Adventures in Space (Short stories by Chinese and English Science Fiction writers) by Patrick Parrinder

Author:Patrick Parrinder
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: flame tree press; science fiction anthology; chinese fiction; fiction in translation; aliens; first contact; space opera
Publisher: Flame Tree Publishing
Published: 2023-02-23T10:40:31+00:00

Cylinders

Ronald D. Ferguson

“Shut up, Jerry,” Rachael Watanabe says when I follow her from the weightlessness of the Red Cylinder into the open axis of the rotating Green Cylinder. “Today, I am fourteen, and I’m going by zipline to celebrate my birthday.”

Despite my advice – everything I suggest seems to make her angry – we don’t take a transition-ring elevator. Instead, we crawl along the webbing that surrounds the axis entrance to the Green Cylinder. In less than a minute, we are on the zipline platform. The platform rotates with the cylinder, but at this distance from the axis, the created gravity is negligible.

Rachael arranges a harness about her shoulders. She reaches for the zipline trolley. This is my last chance to dissuade her.

“Your mother wouldn’t approve, Rachael. Celebrate another way.”

“I want to see Earth, Jerry. I haven’t seen Earth for a year. The best view is from the central dome in the Green Cylinder.”

“Take the elevator to the cylinder surface. Walk—”

“You look like my father, Jerry, but you’re not him. I don’t have to do what you say.” Rachael fumbles with the trolley connection. “You’re not even human.”

“True.” I step forward to help her hook up. “However—”

Her harness clicks into the trolley. She engages power and the trolley pulls her along the zipline over the farmland a kilometer below.

I must protect her. Having no options, I connect to the next trolley. Moments later, I accelerate along the zipline. At the halfway point to where the Green Cylinder surface meets its base, my velocity increases sufficiently for the trolley to switch to regenerative braking.

Minutes later, a bright flash illuminates our destination. Have the solar reflectors malfunctioned?

The atmosphere alarm buzzes three times, followed by a continuing horn blast. The warning indicates at least one window has blown out.

The solar reflectors automatically shut over any broken window, but the bright flash must have been an explosion. How many windows broke? The closing reflectors should seal the leak, but what if they were damaged?

I search actionable decision branches.

How close does the zipline come to the broken windows? If the reflectors don’t close before we reach our destination, how will Rachael breathe? Will the vacuum suck her into space?

Suspended from the zipline, I can only review the decision tree. Despite my instructions to protect her, I am helpless. We ride fate to our destination.

She is a hundred meters ahead of me. I maximize my volume. “Don’t unsnap your harness when you arrive.” I’m not sure Rachael listens. Maybe I shouldn’t offer her advice: it aggravates her stubbornness.

The zipline terminates fifty meters from the window strip. Tomato plants bend toward two broken windows, and a cone of swirling air and debris targets each. The high-pitched shriek of escaping air mellows to an angry swoosh, but as the continuing horn blast indicates, the reflectors have not completely sealed.

The broken windows lie two hundred meters beyond the boundary between the window strip and the agricultural strip. They are easy to see because of the cylinder’s curvature. The window

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