Landfall (The Reach, Book 2) by Mark R. Healy Page A

clutched at it, fearing she would fall out of her capsule and tumble down into the space below, but she remained firmly rooted in her seat.
    It was then that she realised that her hair was not dangling down as she might have expected.  She clamped a hand over her eyes, fighting back another wave of nausea and disorientation, and when she opened them again she realised what had happened.
    Sometime during the docking procedure the gravity had transferred.  Down had become up, and up had become down.  The men in white jumpsuits were not walking on the ceiling, but on the floor.
    She eased forward out of her seat and stepped out of the capsule.  Around her, other passengers were also disembarking, bleary-eyed and unsteady.  An old man next to her was clasping at his neck and working his head to free up the muscles, and beyond him a girl not much older than Ursie was sporting a large stain down the front of her blouse.
    It seemed that Ursie had not been the only one to experience some discomfort during those final stages of the journey.
    Ursie looked around for her Sponsor, and saw that he had already climbed down from the railcar and was standing on the walkway waiting for her to join him.  He was still wearing the aviator sunglasses.  Ursie gripped the nearest handhold and clambered down, then made her way over to him.
    “Quite disorientating, is it not?” he said in that deep voice, the barest hint of a smile on his lips.  “The first time, at least.”
    “Just a bit.”
    “It’s the centrifugal force,” he explained.  “The habitat is like a hollow ball on the end of a string as it spins around the Earth.  The gravity is exerted away from the planet instead of toward it, and those inside are pushed against the outward wall.”
    “Don’t know much about that,” Ursie said, not the slightest bit interested in the physics of it.  “Or a bout this whole Habitat Thirty-O ne business, either.  What’s going on here?”
    “They’ll bring our luggage in a moment,” he said, pointing to where the men in white were unloading the cargo section of the railcar.  “After that we can talk.”
    The passengers began to stream past them, wide-eyed and excited.  They were all dressed in expensive-looking clothes, and Ursie guessed that every last one of them had come from Lux.  She wondered how many ever came from further down the Reach, or from Link.  Not many, she decided.  She was probably the only one on this journey who had come from less fortunate circumstances.
    She already felt like an outsider in this place.
    A few moments later their luggage was delivered.  Ursie hefted the small case that contained her belongings, and the man in the aviators took possession of his own suitcase.
    “Follow me,” he said.  “I’ve arranged some temporary accommodation for us.  I’ll explain more on the way.”
    He led Ursie through the doorway, along a narrow corridor with transparent sides.  It afforded a 360- degree view of their surrounds, the blackness of space under their feet and the Earth high above.  Ursie could see the Wire stretching upward toward the planet.  From this perspective it almost seemed as though the habitat were hanging from the bottom of the Earth on the end of a very long tether.
    It was, in a word, breathtaking.
    “Quite a sight, isn’t it?” the man said.  Ursie peeled her eyes away from the view above and saw that the man had extended his hand toward her.  “My name is Jodocus van Asch.  I’m so very glad to have you here, Ursie.”
    Ursie reached out and took his hand.  His grip was firm, his hand warm.
    “Thanks.”
    “Now,” he said with a smile, “let me show you around.”
     

 
    11
    Duran followed Zoe through the dank corridor that led out of the room in which he’d awoken, and an odd thought struck him – the place looked like a sewer.  It had the same claustrophobic and cramped features, if not the smell.  There was something sinister about it that Duran