Incandescence Read Online Free PDF

his home world, or had visited it not long before. At the third node, in contrast, the intersecting currents of travelers had seemed thoroughly cosmopolitan, rich with complex histories and anecdotes ready to be mined.
    So he'd stayed, but he'd kept himself suitably aloof, eschewing all but the most pragmatic associations, priding himself on his readiness to depart in an instant with no goodbyes. If even one in a thousand of the travelers passing through had come from a place worth visiting, he'd reasoned, it would not take long to choose a destination.
    In a sense that premise had been true, but many people were returning from ageless spectacles that Rakesh had known of since childhood. Whether it was a million-year-old jungle, the immaculately preserved city of an ancestral civilization, or some delicately beautiful nebula, detailed images had already reached Shab-e-Noor long before his birth. Witnessing such sights firsthand rather than in a scape might merit a local planetary hop, but not the burning of millennia and his alienation from everything and everyone he'd known.
    Other travelers took their chances as they searched for less famous, more transient pleasures. By their very nature, though, such destinations could rarely be shared: after five or ten millennia, the most energetic social or artistic renaissance would certainly have faded. Sometimes the insights of these movements could be passed on, but away from the time and place that had given birth to them, most, far from being potent memes ready to spark new revolutions, were uninspiring. Rakesh hadn't traveled thousands of light years to return home with a handful of bland, second-hand slogans.
    Eventually, he'd settled into a state somewhere between cynical resignation and injured bemusement. A logical strategy might have been to make the best of the imperfect information flowing through the node to build up a list of promising worlds, and then wait for that list to include a sequence of planets that could be visited efficiently in a single grand tour. Rakesh had known people who'd done just that, and after five or ten years of planning departed happily on a trip that would take them twenty or thirty millennia. He'd toyed with his own lists, and then set them aside. His heart wasn't in it. If he was ever to break free, he needed something more: a penetrating new insight into the intractable theory of travel.
    Or, as it turned out, some sheer dumb luck.
    «By your own free choice, you are abandoning your loyal companions for this dangerous folly,» Csi announced dryly, «so all we can offer you in return are these talismans to help you on your way.»
    From an ornate chest sitting on the deck beside him, Csi extracted two weighty metal chains. With Viya's help, he tied one around Rakesh's upper body, while Jafar and Renu did the same for Parantham.
    Two robust, seasoned-looking planks lay on the deck, neatly slotted through a convenient gap below the guard rail to protrude over the edge. Rakesh supposed they might have been carried on ships like this for the sake of repairs. That prospect struck him as somewhat cheerier than if they'd been brought along with only their present purpose in mind.
    Parantham shot him an amused look and casually hefted herself over the guard rail. Rakesh clambered over more cautiously, then crouched down to lower his center of mass, wondering at the overpowering need he felt to keep his balance and stay out of the ocean until the very end.
    He couldn't turn his head far enough to face the people watching from the deck, but he called back to them, «Don't think we'll never cross paths again. It's a small galaxy, and I plan to be in it for a very long time.»
    Viya laughed. «Is that a threat of retribution, from the mouth of Davy Jones's locker?»
    Rakesh held up a length of the iron chain to demonstrate how loosely it was tied, and rattled it dismissively. «You think this is enough to hold me down? You should know I studied under