Exurbia: A Novel About Caterpillars (An Infinite Triptych Book 1) by Alex McKechnie

Author:Alex McKechnie
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2015-02-01T11:00:00+00:00

23

“There are no poems left to write now, no candles left to light. You need only trace my steps and walk into the long clear day.”

- The Second Wielder

261 -

‘After the Pergrin Decree,’ Maria said, ‘Old Erde put all of its efforts into reaching the stars.’

261 twirled a strand of his hair in thought as he listened. He was used to the sensation of it on his head now.

‘And maybe, in a way, the Decree was a good thing. Instead of wireminds designing everything for them, the Old Erders had to overcome technological issues on their own. The weld drive took another two hundred years to discover, and even then it had some serious issues.’

‘Such as what, exactly?’

‘Spatial fissures. Didn’t the cave tell you any of this?’

‘The cave only ever informed me of current events, and the occasional historical item for the purposes of context.’

‘Well, I’m not an authority on the subject, Fortmann knows more about all of this, but as I understand it, welding slams two points in space together. The resulting energy release is massive, so massive in fact that it creates a dead spot wherever the craft arrived, a few light years across at least. No vacuum energy, no string matrices, nothing. It stays a dead spot forever. Nothing can fly through it. A few early expeditions tried to and never came back. As I guess you can imagine, it makes interstellar travel a pretty rare novelty.’

The cave said there were over nine hundred colonised syndicate worlds, and at least one hundred independent planets. If the weld fallout has an even radial distribution of two light years, at least, that means over forty thousand light years of fallout space across the galaxy.

‘That’s madness,’ said 261. Maria eyed him a little excitedly. She’s alarmed at me making value judgements. ‘From the syndicate’s perspective, I mean,' he added. 'It would only take ten weld jumps to a planet before the planet’s surrounding space becomes so damaged that further travel to and from is impossible.’

‘And therein lies the syndicate’s problem. A boat big enough for just one crewman creates a dead spot wider than the distance between Old Erde and its nearest star. Not bad for a ball of t’assali the size of a human head, don't you think?’

‘Madness…’ said the imp again.

‘It certainly makes maintaining an empire something of a problem, yes.’

Fortmann had been watching quietly from across the room. Now he put his legs up on the windowsill and chewed his lip.

‘Why is it madness, 261?’

This is some kind of test. There are at least three of these a day from him.

‘It seems extremely wasteful,’ said the imp.

‘And that bothers you on an emotional level?’

‘Not that I’m aware. I only mean that it seems like an extremely inefficient method of travel. What is the point in colonising a galaxy when you destroy it in the process?’

Maria was unabashedly smiling then. She believes I am cultivating a sense of ‘care’.

‘Which makes the refulgent Miss Butterworth’s appearance on Exurbia all the more bizarre,’ said Fortmann.

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