"No more discussion, d.a.m.n you!" Decker roared into his face, spittle spraying. "Take what you can and get out of here-"

Rees turned to run.

He looked back once. Decker was already lost in the melee at the breach.

Rees reached the port. The orderly queue of a few minutes earlier had disintegrated; people were trying to force their way through the doorway, screaming and holding their absurd packages of luggage above their heads. Rees used his fists and elbows to fight his way through to the interior. The Observatory was a cage of noisy chaos, with equipment and people jumbled and crushed together; the single remaining large instrument - the Telescope - loomed over the crowd like some aloof robot.

Rees rammed his way through the crowd until he found Gord and Nead. He pulled them close. "We launch in five minutes!"

"Rees, that's impossible," Gord said. "You can see the state of things. We'd cause injury, death even, to the pa.s.sengers and those outside-"

Rees pointed to the transparent hull. "Look out there. See that smoke? Decker has fired the d.a.m.n scaffolding. So your precious explosive bolts are going to blow in five minutes anyway. Right?"

Gord paled.

Suddenly the noise outside grew to a roar; Rees saw that more sections of the fence were failing. The few guards still fighting were being overwhelmed by a wave of humanity.

"When they reach us we're finished," Rees said. "We have to launch. Not in five minutes. Now."

Nead shook his head. "Rees, there are still people-"

"Close the d.a.m.n door!" Rees grabbed the young man's shoulder and shoved him toward a wall-mounted control panel. "Gord, fire those bolts. Just do it-"

His eyes narrow, his cheeks trembling with fear, the little engineer disappeared into the crush.

Rees forced his way to the Telescope. He clambered up the old instrument's mount until he was looking down over a confused sea of people. "Listen to me!" he bellowed. "You can see what's happening outside. We have to launch. Lie down if you can. Help your neighbors; watch the children-"

Now fists were battering against the hull, desperate faces pressing to the clear wall -and, with a synchronized crackle, the scaffolding's explosive bolts ignited. The fragile wooden frame disintegrated rapidly; now nothing held the Bridge to the Raft.

The floor dipped. Screams rose like flames; the pa.s.sengers clung to each other. Beyond the clear hull the Raft deck rose around the Bridge like a liquid, and the Raft's gravitational field hauled the pa.s.sengers into the air, b.u.mping them almost comically against the roof.

A crescendo of cries came from the doorway. Nead had failed to close the port in time; stragglers were leaping across the widening chasm between Bridge and deck. A last man clattered through the closing door; his ankle was trapped in the jamb and Rees heard the shin snap with sickening suddenness. Now a whole family tumbled off the Raft deck and impacted against the hull, sliding into infinity with looks of surprise...

Rees closed his eyes and clung to the Telescope.

At last it was over. The Raft turned into a ceiling above them, distant and abstract; the thin rain of humans against the hull ceased, and four hundred people had suddenly entered free fall for the first time in their lives.

There was a yell, as if from very far away. Rees looked up. Roch, burning club in hand, had leapt through the hole in the heart of the Raft. He fell through the intervening yards spread-eagled; he stared, eyes bulging, in through the gla.s.s at horrified pa.s.sengers.

The huge miner smashed face-down into the clear roof of the Observatory. He dropped his club and scrabbled for a handhold against the slick wall; but helplessly he slid over the surface, leaving a trail of blood from his crushed nose and mouth. Finally he tumbled over the side - then, at the last second, he grabbed at the rough protrusion of a steam jet.

Rees climbed down from the Telescope and found Gord. "d.a.m.n it, we have to do something. He'll pull that jet free."

Gord scratched his chin and studied the dangling miner, who glared in at the bemused pa.s.sengers. "We could fire the jet. The steam would miss him, of course, since he's hanging beneath the orifice itself - but his hands would burn - yes; that would shake him loose..."

"Or," Rees said, "we could save him."

"What? Rees, that joker tried to kill you."

"I know." Rees stared out at Roch's crimson face, his straining muscles. "Find a length of rope. I'm going to open the door."

"You're not serious..."

But Rees was already heading for the port.

When at last the huge miner lay exhausted on the deck, Rees bent over him. "Listen to me," he said steadily. "I could have let you die."

Roch licked blood from his ruined mouth.

"I saved you for one reason," Rees said. "You're a survivor. That's what drove you to risk your life in that crazy leap. And where we're going we need survivors. Do you understand? But if I ever - even once - think that you're endangering this mission with your d.a.m.n stupidity I'll open that door and let you finish your fall."

He held the miner's eyes for long minutes; at last, Roch nodded.

"Good." Rees stood. "Now then," he said to Gord, "what first?"

There was a stink of vomit in the air.

Gord raised his eyebrows. "Weightlessness education, I think," he said. "And a lot of work with mops and buckets..."

His hands around his a.s.sailant's throat and weapon arm, Decker turned to see the Bridge scaffolding collapse into its flimsy components. The great cylinder hung in the air, just for a second; then the steam jets spurted white clouds and the Bridge fell away, leaving a pit in the deck into which people tumbled helplessly.

So it was over; and Decker was stranded. He turned his attention back to his opponent and began to squeeze away the man's life.

On the abandoned Raft the killing went on for many hours.

15.

THE CROWDED SHIP'S FIRST few hours after the fall were nearly unbearable. The air stank of vomit and urine, and people of all ages swarmed about the chamber, scrambling, shrieking and fighting.

Rees suspected that the problem was not merely weightlessness, but also the abrupt reality of the fall itself. Suddenly to face the truth that the world wasn't an infinite disc after all - to know that the Raft really had been no more than a mote of patched iron floating in the air - seemed to have driven some of the pa.s.sengers to the brink of their sanity.

Maybe it would have been an idea to keep the windows opaqued during the launch.

Rees spent long hours supervising the construction of a webbing of ropes and cables crisscrossing the Observatory. "We'll fill the interior with this isotropic structure," Hollerbach had advised gravely. "Make it look the same in every direction. Then it won't be quite so disconcerting when we reach the Core and the whole b.l.o.o.d.y universe turns upside down..."

Soon the pa.s.sengers were draping blankets over the ropes, fencing off small volumes for privacy. The high-technology interior of the Bridge began to take on a homely aspect as the makeshift shanty town spread; human smells, of food and children, filled the air.

Taking a break, Rees made his way out of the crushed interior to what had formerly been the roof of the Observatory. The hull was still transparent. Rees pressed his face to the warm material and peered out, irresistibly reminded of how he had once peered out of the belly of a whale.

After the fall from the Raft the Bridge had rapidly picked up speed and reoriented itself so that its stubby nose was pointing at the heart of the Nebula. Now it hurtled down through the air, and the Nebula had turned into a vast, three-dimensional demonstration of perspective motion. Nearby clouds shot past, middle distance stars glided toward s.p.a.ce - and even at the limits of vision, many hundreds of miles away, pale stars slowly drifted upwards.

The Raft had long since become a mote lost in the pink infinity above.

The hull shuddered briefly. A soundless plume of steam erupted a few yards above Rees's head and was instantly whipped away, a sign that Gord's ramshackle att.i.tude control system was doing its job.

The hull felt warmer than usual against his face. The wind speed out there must be phenomenal, but the virtually frictionless material of the Bridge was allowing the air to slide harmlessly past with barely a rise in temperature. Rees's tired mind ambled down speculative alleyways. If you measured the temperature rise, he reasoned, you could probably get some kind of estimate of the hull's coefficient of friction. But, of course, you would also need some data on the material's heat conduction properties"It's astonishing, isn't it?"

Nead was at his side. The younger man cradled a s.e.xtant in his arms. Rees smiled. "What are you doing here?"

"I'm supposed to be measuring our velocity."

"And?"

"We're at terminal velocity for the strength of gravity out here. I estimate we will reach the Core in about ten shifts..."

Nead delivered his words dreamily, his attention taken up by the view; but they had an electric effect on Rees. Ten shifts... in just ten shifts he would stare at the face of the Core, and the destiny of the race would be made or lost.

He pulled himself back to the present. "We never did get to finish your training, did we, Nead?"

"Other events were more pressing," Nead said drily.

"Let's find a home where we will always have time to train people properly... time, even, to stare out of the window-"

Jaen started talking even before she reached them. "...And if you don't tell this insufferable old buffoon that he's left his sense of priorities back on the Raft, then I won't be responsible for my actions, Rees!"

Rees groaned inwardly. Evidently his break was over. He turned; Jaen bore down on him with Hollerbach following, hauling himself cautiously through the network of ropes. The old Scientist muttered, "I don't believe I've been spoken to like that by a mere Second Cla.s.s since - since-"

Rees held his hands up. "Slow down, you two. Start from the top, Jaen. What's the problem?"

"The problem," Jaen spat, jerking her thumb, "is this silly old fart, who-"

"Why, you impudent-"

"Shut up!" Rees snapped.

Jaen , simmering, made a visible effort to calm down. "Rees. Am I or am I not in charge of the Telescope?"

"That's my understanding."

"And my brief is to make sure that the Navigators - and their Boney so-called a.s.sistants - get all the data they need to guide our trajectory around the Core. And that has to be our number one priority. Right?"

Rees rubbed his nose doubtfully. "I can't argue with that..."

"Then tell Hollerbach to keep his d.a.m.n hands off my equipment!"

Rees turned to Hollerbach, suppressing a smile. "What are you up to, Chief Scientist?"

"Rees..." The old man wrapped his long fingers together, pulling at the loose flesh. "We have left ourselves with only one significant scientific instrument. Now, I've no wish to revisit the arguments behind the loading of this ship. Of course the size of the gene pool must come first..." He thumped one fist into his palm. "Nevertheless it is at precisely this moment of blindness that we are approaching the greatest scientific mystery of this cosmos: the Core itself-"

"He wants to turn the Telescope on the Core," Jaen said. "Can you believe it?"

"The understanding to be acquired by even a superficial study is incalculable."

"Hollerbach, if we don't use that d.a.m.n telescope to navigate with we might get a closer look at the Core than any of us have bargained for!" Jaen glared at Rees. "Well?"

"Well what?"

Hollerbach looked sadly at Rees. "Alas, lad, I suspect this little local difficulty is only the first impossible arbitration you will be called on to make."

Rees felt confused, isolated. "But why me?"

Jaen snapped, "Because Decker is still on the Raft. And who else is there?"

"Who indeed?" Hollerbach murmured. "I'm sorry, Rees; I don't think you have very much choice..."

"Anyway, what about this b.l.o.o.d.y Telescope?"

Rees tried to focus. "All right. Look, Hollerbach, I have to agree that Jaen's work is a priority right now-"

Jaen whooped and punched the air.

"So your studies must fit in around that work. All right? But," he went on rapidly, "when we get close enough to the Core the steam jets will become ineffectual anyway. So navigation will become a waste of time... and the Telescope can be released, and Hollerbach can do his work. Maybe Jaen will even help." He puffed out his cheeks. "How's that for a compromise?"

Jaen grinned and punched him on the shoulder. "We'll make a Committee member of you yet." She turned and pulled her way back into the interior of the chamber.

Rees felt his shoulders slump. "Hollerbach, I'm too young to be a Captain. And I've no desire for the job."

Hollerbach smiled gently. "That last alone probably qualifies you as well as anyone. Rees, I fear you must face it; you're the only man on board with first-hand experience of the Belt, the Raft, the Bone world... and so you're the only leader figure remotely acceptable to all the ship's disparate factions. And after all it has been your drive, your determination, that has brought us so far. Now you're stuck with this responsibility, I fear.

"And there are some hard decisions ahead. a.s.suming we round the Core successfully we will face rationing, extremes of temperature in the unknown regions outside the Nebula - even boredom will be a life-threatening hazard! You will have to keep us functioning in extraordinary circ.u.mstances. If I can a.s.sist you in any way, of course, I will."

"Thanks. I don't much like the idea, but I guess you are right. And to help me you could start," he said sharply, "by sorting out your differences with Jaen yourself."

Hollerbach smiled ruefully. "That young woman is rather forceful."

"Hollerbach, what do you expect to see down there anyway? I guess a close view of a black hole is going to be spectacular enough..."

A flush of animation touched Hollerbach's papery cheeks. "Far more than that. Have I ever discussed with you my ideas on gravitic chemistry? I have?" Hollerbach looked disappointed at the curtailing of his lecture, but Rees encouraged him to continue; for a few minutes, he realized gratefully, he could return to his apprenticeship, when Hollerbach and the rest would lecture him each shift on the mysteries of the many universes.

"You will recall my speculation on a new type of 'atom,' " Hollerbach began. "Its component particles - perhaps singularities themselves - will be bonded by gravity rather than the other fundamental forces. Given the right conditions, the right temperature and pressure, the right gravitational gradients, a new 'gravitic chemistry' will be possible."

"In the Core," Rees said.

"Yes!" Hollerbach declared. "As we skirt the Core we will observe a new realm, my friend, a new phase of creation in which-"

Over Hollerbach's shoulder there loomed a wide, bloodstained face. Rees frowned. "What do you want, Roch?"

The huge miner grinned. "I only wanted to point out what you're missing. Look." He pointed.

Rees turned. At first he could see nothing unusual - and then, squinting, he made out a faint patch of dull brown amid the upward shower of stars. It was too far away to make out any detail, but memory supplied the rest; and he saw again a surface of skin stretched over bone, white faces turning to a distant speck in the air"The Boneys," he said.

Roch opened his corrupt mouth and laughed; Hollerbach flinched, disgusted. "Your home away from home, Rees," Roch said coa.r.s.ely. "Don't you feel like dropping in and visiting old friends?"