Empress of the Sun by Ian McDonald

Author:Ian McDonald [McDonald, Ian]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, azw3
Publisher: Quercus
Published: 2014-01-20T23:00:00+00:00

20

The cities went on forever.

Everett had lost all sense of distance and time, leaning against the observation bubble at the front of the flyer’s left hull, hypnotised by the view unrolling beneath him. From the vantage of Everness, caught in the high branches, Everett had not been able to see any end to Crechewood, but now he saw that it was only a park – a city square, even – in endless farmlands punctured by mile-high towers of glass and metal and monstrous stepped pyramids the size of entire Earth cities, so tall their summits reached outside Diskworld’s atmosphere. Aircraft in their hundreds darted like swarms of flies. The Alderson disk could hold a billion such cities and still be mostly wilderness and empty space. The Sunlord royal yacht had accelerated smoothly to supersonic speed, but the dull sameness of the farm, pyramid-city, farm, pyramid-city made Everett feel like he was moving but standing still at the same time.

He had never felt so far from home.

‘That was fun. Not as much fun as having a rectal boil lanced, but close.’

Everett had not heard Sharkey come up behind him. For a tall man, the American was light on his feet. He had been engaged in the corner of the yacht that the crew used as their toilet facilities. The Jiju did not share human ickiness about bodily functions. As long as it was hygienic, it did not matter that it was in full view of the pilots’ station. Everett worried about that. Everett worried also about what they would get to eat. Everett worried every second about everything.

‘I think they must do it with electromagnetic forces,’ Everett said. ‘I mean, this thing is about as aerodynamic as a brick, but what speed is it doing? Well over supersonic, but you don’t feel a thing. There must be something around us, making us more streamlined, that we can’t see. Some kind of force-field thing and if they can do that, maybe they can also use it to fly with, or maybe like magnets: if they had room-temperature superconducting magnets, they could do almost anything with that: magnetic levitation and everything, and if they can draw power through the ground – if there’s like a superconducting network through the whole Diskworld …’ Everett broke off. ‘I’m talking really fast, aren’t I?’

‘Yup,’ Sharkey said. ‘And a lot.’

You don’t have to try to explain everything, Captain Anastasia had said when he came upon her repairing the wreckage of the High Mess. He knew his mouth got fast and full of ideas when he was scared. It was the one thing he could control, the science.

‘I’m sorry, it’s just, everything. Everyone. The Captain, and Sen … and Dad. I feel like … I should be doing something, and I don’t know what. I don’t know what to do, Sharkey.’

‘Maybe you don’t have to do anything, Everett,’ Sharkey said. ‘Maybe this time all you have to do is trust that other people can get themselves out of trouble without you.

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