Free Ark by Stephen Baxter Page B

that—”
    “In English,” Don said. “Well, it’s eight orders of magnitude above the Planck length, the smallest possible. But it’s only one-thousandth of the radius of a one-mega-electron-volt neutrino! You couldn’t even fit a neutrino in there, let alone a spaceship!”
    There was a ripple of laughter, and Zane blushed.
    But Liu just stood in silence, his eyes working as if chasing an elusive thought. “Class dismissed.” Abruptly he walked out.
    Grumbling, the students started packing away their stuff. Don said to Holle, “Now see what you’ve done. Liu’s like that when he gets an idea. You better hope it’s a good one or he’ll rip your head off for wasting his time. Come on. I’ll show you where to buy a soda.”

13
    H olle was relieved to get home that night, to the apartment her father had rented in the same block as the Tattered Cover Book Store, a secondhand store that was still one of Denver’s most thriving businesses as nobody was printing new books any more. She dumped her bag in the hall, fetched a glass of water and made her way to the big living room, where the wall-mounted TV was showing updates on the Rocky Mountain News channel.
    Patrick didn’t hear her come in. He was sitting on the floor, his back against the sofa, one arm over a cushion and the other hand cradling a glass of corn liquor. He had his shirt open at the neck, his shoes off, his black-socked feet crossed.
    The news was uniformly awful, Holle saw as she glanced at the big multiscreen. In Denver the police were shaping up for another night of trouble from the itinerant agricultural workers in the City Park. Elsewhere diplomatic notes were being exchanged with Utah; Mormon leaders in Salt Lake City were now refusing to pay federal taxes. President Vasquez was going to make a statement about that. Seawater forcing its way up the Tennessee valley from Alabama was causing yet another evacuation crisis, producing yet more images of sodden, huddled people tramping along rain-spattered highways. The government was considering sending troops into the Friedmanburgs, the troubled new cities on the Great Plains, where residents were protesting against exploitation by the rich who had bought up the land and funded much of the development in the first place. Holle knew her dad had something to do with that. Surviving recon satellites reported what appeared to be nuclear detonations going off in Tibet, the flashpoint of friction between India, China and Russia.
    Meanwhile there were more tsunamis and earthquakes and volcanoes as the Earth shuddered under the weight of the water that laid ever more heavily over the continents. These were reported against a summary map that showed that some forty percent of the world’s pre-flood land area had been lost, some four billion people displaced.
    Holle hated the news. All these shells of horror and misery and conflict, spreading out around the bubble of safety Holle had grown up in—which, she was coming to realize, was a very special place. And though sometimes there would be scientists talking about how the flood might be ending soon, the water receding, they never seemed to have much to go on, and her father never responded to the faint hopes they raised.
    “Dad, can’t we switch over to Friends ?”
    Patrick jumped. He hadn’t known Holle was there. “Oh, hi, sweets.” He snapped the TV over to a multiscreen conference call; Holle recognized Edward Kenzie, a suntanned Nathan Lammockson, and others. Their deep voices rumbled. He lifted his arm, making room for her. She got down on the carpet next to him and huddled in. He was hot, tired, sweating. His smell was immensely reassuring. “Sorry,” he said, “I guess I was playing hooky. I’m supposed to be in this conference. Friends later, maybe. Well, it’s on all day and all night.”
    Holle had grown up with the old pre-flood TV shows. They were comforting, set in a world as unreal to her as any fairy tale. “What’s the