Providence - Max Barry Page 0,6
skyward, blood draining toward the back of his head, he watched a wedge of blue sky turn black through thick polymer glass. The shuttle shook like an old carnival ride and roared like a waterfall but all of that was normal. It was actually comforting. He knew what to expect here.
“Look at Gilly,” said Beanfield, her voice crackling through his earpiece. “He’s more relaxed than he was onstage.”
Anders laughed.
Jackson said, “Clearing the Kármán line. We’re officially in space.”
“This is the closest you’ll be to home for four years,” Gilly said. “And now this is. Now this is.”
“This’ll be a boring mission if you do that the whole time,” said Anders. “How much longer to the ship?”
Gilly knew, but Jackson answered. “Three minutes until we reach synchronous orbit. Ten until we can pull alongside.”
“Look,” Beanfield said. “Stars.”
“There have been stars for a while,” Gilly said.
“But so many.” She was right: The glass was full of them. It wasn’t like home, where you gazed up at a sky scattered with a few bright pinpricks. Here was a city of endless lights. “And they don’t twinkle.”
“No atmosphere.”
“Deceleration burn,” Jackson said. “Brace yourselves.”
The shuttle clunked and whined. An invisible hand curled around Gilly’s body and pulled him forward. The harness creaked.
“Shit,” said Anders suddenly.
“What?” said Jackson.
“I think I left my phone back there,” he said. They laughed.
* * *
—
They established synchronous orbit ahead of the ship, so it was coming up behind them, drawing closer in a way they couldn’t see. The shuttle had no artificial gravity; they would have to remain strapped in until they docked. Jackson called out distances until at last something white began to slide across the polymer glass, which Gilly recognized as a section of the ship dedicated to Materials Fabrication. Then came more, section after section, some stenciled with flags, some with designations. He knew the ship’s design intimately but hadn’t seen it firsthand since early in its construction, and felt surprise at its size. It was one thing to know it was three miles long and a touch over one million tons, another to see it.
“It’s like a city,” Beanfield said. “Or an island.”
“Mass projector,” Anders said, pointing as a cubelike protrusion slid by. It was in a retracted state, but he was right: It was one of the guns. “That’s the good stuff.”
“Anders, we’ll pass your station in a minute,” Gilly said.
“Where?”
“You won’t be able to see it. It’s a couple layers beneath the hull.”
“Oh,” Anders said. “Thanks, Mr. Tour Guide.”
Gilly shrugged. “You won’t get to see it from the outside again.”
“I can’t see it from the outside now.”
“Well,” Gilly said.
The ship continued to pass by: laser batteries, flat sensor arrays, and housings that would generate their electrostatic armor. “All right,” said Anders. “I don’t know about you, but I’m ready to get out of this harness.”
“Almost there,” said Jackson. The ship was appearing to slow, which meant they were matching its speed, preparing to dock. Until recently, a hundred people had worked out here with tens of thousands of drones. For the last two weeks, though, the ship had sat practically empty, waiting. The last remaining skeleton crew would ride this shuttle back home.
The ship revolved and disappeared from Gilly’s view. The shuttle bumbled around for a minute, adjusting position. There was a solid clunk.
“Welcome home,” Jackson said. “Let’s go to work.”
* * *
—
The ship was silent. It had a faint smell that put Gilly in mind of orange peel. The breach room was large enough for only one person at a time, and on the other side was a low-ceilinged corridor, sprouting protrusions and bundles of cable, which threw shadows in the glow-lights. They would have to get used to clambering around, ducking beneath or squeezing past all the stuff that apparently mattered more than space for the crew.
Jackson and Beanfield milled ahead of him. Behind, Anders cleared the breach door and Gilly shuffled up