Take Back the Sky by Greg Bear

Author:Greg Bear
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction / Science Fiction / Space Opera, Fiction / Science Fiction / Action & Adventure, Fiction / Science Fiction / Military, Fiction / Action & Adventure, Fiction / Men'S Adventure
Publisher: Orbit
Published: 2016-12-20T05:00:00+00:00

RUNNING ON EMPTY

Putting one’s self in the arms of a squid requires a courage not expected or taught in basic. We all do it, however, because it’s hard to imagine getting through the canebrake without searcher help—and because the Antags have submitted as well and are even now ahead of us. We don’t talk much. We’re scared, scared to our very guts, in that way that exhaustion makes worse.

It’s dark, it’s weird, it’s Guru—and there are squid.

But nobody gets hurt, and in half an hour we’re escorted through the brake, and what’s on the other side is more what you might expect within a gigantic spaceship—genuine, monumental architecture.

We’re taken across a hollow big enough to hold an apartment high-rise, but filled instead by a wide, undulating coral reef of spun and accreted metal. Judging from the occupants coming and going, like bees flying in and out of a hive, this is another low-g housing tract for searchers. Helping them get around are rope ladders and twisted cane bridges, but more open, with, at the center, a large concave blister that seems to reveal space, or at least blackness and stars. No sign of Titan or Saturn or any moons. About ten searchers are stationed inside the curve of the blister, paying no attention to what’s behind them. They’re on driver duty, I presume.

We’re brought up short on our leashes and again arranged into a bouquet, keeping our distance with outstretched arms and gripping hands, pajamas hiding very little, while Bird Girl takes hold of Ulyanova’s leash and leads her into a searcher congregation behind the starry blister. There, our prize pupil creates a minor sensation of movement, investigation, rearrangement.

“It’s like an aquarium,” Jacobi says.

“I thought squid are mollusks that live in water,” Ishida says.

“We’ve eaten enough of those,” Tak says, and Ishikawa looks unhappy.

“Don’t tell them that,” she says.

“But Bird Girl can read Vinnie like a book, can’t she?” Ishida says.

“Never liked sushi,” I say. “More a teriyaki kind of guy.”

“What’s she thinking?” Joe asks DJ and me.

“Who, Bird Girl or Guru Girl?” DJ asks.

“Either one,” Joe says.

“Bird Girl is feeling pretty good,” I say. “No specifics, but she’s where she wants to be—a slow carrier wave of accomplishment, of good feeling.”

“She’s at the end point of a long strategy,” Kumar says. We’ve all either ignored or tried to stay apart from him after his interlude, including me, hypocrite that I am.

“Maybe she really likes squid,” Ishida says. “Old friends from home?”

“She’s never been home,” I say.

With Vera at her side, Ulyanova’s submitting to a more thorough searcher examination, and maybe already being put to use. She’s the only one of us that seems to have a real purpose. Yet Bird Girl hasn’t stated to me, or to DJ, any change of heart regarding our starshina once her usefulness has ended. I hope it doesn’t come to that. She’s still human, still one of ours—until proven otherwise.

Like me.

Bird Girl leaves her surrounded by searchers to return and address us all. “We will find quarters,” she says.

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