And crawling on the planet’s face,
some insects called the human race.
Lost in time, and lost in space.
And meaning.
Lost, so small amid that dark, hands grown cold, body image fading down corridors of television sky.
He picked the nearest one, slid into it feet first, and pulled the lid closed. When he tightened the wheel in the center, it squeezed down against a flexible seal. Within a minute the CO2 content in the closed cylinder went up and an air regenerator at the bottom hummed into life.
I want to scream, shout with joy. But the air is so thin now.
Too thin.
I’ve spent too long looking at Orion’s secret.
There were few coherent memories of the ride. Some things stood out sharply like the spaceship-sized lump of burning scoria that had plunged into a lake near them, showering the line with hot drops of water.
They don’t know what it is. Vesuvius is just a mountain for them, the top hasn’t blown off yet. The Romans haven’t even got a word for “ volcano ”. Not until tomorrow.
Tell me more about this volcano. The data says it was highly volatile and if it were to erupt, it would wipe out the planet.
There was enough heat in the cave now to use the infra-red filters. The rock walls stood out harshly black and white as the advance continued.
“No signs of life since entering the cave,” the officer reported. “Gnawed bones at the entrance and some bat droppings. It looks like a natural cave – so far.”
“The cave is collapsing.”
“This is no cave.”
Another tap jetted them up, out of the cave. Inertia sent them arcing over the edge of the crater, but even Phobos’s light gravity was enough to drag the pair of them slowly back to the surface.
The narrow cave slowly opened out into a gigantic chamber, so large the roof and far walls were lost in the distance.
“What are those? Get a searchlight over to the right there.”
The picture on the screen was fuzzy and hard to see now, dimmed by the layers of rock in-between. Details couldn’t be made out clearly, but it was obvious this was something unusual.
“Hot as hell in here.”
“Yeah man, but it’s a dry heat!”
“He was on my screen just now. He says there’s some adverse talk about the effect on the rainfall in the Piedmont area of Beta Continent. He was worried about it.”
“Oceans are vast and almost bottomless. You dance in the rain, Elizabeth. You drown in the sea.”
As quickly as it started the storm was over. The sun burned down, melting the hailstones and sending curls of steam up from the wet street.
There was a downpour coming; Avery could feel it. The wind was already gaining strength, tearing out the last of her hairpins, whipping her dress close to her body. The air was heavy with the scent of rain.
It was going to be a wet night. All the trees were thick and slippery; he couldn’t have climbed them on a one-G world. The sheltered spots that he investigated, under fallen trees and beneath thick shrubs, were just as wet as the rest of the forest.
Prospero had ignored everything she and the others had told him. In his version of events, “Charon’s passengers” entered “gravity’s abyss” for reasons he’d invented out of thin air: to escape, respectively, a failed romance/vengeance for an unspeakable crime/the ennui of longevity; to resurrect a lost flesher ancestor; to seek contact with “the gods.”
“Have at you, Builders! You can’t keep a science-fiction writer in Hell!”
He spent all the recreation time he could with his construction set, and his volunteer hours were always on building sites. The Elders knew that, of course. Andrei was given the Assignment of Engineer and he was delighted.