Chapters (56)
- PROLOGUE
- PART 1
- ONE
- TWO
- THREE
- FOUR
- FIVE
- SIX
- SEVEN
- EIGHT
- PART 2
- NINE
- TEN
- ELEVEN
- TWELVE
- THIRTEEN
- FOURTEEN
- FIFTEEN
- SIXTEEN
- SEVENTEEN
- EIGHTEEN
- NINETEEN
- PART 3
- TWENTY
- TWENTY-ONE
- TWENTY-TWO
- TWENTY-THREE
- TWENTY-FOUR
- TWENTY-FIVE
- TWENTY-SIX
- TWENTY-SEVEN
- PART 4
- TWENTY-EIGHT
- TWENTY-NINE
- THIRTY
- THIRTY-ONE
- THIRTY-TWO
- THIRTY-THREE
- THIRTY-FOUR
- THIRTY-FIVE
- THIRTY-SIX
- THIRTY-SEVEN
- PART 5
- THIRTY-EIGHT
- THIRTY-NINE
- FORTY
- FORTY-ONE
- FORTY-TWO
- FORTY-THREE
- FORTY-FOUR
- FORTY-FIVE
- FORTY-SIX
- FORTY-SEVEN
- FORTY-EIGHT
- FORTY-NINE
- EPILOGUE
You’ll find them pretty much everywhere on Harlan’s World, because pretty much everywhere on Harlan’s World there’s an ocean that throws waves to die for. And to die for has a couple of meanings here. 0.8G, remember, and three moons—you can ride a wave along some parts of Vchira for half a dozen kilometres at a time, and the height of the things some of these guys get up on has to be seen to be believed. But the low gravity and the trilunar tug has its flip side, and the oceans on Harlan’s World run current systems like nothing ever seen on Earth. Chemical content, temperature and flow all vary alarmingly and the sea does bitchy, unforgiving things with very little warning. The turbulence theorists are still getting to grips with a lot of it, back in their modelled simulations.
Out on Vchira Beach, they’re doing a different kind of research. More than once I’ve seen the Young effect played out to perfection on a seemingly stable nine-metre face, like some Promethean myth in frame advance—the perfect rising shoulder of water eddies and stumbles drunkenly under the rider, then shatters apart as if caught by artillery frag fire. The sea opens its throat, swallows the board, swallows the rider. I’ve helped pull the survivors from the surf a few times. I’ve seen the dazed grins, the glow that seems to come off their faces as they say things like I didn’t think that bitch was ever going to get off my chest or man, did you see that shit come apart on me or most often of all, urgently, did you get my plank out okay, sam. I’ve watched them go back out again, the ones that didn’t have dislocated or broken limbs or cracked skulls from the wipeout, and I’ve watched the gnawing want in the eyes of the ones who have to wait to heal.
I know the feeling well enough. It’s just that I tend to associate it with trying to kill people other than myself.
“Why us?” Mari Ado asked with the blunt lack of manners she obviously thought went with her offworld name.
I grinned and shrugged.
“Couldn’t think of anyone else stupid enough.”