New Writings in SF 21 by John Carnell (ed.)

Author:John Carnell (ed.) [Carnell, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Short Story Collection, Science Fiction
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

TANGLED WEB

by

H. A. Hargreaves

Being Spiritual Advisor to a mixed group of nationalities in a closed Arctic environment was no sinecure for the newly appointed chaplain, especially when each faction was against every other and all united against him. He could not even bury the dead properly because of Union regulations…

TANGLED WEB

The perspective was rather surrealistic. From the edge of the apron a few yards ahead of him, an intricate web of plastic pipe, conduit and cable stretched outward across the permafrost to the perimeter of the townsite. It was bounded on one side by a finished subdivision and on the other by the two hundred foot razorback ridge thrusting up at right angles to the river. Arching overhead was a maze of temporary lattice, from which this service hardware was suspended and high above that was the infinitely more complex, invisible web of SAC, endlessly whispering to the Arctic sky. Some wag, he thought, must surely have worked out a name later to suit those initials. Supersonic Air Carapace, indeed! Well, it was a sac after all, meshed above and below to protect man from this hostile environment. Or were they still deceiving themselves? A Closed Environment set into the Arctic Protected Environment. Wasn’t it Isaiah who had said, “The earth lies polluted under its inhabitants?”

He slouched against an untidy pile of wooden crating and watched while a spindly monster rolled slowly forward with high-pitched whine, trailing cable like some futuristic umbilical cord. As two men handed up bags from the side-bed, two more emptied them into the cooker and the operator lowered the long, wide-mouthed blower over the edge of the apron to lay a steady stream of foam. Three feet of Schlagge foam, the perfect insulator, shielding the permafrost, embedding the service hardware, making a grey-white, supertough floor for the last subdivision of Tundra City. Walls too, eventually, for the homes in which the final one hundred and fifty families would live. But at least the interiors would have colourful laminates, a vital addition. He looked outward from under the latticework, through the SAC shimmer, across the reach of rivermouth towards Welcome Sound and shivered slightly as his eyes strained to find where grey-white met white-grey in the fine haze of lifted snow.

Even where he stood, a few droplets sifted on to his silver hair, indicating that the new section of SAC was not completely meshed yet. He straightened his gaunt frame slowly, forcing ageing joints to measure his full six-foot-five. Flicking spray from his lowered hood he turned away from the construction area, where already men were dismantling the first section of lattice, stopping only to pull off a gauntlet and run his hand over the wood he had leaned against. When had he last felt real wood, he wondered; even rough scrap like this ? Crating. The extravagance of it made him painfully aware again that he was an alien here. The machines had been cradled in this, carried by tractor train on the ice of

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