3
Kimber
Port Gregson was a typical Saturnian cloud city. Lift was provided by heated hydrogen trapped inside a ten-kilometer diameter gasbag. A light support truss stretched across the gasbag at its equator and was attached to the ultra-strong membrane around its periphery. The support truss was the structural base to which the city’s buildings were anchored. A fusion power plant was suspended ten kilometers below the city proper where it hung like the basket of an ancient terrestrial balloon. The power plant provided the energy to heat the hydrogen inside the gasbag and produce the buoyancy that kept Port Gregson and its inhabitants aloft in the clouds.
From above, Port Gregson looked like an earthbound city of an earlier century. Imposing (but lightweight) edifices were interspersed between wide thoroughfares and greenswards. Only when one approached the city from below was it obvious that its habitable volume extended throughout the open framework of the truss. Not only were structures built atop the deck that covered the truss, they were buried within its volume and suspended by cables from its lowest levels. Around the truss edges were a series of portals through which aircraft entered and left the city. Also buried inside the support truss were the giant maneuvering engines that allowed Port Gregson to tack back and forth across the flyway.
A few hundred meters above the upper deck, a transparent membrane covered the city. This was the habitat barrier inside which the city engineer maintained a breathable mixture of oxygen and helium. Since both the habitat barrier and the gasbag were transparent, inhabitants strolling through the city’s parks had the illusion of being outdoors beneath Saturn’s rich blue sky.
Like the other cloud cities, Port Gregson hovered at the 500-kilometer depth in Saturn’s atmosphere. At that level, the temperature remained near the freezing point of water. Atmospheric pressure was ten times what had existed at Earth mean sea level before the sun flared, but Saturn’s low-density hydrogen-helium atmosphere robbed the wind of much of its force. This combination of high pressure, low density, and moderate temperature was surprisingly Earth-like for a world that orbited one-and-a-half billion kilometers from the sun.
Nor were those the only aspects of the Saturnian environment that were Earth-like. With an overall density only 60% that of water and a diameter of 120,000 kilometers, Saturn’s surface gravity at the poles was only 16% greater than Earth standard. The planet’s high rate of spin further reduced the gravitational pull. As one approached the equator, centrifugal force subtracted from gravity until it was slightly less than Earth-normal. Overall, a comfortable environment for the refugees from the inner solar system.
The Saturnian day was an annoyingly short one, however. The planet rotated on its axis every 10 hours and 40 minutes. Humanity had solved the problem by adopting a diurnal rhythm that encompassed two complete revolutions of the planet. Thus, each Saturnian ‘day’ was 21.3 hours long and included two sunrises and sunsets. The rising and setting of the sun divided the day into four parts that corresponded roughly to morning, afternoon, evening, and night. To keep the years straight, a calendar of 411 of the short Saturnian days had been adopted. The system was not perfect, but it simplified the problem of adapting to an alien world. Keeping accurate time was further complicated by the varying rates at which the winds blew the cloud cities around the planet, and the progression of seasons as the planet circled the sun once every 29.5 standard years.
Larson Sands thought of none of this as he made his way across the park that fronted the hotel where he and his people were staying. Saturn’s gravity and length of day were as natural to him as breathing, as was the elevated timbre of human voices and other sounds transmitted through the city’s helium-oxygen atmosphere. Indeed, he had heard recordings that had been modified to simulate what human voices would sound like in a nitrogen-oxygen atmosphere. The women had all sounded like men and listening to the men had made his throat ache in sympathy.
The hotel was the Saturn Royale, the best in Port Gregson. When one is bankrupt, Sands reasoned, it is important to keep up appearances. Otherwise, the city’s authorities might begin to wonder if SparrowHawk’s crew could afford all the port charges their ship was accumulating down in the landing bays. The secret to keeping out of debtor’s prison was to ensure not only that the question was never asked, but also that it was never even considered.
As he made his way across the spongy surface of the park, past trees anchored in the light foam of their planters, Larson’s thoughts were occupied by the coming interview with Micah Bolin. If anything, the uneasy feeling Sands had experienced in the bar was even greater now that he had had a chance to sober up. Whatever Bolin wanted from him, it was obviously not a normal privateer’s contract. Those were concluded in lawyers’ offices with bonus, penalty, and non-performance clauses spelled out for both sides in dreary detail. This furtive meeting in the bowels of the Port Gregson industrial district reeked of something else entirely.
Larson found a lift and pressed the call button. Moments later he was dropping swiftly toward the lower levels of the support truss. When he stepped out, he found himself in an enclosed corridor deep in the heart of the city. This was a warehouse district where cargo was sorted and stored. Port Gregson’s status as a trading city meant that work never truly ceased in the giant warehouses, but since Second Night was when most people slept, Larson Sands found the corridor deserted.
Sands walked briskly toward the address scrawled on the back of the card he had been given. The meeting place was at the end of a side corridor in a part of the city where factory space was available on a short-term lease. He rapped quickly on the closed door. A moment later, it opened and he found himself facing a hard-eyed guard.
“I’m here to see Citizen Bolin.”
The guard gestured for him to enter. Sands did so and found himself in a large compartment whose sole furnishings consisted of a table, a few chairs, and a battered auto kitchen. An upper level office jutted out over the warehouse facility. The translucent office window glowed with interior light. The guard directed Sands up a set of stairs. He climbed them quickly and was about to knock when Micah Bolin opened the office door.
“Come in, Sands. Welcome.” The bald man held out a hand and grasped Larson’s in a firm grip. Bolin was still dressed in the expensive suit and jewelry that he had worn in the Alouette Bar. Something about his posture suggested to Sands that he was more at home in a uniform. What had begun as a stray thought quickly grew into a strong conviction as Sands watched his potential client move back to the desk at the far end of the enclosure. Bolin walked in the unconscious gait of a man pacing the bridge of an airship.
The furnishings inside the office were only slightly less spartan than those outside. Whoever Bolin was, he obviously had not been the occupant for long and did not appear to be staying for any great period. Bolin offered him a seat in front of the battered desk on which an electronic tablet was open and operating.
“Coffee?”
“Thank you, yes.”
Bolin spoke briefly into the comm unit on his wrist, and moments later, Sands heard a set of footsteps climbing the stairs outside. The door opened and a third man appeared. He had a military air about him, too. The — orderly? — poured coffee from a plastic brewer into two insulated cups, then handed one to Sands. The privateer checked the temperature indicator built into the side of the cup to make sure the liquid would not scald him. The action was purely automatic. At the atmospheric pressure under which Saturnians lived, water did not boil until it reached 180°C.
Micah Bolin took the second cup and set it on his desk. He then waited for the orderly to leave. The bald man regarded Sands with a penetrating gaze.
“Where were you born, Sands?” he asked without preamble when they were alone once more.
“Sorrell Three.”
“That is in the South Equatorial Belt, is it not?”
Sands nodded. “It is now. We started out in the South Temperate Belt. They moved the city when I was ten. My father is still paying his share of the assessment.”
“An agricultural city, isn’t it?”
“We grew grapes and made them into wine.”
“Ah, yes. I had a glass of Sorrell champagne once. Quite tasty as I remember. How does the son of vintners get to be a privateer?”
Sands shrugged. “I didn’t want to be a farmer. You have me at a disadvantage, Citizen. You have told me precious little beyond your name. Who do you represent?”
“That is confidential.”
“I won’t work blind.”
“You won’t have to. But you will learn the name only when I’m ready to tell you.”
“I can keep a secret,” Sands replied. “A privateer who can’t keep his mouth shut concerning his clients quickly discovers that he has none.”
“The same goes for people in my profession,” Bolin said.
“Then you aren’t representing your own city?”
“No, of course not. Like you, I am a professional. I was engaged by my sponsors to find someone to do a job for them.”
“What sort of job?”
“A raid. Although it is to look like a simple grab for resources, the primary purpose is to bring political pressure to bear.”
“A raid against what city?”
Bolin smiled. The expression did not help his looks. “That information will come later as well. First I must know whether you are the right man for the job.”
“You seem to have learned a great deal about me already. What more do you need to know?”
“I have garnered mere facts. Now I must know what sort of man you are.” Bolin glanced down at the desk. He reached out to key his tablet. There was a quiet beeping noise after which Bolin began to read aloud. “Larson Clarke Sands. Age 32. As you said, the son of prosperous merchants aboard Sorrell 3. You attended the Aeronautical School at Nueva Rhoelm briefly, but left after getting into a fight with one of the other students. You returned home, tried to work in the family business, then joined a privateer crew under Gentleman Jacques Le Vesque. You took part in the Battle of the Cusp on the winning side. You used your bonus to invest in a ship of your own. You returned home briefly to recruit your younger brother. The two of you served a number of cities over the last five years. Your brother was killed two weeks ago during the battle between New Philadelphia and the Northern Alliance and you have been grieving his loss ever since.”
“You didn’t come to Port Gregson looking for just any privateer,” Sands said, trying to control his rising anger. “Why me?”
“You would seem to be uniquely suited to the task at hand. Tell me, why did you sign up with New Philadelphia? Surely you must have known that the Delphis would be no match for the Alliance.”
Sands shrugged. “We didn’t expect the argument to come to blows. We thought a good show of force would be enough to dissuade the Alliance. Obviously, we were wrong. They were set on annexing another helpless city and nothing we could have done would have stopped them.”
“You believe the Alliance to be imperialistic then?”
“Anyone who doesn’t is a fool.”
“How would you like the opportunity to avenge your brother’s death?”
Sands sat suddenly upright, a surge of adrenaline boiling through his veins. He had thought of little else these past two weeks. Despite his reaction, he answered cautiously, “How do I go about doing that?”
“The Alliance is pressuring my sponsors to join them. Those I serve would like to divert their attention.”
“By raiding them?”
Bolin nodded.
“What do they want us to do? Waylay one of their freighters?”
Bolin’s eyes flashed with some inner emotion. After a moment, he said, “Nothing so minor. The target is to be Cloudcroft, the Alliance capital!”
* * *
Kimber Crawford sat in the spacecraft lounge and watched the deep canyon of North Temperate Belt glide by around her. Kimber was dark haired, with a wide face that had inherited the best traits of several of her polyglot ancestors. Like most Titanians, she was well above average in height. Titan had largely been settled by people from Luna to whom Saturn’s gravity had seemed oppressive. Although fifty percent larger than Earth’s moon, Titan’s lower density gave it a nearly identical gravity field. As humanity had learned early in the twenty second century, people who live under low gees tend to grow tall.
It had been five hours since the Titanian freighter had slipped under the Ring to enter the vast envelope of hydrogen and helium that is Saturn’s atmosphere. Four times the ship dipped among the outermost wisps of gas before rising once again to space. Each entry shed part of the freighter’s 23 kilometer per second orbital speed. After three hours spent porpoising between atmosphere and vacuum, the freighter dove into the rarified atmosphere for the last time. As it dropped toward the distant cloud tops, it was bathed in a sheath of superheated plasma that lit up the Saturnian night.
The full entry into atmosphere was the most dangerous part of any ship’s return from space. If a vessel’s entry angle were too steep, its wings would snap off under the stress and its broken body would plunge out of control toward the liquid hydrogen sea below. Kimber could not imagine a more horrible death than lying strapped into an acceleration couch while waiting to be crushed and broiled to death.
She was breathing easier now that particular danger was past. The freighter had successfully made the transition from spaceship to fusion-powered aircraft an hour earlier, and was even now approaching Cloudcroft. It was Second Night outside and Kimber could make out the bright string of pearls in the distance that were the Alliance cities. She felt rather than heard the change in the ship’s engines as the captain reduced power for the final approach. The change caused a transformation in her mood. She had been sightseeing primarily to take her mind off the difficult task ahead. Now that they were almost there, she reviewed the speech she would give at the welcoming ceremony that waited in Cloudcroft’s landing bay. This was her first diplomatic mission and she was anxious to see it succeed.
Because Saturn’s rocky core was covered by several thousand kilometers of superhot liquid hydrogen under enormous pressure, the planet’s supply of metals was beyond reach. For that reason, humanity depended on Saturn’s moons for its stocks of metals and a number of important inorganics. There were mining colonies on Dione, Rhea, and Titan. The mines on Titan were the largest and most productive, making the Titanian colonists a power to be reckoned with.
Envon Crawford, Kimber’s father, was the Factor of Titan. Crawford had held his position for nearly twenty years and hoped that his daughter would one day succeed him in office. To this end, he had begun Kimber’s training at an early age. When she was old enough, he had dispatched her to Oxford-in-the-Clouds, the preeminent university on Saturn. Four years of hard work had earned her a Master’s Degree in Industrial Economics. She planned to go for her doctorate, but had been called home when her mother fell ill two years earlier. She acted as her father’s hostess at official functions following her mother’s death. To her own surprise, she discovered a talent for the give and take of diplomacy. As part of her training, the elder Crawford appointed her to head the annual trade mission to negotiate copper prices with Titan’s largest customers. Their first stop was to be the Northern Alliance.
“We’re beginning our approach to Cloudcroft, Miss Crawford,” a voice said from behind her. “Captain Nyquist says that you can observe from the cockpit if you like.”
“I would like that a lot, Miles!” she told the grizzled flight engineer cum steward.
The freighter’s pilot glanced over his shoulder as she entered the darkened cockpit. Saturn’s ring was a broad arch to their left and Cloudcroft was a brilliantly lit pearl directly ahead. Far off through the night, she could see the lightning flashes that punctuated the flyway’s nearby wall. The laminar flow that marked the flyway came to an abrupt end at the cloud wall. Any city that crossed the boundary was liable to be torn asunder within a few minutes. Even if they survived, the first rainstorm they encountered would so weigh them down with condensate that they would slip into the depths.
As they approached the lighted balloon that was their destination, they were able to make out a thin dark band circling its waist. This was outer edge of the support truss. Flashing lights marked the openings where ships could slip inside the vast structure. The freighter banked and slowed, suddenly dropping to a speed where the wind whistling across the wings could no longer support its weight. There was another change in the pitch of the engines as the underjets came alive. The freighter slowed even more.
“Cloudcroft Approach Control, this is Gotham out of Titania. We are in your outer approach zone, ready to come aboard.”
“We have you on our screens Gotham. Place your controls into auto.”
“Auto engaged.”
“Very well Gotham. You will be arriving in Landing Bay Number Six. Stand by.”
The pilot removed his hands from the controls and sat back in his seat. The freighter hovered for a moment longer, then smoothly slid forward. The city grew until it filled the windscreen. Kimber watched as the landing hatch swelled to displace everything else in view. Then, with a barely perceptible bump, they were down on the landing ledge that jutted out from the cavernous open bay. A few seconds later, mechanical arms reached out to hook a cable into the spacecraft’s nose and they were pulled inside the oversize ship lock.
Once through the lock, they found themselves in a giant bay lit by overhead flood lamps. A crowd of dignitaries began to form up on the far side as Kimber slid out of her seat. She took a deep breath and headed for the midships lock. The moment of truth was upon her.