PATRICK FITZPATRICK III
Another day at the Kuivahr distillery above the shallow, kelp-clogged sea. Even though he had never expected to be managing such a facility, Patrick Fitzpatrick had the business down. Fermenting tanks, boilers, yeast strains, fiber filters, mash extractors, chemical testing tubes, and tasting rooms, all to make Primordial Ooze.
Standing on the high metal-ribbed deck, he inhaled deeply of the rich aroma—he forced himself not to think of it as stench—of Kuivahr’s low tide. Very different from the biting chemical aromas of gas-giant cloud bands. For years, Patrick and Zhett had run the skymine on Golgen, riding the vast cloud oceans, skimming and processing vapors through complex ekti reactors. He supposed it wasn’t all that different from this—Patrick had never thought he would become a skyminer, either.…
As the heir to a blueblood family on Earth, he had been brought up to look down on Roamers, and then he had fallen in love with the daughter of the Kellum clan. Oh, his grandmother was beside herself when she found out! And he and Zhett had been married for two decades, important and influential with their enormous cloud harvester … until the Shana Rei destroyed it. That left them here, picking up the pieces and making a living at the distillery Zhett’s father had established. No, not quite where he had expected to be.…
At least their daughter Shareen had a great opportunity at Fireheart Station as an apprentice to the Roamer genius Kotto Okiah. She was young, brilliant, and ambitious, and the Spiral Arm would be hers for the taking. He smiled when he realized that old Maureen Fitzpatrick must have had similar hopes for him. In the end, Patrick knew that he wasn’t a disappointment to his grandmother—and he would be happy with whatever Shareen decided to do. Or her brother Toff, or even baby Rex.
Patrick turned and went inside the facility to the packaging lines. As he stood watching rows and rows of bottles being filled with the iodine-smelling brew, he couldn’t help but shake his head. Del Kellum insisted that Primordial Ooze was an acquired taste, but, alas, not many people had acquired it.
Bracing himself, Patrick sampled the current batch, grimaced at the flavor, took another drink, then forced a smile. He was surprised when Zhett came up and slipped her arm around his waist. “You look deep in thought, Fitzy. It can’t be that much of a challenge to watch the bottles roll by.”
She kissed him—still beautiful, not a face he could ever get tired of. When he thought of their relationship, their lives together, their three children, all of his doubts and second thoughts washed away. “I was just considering how proud I am to be in charge of the most important kelp distillery in the Spiral Arm.”
“One of the managers,” Zhett said. “You couldn’t do it without me.”
“I couldn’t do a lot of things without you.”
As the rest of the distillery crew did their work, Patrick basked in Zhett’s presence for a peaceful moment—which was interrupted when Del Kellum called over the comm, summoning them to the distillery’s landing platform. “We’ve got a visitor, by damn—Aaron Duquesne’s here, says he has a proposal we should listen to.”
Patrick looked at his wife. “Who’s Aaron Duquesne?”
“Son of a midrange Roamer clan. Not friends, not enemies. They didn’t cause my father any particular trouble when he was the clan Speaker.”
“Now there’s a ringing endorsement.”
She shrugged. “Let’s hear what he has to say. He didn’t come to Kuivahr because it was on his way anywhere.”
Patrick slipped his arm through hers, and they headed off to the landing platform at water level. There, they found Del standing outside the Duquesne ship, his hands on his hips, chatting with a thin younger man, Aaron Duquesne presumably. Del had just returned from delivering Shareen and Howard to Fireheart Station and he hadn’t stopped talking about the big projects there, the nebula operations, the power-block-manufacturing grids.
Zhett’s father waved them over. “My sweet, we may have an opportunity to get back into skymining.”
“We were just getting used to the distillery business,” Zhett said. Patrick immediately saw his wife don her hard-businesswoman persona. “Are you looking to partner with clan Kellum?”
“Partner? No, but we wanted to make you the offer first.” Duquesne leaned against the hull of his ship, which had to be at least three decades old. “Del Kellum is known for being fair, and my clan always supported him when he was Speaker.”
“To a certain extent,” Del said.
Patrick asked, “What are you proposing?”
“Skymines. Two gamma-class cloud harvesters on Belliros, good condition. My clan took them over after the Elemental War, and they’ve been producing stardrive fuel ever since. We could offer them at a very reasonable price.” He looked at the distillery towers and the sloshing, fish-smelling seas of Kuivahr. “If your clan is interested in getting back into real work.”
His disparaging tone made Patrick defensive. “We’re doing real work right now—and we’re turning a profit.” That was a slight exaggeration, as both Del and Zhett knew, but they backed him up.
“I suppose,” Duquesne said. “But I’m offering you a chance at something more. Clan Kellum has a history, a legacy. I remember all the grand projects you used to do—the construction yards in the rings of Osquivel, or extracting ekti in the comet clouds, then your giant skymine on Golgen.” He blinked. “Sorry it was destroyed, by the way.”
“Thanks,” Zhett said in a clipped icy voice. “But why are you trying to offload your skymines? What’s wrong with Belliros?”
Duquesne shrugged and lounged against the hull again. “My clan wants to seek other opportunities, chase another Guiding Star. We thought you might like to take over the business, since you know it so well.”
Del also seemed skeptical. “Roamers don’t abandon skymining unless they’re being attacked by hydrogues.”
“No hydrogue harassment, I swear,” Duquesne said with a forced chuckle. “No problems on Belliros. Nothing wrong with the facilities—I can give you complete production logs. Why are you asking so many questions?”
“Because you’re asking us to make a huge investment,” Zhett said.
Patrick could see the gleam in Del’s eyes, the desire to get back to big things. Patrick admitted that running the mammoth cloud harvester made him feel like a king above an ocean of clouds. But they had been through so much already, and they were just now picking up the pieces. The distillery was all they had left.
“We don’t have the funds to buy two skymines,” Zhett said. “As you just pointed out, we lost everything at Golgen.”
Aaron Duquesne thrust out his lower lip. “Come on, now—a former clan Speaker can get all the credit he needs, if this is where his Guiding Star tells him to go.”
The young man was rubbing Patrick the wrong way, and suddenly the answer clicked in his mind. “You’re trying to get away from ekti harvesting before the bottom falls out of the market. Our skymine on Golgen might have been destroyed, but I still follow the business. The price of stardrive fuel has been dropping, thanks to the influx of ekti-X.”
“Oh, that’s just a temporary adjustment,” Duquesne said, convincing no one. “Nobody knows where Iswander Industries gets their fuel, but it can’t last long. Skymining has been stable for centuries.” His voice had an annoying, pushy undertone. “Look, I can find other clans to buy our cloud harvesters—I was doing you a favor.”
Patrick saw that Zhett realized the man’s motives too, and that even Del Kellum had come to a similar conclusion, though he didn’t want to admit it.
“You’re trying to get rid of your old skymines before they’re not worth anything,” Patrick pressed. “As soon as someone else figures out Iswander’s cheap and easy way to harvest stardrive fuel, those skymines will be like anchors dragging their owners down into the clouds.”
“There will always be a market for ekti,” Duquesne insisted.
“Then maybe you should stick with it, by damn,” Del said. “This distillery is functional, and we’re happy. We don’t need all those headaches.”
Miffed, Duquesne turned back to the open hatch of his ship. “Your loss.”
“We’ve had enough losses already,” Zhett said. “Don’t need to add any more.”
Del shaded his eyes, staring into the gray sky as the Duquesne ship flew away. He looked sad and disappointed. “It would’ve been nice to be back above the clouds, but maybe we should keep our feet on the ground for now.”
Patrick had monitored the price of stardrive fuel and knew that other skymining clans were pulling out of the business. “I have a feeling that before long there’ll be dozens of cloud harvesters available for bargain-basement prices.” He placed an arm around Zhett’s shoulders, pulled her close. “I’m happy enough here. As I said, best kelp distillery in the Spiral Arm. That’s important enough for me.”
Zhett smiled. “And me too.”
Del lifted his bearded chin. “Shall we go celebrate with a toast? I could crack open one of our best bottles.”
Zhett and Patrick shook their heads. “No thanks. We’re fine.”