Starclimber (27 page)

Tobias chuckled, watching the etherians. “These two seem pretty keen on each other.”

“It’s some kind of courtship ritual!” Sir Hugh exclaimed.

I glanced at him and saw not the pompous oaf who wanted to keep Kate down, but the young, curious man who’d always loved nature and wanted to study it his whole life. His face shone.

The etherians’ flashing become fiercer and more rapid until they were swirling around one another, grazing flanks. Then, as we all watched, completely spellbound, they touched the narrow ends of their tails together and seemed to fuse, rotating as one. The combined light from their lanterns blazed as a single turquoise star.

Sir Hugh cleared his throat. “Perhaps this isn’t entirely appropriate for all present.”

“I’m quite all right, thanks,” said Kate, sounding fascinated. “I imagine the male’s fertilizing the female’s eggs right now. If it’s similar to a firefly’s cycle, the female should lay her eggs in several days. Thousands of them, if what we saw earlier’s any indication.”

Miss Karr fired off more pictures.

Round and round the two etherians slowly twirled. I quite admired their abandon.

“They seem completely oblivious to us,” said Sir Hugh. “I wouldn’t have thought they’d be willing to mate so close to alien creatures.”

“I wonder how long it takes them to grow to full size,” Kate said.

“It
would
be useful to see some intermediary forms,” Sir Hugh agreed. “Do you think perhaps there’s a larval stage involved?”

“If it follows an insect model,” Kate replied thoughtfully. “But there’s also the shark model to consider.”

“Indeed,” Sir Hugh said, and he seemed genuinely interested in her opinion. “Of course it’s too early to make any conclusions. Fascinating stuff.”

“Look, they’re separating,” said Kate.

With twin blasts from their vents, the two etherians had parted. They circled each other for a time, and then jetted off together into the depths of space. They moved so fast, they almost seemed to dissolve into the darkness.

“Did you see that?” I said. “Their speed!”

“Incredible,” said Miss Karr.

“Is possible for them to achieve enormous velocity,” said Dr. Turgenev. “Is no friction to slow acceleration.”

“They could travel between worlds,” I said. These were just the shallows. I wondered what awaited the creatures in the deeps.

“How far do you think they’ll go?” Miss Karr asked.

Kate shook her head, still staring. “I suppose they can go wherever they want. Maybe out of the solar system altogether. Imagine that. They’ve probably seen planets we don’t even know exist.”

I imagined the two etherians skimming the surface of the moon, moving so quickly that its gravity couldn’t drag them down, and then sailing onward together, toward the red planet and beyond, to colonize the shores of other worlds.

W
e were homeward bound.

Now that we’d begun our descent, we needed someone in the stern to be the ship’s eyes. Below C-Deck was a tiny lookout post, and the thick window gave a view straight down at earth. It was a funny kind of upside-down crow’s nest, to be sure, but lookout was a job I was well acquainted with, and I must admit, I liked the quiet and calm.

Two powerful floodlights were mounted on the
Starclimber
’s stern, illuminating the spidery traction arms and the astral cable that ran between their rollers like a golden thread. It stretched down toward earth, looking thinner and thinner till it disappeared into the blackness. I kept a careful watch out for etherians and their eggs.

It was night over the Pacificus, but earth’s eastern curve glowed faintly with the coming dawn. The west coast of North Americus was silhouetted like a map, and I could actually see the pinprick glimmer of cities, the brightest of all coming from Lionsgate City.

I felt a pang of yearning. I wanted home; I wanted my sky. But there was apprehension mixed up in it too. My worries felt heavy enough in zero gravity, but back on earth they’d become much, much heavier. Kate would have to return to her family, and what if she couldn’t get out of her engagement? What if she didn’t
want
to? I had a quick, sickening image of her in a wedding dress, James Sanderson grinning beside her.

The
Starclimber
began to shiver, like an airship in light turbulence. I pulled myself closer to the porthole and peered along the astral cable. It glittered in the floodlight—something I’d never noticed before. I squinted. There was something on the cable’s surface. My first thought was ice. But that was impossible. There was no water up here to freeze.

I picked up the ship’s phone. “Cruse here. There’s something on the cable.”

“We’re already slowing down,” said Tobias. “We can feel it.”

Speed was virtually impossible to discern up here. With only the distant earth as a reference point, it always seemed we were motionless. Only the pitch of the ship’s rollers told me we were moving at all—and right now, that we were decelerating from a hundred twenty aeroknots.

“Whatever it is, I think it’s getting thicker,” I said in alarm.

“We see it now too,” said Tobias.

It would take the ship about thirty seconds to come to a full stop. We were shuddering like a motorcar over gravel now. I watched the traction arms, afraid they’d get damaged. In the distance I thought I made out shadows massing around the cable. How far away I couldn’t tell. Maybe it was just one of the many illusions cast by the ghostly half-light of space. I looked away and blinked, and when I looked back there was something looming toward us.

“Stop the ship, stop her!” I yelled into the ship’s phone. “There’s something dead astern!”

Color suddenly exploded from the darkness of space, a phantasmagorical jungle lashing against the porthole. I recoiled with a cry. The ship was still moving, crashing through a dense tangle of bizarre foliage. A brittle symphony of tinkling sounded against the hull. I could scarcely see the astral cable, or the traction arms, shaking violently as they tried to keep their grip. In horror I watched as one of the arms snapped and dangled limp, buffeted by branches and tendrils. Sparkling clouds of astral dust dazzled my eyes.

Finally things stopped smashing against the ship, and I knew we’d come to a standstill. Shivering with a cold sweat, I exhaled raggedly. No alarms sounded. That was good. We hadn’t been breached. We were still airtight.

“Make way, Mr. Cruse, I’m coming down.”

It was Captain Walken, maneuvering himself into the crow’s nest beside me.

Together we stared out the porthole.

“This wasn’t here when we came up,” I said, dazed.

Bristling from the cable were all manner of strange growths. There were clumps of pink spongy material that looked like the human brain. Jutting up among them were crooked crystalline tendrils of brilliant crimson and purple, some as long as ten feet. Clinging to the cable were colonies of enormous barnacles with jagged craters. As I stared, a few gaseous bubbles emanated from them, floated up, and were quickly inhaled into the branchlets of a strange orange plant with sharp leaves angled at the sun.

Days ago there had been nothing, and now a coral reef bloomed in outer space.

“I think what we have here,” Sir Hugh told us in the B-Deck lounge, “is a remarkable colonizing event.”

Everyone had crowded down into the crow’s nest to have a look by now, and we were all discussing what was to be done. The
Starclimber
was at a standstill.

“Outer space must be teeming with microscopic life,” said Kate. “They’re drifters mainly. And we’ve given them something they’ve never had before—anchorage.”

“They seem to like it,” said Tobias.

“I wonder,” Kate mused, “if it’s the electricity in the cable, stimulating their growth.”

“Also do not forget heat,” said Dr. Turgenev. “There is significant heat loss through cable.”

“That could easily be a factor,” said Sir Hugh. “Like algae in warm water.”

“But why wasn’t any of this here when
Starclimber
came up?” Miss Karr asked. “The cable’s been here for two months, hasn’t it?”

“Yes, but is only electrified as ship travels up it,” Dr. Turgenev explained. “Ship completes circuit, you see?”

“So all this grew in a matter of days,” Kate said excitedly. “It’s remarkable!”

“I appreciate its scientific importance,” said Captain Walken. “But my chief concern is whether we can move through it. Dr. Turgenev?”

The Russian scientist shrugged. “Damaged traction arm can be repaired once we get back to earth. Remember, external rollers are supplementary grip only. As long as internal rollers function, we are fine.”

“We need to assess those internal rollers,” Shepherd said.

“Difficult,” I said. The shaft was no more than three feet across, and taken up entirely with the roller mechanics.

“We’ll need to go outside and shine some light into the cable shaft,” said the captain. “See what kind of shape they’re in.”

“The ship’s still holding on, though?” said Sir Hugh nervously.

“Yes, yes, of course,” said Dr. Turgenev. “But we are still weightless. Once gravity takes hold, we need excellent grip to make safe descent.”

This was a sobering thought. As we got closer to earth, the
Starclimber
would get heavier. It would want to accelerate and plummet.

“We’ll need to clear it all away,” said Shepherd. “Some of those barnacles on the cable look wickedly sharp.”

“How much of it is there?” Tobias asked.

“We won’t know till we go outside,” I said.

“Must we disturb it?” Kate asked, frowning.

“It depends if you want to get home, Miss de Vries,” I said. She didn’t seem to understand how serious this could be.

“We won’t get much done, floating around and swatting at the stuff,” said Shepherd. “We need some way of gripping on so we can get some leverage.”

Everyone thought about this for a moment.

“I know,” said Tobias. “The spare roller grips. You could clamp a set onto the cable, wherever you want to work, then tether it to your suit harness. That should hold you steady. Pretty easy to rig up. Half an hour, tops.”

I nodded in admiration. “That sounds good.”

“Excellent, Mr. Blanchard,” said Captain Walken. “Can you get two ready, please. Mr. Cruse and Mr. Shepherd, start your prebreathe.”

“We forget something very important,” said Dr. Turgenev suddenly. “We cannot have astralnauts touch cable.”

I looked at Tobias and let out a breath. Of course Dr. Turgenev was right. We’d be electrocuted instantly.

“I’ll radio Ground Station and ask them to shut down the current,” said Captain Walken.

“Is that wise?” asked Miss Karr.

“Our batteries can take care of the ship for six hours,” I told her. “Ground Station can turn off our power for a few hours without any problem.”

I meant to be reassuring, but I can’t say I liked the idea of our power being flicked off twenty thousand miles away. What if nothing happened when they flicked it back on?

“Can you bring back some samples, please?” Kate asked Shepherd. I noticed she didn’t ask me.

“Yes,” agreed Sir Hugh. “That would be most valuable indeed.”

“I’m sure we can manage it,” Shepherd said.

Chef Vlad poked his head out from the kitchen. “And perhaps an extra smattering of something for me. I would like very much like to try working them into a new recipe.”

Shepherd and I glided away from the
Starclimber
. Our homemade cable-gripping rigs trailed from our suits. It was now midmorning above the Pacificus. The sun was behind us and provided all the light we needed. We had an excellent view of the cable directly beneath the ship, enveloped in a coral reef in the midst of an endless black ocean.

“Seems to trail off after about fifty feet,” I said to Shepherd over my radio.

Why it had formed right here I had no idea; I was just relieved it didn’t stretch out for hundreds of miles. With little bursts from our air pistols we carefully propelled ourselves closer. It was difficult to see the cable itself, the astral vegetation was so thick and bristly. We came to a complete stop a foot or two from the outer tendrils.

“Let’s see how strong these things are,” said Shepherd.

From our tool pouches we extracted crowbars. Very lightly I tapped the end of mine against a vermillion tendril. Soundlessly a large section snapped off, twirling like a baton through space.

“Brittle,” I said.

Shepherd smashed a few tendrils. “Should be able to clear this away pretty fast,” he said confidently.

“It’s the barnacle things that worry me,” I said.

“My concern as well,” came Captain Walken’s voice from the bridge. “But first inspect the internal rollers, please.”

It seemed a shame to cut down the crystalline flora, but there was no other way to get to the ship’s stern. In ten minutes we’d cleared a path. I remembered to push a few tendrils into the small specimen pouch clipped to my belt.

“We’re at the stern,” Shepherd reported to the captain. “Could you confirm the power’s shut off?”

“The power is off, Mr. Shepherd,” said the captain. “You’re safe to make contact.”

I looked at the cable, a gold ribbon no wider than my hand. Seeing it up close, I felt a spasm of unease. This was all that kept us tethered to earth. It looked like something you could snip with a good pair of scissors.

All along its surface sparkled pale astral barnacles, some no bigger than blisters, others the size of my fist. Sea barnacles, I knew, used strong cement to fasten themselves. I hoped these ones wouldn’t be so hard to dislodge.

Holding my breath, I gripped the cable. Through my thick glove I could actually feel a faint warmth, the residue of the powerful current it had carried just moments ago.

“I’ll take a look inside the shaft,” I said.

“I’ll get started cleaning up,” said Shepherd

Using the cable as a guide, I pulled myself up to the opening and peered inside. My helmet lamp illuminated the complicated system of rollers that gripped the cable as it passed through the
Starclimber
’s center. I could properly see only the first set of rollers, since they blocked my view of those behind.

“How does it look, Mr. Cruse?” Captain Walken asked.

“I’m seeing some scoring on the treads,” I told him. “But they don’t look too bad.”

“Any cracks or tears?”

“No. There’s a bit of debris in there, ground-up astral flora, but I can’t see any broken machinery.”

“Very good, Mr. Cruse. Proceed with the cleanup.”

I turned myself around. About ten feet down, Shepherd had already clamped Tobias’s rig onto the cable and was sitting astride it, facing the ship. He was hooking the tethers from the rig to his space suit harness, front and back. The back one was a bit tricky, but he got it after a couple of tries.

It took me about five minutes to get my own rig fastened, closer to the ship. I decided to sit on the opposite side of the cable from Shepherd, so we could clear both surfaces at the same time.

I got to work with my crowbar, knocking away the spindly stuff first, then the spongy stuff, and leaving the barnacles for last. There were plenty of them.

Dr. Turgenev had promised that the cable could take all our scraping and chopping. But I still felt hesitant as I chipped away at the sloped sides of the barnacles. I didn’t want to break anything.

“These things are really glued on,” Shepherd muttered across from me. “Hang on…I think I’ve got it…“He gave a grunt as one of the barnacles shot off. “There we go,” he said with satisfaction.

I pried hard and one of mine popped off too.

“How are you two making out?” Tobias asked from the air lock.

“Good progress,” Shepherd said, which I thought was quite optimistic since there were fifty feet of barnacles to clear.

We worked away. By now I’d cleared about a foot of barnacles and noticed that the cable underneath looked strangely tarnished. Probably it was just discolored by the glue. I bent closer.

The normally smooth surface was pockmarked.

Panic bloomed within me. I stared at the cable, and a little bit of it sparkled. It took me several seconds to realize the light wasn’t coming
from
the cable but
through
it. There was a tiny pinprick hole in the astral cable, and starlight was blinking through from the other side.

“Shepherd,” I said.

“I think I can get this whole bunch off at once, Cruse,” he said.

I looked over in horror to see him with his crowbar wedged deep into a big barnacle cluster, ready to lever it up.

“Shepherd, wait!”

Too late. He brought his force down on the crowbar, and the entire colony of barnacles snapped off as one and went sailing into space.