The Deep Dark Well Read Online Free PDF Page A

repulsion to keep Zhokov's momentum from carrying him into
contact.  Negative matter, the opposite of matter.  The material of his suit,
his skin, muscle and bones were canceled in an anticlimactic fade of several
kilograms of matter and negative matter.  Atom for atom canceled, a kilogram of
the negative matter rectangle for a kilogram of Zhokov, the cosmic ledger
balancing out. 
    The massive rectangle
shrank imperceptibly, the mouth of the wormhole following suit.  But it was
perceptible to Zhokov, as pain flooded his nervous system from the ruin of his
arm.   His forearm floated into the wormhole, as the man drifted back out into
the room, where the compression waves moved him screaming across the chamber,
air and blood jetting from the perfectly smooth opening in his suit.
    The compression waves
moved instantaneously from the wormhole, growing stronger as they radiated
outward.  Niven was designed to never approach a strong gravity source,
at least not out of free fall.  She could accel at .1 G for a very long time,
with the force along her primary axis.  She was not made to withstand a dozen
Gs of pulsating gravity waves, energies released in a manner never dreamed of
by her creators.  Her hull plates crumbled, atoms excited to the point where
the metal began to melt along the seams.  Fuel tanks, filled with water for the
most part, ruptured along their own seams, sending Niven into a hard
spin on a trajectory for interstellar space.  Girder frameworks bent and tore,
bulkheads ripped, and air was jetted in crystals to join the expanding cloud of
water around the vessel.  Several crewmen joined the stream of flotsam, helmet
less spacesuits dooming them to a quick and relatively painless death.  Those
not so lucky spun into space with helmets on and oxygen packs working, their
training serving them not so well as they screamed in agony for minutes, before
the compression waves shattered face plates and sent them on the same path as
their more fortunate brethren.  
    The shaking stopped,
and Pandi felt the pain leaving her head like a rush of water from an
overturned bucket.  It took her a moment to regain her ability to think, but
soon the enormity of the situation lay upon her.  From the sounds that had come
over the com link during the last eruption, the Niven was destroyed and
the rest of her crew dead.  No way home by that route.  Movement caught the
corner of her eye, and she turned in time to see the lifeless suit that
contained the mortal remains of Zhokov bounce from a far wall, the momentum
carrying it slowly back across the room.  How I hated the you, with your bad
breath and constant propositioning , she thought, and then he had turned out
to be the closest thing to a kindred spirit on the Niven .  Even more so
than her lover, Captain Morrison.  That thought, of Michael drifting dead
forever through the depths of space, brought a catch to her throat.
    The air was pregnant
with barely contained energies.  She didn't have time for emotions right now. 
She could deal with them later.  A silence hung over the ship that she couldn't
put into rational thought, the silence of a disaster about to happen.  That
last shock was the worst, strong enough to destroy her vessel and kill her
crew.  But even worse was waiting she knew.  For she was still alive, the
strange vessel from the future was still here with its open gate through
space-time, and the danger of a paradox still existed.  The Universe would not
allow it to exist for long.
    "Son of a
bitch," yelled Chavis over the com link.  "Son of a bitch.  They're
gone.  Zhokov's gone. What the hell are we going to do?"
    "Calm down
Chavis," she yelled back, using his own panic to pull her into the realm
of calm, trying to think her way out of this.
    "We got to get out
of here," he screamed, moving toward the still open portal.  "We got
to get out of here."
    "Wait," she
yelled, too late, as he shuffled out the door and jetted down the