Ballistic (The Palladium Wars), стр. 37
The atmospheric shuttle was sleek and narrow, and the interior was a study in elegant simplicity that would have pleased her father’s sense of aesthetics—white and silver, ceramics and polished steel, cleanliness and efficiency. As profoundly divergent as their cultures were in many respects, there was a surprising amount of overlap. Solveig supposed that Acheron’s population density made efficiency and adherence to rules a critical necessity. On Acheron, taking up more space for yourself and your things than absolutely necessary was a major social infraction. The constant need for moderation had resulted in a minimalism by necessity that Solveig found appealing.
“Would you like to view the outside on the descent, or should we leave the screen off?” Kee asked when they were all strapped in. “Some like to see the clouds, but the winds are very fast here. It can be unsettling to have a visual reference on the final approach.”
“I’d like to see it,” Solveig said quickly before Gisbert could open his mouth and ask for the blind descent option. “It’s my first time here. I want to see everything.”
“Very well,” Kee said. He waved a screen into existence in front of him and tapped a few controls. The entire top half of the shuttle cabin seemingly turned translucent. Solveig had to suppress a gasp at the effectiveness of the illusion. It looked like someone had cut the roof off and replaced it with a giant seamless Alon cupola. Next to her, Gisbert’s complexion turned slightly green, but she knew he wouldn’t dare to contradict her request.
As the shuttle undocked and began its descent into the atmosphere, she leaned back to take it all in. Overhead, the station ring receded swiftly. Gisbert let out a tiny groan and closed his eyes.
The ride into the upper layers of the atmosphere was a spectacular light show. The superheated plasma streaming past the optical sensors made it look like they were inside a comet. It obscured her view of the planet and only left a sliver of star-dotted space at the very top of the cabin ceiling for a few minutes. Then the cocoon of fire around them started to recede. A few minutes later, the shuttle leveled out its descent, and the view was clear again. The atmosphere looked like a roiling river of red and yellow and ochre shades, stretching out as far as she could see. It was amazing to think that people could not just survive places like this, but thrive and expand and shape their societies, maximizing the benefits of their new environments while minimizing the drawbacks.
On the forward bulkhead, a new projection appeared, this one showing an informational display of their flight path to Coriolis City. Kee sat in front of her, facing the back of the cabin, and he smiled as he watched her gaze in awe at all the color and movement outside.
“Beautiful,” Solveig said. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“The clouds are sulfuric acid,” he said, pronouncing the words carefully. “The atmosphere is mostly carbon dioxide.” His Acheroni accent was light, but it came out stronger with the scientific terms.
“How did it feel to have blue skies and breathable air on Gretia?” she asked.
“To be honest, it was unsettling. The sky looks all wrong. And not seeing a dome overhead was frightening at first. But it is nice once you get used to it. I liked the winds a lot.”
“The winds?”
Kee nodded and smiled in reminiscence.
“Our cities have domes. There is no wind. The temperature is always the same. You can’t feel the wind on Acheron. It’s not possible to go outside the dome without a suit and helmet. I liked the winds on Gretia. Like the air is stroking my face with kindness.”
“I like that analogy,” she said. “I guess you never really think about something you experience every day.”
“It’s a little different for us.” He gestured at the swirling clouds outside. “This is our world every day. But we always have to think about everything. The air inside the dome. The clouds outside. One is good to breathe, the other is not.”
Someone spoke into his earpiece, and he put a finger on it and sat up.
“We are starting our landing approach,” he said.
“Can we see the front sensor feed, too?” Solveig asked.
“Certainly.” He swiveled his chair around and made a screen with his thumb and forefinger. A few taps later, the forward bulkhead disappeared, and Solveig let out a soft gasp.
“Coriolis City,” Kee said. “It looks like we are close already, but we are almost a hundred kilometers away. It’s deceiving to the eye because the city is so big.”
In front of them, a skyline was floating above the clouds. She had viewed images of the Acheroni sky cities on the Mnemosyne, but seeing one with her own eyes was something else entirely. Even from this distance, it looked enormous. The dome reflected the patterns in the surrounding cloud cover. The gas-filled double torus that kept everything afloat in the atmospheric current roped around the base of the dome like a well-fed snake snuggling its next meal. Solveig saw tendrils extending from the edges of the city’s base, some trailing off into the clouds below, some reaching higher toward the sun.
“What are those?” she said and pointed at them in turn.
“The ones that go below are collectors,” Kee said. “Sulfuric acid from the clouds, for turning into water. The ones that go up are collectors, too, but for solar energy.”
As they got closer,