The Farships Fall to Nowhere
By John C. Wright
“Watching a farship fall is a bad, bad business; a nightmare, it is.”
I met an ancient man who sat upon the weir. The river the natives called Shouting Ice flowed past us, from the glaciers in the Twilight cantons, down to the Summerdawn Sea. It was autumn on South Nowhere, and Rigel was as high as it would ever rise at this latitude, a dazzling pinpoint of brightness, a hand-span above the horizon.
As near my guess could land, it was the year AD 5000.
I said, “I’ve seen shuttles bring down passengers from interplanetary skiffs. Surely the process is not much different.”
“You know nothing, young stranger. Buy me a taste of yon barkeep’s best, and I will tell the tale.”
I bought him a glass of fine aquavit with a coin of gold I was pleas
