Strata by Pratchett Terry

Author:Pratchett, Terry [Pratchett, Terry]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3, mobi
Publisher: Corgi
Published: 1981-10-17T15:06:17+00:00

She awoke when Marco gently put a bowl of soup into her hands.

He and Silver had lit a fire. Orange flames shot up and illuminated the forest leaves thirty metres away, and made the camp a circle of comforting firelight. It glittered off the dumbwaiter.

‘Who should know better than I that it is unsafe,’ said the kung, seeing the questioning look in her face, ‘but I’m human enough to say, what the hell. Silver has taken first watch. Then it’s you. Better get some more sleep.’

‘Thanks. Uh, look, Marco, about that floating island—’

‘We will not mention it. We will be over land most of the rest of the way to the hub.’

‘We may find nothing.’

‘Of course. But what is all life but a journeying towards the Centre?’

‘I’m more worried about the belt power sources. Can we be sure they’ll last out?’

‘No, but there is a built-in hysteresis effect. If the power sinks below a certain level it’ll waft you gently to the ground.’

‘Or the sea,’ said Kin.

‘Or the sea. But I know what is worrying you. It is the fear that your Company did all this. But why should they?’

‘Because we can.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘No. But we could build dragons, we could create people in the vats as easily as we breed up extinct whales. The theory is all there, but we don’t do it because of the Code. But it is possible. We could have built this disc, but no one would dare do it in home space. Out here – it’s a different matter.’

Marco looked at her sadly. ‘Silver convinced me,’ he said. ‘If I’m rational, I’m a kung. I’m glad I’m not human.’

Kin finished her soup and lay back. She felt warm and full. Marco had curled up with four Norse swords beside him, but she could dimly make out Silver sitting motionless higher up the hill. Always a comforting sight, she told herself. As long as the dumbwaiter works.

She did not dream.

Silver shook her awake before midnight. Kin yawned and staggered to her feet.

‘Anything been happening?’ she mumbled.

Silver considered. ‘I think an owl hooted about an hour ago, and there were some bats. Apart from that, it has been pretty quiet.’

Silver lay down. Within a few minutes deep snores told Kin she was on her own.

The moon was high, but still too red. The stars had taken on that deep light that always comes around midnight. Grass, heavy with dew, rustled as she walked away from the dying fire.

Even now there was still some light on the sunset rim, a green glow that just managed to delineate the boundary between disc and sky. Moths hummed past her face, and there was a smell of crushed thyme.

Later, she wondered if she had dozed on her feet. But the moon was still up and the – call it the west – was still a line of faint luminosity. Yet the music came pouring down the hillside confidently, as though it had been there all the time.

It trilled, then soared into a few bars of evocative melody.

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