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    The Loom of Thessaly
    The Loom of Thessaly
    The Loom of Thessaly
    Ebook64 pages1 hour

    The Loom of Thessaly

    By David Brin

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    About this ebook

    Who guides our fate? And can we ever hope to wrest control for ourselves? In this novella, David Brin merges classical mythology with impudent modern spirit in a science fiction legend that speculates upon the nature of reality.
    With an afterword by the author.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDavid Brin
    Release dateJun 23, 2011
    ISBN9781458069085
    The Loom of Thessaly
    Author

    David Brin

    David Brin is an astrophysicist whose international-bestselling novels include Earth, Existence, Startide Rising, and The Postman, which was adapted into a film in 1998. Brin serves on several advisory boards, including NASA’s Innovative Advanced Concepts program, or NIAC, and speaks or consults on topics ranging from AI, SETI, privacy, and invention to national security. His nonfiction book about the information age, The Transparent Society, won the Freedom of Speech Award of the American Library Association. Brin’s latest nonfiction work is Polemical Judo. Visit him at www.davidbrin.com.

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      Book preview

      The Loom of Thessaly - David Brin

      The Loom of Thessaly

      A Novella

      by

      David Brin

      ***

      Smashwords Edition

      Copyright 2011 David Brin

      1.

      You can't get there from here.

      At the time, Pavlos Apropoulos thought his American friend was joking. Now he wasn't so sure.

      Try it and see, Frank had said. It's less than 250 kilometers from Athens, and I'll bet you can't even get close to it!

      That had been easy enough for Frank to say, sitting in the comfort of Pavlos's Athens apartment. He wasn't going to be the one who went alone, into the wilderness, to test it.

      Pavlos's arms felt as if they were about to come off. The branch he was holding on to might tear free at any second, leaving him without any firm support. Yet his feet couldn't seem to find a purchase.

      There was dust everywhere. The canyon was filled with a clay pungence that mixed with the overripe odors of bramble bush and perspiration. He could taste blood from one of the cuts he'd taken on his face, during the panicky scramble down the flaky, slippery talus.

      This was the easiest route. He was sure of it.

      The branch tore loose just as Pavlos got his right foot settled on an uncertain chunk of partially decomposed granite. For a moment he teetered. The canyon wavering about him in a blur of hazy green thorn bushes and a narrow strip of cloudy sky.

      Pavlos threw the cluster of twigs away and grabbed for another hold. But dry leaves came off like chaff in his hands as the ground crumbled beneath him.

      The brush that had been so formidable in blocking his earlier descent now broke and parted in front of him like chips flying from an axe. Branches tore and whipped at his arms, which he vainly tried to keep over his face as he fell, running and crashing, down the steep slope.

      Somehow, he stayed on his feet, though they skidded on the powdery surface. The shrubbery thickened toward the bottom and the slope flattened, but this slowed him only slightly as the headlong rush sent him splashing across a small rivulet of dirty water to slam, arms outstretched, into the opposite canyon wall.

      Fragments of desiccated, ancient rock rained down upon him as he labored to catch his breath in a series of shuddering gasps. The clumps fell in a steady stream -- a miniature landslide onto the back of his head.

      Pavlos stood still, taking things in order. He wasn't ready to begin cataloguing the bruises and scrapes he had taken. The thudding of loose gravel on his skull meant no more to his overloaded senses than the chalky, rank odor of dust and sweat which he took in with each ragged breath, or the almost unbearable weight of his backpack.

      The landfall subsided at about the same rate as Pavlos's breathing. Dust settled, leaving a fine white patina on his hair and hunched shoulders. He waited a few moments longer, eyes shut tightly against the floating grit, listening to the fading creakings his passage down the scarp had set off. When finally he looked around, Pavlos shuddered.

      In thirty years of mountaineering he had seen many ravines like this, but this was the first time he had ever been in one. There had never been a need, before. There had always been another way... an easier route.

      Not this time, though. The place where he had come down was the best he had found in an entire day of searching. It was hideous.

      Gnarled trees and thorn bushes covered the sixty-degree slope. Jagged rocks protruded from the starved, parched soil. It was a miracle he had come this far without breaking a leg, or his skull.

      More than ever he was convinced he was on the right path. This monument to inaccessibility had to be the place Frank had spoken of.

      He checked for cuts and bruises. It was a good thing he had chosen, after carefully examining Frank's aerial photos, to wear leather for this expedition. It had protected most of his skin, although several unbelievable thorns had pierced his garments and had to be pulled out amid momentary, excruciating pain.

      He allowed his pack to slide down and form a seat to rest on. With slow deliberation, he drew out his aid kit and applied disinfectant to the cuts on his face and the backs of his wrists.

      Only after his breathing settled, and the spots disappeared from in front of his eyes, did he allow himself a slow, sparing swallow from one of his canteens. He wet a handkerchief and carefully wiped the grit away from his eyes and lips.

      Upstream to the right a few dozen meters was the path of ascension he had picked out during his visual scouting, earlier, from the other side. It was the route with marginally fewer obstacles than elsewhere along this face.

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