Chapter Seventeen

Elisa Enturi

Trying to show off their attentiveness to the Cloud Nine guests, Anil and Shar prepared a fine dinner of preserved and highly seasoned seafood from a water world called Araka. The meal was fancy, but Elisa didn’t care for the taste; she had grown up on simpler fare.

The two women from Ulio Station ate a second portion each with great gusto. “We normally have packaged food,” said Candeen. “This is a treat.”

Fourth complained and compared it to far superior meals he had eaten at expensive resorts. Roland Kipps ate without comment, as if he were simply consuming fuel. His facial scars moved up and down as he chewed.

“We’ll take all your comments under advisement in an effort to improve Cloud Nine for expanded operations,” Elisa said. “First, we have to prove the system is viable.”

“I hope we at least catch a glimpse of hydrogues,” said Fourth.

Juvia snorted. “You sound as if you want that.”

“I’d love to see them, from a distance. It would break up the boredom.”

Elisa continued to find the young man annoying. Kipps said with a growl in his voice, “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Candeen said, “People get bored when they don’t have the imagination to think of something more useful to do.”

Elisa still believed that sky hotels like Cloud Nine would be a lucrative investment for Lee Iswander, but it was becoming more and more apparent that her personality was not suited to being a hostess. She’d chosen these initial guests based on their demographics, not because she thought she might like them, personally. Her focus was on building the business and running operations efficiently. She would never be a socialite. If the sky hotel proved lucrative, sociable receptionists could always be hired.

Frowning, Fourth brushed his long, neatly coifed hair back behind his ear. “When are we going to see something interesting, Ms. Enturi? You promised us a tour of the old skymine wrecks. Yesterday, we only saw a bunch of clouds.”

“Qhardin is a gas giant. You shouldn’t expect to see much more than clouds,” Elisa said, then had to force a smile. “But yes, it’s on the schedule. We’ll fly out to the wrecked cloud harvester. Engineer Delkin has certified Old Bessie as flightworthy again after our expedition yesterday. We can be on our way.”

“Flightworthy?” Fourth snorted. “He must have a flexible definition.”

“He has an adequate definition,” she said with an edge in her voice. “If you feel uncomfortable, however, you are welcome to remain here by yourself.”

“No, I want to see!”

When everyone was aboard the sky bus, Elisa piloted it away from the hotel modules. Because of Qhardin’s slow rotation, they still had ten more hours of broad daylight, even though they had already been here for a full standard day. The sunlight dragged on, but once the modular hotel rotated over to the night side, the darkness would last throughout the end of their stay.

Old Bessie rattled under acceleration as Elisa skimmed the clouds, dipping down into bursts of mist. The broad, breathtaking expanse was lovely and impressive, and the horizon seemed more infinite than on any other world she had visited.

Kipps continued to stare into the clouds, as if both dreading and hoping to see a spiked crystalline warglobe. Candeen and Juvia discussed possible recreational activities, even concocting a new sport on the spot, a kind of polo played with skimmerbikes and levitating balls out among the clouds.

They arrived at the huge drifting wreck of the abandoned Roamer cloud harvester. The hemispherical structure rose out of curls of pale yellow mists, and the top of the dome was a forest of antennas and superstructures, exhaust shafts, and evacuation ducts.

“That thing’s huge,” Juvia said.

“Damned ambitious,” Candeen added.

“Cloud harvesters were cities in the skies,” Elisa said. “They would drift along at high velocity so the intakes could process enormous amounts of atmospheric hydrogen to produce a tiny amount of ekti.”

She circled Bessie around the drifting structure. Some of the great antennas had collapsed, and a few of the hull plates had fallen away. Fourth asked, “Do you think the hydrogues caused all that damage?”

“There’s no residue of explosions, no carbonization.” Kipps said. “It’s just corrosion.”

The young man sounded disappointed.

“Probably storm damage,” Elisa said. “It’s been drifting along for eleven years with no maintenance, slammed by any weather patterns. Notice the axial tilt? One of the levitation engines has failed.”

“Maybe you should build your next hotel there,” Candeen teased. “Or we could just drag it back to Ulio Station as salvage. We’d fix it up and sell it to some brave Roamer clan.”

“You probably could,” Elisa said. “If the drogues are gone for good.”

“Yes,” Juvia admitted. “If the drogues are gone. Isn’t that what we’re all counting on?”

“Can we go aboard and explore?” Fourth asked.

Cruising slowly around the wreck, Elisa could feel the turbulence in the air. The rickety support towers rattled visibly. “Not in these extreme winds, and I wouldn’t trust the decks or the levitation engines to be. I can’t guarantee your safety.” There was nothing Elisa would have liked more than for the arrogant young man to slip and fall out into the cloud decks. “You’ll just have to come back for another visit once we’ve recertified the structure.”

“If this skymine is still intact, then the hydrogues must be quiet,” said Kipps. “When they hit, they hit mercilessly. On Ubor Major, four warglobes simply appeared over the colony settlement. Our people panicked, some ran to emergency shelters, which had never been designed to withstand hydrogue weapons.” He spoke in a trembling voice with his eyes closed, lost in a distant memory.” Our colony leader transmitted urgent pleas, he surrendered, he asked the drogues what they wanted.” He drew another breath. “What they wanted was just to destroy us. They wanted us all to die.” He closed his eyes and retreated into nightmares.

“But you survived,” said Fourth. “And think of all the stories you can tell!”

Kipps opened his eyes, flashed him a murderous glare.

Elisa remembered the War, but she had never encountered the hydrogues. For her, the most terrifying time came after the faeros destroyed the Moon and rained cosmic rubble down on the helpless population. Elisa had been trapped on Earth, since her family could not afford to escape. With one gigantic meteor impact after another, she had felt so helpless, unable to do anything but watch the skies and hope. Most of all, she had been angry with her family for being unable to take care of themselves when they needed it.…

She drew her thoughts back to the present. “You all accepted the risks when you came here. The hydrogues have been hiding since the end of the War, but they could reappear at any time. Consider this an emergency drill. Watch.”

Elisa called up the images that she had brought specifically for this purpose. Originally, she thought it would be chilling, like telling ghost stories around a campfire. “These images were retrieved from the wreckage of another skymine. If the hydrogues had decided to attack, this is what could have happened to the skymine there.”

She activated Old Bessie’s wallscreens, while the abandoned cloud harvester drifted nearby, rattling in the rising storm winds. On the screens, she projected shaky recordings from another destroyed Roamer skymine. She couldn’t remember where the images had been recorded, since she paid little attention to the Roamer clans.

Watching the horrific destruction, she couldn’t help but feel awe by the sheer power the hydrogues exhibited. The skymine’s cameras captured a swirling disturbance in the clouds, then menacing spiked spheres appeared like bubbles rising from the depths.

Three translucent warglobes rolled up out of the mists, overwhelming the defenseless cloud harvester. The images shook and rattled, as if trembling in fear. Blue lightning crackled from the pointed protrusions as the warglobes charged their weapons.

Projected on Old Bessie’s wallscreens, the images were visceral, gut-wrenching. Elisa had reviewed them repeatedly before planning this little exercise. Those who wanted a dangerous and thrilling vacation in Cloud Nine would have all they could want.

Blue lightning danced from the pyramidal protrusions, collecting into a jagged arc that slammed into the skymine. With only a single blast, the drifting Roamer structure was already mortally wounded. The trio of angry warglobes attacked again and again. Explosions tore apart hull plates, structural girders, flaming gas tanks. Finally the screens were filled with static.

Elisa didn’t know who had retrieved this recording, or how. As far as she knew, it had never been seen in public before. With the powerful reminder of hydrogue strength, she suddenly had doubts about her confidence that the enemy would not return.

There was a long moment of silence among the passengers. Roland Kipps did not speak, but tears streamed down his cheeks. Old Bessie’s projection walls had gone back to their neutral gray, and through the windows, they could see the abandoned skymine drifting in the clouds of Qhardin.

After a long, tense moment, Candeen said with forced humor, “If you’ll accept a little advice, Ms. Enturi, maybe you need to fine tune your sales pitch.”