Xeelee: An Omnibus: Raft, Timelike Infinity, Flux, Ring Read Online Free PDF

the outer wall of his cabin.
    A rope had uncoiled from the tree trunk and lay across the fifty yards to the Belt, brushing against the orbiting cabins. A man came shimmering confidently down the rope; he was scarred, old and muscular, almost a piece of the tree himself. Ignoring the watching Rees the man dropped without hesitation across empty air to a cabin and began to make his way around the Belt.
    Rees clung to his cabin by one hand. The rotation of the Belt carried the cabin steadily towards the tree’s dangling rope; when it was a yard from him he grabbed at it and swarmed without hesitation off the Belt.
    As always at shift change the Quartermaster’s was crowded. Pallis waited outside, watching the Belt’s pipes and boxy cabins roll around the star kernel. At length Sheen emerged bearing two drink globes.
    They drifted to the relative privacy of a long stretch of piping and silently raised their globes. Their eyes met briefly. Pallis looked away in some confusion - then felt embarrassed at that in turn.
    To the Bones with it. The past was gone.
    He sucked at the liquor, trying not to grimace. ‘I think this stuff’s improving,’ he said at last.
    Her eyebrows arched slightly. ‘I’m sorry we can’t do better. No doubt your tastes are a little more refined.’
    He felt a sigh escape from his throat. ‘Damn it, Sheen, let’s not fence. Yes, the Raft has got a liquor machine. Yes, what comes out of it is a damn sight finer than this recycled piss. And everyone knows it. But this stuff really is a little better than it was. All right? Now, can we get on with our business?’
    She shrugged, indifferent, and sipped her drink. He studied the way the diffuse light caught in her hair, and his attraction to her once more pulled at him. Damn it, he had to grow out of this. It must be five thousand shifts since the time they’d slept together, their limbs tangling in her sleeping net as the Belt rolled silently around its star . . .
    It had been a one-off, two tired people falling together. Now, damn it to hell, it only got in the way of business. In fact he suspected the miners used her as their negotiating front with him knowing the effect she had on him. This was a tough game. And it was getting tougher . . .
    He tried to concentrate on what she was saying. ‘. . . So we’re down on production. We can’t fulfil the shipment. Gord says it will take another fifty shifts before that foundry is operational again. And that’s the way it is.’ She fell silent and stared at him defiantly.
    His eyes slid from her face and tracked reluctantly around the Belt. The ruined foundry was a scorched, crumpled wound in the chain of cabins. Briefly he allowed himself to imagine the scene in there during the accident - the walls bellying in, the ladles spilling molten iron—
    He shuddered.
    ‘I’m sorry, Sheen,’ he said slowly. ‘I truly am. But—’
    ‘But you’re not going to leave us the full fee,’ she said sourly.
    ‘Damn it, I don’t make the rules. I’ve a treeful of supplies up there; I’m ready to give you what I get back in iron, at the agreed exchange rate.’
    She hissed through clenched teeth, her eyes fixed on her drink. ‘Pallis, I hate to beg. You’ve no idea how much I hate to beg. But we need those supplies. We’ve got sewage coming out of our spigots; we’ve got sick and dying—’
    He gulped down the last of his drink. ‘Leave it, Sheen,’ he said, more harshly than he’d intended.
    She raised her head and fixed him with eyes reduced to slits. ‘You need our metal, Raft man. Don’t forget that.’
    He took a deep breath. ‘Sheen, we’ve another source. You know that. The early Crew found two star kernels in neat circular orbits around the Core—’
    She laughed quietly. ‘And you know the other mine isn’t producing any more. Is it, Pallis? We don’t know what happened to it, yet, but we’ve picked up that much. So let’s not play games.’
    Shame rose like a bubble inside him;