Thousandth Night by Alastair Reynolds Read Free Book Online

liked, but if we had been given
any longer the utter incaution of what we were doing would have had time to
gnaw away at my better judgement. It was a false strand that had set this
entire enterprise in motion, I had to remind myself. Burdock had perpetrated a
lie, and now we were perpetrating another because of it. Unfortunately, I saw
no practical alternative.
    Purslane’s
original strand wasn’t as bad as I had feared: there was actually some
promising material in it, if only it could be brought out more effectively. It
was certainly a lot more dramatic and exciting than my essay on sunsets.
Nonetheless, there was plenty of scope for some judicious fiddling with the
facts: nothing outrageous, nothing that would have people looking for flaws in
Purslane’s strand, but enough to justify the anticipation she had begun to
stoke. And in that respect she excelled herself: without actually saying
anything, she managed to whip everyone into a state of heady expectation. It
was all in the haughtiness of her walk, the guarded confidence of her looks,
the sympathetic, slightly pitying smile with which she greeted everyone else’s
efforts. I know she hated every minute of that performance, but to her credit
she threw herself into it with giddy abandon. By the time the evening of her
threading came around, the atmosphere tingled with excitement. Her strand would
be the subject of so much discussion tomorrow that no one could possibly take
the risk of not dreaming it tonight, even if my apparatus had permitted such
evasion. It would be the most exquisite of embarrassments not to be able to
hold a view on Purslane’s strand.
    At
midnight, the line members and their guests dispersed to sleep and dream.
Surveillance confirmed that they were all safely under: including, Burdock. The
strand was threading into their collective memories. There had been no traffic
to and from the island and the ships for an hour. A warm breeze rolled in from
the west, but the sea was tranquil, save for the occasional breaching aquatic.
    Purslane
and I made our move. Two travel boxes folded around us and pulled us away from
the island, through the thicket of hanging vessels, out to the ship belonging
to Burdock. A kilometre long, it was a modest craft by Gentian standards:
neither modern nor fast, but rugged and dependable for all that. Its armoured
green hull had something of the same semi-translucence as polished turtleshell.
Its drive was a veined green bulb, flung out from the stern on a barbed stalk:
it hung nose-down from the bulb, swaying gently in the late evening breeze.
    Purslane’s
box led the way. She curved under the froglike bow of the ship, then rose up on
the other side. Halfway up the hull, between a pair of bottle-green hull
plates, lay a wrinkled airlock. Her box transmitted recognition protocols and
the airlock opened like a gummed eye. There was room inside for both boxes.
They opened and allowed us to disembark.
    Nothing
about Burdock’s outward appearance had suggested that the air aboard his ship
would be anything but a standard oxygen-nitrogen mix. It was still a relief
when I gulped down a lungful and found it palatable. It would have been a chore
to have to return to the island and remake my lungs to cope with something
poisonous.
    “I
recognise this design of ship,” Purslane said, whispering. We were inside a
red-lined antechamber, like a blocked throat. “It’s Third Intercessionary. I
owned one like it once. I should be able to find my way around it quite easily,
provided he hasn’t altered too many of the fittings.”
    “Does
the ship know we’re here?”
    “Oh,
yes. But it should regard us as friendly, once we’re inside.”
    “Suddenly
this doesn’t seem like quite the excellent idea it did ten days ago.”
    “We’re
committed now, Campion. Back on the island they’re dreaming my strand and
wondering what the hell turned me into such an adventuress. I didn’t go to all
that trouble to have you back out