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.Most of the people I talk to at least know that much.But it's not like a Downsider wheel, with rigid spokes.It's a wheel where the spiral arms closer to the galactic center, and all the stars in them, turn at a faster rate than the ones farther out.So you take a star—for example, Sol.And you take another well-known object—say, the Crab Nebula in Taurus, six thousand light-years farther out toward the galactic rim.You find that Sol is moving around the galactic center about thirty-five kilometers a second faster than the Crab.They're separating, slow but sure, both moving under the influence of the Galactic Trade Wind.(And the wind can work both ways.If you drop behind, because you're farther out from the center, all you have to do is fly yourself in closer to the center, and wait.You'll start to catch up, because now you're moving faster.)But what about the Crab Nebula?, ask some of my Downsider friends, the ones who have understood what I'm talking about.It's a natural object; you can't fly it around like a ship.Will it ever come back to the vicinity of Sol?Sure it will come back, I say.But it'll take a while.The Crab will be close to Sol in another couple of billion years.And then their eyes pop, assuming they have eyes, and they say, Two billion! None of us will be around then.And I tell them, That's all right, I'm not sure I will be, either.In fact, some nights I'm not sure I'll be around next morning.But what I think is, you Downsiders—as usual—are asking the wrong question.What I'd like to know about isn't the Lost Worlds, it's the Lost Explorers.What happened to Aghal H'seyrin, the crippled Cecropian who flew the disrupt loop through the eye of the Needle Singularity? We had one message from her—we know she survived the passage—but she never came back.Or where did Inigo M'tumbe go, after his last planetfall on Llandiver? He sent a message, too, about a "bright braided collar" that he was on his way to explore.No one has ever seen it or him.And what do you make of the last signal from Chinadoll Pas-farda, rolling up the black-side edge of the Coal Sack on a continuous one-gee acceleration, bound, as she said, for infinity?There's your interesting cases: people, not dumb Lost Worlds.I want to know what happened to them, my fellow explorers.I'll fly until I find out; someday.Someday I will know.—from Hot Rocks, Warm Beer, Cold Comfort:Jetting Alone Around the galaxy; byCaptain Alonzo Wilberforce Sloane (Retired)Commentator's Note: Shortly after completing this passage, the last in his published work, Captain Sloane embarked on a voyage to the Salinas Gulf, following the path of the legendary Inigo M'tumbe.He never returned.His final message told of a mysterious serpentine structure, fusion-bright against the stellar backdrop, gradually approaching his ship.Nothing has been heard from him since.It is perhaps ironic that Captain Sloane himself has now become the most famous and most sought after of all Lost Explorers.Chapter FifteenThe Indulgence arrowed at the surface of the planet in a suicide trajectory, held in the grip of a beam of startling yellow that controlled its movement absolutely.Nothing that Darya Lang did with the drive made a scrap of difference.Her two companions were worse than useless.Tally reported their position and computed impact velocity every few seconds, in a loud, confident voice that made her want to scream, while Dulcimer, the "Master Pilot of the spiral arm" who claimed to thrive on danger, had screwed himself down tight into a moaning lump of shivering green."I'm going to die," he said, over and over."I'm going to die.Oh, no, I don't want to die.""Seven seconds to impact," Tally said cheerfully."Approach velocity two kilometers a second and steady.Just listen to the wind on the hull! Four seconds to impact.Three seconds.Two seconds.One second."And then the ship stopped.Instantly—just a moment before it hit the ground.They were hovering six feet up, no movement, no deceleration, no feeling of force, not even—"Hold tight!" Darya shouted."Free-fall."No feeling even of gravity.Dulcimer's scoutship fell free in the fraction of a second until it smacked into the surface of Genizee with a force that jarred Darya's teeth.Dulcimer rolled across the floor, a squeaking ball of green rubber."Approach velocity zero," E.C.Tally announced."The Indulgence has landed." The embodied computer was sitting snug in the copilot's seat, neurally connected to the data bank and main computation center of the Indulgence."All ship elements are reporting normal.The drive is working; the hull has not been breached."Darya was beginning to understand why she might be ruined forever for academic life.Certainly, the world of ideas had its own pleasures and thrills.But surely there was nothing to compete with the wonderful feeling of being alive, after knowing without a shadow of doubt that you would be dead in one second.She took her first breath in ages and stared at the control boards.Not dead, but certainly down, on the surface of an alien world.A possibly hostile world.And—big mistake, Hans Rebka would have planned ahead better—not one of their weapons was at the ready."E.C., give us a perimeter defense.And external displays."The screens lit.Darya had her first view of Genizee—she did not count the brief and terrifying glimpses of the surface as the ship swooped down at it faster and faster.What she saw, after weeks of imagining, was an anticlimax.No monsters, no vast structures, no exotic scenery.The scoutship rested on a plain of dull, gray-green moss, peppered with tiny flecks of brilliant pink.Off to the left stood a broken region of fanged rocks, half hidden by cycads and tall horsetail ferns [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]