Starship Summer Read Online Free Page A

miss.”
    “Neural interfaces,” I said, “for achieving integration with a shipboard matrix during hyper-light flight.”
    “So?”
    “So,” I said, “his were fused, which leads me to believe he had some kind of accident. If so, then the fact he survived is some kind of miracle. It must have been traumatising, to say the least.”
    She nodded, as if she knew more about the accident, but was reluctant to tell me.
    I finished my drink. “My first full day in Magenta Bay and I find myself surrounded by mysterious strangers.” I resisted the urge to stare at her home-made mug and cutlery as I said this, and excused myself. “My ship awaits, and I’ve a lot to sort out before sundown.”
    “See you at the viewing,” Maddie said.
    I left the veranda and walked to the starship by way of the beach, admiring its sleek lines against the afternoon sky. I contemplated the days ahead, the work I had to do aboard the Mantis to get it into shape… and I wondered if I would be spared the nightmares that had visited me every night since my arrival on the planet.

THREE
     
    Two things of note occurred the following evening. I had my worst nightmare to date, and I saw something aboard the ship. I’d spent the day decorating the lounge, what in earlier times had been the ship’s control room. I’d installed a couple of sofas and chairs, a locally woven rug and a few wall hangings and pot plants—native things that intrigued me with their alienness. I had managed to soften the hard, functional lines of the control room, make it comfortable, liveable. Then I turned my attention to the kitchen adjacent to the lounge. This I equipped with a few quickly bought utensils, a small oven and a microwave, and hung a poster I’d seen in a nearby store: it was a picture of the Column, a great golden bolt of ineffable light which rose, thick and mysterious, from the plain of the interior. In the bedroom, on the left flank of the ship with a view along the curve of the red sands, I positioned a bed and a small cabinet. I didn’t bother with decorations, as I wasn’t planning to spend that much time in there.
    I made myself a meal around eight—I’d always enjoyed the process of cooking, finding something both creative and therapeutic about conjuring good food from raw ingredients. My wife Sally had hated anything to do with the kitchen, and I had taken pleasure in cooking for the three of us. Carrie, my daughter, had helped: an abiding memory is of our working side by side before the kitchen’s big picture window overlooking the straits.
    I ate slowly in the lounge, with the viewscreens open to admit the cooling evening breeze, and drank a few local beers from the stock I’d laid in. I watched the ebb and flow of evening life; the locals promenading along the beach. I caught sight of Maddie, mooning along in the shallows, lost in a world of her own. She looked a small and lonely figure garbed incongruously in the ill-made clothing of her own design.
    As I watched, a wave-hopper skipped into the bay and a tall, dark figure dismounted and strode up the beach towards the Fighting Jackeral. I recognised Matt Sommers from a holo-doc I’d seen about him on Earth, a big, composed African-American of few words. He had either failed to notice Maddie, or purposefully ignored her. She, however, had seen him, and hurried in his wake up the beach and onto the Jackeral’s veranda. I smiled to myself and wondered about her curious aversion to tactile contact with her fellow man.
    As the sun set—Delta Pavonis is big, and Chalcedony orbits close to the swollen primary, making sunsets a blazing spectacle—I opened another beer and wondered what shape my days might take once I’d finished furnishing the ship. I would read, and take long walks, and drop into the Jackeral for an afternoon beer and a chat with whoever might be propping up the bar; I’d explore the northern continent, hire a crawler and take a look at the Falls area of the interior,