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

clouds, the very air souring and failing in his lungs—
    He had to get back to the surface, the Belt, and onwards; he had to find out more. And in all his universe there was only one place he could go.
    The Raft. Somehow he had to get to the Raft.
    With a new sense of purpose, vague but burning, he turned his chair to the exit ramp.

2
    T he tree was a wheel of wood and foliage fifty yards wide. Its rotation slowing, it lowered itself reluctantly into the gravity well of the star kernel. Pallis, the tree-pilot, was hanging by hands and feet below the knotty trunk of the tree. The star kernel and its churning Belt mine were behind his back. With a critical eye he peered up through the mat of foliage at the smoke which hung raggedly over the upper branches. The layer of smoke wasn’t anywhere near thick enough: he could clearly see starlight splashing through to bathe the tree’s round leaves. He moved his hands along the nearest branch, felt the uncertain quivering of the fine blade of wood. Even here, at the root of the branches, he could feel the tree’s turbulent uncertainty. Two imperatives acted on the tree. It strove to flee the deadly gravity well of the star - but it also sought to escape the shadow of the smoke cloud, which drove it back into the well. A skilful woodsman should have the two imperatives in fine balance; the tree should hover in an unstable equilibrium at the required distance.
    Now the tree’s rotating branches bit into the air and it jerked upwards by a good yard. Pallis was almost shaken loose. A cloud of skitters came tumbling from the foliage; the tiny wheel-shaped creatures buzzed around his face and arms as they tried to regain the security of their parent.
    Damn that boy—
    With an angry, liquid movement of his arms he hauled himself through the foliage to the top side of the tree. The ragged blanket of smoke and steam hung a few yards above his head, attached tenuously to the branches by threads of smoke. The damp wood in at least half the fire bowls fixed to the branches had, he soon found, been consumed.
    And Gover, his so-called assistant, was nowhere to be seen.
    His toes wrapped around the foliage, Pallis drew himself to his full height. At fifty thousand shifts he was old by Nebula standards; but his stomach was still as flat and as hard as the trunk of one of his beloved fleet of trees, and most men would shy from the network of branch scars that covered his face, forearms and hands and flared red at moments of anger.
    And this was one of those moments.
    ‘Gover! By the Bones themselves, what do you think you are doing?’
    A thin, clever face appeared above one of the bowls near the rim of the tree. Gover shook his way out of a nest of leaves and came scurrying across the platform of foliage, a pack bouncing against his narrow back.
    Pallis stood with arms folded and biceps bunched. ‘Gover’, he said softly, ‘I’ll ask you again. What do you think you’re doing?’
    Gover shoved the back of his hand against his nose, pushing the nostrils out of shape; the hand came away glistening. ‘I’d finished,’ he mumbled.
    Pallis leant over him. Gover’s gaze slid over and away from the tree-pilot’s eyes. ‘You’re finished when I tell you so. And not before.’
    Gover said nothing.
    ‘Look—’ Pallis stabbed a finger at Gover’s pack. ‘You’re still carrying half your stock of wood. The fires are dying. And look at the state of the smoke screen. More holes than your damn vest. My tree doesn’t know whether she’s coming or going, thanks to you. Can’t you feel her shuddering?
    ‘Now, listen, Gover. I don’t care a damn for you, but I do care for my tree. You cause her any more upset and I’ll have you over the rim; if you’re lucky the Boneys’ll have you for supper, and I’ll fly her home to the Raft myself. Got that?’
    Gover hung before him, hands tugging listlessly at the ragged hem of his vest. Pallis let the moment stretch taut; then he hissed, ‘Now