Heaven's Reach Read Free Page B

dry, monotonous wastes.
    Anyway, only the mad lived for long under illusions that the cosmos was meant for their convenience.
    There were a multitude of conflicting stories about whoever designed this crazy universe, so many billions of years ago. But even before he ever considered dedicating his life to Institute work—or heard of E Space—Harry had reached one conclusion about metatheology.
    For all His power and glory, the Creator must not have been a very sensible person.
    At least, not as sensible as a neo-chimpanzee.

Sara
    T
HERE IS A WORD-GLYPH.
    It names a locale where three states of matter coincide—two that are fluid, swirling past a third that is adamant as coral.
    A kind of froth can form in such a place. Dangerous, deceptive foam, beaten to a head by fate-filled tides. No one enters such a turmoil voluntarily.
    But sometimes a force called
desperation
drives prudent sailors to set course for ripping shoals.

    A slender shape plummets through the outer fringes of a mammoth star. Caterpillar-ribbed, with rows of talon-like protrusions that bite into spacetime, the vessel claws its way urgently against a bitter gale.
    Diffuse flames lick the scarred hull of ancient cera-metal, adding new layers to a strange soot coating. Tendrils of plasma fire seek entry, thwarted (so far) by wavering fields.
    In time, though, the heat will find its way through.
    Midway along the vessel’s girth, a narrow wheel turns, like a wedding band that twists around a nervous finger. Rows of windows pass by as the slim ring rotates. Unlit from within, most of the dim panes only reflect stellar fire.
    Then, rolling into view, a single rectangle shines with artificial color.
    A pane for viewing in two directions. A universe without, and within.
    Contemplating the maelstrom, Sara mused aloud.
    â€œMy criminal ancestors took their sneakship through this same inferno on their way to Jijo … covering their tracks under the breath of Great Izmunuti.”
    Pondering the forces at work just a handbreadth away, she brushed her fingertips against a crystal surface that kept actinic heat from crossing the narrow gap. One part of her—book-weaned and tutored in mathematics—could grasp the physics of a star whose radius was bigger than her homeworld’s yearly orbit. A red giant, in its turgid final stage, boiling a stew of nuclear-cooked atoms toward black space.
    Abstract knowledge was fine. But Sara’s spine also trembled with a superstitious shiver, spawned by her upbringing as a savage sooner on a barbarian world. The Earthship
Streaker
might be hapless prey—desperately fleeing a titanic hunter many times its size—but this dolphin-crewed vessel still struck Sara as godlike and awesome, carrying more mass than all the wooden dwellings of the Slope. In her wildest dreams, dwelling in a treehouse next to a groaning water mill, she hadnever imagined that destiny might take her on such a ride, swooping through the fringes of a hellish star.
    Especially Izmunuti, whose very name was fearsome. To the Six Races, huddling in secret terror on Jijo, it stood for the downward path. A door that swung just one way, toward exile.
    For two thousand years, emigrants had slinked past the giant star to find shelter on Jijo. First the wheeled g’Kek race, frantically evading genocide. Then came traekis—gentle stacks of waxy rings who were fleeing their own tyrannical cousins—followed by qheuens, hoons, urs, and humans, all settling in a narrow realm between the Rimmer Mountains and a surf-stained shore. Each wave of new arrivals abandoned their starships, computers, and other high-tech implements, sending every god-machine down to the sea, tumbling into Jijo’s deep midden of forgetfulness. Breaking with their past, all six clans of former sky lords settled down to rustic lives, renouncing the sky forever.
    Until the Civilization of the Five Galaxies finally stumbled on the commonwealth of