Xeelee: An Omnibus: Raft, Timelike Infinity, Flux, Ring by Stephen Baxter Read Free Book Online Page A

Now we have children, adults even, who don’t know what blue is. The damn Nebula has gone sour. The dispensers are fed by organic compounds in the Nebula atmosphere - and by airborne plants and animals, of course. Mith, it’s a case of garbage in, garbage out. The machines can’t work miracles. They can’t produce decent food out of the sludge out there. And that’s the problem.’
    Behind him Mith was silent for a long time. Then he said, ‘What can we do?’
    ‘Beats me,’ said Hollerbach, a little harshly. ‘You’re the Captain.’
    Mith got out of his chair and lumbered up to Hollerbach; his breath was hot on the old Scientist’s neck, and Hollerbach could feel the pull of the Captain’s weighty gut. ‘Damn it, stop patronizing me. What am I supposed to tell the crew?’
    Abruptly, Hollerbach felt very tired. He reached with one hand for the door frame and wished his chair weren’t so far away. ‘Tell them not to give up hope,’ he said quietly. ‘Tell them we’re doing all we know how to do. Or tell them nothing. As you see fit.’
    Mith thought it over. ‘Of course, not all your results are in.’ There was a trace of hope in his voice. ‘And you haven’t completed that machine overhaul, have you?’
    Hollerbach shook his head, eyes closed. ‘No, we haven’t finished the overhaul.’ ‘So maybe there’s something wrong with the machines after all.’ Mith clapped his shoulder with a plate-sized hand. ‘All right, Hollerbach. Thanks. Look, keep me informed.’
    Hollerbach stiffened. ‘Of course.’
    Hollerbach watched Mith stride away across the deck, his belly oscillating. Mith wasn’t too bright - but he was a good man. Not as good as his father, maybe, but a lot better than some of those who were now calling for his replacement.
    Maybe a cheerful buffoon was right for the Raft in its present straits. Someone to keep their spirits up as the air turned to poison—
    He laughed at himself. Come on, Hollerbach; you really are turning into an old fart.
    He became aware of a prickling over his bald pate; he glared up at the sky. That star overhead was a searing pinpoint, its complex orbit bringing it ever closer to the path of the Raft. Close enough to burn the skin, eh? He couldn’t remember a star being allowed to fall so threateningly close before; the Raft should have been shifted long since. He’d have to get on to Navigator Cipse and his boys. He couldn’t think what they were playing at.
    Now a shadow swept across him, and he made out the silhouette of a tree rotating grandly far above the Raft. That would be Pallis, returning from the Belt. Another good man, Pallis . . . one of the few left.
    He dropped his prickling eyes and studied the deck plates beneath his feet. He thought of the human lives that had been expended on keeping this little metal island afloat in the air for so long. And was it only to come to this, a final few generations of sour sullenness, falling at last to the poisoned air?
    Maybe it would be better not to move the Raft out from under that star. Let it all go up in one last blaze of human glory—
    ‘Sir?’ Grye, one of his assistants, stood before him; the little round man nervously held out a battered sheaf of paper. ‘We’ve finished another test run.’
    So there was still work to do. ‘Well, don’t stand about like that, man; if you’re no use you’re certainly no ornament. Bring that in and tell me what it says.’
    And he turned and led the way into his office.
    The Raft had grown in the sky until it blocked out half the Nebula. A star was poised some tens of miles above the Raft, a turbulent ball of yellow fire a mile wide, and the Raft cast a broadening shadow down through miles of dusty air.
    Under Pallis’s direction Rees and Gover stoked the fire bowls and worked their way across the surface of the tree, waving large, light blankets over the billowing smoke. Pallis studied the canopy of smoke with a critical eye; never satisfied, he snapped