…But now another of those magnetic echoes hurtled up around him. This time his feet slipped from the board and he fell forward, crying out; the board slammed against his chest and thrust him upward toward the Crust. He clung to the board helplessly, his legs scrabbling across its smooth surface, as he rose faster than he could ever have Surfed. If he lost the board he was finished, he knew. His mind raced. Perhaps he would be thrown beyond the Crust, board and all! What then? Would his body collapse into cooling fragments in the emptiness beyond, just as the Core material froze in the Mantle?
As it happened, would he be aware?
But the upward surge subsided, as suddenly as it had come.
The board stabilized in the Air, Gasping, Cris dragged himself forward across the board; his chest ached from the pressure of the board in its flight. There was the City, far below him, but still close enough for him to make out detail — the Spine, the gaping cargo ports, the encrustation of Garden on its upper surface. He felt a surge of relief, and even a little shame; he couldn’t have been thrown so impossibly high after all.
Carefully, cautiously, he tucked his knees under him, rested his feet against the board, and stood up. The Magfield was quivering like a live thing under him, and he rocked the board against it, tilting his aching ankles; but, for the moment, the field was fairly stable. Predictable. He could Surf on it… and he was going to have to, if he was to make it through this.
He glanced around the sky. He was alone now; there was no sign of any of the other hundred Surfers. Again he felt a burst of triumph, accompanied by shame. Had he survived because he was the best? Or the luckiest, perhaps?
And, he reminded himself, he might join the rest in the anonymity of death yet, before this day was through.
The vortex lines around him writhed, tortured by instabilities, by impossible, ungainly forms which warped as they propagated, gathering energy. The end of the vortex lines — the boundary of the volume of Air in which there were no vortex lines — was rushing toward him, a wall of emptiness. In that region, he knew, the turbulence of the Air, lashed by the neutrino storm from the Core, was such that its superfluid properties had broken down. He wouldn’t be able to Surf; the friction would be impossible. Damn it, he wouldn’t be able to breathe. His capillaries would clog, his heart strain at the thickening Air…
He shook his head, tried to focus. He looked down. He had to get back to the City before the turbulence reached him. (That remote part of him prodded his mind over this. Why should he be any safer in the City than outside?) Again he shook his head, growling at himself. The City was the only place to go, safe or not. Therefore he would go there. But already the chunks of frozen Sea-stuff were hurtling up around the City. A graze from one of those…
Thinking about it was pointless. He spread his feet against the board, bent his legs, and thrust.
He Surfed as he’d never Surfed before — perhaps as nobody had Surfed before. He thrust at the board again and again, ramming its Corestuff web across the shaking Magfield. He soared between rippling vortex lines, ducking and swooping. Soon he was moving so quickly that the residual normal-fluid component of the Air whipped at his hair, his face. But still he accelerated, slamming his feet against the board until his soles ached.
There was something in the distance, a new factor in the chaos the sky had become. He risked a brief glance. He saw lines crossing the sky, lancing down through the Crust across the vortex lines, and penetrating the Core — blue-white beams which stirred the Core like spoons.
Now he was entering the inverted rain from the exploded Sea. The frozen Sea-fragments were irregular, solid chunks, two or three mansheights across. They tumbled upward through the Air around him, sharp edges sparkling, Sea-purple laced through their interior. The fragments had their own, whirling magnetic fields; ghostly flux-fingers plucked at Cris as they passed him. He followed a curving path, dipping down over the Pole toward the City; flexing his legs, his hips, his neck, he slalomed through the crumbling vortex lines, the Sea-fragments.
What sport! It was wonderful! He roared aloud, yelling out his exhilaration.
The City was ahead of him now. It seemed to balloon out of the Air, its Skin swelling before him, uneven, ugly, as if being inflated from within.
He was almost home.
By the blood of the Ur-humans, he thought. I might actually live through this. And if he did, what a tale he would have to tell. What a hero he would become…
But now the Magfield surged again, betraying him.
This time he fell back; his spine was slammed against his board. The breath was knocked out of him, and he tumbled off the board, vainly clutching for its rim.
The board fell away from him, tumbling across the face of the City.
Falling naked through the Air, he watched the board recede. He tried to Wave, to rock his legs through the Air, but his strength was gone; he could get no purchase on the Magfield.
He was moving too fast, in any case.
Oddly he felt no fear, only a kind of regret. To have come so close and not to have made it…
The Skin of Parz was huge before him, a wall across the sky.
23
All around the City, cooling fragments of the Quantum Sea, huge and threatening, streamed upward from the Pole.
In the Stadium, there was panic.
Adda leaned forward in his cocoon and peered down. The bulk of the Stadium was a turbulent mass of human torsos and struggling limbs; even as he watched, the network of delicate guide ropes which had crisscrossed the Stadium collapsed, engendering still more chaos as a thousand people struggled to escape. The crowd, screaming, sounded like trapped animals. Lost in the melee, Adda saw the purple uniforms of stewards and food vendors scrambling along with the rest.
They all wanted to get out, obviously. But get out to what? Where was safety to be found — inside the cozy Skin of the City? But that Skin was just a shell of wood and Corestuff ribs; it would burst like scraped leather if…
He was kicked in the back, hard. He gasped as the Air was forced out of his lungs, and he fell forward; then the rope fixing his cocoon on one side parted, and he was spun around.
He struggled out of his cocoon, ignoring the protests of stiff joints, and prepared to take on whoever had struck him. But it was impossible to tell. The Committee Box was full of panicking courtiers, their made-up faces twisted with fear, fighting free of cocoons and restrictive robes. Adda opened his mouth and laughed at them. So all their finery, and fine titles, offered no protection from mortal terror. Where was their power now?
Muub was struggling out of his own cocoon with every expression of urgency.
Adda said, “Where will you go?”
“The Hospital, of course.” Muub gathered his robes tight around his legs and glanced around the Box, looking for the fastest way out. “It’s going to be a long day’s work…” Apparently on impulse, he grabbed Adda’s arm. “Upfluxer. Come with me. Help me.”
Adda felt like laughing again, but he recognized earnestness in Muub’s eyes. “Why me?”
Muub gestured to the scrambling courtiers. “Look at these people,” he said wearily. “Not many cope well in a crisis, Adda.” He glanced at the upfluxer appraisingly. “You think I’m a little inhuman — a cold man, remote from people. Perhaps I am. But I’ve worked long enough as a Physician to gain a functional understanding of who can be relied on. And you’re one of them, Adda. Please.”