The Night's Dawn Trilogy by Peter F. Hamilton Page A

exclamation rang in the ether.
    The laser blinked out. Slush splattered against the space-plane’s foam-encased fuselage. A second later it reached the
Madeeir
, pattering weakly against the alithium struts. Reaction-control thrusters flamed momentarily, holding its position steady.
    Once the storm of vapour had dwindled away,
Madeeir
refocused its sensor suite on the vibrating shell section. There was no ice left among the building’s foundations, the scouring
     had plucked the tiles free as well, even some of the low-lying walls had been razed by the blast-wave of steam. A roughly
     circular patch of the polyp floor glowed a dull vermilion. The sheer power of the laser saved Joshua. The soles of his armour
     suit had been caught in the initial blaze of photons, melting the mono- bonded-carbon boots, boring into the tough black membrane
     of the SII suit underneath. Even the miraculous Lunar technology couldn’t withstand that assault. His skin had charred, broiling
     the meat, singeing bone.
    But the steam which had erupted so violently absorbed a great deal of the laser’s power. The seething gas also distorted the
     beam, and it didn’t just surge outwards, it also slammed down through the tunnel, punching at any blockage.
    Joshua hurtled out of the gash in the polyp cave’s roof, cannoning into the floor, bouncing, arms flailing helplessly. He
     was almost unconscious from the pain in his feet, the analgesic block his neural nanonics had erected in his cortex was faltering
     under the nerve impulse overload. Blood was spraying out of his soles from the arteries which hadn’t been cauterized by the
     heat. The SII suit redistributed its molecules, flowing around the roasted feet, sealing the broken blood vessels. He hit
     the cave roof, recoiling. His neural nanonic circuits were visualizing a physiological schematic of his body, an ÉcorchÉ figure
     with feet flashing urgent red. Neatly tabulated information that was neither sound nor vision was pulsing into his consciousness,
     telling him the extent of the wounds. He really didn’t want to know, the gruesome details were acting like an emetic.
    Steam was still gushing into the cave, building in pressure. He could actually hear the gale screeching its affliction. Caustic
     probes of red light stabbed down through the gash in the ceiling, fluctuating erratically. He hit the polyp again, jarring
     his arm. The knocks and spinning and pain were too much; he vomited. The SII suit immediately vented the acidic fluid as his
     stomach spasmed. He cried out in anguish as the sour juices sloshed round in his mouth, rationality fading away. His neural
     nanonics recognized what was happening and damped down all external nerve inputs, ordered the suit processor to feed him a
     draught of cool, clear oxygen, then fired the manoeuvring pack jets at full power to stop his madcap oscillations.
    The suspension couldn’t have lasted more than ten seconds. When he took notice of the sensor visualization again the red light
     illuminating the cave had been extinguished, and the steam was rushing back out of the gap, currents tugging him gently back
     up towards it again. He reached out an arm to steady himself against the ceiling. His fingers closed automatically around
     a metal conduit pinned to the polyp.
    Joshua did a fast double take, then began to scan the suit collar sensors round the cave. There were no ends in sight. It
     wasn’t a cave, it was a passage, slightly curved. The conduit was one of twenty running along the ceiling. They had all broken
     open below the gash, a familiar feathery fan of ragged photonic cables protruded.
    His neural nanonics were clamouring for attention, medical data insistent against his synapses. He reviewed it quickly, quashing
     the return of the nausea. His soles had burnt down to the bone. There were several options stored in the neural nanonics’
     medical program. He chose the simplest: shut-off for nerves below the knees, infusing a