Free Xeelee: An Omnibus: Raft, Timelike Infinity, Flux, Ring by Stephen Baxter

bottles, set out like bar stock in one of the labs, filled with tree sap in various stages of hardening—
    ‘You! What’s your name? Oh, damn it, you, boy! Yes, you!’
    Rees turned to see a pile of dusty volumes staggering towards him. ‘You, the lad from the mine. Come and give me a hand with this stuff . . .’ Over the volumes appeared a round face topped by a bald scalp, and Rees recognized Cipse, the Chief Navigator. Forgetting his aches he hurried towards the puffing Cipse and, with some delicacy, took the top half of the pile.
    Cipse panted with relief. ‘Took your time, didn’t you?’
    ‘I’m sorry . . .’
    ‘Well, come on, come on; if we don’t get these printouts to the Bridge sharpish those buggers in my team will have cleared off to the bars again, you mark my words, and that’ll be another shift lost.’ Rees hesitated, and after a few paces Cipse turned. ‘By the Bones, lad, are you deaf as well as stupid?’
    Rees felt his mouth working. ‘I . . . you want me to bring this stuff to the Bridge?’
    ‘No, of course not,’ Cipse said heavily. ‘I want you to run to the Rim and dump it over the side, what else . . .? Oh, for the love of - come on, come on!’
    And he set off once more.
    Rees stood there for a full half-minute.
    The Bridge . . . !
    Then he ran after Cipse towards the heart of the Raft.
    The city on the Raft had a simple structure. Seen from above - without its covering deck of trees - it would have appeared as a series of concentric circles.
    The outermost circle, closest to the Rim, was fairly empty, studded by the imposing bulks of supply machines. Within that was a band of storage and industrial units, a noisy, smoky place. Next came residential areas, clusters of small cabins of wood and metal. Rees had come to understand that the lower-placed citizens occupied the cabins closest to the industrial region. Within the housing area was a small region containing various specialist buildings: a training unit, a crude hospital - and the labs of the Scientist class where Rees was living and working. Finally, the innermost disc of the Raft - into which Rees had not previously been allowed - was the preserve of the Officers.
    And at the centre, at the hub of the Raft itself, was embedded the gleaming cylinder which Rees had spotted on his first arrival here.
    The Bridge . . . And now, perhaps, he might be allowed to enter it.
    The Officers’ cabins were larger and better finished than those of the ordinary crew; Rees stared with some awe at the carved door frames and curtained windows. Here there were no running children, no perspiring workers; Cipse slowed his bustle to a more stately walk, nodding to the gold-braided men and women they encountered.
    Pain lanced through Rees’s foot as he stubbed his toe on a raised deck plate. His load of books tumbled to the surface, yellowed pages opening tiredly to reveal tables of numbers; each page was stamped with the mysterious letters ‘IBM’.
    ‘Oh, by the Bones, you useless mine rat!’ Cipse raged. Two young Officer cadets walked by; the braid in their new caps glittered in the starlight and they pointed at Rees, laughing quietly.
    ‘I’m sorry,’ Rees said, face burning. How had he tripped? The deck was a flat mosaic of welded iron plates . . . or was it? He stared down. The plates here were curved and studded with rivets, and their sheen was silvery, a contrast to the rusty tinge of the iron sheets further out. On one plate, a few feet away, was a blocky, rectangular design; it was tantalizingly incomplete, as if huge letters had once been painted on a curving wall, and the surface cut up and reassembled.
    Cipse muttered, ‘Come on, come on . . .’
    Rees picked up the books and hurried after Cipse. ‘Scientist,’ he said nervously, ‘why is the deck here so different?’
    Cipse gave him a glance of exasperation. ‘Because, lad, the innermost part of the Raft is the oldest. The areas further out were added later, constructed