A Forest of Stars - Kevin J. Anderson [98]
Jess climbed through a hatch and pulled himself down into the processing chambers beneath his habitation pod. Checking the progress of his trolling had become a comfortable daily routine.
The nebula’s dominant component, especially in outlying eddies, was pure hydrogen, and the skimmers had been engineered to pump all collected gases through the high-efficiency ekti reactors.
According to the in situ analysis probes, for days he had been flying through a particularly dense knot of vaporous material composed not only of hydrogen, but also of hydroxyl and carbon dioxide molecules, a few traces of carbon monoxide and doubly ionized oxygen. Oddest of all, his reading suggested that this clump of gas contained a significant concentration of intact water molecules, which was unusual in interstellar clouds.
From his upbringing at the Plumas ice mines, Jess was well aware of the value of water to interstellar colonies. Roamers could always use it for drinking or in hydroponic greenhouse systems; water could also be electrolytically separated into hydrogen and oxygen, then recombined into peroxides, rocket fuels, even lubricants. Such a resource should not go to waste.
Since he had plenty of time to implement his modifications, Jess reconfigured the molecular filtration systems and rigged up a subsidiary containment chamber to separate out the water from the starcloud. Optimistic and ambitious, he built a cylinder to hold hundreds of liters; even in this thick concentration of gases, though, he would find only a molecule or two in every cubic meter of the nebula.
The work kept his mind busy, distracted him from the pain of what he had lost.
Jess sailed on, surrounded by the faint vapor illuminated by stray photons from distant stars. The ekti reactors hummed, taking gasping breaths of the rarefied hydrogen, while the distillers separated the cosmic water little by little, one drop at a time.
As was a tradition among Roamer men, Jess embroidered intricate clan markings on his clothes, splicing together symbols that showed the ever-growing branches of his family. Sadly, the design of clan Tamblyn seemed blunt and curtailed now.
In total solitude, Jess sat for hours stitching the intricate designs, sketching with his mind. If things had been different, his clan chain might have been joined with clan Peroni’s in a multicolored rainbow that spread across the pockets and sleeves of his jumpsuits. Now, though, the design ended with him.
Aside from tangential patterns for his uncles, the only other branch was for Tasia. Perhaps she could carry on. Any number of young Roamer men would be happy to take her as a partner, if she survived her stint in the military.
Ah, how he hated the hydrogues! Ross…Tasia…Cesca…Someday the war would end, but life would never be the same. Someday he might make a new start, redraw the design of his life according to a new pattern.
But not today. Not for a long time.
49
TASIA TAMBLYN
Methodically and inexorably, the hydrogues continued to devastate Boone’s Crossing. Unimpeded, the warglobes moved over the forested landscape, obliterating the tall pines with icewaves. They were in no hurry.
Tasia Tamblyn lifted her overloaded cruiser from the lakeside Settlement D only moments ahead of the oncoming spheres. When the burdened Manta responded sluggishly, lurching forward, she wasn’t sure they would be able to move fast enough to get away. Just behind them, the warglobes blasted stands of black pines, shops and homes, sawmills and warehouses.
Using all the lift its engines could generate, the crowded cruiser lumbered away like a drunken bumblebee, picking up speed and altitude. It barely managed to stay ahead of the perimeter of disintegration, increasing the separation every second as it left the doomed settlement.
Inside the Manta, crammed shoulder to shoulder in every open space, the refugees stared at viewers or through portholes as the drogues crushed what had been their homes, the once-thriving lumber industries, shops, warehouses. Everything.