THE WINCH MECHANISM IMPELLED the chair toward the star kernel. Rees closed his eyes, relaxed his muscles and tried to blank out his mind.

To get through the next shift: that was his only priority now. Just one shift at a time...

If the exile to the Belt had been a descent into h.e.l.l for Grye, Cipse and the rest, for Rees it had been the meticulous opening of an old wound. Every detail of the Belt - the shabby cabins, the rain hissing over the surface of the kernel - had crowded into his awareness, and it was as if the intervening thousands of shifts on the Raft had never been.

But in truth he had changed forever. At least before he had had some hope... Now there was none.

The chair lurched. The dome of rust rocked beneath his feet and already he could sense the tightening pull of the star's gravity field.

The Belt had changed too, he mused... and for the worse. The miners seemed coa.r.s.ened, brutalized, the Belt itself shabbier and less well maintained. He had learned that deliveries from the Raft had grown less and less frequent. As supplies failed to arrive a vicious circle had set in. Increasing illness and malnutrition and, in the longer term, higher mortality were making it ever harder for the miners to meet their quotas, and without iron to trade even less food could be bought from the Raft - which worsened the miners' conditions still further.

In such a situation, surely something had to give. But what? Even his old acquaintances - like Sheen - were reluctant to talk, as if there was some shameful secret they were hiding. Were the miners making some new arrangements, finding some other, darker, way to break out of the food trap? If so, what?

The wheels of his chair impacted the surface of the star and a full five gees descended on his chest, making him gasp. With a heavy hand he released the cable lock and allowed the chair to roll toward the nearest mine entrance.

"Late again, you f.e.c.kless b.a.s.t.a.r.d." The rumbling voice had issued from the gloom of the mine mouth.

"No, I'm not, Roch; and you know it," Rees said calmly. He brought his chair to a halt at the head of the ramp leading down into the mine.

A chair came whirring up from the gloom. Despite the recent privations the miner Roch was still a huge man. His beard merged with the fur and sweat plastered across his chest; a stomach like a sack slumped over his belt. White showed around his eyes, and when he opened his mouth Rees could see stumps of teeth like burnt bones. "Don't talk back, Raft man." Spittle sprayed his chest in tight parabolae. "What's to stop me putting you all on triple shifts? Eh?"

Rees found the breath escaping from him in a slow sigh. He knew Roch of old. Roch, who you always avoided in the Quartermaster's, whether he was drunk or not. Roch, the half-mad troublemaker who had only been allowed to grow past boyhood, Rees suspected, because of the size of his muscles.

Roch. The obvious choice as the Scientists' shift supervisor.

He was still staring at Rees. "Well? Nothing to say? Eh?"

Rees held his tongue, but the other's fury increased regardless.

"What's the matter, Rafts.h.i.t? Scared of a little work? Eh? I'll show you the meaning of work..." Roch gripped the arms of his chair with fingers like lengths of rope; with separate, ma.s.sive movements, he hauled his feet off their support plates and planted them on the rust.

"Oh, by the Bones, Roch, you've made your point," Rees protested. "You'll kill yourself-"

"Not me, Rafts.h.i.t." Now Roch's biceps tightened so that Rees could see the structure of the muscles through the sweat-streaked skin. Slowly, grunting, Roch lifted his bulk from the chair, knees and calves shaking under the load. At last he stood, swaying minutely, arms raised for balance. Five gees hauled at his stomach so that it looked like a sack of mercury slung over his belt; Rees almost cringed as he imagined how the belt must be biting into Roch's flesh.

A grin cracked Roch's purpling face. "Well, Raft man?" Now his tongue protruded from his lips. With slow deliberation he raised his left foot a few inches from the surface and shoved it forward; then the right, then the left again; and so, like a huge, grotesque child, Roch walked on the surface of the star.

Rees watched, not trusting himself to speak.

At length Roch was satisfied. He grabbed the chair arms and lowered himself into the seat. He stared at Rees challengingly, his humor apparently restored by his feat. "Well, come on, Rafts.h.i.t, there's work to do. Eh?"

And he turned his chair and led the way into the interior of the star.

Most of the Scientists' work a.s.signments were inside the star mine. For some imagined misdemeanor Roch had long since put them all on double shift. They were allowed an hour's break between shifts - even Roch had not denied them that yet - and when the break came Rees met Cipse beneath the glow of a globe lamp.

The Scientists sat in companionable silence for a while. They were in one of the porous kernel's larger chambers; lamps were scattered over its roof like trapped stars, casting light over piles of worked metal and the sullen forms of Moles.

The Navigator looked like a pool of fat in his wheelchair, his small features and short, weak limbs mere addenda to his crushed bulk. Rees, with some effort, helped him raise a tube of water to his lips. The Navigator dribbled; the water scattered over the ruin of his coverall and droplets. .h.i.t the iron floor like bullets. Cipse smiled apologetically. "I'm sorry," he said, wheezing.

Rees shook his head. "Don't worry about it."

"You know," Cipse said at length, "the physical conditions down here are poor enough; but what makes it unendurable is... the sheer boredom."

Rees nodded. "There has never been much to do save supervise the Moles. They can make their own decisions, mostly, with occasional human intervention. Frankly, though, one or two experienced miners can run the whole kernel. There's no need for so many of us to be down here. It's just Roch's petty way of hurting us."

"Not so petty." Cipse's breath seemed to be labored; his words were punctuated by pauses. "I'm quite concerned about the... health of some of the others, you know. And I suspect... suspect that we would actually be of more use in some other role."

Rees grimaced. "Of course. But try telling Roch."

"You know I've no wish to appear insulting, Rees, but you clearly have more in... common with these people than the... the rest of us." He coughed and clutched his chest. "After all, you are one of them. Can't you... say something?"

Rees laughed softly. "Cipse, I ran out of here, remember. They hate me more than the rest of you. Look, things will get better, I'm sure of that; the miners aren't barbarians. They're just angry. We must be patient."

Cipse fell silent, his breath shallow.

Rees stared at the Navigator in the dim light. Cipse's round face was white and slick with sweat. "You say you're concerned about the well-being of the others, Navigator, but what about yourself?"

Cipse ma.s.saged the flesh of his chest. "I can't admit to feeling wonderful," he wheezed. "Of course, just the fact of our presence down here - in this gravity field - places a terrible strain on our hearts. Human beings weren't designed, it seems, to function in... such conditions."

"How are you feeling? Do you have any specific pain?"

"Don't fuss, boy," Cipse snapped with the ghost of his old tetchiness. "I'm perfectly all right. And I am the most senior of us, you know. The others... rely on me..." His words were lost in a fit of coughing.

"I'm sorry," Rees said carefully. "You're the best judge, of course. But - ah - since your well-being is so vital to our morale, let me help you, for this one shift. Just stay here; I think I can handle the work of both of us. And I can keep Roch occupied. I'm afraid there's no way he'll let you off the star before the end of the shift, but perhaps if you sit still - try to sleep even-"

Cipse thought it over, then said weakly, "Yes. It would feel rather good to sleep." He closed his eyes. "Perhaps that would be for the best. Thank you, Rees..."

"No, I don't know what's wrong with him," Rees said. "You're the one with bio training, Grye. He hardly woke up when it came time to return him to the surface. Maybe his heart can't stand up to the gravity down there. But what do I know?"

Cipse lay strapped loosely to a pallet, his face a bowl of perspiration. Grye hovered over the still form of the Navigator, his hands fluttering against each other. "I don't know; I really don't know," he repeated.

The four other Scientists of the group formed an anxious backdrop. The tiny cabin to which they'd all been a.s.signed seemed to Rees a cage of fear and helplessness. "Just think it through," he said, exasperated. "What would Hollerbach do if he were here?"

Grye drew in his stomach pompously and glowered up at Rees. "May I point out that Hollerbach isn't here? And furthermore, on the Raft we had access to dispensers of the finest drugs - as well as the Ship's medical records. Here we have nothing, not even full rations-"

"Nothing except yourselves!" Rees snapped.

A circle of round, grime-streaked faces stared at him, apparently hurt.

Rees sighed. "I'm sorry," he said. "Look, Grye, there's nothing I can suggest. You must have learned something in all the years you worked with those records. You'll simply have to do what you think best."

Grye frowned, and for long seconds studied Cipse's rec.u.mbent form; then he began to loosen the Navigator's clothing.

Rees turned away. With his duty fulfilled claustrophobia swiftly descended on him, and he pushed his way out of the cabin.

He prowled the confines of the Belt. He met few people: it was approaching mid-shift and most Belt folk must be at work or in their cabins. Rees breathed lungfuls of Nebula air and gloomily studied the over-familiar details of the little colony's construction: the battered cabins, walls scarred by generations of pa.s.sing hands and feet, the gaping nozzles of the roof jets.

A breeze brought him a distant scent of wood, and he looked up. Hanging in the sky in tight formation was the flight of trees which had brought him here from the Raft. The bulk of the supply machine was still slung between them, and Rees made out Pallis's overseer tree hovering in the background. The elegant trees, the faint foliage scent, the figures clambering through the branches: the airy spectacle was quite beautiful, and it brought home to Rees with a sudden, sharp impact the magnitude of what he had lost in returning here.

The rotation of the Belt swept the formation over a horizon of cabins. Rees turned away.

He came to the Quartermaster's. Now the smell of stale alcohol filled his head and on impulse he slid into the bar's gloomy interior. Maybe a couple of shots of something tough would help his mood; relax him enough to get the sleep he neededThe barman, Jame, was rinsing drink bowls in a bag of grimy water. He scowled through his gray-tinged beard. "I've told you before," he growled. "I don't serve Raft s.h.i.te in here."

Rees hid his anger under a grin. He glanced around the bar; it was empty save for a small man with a spectacular burn scar covering one complete forearm. "Looks like you don't serve anyone else either," Rees snapped.

Jame grunted. "Don't you know? This shift they're finally going to offload that supply machine from the trees; that's where all the able bodies are. Work to do, see - not like you f.e.c.kless Raft s.h.i.te-"

Rees felt his anger uncoil. "Come on, Jame. I was born here. You know that."

"And you chose to leave. Once a Rafter, always a Rafter."

"Jame, it's a small Nebula," Rees snapped. "I've seen enough to teach me that much at least. And we're all humans in it together, Belt and Raft alike-"

But Jame had turned his back.

Rees, irritated, left the bar. It had been - how long? a score of shifts? - since their arrival at the Belt, and the miners had only just worked out how to unship the supply device. And he, Rees, with experience of tree flight and of Belt conditions, hadn't even been told they were doing it...

He anch.o.r.ed his toes in the wall of the Quartermaster's and stretched to his full height, peering at the formation of trees beyond the far side of the Belt. Now that he looked more carefully he could see there were many people clinging awkwardly to the branches. Men swarmed over the net containing the supply device, dwarfed by its ragged bulk; they tied ropes around it and threw out lengths that uncoiled toward the Belt.

At last a loose web of rope trailed from the machine. Tiny shouts crossed the air; Rees could see the pilots standing beside the trunks of the great trees, and now billows of smoke bloomed above the canopies. With ma.s.sive grandeur the trees' rotation slowed and they began to inch toward the Belt. The coordination was skillful; Rees could see how the supply machine barely rocked through the air.

The actual transfer to the Belt would surely be the most difficult part. Perhaps the formation would move to match the Belt's rotation, so that the dangling ropes could be hauled in until the machine settled as a new component of the chain of buildings. Presumably that was how much of the Belt had been constructed - though generations ago...

One tree dropped a little too fast. The machine rocked. Workers cried out, clinging to the nets. Tree-pilots called and waved their arms. Slowly the smoke over the offending tree thickened and the formation's motion slowed.

d.a.m.n it, thought Rees furiously, he should be up there! He was still strong and able despite the poor rations and back-crushing workWith a distant, slow rip, the net parted.

Rees, wrapped in introspective anger, took a second to perceive the meaning of what he saw. Then all of his being seemed to lock on that small point in the sky.

The pilots worked desperately, but the net became a mist of shreds and tatters; the formation dissolved in slow lurches of wood and smoke. Men wriggled in the air, rapidly drifting apart. The supply machine, freed of its constraints, hovered as if uncertain what to do. One man, Rees saw, was still clinging to the side of the machine itself.

The machine began to fall; soon it was sailing toward the Belt in a slow curve.

Rees dropped to hands and knees and clung tightly to the Belt cables. Where was the d.a.m.n thing headed? The gravity fields of both star kernel and Nebula Core were hauling at the machine; the Core field was by far the most powerful, but was the machine close enough to the star for the latter to predominate?

The machine could pa.s.s through the structure of the Belt like a fist through wet paper.

The immediate loss of life would be enormous, of course; and within minutes the Belt, its integrity gone, would be torn apart by its own spin. A ring-shaped cloud of cabins, trailing pipes, rope fragments and squirming people would disperse until at last each survivor would be alone in the air, facing the ultimate fall into the Core...

Or, Rees's insistent imagination demanded, what if the machine missed the Belt but went on to impact the star kernel? He recalled the craters left even by raindrops at the base of a five-gee gravity well; what would the roaring tons of the supply machine do? He imagined a great splash of molten iron which would spray out over the Belt and its occupants. Perhaps the integrity of the star itself would be breached...

The tumbling supply machine loomed over him; he stared up, fascinated. He made out details of dispenser nozzles and input keyboards, and he was reminded incongruously of more orderly times, of queuing for supplies at the Rim of the Raft. Now he saw the man who still clung to the machine's ragged wall. He was dark-haired and long-boned and he seemed quite calm. For a moment his eyes locked with Rees's, and then the slow rotation of the machine took him from Rees's view.

The machine grew until it seemed close enough to touch.

Then, with heart-stopping slowness, it slid sideways. The great bulk whooshed by a dozen yards from the closest point of the Belt. As it neared the star kernel its trajectory curved sharply, and then it was hurled away, still tumbling.

Its human occupant a mote on its flank, its path slowly arcing downwards toward the Core, the machine dwindled into infinity.

Above Rees the six scattered trees began to converge. With shouted calls ropes were thrown to workers still stranded in the air.

As fear of a spectacular death faded, Rees began to experience the loss of the machine as an almost physical pain. Yet another fragment of man's tiny heritage lost through stupidity and blundering... And with every piece gone their chances of surviving the next few generations were surely shrinking even further.

Then he recalled what Pallis had told him of Decker's calculations. The revolution's subtle leader-to-be had hinted darkly that he had no fear of a loss of economic power over the Belt despite the planned gift of a supply machine. Was it possible that this act had been deliberate? Had lives been wasted, an irreplaceable device hurled away, all for some short-term political advantage?

Rees felt as if he were suspended over a void, as if he were one of the unfortunates lost in the catastrophe; but the depths were composed not of air but of the baseness of human nature.

At the start of the next shift Cipse was too weak to be moved; so Rees agreed with Grye and the rest that he should be left undisturbed in the Belt. When Rees reached the surface of the star kernel he told Roch the situation. He kept his words factual, his tone meek and apologetic. Roch glowered, thick eyebrows knotting, but he said nothing, and Rees made his way into the depths of the star.

At mid-shift he rode back to the surface for a break - and was met by the sight of Cipse. The Navigator was wrapped in a grimy blanket and was weakly reaching for the controls of a wheelchair.

Rees rattled painfully over the star's tiny hills to Cipse. He reached out and laid a hand as gently as possible on the Scientist's arm. "Cipse, what the h.e.l.l's going on? You're ill, d.a.m.n it; you were supposed to stay in the Belt."

Cipse turned his eyes to Rees; he smiled, his face a bloodless white. "I didn't get a lot of choice, I'm afraid, my young friend."

"Roch..."

"Yes." Cipse closed his eyes, still fumbling for the controls of his chair.

"You got something to say about it, Rafts.h.i.t?"

Rees turned his chair. Roch faced him, his corrupted mouth spread into a grin.

Rees tried to compute a way through this - to search for a lever that might influence this gross man and save his companion - but his rationality dissolved in a tide of rage. "You b.a.s.t.a.r.d, Roch," he hissed. "You're murdering us. And yet you're not as guilty as the folk up there who are letting you do it."

Roch a.s.sumed an expression of mock surprise. "You're not happy, Rafts.h.i.t? Well, I'll tell you what-" He hauled himself to his feet. Face purpling, ma.s.sive fists bunched, he grinned at Rees. "Why don't you do something about it? Come on. Get out of that chair and face me, right now. And if you can put me down - why, then, you can tuck your little friend up again."

Rees closed his eyes. Oh, by the Bones"Don't listen to him, Rees."

"I'm afraid it's too late, Cipse," he whispered. He gripped the arms of his chair and tensed his back experimentally. "After what I was stupid enough to say he's not going to let me off this star alive. At least this way you have a chance-"

He lifted his left foot from its supporting platform; it felt as if a cage of iron were strapped to his leg. Now the right...

And, without giving himself time to think about it, with a single, vein-bursting heave he pushed himself out of his chair.

Pain lapped in great sheets over the muscles of his thighs, calves and back. For a terrible instant he thought he was going to topple forward, to smash face-down into the iron. Then he was stable. His breathing was shallow and he could feel his heart rattle in its cage of bones; it was as if he bore a huge, invisible weight strapped to his back.

He looked up and faced Roch, tried to force a grin onto his swollen face.

"Another attempt at self-sacrifice, Rees?" Cipse said softly. "G.o.dspeed, my friend."

Roch's smile seemed easy, as if the five gees were no more than a heavy garment. Now he lifted one ma.s.sive leg, forced it through the air and drove his foot into the rust. Another step, and another; at last he was less than a yard from Rees, close enough for Rees to smell the sourness of his breath. Then, grunting with the effort, he lifted one huge fist.

Rees tried to lift his arms over his head, but it was as if they were bound to his sides by ma.s.sive ropes. He closed his eyes. For some reason a vision of the young, white stars at the fringe of the Nebula came to him; and his fear dissolved. A shadow crossed his face.

He opened his eyes. He saw red sky - and pain lanced through his skull.