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Book One The Koyculture Book Three Page 1 Water Book Two Novagaia Chapter One Tennys had had his doubts about his transport when it had arrived, and now it felt as if those doubts were justified. The Bus was falling out of the sky, completely out of control, its long legs dangling. To make matters worse, its belly had become transparent allowing him to see the toy landscape of Novagaia, upon which he was soon going to be a protein puree. He screamed. Page 2 He had arrived at the Hub complex at the centre of the Novagaian orbital only an hour previously, aboard a small reaction shuttle from Memecast. The view of the approaching structure through the vehicle’s imaging systems was spectacular. The Novagaian Hub was ellipsoidal, 10 kilometres in length along its greatest axis. Innumerable docking spines sprouted from both ends of it, many more than a kilometre long. Looked at from directly above, the Hub was a spiky, squashed disc. Seen from the side, in line with the inner surface of Novagaia itself, it was a spiky, flattened lozenge, three kilometres thick, studded with ports, blisters, lights, windows and shadows. The volume above and below this central section was transparent, flecked with green and blue, apparently unprotected from vacuum. After disembarking from the shuttle, his first proper look at Novagaia through the long transparent wall of the docking spine revealed a world not just ostensibly open to vacuum, but actually open to vacuum. Having been raised on a sealed Austerity micro-orbital, and being used to the closed environment of Memecast, the concept of living on such a potentially leaky structure alarmed him greatly. He must have stood gawping for longer than he thought when he arrived because when he turned around at the sound of a noise behind him, he was alone. A hoop of striped black was rolling toward him. It stopped a few metres short. Ivory coloured graphics flowed across the thing’s black surface. I am Hub courtesy, the words spelt.Can I do anything for you? Secondary scrolling requested his preferred mode of access, while the machines grew flexible manipulators with small hands. The machine offered the hands, palms open, in a curiously polite gesture to accompany the silent graphics. Ah, thought Tennys, a porter. He adopted his usual condescending tone when talking to constructs. ‘Verbal access. I am Tennys Smolensky. Tell me how I get down to the orbital surface and how I find Chapel Halls.’ ‘A Bus can take you to Chapel Halls direct, Tennys Smolensky,’ replied the machine smoothly. ‘Hub courtesy will provide your internal resource with the necessary directions if you wish?’ ‘Yes. I do.’ ‘Complying. Thank you.’ With that, the machine folded its hands quickly, in the manner of a ritual bow, its appendages intruded back into itself, and it rolled away. Tennys was left, his mouth hanging slightly open, staring after the machine as it moved around the curve of the corridor and disappeared. He was used to a little more deference from constructs. For a moment, he felt a little silly. Tennys accessed his resource. It interfaced his visual cortex and a map appeared, apparently hanging in the air in front of him. Black and grey graphics wriggled into position showing him his position and route. He began walking and the map stayed with him, a little over 30 centimetres from his nose until he backgrounded it. His route took him, via a lift, to the other side of the Hub complex. He emerged into a wide, deserted corridor, very much like the one that he had left. Movement caught his eye as he was passing the big curved window. Page 3 Something was approaching the Hub. Tennys was reminded of pictures he had seen, of the kinds of invertebrate insects that had abounded on Earth before Water. A dark, bulbous body trailed two enormous legs, m