Iswander chuckled. “Sounds like a speech I should be giving.”
“I could hire myself out as a speech writer,” Rlinda said. “Reasonable rates. I’m a woman of many talents.”
He clasped his hands in front of him. “It’s no secret that I’ve thrown my name into the ring to become the next Speaker. With a cargo load of ultra-pure ingots, exotic metal foams, energy films, and alloy polymers, everyone on Newstation will be able to see what I have to offer.”
“We’re also sending hundreds of spectacular images,” Pannebaker added. “You never know, it might even bring some tourists.”
Rlinda walked around the office deck with her rolling gait. “For the next important question, what sort of food do you have around here? You must have a commissary.”
“There’s a cafeteria,” Iswander said. “It’s adequate, I suppose.”
Rlinda let out a loud huff. “Adequate is never good enough. Let me see your kitchens, maybe make some helpful suggestions.”
Tasia laughed. Rlinda never seemed to change.
Robb interrupted, “I’ve already set up a proposed schedule of cargo runs from here to Newstation, Ulio, and Earth—a regular flow of Kett Shipping vessels coming to deliver whatever materials you have to trade.”
“We’ll put the Verne in the loop as one of the first ships,” Tasia suggested. “I doubt Xander and Terry have marked off Sheol on their lists yet.” It was important to think of their own son when opportunities arose.
During the Elemental War, she and Robb had been separated from each other for so long that they’d made up for lost time as soon as the war was over. They went on a honeymoon to see nebulas, gas giants, the trees of Theroc, the ruins of the Prism Palace, and the recovering operations on Plumas, which technically belonged to Tasia and her brother Jess, but Jess had his Academ school with Cesca, and Tasia happily ceded the operations to a distant cousin.
She was a Roamer through and through, and she needed to be free to do what she wanted. As a teenager, she had run away from home to join the Earth Defense Forces as a gesture of rebellion, and then she’d been stuck in a military career. Only later had she seen the irony of trading the comparative freedom of her teen years for a life of training, service, rule-following, and “Yes, sirs” up and down the chain of command (and “chain” was the right word for it, because it certainly bound people to do unreasonable things). After the end of the war, she hadn’t wanted any more of that.
Robb, raised in the military under his career-officer parents, had always thought his life would be centered on the EDF. He signed up, completed his training, did his duty, fought the enemy… and ended up spending a relative eternity as a hydrogue prisoner. Afterward, he had plenty of doubts. He didn’t think his core loyalty had changed, but the governments that claimed his loyalty were no longer the same.
Captain Rlinda Kett had offered the couple the Voracious Curiosity and asked if they wanted to be the first pilots in her new shipping company. They accepted, without mentioning that Tasia was pregnant. Their son Xander had been born on board ship, because Tasia incorrectly believed she could make one more run to the Rendezvous reconstruction site before her due date, and when her hard labor started, they couldn’t get to a medical facility fast enough. On that chaotic day Robb frantically read medical databases about birthing, and Tasia told him to solve the problem as she went into heavy contractions. “Or do I have to deliver this baby myself?”
“You have to do most of it, but I’m right here with you.” At that point, she wished she had gotten another compy after all, because Robb certainly needed the help. Medically speaking, the birth was not difficult (though Tasia took exception with the characterization). The baby was healthy.
They had agreed on Alexander for the boy’s name; Robb wanted to call him Alex, Tasia wanted to call him Xander… so they compromised and called him Xander. Not surprisingly, the young man was an instinctive pilot, since he’d spent his whole life aboard ships.
Now, in the Iswander Industries offices, Robb handled the inventory and paperwork for the new shipment, as well as the schedule for expanded commercial deliveries of Sheol metallurgy products. Rlinda planned to show off for the crew of magma harvesters by cooking them a meal unlike anything they’d ever had before.
Meanwhile, Tasia asked Deputy Pannebaker to show her how to suit up in the thermal armor, so she could go outside and supervise the loading of metals aboard the Curiosity. Pannebaker suggested again that they go lava sledding, but she turned him down. “Work to do. Maybe on our next visit.”
She put down the glare shield on her helmet and exited, with Pannebaker following in his own armor suit. The storm of heat and fire around them seemed to be Sheol’s natural state. Exposed, the Curiosity sat on the raised landing deck, connected by the safe access tube. Worker compies and suited crew used antigrav clamps to bring load after load of packaged metals into the hold.
As tons of product were loaded aboard, Pannebaker kept up a running commentary and explained the operations in the three towers.
Tasia realized that the deck felt uncertain beneath her boots. She stomped down, saw that her heel left a clear impression in the metal. “Is it supposed to be this soft?” Then as she watched in amazement, the Curiosity slid several inches. “Shizz, the landing deck is tilting!”
The startled workers stopped loading the Curiosity. “We’re off-level, that’s for sure.” Pannebaker clicked his general-comm signal. “Must be closer to material tolerances than I thought.”
Nearby, another lava geyser spurted—bright yellow with a core of white.
“You sure this is safe?” Tasia asked.
In his bulky thermal armor, Pannebaker lumbered to the shielded control shack, and she followed, tilting her helmet for a last glance at the half planet looming above like a boot about to smash them.
Once the shack door was sealed and coolant jets dropped the temperature down to acceptable levels, Pannebaker slipped open his face shield, disengaged his thick gloves. Curls of steam drifted around them. Pannebaker called up a summary on his screens. “There’s a massive thermal plume upwelling from below—much hotter than we’ve seen before.”
“The facility has heat shielding, doesn’t it?”
“Shielding, yes—but these peak temperatures might compromise our bedrock support struts. The three towers were built with high tolerances, sure, but in a plume this hot they might soften and bend.”
Workers outside scrambled for shelter on the raised landing deck while the compies retreated. The Curiosity slid another few inches.
Out on the molten sea, one of the enormous smelter barges began to founder. The crew boss yelled over the open comm so all employees could hear, “This is an emergency. Thermal breach in our lower hull!”
EIGHTEEN
ELISA REEVES
She found Garrison’s ship surrounded by the mysterious nodules drifting in empty space. The vessel’s running lights were on, but Elisa didn’t think he had detected her yet. Not surprisingly, he’d let his guard down. Why would anyone be watchful for a ship out here, so far from the nearest star system? He must have thought this was a perfect hiding place.
Noticing carbonization on the hull, burned-out station lights, and other indicators of damage, she wondered what sort of trouble Garrison had gotten into. It looked as if the ship had been in a fight. Elisa narrowed her eyes as she ran scans. He’d better not have let any harm come to Seth.