Stars Rain Down by Chris J. Randolph Read Free Book Online Page B

most confident climber and she volunteered to take lead. They all hooked up to her, and then off they went up the side of the giant, twisting structure. It felt like they were making quick work of it, but the entry ports remained a long way off, and they seemed only inches closer after a half-hour.
    The surface was covered in handles and was as difficult to climb as a good ladder. Albright supposed the handles were for use in zero-g, and her theory made a lot of sense, but things that made too much sense were often wrong in Jack’s experience. Jack’s experience was surprisingly cynical.
    They fell into a comfortable rhythm, ascent interspersed with short rests in shallow alcoves they found, and thanks to the many hand-holds, they rarely had to backtrack. At each new rest stop, they could see more of the city stretching out beneath them, and Jack was beginning to admire the view. What was foreign and deformed at first was becoming familiar, reminding him not only of Manhattan, but also of Hong Kong and Mumbai. It was a rainbow of brightly colored clothes, spicy smells and strange produce.
    After nearly two hours, they came to the entry port, which was a tunnel just barely large enough for one of the flyers to squeeze through, located half-way between the colony’s floor and ceiling.
    Once everyone was safely on the ledge, Jack took a good look down and the scale of it struck him with a touch of vertigo. He had a tingle at the back of his knees and a sloshy feeling in his stomach, and then it was gone.
    â€œHustle up,â€

Chapter 37:
Detachment
    The moment was over, and everything was calm again in the circular generator room. Trash had a twisted grimace on his face, but he dutifully zipped his pack up and slung it back over his shoulder. The insurrection was over.
    Jack returned his handgun to its holster. At the same moment, the light in the generator room turned a deep, Cabernet red while the innermost ring of columns slid across the floor, forming a gapless barricade around the miniature sun. A low cry like a giant horn howled across the blue city. None of that seemed like good news.
    â€œWhat’s going on?â€

Chapter 38:
The View From Above
    Jack was confused when he woke up. Really confused. He’d been confused before, like when he got to the analogy section of his college entrance exams and couldn’t figure out how “dispatchâ€

Chapter 39:
Interrogation
    Jack’s life took on a peculiar sort of rhythm. They left him alone in his cell to stew for long stretches, until such time as the fascist alien bastard came back to question and torture him some more. During each questioning session, he was pushed up to and past his threshold for pain. He would pass out and find a small measure of peace, only to awaken later and repeat the process all over again.
    Jack felt like Prometheus chained to his rock.
    His resolve only lasted so long, and he started to answer questions, mingling truth and lies, losing track of where one began and the other ended. Sometimes, he made a game of giving the most ridiculous answers possible, speaking at length about an army called the Lost Boys who had a base hidden in Never Never Land, or the terrorist leader Christopher Robin and the suicide missions he launched from the 100 Acre Wood. When he ran out of kids’ books, he turned to movies, spinning stories about British super spies, flying Chinese monks, and space police with lenses attached to their hands.
    The interrogator listened intently but never bought a word of it, and Jack discovered that the quality of his story telling had zero effect on the amount of torture he received.
    He had no idea how much time passed or was passing, and he lost count of how many sessions he endured. The only change from one day to the next was the interrogator’s grasp of English, which improved at a startling rate but remained oddly stilted.
    Throughout it all, Jack somehow refused to