Transcendental Read Free Page A

more than it is.”
    “Not so,” said Tordor, “since only a few could transcend—if transcend possible at all—and leave other species behind.”
    “We have a myth,” Riley said, “of the hero who ventures into a region of supernatural wonder, encounters fabulous forces, wins a decisive victory, and comes back with the power to bestow boons.”
    Tordor replied, “We have story like that but ours is leader blessed by the gods who pass their god-gifts to leader’s tribe.”
    Riley studied the elephantine alien. “And yet you venture forth.”
    “My elder commands,” Tordor grunted.
    They fell silent, and soon Tordor had rocked back upon its tail and closed its eyes. Riley looked around. The flower child was standing straighter now. Perhaps it was conscious again, if it ever had been unconscious. Jan and Jon were asleep at his feet. The weasel-like alien was huddled in the far corner, his abandoned arm at his feet, apparently unmissed, but the knife the arm had held was gone. The coffin-shaped alien had moved a meter or so during all the activity. Riley had not seen it in motion. The woman sat on a bench a few meters away, her legs drawn up against her body with her arms folded across them and her eyes looking at Riley. When their gazes met she didn’t look away.
    And Riley knew that in his bag was an innocent object he had not placed there. The weasel had put it there before the attack, and the attack, if that was what it was, had been a diversion.
    *   *   *
    Riley awakened to a sense of danger. He had fallen asleep sitting up, in a chair, his bag under his feet. He hadn’t intended it, but three days of alert readiness, except for that brief hour or so before the weasel approached, had caught up with him. Or maybe he had succumbed to the same strange soporific that had affected Jan. Now his pedia had awakened him again. Jon and Jan were asleep nearby. The flower child’s head was drooping once more, and the Alpha Centauran was crouched beside the frame, his top feathers alert. Tordor was still asleep, rocked back on its tail. The woman sat in the same position, her knees drawn up. She still looked in his direction.
    Something was wrong.
    The woman felt it, too. Her arms clasped her legs tighter. Her eyes were wider, and her expression seemed to ask, “What woke you? What is about to happen?” Or maybe she had a pedia of her own.
    Nothing had changed. No, the alien coffin had moved again. Now it was against the far wall. But that alone was not alarming.
    Then he understood. The speed of their travel had increased. Not enough to change Riley’s feeling of gravity but enough for his pedia to detect, as well as the small increase in the noise of the ancient motor powering their ascent with the aid of the focused laser beam from beneath.
    Something exploded! The climber was beyond the atmosphere, and no noise reached them, but Riley felt the impact on his feet and his buttocks. His bag rose in the air and thumped back to the floor as the climber began to gyrate and its passengers were tossed from side to side like bags of grain.
    Riley reached out to grab Jon and Jan and tugged them to the bench. “Hang on!” he said. He turned to help the woman, but she had her legs under the bench and her hands gripping the edge as she dodged flying bodies.
    The space-elevator ribbon had parted—or had been parted. But the climber wasn’t falling. It was being pulled upward like a weight on the end of a long string. The release of the ribbon’s tension had imparted a wild swing to the climber, and the counter-balancing weight on the other end was plunging them toward outer space.
    At least they were not falling. That was hopeless doom. But being flung into space in their barren box was only doom delayed.
    The flower child stood in its frame, alert and swaying. The Alpha Centauran grasped the frame for support. The weasel flew past toward the other end, followed by its arm, but it swung itself around like an acrobat