good idea for the citizens of opposing Galactic Empires to stay well away from each other-especially when there are deep, bitter, and long-lasting grudges between them.
----
Kelly Haden worked herself into a sweat on the training machines positioned in the outer ring of the Breznev's spin section, the scars on her arms and chest tightening. She would have preferred to use free weights, but such were not allowed aboard ships like this, since a malfunction of the spin section or, for that matter, of the ship entire, could result in heavy lumps of iron hurtling about like chaff. There was also the matter of the weight itself, when a lightly constructed training machine like the one she was using could stand in for a few hundreds pounds of iron.
Finishing her workout, she picked up her towel and headed for the ladder leading up to the inward hatch, but the exercise had not dispelled the taut feeling of frustrated anger in her stomach. She climbed up into the sleeping quarters.
"Feeling better now, Societal Asset Haden?" enquired Longshank from his bunk. He was reading his notescreen again-some esoteric biological text, no doubt. She glanced at him, took in his long gray hair tied back with some confection of colored beads, at his graywear deliberately altered for individuality: sleeves cut away above the elbow, red fabric from the three Collective flags they found aboard sewn around the collar and waistband. They all did this sort of thing. Kelly had been one of the lucky ones to have found an old Markovian uniform jacket, which she had altered to fit, and had cut off her graywear trousers at just below the knee. It was a form of escape—the only escape for them that seemed likely now.
"No, I don't feel much better, Societal Ass Longshank," she replied.
What had once been a humorous exchange now contained a hint of bitterness.
The inner ring of the spin section was the bridge. It was without a ceiling, and while working at any of the consoles it was possible to see one's fellows upside down overhead. Kelly, being a ship's engineer, had been quite accustomed to this sort of thing, but it had taken some getting used to for the other escapees, and the vomit vacuums had seen plenty of work.
"How are we doing?" she asked Traviss, who in the low grav sat strapped into his chair at the center of a horseshoe of navigation consoles before the projection cylinder.
Traviss was a young hyperactive man who had been in the Collective military until he showed a talent with computers and spatial calculus and was reclassified as a "societal asset." Like them all, he had resented the resultant scrutiny from the Doctrinaires. He touched a control and the projection cylinder filled with stars.
"Our slingshot around Phaeton is taking us nicely out of the system's gravity sink and we'll be able to U-jump in sixteen hours." One of the stars flashed red, and, a little way out, flashed the blue spinning-top icon of the Breznev. Between the two lay three icons representing the Collective pursuit vessels from Handel. They weren't the problem. The problem was a green icon accelerating out from the nearest star to Phaeton. The Lenin, though not as close to them as the other ships, would now easily be able to intersect their course. It was also faster, so there would be no outrunning it.
Traviss continued, "I calculate that the Lenin will be able to knock us back into the real in three days if we continue along our present course."
The others were gathering around now: Slome Terl, astrophysicist and their paternal figurehead; Olsen Marcos, who was a geneticist and an amateur historian, though that was a pursuit now strictly controlled in the Collective; and Elizabeth Terl, Slome's daughter and plain physicist in her own right. Of the fifty people aboard, everyone was an expert of some kind, and everyone had been reclassified as a "societal asset" and come under doctrinal scrutiny and control. To say the Collective was ruled would be to deny what it
----
Kelly Haden worked herself into a sweat on the training machines positioned in the outer ring of the Breznev's spin section, the scars on her arms and chest tightening. She would have preferred to use free weights, but such were not allowed aboard ships like this, since a malfunction of the spin section or, for that matter, of the ship entire, could result in heavy lumps of iron hurtling about like chaff. There was also the matter of the weight itself, when a lightly constructed training machine like the one she was using could stand in for a few hundreds pounds of iron.
Finishing her workout, she picked up her towel and headed for the ladder leading up to the inward hatch, but the exercise had not dispelled the taut feeling of frustrated anger in her stomach. She climbed up into the sleeping quarters.
"Feeling better now, Societal Asset Haden?" enquired Longshank from his bunk. He was reading his notescreen again-some esoteric biological text, no doubt. She glanced at him, took in his long gray hair tied back with some confection of colored beads, at his graywear deliberately altered for individuality: sleeves cut away above the elbow, red fabric from the three Collective flags they found aboard sewn around the collar and waistband. They all did this sort of thing. Kelly had been one of the lucky ones to have found an old Markovian uniform jacket, which she had altered to fit, and had cut off her graywear trousers at just below the knee. It was a form of escape—the only escape for them that seemed likely now.
"No, I don't feel much better, Societal Ass Longshank," she replied.
What had once been a humorous exchange now contained a hint of bitterness.
The inner ring of the spin section was the bridge. It was without a ceiling, and while working at any of the consoles it was possible to see one's fellows upside down overhead. Kelly, being a ship's engineer, had been quite accustomed to this sort of thing, but it had taken some getting used to for the other escapees, and the vomit vacuums had seen plenty of work.
"How are we doing?" she asked Traviss, who in the low grav sat strapped into his chair at the center of a horseshoe of navigation consoles before the projection cylinder.
Traviss was a young hyperactive man who had been in the Collective military until he showed a talent with computers and spatial calculus and was reclassified as a "societal asset." Like them all, he had resented the resultant scrutiny from the Doctrinaires. He touched a control and the projection cylinder filled with stars.
"Our slingshot around Phaeton is taking us nicely out of the system's gravity sink and we'll be able to U-jump in sixteen hours." One of the stars flashed red, and, a little way out, flashed the blue spinning-top icon of the Breznev. Between the two lay three icons representing the Collective pursuit vessels from Handel. They weren't the problem. The problem was a green icon accelerating out from the nearest star to Phaeton. The Lenin, though not as close to them as the other ships, would now easily be able to intersect their course. It was also faster, so there would be no outrunning it.
Traviss continued, "I calculate that the Lenin will be able to knock us back into the real in three days if we continue along our present course."
The others were gathering around now: Slome Terl, astrophysicist and their paternal figurehead; Olsen Marcos, who was a geneticist and an amateur historian, though that was a pursuit now strictly controlled in the Collective; and Elizabeth Terl, Slome's daughter and plain physicist in her own right. Of the fifty people aboard, everyone was an expert of some kind, and everyone had been reclassified as a "societal asset" and come under doctrinal scrutiny and control. To say the Collective was ruled would be to deny what it
Similar Books
