The Dark Beyond the Stars : A Novel Read Online Free PDF

fingertips. In the stern, I was awestruck by the huge water-filled pool, blue with Cherenkovradiation, that housed the ship’s Locke-Austin fusion engines. The compartment was three levels high, and I spent several minutes gawking at the nearly naked technicians, protected by their shields, hovering around the huge machinery. Then Pipit tugged at me once again, saying it was time to go. The crew’s quarters were small cubicles off the main corridors, subdivided by shadow screens into living spaces for families or singles. All of them were filled with comfortable foam furniture and magnetic tapestries that clung to the bulkheads. I wanted to stop and talk to the crew members I saw inside but Pipit shook her head, frowning.
    “There’s too much to see,” she protested.
    A number of the crewmen in the passageways wore clear plastic masks that covered their eyes and ears. I supposed they worked in the drive chamber, where the glare of the lights was almost blinding. Unlike the crewmen in the mess hall, several of them nodded and called me by name. I wondered how well I had known them and if we had ever worked together.
    One crowded passageway was filled with flickering lights, flashing signs, and colored cloth awnings at which I stared, fascinated.
    “It’s the ship’s bazaar,” Pipit said, uneasy.
    I took a closer look and decided this was where crew members traded or sold articles they no longer desired or objects they had made. I wanted to see what was for sale but Pipit clung to my arm, shaking her head.
    “You’re doing too much,” she warned. “It’s time to go back.”
    I was tired, but not that tired, and Pipit’s concern had begun to irritate me. I dodged past her down the corridor, losing myself among the awnings and the piles of goods and crowds of crewmen. But even though the shelves were piled high with bolts of cloth, musical instruments, toys, and bedding, the counters themselves were nearly bare. There wasn’t much actually for sale—two or three books of thin plastic sheets, some tiny hangings knotted from colored string, a slate similar to the ones Noah and Abel carried tucked inside their waist-cloths…
    What finally caught my eye was a bookseller’s stall. I fingered an ancient volume of poetry lying alone on the counter. The book was beautiful, the print on the plastic pages still crisp and black. I leafed quickly through it, entranced by the words that danced before my eyes.
    “How much is this?” I asked the old woman who was selling it. The shelf behind her was thick with volumes but she was only willing to part with the one thin book of poems.
    “A thousand hours,” she murmured. “I can’t read it anymore.” For the first time, I noticed the cataracts that clouded her eyes. They shouldn’t have been a problem, not considering the equipment in the infirmary.
    Pipit caught up with me and clutched my shoulder. “We should go back,” she warned again. “It’s time to go back.”
    I laughed and darted down the corridor. When I spotted a hatchway, I dove through it—and suddenly had to catch my breath. I was at the hub of what looked like a gigantic wheel slowly turning around me. Crew members stood on the distant rim, working with exercise apparatus. Handholds on the rotating bulkhead led to the rim and I grabbed at the nearest one, eager to see what the crew members were doing.
    I had no idea I would be among them so soon. I clung for a moment to my handhold; then it was torn from my grasp and I fell to the rim. I clutched at the handholds as they flashed by, breaking my fall, then flattened out on the deck at the bottom, staring up at the oblong hatchway twisting round and round far above my head.
    I now had weight and found it difficult to move. My breathing was labored and I could sense that my heart was under a strain.
    “You managed to find the gymnasium,” I heard Pipit say behind me. Then, with less sarcasm and more concern: “You ready to go back now?”
    I nodded