times, he came across field mice and their xenoc analogues, who were sleeping fitfully. They’d just curled up where they were, not making any attempt to return to their nests or warrens.
Ordinary chemical reactions must still be working,he suggested. If they weren’t, then everything would be dead.
Yes. Although from what we’re seeing and experiencing, they must also be inhibited to some degree.
Dariat trudged on. The spiral-springs of grass made the going hard, causing resistance as his legs passed through them. It was though he was walking along a stream bed where the water was coming half-way up his shins. As his complaints became crabbier, the personality guided him towards one of the narrow animal tracks.
After half an hour of easier walking, and pondering his circumstances, he said: You told me that your electrical generation was almost zero.
Yes.
But not absolute?
No.
So the habitat must be in some kind of magnetic field if the induction cables are producing a current.
Logically, yes.
But?
Some induction cables are producing a current, the majority are not. And those that are, do so sporadically. Buggered if we can work out what’s going on, boy. Besides, we can’t locate any magnetic field outside. There’s nothing we can see that could be producing one.
What is out there?
Very little.
Dariat felt the personality gathering the erratic images from clusters of sensitive cells speckling the external polyp shell, and formatting them into a coherent visualisation for him. The amount of concentration it took for the personality to fulfil what used to be a profoundly simple task surprised and worried him.
There were no planets. No moons. No stars. No galaxies. Only a murky void.
The eeriest impression he received from the expanded affinity bond was the way Valisk appeared to be in flight. Certainly he was aware of movement of some kind, though it was purely subliminal, impossible to define. The huge cylinder appeared to be gliding through a nebula. Not one recognizable from their universe. This was composed from extraordinarily subtle layers of ebony mist, shifting so slowly they were immensely difficult to distinguish. Had he been seeing it with his own eyes, he would have put it down to overstressed retinas. But there were discernible strands of the smoky substance out there; sparser than atmospheric cloud, denser than whorls of interstellar gas.
Abruptly, a fracture of hoary light shimmered far behind the hub of Valisk’s southern endcap, a luminous serpent slithering around the insubstantial billows. Rough tatters of gritty vapour detonated into emerald and turquoise phosphorescence as it twirled past them. The phenomenon was gone inside a second.
Was that lightning?dariat asked in astonishment.
We have no idea. However, we can’t detect any static charge building on our shell. So it probably wasn’t electrically based.
Have you seen it before?
That was the third time.
Bloody hell. How far away was it?
That is impossible to determine. We are trying to correlate parallax data from the external sensitive cells. Unfortunately, lack of distinct identifiable reference points within the cloud formations is hampering our endeavour.
You’re beginning to sound like an Edenist. Take a guess.
We believe we can see about two hundred kilometres altogether.
Shit. That’s all?
Yes.
Anything could be out there, behind that stuff.
You’re beginning to catch on, boy.
Can you tell if we’re moving? I got the impression we were. But it could just be the way that cloud
