Xeelee: An Omnibus: Raft, Timelike Infinity, Flux, Ring Read Online Free
Author: Stephen Baxter
Tags: Science-Fiction, Science Fiction & Fantasy, post apocalyptic
and so making it accessible to humans. Finally the oxygen-laden air of the Nebula had worked on the shining iron, coating it with a patina of brown oxide.
The star kernel was probably cold all the way to its centre by now, but Rees liked to imagine he could feel a faint glow of heat from the surface, the last ghost of star fire—
The silence was lanced through by a whine, far above him. Something glittering raced down through the air and hit the rust with a small impact a yard from Rees’s chair. It left a fresh crater a half-inch across; a wisp of steam struggled to rise against the star pull.
Now more of the little missiles fizzed through the air; the star rang with impacts.
Rain. Metamorphosed by its fall through a five-gee gravity well into a hail of steaming bullets.
Rees cursed and reached for his control panel. The chair rolled forward, each bump and valley in the landscape jarring the breath from him. He was a few yards still from the nearest entrance to the mine works. How could he have been so careless as to descend to the surface - alone - when there was danger of rain? The shower thickened, slamming into the surface all around him. He cringed, pinned to his chair, waiting for the shower to reach his head and exposed arms.
The mouth of the mine works was a long rectangle cut in the rust. His chair rolled with agonizing slowness down a shallow slope into the depths of the star. At last the roof of the works was sliding over his head; the rain, safely excluded, spanged into the rust.
After pausing for a few minutes to allow his rattling heart to rest, Rees rolled on down the shallow, curving slope; Nebula light faded, to be replaced by the white glow of a chain of well-spaced lamps. Rees peered up at them as he passed. No one knew how the fist-sized globes worked. Apparently the lamps had glowed here unattended for centuries - most of them, anyway; here and there the chain was broken by the dimness of a failed lamp. Rees passed through the pools of darkness with a shudder; typically his mind raced through the years to a future in which miners would have to function without the ancient lamps.
After fifty yards of passageway - a third of the way around the circumference of the star - the light of the Nebula and the noise of the rain had disappeared. He reached a wide, cylindrical chamber, its roof about ten yards beneath the surface of the star. Rust-free walls gleamed in the lamplight. This was the entrance to the mine proper; the walls of the chamber were broken by the mouths of five circular passageways which led on into the heart of the star. The Moles - the digging machines - cut and refined the iron in the passageways, returning it in manageable nodules to the surface.
The real function of humans down here was to supplement the limited decision-making capabilities of the digging machines - to adjust their quota, perhaps, or to direct the gouging of fresh passageways around broken-down wheelchairs. Few people were capable of more . . . although some miners, like Roch, were full of drunken stories about their prowess under the extreme gravity conditions.
From one passageway came a grumbling, scraping sound. Rees turned the chair. After some minutes a blunt prow nosed into the light of the chamber, and - with painful slowness - one of the machines the miners called Moles worked its way over the lip of the tunnel.
The Mole was a cylinder of dull metal, some five yards long. It moved on six fat wheels. The prow of the Mole was studded with a series of cutting devices and with hand-like claws which worked the star iron. The machine’s back bore a wide pannier containing several nodules of freshly cut iron.
Rees snapped: ‘Status!’
The Mole rolled to a halt. It replied, as it always replied, ‘Massive sensor dysfunction.’ Its voice was thin and flat, and emanated from somewhere within its scuffed body.
Rees often imagined that if he knew what lay behind that brief report he would understand much of
The star kernel was probably cold all the way to its centre by now, but Rees liked to imagine he could feel a faint glow of heat from the surface, the last ghost of star fire—
The silence was lanced through by a whine, far above him. Something glittering raced down through the air and hit the rust with a small impact a yard from Rees’s chair. It left a fresh crater a half-inch across; a wisp of steam struggled to rise against the star pull.
Now more of the little missiles fizzed through the air; the star rang with impacts.
Rain. Metamorphosed by its fall through a five-gee gravity well into a hail of steaming bullets.
Rees cursed and reached for his control panel. The chair rolled forward, each bump and valley in the landscape jarring the breath from him. He was a few yards still from the nearest entrance to the mine works. How could he have been so careless as to descend to the surface - alone - when there was danger of rain? The shower thickened, slamming into the surface all around him. He cringed, pinned to his chair, waiting for the shower to reach his head and exposed arms.
The mouth of the mine works was a long rectangle cut in the rust. His chair rolled with agonizing slowness down a shallow slope into the depths of the star. At last the roof of the works was sliding over his head; the rain, safely excluded, spanged into the rust.
After pausing for a few minutes to allow his rattling heart to rest, Rees rolled on down the shallow, curving slope; Nebula light faded, to be replaced by the white glow of a chain of well-spaced lamps. Rees peered up at them as he passed. No one knew how the fist-sized globes worked. Apparently the lamps had glowed here unattended for centuries - most of them, anyway; here and there the chain was broken by the dimness of a failed lamp. Rees passed through the pools of darkness with a shudder; typically his mind raced through the years to a future in which miners would have to function without the ancient lamps.
After fifty yards of passageway - a third of the way around the circumference of the star - the light of the Nebula and the noise of the rain had disappeared. He reached a wide, cylindrical chamber, its roof about ten yards beneath the surface of the star. Rust-free walls gleamed in the lamplight. This was the entrance to the mine proper; the walls of the chamber were broken by the mouths of five circular passageways which led on into the heart of the star. The Moles - the digging machines - cut and refined the iron in the passageways, returning it in manageable nodules to the surface.
The real function of humans down here was to supplement the limited decision-making capabilities of the digging machines - to adjust their quota, perhaps, or to direct the gouging of fresh passageways around broken-down wheelchairs. Few people were capable of more . . . although some miners, like Roch, were full of drunken stories about their prowess under the extreme gravity conditions.
From one passageway came a grumbling, scraping sound. Rees turned the chair. After some minutes a blunt prow nosed into the light of the chamber, and - with painful slowness - one of the machines the miners called Moles worked its way over the lip of the tunnel.
The Mole was a cylinder of dull metal, some five yards long. It moved on six fat wheels. The prow of the Mole was studded with a series of cutting devices and with hand-like claws which worked the star iron. The machine’s back bore a wide pannier containing several nodules of freshly cut iron.
Rees snapped: ‘Status!’
The Mole rolled to a halt. It replied, as it always replied, ‘Massive sensor dysfunction.’ Its voice was thin and flat, and emanated from somewhere within its scuffed body.
Rees often imagined that if he knew what lay behind that brief report he would understand much of
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