Chapter One
“THIS IS VENERA CONTROL, Shuttle AX-2416. You’re clear for landing. Welcome back.”
Hello, Tori. How are you doing? thought Helen from her seat in the passenger compartment. She liked the fact that the shuttle pilots left the intercom open so she could listen to the familiar voices running through the landing protocols. Overhearing this final flight ritual made her feel that she was really home.
I just wish I was really home with better news.
She bit her lip and settled a little further back in her crash-couch. Helen was the only Venera-bound passenger this run. She’d flown from Earth in the long-distance ship Queen Isabella, which now waited in orbit while the shuttles from Venera ferried down supplies and equipment that had to be imported from Earth.
Helen stared straight ahead over the rows of empty couches. The ceiling and front wall of the shuttle’s passenger cabin were one gigantic view screen. Venus’s opaque, yellowish-gray clouds churned all around the shuttle. Wind stirred the mists constantly but never cleared them away.
She strained her eyes, struggling to see the solid shadow of Venera Base through the shifting fog. Despite everything, Helen still felt as if she carried the bad news with her, that nothing could have changed aboard Venera until she got there and handed the news over.
I’m not there so it’s not real yet. Helen smoothed down the indigo scarf she wore over her stark white hair. Arrogance, arrogance, old woman. This last trip should have finally put you in your place.
She really did feel old. It was strange. Even in the modern era of med trips and gene-level body modification, eighty-three was not young. She had never felt so old inside, though. She’d never felt calcified like this, as if something in her understanding had failed, leaving her standing on the edge of events she was unable to comprehend clearly, let alone affect.
The shuttle’s descent steepened. At last, the cloud veil thinned enough that Helen really could make out the spherical shadow of Venera Base—her dream, her life’s work, her home.
And now, my poor failure.
Even with self-pity and defeat swimming around inside her head, Helen’s heart lifted at the sight of Venera. The base was a gigantic sphere buoyed by Venus’s thick CO2 atmosphere. Distance and cloud cover made the massive girders and cables that attached the tail and stabilizers to the main body of the station look as thin as threads.
Venera rode the perpetual easterly winds that circled the planet’s equator. The shuttle matched Venera’s speed easily, and the navigation chips in the shuttle and the runway handled the rest. The shuttle glided onto the great deck that encircled the very top of Venera’s hull. It taxied straight across the runway and to the open hangar.
The shuttle jerked slightly as it rolled to a stop. A moment of silence enveloped Helen. This was no tourist shuttle. There were no attendants, human or automated, to tell her it was okay to get up now, or to make sure she claimed all her luggage, or to hope she’d enjoyed her flight and would come again soon.
Instead, the hissing, bumping noises of pressurization, corridor docking, and engine power-down surrounded her. Helen stayed where she was. As soon as she stepped out of the shuttle, it all became real. The transition would be over. Her illusions would no longer shield her. Helen found she did not want to abandon that shelter.
“Dr. Failia?”
Helen started and looked up into the broad, dark face of the shuttle’s senior pilot What was his name?
“Yes?” She pushed herself upright and began fumbling with the multiple buckles that strapped her to the couch. Name, name, name…
“I just wanted to say, I know you’re going to get us through this. Everybody’s with you.”
Pearson! “Thank you, Mr. Pearson,” said Helen. “We’ll find a way.”
“I know we will.” He stepped aside to give her room to stand. Helen did not miss the hand that briefly darted out to help her to her feet and then darted back again, afraid of being offensive. She pretended to ignore the awkward gesture and retrieved her satchel from the bin under her couch.
“Thank you again, Mr. Pearson.” Helen shook the pilot’s hand and met his eyes with a friendly smile. P.R. reflexes all in working order, thank you.
Then, because there was nothing else to do, she walked down the flex-walled docking corridor.
Bennet Godwin and Michael Lum, the other two members of Venera’s governing board, were, of course, waiting for her in the passenger clearing area. One look at their faces told her that the bad news had indeed flown far ahead of her.
Her hand tightened around her satchel strap as she walked up to her colleagues.
“I take it you’ve heard,” she said flatly. “We lost Andalucent Technologies and IBM.” There, it’s official. I said it. The last shards of her comforting illusions fell away.