Chapters (6)
“Well, fuck all that,” he said, and came up grinning. “Will it be fun?”
“Ed, it will.”
“Where do I sign up?”
A little later, paraplegic, catheterised and stuffed to the limits of his nervous system with brand-new drugs, Ed Chianese, twink, felt the Einstein Cross light up his brain, and took control of his K-ship. Sandra Shen had trained him well. Navigation is an act of prophecy, a couple of guesses with your head in a tank of prophylactic jelly. You can leave the massive parallel processing to the algorithms: you can leave it to the quantumware. After signing him on, the mathematics had gone up into its own space, where Ed found it waiting for him.
“Hey,” Ed said.
“What’s that?”
“One thing I wish. I had a sister, you know, and I did something stupid and walked away from her. I wish I’d see her again. Just once more. Sort that out.”
“That won’t be possible, Ed.”
“Then I want to rename the ship. Can I do that?”
“Of course you can.”
Ed thought hard about his fucked-up life. “We’re the Black Cat,” he said. “We’re the Black Cat from now on.”
“Ed, it’s a fine name.”
“So ramp me up.”
The mathematics was delighted to do that. Ed went on shiptime. Ten spatial dimensions spread themselves like legs for him; four of time. Dark matter boiled and flared. Out in the last place in the ordinary world, the Black Cat rose from the surface of the asteroid. She hunted like a compass needle, then turned herself slowly until she stood on her tail. For thirty nanoseconds, which is a million years down there where things are small, nothing happened. Then fusion product burst out of her stern. She leapt forward on a line of bright white light and shortly made a hole in nowhere.
“Well the engine’s on. Let’s just point the fucker.”
“Let’s just do that, Ed.”
“Which of these switches is the music?”
The asteroid now stood empty, but for the bone dice and the dead physicist. The dice lay as they had fallen for Ed Chianese, and the dust sifted over them. Michael Kearney’s bones browned a little further. Seria Mau Genlicher returned a number of times, sometimes happy, sometimes like a living winter, and looked down, and went away again. Years passed. Centuries passed. Then the sky began to change colour, subtly and slowly at first, then faster and wilder than anyone could dream.
THE BEGINNING
Also by M. John Harrison
THE COMMITTED MEN
THE CENTAURI DEVICE
THE ICE MONKEY
VIRICONIUM
CLIMBERS
THE LUCK IN THE HEAD with Ian Miller
THE COURSE OF THE HEART
SIGNS OF LIFE
TRAVEL ARRANGEMENTS