Between the Strokes of Night by Charles Sheffield

Author:Charles Sheffield [Sheffield, Charles]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, pdf
Tags: sf_space
ISBN: 0743488245
Publisher: Baen
Published: 2004-07-26T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Olivia Ferranti blinked her eyes. The texture of the illumination seemed a little different, not quite the way that she remembered it before she last went to S-space; and her body was light, floating away, as though she was leaving part of her on the padded floor or the container.

She shivered and slowly sat up, rubbing at her chilled forearms; then she suddenly jerked to full wakefulness. She was being observed. Five faces were peering in warily at her through the transparent top of the suspense tank. She pulled herself forward to the casket’s door and eased it open. Peron was standing there, nervously watching.

“You read our message?” he said.

“Of course we did — you were watching us, weren’t you?”

He nodded. “We told you to send someone at once. But it seemed to take you an awful long time.”

Olivia Ferranti was breathing deeply, adjusting to the familiar but surprising taste of the air in her lungs. She shrugged her shoulders, as much for muscular experiment as for any body message.

“Four days — four days here. But we only talked for a few minutes in S-space. I call that a fast response.” She looked around her, at Peron and the others. “Relax. I was only sent here to talk. What do you think I’m going to do, knock the lot of you down and tie you up? Any one of you could beat me in a fight. You’re the Planetfest winners, remember?”

“We remember,” said Peron. “We just want to be sure that you do. You and the others. Why are you here, and not Rinker?”

“He made the transition very recently, just a couple of hours ago, when the automatic systems were going wrong. Transitions too close together have bad effects. In fact, frequent transitions shorten subjective life expectancy. And he doesn’t trust you, either.”

She licked her lips. “I guess he thinks I’m more expendable. Look, I know you’re in a hurry to talk, but I’d like a drink of water.”

Peron glanced briefly at the others, then led the way back through the winding corridor, taking them once more to the central food processing chamber of the ship.

“He didn’t really want anybody to talk to you,” said Ferranti as they moved along the corridor. “But he agreed that there was no choice. ‘They’ll be like a band of wild apes,’ he said. ‘Fiddling around with my ship! They don’t know how anything works — my God, there’s no way of knowing what they may do to it and to us!’ “

She looked around her at the intent young faces that closely watched her every movement. “I must say that I have to agree with him. I’m sure you’re feeling pretty cocky at the moment, with everything under control. But you could kill this ship by pure accident. It’s frightening — you’re smart, but there are so many things you simply don’t know.”

“So why don’t you tell us some of them?” Sy asked in a surly voice. “You’ll find we’re all quick learners.

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