Grail - Elizabeth Bear [113]
Sunlight that stroked the lighter as the primary star bulged, refracting through atmosphere and flaring like a diamond in a band of light. Perceval raised a hand to cover her eyes until the polarizing filters and her own pupils adjusted—a brief moment, until her colony dropped compensating veils across her irises. Then her palm dropped to press the port, as if she could touch the jeweled thing revealed before her.
“Most people who live here,” Danilaw said, “have never seen it this way.”
Perceval started and half turned, overbalancing herself. She didn’t fall because Danilaw steadied her, one hand on her shoulders.
“I’m sorry.”
“I’m not used to people being able to sneak up on me,” she said. “Usually, there’s an Angel on my shoulder.” Nova was still within range of her thought, but it wasn’t the same as being surrounded constantly by the invisible fog of her colonies.
Danilaw caught Perceval’s eye, and seemed about to say something. Perceval, however, turned back quickly. She wasn’t going to miss any more of her first sunrise.
The star was already free of the atmosphere’s clinging brilliance, burning clear, pale yellow against the blackness beyond and she sighed. “It’s over so fast.”
“We’re moving at a pretty good clip,” Danilaw said. He came up beside her so she wouldn’t have to turn to speak with him, or maybe he wanted to watch as well.
Fortune swelled in the forward port, dayside illuminated, and Perceval gasped as the Metasequoia went nose-down and offered her a lingering view of dark violet and sand gold continents and glittering seas veiled under gauzy drapes of water vapor. Images and simulations had not prepared her for the depth of it, the dewy three-dimensionality. It looked real—of course it was real—but it also looked close and solid, as if it were a blown-glass bauble, superhumanly detailed, that she could put her hand out and pick up, hold, experience the cool solidity of its weight in her hand if only the viewport were not in the way.
A chime warned them to return to their seats. Amanda’s voice followed. “Attention, passengers. We are commencing our atmospheric entry approach at this time. Please assume a seat and confirm that you are properly restrained so we can begin our preliminary trajectory corrections.”
“This way,” Danilaw said, standing aside to permit Perceval to precede him.
She moved toward the control capsule in the nose of the lighter, passing through the open hatchway to find Tristen already seated beside Amanda in the forward row of chairs. Perceval dropped into her seat as Danilaw secured the hatch behind them. The webbing required a certain amount of guidance to fasten properly, leaving her wondering if these strangers would accept nanodrape technology as a potential trade good, or if their cultural opposition to excess energy expenditures and nanotech extended that far.
Fastening the straps was rendered more challenging because she could not stop glancing away from what she was doing to stare out the lighter’s broad horseshoe of windows. She felt the inertia as the craft began to rotate and craned her head back hopefully. Above—a term with meaning, suddenly, beyond “overhead”—the cloud-smeared orb of Favor drifted into view as if suspended in time and space. Perceval lifted her hand to occlude it with her palm, and realized that, as it was both smaller and more distant than Fortune, she could have covered it with her thumb. Her heart made savage with her ribs; her eyes welled up with unaccustomed wetness.
A world. A whole world up there.
She didn’t realize she had spoken aloud until Tristen spoke over his shoulder, through the curtain of his hair. “A living world.”
“If you don’t mind birds that crap hydrosulfuric acid. Strapped in, Amanda,” Danilaw said, reminding Perceval to confirm out loud as well.
“Perfect,” Amanda said.