Shipstar: A Science Fiction Novel
Gregory Benford, Larry Niven
Language: English
Pages: 496
ISBN: 0765367122
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
Science fiction masters Larry Niven (Ringworld) and Gregory Benford (Timescape) continue the thrilling adventure of a human expedition to another star system that is jeopardized by an encounter with an astonishingly immense artifact in interstellar space: a bowl-shaped structure cupping a star, with a habitable area equivalent to many millions of Earths. And which, tantalizingly, is on a direct path heading toward the same system the human ship is to colonize.
Investigating the Bowl, or Shipstar, the human explorers are separated―one group captured by the gigantic structure's alien inhabitants, the other pursued across its strange and dangerous landscape―while the mystery of the Shipstar's origins and purpose propel the human voyagers toward discoveries that transform their understanding of their place in the universe.
first Cliff thought it was an explosion, but then it took on other notes and held, lingering with a mournful long strumming cadence. Like someone crying, he thought. Or some thing. “It’s the Folk,” Aybe said. Quert gave an agreeing eye-click. “They … something’s wrong.” THIRTY-SEVEN Redwing stepped into the garden and inhaled through his nose. Good moist green smells. Take a moment, just a breather. The animals— The animals had been tied down, netted, and they were not happy. He hadn’t
was a merciful death indeed.” “Compliments to you, Asenath,” Unajiuhanah began with a ritual rippling feather salute in gray and violet. This achieved the feat of representing the Great Seal of the Vaults in an actual fluttering picture, a striking image on Unajiuhanah’s high fan display. Memor could even see a jittering vague white patch that stood for the formal writing of ancient times, indecipherable now but signifying the weight of vast history. It shimmered like a mute reminder of the long
ancient saying, said to come from the Builders, though across the sum of Bowl eras, no one truly knew. “We fathom more of the gravitational waves, and their true origin,” Bemor said. “As I recall, they come from Glory, or from some source well beyond,” Memor said, for this had been the received wisdom from before she was born. “Not so,” Bemor said. “Not beyond. The source is in the immediate Glorian system.” “There is no plausibility, as some argued, that the gravitational waves came from a
chance coincidence in the sky? From some cosmological source far away?” “Not even close. I see your early education has been a waste of time.” Memor knew this gibe, a lancing shot at her earlier ranking in the rigorous status queue of the elect, pre-Astronomer examinations. Quadlineal calculus had always eluded her somehow, and Bemor had never let her forget it.… She now had to get back some position in this conversation playing out before their elders. “But surely there cannot be heavy masses
endless movement, Cliff had picked up ways to sense the life around them. Some animals here were superb at hiding, skinnying up into dense trees, or burrowing in hidden pits like trapdoor spiders. Others just flew away on quick stubby wings, fluttering fast enough to discourage pursuit. Aybe and Irma walked with him, and Sils were both point and rear guards. The Sil somehow kept themselves in good order, Cliff saw, while the humans in their worn cargo pants with big flap pockets were drab