Free Godlike Machines by Jonathan Strahan [Editor] Page B

to us was a trunk or branch with thornlike protrusions. Galenka brought the Soyuz in against the trunk until the hull shuddered with the contact. Ordinarily I’d have been worried about a pressure rupture, but now that we were both wearing helmets that was only a distant concern. Galenka had picked her spot well, for the Soyuz was resting on one of the out-jutting thorns. Friction, and the ship’s almost negligible weight, would serve to hold it in place until we were ready to leave. Galenka had even taken to pains to make sure the forward escape hatch was not blocked.
    “Maybe you should stay here, while I check out the Progress,” I said. I didn’t feel heroic, but it seemed the right thing to say.
    “If we have to unload it, it’ll go quicker with two of us,” Galenka responded. “We can form a supply chain, save going all the way back each time. And keep an eye on each other.” She unbuckled. “You ready for this? I’m going to vent our air.”
    She let the air drain out through the release valve before opening the hatch. As the cabin transitioned to vacuum my suit ballooned around me, the seals and joints creaking with the pressure differential. I’d checked everything, but I was all too conscious of the thin membranes of fabric protecting me from a nasty, lung-freezing death. Every gesture, every movement, was now more awkward, more potentially hazardous than before. Tear a glove on sharp metal, and you might as well have cut your hand off.
    Galenka popped the hatch. I pushed these concerns from my mind as best I could and climbed out of the Soyuz. Now that I was seeing the alien environment with my own eyes—through a thin glass visor, rather than a thick porthole or monitor—it appeared much larger, much more oppressive and strange. The all-enveloping shell was a pitiless, hope-crushing black. I told myself that a window would eventually open for us to leave, just as one had allowed us to enter. But it was hard to shake the feeling that we were little warm animals, little shivering mammals with fast heartbeats, caught in a cold dark trap that we had just sprung.
    “Let’s do this shit, and get back home,” Galenka said, pushing past me.
    We climbed down the pea-green flank of the Soyuz, using the handholds that had been bolted on for weightless operations. We left the ship with the hatch open, the last dribbles of air still venting from the hull. My feet touched the thorn. Although I had almost no weight to speak of, the surface felt solid under me. It was formed from the same translucent material as the rest of Shell 4, but it wasn’t as slippery as glass or ice. I reached out a hand and steadied myself against the trunk. I felt as if I was touching bark or rock through my glove.
    “I think we can do this,” I said.
    “The Progress should be directly under us, where this trunk constricts against the one over here. I’d rather climb than drift, if that’s okay with you.”
    “Agreed. There are thorns all the way down, spaced every three or four meters—we should be able to use them for grabs, even if we can’t get traction on the rest of it. It shouldn’t be much harder coming back up.”
    “I’m right behind you.”
    If the thicket registered our presence, there was no evidence of it. The structure loomed around us, dizzying in its scale and complexity, but giving no sign of being alive or responsive to the intrusion of human technology. I began to ease, trying to imagine myself in a forest or cave system-something huge but mindless—rather than the glowing guts of an alien machine.
    It took fifteen minutes of cautious progress to reach the lodged Progress. It was jammed in nose first, with the engine pointing at us. A ship like that was not normally a man-rated vehicle, but the usual variants had a hatch at the front, so that space station crews could enter the vehicle when it was docked. In the case of ours, the innards had been replaced by scientific gear, computers, additional fuel,