Blighted Star Read Online Free PDF Page B

didn’t even look round. Jackson felt
like smashing the back of her skull in.
     
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    With
the widening distance between him and the nearest other people, the
overwhelming need to break away from his own kind had at last diminished. The
self-inflicted wound on his arm still throbbed a little, though the nanos had
long ago closed the wound and made a small mound of soft scar tissue where he
had cut into the flesh. Now he could accept the towns for what they were, a
handy source of future resupply. He also didn’t think he would ever miss human
company again, but on the other hand it was useful to know it was there if he
ever needed it. He pushed on through the knee high grass, still keeping
parallel to the track the Amish had taken. When the sun began its slow descent
towards the horizon, Gunnar began to look forward to the evening camp. Perhaps
at the next water he came to, or the one after that. This world had so many
beautiful lakes and ponds all reflecting the immensity of the blue sky, and any
one would be heaven to camp beside. He stopped and looked around him. In the
distance a low rocky ridge broke the flatness of the horizon. He decided to
make for that. 
     
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    The
organism that moved with the worm’s body was being pulled strongly, much more
strongly than it had been for millennia. It ignored the tiny pulses of the
invertebrates in the soil and turned instead towards the massive beacons of
life which had now appeared on its horizon. Without consciousness, blindly,
like a plant turning towards the sun, it turned towards the nearest of the life
- sources and began to inch its way through the soil.
     
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    The
lab bench was cool under his left hand and warm under his right. This was
because the golden sunlight fell across part of it while his own body cast the
shadow which made the left -hand side cool. He must have been standing there for
quite a while, lost in thought. He walked over to the window and looked out at
the busy quarry. In one sense the trouble was that they had encountered no
trouble. Maybe if they had some engineering problems he wouldn’t have time for
palaeontology. Yet he couldn’t help feeling that there was something important
he was missing. He sucked his teeth.
    Outside
two quarrymen had finished attaching Anti - Gravity units to the four corners
of a large platform pallet. The pallet was piled high with iron sheeting ready
for dispatch to one of the settlements. The morning had started with a slight
chill from the rain which had fallen in the night, and both quarrymen had taken
off their jackets as the day had warmed up. Now on trying to pick his up, one
of them found that it was caught by its corner under the immense weight of the
day’s production on the pallet. His workmate turned back to see the quarryman’s
futile attempts to free the jacket and both laughed. In the window Jim grinned
and shook his head. The workers switched on the A/G and the twelve tonne pallet
bobbed up to the pre-set three feet. The jacket was whisked out and the two
men, still laughing, moved to switch off the A/G units. The next few moments
unfolded with a dreadful slowness as Jim watched, powerless.
    One
of the men obviously thought of a new witticism on the subject of the jacket
and popped round the pallet to tell his friend. At that moment a Heavy Loader
was coming too fast the other way. The driver saw in time to swerve and the man
jumped the other way. Cursing, the driver stamped on the brakes. The Loader’s
tyres skidded on a puddle left over from the morning’s rain and the big vehicle
crunched into the floating pallet, crushing its front loading gear. The pallet
lurched, one corner coming slightly up, and it set off across the quarry at a
running pace, spinning slowly as it went. The spin sent the top few sheets
sliding and one of these bore a worker to the ground before slicing him neatly
across the chest, separating upper torso from the rest of his body. One arm