Tides of Light Read Online Free PDF

funnel?”
    His stern voice dispersed them. They left, casting quickglances back at the display screen. He wanted them to see that he had not deigned even to look at the image there, but had
     tended to ship’s business first.
    They could not know that he kept his neck deliberately turned so that temptation would not slide his eyes sideways to catch
     a glimpse. He exchanged a few words with several departing officers to be sure his point was made. Then he turned, pursing
     his lips to guard against any expression of surprise that might cross his face, and stared directly into their destiny.

FIVE
    Two years before, Cap’n Killeen had flinched when he saw the ruined brown face of his home planet, Snowglade, as
Argo
lifted away.
    Now, with heady relief, he saw that the shimmering image before him did not resemble that worn husk. Near its poles small
     dabs of bluewhite nestled amid gray icecaps that spread crinkled fingers toward the waist of the world. But these features
     came to him only after a striking fact:
    “Wrong colors,” he said, startled.
    Shibo shook her head. “Not all. Ice is dark, yeasay. But middle is green, wooded—see the big lakes?”
    “Pale areas in between look dead.”
    “Not much vegetation,” Shibo conceded.
    “What could cause…?” Killeen frowned, realizing that he would need to know some planetary evolution, in addition to everything
     else.
    Shibo said, “Could be these clouds did that? Dust killed plants, dirtied up the ice, turned it gray.”
    Killeen sensed that it would not be wise to admit complete ignorance in front of Cermo, who had remained.
    “Might be. Plenty dust still around. That’s why we’re coming in at a steep angle.” Killeen studied the planet’s crescent for
     signs of human life. The nightside was utterly dark, though even if he had seen lights they might easily have been cities
     built by mechs.
    Cermo said hesitantly, “Sir, I don’t understand….”
    Normally it was a bad idea to explain the basis of your decisions to underofficers, his Ling Aspect had said. But it was also
     a good idea to train them; the days ahead would be dangerous, and if Killeen fell, his replacement would need to know many
     things.
    “These little black blotches—see them?” Killeen pointed as the scale of the viewing screen enlarged, bringing in the hot disk
     of the parent star. Beyond it, the broad, banded grins of two silvery gas giant planets hung against a speckled tapestry of
     molecular clouds. Tiny smudges freckled the image, motes that ebbed and flared from day to day.
    “This star, it’s ripped apart a passing cloud. There’s lots of these blobs in the plane of the planets.”
    Killeen paused. The three-dimensional geometry had been easy for him to see in Aspect-provided simulations, but now it was
     hard to make out in a flat grid projection like this.
    So I directed us in at a steep angle,” he said, “cutting down into that plane. That’ll avoid running into small clouds that
     we might not detect.
Argo
won’t hold up if we get blind-sided by one of those.”
    He watched fondly as Shibo’s exoskeleton whirred as her hands passed over the control boards. Its polycarbon lattice made
     swift, sure movements. For Killeen one of the manydelights of
Argo’
s slow spin was that she seldom needed her mechanical aid except for quick precision. In Snowglade’s heavy gravity she had
     used it continually just to keep up. A genetic defect had given her only normal human strength, which was much less than the
     Families’ level.
    Still, the simple sight of her made him smile. Momentarily the day’s weight lifted.
    She brought up wildly different views of the planetary system, images colored in splashes of violent reds, tawny golds, cool
     blues. Killeen knew these arose from different spectra, but could not say how. They showed grainy specks orbiting between
     the planets—small knotty condensations that hailed incessantly in toward all the stars at Galactic