The Clouds of Saturn - Michael McCollum, ebook
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Sci Fi - Arizona, Inc.
Third Millennium Publishing
THE CLOUDS OFSATURN
A Novel By
Michael McCollum
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An Online Cooperative of Writers and Resources
Prologue
The sun is a variable star. Changes in solar output have sent glaciers marching toward the equator every
fifty thousand years or so. The last such episode took place in late prehistoric times and coincided with
the displacement of Neanderthal Man by the Cro-Magnons. Nor has Modern Man been immune to the
effects of the sun’s variability. During the Little Ice Age of the Sixteenththrough Nineteenth Century, a
minor reduction in solar output caused the harbors of Iceland and Greenland to be blocked by ice for 6
months out of every year. At least one Viking colony starvedto death because of the climatic change.
It was not until the first decade of the Twenty Second Century, however, that humanity realized the true
extent of Sol’s variability. Beginning in 2102, the sun was wracked by a series of solar flares. As such,
outbursts grew more frequent and violent; astronomers began to reexamine their long held beliefs about
the nature of the sun. It was with understandable horror that they realized Sol was about to enter a period
of long term instability. Projections called for the sun’s output to increase gradually for several hundred
years. While minor on the scale of the universe, the change would render Earth uninhabitable within a
century. If nothing were done to stop it, the Mother of Men would become a twin to Venus -- a
hothouse planet on which liquid water no longer existed.
Faced with extinction, the human race directed its considerable resources toward saving the home
world. No possibility was overlooked. Many research efforts were launched in a period that became
known as the Golden Age of Pure Science. Despite their best efforts, the scientists could find no practical
method for bringing the errant star to heel. After decades of study, Earth’sleaders reluctantly concluded
that humankind would have to abandon its ancestral home. They began to search the Solar System for a
place of refuge.
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The haven they chose was not one many would have guessed.
Chapter 1: The Battle of New Philadelphia
Larson Sands lay in his acceleration couch and watched the dawn as SparrowHaw
k
raced eastward at a
thousand kilometers per hour. Dawn on Saturn was always spectacular, but never more so than on a
battle morning. As the sun climbed the sky, it quickly transformed the world from a black and silver
etching to a blue-white panorama of air and cloud. Lars watched as the rays of the sun chased azure
shadows from the deep cloud canyons, and turned The Arch overhead into a pale ghost of its former self.
“Message coming in from Delph
i
.”
Sands glanced toward his copilot. Halley Trevanon was a brunette in her early twenties (Standard
Calendar). Halley possessed a wide mouth, full lips, green eyes, and a scar that bisected her left
eyebrow. She was scanning the sensor readouts that told them what ships were in their vicinity.
“Patch him through,” Lars said.
The communications screen on the instrument panel lit to show Dane Sands’s smiling face. Dane was
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Lars’s younger brother, and Halley’s fiancé.
“Hello, SparrowHaw
k
,” Dane said. “Get enough sleep last night?”
“You know damned well we didn’t!” Lars muttered back. Dane was serving aboard the New
Philadelphia flagship, Delph
i
, some two hundred kilometers to their west. It was his task to act as liaison
between SparrowHaw
k
and her New Philadelphia employers. Like them, he had been at his post since
just after Second Midnight when the first sighting reports had come in.
Five thousand kilometers to the east, a New Philadelphia scout had reported an unknown aircraft
movingwest at high speed. Although there had been no positive identification, the commodore
commanding theNew Philadelphia fleet had ordered his heavier-than-hydrogen craft launched. In the
three hours since, SparrowHaw kand the other ships of the fleet had been on guard for an approaching
enemy. Despite their efforts, they had detected nothing.
“I’ve got some news for you,” Dane answered. “It looks like last night was a false alarm. Dakot
a
may
have suffered a sensor glitch caused by atmospheric conditions.”
Lars nodded. Saturn’s thick atmosphere of closely packed hydrogen atoms did strange things to radar
performance. Eddy currents and vertical convection cells created ghosts that looked like the wake of a
fast moving aircraft. Such mistakes were common.
“What are our orders?”
Dane glanced at something out of camera range. “I show you two hundred kilometers east of Delph
i
.”
“Correct.”
“Why don’t you work your way back in this direction? If nothing has shown up by the time you arrive,
we will take you back aboard. You should be here in time for breakfast.”
“Understood,” Lars said. “We’re turning now.”
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He pulled his control to the left and back slightly, sending SparrowHaw
k
into a gentle turn. As he did so,
Dane Sands asked, “How’s my girl?”
“Excited, and a little scared,” Halley responded. Like Lars, she was encased in an environment suit, with
her helmet visor up. Should the ship be holed, she could seal her suit in a matter of seconds. The other
four crewmen aboard SparrowHaw
k
were similarly attired.
“Don’t wear yourself out,” Dane said. “The high command here is still hoping our show of strength will
cause the Alliance to back off. We know their fleet left Cloudcroft three days ago, but we still have no
evidence that they are coming here.”
“Do you really think that, my love?”
Dane flashed her his most lopsided grin. “That’s the way we’ve been betting all along, isn’t it?”
Larson Sands said nothing. Over the past few weeks, he had started to wonder if their bet had been a
wise one. The Delphis were expert geneticists who had long pursued the dream of engineering a life form
that could live in the upper Saturnian atmosphere. Rumors that they had developed a viable organism had
reached the Northern Alliance, causing it to invite New Philadelphia to join them. The invitation had been
couched in terms that caused the Delphis to look to their defenses.
As was the case with most independent cities, New Philadelphia could not afford a full time navy to
challenge the larger, more powerful Saturnian “nations.” Rather, they maintained the core of a fighting
force that could be rapidly expanded in time of trouble. In addition to a few customs ships, they had
turned one of their large air freighters into a powerful flagship and mobile base. To supplement this fleet,
they had sent recruiters throughout the northern hemisphere looking for privateer ships and crews.
The Sands brothers and Halley Trevanon had met the Delphi recruiters in a bar aboard Pendragon City.
Lars still remembered the plump songstress who belted out The Ballad of Lost Eart
h
while the Delphi
recruiters made their pitch. Afterward, Dane Sands had argued in favor of taking the job. He had thought
it easy money, a simple show of force to convince the Alliance that their gain would not be worth thecost.
It was an argument that had the benefit of history on its side. For if there was one thing all the cloud cities
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