The dark side of the sun - By Terry Pratchett Page 0,43

black smoke. In an instant a false night fell.

Above it the sunpup wobbled into the air on three blinding blue flames. Slowly, following the route its ancestors had taken a million years before to escape a hostile world, it rose above the plains.

It gained speed and height, blew a smoke ring, and was still accelerating when Dom lost it in the distant cirrus.

Calculations:

Hrsh-Hgn manipulated a small slideball.

‘I’m relieved to ssay it could not work,’ he said.

‘There are two suits in the One Jump,’ said Dom. ‘One ought to fit you.’

Two miles away a sunpuppy rose baying on a spreading cone of smoke.

‘Look at it this way,’ began Isaac persuasively. ‘If we attack Madam with whirling memory swords she’ll stop playing and start blasting. I dare say she won’t see Dom hurt but ...what do you rate your chances?’

‘Better a boiled lamb than a roasst sheep.’

‘There’s no fuel in the One Jump,’ said Dom.

‘Not a drop,’ added Isaac.

‘It’s the only way.’

Another puppy thundered upwards on a vast ventral explosion of gas. Hrsh-Hgn watched it go, his big rheumy eyes betraying a storm of mixed emotions.

‘But I am no good with animalsss!’ he wailed.

It was defeat. Dom and Isaac looked at each other and nodded.

Fifteen minutes later the Drunk sank into the grass by the empty yacht. Joan surveyed her bodyguard impatiently.

‘Twenty of you and they got away!’

‘The Class Five robot precipitated an illogical series of events,’ explained Twelve.

‘He was a Class Five mind. He told us to count to three,’ added Nineteen helpfully.

‘Then he hit us,’ said Twelve.

‘When we get back to civilization I’ll see to it that the robot is lobotomized,’ said Joan grimly. ‘Why did we ever start building human robots?’

‘The Class Fives were constructed because of their …’ began Twelve, and was intelligent enough to stop when Joan looked at him.

Four more robots trudged in, carrying the prone bodies of Three and Eight.

‘I feel sad,’ said Twelve.

‘May they rust in peace,’ echoed Nineteen.

‘When they’re recalibrated I’ll make sure they go down a class,’ muttered Joan. ‘Right. The rest of you spread out. We won’t leave till they’re found.’

Ten miles eastward three sunpuppies blasted upwards. They wobbled a little, trying to stabilize the extra weight, then soared towards the stars.

Hrsh-Hgn wailed that he appeared to be in a fast-decaying orbit, but you couldn’t hurry negotiations with a sundog.

She hung above them, and her name was Gully-Triode-stroke-Pledge-Hudsons-Bay-Preferred.

‘The pups did reach orbit safely,’ said Dom patiently.

Nevertheless, it was a despicable act, Man. The safety of our young is of paramount importance to us.

Dom thought very quickly.

‘I carry the seed of Chatogaster,’ he intoned.

Any friend of the lake is a friend of mine, Buster. Possibly a large payment into the sundog account would make amends for the crime which happened to be witnessed by Us alone. What is your name?

‘Dom Sabalos.’

The name has a familiar ring. We have heard it recently. However. The Chain Stars are on the rim of the bubble. It will be a long time in interspace.

‘The robot can take it. My friend and I have our suits. My friend is nearing re-entry,’ said Dom, adopting the sundog’s clipped style.

It was a long, long time in interspace.

Dom told himself that he knew that they were safe inside the sundog’s field, but that didn’t stop him from holding on to the beast’s hide until his hands ached. The suit provided a strong depressive that made the naked images merely unpleasant. Hrsh-Hgn had passed out. Isaac had shut down most of his circuits.

It was a long time.

9

‘They should not exist. They are theoretically possible, but so is balancing a needle on the end of a hair. Faced with something like the Chain Stars a man must either bow the knee, or else get good and worried.’

Charles Sub-Lunar, Galactic Excursions

Dom wondered what was so impressive. That was when the Chain was still twenty AUs away, and side on.

Then the Creapii shuttle came in closer.

Imagine a doughnut, three million miles across. Imagine another. Link them.

The Chain Stars. And tumbling around them, Minos – a planet formed from thousands of asteroids, dragged across the light years and fused into a world. That was another Joker achievement, the Maze on Minos.

The cabin was empty except for shape-adaptable seats and the screen. From outside it had appeared gigantic, several times bigger than an average cargo ship and surprisingly streamlined. Dom knew that most of the bulk must be shielding, plus an engine big enough to lift the ship up against the crushing pull of a sun.