in time, back to a time when Ba was still alive, but she reminds herself that only fools think of time as a dimension.
Su’Zi doesn’t use the light built into the eSuit (environmental suit) she was wearing. She doesn’t even echo click; the method miners can use for hearing their way down dark passages. She feels her way, guided by the curved bottom of the tunnel and the steady breeze of Dadr’Ba’s circulation system. The system carries warm air from near the center of Dadr’Ba, assisted by massive fans, out to Dadr’Ba’s edges and the cold emptiness of space. There it liquefies in stages and gets pumped back to the core as a cryogenic liquid.
Dadr’Ba is a living thing, and like all living things must maintain a delicate balance to stay healthy. Dadr’Ba uses its circulatory system to balance between the near absolute zero of interstellar space and the fusion fire that propels it through space and provides the energy to support life.
In between the two extremes lay its internal organs, the structures, processes and technology and the thousands of people operating and maintaining it all. The challenge is to maintain the critical temperature balance necessary within each zone to ensure the structural integrity of Dadr’Ba’s water ice, frozen organic and gaseous body.
All Life in Dadr’Ba exists solely to support the fusion fire that drives Dadr’Ba. It seems strangely fitting that Ba lost his life there, his molecules burned and fused in the atomic fire that is the life of the ship. It is even likely, that the atoms that made up Ba would be recycled and burned yet again since the exhaust of the engine is rocketing out the front of Dadr’Ba slowing it down.
Dadr’Ba will eventually catch up to this exhaust and with the help of its magnetic field draw many atoms back into its nuclear fire until it can be burned no more, yet still supply exhaust mass. Finally creating a cloud that Dadr’Ba must pass through providing resistance further slowing Dadr’Ba. It may be possible that the atoms that once made up Ba would stay with Dadr’Ba, continuously recycled and make it all the way to O’M.
Su’Zi let her mind wander, unable to focus on anything, not conscious of herself, blindly walking, like a wandering out of body experience, taking strange solace in the feel of the increased chill and gravity as she descends.
T’Bm’s have removed vast volumes of ice, frozen gasses and an assorted mixture of various other elements, leaving a skeleton of a structure engineered and reinforced to be strong enough to frame and support the ship while taking every available kilogram for fuel and raw materials to be processed into the necessities of the ship.
The place she was walking through now had walls resembling the ribs on the inside of an ancient sailing vessel, the ribs, crafted for extra strength. In Dadr’Ba’s early days the builders hollowed out areas to make temporary living quarters, some of these had been abandoned and forgotten over time.
Some cellar areas of Ol’Tn [21] once occupied by people before the Touch of God are avoided and sealed off, thousands of people died in those spaces, and even though their bodies had been processed in a manner consistent with the time and custom, many believe ghosts still inhabit those areas. They all died without retirement, without passing their psychic seed to their descendants.
Su’Zi wonders if Ba survived the calamity as a spirit, a lost reflection of one’s self, surviving somewhere in this reality. Wondering too, if his spirit was lost in space or was he able to make it back to the ship?
Su’Zi passes the active mining zone and now knows where she wants to go; she begins to reflect on the events that have led to this point while her body grows heavy with each step towards her destination forcing her to slow down.
The artificial gravity induced by Dadr’Ba’s spin was set for Zone Two, one hundred to two hundred meters from the core, where the
Bohumil Hrabal, Michael Heim, Adam Thirlwell