in
the events columns there in the
Blair Road Booster.
This time he was waiting for it, and since
the world had turned under the orbit, caught it in just above mid
horizon, and he stopped tossing the cabbages to stare.
It wasn't a ship, and it
was
cratered, but it wasn't a big thing by any
means, "big" being a relative term when it came to objects in
space, even in nearspace. Yulie'd heard of constructs that might be
that size, but not constructs of rock; whatever it was, it was not
the size of a tidal satellite, by any means.
Still, he was hardly an expert, having only
the hand-me-down lessons from Grampa, and the optics scope. The sky
was brilliant though, and blue, and it was still visible, with
Triga and Toppa not yet risen to confuse with odd shadows. Not that
Surebleak's two tidal moons were all that bright, but they both
were capable of casting some light and when they were in sync were
quite a spectacular sight, especially when they were in conjunction
with Chuck-Honey.
Yulie checked the chronometer, almost doubting. Right.
It
was
orbiting, and it wasn't high at all. Something that size
could make a heck of a hole if it was on the way down. A heck of a
hole.
He felt the panic gnawing experimentally at
his vision, but no! There, an aircraft, flying low over Melina
Sherton's land, or maybe over Ira's back farms. Almost noiseless,
it banked, headed his way -- he thought to run, but the thing
banked away, obviously interested in the growing little block-town
Melina and Ira'd been working on, just in case the fools in the
city actually did themselves in. Interested? Hah -- it might be it
was landing somewhere over that way.
Yulie threw the striped orange cabbage from
his hand to the crate, willing to call the thing full. That ought
to do it. Five full crates -- time to get things moving. No time to
be worried about aircraft, and --
He twisted, catching a glimpse of some low
clouds coming from the northwest, which could portend a rainy
morning on the morrow, perhaps even a snowy tomorrow night.
The moon-thing was out of sight now, but he
was going to watch for it. Meanwhile, it was time to go if he was
going to hit Boss Sherton's farmer's market before the last of the
day-buyers left.
The walk was doing Yulie good, even if the
plane had come by for one more pass before disappearing for good.
He knew it was too soon for the return of the new moon, but
scanning the sky was helping him keep the world in perspective as
he trod the down slope toward the farmers market. His backpack held
six cabbages -- one each for the two local bosses, and one each for
the tollbooth crews to share. The other two were promise-proofs for
the farmers who might come to help, knowing good food when they saw
it.
The slope got steeper, and then the road
went through a short valley, still tending downhill, with rocky
hills acting as a kind of weather break and demarcation for the
land below.
Originally, of course, that natural wall the
valley pierced made for good siting for the test dig that had
become World's End, and for the company's first management zone.
Once the dig got going Management was inclined to prefer the
portside bar and restaurants and then -- and then the company had
gone slowly into decline as the commercial timonium need drove the
independents, and later the big boys, to follow the joint trail of
creation and destruction that was the legacy of Chuck-Honey's rapid
path through the regional space.
Somewhere Chuck, or Honey, or the pair
together, had swarmed upon a stony-cored brown-dwarf remnant of the
same monster cloud that had formed Surebleak and its system, and
that dwarf's bounty lay in the metals and transuranics -- and the
encounter, sundering the dwarf, created a rogue field of rocks and
high grade ore, loosely trailing behind. Asteroids and comets and
potential moons, the rocks now transited interstellar space. Lucky
ships could come up with lumps of near pure timonium, or gold, or
lead. Hardworking ships and
the events columns there in the
Blair Road Booster.
This time he was waiting for it, and since
the world had turned under the orbit, caught it in just above mid
horizon, and he stopped tossing the cabbages to stare.
It wasn't a ship, and it
was
cratered, but it wasn't a big thing by any
means, "big" being a relative term when it came to objects in
space, even in nearspace. Yulie'd heard of constructs that might be
that size, but not constructs of rock; whatever it was, it was not
the size of a tidal satellite, by any means.
Still, he was hardly an expert, having only
the hand-me-down lessons from Grampa, and the optics scope. The sky
was brilliant though, and blue, and it was still visible, with
Triga and Toppa not yet risen to confuse with odd shadows. Not that
Surebleak's two tidal moons were all that bright, but they both
were capable of casting some light and when they were in sync were
quite a spectacular sight, especially when they were in conjunction
with Chuck-Honey.
Yulie checked the chronometer, almost doubting. Right.
It
was
orbiting, and it wasn't high at all. Something that size
could make a heck of a hole if it was on the way down. A heck of a
hole.
He felt the panic gnawing experimentally at
his vision, but no! There, an aircraft, flying low over Melina
Sherton's land, or maybe over Ira's back farms. Almost noiseless,
it banked, headed his way -- he thought to run, but the thing
banked away, obviously interested in the growing little block-town
Melina and Ira'd been working on, just in case the fools in the
city actually did themselves in. Interested? Hah -- it might be it
was landing somewhere over that way.
Yulie threw the striped orange cabbage from
his hand to the crate, willing to call the thing full. That ought
to do it. Five full crates -- time to get things moving. No time to
be worried about aircraft, and --
He twisted, catching a glimpse of some low
clouds coming from the northwest, which could portend a rainy
morning on the morrow, perhaps even a snowy tomorrow night.
The moon-thing was out of sight now, but he
was going to watch for it. Meanwhile, it was time to go if he was
going to hit Boss Sherton's farmer's market before the last of the
day-buyers left.
The walk was doing Yulie good, even if the
plane had come by for one more pass before disappearing for good.
He knew it was too soon for the return of the new moon, but
scanning the sky was helping him keep the world in perspective as
he trod the down slope toward the farmers market. His backpack held
six cabbages -- one each for the two local bosses, and one each for
the tollbooth crews to share. The other two were promise-proofs for
the farmers who might come to help, knowing good food when they saw
it.
The slope got steeper, and then the road
went through a short valley, still tending downhill, with rocky
hills acting as a kind of weather break and demarcation for the
land below.
Originally, of course, that natural wall the
valley pierced made for good siting for the test dig that had
become World's End, and for the company's first management zone.
Once the dig got going Management was inclined to prefer the
portside bar and restaurants and then -- and then the company had
gone slowly into decline as the commercial timonium need drove the
independents, and later the big boys, to follow the joint trail of
creation and destruction that was the legacy of Chuck-Honey's rapid
path through the regional space.
Somewhere Chuck, or Honey, or the pair
together, had swarmed upon a stony-cored brown-dwarf remnant of the
same monster cloud that had formed Surebleak and its system, and
that dwarf's bounty lay in the metals and transuranics -- and the
encounter, sundering the dwarf, created a rogue field of rocks and
high grade ore, loosely trailing behind. Asteroids and comets and
potential moons, the rocks now transited interstellar space. Lucky
ships could come up with lumps of near pure timonium, or gold, or
lead. Hardworking ships and
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