Skies of Venus by Neal Romanek

Skies of Venus by Neal Romanek

Author:Neal Romanek [Romanek, Neal]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Fantasy, General, Science Fiction, Action & Adventure
ISBN: 9781945462375
Google: mBOlzgEACAAJ
Goodreads: 60461602
Publisher: Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc.
Published: 2021-12-07T05:00:00+00:00


Carson waited for me to recuperate—at least waited outside the door while the doctors applied glowing stones to my shoulder, rubbed various ointments into my skin and finally splinted the whole thing—then invited me on an expedition.

“Come. I want to show you the future of Amtor,” he said.

I felt like I needed a few days in bed.

“I really should get back home and—”

“Nonsense. You’ll be back to normal by tomorrow. Come on!”

Within the hour we were taking off from Great Kooaad’s central runway, escorted by a pair of flying tanks. Carson’s personal anotar—one of them anyway—was a sleek, four-winged, two-seater plane, made of a powder blue metal, powered by four huge jet engines. He didn’t bother following the prescribed flight corridor through the gigantic trees. Once clear of the city, he aimed for the sky and punched it. The doctors had pumped me full of Amtorian herbal medicine and I was feeling groovy, but the sudden extreme acceleration was like getting pelted again by Toot.

Carson chuckled apologetically. “Sorry, my friend. I don’t often have passengers. I forget that not everyone enjoys my style of recreation.”

“It’s fine,” I said, not feeling fine.

“Most planes would fly out along the corridor. But the port authority allows me to break the rules.”

“You make the rules, you get to break them, right?”

“True. I’m not likely to get slapped with a speeding ticket.”

Carson leveled out high above the trees.

“Virgil,” Carson said, grinning, “I’m going to show you my life’s work.”

“I thought your life’s work was being the King of Kings.”

“No. That’s just a hobby,” Carson grinned. “Today I’m going to show you something few people know about. It’ll take a while.” He nodded toward the back. “I’ve packed some sandwiches and a thermos.”

The bubble canopy allowed a 360-degree view. My injuries allowed a bit less, but still the panorama was stunning as we zipped like an insect over a treetop garden. Without the blanket of clouds over them, the great variety of Amtorian megatrees revealed itself. Some terminated in wide purple tufts like shaggy mops of hair, some were naked antenna-like spindles, some ended in magenta sunbursts with broad cups at the end of long stalks, some could be mistaken for plum-colored redwoods. And a few rose even higher, towering over us—three-mile-high trees!

But Carson pointed out the most stunning vision of all, clinging to one particular tree species with vines thick as sewer pipes—black-and-white-banded flowers, with petals big enough to play tennis on. Carson smiled at my reaction. “And you should see the monster that feeds on its nectar.”

I looked up at the sky, wondering if a massive twenty-winged bee was about to swoop down on us out of the perpetual gray-cloud canopy.

“Does the sun ever come out?”

“Practically, no. There are two major atmospheric layers on Amtor. There’s an inner layer.” He pointed to a flock of gray cumulous clouds off to our right. “It’s like Earth’s troposphere. Where the weather happens. Always changing. Produces all the precipitation. But the outer layer”—he pointed straight up—“is a permanent barrier of vapor and ionized dust.



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