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Quath said.
paid. After all, this is a minor task. >
Beq'qdahl
said sourly.
Quath recalled. It had seemed a small matter at the time they
received their orders.
Noughts which have pestered us. >
Beq'qdahl added sharply. She still seemed to
take that past battle as a personal affront.
diplomatically.
are canny, if they are the same as the pack I
slaughtered. >
Beq'qdahl fretted.
>
Quart did not relish the prospect of having to run down one of the quick,
darting shuttles, then pry it open and rummage inside for a sample Nought.
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They might easily squash them all and then have to go after yet another
shuttle, All that, in full view of the thermweave crews who worked in
preparing the great metal-mountains.
Was there some other way . . . ? She poked at her subminds, rummaging for any
notion that might help. They chorused their partial visions.
Beq'qdahl said,
a minor matter. Surely the Hive will not fault us for such a negligible>
Quath said brightly.
FIVE
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The yellow-white hell soared away above Killeen's head. The walls nearly
seeped a sullen red, but even this was a relief after the incandescent fury
that dwindled now, a fiery disk fading above him like a dimming, perpetually
angry sun.
Killeen panted deeply, though it seemed to do no good. Prickly waves washed
over him, bringing him unbearable itches that moved in restless storms across
his skin. His lungs jerked irregularly.
His arms trembled. Muscles and nerves fought their private rebellions and
wars.
But he had managed to keep his arms and legs straight. The light pressure
would not have forced him in only one direction ff he had spun or tumbled.
Had it been enough? The long minutes at the core had crawled by, bringing
agonizing lungfuls of scorched air.
Now the searing ebbed slightly.
We are, after all, just another radiating body. We can only lose heat by
emitting it as infrared waves. So we must wait for cooler surroundings before
this intolerable warmth can disperse.
His Arthur Aspect seemed remarkably collected, given the hysteria which had
beset it only minutes before. "How... how 'bout that cooling thing?"
You mean our refrigerator? It can only function by ejecting waste heat at a
cooler sink. As yet there are no colder surroundings, as you can see.
"So we wait till we get out?" It seemed an impossibly long time.
Between his boots he could see the blackness of the planet's mantle, thousands
of kilometers of dead rock they must shoot through before regaining the dark
of space itself. And there he
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Gregory Benford would somehow have to make good this attempt, or else he would
slow and pause and then plunge again. He wished again that he had saved his
thruster fuel. It would give him some freedom, some hope of being something
other than the helpless, dumb test particle in a grotesque experiment.
We do have some fluids we could eject, but . . ·
"But what? Look, we try everything. Got no hope otherwise."
The refrigerant fluids. We could bring them to a high temperature and vent
them.
"Think it'll help much?"
To lose the coolant meant he would have no chance whatever if he failed up
ahead and fell back into the tube. He would fry for sure.
I cannot tell how much momentum we picked up from that maneuver. Pushing a
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large mass such as ourselves with mere light pressure . ··
Killeen gave a jittery laugh. "I'm the mass here you weigh nothin' at all. And
don't you worry 'bout calculatin' what'11 happen.
Time comes, up at the top of this hole, I'll have to grab whatever's in sight.
Fly by the seat of my pants, not some eee-quation."
Then I should vent the refrigerant fluids?
"Sure. Bet it all!" Killeen felt small icy rivulets coursing along his neck as
he let the Aspect take fractional control of his inboard systems.
I am warming the poly-xenor now.
"And when you spray it, just use the spinal vents. That'll give us another
push in the right direction. Could make the difference."
Oh, I see. I did not think of this possibility.
"Trouble with you Aspects is you can't imagine anythin' you haven't seen
'fore."
TIDES OF LIGHT
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Let us not debate my properties at quite this time. We are rising toward the
surface and you must be ready. I believe the wall you face is nearer now.
Notice the sparkling?
"Yeasay. What's it mean?"
That is where the mantle rock is forced by sidewise pressure against the
passing cosmic string. It is disintegrated on impact. I cannot see whether it
is somehow incorporated into the string, or whether it is simply forced back.
For whatever reason, the rock is held back. Clearly, the cyborgs must relax
this hoop pressure somehow, down in the core, in order to fill this tube with
the liquid iron we saw before.
"Maybe they just slow it down some? Let the iron squish in a lfl 'fore the
next time the string comes whizzin' by?"
In the midst of techtalk he lapsed back into the short, clipped speech of his
boyhood in the Citadel. The carefully assumed veneer of Cap'n rubbed away
under the press of action. Killeen fumbled with the suit refrigerator
controls. He knew he had to understand more about the hoop.
Possibly. Clearly the rotating string exerts great pressure against these
rocks.
Killeen watched the quick flashing in the walls. For him to see these sparks
at all, they must be enormous, since his speed took him by kilometers of the
ruby-red rock in an instant. He had no bodily sensation of speed, but knew
from the 3D simulation
Arthur ran in his left eye that he was rising toward the surface, slowing as
gravity asserted itself.
He had to find a way to escape the tube, but no idea came to him. He had
nothing he could throw to gain momentum. The coolant jet throbbed behind him,
but relative to the blur of motion in the walls he could not tell whether it
did any good. It occurred to him that if he was too successful he would crash
into the speeding wall and be torn to pieces in an instant. Somehow the
abstract nature of these things, the dry, distant feel of science, frightened
him all the more.
The tube is flaring out. We are approaching one side of it, but I cannot judge
our velocity well. As we rise, the hoop curves away to make its great arc
outward. The majesty of it is impressive, I must say. No mechtech I have ever
heard of
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