Escapology Read Online Free PDF Page A

sight that never fails to move him. This immense lady, this ship formed of land, is home. He wouldn’t want to live anywhere else. No other ship would be adequate, no city hub grazing the edge of space, no bedraggled commune eeking out an existence on the tiny green spars of land or half-intact cities clinging to the ranges, and certainly not the Gung, whose claustrophobic streets he tried and failed to survive as a teen, running from one horror it seemed right into the jaws of another.
    Through the Tri-Asian ranges the sun plays hide-and-seek with
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’s haphazard towers until they emerge out the other side, threading between jagged rocks to sea like glass, a mirror for the sky. If you could see to the bottom of the ocean here you’d find the tsunami defence wall. In an emergency the wall rises from the water high enough to blot out the view of the sea for the highest-living citizens in the Gung.
    Sailing as long as he has, Petrie’s witnessed them testing it more than once; all that steel against the might of the ocean. One day there’ll be a wave too high to hold back. Everything down here is on borrowed time, hanging on by sheer dumb luck.
    The harbour at Foon Gung is dead ahead now, rearing from the water like a metal-capped grin. Only ten minutes away at full speed, but they daren’t come in that fast.
    Steady!
he yells to the wheel crews.
Half power. Don’t wanna scrape anything off those harbour arms.
    Carved out of the Gung’s south-east corner during the breaking, the harbour is only twenty miles wide, with two long arms reaching plaintively into the ocean, and, like the rest of the Gung, every inch of it groans with architecture. Foon-Gung being the last solid land, every one of its seven hundred miles, including the mountains to the rear, bristles with steel and glass and stone, reaching up into the clouds in audacious rebellion against nature.
    The
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’s come close to nudging one of the ’rises teetering on the edges of the arms before now. His chest shrinks thinking how many people they might kill if they inadvertently topple one—those ’rises are cage apartments, hundreds of families crammed into tight spaces like barnacles on a rock. Not life at all, at least not one he wants.
    Bosun Petrie, slow your boat. You’re set to break my arms there.
Harbour Master Sigmund lacks basic IM manners, always slamming in without so much as a warning chime.
    Petrie takes a breath, thankful that Sigmund can’t see his face.
    We’re slowing. Half speed already. We’ll dock safe just like we always do. We’re a ways out yet.
    Sigmund snorts.
Sure son, and these folk from Fulcrum love to be kept waiting. Don’t spin me any of that bullshit you try with the deputies, I can see your wake from here, and you’re coming in too fast. Make ’em wait. You’re paying aren’t you?
    Irritated, Petrie snaps,
We are, through the nose as ever, but we’re not going to crash in like pirates trying to please them.
    Silence.
    Petrie curses his tongue. He shouldn’t have said that, it was damned foolish. But Sigmund merely comes back with a warning.
    Careful, son, a loose tongue is a dangerous thing. Now get that speed down for crap’s sake. I’ve got crews out; don’t need ’em ploughed under your wheels.
    Aye, aye.
    A cantankerous, mannerless old bastard Sigmund might be, but he feels the same about Fulcrum as everyone does. Fulcrum’s the Corp that runs the Gung, that owns and runs the Slip that keeps the world together. That’s some goddamn power right there. Too much. Four times a year they send Techs to check your server equipment. It’s mandatory and costs a bloody fortune.
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isn’t alone in sometimes being unable to pay when it’s due and Fulcrum always charges more for delays.
    When they’re close enough for dammit, Petrie clips on to a line and slides down to the central crow deck to stand by his Captain, Cassius Angel, as they negotiate the southeast arm. Folks hang out