Skye Object 3270a Read Online Free PDF Page B

Kheth’s light. Only a few stars were visible within the faint, milky wash of the nebula. The distant, ruined swan burster was a black circle drawn against that luminous sky.
    She found the stairs behind a stand of dwarf banana trees. They rose in a single, narrow flight to a flat roof. She craned her neck, straining to see what might be up there, but all she could make out was a railing like the one that ringed the balcony. On the stairs, the footlights were dull red, dimming steadily with each step.
    Well.
    Skye drew in a deep breath of the flower-scented air. Then she straightened her shoulders and cautiously mounted the stairs. Halfway up, she paused again. Now she could just see the rooftop. It was fully encircled by the railing. No plants grew there. Skye saw only a single shadowy figure, hunched in a chair, peering intently into the eyepiece of a telescope longer than her arm.
    â€œHello,” Skye said softly. “M. Hand?”
    â€œCome quickly, you’ve almost missed it.”
    The figure at the telescope neither looked at her, nor sat up. His left hand though, circled in a gesture that clearly said Come here . Skye looked around for Ord, but the little robot had disappeared into the shadows. So she swallowed her misgivings and went to join the astronomer, telling herself that real people were supposed to be eccentric, and that M. Hand could be expected to be especially odd, as he must be among the oldest of the old to own such a fine apartment.
    As she drew near, the astronomer slid gracefully out of his chair. Skye tried to get a look at his face, but it was very dark here, high above the city. When he bent to check the telescope’s mount, long, light-colored hair slipped in loops across his cheek. “Quickly,” he said. “Sit down and look. It’ll pass out of sight soon.”
    Skye sat. She leaned forward, careful not to touch the telescope. It perched on the railing with bird-feet, its barrel pointed close to the horizon. She squirmed a little to get just the right position. Then she looked through the eye piece.
    She gasped.
    The field of view was bisected by a line of bright, sparkling objects. She counted six, eight, twelve spots of jewel-like light. “What is this? I never saw a line of stars like that. They look so close and bright.”
    â€œStars?” He sounded puzzled. “That’s the construction zoo.”
    She sat up abruptly, squinting along the top of the telescope, trying to see the speckles with her own eyes. There . A thumb’s length above the horizon. She could just make them out, if she didn’t look directly at them. They appeared to be below the city, dropping toward the dark rim of Deception Well.
    The construction zoo was a site in an extremely high orbit, farther out than the end of the elevator cable, where a great ship was being slowly fabricated. The ship-building had begun only five years ago, and it would be many years more before it was completed. For now the great ship existed as separate pieces growing slowly larger as raw materials were carried up the elevator column.
    Also to be found in the construction zoo was a habitat for the small work crew, along with several gigantic tentacled lydra, the “construction beasts,” that did most of the assembly. Somewhere among all those other things was the lifeboat in which Skye first arrived, for city authority had decided it should be stored in the zoo.
    She looked through the telescope again, studying the beautiful line of objects for a few seconds more. Then she turned to M. Hand, not trying to disguise her disappointment. “It all looks so small. I thought you’d be able to see so much more. How did you ever track that fragment of the swan burster?”
    â€œOh. Well not with this instrument. This is just a little hobby telescope I . . . I built it when I was twelve. The city’s two primary telescopes are both in orbit.”
    So this was an antique