Free The Planet on the Table by Kim Stanley Robinson Page A

heartily at the plate holding Arnold’s feet to the cylinder, and even managed to slide it a few centimeters down the curve, which had the effect of making Arnold suddenly taller. But other than that I made no progress.
    When Freya returned she carried a bar, bent at one end. ‘Crowbar,” she explained to us.
    “But where did you get it?”
    “From the car’s tool chest, naturally. Here.” She stepped over Arnold. “If we just insinuate this end of it under your cuffs, I believe we’ll have enough leverage to do the trick. The cylinder being curved the plate’s grasp should be weakened—about here.” She jammed the short end of the bar under the edge of the footplate’s cuff, and pulled on the upper end of it. Over the intercom, breathless silence; her fair cheeks reddened; then suddenly Arnold’s legs flew up and over his head, leaving his arms twisted and his neck at an awkward angle. At the same time Freya staggered off the cylinder, performed a neat somersault, and landed on her feet on the ground below us. While she made her way back up to us I tried to ease the weight on Arnold’s neck, but by his squeaks of distress I judged he was still uncomfortable. Freya rejoined us, and quickly wedged her crowbar under Arnold’s right wrist cuff, and freed it. That left Arnold hanging down the side of the cylinder by his left wrist; but with one hard crank Freya popped that plate free as well, and Arnold disappeared. By leaning over we could just see him, collapsed in a heap on the ground. “Are you all right?” Freya asked. He groaned for an answer.
    I looked up and saw that Terminator was nearly upon us. Almost involuntarily I proceeded to the ladder tunnel; Freya followed me, and we descended to the ground. “Disturbing not to be able to trust the cowcatchers,” I remarked as my heartbeat slowed.
    “Nathaniel,” Freya said, looking exasperated. “I made all that up, you know that.”
    “Ah. Yes, of course.”
    As we joined Arnold he was just struggling to a seated position. “My ankle,” he said. Then the green wash of light from Terminator disappeared, as did the night sky; the city slid over us, and we were encased in a gloom interrupted by an occasional running light. All twelve of the city’s big tracks had disappeared, swallowed by the sleeves in the city’s broad metallic foundation. Only the open slots that allowed passage over the pylons showed where the sleeves were; for a moment in the darkness it seemed we stood between two worlds held apart by a field of pylons.
    Meanwhile the city slid over us soundlessly, propelled by the expansion of the tracks themselves. You see, the alloy composing the tracks is capable of withstanding the 425 degree centigrade heat of the Mercurial day, but the cylinders do expand just a bit in this heat. Here in the terminator is the forward edge of the cylinders’ expansion, and the smooth-sided sleeves above us at that moment fit so snugly over the cylinders that as the cylinders expand, the city is pushed forward toward the cooler, thinner railing to the west; and so the city is propelled by the sun, while never being fully exposed to it. The motive force is so strong, in fact, that resistance to it arranged in the sleeves generates the enormous reserves of energy that Terminator has sold so success fully to the rest of civilization.
    Though I had understood this mechanism for decades, I had never before observed it from this angle, and despite the fact that I was somewhat uneasy to be standing under our fair city, I was also fascinated to see its broad, knobby silver underside, gliding majestically westward. For a long time I did nothing but stare at it.
    “We’d better get to the car,” Freya said. “The sun will be up very soon after the city passes, and then we’ll be in trouble.”
    Since Arnold was still cuffed to the plates, and had at least a sprained ankle, walking with him slung between us was a slow process. While we were at it the Dawn Wall