Elite: Mostly Harmless (Elite: Dangerous) by Russell Kate

Author:Russell, Kate [Russell, Kate]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Russell, Mostly, Dangerous, Harmless, elite, Kate
Publisher: Fantastic Books Publishing
Published: 2014-06-06T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 16

Angel sauntered through the fragrant herb garden trying to keep a low profile. Her face was calm, and impossibly clean now, but inside her chest her heart was hammering a deafening rhythm. Slack-faced patrons in fluffy lilac robes padded aimlessly about, some murmuring softly to each other over the top of healthy-looking drinks in frosted tallboy glasses; some were wandering alone, like her, deep in contemplative thought. The eco-gardens were housed in a huge cylinder-like dome inside the central stack of the Observer II’s main hull. Angel could see stars and the planet turning lazily overhead with the gardens themselves bathed in the life-giving light of a thousand or more solar strips. Unlike most other places in orbit around Slough, there was no brash advertising in this restful place. The exclusive clientele had already paid their dues in extortionate treatment fees, Angel supposed, so their eyeballs got some respite too. Instead the solar strips keeping the vegetation alive cycled through a synchronised dance of colour that was supposed to represent the setting and rising of the twin suns of Lupon in Wolf 573. As she watched the lightshow wash its lavish cadence across the artificial landscape Angel had to admit it was rather a stunning display, if a little showy.

The stack of gravity rings circling the dome was accessible via a grid-work of platforms and lifting pads, regulated from some unseen elsewhere in the complex, so that the ambient gravity inside each section could be individually controlled by altering the velocity of its spin. Fluffy robes and crisp, pale-green uniformed bodies travelled up and down all around her. Entering one of the treatment chambers involved strapping in to an enclosed pod spinning in tandem with the central dome at just under one-g. The pod would then decelerate or accelerate in sync with the section of ring you wanted to enter. Angel watched as a large man with a bald, sweaty pate fought to keep his robe covering his balls as the pod decelerated to around zero-g and a beautechnician helped him up. Angel turned in circles, watching the pod spin around her head as the airlock to the steam chamber slid open, enveloping the little pod in hot steamy whiteness and hiding its inhabitants from view.

Level five, chamber twenty-seven Angel noted internally and headed casually over to a platform that would lift her to the same point once DORIS came through with the planned commotion. They had decided to give it about ten minutes, allowing the councillor time to settle in to his float and the beautechnician time to move on to other duties. Right on cue there was a burst of activity spilling out of reception. DORIS streaked out of the doors, smoke spilling from its propeller engine which popped and fizzed worryingly. Everyone turned to stare at the circus as a small cluster of frantic assistants tried to grab hold of the malfunctioning bot and wrestle it under control. By the time the scene had dissipated Angel

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