Shipstar Read Online Free PDF Page A

snakes were weaving now, standing on leathery, strong “arms” and straining up into the air. Their bodies seemed all ribbed muscle, eyes glittering as they glanced at each other.
    Fred said, “Maybe they’re deciding whether the risk is worth it.”
    “Worth what?” Mayra asked, her face still tight with alarm.
    “Worth going with us,” Fred said. “That’s what you meant, right, Beth?”
    “I figured there had to be a way to launch into raw space without going to the pole, the Knothole, to get the speed down. I guess there is.”
    Mayra said, “That’s what the finger snakes imply. They’re working out whether to help us do that … I think.” A wry shrug. “Not really sure.”
    Beth leaned forward, eyes still on the scenery flashing by above the perpetual night sky below. Yes, they were moving slower. Definitely. And was the grav here lighter? So they were moving toward the Knothole? “They can handle the tech for a Jump?”
    “Yes, they say. But … they say it will be hard on us. A lot of acceleration, and—”
    The snakes chattered and rattled and Mayra bowed her head, listening. “The seats will self-contour, so we will … survive.”
    “It’s that hard?” Fred asked.
    “High. We don’t have suits that baffle us against sudden surges.” Mayra shrugged. “It is not as though we could have carried them with us, all these months.” A slow sad smile.
    Beth saw she was recalling her husband, who had died when they broke out of confinement, crushed by a hideous spiderlike thing. “What else?”
    “They say there is little time to do it. As soon as we reach the next station stop, they must gain control of the shunting system. They say they can, the attendants there—mostly finger snakes—are old friends. Then they must move us into a cache that will ratchet us into a ‘departure slot’ as they call it. Then we move into line and get dispatched by an electromagnetic system. It seizes us, in a manner independent of the precise shape of this hauler … and flings us into space, along a vector counter to the Bowl’s spin.”
    Mayra had not spoken so much in a long while. Beth chose to take that as a positive sign. She was right about gear; they had little and would be forced to use whatever came to hand. The seats here were oddly shaped and not designed for humans. The finger snakes had couches to strap into. Not so the bare benches she was sitting on. Still less so for the latrine, which turned out to be a narrow cabin with holes in the floor, some of them small, others disturbingly large.
    She signed. “I know it may be uncomfortable. But it’s the only way.”
    Silence. Even the snakes had gone quiet.
    Lau Pin said, “We’re dead if we stay down here. They’ll catch us again. We escaped once; that trick won’t work again.”
    Mayra and Fred nodded. Collective decision, great.
    Beth noted the snakes watching her. They had somehow deduced that she was the nominal leader of these odd primates who strode into their lives. Maybe all smart species had some hierarchy?
    “Okay, we do it. Notice we’re slowing down?”
    Fred nodded. “Yeah, felt it.”
    Lau Pin said, “We don’t have much time. Got to hit the ground and move fast. The snakes will tell us what to do.”
    “Right, good,” Beth said. She glanced at Mayra. “And … what else?”
    “Well…” Mayra hesitated. “It’s the finger snakes. They want to come with us.”

 
    FIVE
    Redwing plucked a banana that grew in a weird toroid, peeled and ate it, its aroma bringing back memories of tropical nights and the lapping of waves. Cap’n’s privilege.
    His comm buzzed and Clare Conway said, “We’ll need you on the bridge presently.”
    “On the way.”
    Yet he hesitated. Something fretted at the back of his mind.
    Redwing had read somewhere that one of his favorite writers, Ernest Hemingway, had been asked what was the best training for a novelist. He had said “an unhappy childhood.” Redwing had enjoyed a fine