Divergence Read Online Free PDF

run his hands across the beautifully soft wool of the black carpet and to breathe in its sweet lanolin scent, and then he straightened up and followed Maurice, a big smile spreading across his face.
    Everything smelled new and looked clean and freshly made. The black plastic bumpers around the doors were so shiny you could see yourself there inside them. The round white lights set in the ceiling shone with a pearly glow, and the walls were covered with the same pleasant pattern as those in Edward’s bedroom.
    They passed the recreation room, black exercise machines glistening on the white floors, before shiny mirrors. Edward wanted to go in there and smear fingerprint marks onto the chrome handles; he wanted to be the first to run on the shiny black ribbon of the treadmill. He longed to explore the ship further, but Maurice was already walking into the main living area, and so he followed.
    Saskia was waiting in there, purple-black hair falling around her pale face, and Edward was hurt at the expression of disappointment that crossed her face when she saw him.
    “That’s it,” Maurice said. “Miss Rose won’t leave her room. She says she is rearranging her things after the mess that was made of them in the separation. Apart from her, there’s just you, me, and Edward left on board.”
    Saskia closed her eyes and put a hand to her head.
    Edward moved his lips, working things out.
    “Just us left?” he said. “Where’s Craig? Where’s my friend?”
    Saskia wasn’t listening.
    “What the fuck is happening here?” she said. “How are we supposed to go on without Donny and Armstrong?”
    Maurice looked uncomfortable. He pulled his console from his pocket and started to fiddle with it. “I can operate the systems,” he said.
    “You?” said Saskia. “I thought you were a combat man, like Armstrong.”
    Maurice flushed red. “I trained in systems,” he said quietly. “Combat is just my hobby. I understand the FE software better than Donny does.”
    Saskia gazed at him appraisingly, her dark eyes like slits. “Okay,” she said, “we’d better hope that you do. Because at the moment it’s just you and me.”
    “And me,” said Edward. “What’s happened? Where is everybody else?”
    Saskia looked at Maurice who gave a bitter laugh.
    “Why don’t you tell him, Saskia? Meanwhile, I’ll try to figure my way through the mess that Donny made of our systems.”
    Saskia held his gaze, her lips thin with annoyance. “You’d better be able to,” she said darkly, and then she turned to Edward and gave him a big beaming smile.
    “Edward,” she said, “come over here.”
    Feeling more nervous than ever, Edward followed her to the new chessboard-patterned table that stood near the kitchen area. Saskia could be pretty, Edward thought as he anxiously looked at her, with her big dark eyes and her wide mouth and her black hair that curved around her thin face; it was just that she never seemed to want to. She rarely smiled. She wore nice clothes, just like Joanne, but she seemed to wear them in a different way, as if they were just part of a uniform, something that had to be done. Joanne looked like a woman in her clothes: she had glared at Edward more than once for staring at her breasts or her bum. But Saskia, she just looked like someone wearing nice clothes.
    Edward felt confused. He wasn’t used to thinking thoughts like these.
    “Edward,” said Saskia, taking one of his big hands in hers. “You know that the Stranger tricked us into a bad deal?”
    Edward nodded, not quite sure if this was true or not. Hadn’t Michel said there was no such thing as a bad deal where the FE software was concerned?
    Saskia was still smiling. She looked like a big doll, sort of pretty but hollow inside.
    “Well, Edward, the last thing that the Stranger did was to set the ship to copy itself. You understand that? Yes? Self-replication happens all the time in the Earth Domain. Well, for some reason, one of the conditions of