A Darker Geometry by Mark O. Martin; Gregory Benford

Author:Mark O. Martin; Gregory Benford [Martin, Mark O.; Benford, Gregory ]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science Fiction
ISBN: 0-671-87740-2
Publisher: Baen Pub. Enterprises
Published: 1996-08-31T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Five

Carol’s eyes opened, gummy and blurred. Above, blue sky. She didn’t believe it.

Carol sat up, rubbed her eyes. The view did not change.

She and Bruno were lying on a flat open area, on some thick ground cover. Like grass, though greener than any Terran grass. An unnatural green. Purplish blue sky stretched above them, speckled with delicate gossamer clouds. Carol stared in amazement, wordless.

The air smelled fresh and antiseptic, with a clean tang of ozone. A breeze touched her arms like the delicate brush of soothing fingers. It was so quiet that Carol could hear her heart beat.

No signs of the weird aliens, kzinti, or even of the fact that they had been locked in battle just a few moments before.

All Carol could remember was losing the suit commlink with Bruno in a snarl of static. Then nothing until she woke up here. Carol turned her head, stretching.

Somehow, behind them, the main airlock to Dolittle hung in midair. The rest of the ship was not there, however. One more impossibility. They seemed to be alone.

Carol rose easily to her feet. Too easily, she realised. She felt better than she had in many months, in years. She walked over to Bruno, and checked over his vital signs. He appeared to be sleeping deeply. She shook him gently awake.

“What?” Bruno began, shaking his head, then stopped in surprise as his eyes opened. He looked around, confused. Then he recognised Carol and wrapped his arms tightly around her.

“I thought I was dead,” he whispered.

“So did I.”

His confused frown deepened as Carol helped him to his feet.

“Don’t ask me,” she told him as he looked around. “Unless you believe in heaven?”

Bruno stooped down and pulled up a small tuft of the dark green ground cover. He showed her the ten-lobed leaflets, and the crimson roots that moved gently while she watched.

“I doubt,” Bruno said softly, “that heaven is sown with extraterrestrial species of plant life.”

“How nice that you are so sure.”

Carol followed Bruno as he walked toward the magically suspended main airlock of Dolittle. He patted the empty air above and to either side of the metal door, and snorted in satisfaction.

“Try it,” he invited.

Carol found that the airlock door seemed to be set in an invisible wall. The wall didn’t feel hot or cold, like metal or plastic or stone. It was a hard, sharply defined barrier that they merely could not see. Except for the fact that heat conduction seemed perfect, it might have been optical diamond The grassy plains beyond the wall were doubtless illusory, intended to give the impression of greater open space within their . . . cage.

Working together, she and Bruno quickly determined that their . . . yard was in fact about two hundred meters across, bounded by curving walls of invisible material. Dolittle clearly abutted it, with only the main airlock permitted to penetrate the force-wall.

The airlock opened normally, and they found Dolittle complete inside. Intact, though none of the sensory net or computer systems responded to commands.

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