Space Skimmer - David Gerrold (1972) torrent

Written by David Gerrold
Read by Stephen Hoye
Format: MP3
Bitrate: 64 Kbps
Unabridged

Mass is humanoid, but genetically evolved to cope with greater pressures, stronger gravity, and heavier densities than those of an ancient planet he never knew, nor probably ever would. For Mass, Earth is millennia in the past.
His companions are equally diverse, differently evolved, and most unsuitable to him and to one another. Each live on a separate plane they had grown on separate worlds.
Yet survival might depend on communication. To live, they must find a way to come together as they're faced with intense pressure, clashing perspectives, and unfamiliar circumstances.
In the waning days of the empire, advanced spaceships were invented which could travel across the empire at shocking speeds. Gerrold’s description of the skimmer is fascinating (a spherical field surrounds a constantly modulating — on command of the pilot — interior):
“A core of silvery shimmering vanes, flashing all colors, diamond-bright; they reached outward in all directions, some farther than others, but almost all ended in planes set at odd angled, no two the same. There were suggestions of platforms and hints of terraces, stanchionlike shapes arced smoothly across from one vane to another. On one of them, he thought he recognized curving steps, but they were upside-down.”
David Gerrold is famous for his story which was turned into the Star Trek: Original Series episode, The Trouble with Tribbles.