The Orphaned Worlds by Michael Cobley Read Free Book Online

he passed through he did as he was doing now, keeping his distance as he hurried to another set of steps leading up.
    Above was a similar circular chamber with a low roof and louvred metal shutters which kept out the snow but let in icy draughts. Breathing out foggy clouds, he crossed to one of the exits and out onto a railed gantry bare to the elements, along which he dashed to the observatory, a small boxy building on pillars that rose from the deck below.
    For once he was early and his Gomedran contact, Ku-Baar, was late. And since there was no one else about he had the full run of all the viewing niches. He quickly ascended the wooden stairways to the highest catwalk and went straight to the niche that faced the great penduline city of Malgovastek. Winds moaned around the observatory as Robert trained the heavy scope on the upper levels, the Supervisors Deck and the Proprietors Deck, names dating back to the city’s founding nearly two millennia ago, according to Reski Emantes.
    Such names had apparently hung on out of common usage, bearing no relation to the current power arrangement which was an oligarchy of corrupt clans and guilds. Looking through the scope at the Supervisors Deck he could see light-globes and strings of lamps decorating the porticos, extensions and balconies built onto the original residential sections by successive clan bosses. The Proprietors Deck was more ostentatious, with glass towers, turrets and faceted, glowing domes denoting privilege and wealth, as well as the ruthless violence needed to maintain it. The rushing swirls of snow made the heights grey and hazy but Robert could still make out the Elavescent Hawsers, five mighty cables that soared up through a mile or more of ice storms and gloom to the underside of a colossal stone ledge where the ancient engineers had embedded anchors deep within the rock.
    Malgovastek was not the only city suspended from that land-mass-scale shelf, nor was that the only such shelf in the bizarre hyperspace tier known as the Shylgandic Lacuna. Robert still vividly remembered their arrival as the Construct tiership Plausible Response plummeted down into the Lacuna’s dizzying abyss, past jutting immensities of icebound rock, past other cities hanging in the murk like encrusted clumps of corroded regalia, some lit with lamps like dying embers, others looking grey-black and dead. Even as he relived those sights his mind reeled and he experienced a moment of vertigo when he thought of the limitless depths gaping directly below.
    Holding on to the scope mounting he recalled the Construct’s last words to him before the tiership departed the Garden of the Machines:
    ‘Robert Horst, keep in mind that no matter how grotesque and frightening the sights you behold, local conditions often vary wildly from one tier to the next. Do not forget that you are travelling through the cadavers of expired universes, the remains of their remains, the sepulchral ashes of eternity. You are not required to involve yourself in the survivors’ tribulations, only to fulfill your task – find your way to the Godhead and speak with it on the matters I mentioned.’
    Of course, Robert knew that the Construct was far more than merely the ruler of the Garden of the Machines, that it was an ancient mech-sentience and one-time ally of the Forerunners themselves. When the Construct spoke of ages past, it was with the authenticity of direct experience.
    As he stopped to gaze through the scope again, he heard footsteps enter below then hasten up. A moment later he turned to greet Ku-Baar, former captain to Mirapesh, deceased tooth-father of the Redbard Clan. Ku-Baar was tall for a Gomedran and less bristly than those Robert had previously encountered during his years as a diplomat. These Gomedrans, however, derived from an earlier, less predatory branch of the species which had gone off to explore the upper levels of hyperspace. He also spoke in a much more cultured, expressive version of the