Grail - Elizabeth Bear [114]
Perceval’s hands closed reflexively on the arms of her acceleration chair. It reclined, the restraints contracting comfortably but firmly to snug her into place. She breathed deep, a little giddy on the over-oxygenated air, and adjusted her oxygen uptake and respiration reflex to compensate. Wouldn’t it be something if she passed out from forgetting to respire because the air was too rich?
She’d expected a worse bump when they hit the atmosphere, but it was more of a skipping sensation, and then a heavy drag like water over skin. Rays of dull glow flowed up the windscreen, red shading to orange and then gold, brighter, brighter, until Perceval adjusted her eyesight to compensate as the sky overhead began shading from obsidian to indigo. Heaviness kept her from raising a hand to shade her eyes, but in the front seat Tristen leaned forward, stronger than she. Resisting the acceleration. He let himself slump back a moment later when Amanda gave him a shocked glance, and he tucked his arms conscientiously at his sides. Each bump of the descending lighter swayed him slightly as he settled back into the acceleration couch.
A moment later, the inertial dampers kicked in and Perceval found herself back to something like normal gravity. On the heavy side, but not unbearable.
After that, the ride went smoothly. They sank through the layers of atmosphere like a flat stone slipping sideways into the depths of some ancient tank, the fluid air curling around them, sensor lights green and cheerful on the boards. Something flashed orange for a second. Amanda touched a control and it righted. Or Perceval assumed the emerald glow meant it had righted. It didn’t seem like an opportune time to ask.
The glow receded across the ports. The sound and sensation of air dragging along the skin of the craft dropped to a roar. “That was the tough part,” Amanda said. “Nothing tricky left but the landing.”
They dropped for some time, Amanda reporting what continent or sea they passed over as the minutes went by. A cloud layer crawled beneath them like a wrinkled sea; they passed through its upper layers and dropped into calm air below. Now the sky overhead was a deep transparent cerulean—a color so bright and clear that Perceval felt like she should be able to see through it to the shape of the Jacob’s Ladder up there somewhere in the dark on the other side.
She could see Fortune’s sister planet, heavy on the horizon like a ripe fruit on Mallory’s tree, reflecting sunshine from its blue-violet surface, wearing wispy stratus clouds like a wind-whipped beard.
Below, a band of darker clouds loomed—a towering topography with its highlights picked across in brushed silver by the angled sun. Vast updrafts, kilometers high, whipped the cloud tops to frothy peaks smeared flat at the top by a shearing wind.
“Thunderstorm,” Tristen said, like a Benedickion. “I’ve never imagined …”
“Me either,” Perceval said, and reached forward to touch his shoulder.
“We’ll be going through it,” Amanda said, “so you’ll get to appreciate it up close.”
A blue-white arc of searing brightness flickered between the clouds they fell toward like a snake’s tongue. A bright reverse shadow seemed to follow it, an expanding ripple of fox fire racing along the cloud tops. The boom that followed seconds after shook the little craft like the fragile rice-paper cylinder it wasn’t. Perceval’s dignity alone kept her from squeaking and clutching the armrests.
A half kilometer or so above the cloud tops, the Metasequoia dropped as abruptly as if someone had pushed it off a tabletop. Another arc lit the inside of the cockpit in black-paper cuts and sharp silhouettes, edges without compromise. This time, the rattling, growling rumble followed much faster, and much longer.
The craft pitched up again. Amanda’s hands rested lightly on the controls, though, concentration smoothing her face. Her expression revealed no sign of discomfort or worry. Occasionally she said something brief and cryptic into her mouthpiece; Perceval came to understand that she was speaking to