Nova Read Online Free PDF Page A

Ray paused. "All of them."
    The Mouse pulled the leather strap across his shoulder and lowered the syrynx into its sack.
    "This is a race," Von Ray said. "I tell you again. Prince and Ruby Red are our opponents. There is no human law I could hold them to. And as we near the nova, the rest break down."
    The Mouse shook massed hair off his forehead. "It's going to be a changey trip, eh, Captain?" The muscles in his brown face jumped, quivered, fixed finally on a grin to hold his trembling. His hand, inside the sack, stroked the inlay on the syrynx. "A real changey trip." His woolly voice licked at the danger. "Sounds like a trip I'll be able to sing about." And licked again.
    "About this ... handful of fire we're bringing back," Lynceos began.
    "A cargo hold full." Von Ray corrected. "That's seven tons. Seven slugs of a ton each."
    Idas said: "You can't bring home seven tons of fire— "
    "— so what are we hauling, Captain?" Lynceos finished.
    The crew waited. Those standing near the crew waited.
    Von Ray reached up and kneaded his right shoulder.
    "Illyrion," he said. "And we're getting it from the source." His hand fell. "Give me your classification numbers. After that, the next time I want to see you is on the Roc an hour before dawn."
    "Take a drink— "
    The Mouse pushed the hand away and kept dancing. Music smashed over the metal chimes while red lights fled one another around the bar.
    "Take a— "
    The Mouse's hips jerked against the music, Tyy jerked against him, swinging dark hair back from a glistening shoulder. Her eyes were closed, her lips shook.
    Someone was saying to someone else: "Here, I can't drink this. Finish it for me."
    She flapped her hands, coming toward him. Then the Mouse blinked.
    Tyy was beginning to flicker.
    He blinked again.
    Then his saw Lynceos holding the syrynx in his white hands. His brother stood behind him; they were laughing. Real Tyy sat at a corner table shuffling her cards.
    "Hey," the Mouse said, and went over fast. "Look, don't fool with my ax, please. If you can play it, fine. But ask me first."
    "Yeah," Lynceos said. "You were the only one who could see it— "
    "— it was on a directional beam," said Idas. "We're sorry."
    "That's okay," the Mouse said, taking his syrynx back. He was drunk and tired. He walked out of the bar, meandered along the glowing lip of Hell3, finally to cross the bridge that led toward Stage Seventeen. The sky was black. As he ran his hand along the rail, his fingers and forearm were lit orange from beneath.
    Someone was leaning on the rail ahead of him.
    He slowed.
    Katin looked dreamily across the abyss, face devil-masked by underlight.
    At first the Mouse thought Katin was talking to himself. Then he saw the jeweled contrivance in his hand.
    "Cut into the human brain," Katin told his recorder. "Centered between cerebrum and medulla you will find a nerve cluster that resembles a human figure only centimeters high. It connects the sensory impressions originating outside the brain with the cerebral abstractions forming within. It balances the perception of the world outside with the knowledge of the world within.
    "Cut through the loose tangle of intrigues that net world to world— "
    "Hey, Katin."
    Katin glanced at him as the hot air shook up from the lava.
    "— ties star system to star system, that keeps the Sol-centered Draco sector, the Pleiades Federation, and the Outer Colonies each a single entity: you will find a whirl of diplomats, elected or self-appointed officials, honest or corrupt as their situations call for— in short, the governmental matrix that takes its shape from the worlds it represents. Its function is to respond to and balance the social, economic, and cultural pressures that shift and run through empire.
    "And if one could cut directly through a star, centered in the flaming gas would be a bole of pure nuclear matter, condensed and volatile, crushed to this state by the weight of the matter around it, spherical or oblate as the