They did.
Since he had traveled through the Klikiss transportal and left Happiness behind, Daniel was astonished to recognize Rlinda Kett standing there to greet him with her hands planted on her wide hips. Another man, Speaker Del Kellum, waited next to her. “It’s not often we welcome a former Hansa Prince … not that we ever had good experiences with the Hansa, by damn,” Kellum said.
Rlinda shot a quick, sharp glance at the Speaker. “Past history isn’t his fault, Del. He’s a reasonably good kid, and I didn’t think he’d ever be pried loose from his quiet peaceful existence unless he had a good reason. Did you miss my company, Daniel?”
He thanked the pilot as he stepped away from the shuttle, but Yankton was already brushing herself off and ready to take care of her own business aboard Newstation.
Daniel faced Rlinda and the Speaker. “I came because I had to. Captain Kett, you saw the home we made on Happiness. I wouldn’t come here unless it was a dire urgency. I need someone to take me to Theroc. If I don’t see the King and Queen, all my people are going to die.”
“Die? What happened, dear boy?”
“Spore storms, a cyclical infestation.” He clasped his hands together. “Please, Captain Kett—if your ship is here, can we go to Theroc? I don’t have much time.”
She glanced at Speaker Kellum and said, “I’ll take him. Tasia and Robb are staying here for a while.”
“Your ship’s already refueled and prepared, compliments of the Roamer clans,” Kellum said. “Be sure to put in a good word with King Peter.”
“I will.” Rlinda took Daniel by the arm. “I know you didn’t want to see the Confederation, but we’ll make this as quick and easy as we can.”
Daniel’s knees felt weak with relief, but he didn’t show it. He just followed her at a fast pace toward the Voracious Curiosity.
Chapter Fifteen
Elisa Enturi
She had decided to name the first sky hotel “Cloud Nine.” Her marketing instincts told her it was a name that would do well.
Elisa had used Iswander’s standard authorization signature to arrange a luxury transport from Earth, and now she arrived at Qhardin with her first group of invited guests. The gas giant looked beautiful and dramatic—perfect for Elisa’s purposes. The clouds were burnt orange and yellow, with darker bands of red that defined the edges of immense storms.
“Will we see hydrogues?” asked the most eager passenger, a man in his mid-twenties named Fourth, short for Charles Quinton Ruiz IV, a spoiled young son of a wealthy family. Fourth was mildly handsome, made more attractive by the size of his trust fund, and he fancied himself a playboy although he wasn’t good at it. Fourth spent his days doing little of note other than amusing himself.
Elisa didn’t like him. In fact, she despised people who had a sense of entitlement yet contributed nothing worthwhile to society. Her own family had been poor and unambitious, and their low economic status was their own fault, but many rich families had similarly worthless children. Nevertheless, she had selected Charles Quentin Ruiz IV as a perfect example of a demographic to which the Iswander sky hotels would cater.
Hearing the young man’s query about hydrogues, the other three passengers crowded close to the viewing window. Elisa said, “I cannot guarantee it, nor can I guarantee that we won’t. Rest assured that we have safety systems in place for Cloud Nine.”
Elisa didn’t elaborate. Her “safety systems” aboard the floating hotel modules amounted to little more than hoping that the deep-core aliens wouldn’t show themselves. The hydrogues had been quiet for nearly a decade, and she knew that a couple of large Roamer skymines had been harvesting ekti from another gas giant without being molested. She assumed that her four drifting modules would easily go unnoticed.
“The drogues are down there,” growled Roland Kipps, a middle-aged man with a waxy scar across his left cheek and a bald patch on the same side of his head, the result of burns he had suffered in an explosion eleven years ago. “We have to watch out for them. Those bastards might be defeated, but who knows how long they’ll remember.”
Kipps had survived a hydrogue attack, when the crystalline alien warglobes had leveled his colony on Ubor Major. He had been rescued from the wreckage two days later when EDF ships finally responded to the distress calls. His entire family had been killed. Kipps was one of sixteen survivors out of a colony of six thousand.
“You know better than anyone else how dangerous the hydrogues are, Mr. Kipps,” said Candeen, one of the remaining two passengers. “Why would you want to come back?”
Juvia, Candeen’s romantic and business partner, added, “If I’d gone through what you survived, I’d check gas giants off my bucket list forever.”
The Iswander luxury ship cruised into the upper atmospheric banks, and the clouds thickened around them. Kipps had an odd look in his eyes as he stared out the windowport. “If I kept myself safe on some isolated colony, my life would be an unending sequence of nightmares. I want to stare them down. This way, once I go home maybe I’ll get some peace.”
There were a great many shell-shocked survivors of the War, people like Roland Kipps, and she hoped to cater to such clientele with her sky hotels. Elisa said, “We are aware that hydrogues are likely down in Qhardin’s atmosphere, but we will monitor and we will remain prepared. Safety first.”
She had written up an entire action plan to be implemented in due course after this proof-of-concept visit. For now, though, everything was just a test run. She wanted to prove to Mr. Iswander that this entire commercial venture was viable.
“It’s like swimming in a cage with predator fish,” said Juvia. “You know the danger’s there, but you’re fascinated by it as long as you know in your gut that you’re safe.”
“Mostly safe,” Fourth added.
“Exactly the point,” Elisa said.
Candeen slid an arm around her partner’s waist during the approach to the drifting Cloud Nine modular hotel. “As long as we prove it’s a good investment.”
The two had matching spiral tattoos on their foreheads. Both had come from Ulio Station, a trading complex on the far side of the Confederation, which serviced Roamers, scavengers, black-marketeers, and ambitious traders. Candeen and Juvia had come upon a windfall after selling a large recovered ship to the salvage yard, and they were curious about investing in the new sky hotel idea.
The pilot of the luxury ship announced over the intercom, “We’re coming in for a landing. The balcony observation platform looks a little small, but I’m sure I can fit.”
“The design specs were large enough to accommodate a vessel this size,” Elisa said, then looked at the passengers. “We’ll expand eventually. This is just a prototype.”
“But still ambitious,” Juvia said.
Skimming just above the clouds, where vapors curled up to catch the slanted sunlight, four of Iswander’s standard prefab modules had been connected by their mutual ports. The hotel complex could be easily expanded with a dozen or even a hundred more modules. As she saw their beautiful observation ceilings, the angled walls, the reinforced support layers, and the levitation engines underneath the clusters, she thought about how such modules could have been used at Rendezvous, if Olaf Reeves hadn’t been such an ass.
The luxury ship touched down on the platform, and Elisa stepped out onto the egress ramp. The winds of Qhardin whistled in, and her ears popped, adjusting to the air pressure.
The four passengers crowded behind her, peering out at the undulating sea of restless clouds. The atmospheric vapors brought a sulfurous tang and a sickly sweet odor.
Fourth stepped out into the open. “It stinks here.”
“Those chemical mixtures are what made skymining so profitable,” Elisa said, hiding any sign of her annoyance.
Roland Kipps stood on the platform, his shoulders squared, his arms slightly bent at his sides. He didn’t say a word as he looked around, watching the cloud banks and waiting for some monster to lunge out. Candeen and Juvia
stood together, sniffing the breezes and bracing themselves against the chill. Juvia shivered. “I suppose this won’t be a lounge deck then for soaking up sunshine and mineral fumes?”
Candeen chuckled.
Elisa said, “There are warmer cloud bands, and this hotel is mobile. Later I’ll take you out in our skybus to tour the clouds.”
“I’m anxious to get out there,” said Fourth with a snort. “We don’t have to relax for too long. The hotel modules don’t look much bigger than the ship we just rode in.”
Elisa tried to be reassuring as she pointed out for the fifth time, “This is just a ‘soft’ grand opening, so you’ll have to put up with a few rough edges. Don’t expect all the amenities that Cloud Nine will eventually have to offer. Your input will help us make the facility better for the next wave of guests.”
Being crisp and polite was very hard.
Once they cycled into the central module, the four visitors were met by two dusky-skinned and dark-haired young men, Anil and Shar. Elisa had found the brothers’ resumes among the Iswander employee files on Earth, and they had jumped at the chance to come to the new sky hotel as service staff on promise of guaranteed and substantial advancement if the test run proved viable.
She introduced them. “Anil and Shar will take care of your luggage, show you to your rooms, and let you relax for an hour or two. Meanwhile, I’ll meet with our chief engineer, Mr. Delkin, and make sure everything’s in order for a fine stay.”
The two brothers helped unload the luggage from the luxury transport, and showed the guests to their three separate rooms. Elisa let out a sigh after they split up and wandered to their quarters, glad to be alone.
It was hard work for her to be sociable and gracious. Normally, Elisa liked her conversations to be on point, stating facts and doing duties. She had never been good at light banter or building relationships. Such things took too long and required too much personal effort. She preferred tasks that were cut and dried.
But she would make the effort for Lee Iswander’s sake. Spending time with Garrison Reeves had recently softened her, and she felt more personable, more hopeful. She was determined to make this work.
The central module also had the mechanic’s deck, with life-support equipment, power blocks and control room, as well as the community area and dining hall for the guests. In an eventual expansion, there would be a complete lobby and recreation module, and another entire admin and engineering module. She was already making plans.
In the mechanic’s deck, she met Oni Delkin, whom she had hand-picked as the Cloud Nine engineer, primarily because he was immediately available, not because he was especially competent. Elisa understood the situation. Any Iswander engineer with impeccable credentials and competence would be in high demand, and she needed someone the company could live without for a week or two.
Delkin was reclining in a chair at the control decks, staring at screens that didn’t seem to change much. She startled him. “Are systems online and at optimal levels?”
The man was a decade from retirement with a solid, if unremarkable, Iswander Industries career under his belt. “I’ve checked the diagnostic levels. All the pieces fit together, Tab A into Slot B. It seems simple enough.” He shrugged. “No complications.”
Elisa nodded. “That’s exactly how Iswander modules are supposed to be—self-sufficient, easily erected, easily expanded.”
“Yes, designed to be assembled even by idiots. And our Cloud Nine life-support systems are off-the-shelf components. We’ve got nothing to worry about.” He laced his fingers behind his head and leaned back farther in his chair. “It’ll be good to have some company and conversation, though. Those two brothers have been driving me crazy, trying to take care of me and serve me.”
“They just wanted practice so they could do a good job for the clientele.”
“I understand, but I’m glad they’ll be distracted by some other victims. They made it impossible for me to get any reading done … every ten minutes asking me if I’d like some more coffee, if the room temperature was too hot or too cold, what entertainment loops I wanted to watch that night, what my preference was for this evening’s dining.”
“Sounds like they’ll do fine. Has the transport ship departed yet?”
Delkin nodded. “The pilot finished unloading supplies, then headed off. He’ll be back in four days.”
Elisa nodded. That had been her agreement with Lee Iswander. She was only allowed to take the luxury passenger ship so long as it didn’t disrupt the more established schedules. She hoped the return ship would arrive before the clients realized they were stranded in the atmosphere of Qhardin.
* * *
The gas giant rotated slowly, so the day was long, providing many hours of sunlight. Elisa called the visitors together for an expedition out among the cloud banks. They all wore jackets in the blowing wind on the loading dock, where a battered old skybus hung connected to the lower module.
Fourth blinked at it in surprise. “That’s a piece of junk!”
Elisa couldn’t disagree. “It has character. Old Bessie is repurposed equipment left behind when the previous skyminers fled Qhardin in fear of hydrogue attacks.”
Roland Kipps crossed his arms over his chest, ignoring the chill wind, while Candeen and Juvia went over to scrutinize the discolored repairs on the skybus’s hull. “It’s been patched and painted so many times I can’t tell where the original ship ends and the repairs begin,” said Candeen, and Juvia laughed.
“It’s been ten years since Old Bessie qualified to make orbit,” Elisa said. She didn’t need to mention all the leaks detected on the skybus, the insufficient structural integrity, and a thousand other things that made Old Bessie questionable. But the repairs were good enough to keep it running. “It’ll be fine out on the clouds for our tour. Our engineer has tested it several times.”
“Let’s get aboard,” Kipps said. “This is what we came here for.”
“I’ll take the risk,” said Fourth.
Elisa piloted the old skybus away from the Cloud Nine modules. She skimmed across the rising plumes of chemical vapors, then dove into canyons between the atmospheric levels. It was a bumpy ride, and the rattling sounds and unsettlingly loose bangs gave them pause, but Elisa remained confident.
After strapping herself in, Juvia raised her eyebrows. “This is all part of the show isn’t it? To make us nervous and increase the thrill.”
Elisa hadn’t thought of that, but she responded with a shy smile. “I wouldn’t reveal our trade secrets.” Old Bessie flew past majestic cumulus mountains and bubbling colorful plumes. “Tomorrow I’ve planned an expedition to the ruined old skymines. You’ll find them interesting.”
Aware of Old Bessie’s safety limitations, she gave a wide berth to the moon-sized whirlpool of an immense hurricane, a maelstrom of mixed gases like a bottomless pit.
“What about the hydrogues down there?” Fourth asked.
Kipps pressed his fingers against the viewing window until his knuckles turned white.
“We haven’t seen any sign of them,” Elisa said. “We’re safe. Just remain calm.”
“Whistling past the graveyard,” said Candeen. “Isn’t that the old phrase?”
“Confidence,” Elisa said. “That’s the only term I’m interested in.”
Chapter Sixteen
Daniel
While being groomed as a Prince in the old Hansa, Daniel had seen images of the sentient worldtrees on Theroc and the green priests who provided instant communication across the Spiral Arm. But he had never visited Theroc himself. In fact, he hadn’t actually done much as Prince, other than say what he was told to say, always ready to take the throne in case King Peter should misbehave.
When Rlinda Kett flew him to the incredible jungle planet, Daniel was stunned by the beauty, the throbbing sense of burgeoning life. It made him almost regret that he had not become King after all. He could have ruled here on this amazing world … but then his heart felt heavy. If
he had stayed with the Hansa, he would never have met Serene, never had his children, never lived in contentment for nine years.
After landing the Curiosity on the polymerized treetop canopy, Rlinda escorted Daniel down through the strata of boughs. He inhaled the resinous smell of the worldtrees, heard the humid buzz of insects, the rustle of fronds.
Lifts dropped them down through the high branches to the main fungus reef city, an enormous pale growth that spread out from the gold-scaled trunk of the largest worldtree. The huge hard fungus was riddled with other holes and passages, bubbles that had been turned into offices, shops and living quarters.
Daniel stared. “Is that their palace?”
“That’s where the King and Queen live and rule,” Rlinda said.
Daniel swallowed hard. He had lived in the towering and ostentatious Whisper Palace on Earth, filled with gold trimmings, grandiose sculptures, vaulted ceilings, marble pillars to show the majesty of the Terran Hanseatic League. That was all behind him now.
Natives and offworlders bustled about on all levels of the tree city. “It’s so crowded,” he said.
Rlinda laughed. “I should’ve taken you to Kett Shipping Headquarters—then you would really have gotten a headache.”
“I’m not looking for a headache,” he said, “I need to find a solution. We have to rescue my people.”
“Don’t you worry. I’ll get us in with the King and Queen right away, and I’ll even speak on your behalf.” Rlinda stopped in the corridor, turned him to face her. “Here, let me have a look.” She brushed the side of his face, stroked his beard. His hair was clean and combed, cut to an acceptable length, and Rlinda had trimmed his beard. She had even laundered his simple clothes in the Curiosity’s sanitizers during the flight, and Daniel himself mended them. “You’ll never pass for a Prince anymore, but you’re acceptable.”
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