Donald Moffitt - Genesis 02

the antenna system,” Bram said. “There must be others, equally spaced around the disk, aimed at a reflector at the hub.”
    By this time they had worked themselves through to the opposite edge of the disk, facing the intergalactic night.
    The antenna complex was lit from above by ruddy moonlight.
    The buried city, limned by mounded avenues of detritus, stretched all the way across the diskworld from rim to rim. And Jao had been right: There was another set of cables climbing to the moon on this side, too.
    “So this,” Ame said, “was the voice of the human race?”
    “Yes.” Bram dug through the centuries for an old memory. “My teacher, Voth, once said that humankind had learned to tame a sun’s power to shout across the gulf between the galaxies, but he couldn’t imagine how.”
    He mused at the phased array, wondering at the scale that would allow its nearer ranks to be seen at such a distance. The elements must be miles high to be even remotely distinguishable—cantilevered or guyed against the topsy-turvy gravity. But that would have presented no problem to a race with moonrope at its disposal. And the gravity would be mild for the next few million miles, anyway. It would be a different story at the hub, where gravity would be crushing. Perhaps there were phase shifters installed at a safe radius. He would send an expedition down the face to see—in a space vehicle. And the physics would have to be carefully worked out so that the explorers would not find themselves slammed against a wall that had become a floor.
    Bram shuddered at the thought of the mighty energies that once had been dispensed by that distant forest. In operation, it would have been a microwave inferno that would have sizzled a man to a crisp in milliseconds. No wonder a healthy stretch of no-man’s-land had been left— and not just to get past the gravitational edge effects.
    Bram inched farther out on the gantry for a better look. Jao was going to insist on a full description. Too energetic a toe push sent him doing a handstand, and he walked a few steps on his hands before his boots settled down, holding on for dear life and being careful not to let go with one hand before he had a firm grip with the other. The asterioid-strength gravity was deceptive, he knew. He still had all his mass, and it was a long way to fall. Already, though he was no more than fifty yards over the edge, he knew that the horizontal component of the diskworld’s complex gravity was tugging every atom of his body toward itself in a complicated vector. He would have had to crawl out another million miles or so to feel anything, of course, but it was there nevertheless. But if he were to fall past reach of a handhold, he would be accelerated inexorably—at the dreamlike rate of about one thirty-millionth of a foot per second to start—until, at an unknown fraction of the distance to the center, the reaching forces of the disk would slam him into the tilted wall-scape at a velocity sufficient to abrade him into a long, wet smear.
    It didn’t help a whit to realize that he’d have been long dead of suffocation, thirst, or boredom before that happened.
    Bram stopped his balloonlike four-limbed outward prowl and wrapped himself securely around a thick strut with an arm and a leg while he surveyed the cliff face from his improved vantage point.
    There was movement beside him, and then Ame was pressed up next to him, peering past his shoulder into the abyss.
    “I thought I told you to stay put,” Bram said.
    “Don’t be silly, Bram-tsu . I’m perfectly able to take care of myself. What could possibly happen?” She leaned out alarmingly. “Do you think we have enough time to climb down there for a look at some of those caves?”
    “No!” he said, hearing himself sputter. In a more reasonable tone of voice, he said, “We’ll come back later with ropes and proper climbing equipment and a team of trained outside workers. Maybe we’ll round up a few tame climbers from Yggdrasil’s vascular system and ride them. And the climbers will wear safety lines, too!”
    “It was just an idea,” she said mildly.
    She unclipped her torch from her belt and played it over the vertical surface below. Seen up close, Jao’s “smooth face” was pocked with great pits and hollows. Looking at this cross section of a world, Bram could see where the crust began, a few miles below, like frosting on a slice of cake. The artificial material beneath was thinly