A Forest of Stars - Kevin J. Anderson [187]
But now, the string of unpleasant events never seemed to end. The Klikiss robots would not let him go.
Sirix had engaged in a programming link to pilot their bare-bones vessel deep into Ptoro’s atmosphere. Manipulator arms emerged from the beetlelike robot’s chest plate. His optical sensors burned scarlet as he explained in his buzzing voice, as if he considered himself a mentor to the captive compy, “At this height in the troposphere, turbulence is great, but the air remains so thin that it poses no navigational hazard. Do not be concerned.”
DD swiveled his head and looked at the hulking machine. “That is not why I was worried. I do not wish to go down there.”
“Nevertheless, we wish to take you.”
Ptoro was a distant and cold planet, smaller and denser than many gas supergiants, the gray-blue of dirty ice on a frozen pond. Similar to Uranus in the Earth system, it had five thin silvery rings stacked like bracelets around its equator. DD’s general database had no record of any skymining activities here, but the Hansa had very little concrete information about Roamer facilities.
As Sirix’s ship continued to tunnel through the thickening atmospheric layers, the temperature rose on a predictable curve. They plunged through breaths of hydrogen mixed with a splash of helium. Finally, they crossed through a thin cirrus veil of ammonia crystals that whipped past the viewports. Storm winds jostled their vessel, and DD had to anchor himself to keep from being thrown from side to side.
“Where are we going, Sirix? And why must we go there?”
“To meet our comrades in this struggle.” The ancient robot did not explain further.
They dropped into an exotic cocktail of acetylene, methane, and phosphine. The atmosphere became a soup of reddish brown clouds around them, and their craft rocked with the rugged currents. DD thought they might be destroyed at any moment.
Then the experience became even stranger.
Outside, in rafts of ammonium-sulfide clouds, a bloated creature, as filmy and diaphanous as a giant jellyfish, flailed wide, sail-shaped fins. Silver nodules on its gelatinous membrane seemed to be a dozen alien eyes regarding them as their ship dropped past.
A hairy centipede made of glassy fibers thrashed about like a whip. Elsewhere in the infinite sky, DD saw glittering angular crystals in vibrant primary colors that looked like flying jewels, living gems. Swollen plankton bubbles drifted about, metabolizing Ptoro’s atmospheric heat and consuming chemical compounds from the mists. One of the plankton bubbles struck the descending vessel, splattering a greenish blue ooze across the observation port.
The ship groaned and shuddered from the external stressors. DD knew the vessel had been reinforced to withstand incredible pressures. Though he hadn’t asked for them, the Klikiss robots had also made structural improvements to his compy body, enabling it to tolerate this environment. DD concluded that, if the hull should fail, he would remain functional and aware for uncounted years as he tumbled and drifted endlessly in equilibrium with the storms in the viscous atmosphere of this hellish world. He could imagine few worse fates.
But at least then he would be away from Sirix and the other Klikiss robots.
The mists finally parted like the petals of a flower. Sirix’s red optical sensors flashed. “There is our destination.”
Ahead hung a cluster of gigantic diamond-hulled spheres, self-contained environments anchored at a stable point within Ptoro’s clouds. DD knew the size of the hydrogue ships that had wrought so much damage across the Spiral Arm, but the few warglobes he spotted here seemed like tiny blips in comparison with such huge complexes.
“The hydrogue cityspheres move about within each gas giant, and can journey instantly from world to world using transgates at