Raft

by Stephen Baxter

  Gover seemed to sense his doubt; his fear seemed to evaporate, and his posture adjusted subtly, became more aggressive. "Come on, mine rat." He stepped toward Rees.

  Rees groaned inwardly. He didn't have time for this. Come on, think; hadn't he learned anything on his journey? How would a Boney handle this? He remembered the whale-spears lancing through the air with deadly accuracy—

  "Watch it, Gover," someone called. "He's got a weapon."

  Rees found the half-bottle still in his hand... and an idea blossomed. "What, this? All right, Gover — hand to hand. Just you and me." He closed his eyes, felt the pull of the Raft and Platform play on the gravitational sense embedded in his stomach — then he hurled the glass as hard as he could, not quite vertically. It sparkled through the starlit air.

  Gover showed his teeth; they were even and brown.

  Rees stepped forward. Time seemed to slow, and the world around him froze; the only motion was the twinkling of the glass in the air above him. Everything became bright and vivid, as if illuminated by some powerful lantern within his eyes. Detail overwhelmed him, sharp and gritty: he counted the beads of sweat on Gover's brow, saw how the apprentice's nostrils flared white as he breathed. Rees's throat tightened and he felt the blood pump in his neck; and all the while the half-bottle, small and graceful, was orbiting perfectly through the complex gravitational field...

  Until, at last, it dipped back toward the deck. And slammed into Gover's back.

  Gover went down howling. For some seconds he writhed on the deck, the blood pooling over the metal around him. Then, at last, he was still, and the blood ceased to flow.

  For long moments nobody moved, Decker, Pallis and the rest forming a shocked tableau.

  Rees knelt. Gover's back had been transformed into a mash of blood and torn cloth. Rees forced his hands into the wound and dug out the glass, then he stood holding aloft the grisly trophy, Gover's blood trickling down his arm.

  Decker scratched his head. "By the Bones..." He half-laughed.

  Rees felt a cold, hard anger course through him. "I know what you're thinking," he told Decker quietly. "You don't expect the likes of me to fight dirty. I cheated; I didn't follow the rules. Right?"

  Decker nodded uncertainly.

  "Well, this isn't a bloody game!" Rees screamed, spraying Decker's face with spittle. "I wasn't going to let this fool kill me, not before I make you hear what I've got to say.

  "Decker, you'll destroy me if you want to. But if you want any chance of saving your people you'll hear me out." He brandished the glass in Decker's face. "Has this earned me the right to be heard? Has it?"

  Decker's mask of scars was impassive. He said quietly, "You'd better take this one home, tree-pilot. Get him cleaned up." With one last, narrow glare, he turned away.

  Rees dropped the glass. Abruptly his fatigue crashed down. The deck seemed to quiver, and now it was rising to meet his face—

  Arms around his shoulders and waist. He raised his head wearily. "Pallis. Thanks... I had to do it, you see. You understand that, don't you?"

  The tree-pilot would not meet his eyes; he stared at Rees's bloody hands and shuddered.

  12

  THE BELT WAS A SHABBY TOY hanging in the air above Pallis. Two plate craft hovered between Pallis's tree and the Belt; every few minutes they emitted puffs of steam and spurted a few yards through the clouds. Miners glared down from the craft across the intervening yards at the tree.

  The craft were motes of iron in a vast pit of red-lit air. But, Pallis reflected with a sigh, they marked a wall as solid as any of wood or metal. He stood by the trunk of his tree and stared up at the sentries, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. "Well, it's no use hanging about here," he said. "We'll have to go in."

  Jaen's broad face was smudged with soot from the fire bowls. "Pallis, you're crazy. They're obviously not going to let us past." She waved a muscular arm at the miners. "The Raft and the Belt are at war, for goodness' sake!"

  "The trouble with having you Science rejects as apprentice woodsmen is that you argue at every damn thing. Why the hell can't you just do as you're told?"

  Jaen's broad face split into a grin. "Would you rather have Gover back, pilot? You shouldn't complain if the revolution's brought you such a high caliber of staff."

  Pallis straightened up and dusted off his hands. "All right, high caliber; we need to work. Let's get these bowls stoked."

  She frowned. "You're serious? We're going on?"

  "You heard what Rees said... What we have to tell these miners is possibly the most important news since the Ship arrived in the Nebula in the first place. And we're going to make those damn miners listen whether they like it or not. If that means we let them blast us out of the sky, then we accept it. And another tree will come, and that will be destroyed too; and then another, and another, until finally these damn fool mine rats work out that we really do want to talk to them."

  Throughout his awkward speech Jaen had kept her head down, fiddling with the kindling in a fire bowl; now she looked up. "I suppose you're right." She bit her lip. "I just wish—"

  "What?"

  "I just wish it wasn't Rees who had come back from the dead to save the human race. That little mine rat was pompous enough as he was..."

  Pallis laughed. "Fill your bowl, apprentice."

  Jaen set to work. Pallis took a silent pleasure in working with her. She was a good woodsman, fast and efficient; somehow she knew what to do without being told, and without getting in his damn way...

  The blanket of smoke gathered beneath the platform of foliage. The tree rotated faster and surged up at the Belt, the air rushing through its foliage evoking sharp, homely scents in Pallis's nostrils. The sentry craft were immobile shadows against the red sky. Pallis braced his legs against the trunk of his tree, the strength of the wood a comforting base below him, and cupped his hands to his mouth. "Miners!"

  Faces scowled over the rim of each craft. Pallis, squinting, could make out weapons held ready: spears, knives, clubs.

  He held his hands wide. "We come in peace! You can see that, for the love of the Bones. What do you think I've got, an armada tucked under my branches?"

  Now a miner called down. "Piss off home, woodsman, before you get yourself killed."

  He felt a slow anger suffuse his scars. "My name is Pallis, and I'm not about to piss off anywhere. I've got news that will affect every man, woman and child on the Belt. And you're going to let me deliver it!"

  The miner scratched his head suspiciously. "What news?"

  "Let us through and I'll tell you. It comes from one of your own. Rees—"

  The miners conferred with each other; then the spokesman turned back to Pallis. "You're lying. Rees is dead."

  Pallis laughed. "No, he isn't; and his story is what my news is all about—"

  With shocking suddenness a spear arced over the rim of the plate. He called a sharp warning to Jaen; the spear slid through the foliage and dwindled into the depths of the Nebula.

  Pallis stood, hands on hips, and glared up at the miners. "You're lousy listeners, aren't you?"

  "Woodsman, we're starving here because of Raft greed. And good men are dying trying to put that right—"

  "Let them die! No one asked them to attack the Raft!" Jaen roared.

  "Shut up, Jaen," Pallis hissed.

  She snorted. "Look, pilot, those bastards are armed and we aren't. They're obviously not listening to a damn word we say. If we try to get any closer they'll probably just torch the tree with their jets. There's no point in suicide, is there? We'll just have to find another way."

  He rubbed his beard. "But there is no other way. We have to talk to them." And, without letting himself think about it, he reached out with one foot and kicked over the nearest fire bowl. The kindling spilled out, smoking, and soon tiny flames were licking at the foliage.

  Jaen stared, motionless, for perhaps five seconds; then she broke into a flurry of motion. "Pallis, what the hell — I'll get the blankets—"r />
  He wrapped her forearm in one massive hand. "No, Jaen. Let it burn."

  She stared into his face, her expression blank and uncomprehending.

  The flames spread like living things. Above them the miners stared down, evidently baffled.

  Pallis found he had to lick his lips before he could speak. "The foliage is very dry, you see. It's a consequence of the failing of the Nebula. The air is too arid; and the spectrum of starlight now isn't suitable for photosynthesis in the leaves..."

  "Pallis," Jaen said firmly, "stop babbling."

  "...Yes. I'm gambling they'll pick us up. It's the only choice." He forced himself to study the blackened and twisting wood, the scorched leaves blowing in the air.

  Jaen touched his scarred cheek; her fingertips came away damp. "This is really hurting you, isn't it?"

  He laughed painfully. "Jaen, it's taking all my willpower to keep from the blankets." Suddenly anger coursed through his grief. "You know, of all the lousy, terrible things human beings do in this universe, this is the worst. People can do what they like to each other and I'll turn away; but now I'm forced to destroy one of my own trees..."

  "You can let go of my arm."

  "What?" Surprised, he glanced down to find he still gripped her forearm. He released it. "I'm sorry."

  She rubbed her flesh ruefully. "I understand, tree-pilot; I won't try to stop you." She held out her hand. With gratitude he took it, gently this time.

  The platform lurched, making them both stumble. The flames at the heart of the blaze now stood taller than Pallis. "It's happening fast," he murmured.

  "Yes. Do you think we should grab hold of some supply pods?"

  The thought made him laugh out loud. "What, so we can take light snacks on our way down to the Core?"

  "OK, stupid idea. Not as stupid as setting fire to the bloody tree, though."

  "Maybe you've a point."

  A complete section of the rim gave way now, disappearing in a shower of burning embers; truncated branches burned like fat candles. "I think it's time," Pallis said.

  Jaen peered about. "I guess the best strategy is to run to the rim and jump for it. Get as much speed as we can, and hope that that plus the rotation of the tree will take us far enough from all this debris."

  "OK."

  They looked into each other's eyes — and Pallis's feet were pumping over the crisp foliage; the rim approached and he fought the instincts of a lifetime to stop and then the rim was under his feet and—

  —and he was sailing through the empty, bottomless air, his hand still locked to Jaen's.

  It was almost exhilarating.

  They tumbled, their flight slowing rapidly in the smoky air, and Pallis found himself hanging in the sky, feet toward the Belt, Jaen to his right, the tree before him.

  The tree rim was a girdle of fire. Smoke billowed from the mass of foliage packed into the platform. With cracks like explosions the shaped branches failed and whole sectors of the disc, soaked in flame, came away with great rustles of sparks. Soon only the trunk remained, a gnarled remnant ringed by the stumps of its branches.

  At last the disintegrated tree fell away into the sky, and Pallis and Jaen were left, hands still locked, hanging in a void.

  The miners were nowhere to be seen.

  Pallis looked at Jaen, oddly embarrassed. What, he wondered, should they talk about? "You know, Raft children grow up with a fear of falling," he said. "I guess the flat, steady surface beneath their feet gets taken for granted. They forget that the Raft is no more than a leaf hovering in the air... nothing like as substantial as those huge, impossible planets in that other universe you Scientists tell us about.

  "But Belt children grow up on a tatty string of boxes circling a shrunken star. They have no safe plane to stand on. And their fear now wouldn't be of falling, but of having nothing to hang on to..."

  Jaen pushed her hair back from her broad face. "Pallis, are you frightened?"

  He thought it over. "No. I don't suppose I am. I was more frightened before I kicked the bloody fire bowl over."

  She shrugged, a mid-air gesture that made her body rock. "I don't seem to be either. I only regret your gamble didn't pay off—"

  "Well, it was worth a try."

  "—And I'd love to know how it all works out in the end..."

  "How long do you think we'll last?"

  "Maybe days. We should have brought food pallets. But at least we'll get to see some sights — Pallis!" Her eyes widened with shock; she let go of Pallis's hand and began to make scrambling, swimming motions, as if trying to crawl up through the air.

  Pallis, startled, looked down.

  The hard surface of a mine sentry craft was flying up toward him; two miners clung to a net cast over the metal. The iron rushed at him like a wall—

  * * *

  There was a taste of blood in his mouth.

  Pallis opened his eyes. He was on his back, evidently on the mine craft; he could feel the knots of the netting through his shirt. He tried to sit up — and wasn't totally surprised to find his wrists and ankles bound to the net. He relaxed, trying to present no threat.

  A broad, bearded face loomed over him. "This one's all right, Jame; he landed on his head."

  "Thanks a lot," Pallis snapped. "Where's Jaen?"

  "I'm here," she called, out of his sight.

  "Are you OK?"

  "I would be if these morons would let me sit up."

  Pallis laughed — and winced as pain lanced through his mouth and cheeks. Evidently he would have a few new scars to add to his collection. Now a second face appeared, upside down from Pallis's point of view. Palis squinted. "I remember you. I thought I recognized the name. Jame, from the Quartermaster's."

  "Hello, Pallis," the barman said gloomily.

  "Still watering your ale, barman?"

  Jame scowled. "You took a hell of a chance, tree-pilot. We should have let you drop..."

  "But you didn't." Pallis smiled and relaxed.

  * * *

  During the short journey with the miners to the Belt Pallis remembered his wonder on hearing Rees's tale for the first time. In his role as a friend of the returned exile, he had sat with Rees, Decker and Hollerbach in the old Scientist's office, eyes transfixed by the simple hand movements Rees used to emphasize aspects of his adventures.

  It was so fantastic, the stuff of legends: the Boneys, the hollow world, the whale, the song... but Rees's tone was dry, factual and utterly convincing, and he had responded to all Hollerbach's questions with poise.

  At last Rees reached his description of the whales' great migration. "But of course," Hollerbach breathed. "Hah! It's so obvious." And he banged his old fist into his desk top.

  Decker jumped, startled out of his enthrallment. "You silly old fart," he growled. "What's obvious?"

  "So many pieces fit into place. Internebular migrations...! Of course; we should have deduced it." Hollerbach got out of his chair and began to pace the room, thumping a bony fist into the palm of his hand.

  "Enough histrionics, Scientist," Decker said. "Explain yourself."

  "First of all, the whales' songs: these old speculations which our hero has now confirmed. Tell me this: why should the whales have such sizeable brains, such significant intelligence, such sophisticated communication? If you think it through they're basically just grazing creatures, and — by virtue of their sheer size — they are reasonably immune from the attentions of predators, as Rees testifies. Surely they need do little more than cruise through the atmosphere, munching airborne tidbits, needing barely more sense than, say, a tree — avoid this shadow, swim around that gravity well..."

  Pallis rubbed the bridge of his nose. "But a tree would never fly into the Core — not by choice anyway. Is that what you're saying?"

  "Exactly, tree-pilot. To submit oneself to such a regime of tidal stress and hazardous radiation clearly calls for a higher brain function, a far-sighted imperative to override the more elemental instincts, a high degree of communi
cation — telepathic, perhaps — so that the correct behavior may be instilled in each generation."

  Rees smiled. "Also a whale needs to select its trajectory around the Core quite precisely."

  "Of course, of course."

  Decker's face was a cloud of baffled anger. "Wait... Let's take it one step at a time." He scratched his beard. "What advantage do the whales gain by diving into the Core? Don't they just get trapped down there?"

  "Not if they get the trajectory right," said Hollerbach, a little impatiently. "That's the whole point... Do you see? It's a gravitational slingshot." He held up a gaunt fist, mimed rotation by twisting it. "Here's the Core, spinning away. And—" The other hand was held flat; it swooped in toward the Core. "Here comes a whale." The model whale swooped past the Core, not quite touching, its hyperbolic path twisting in the same direction as the Core's rotation. "For a brief interval whale and Core are coupled by gravity. The whale picks up a little of the Core's angular momentum... It actually gains some energy from its encounter with the Core."

  Pallis shook his head. "I'm glad I don't have to do that every time I fly a tree."

  "It's quite elementary. After all, the whales manage it... And the reason they go through all this is to pick up enough energy to reach the Nebula's escape velocity."

  Decker thumped a fist onto the desk top. "Enough of your babbling. What is the relevance of all this?"

  Hollerbach sighed; his fingers reached for the bridge of his nose, searching for long-vanished spectacles. "The relevance is this. By reaching escape velocity the whales can leave the Nebula."

  "They migrate," Rees said eagerly. "They travel to another nebula... A new one, with plenty of fresh stars, and a blue sky."

  "We're talking about a grand transmission of life among the nebulae," Hollerbach said. "No doubt the whales aren't the only species which swim between the clouds... but even if they were they would probably carry across enough spores and seedlings in their digestive systems to allow life to gain a new foothold."

  "It's all very exciting." Rees seemed almost intoxicated. "You see, the fact of migration solves another long-standing puzzle: the origin of life here. The Nebula is only a few million shifts old. There simply hasn't been time for life to evolve here in anything like the fashion we understand it did so on Earth."