huge sweeps with the floor to either side, cicumnavigaing , like the tube and the channel but with actual hatches that have real doors—oblong, about my height.
One of the doors stands open.
The girl sings out her joy. “Forward!” she cries.
We all climb through the hatch, into a rectangular hallway—as at the beginning. The wall opposite is blank, no hatches. Satmonk points to the right. We resume running. I’m mostly stumbling. My head is swimming, my heart thumping. I’m close to the end of my tether.
This time, there are no bulkheads slamming shut to close us off from going back. After a time, I notice rags on the floor—scraps of clothing, bits of other things I can’t identify. I stop. Maybe it’s food. I bend over and pick up something small and brownish, a smashed cube.
The others move on without me.
I sniff the cube. No odor. Squeeze it. Feel it. It’s hard as a rock. I try to take a bite.
The girl has doubled back. She knocks it from my hands. “Not food,” she says. “Not for you to eat, anyway. But there’s probably food somewhere near. This is a place that’s made for people.”
Looking in angry frustration at the cube on the floor, at the girl, I realize I’m weeping, but my eyes are dry.
“Keep going,” she says, and tugs at my arm. “We need to get to a warm place. Come on.”
As we walk—she seems to know I’m too worn down to run anymore—she stoops and picks up a larger rag, shakes it out, hands it back to me. “Not too filthy,” she says. “Might fit.”
I look at the scrap in the dimness. It’s a pair of flexible shorts made of thin fabric. There’s a big blood stain on one leg—dark, dry.
“No, thank you,” I say. But I don’t drop it.
“Suit yourself. Nearly everything we’re wearing comes from somebody dead. Just enough to go around.”
If that’s meant to be encouraging, it doesn’t work. Again I feel like lying down, but I know the girl would kick me. We join the others. They’re sitting on the floor, lying against the walls. Satmonk and Pushingar appear to be sleeping. Picker is keeping an eye out ahead. The girl steps over them.
Picker covers his nose. “Been here?” he asks, and then sneezes and shakes his head. Its tough for him to talk this way.
“No,” the girl says. “Never this far forward.”
“Maybe add to book,” Picker says.
The girl makes a face. The others get up and we follow, but we’re not running. It’s not getting as cold here, though the air is chill. Maybe the girl is right.
Then we see the light up ahead is changing. Still dim, but bluer. The blue cast reaches back down the hall.
“Is that a bubble?” the girl asks.
“What’s ‘bubble’?” Picker asks.
Pushingar seems to understand, and a whistling, honking dialogue follows. If I wasn’t dying, I’d have laughed at the comical sounds.
But Picker concludes by saying, “They know of bubbles. Someone made it told.” He almost sneezes, looks sidewise at me, then adds, tapping his nose, “Learn honk!”
“Sure,” I say. I hold my own nose and sort of snort, then warble a horn note or two.
The others laugh—different kinds of laughter. And I thought I was dying. I’m not. I’m still capable of making a joke. Either that, or they’re making the noises their kinds make before they attack and eat you.
I’d