Redline the Stars by Andre Norton; P. M. Griffin

Author:Andre Norton; P. M. Griffin
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Space ships, Fiction - Science Fiction, Science Fiction, Science Fiction & Fantasy, Science Fiction - General, Fiction, Fantasy, Solar Queen (Imaginary space vehicle), &WORKING, General
ISBN: 9780812519860
Publisher: Tor Books
Published: 2010-01-22T07:50:26+00:00

24

The off-worlders’ hearts pounded fast and painfully as they continued to make their way along the short stretch that still separated them from the sea and the site of the great explosion itself. If things were so bad here, what combination of the Federation’s hells would they find when they reached the source of all this chaos? Would they find anything, living or dead, whole or shattered, there at all?

Rael’s gloomy words proved accurate, and they encountered only the dead on the little length that remained of the ruined street.

They reached its end at last. Both paused, steeling themselves to face the horrors they knew lay beyond, then they passed between the final segments of the great mounds of rubble that confined them on each side.

There, they froze. Before them lay the Straight and the remains of what had been Canuche Town’s bustling docks.

Now little among these splinters indicated what had once stood here.

The Regina Man’s and the pier at which she had been loading were simply gone. Debris-littered water occupied the place where they had been. Of those who had been battling the fire, there was no sign, nor would there ever be for most of them. They had been atomized under the double impact of blast wave and blast wind, whose force at the point of their sudden creation could well have reached 2,400 miles per hour or more.

Bodies in plenty lay farther back, between their vantage point and the place where the Man’s had been. All were grossly damaged by the forces generated by the explosion itself, by fire, or from having been thrown at high velocity and great force against ruthlessly unyielding surfaces. They had died, all of them, before flying debris or collapsing structures could pose any threat to them. They would have to be examined all the same, but that was merely an exercise in humanity with no hope of reward.

Rael shuddered. The loss of life would have been immeasurably worse had they not succeeded in driving most of the spectators off the pier when they had, but what they found here was still purely the stuff of nightmare.

She wrenched her eyes away from the slaughter at her feet. The havoc that had rent the land had not spared the sea. Water and shoreline were dotted with the wrecks of boats that had gathered too near in their interest in the fire.

Most had been ripped apart, but a few had only been blown ashore or now silently rode the wavelets, crewless but otherwise apparently unhurt. The Salty Sue, the only big vessel berthed close to the Man’s, had, like those smaller ghost ships, survived surprisingly well. A transport-sized hole had been blown in her prow, and she herself had been more than half beached, but she remained a recognizable entity that could be repaired and put back to work again.

For the first time, the spacers got a good look at the slopes, both above them and on the opposite side of the harbor. Neither shore had been spared, though the nearer, of course, had taken infinitely harder punishment.

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