Looking up, into the colossal bowl of the circling storm and on into the haze and the star-specked sky beyond, tiny shapes could be seen, slow-circling against the brassy glare of light.
— The pick-up fleet and relaying craft are all in orbit, Hatherence told him.
They were in a steep-pitched, multi-tiered viewing gallery packed with Dwellers. Protected by carbon ribs ready to be explosively deployed should a competition craft come too close — and attached to the Dzunda, a klick-long Blimper riding just inside the storm-wall boundary — the gallery was a relatively safe place to watch GasClipper races. Giant banner screens could scroll up on either side of the fan of dent-seats to provide highlights of other races and relay events too distant to witness directly.
· The pick-up fleet? Fassin asked.
· That is as it was described to me, Hatherence said, settling into her seat alongside his. Dwellers around them were staring at them, seemingly fascinated by their alienness. Y’sul had gone off to meet an old friend. While he was with them, Dwellers only glanced at Fassin and Hatherence now and again. With him gone, they stared shamelessly. They had both got used to it, and Fassin was confident that, if Valseir was here and looking for him, he wouldn’t have too difficult a job finding him.
· How big a fleet? Fassin asked.
· Not sure.
There were hundreds of accommodation and spectator Blimpers within the storm’s vast eye, scores of competing GasClippers and support vessels, plus dozens of media and ancillary craft, not to mention a ceremonial — and War-neutral — Dreadnought, the Puisiel. This was decked out with multi-tudinous bunting, lines of ancient signal flags and festoons of Dweller-size BalloonFlowers, just so that there’d be no possi-bility of anyone mistaking it for a Dreadnought taking part in the greater and fractionally more serious competition taking place beyond the Storm.
The side screens lit up and they watched some early action from a race which had taken place the day before. Around them, a thousand Dwellers hooted and roared and laughed, threw food, made spoken kudos bets that they would later deny or inflate accordingly, and traded insults.
· Any other news from outside? Fassin asked.
· Our orders remain as they were. There have been more semi-random attacks throughout the system. Nothing on the same scale as the assaults on the Seer assets earlier. The defen-sive preparations continue apace. Manufacturers continue to make heroic efforts. The people continue to make great but willing sacrifice. Morale remains most high. Though, unofficially, people would seem to be growing more frightened. Some rioting. Deep-space monitors have picked up still ambiguous traces of a great fleet approaching from the direction of the E-5 Disconnect.
— How great?
— Great enough to be bad.
— Much rioting?
— Not much rioting.
The Blimper powered up, distantly revving its engines. A ragged cheer resounded around them as the Dwellers realised things were about to start happening.
· Well, major, the colonel sent, signal strength low in the clat-tering hubbub of noise. — We are finally off the ship Poaflias, we are alone, I think it unlikely we can be overheard, and I have built up an extravagant desire to know quite why we are here. Unless you have, in the course, perhaps, of your studies, discov-ered that you are an insatiable fan of GasClippering.
· According to Oazil, Valseir is alive.
The colonel was silent for a while. Then she sent, — You tell me so, do you?
· Of course, Oazil may be mad or deluded or a fantasist or just a mischief-maker, but from what he said he knew Valseir, or had at least been instructed by Valseir on what to ask me to make sure I really was who I claimed to be.
· I see. So, his turning up at the house was not chance?
· I suspect he’d been keeping a watch on it. Or somebody had, waiting for us — for me — to turn up.
· And he told you to come here?
· He did.
· And then?
· Valseir will find me.
Another cheer went up as the Dzunda began to pick up speed, becoming part of a small fleet of similar spectator craft flocking through the gas towards the starting grid of GasClippers arranged a couple of kilometres ahead. This would be a short race, only lasting an hour or so, with turns around buoys set in the Storm Wall. The races would grow longer and more gruelling as the meet progressed, culminating in a last epic struggle all the way round the vast storm’s inner surface.
· So Valseir knew you were or might be looking for him,
and had put in place arrangements to… Hmm. That is inter-esting. Any contact so far?
· Not yet. But now you know why we’re here.
· You will keep me informed?
· Yes. Though you will understand if I have to go off by myself at some point, I hope. Your presence might make Valseir, or whoever, nervous.
The Blimper picked up more speed, still heading towards the storm-inward side of the starting grid. The slipstream started to blow away balloons and trays not secured.
· Nervous? You think this is all that… serious?
· What do you think?
· I think Oazil is probably one or several of the things you thought he might be. However, we are here now and if he was telling the truth no doubt you will be contacted. Of course, the other possibility is that we might have been getting close to something of interest back at Valseir’s house and this was simply a method of getting us out of the way. What exactly did Oazil say to you?
Fassin had kept a record of the conversation he’d had with the wandering Dweller, deep beneath the house. He signalled it across to Hatherence.
The fleet of spectator craft passed by the starting grid like an unruly flock of fat birds. Another great cheer sounded. The GasClippers stayed on the starting plane, awaiting their own signal.
· Still, little enough to go on, major, Hatherence told him. — You should have shared this with me earlier and let me decide on the correct course of action. I may have been overly indul-gent with you. Your loss is still something I appreciate, of course. However, I fear I might have been guilty of dereliction.
· I won’t report you if you don’t, Fassin sent, without humour.
The GasClippers — the larger, plural-crewed versions of the single-Dweller StormJammers — were sharp, angular-looking things, all jag-sails, keel-lode and high-gallants. Fifty metres long — fifty metres in most directions — bristling with glittering sails like enormous blades, they looked like the result of some monstrous permanent magnet being thrown into a hopper full of exotic edged weapons. Pennant sails carried identifying marks, little flowers of colour within the silvery blades, all bright beneath the glittering point of light that was Ulubis.
It was not possible to sail in a single medium. True sailing required a keel (or something like one) in one medium, and sails (or something like them) in another. In a single great stream of gas, you could not saiclass="underline" you flew. On the edges of two streams, the boundary between a zone moving in one direction and a belt moving in the other, you could, in theory, sail, if you could build a ship big enough. The Dwellers had tried to build ships on that scale that would stay together. They had failed.
Instead, StormJammers and GasClippers exploited the titanic magnetic fields that most gas-giant planets possessed. Flux lines were their water, the place where their steadying keels lay. With a colossal magnetic field trying to move them along one course and the planet-girdling atmospheric bands of a Dweller-inhabited gas-giant expecting them to move along with everything else in a quite different direction, the possibility of sailing arose. And by sailing with sails dipped into the inside edges of giant storm systems, the sport could be made satisfactorily dangerous.