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

of sheets of star metal; this part was built of hull sections. All right?’
    ‘Hull? The hull of what?’
    But Cipse, bustling along, would not reply.
    Rees’s imagination whirled like a young tree. Hull plates! He imagined the hull of a Mole; if that were cut up and reassembled then that, too, would be an uneven thing of broken curves.
    But the shell of a Mole would be much too small to provide all this area. He imagined a huge Mole, its mighty walls curving far above his head . . .
    But that wouldn’t be a Mole. A Ship, then? Were the children’s tales of the Ship and its Crew true after all?
    He felt frustration well up inside him; it was almost like the ache he sometimes felt to reach out to Sheen’s cool flesh . . . If only someone would tell him what was going on!
    At last they passed through the innermost rank of dwellings and came to the Bridge. Rees found his pace slowing despite his will; he felt his heart pump within his chest.
    The Bridge was beautiful. It appeared as a half-cylinder twice his height and perhaps a hundred paces long; it lay on its side, embedded neatly in the deck. Rees remembered flying under the Raft and seeing the other half of the cylinder hanging beneath the plates like some vast insect. The pile of books still in his arms, he stepped closer to the curving wall. The surface was of a matt, silvery metal that softened the harsh starlight to a pink-gold glow. An arched door frame had been cut into the wall; its lines were the finest, cleanest work Rees had ever seen. The plates of the disassembled hull lapped around the cylinder, and Rees saw how neatly they had been cut and joined to the wall.
    He tried to imagine the men who had done this wonderful work. He had a vague picture of godlike creatures disassembling another, huge, cylinder with glowing blades . . . And later generations had added their crude accretions around the gleaming heart of the Raft, their grace and power dwindling as thousands of shifts wore away.
    ‘. . . I said now, mine rat!’ The Navigator’s face was pink with fury; Rees shook himself out of his daydream and hurried to join Cipse at the doorway.
    Another Scientist emerged from the shining interior of the Bridge; he took Rees’s load. Cipse gave Rees one last glance. ‘Now get back to your work, and be thankful if I don’t tell Hollerbach to feed you to the reprocessing plants—’ Muttering, the Navigator turned and disappeared into the interior of the Bridge.
    Reluctant to leave this magical area Rees reached out and stroked the silver wall with his fingertips - and pulled his hand back, startled; the surface was warm, almost like skin, and impossibly smooth. He pushed his hand flat against the wall and let his palm slide over the surface. It was utterly frictionless, as if slick with some oily fluid—
    ‘What’s this? A mine rat nibbling at our Bridge?’
    He turned with a start. The two young Officers he had noticed earlier stood before him, hands on hips; they grinned easily. ‘Well, boy?’ the taller of them said. ‘Do you have any business here?’
    ‘No, I—’
    ‘Because if not, I suggest you clear off back to the Belt where the other rats hide out. Or perhaps we should help you on your way, eh, Jorge?’
    ‘Doav, why not?’
    Rees studied the relaxed, handsome young men. Their words were scarcely harsher than Cipse’s had been . . . but the youth of these cadets, the way they aped their elders so unthinkingly, made their contempt almost impossible to stomach, and Rees felt a warm anger well up inside him.
    But he couldn’t afford to make enemies.
    Deliberately he turned his face away from the cadets and made to step past them . . . But the taller cadet, Doav, was in his way. ‘Well, rat?’ He extended one finger and poked at Rees’s shoulder—
    —and, almost against his will, Rees grabbed the finger in one fist; with an easy turn of his wrist he bent the cadet’s hand back on itself. The young man’s elbow was forced forward to