Virga Omnibus by Karl Schroeder

Author:Karl Schroeder
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Mystery & Detective, Steampunk, Space Opera, Fiction, Science Fiction, Adventure, General
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

15

ANTAEA HAD ALWAYS had a certain fondness for Slipstream, piratical interloper that it was. The people were warm and welcoming aside from that strange political blind spot that permitted them to contemplate and carry out the conquest of the nations they moved through. The paradox was endlessly fascinating.

Under any other circumstances she would have been happy to be approaching Slipstream’s capital, Rush. The city was gorgeous even at night. In daylight you could see the huge brightly colored pinwheels that spun from the edges of the city’s town-wheels. At night it was the sky-spanning panoply of lights that was enthralling. A few points of brilliance dotted the sky behind her as she flapped wearily through the still-warm air—but ahead they thickened rapidly, becoming swirls and knots of radiance where buildings clustered. Then, two miraculous sights hove into view, warring for attention: Rush city and Rush asteroid.

The city’s town-wheels were huge open-ended cylinders, festooned with lights like jumbles and piles of gems. The air glowed around each quartet of cylinders brightly enough that she could have read a book even here a mile out. Hundreds of ships sat in or slowly trawled the skies around the wheels and a low hum reached her, the composite noise of many jets, conversations, machines, and the movement of things small and large through the air.

Rush invited. You could get lost in there, among so many people. It welcomed foreigners in a way that no city in Falcon Formation could. Antaea and Chaison should be heading for one of the late-night bars right now, there to slouch in a corner and listen to the musicians and the laughter, smell the pipe smoke, and share the beer. Then to a cramped but wonderful room together. It was what she wanted; was, in fact, how she had defined adventure to herself before Telen introduced her to the home guard and its awesome mission.

She turned resolutely away from Rush, aiming instead for the second miraculous sight in Slipstream’s sky. Rush Asteroid carved its dimensions out of the night in shades of reflected city-light, all muted by the foliage of the trees that carpeted it. The asteroid was four miles long and two wide, the single largest concentration of matter in Meridian. From a distance, in daylight, it was a bright silhouette hiding Slipstream’s sun. As distance closed you began to pick out details, and each one shattered your sense of its scale. First the green carpet resolved into trees, then you began to make out towers and blockhouses thrusting out at odd angles. Closer, and the many gaps and cracks in its surface became visible.

Rush asteroid was of a stony type, comprised of four main bodies and a lot of gravel like glue between them. Slipstream’s industries had mined that gravel for centuries, first digging deep pits into it and lately, carving trenches that threatened to cut the asteroid into several pieces. Nobody wanted that because of centuries of forest growth and building, so scaffolding and heavy girders laced their way across the biggest gaps.

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