purposes, an infinite line of infinite strength and infinite thinness.
Karen Langelier hugged her knees and began to laugh to herself. No matter what, Ray’s caseload tonight could never compare with this!
Eventually, the single-molecular fiber, woven in one and a half dimensions with its own potential, became known as weave wire. Karen would have preferred something more elegant, but the name stuck.
L-4: AGUINALDO—Day 1 Minus 3 Years
Being at the Aguinaldo’s Jumpoff was like standing at the bottom of a gargantuan well. Ramis floated at one end of the zero-G core; he squinted along the lightaxis to the other end, ten kilometers away. Clusters of children played in the core, punctuated by sail-creature nymphs darting in and out, genetically programmed to keep the youngsters away from the central column of fiberoptic threads. Adults navigated the rim, leaping from bouncer to bouncer in a race around the circumferential Sibuyan Sea.
Living areas curled around the cylindrical side, snaking through the fields of taro and abaca, rice paddies, stadiums, and streams. Experimental sectors of wall-kelp covered most of the remainder of the Aguinaldo’s metallic structure.
As Ramis revolved around the lightaxis, it seemed as though his whole world might collapse and fall to the center. The sight always made him dizzy. But he smiled.
Ramis Barrera was thirteen, though smaller than others his age, and he fiercely fought against the perception that he was younger. He tried to keep aloof, avoiding others to make himself seem more independent.
Even three years before, back on Earth in the Baguio resort on the Philippines, Ramis had tried to be tough and snub his mother when she came to see him and his brother in the Sari-Sari store. Ramis’s parents owned the store, but they spent most of their time at the Scripps Institute with Dr. Sandovaal. Ramis and his older brother Salita often minded the store, and occasionally their mother dropped in to check on them. Salita would hide his newly opened bottle of San Miguel and the blue-seal cigarettes he had been sneaking; Ramis would jump down from the counter and pretend to be businesslike, to impress his mother with how mature he could act. The room would grow quiet, and they would be able to hear the sounds from outside. With only a stern look, his mother would send them back to work …
But now, up in the Aguinaldo and floating at Jumpoff, he wished she were here. The exciting but frightening vertigo waited for him above.
Ramis leaped straight up. His momentum bore him high into the zero-G core. Below, Jumpoff grew farther away as he drifted parallel to the lightaxis.
One of the sail-creature nymphs flapped gracefully by as it traversed the core. Ramis fumbled with his pouch and withdrew a hand-sized canister of compressed air. Sending out a quick jet, he changed his direction slightly.
Though it was early in the subjective day, other children had been playing for hours already. As he drifted away from a congregation of them, Ramis twisted himself around and gave a shot of air from the container, slowing his motion. Another burst ensured that he drifted back. The cluster of children showed no sign of noticing him, but he knew he was implicitly included in their game.
Half a dozen sail-creature nymphs moved around the vast core, looking like brownish-green balloons with stubby, finlike “wings.” The creatures swam through the air with an eerie and seemingly effortless grace, their flowing wing-strokes calling to mind Earth’s giant manta rays. The younger ones frolicked about, some playing with the children and being treated as pets, but most of them were content just to nudge stray children back toward the core.
Ramis played floater-tag with some of the other children. After one breathless chase, he managed to escape being caught by shooting a massive burst of air from his container and flying faster than the girl pursuing him could catch up.
He let himself fly unguided,
Karen Langelier hugged her knees and began to laugh to herself. No matter what, Ray’s caseload tonight could never compare with this!
Eventually, the single-molecular fiber, woven in one and a half dimensions with its own potential, became known as weave wire. Karen would have preferred something more elegant, but the name stuck.
L-4: AGUINALDO—Day 1 Minus 3 Years
Being at the Aguinaldo’s Jumpoff was like standing at the bottom of a gargantuan well. Ramis floated at one end of the zero-G core; he squinted along the lightaxis to the other end, ten kilometers away. Clusters of children played in the core, punctuated by sail-creature nymphs darting in and out, genetically programmed to keep the youngsters away from the central column of fiberoptic threads. Adults navigated the rim, leaping from bouncer to bouncer in a race around the circumferential Sibuyan Sea.
Living areas curled around the cylindrical side, snaking through the fields of taro and abaca, rice paddies, stadiums, and streams. Experimental sectors of wall-kelp covered most of the remainder of the Aguinaldo’s metallic structure.
As Ramis revolved around the lightaxis, it seemed as though his whole world might collapse and fall to the center. The sight always made him dizzy. But he smiled.
Ramis Barrera was thirteen, though smaller than others his age, and he fiercely fought against the perception that he was younger. He tried to keep aloof, avoiding others to make himself seem more independent.
Even three years before, back on Earth in the Baguio resort on the Philippines, Ramis had tried to be tough and snub his mother when she came to see him and his brother in the Sari-Sari store. Ramis’s parents owned the store, but they spent most of their time at the Scripps Institute with Dr. Sandovaal. Ramis and his older brother Salita often minded the store, and occasionally their mother dropped in to check on them. Salita would hide his newly opened bottle of San Miguel and the blue-seal cigarettes he had been sneaking; Ramis would jump down from the counter and pretend to be businesslike, to impress his mother with how mature he could act. The room would grow quiet, and they would be able to hear the sounds from outside. With only a stern look, his mother would send them back to work …
But now, up in the Aguinaldo and floating at Jumpoff, he wished she were here. The exciting but frightening vertigo waited for him above.
Ramis leaped straight up. His momentum bore him high into the zero-G core. Below, Jumpoff grew farther away as he drifted parallel to the lightaxis.
One of the sail-creature nymphs flapped gracefully by as it traversed the core. Ramis fumbled with his pouch and withdrew a hand-sized canister of compressed air. Sending out a quick jet, he changed his direction slightly.
Though it was early in the subjective day, other children had been playing for hours already. As he drifted away from a congregation of them, Ramis twisted himself around and gave a shot of air from the container, slowing his motion. Another burst ensured that he drifted back. The cluster of children showed no sign of noticing him, but he knew he was implicitly included in their game.
Half a dozen sail-creature nymphs moved around the vast core, looking like brownish-green balloons with stubby, finlike “wings.” The creatures swam through the air with an eerie and seemingly effortless grace, their flowing wing-strokes calling to mind Earth’s giant manta rays. The younger ones frolicked about, some playing with the children and being treated as pets, but most of them were content just to nudge stray children back toward the core.
Ramis played floater-tag with some of the other children. After one breathless chase, he managed to escape being caught by shooting a massive burst of air from his container and flying faster than the girl pursuing him could catch up.
He let himself fly unguided,
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