Empty Between the Stars by Stephen Hunt

Author:Stephen Hunt [Hunt, Stephen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: science fiction
Publisher: Green Nebula
Published: 2018-06-18T22:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Rolling dice.

I hadn’t realized the Watch owned the last aerial vehicle on Hexator. In retrospect, I should have. The threat of bombing was all the capital had left to keep its collapsing and rebellious outer provinces in line. The Skylander possessed a wing-shaped buoyancy hull shaped like three massive cigars melded together, six gas-powered bow thrusters mounted along each flank with an air-cushioned landing system for vectored vertical takeoff. I doubt the Hexatorians possessed a working alpha-decay synthetic helium plant on their moon. Laur was obviously bribing foldship sailors to skim helium on the side using visiting vessels’ spare ramscoops. Nice work if you can get it. It took fifty trained crew from the Watch to operate their vessel, but then, what price was air supremacy worth? A long white whale of the air, the Skylander could harvest electrical energy from storms using her eight hundred feet-long conductive envelope. A relic of their lost past, I enjoyed riding her as much as Simenon was made uneasy by our voyage.

Simenon moaned, tilting his head out of an opened porthole on the shaking airship. Billy Bones lay by his feet, trying to look sympathetic. In reality, I suspected the hound was more concerned with his next meal’s late arrival. The dog should have foreseen that.

‘I’ll print you a copy of Jules Verne’s Robur the Conqueror when I get back to my ship,’ I told the lad, trying to cheer him up. ‘If you can’t ride one of these vessels crawling at eighty knots, you certainly won’t enjoy atmosphere braking on board the Pleiad’s Daughter.’

‘Yeah, zero gravity is a real bugger, too,’ said Mozart, smug over the advantages of his iron constitution. ‘At least, that’s what the lads say on the street.’

‘This is awful, Master Roxley,’ said the boy. ‘Why do I feel so bad?’

‘I fear the Skylander’s stabilising systems have been non-functional for centuries and your world’s winds blow most fiercely at this altitude. Keep your eyes gazing, without being fixed, on the horizon. That’ll help you feel better.’

It was my legs bothering me, rather than air sickness. I set off for a stroll around the chamber, muscles stiff from sitting down, soft quilted seats notwithstanding.

‘You ever stump up for an m-brain for Tiny Tim, make sure it comes with auto-stabilization algorithms for his inner ear. He keeps on sicking up like that, he’s going to set me off.’

‘Hah, I would pay to see it.’

We had been traveling for three hours and were close to arriving at our destination. I was grateful the airship’s engines, at least, remained in full working order. This journey would take five days by horse and I’m sure the forests below were just as full of Ferals, ravenous viobas and other local delights we would much rather bypass. That was the Skylander’s point. She had started out as a passenger ferry in her original incarnation, luggage areas swapped for bomb bays and luxury cabins traded for troop transport and warhorse stables.

I glanced back at Simenon. He seemed small in the central space of what had been the Skylander’s salon.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.