Contents | Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3| Chapter 4
The rear of the drop ship yawned open. The wind rushed in, pushing the acid-proof against Shay’s skin. It crinkled as the baggy sleeves flapped in the gust. Her father had described the acid-proof as feeling like a “cagoule”, but Shay didn’t know what that was, and Ben hadn’t elaborated further. On the journey to Venus, she had been assured in training that ‘you don’t need to go outside Venera if you don’t want to’.
She didn’t want to. But thanks to the weather, she had little choice in the matter. When they had landed, and the pilot got off the comms to air traffic control, he swivelled in his seat, all alacrity gone and said, “Looks like acid-proofs, folks.”
Groans came from the craft’s rear as the wind buffeted the drop ship, rocking it like a dingy in gently lapping waves. Training scenarios for walking outside Venera had surprised Shay. She had expected a spacesuit or something similarly bulky. Instead, it was a flimsy suit, positively pressurised with no more structural rigidity than a heavy blanket. She had been shocked to find that this was all that was needed for environmental egress. The pilot handed her the acid-proof, and she unfolded it. The thin one-piece rubberised suit covered all her limbs and head. She slid it over her shoes and clothes, putting her head in last. The pilot zipped her in and fastened an additional seal. She was fully encased. A small tank was clipped to her belt inside the suit. She shook it, as per the instructions from the pilot and a green light appeared in the transparent faceplate.
“That’s you, oxygen active,” said the pilot before he moved on to help another passenger.
And now she stood at the back door, in the middle of the scrum of eight suited bodies, staring out at alien weather. It didn’t feel so alien, though. The cool touch of the acid-proof against her skin made her think of a New Year’s Day walk on Ayr Beach when she had misjudged the weather and only had a t-shirt underneath her rough waterproof jacket. Her bare arms had chaffed against the outer layer as she strolled along the deserted beach. Now, they chaffed against an otherworldly wind.
One by one, each of them clipped themselves to a safety line and filed out of the airlock and down the dropship ramp. There were two carabiners, both attached to the dropship safety line. At the bottom of the ramp, they transferred both carabiners to the safety line attached to the landing pad, ensuring they were never detached. Shay was the second last to step out into the varnished sky. She had expected white clouds. The planet was a milky white marble in the view-ports on The Aurora. As she swapped her carabiners over, she turned to look back and examine the clouds but heard “Keep going” come through a speaker inside the suit. It was a woman’s voice, a northern English accent. She did as she was told, turned and followed the others. She had to lean into the wind as it whipped the clouds above them and streaked rain across her faceplate.
Sulphuric rain.
On either side of her were tall cambered walls. Visibility was less than ten metres in the mustard haze, and what lay beyond the walls was obscured to her until a violent flash lit the monstrous cloud columns to either side. A second flash followed, accompanied by a bone-shaking bang. Shay froze.
“Category six storm, alright,” said an unknown male voice through the suit.
The person behind nudged her to keep moving. She glanced back one last time and saw the dropship wreathed in the rain. Its small, stubby legs clamped to the surface, stopping the wind from blowing the craft over the banked side. The dropship ramp was now closed. Shay could not make out the face of the woman behind her, just the reflection of electric blue warning beacons in her face cover. The side walls were dotted with them, and they cast their shocking glow over the shallow puddles Shay stepped through. Ahead, a large blue light strobed, marking where the safety line terminated. Shay took deep breaths of the plastic-scented air, fighting against the driving, corrosive rain. If the suit had been in multiple pieces, she felt like perhaps her helmet would have blown off by now in the relentless gales.
“It’s normally quite nice up here,” said the same English voice. Shay didn’t know if she had to press a button to reply, so she just said, “Oh yeah?”
It was hard to believe a planet with a surface temperature capable of melting lead and a pressure ninety-two times that of sea level on Earth could be “nice”.
“Aye, though I wouldn’t come out in a bikini to sunbathe,” came the reply. Shay placed the accent as Yorkshire, the one that had told her to keep going.
“This is my first time here,” said Shay, raising her voice above the wind roar.
“I know. Listen, sorry to hear about what happened to you. That AI thing? Not a patch on you. I took my young sister to see you play in Amsterdam a few years ago. She was a massive fan before, you know. I’m Cat, by the way.”
A new male voice broke in, American, “Can the chitchat until we’re inside.”
“Fuck off, Myers,” said Cat, unbothered.
He muttered something back that was obscured by the wind. They walked in single file towards the tower, the suit-attached carabiners scraping the safety line as they went, the metal-on-metal friction making a pulled zipper sound resonate through the acid-proof. Above, thick clouds swamped the tower’s peak. The head of the line reached a doorway in the tower as a giant orange arc of furious light smashed into something tens of metres behind them. The deck plating thrummed as another percussive blow in the nearby clouds sent a shockwave through the group. The safety line twanged. A blinding flash shot through the sky above, illuminating the tower. Silhouetted against the light were a series of gothic-looking spines Shay knew were antennae. The wind swirled and whooshed, and Shay grasped the thrumming guideline with both gloved hands, hunkering down. A skull-rattling clap sounded all around them. Fragments of the brilliant light seemed etched on Shay’s eyeballs, visible behind closed eyelids. She opened her eyes and saw the swelling cloud backlit by lightning. It loomed over them, demonic and furious. She felt small, powerless and exposed before the awesome majesty of it. She realised she was shaking.
“Lubo wasn’t kidding about the weather,” Cat yelled over the wind.
She nudged Shay to keep going, to follow the line.
“Is that the pilot?” asked Shay as she started to move, head down and teeth wanting to chatter.
“Yeah. I think he’ll be pissed off, having to spend time in a gravity field for a change. He’s a proper spacer, him,” said Cat.
When Shay had first heard of Venera, she found it hard to believe that the massive complex could even exist. But it did, and now she was here, wading through a storm, fifty-something kilometres above the acid-scorched hellscape below. Up here, barometric pressure was one bar, identical to Earth at sea level. Venera floated on the ocean-thick atmosphere, its oxygen and nitrogen-filled structures buoyant on the sea of carbon dioxide and sulphuric clouds.
The line leader flipped open a panel and punched something into it. An instant later, the deck shuddered, and metal groaned as a large door rolled open to expose a dimly lit interior. They filed in and away from the punishing weather one by one, performing the same carabiner swap they had earlier. Crossing the threshold, Shay noticed the metal skin of the door and frame were pitted, almost rusted. She cast thoughts of the corrosive atmosphere from her mind, not keen to follow the train of thought.
Not now.
With both suit attachments connected to an interior bar, the door rolled back into place behind them, rumbling to a close.
“All connected to the safety bar?” said Cat.
They all answered “Aye” in unison. Cat hit the green decontaminate button. Red lights pulsed, and Shay knew what to expect next: “Commencing spray down, commencing spray down,” rattled a machine voice from above. Shay grasped onto a handle in the wall, and a series of foamy jets sprayed the airlock inhabitants down, purging them of acid and contaminants. In her many conversations with her father, he had not relayed this procedure. Perhaps he never landed in a storm? He had only briefly mentioned acid-proofs but no particulars beyond an obscure reference to a “cagoule”.
“Pain in the ass” was about as detailed as he got when discussing the journey from Mariner to Venera, owing to the legal omerta covering life on Venera. Shay felt she had signed more Non-Disclosure Agreements than she ever had autographs upon agreeing to come here. A pang of sadness moved through her as she pictured Ben, knowing that it would only be in recordings that she would see or hear him again. No more uncomfortable Scottish words from his mouth, and no more perverse joy from him about how awkward words like “glaikit” and “dinnae” made people feel when delivered in a Brooklyn accent. What she wouldn’t give for one of his crushing bear hugs one last time. All two metres of his frame went into it, him forgetting his strength, a powerful reminder of how much he cared.
The jets and foam stopped, followed by a fine misting of water and more strobing lights. A warning beep before a torrent of drying air came from above, and then the other side of the airlock opened. Behind was more surreal banality. A changing room with lockers, benches, and a big bin for all the decontaminated acid-proofs. They each moved to the locker with their name on it. Nobody was allowed to take luggage for the trip, so each locker contained a personalised jumpsuit sporting their name just above the right-hand breast pocket. There were brilliant white shoes, which Shay would call old man’s sneakers. It was hardly a fashion faux pas if everyone wore the same thing. They all stripped to their underwear, changing their old jumpsuits for new ones to avoid contamination. Moving was more of a chore than it should be, and Shay felt a residual of something, like the feeling of tides hours after getting off a boat. She was exhausted, heavy and jumbled. Everything was too much. Everything was dialled to eleven. Perhaps this was why Ben hadn’t come home after every rotation; it was a lot. The re-introduction of gravity, the landing, and then being outside. It all came quickly and took more of a toll than Shay had expected. A door in the small changing room opened to reveal what looked like a classroom beyond. It starkly contrasted the dull, pipe and cable tray-lined walls of their changing room and the spray-down room. The class was smooth-finished walls, bright lights and furniture instead of dark industrial necessity. During her trip here, she had been told that a mandatory ‘orientation session’ was required, even if you had been on rotation on Venera before. So this was it.
Shay sat at the front of the class, the others filling the back seats before she could. The eight were perfectly split: four female, four male. None of them had been on the Aurora with her as it left Earth. None that she remembered, at any rate. She knew that, for many, the Earth to Mariner Station trip was leg one of a trip out further to Mars and beyond. Something to do with planetary alignment. Going back home was not as simple as moving in a straight line.
From behind her came a “psst,” she turned, and a large, short-haired woman was leaning over her plastic desk.
“Easier to talk when not wearing a goofy suit and fighting through the wind. I saw you on Mariner before we came down. I wanted to say sorry about your dad; he was a nice guy, well-liked here.”
Shay looked at the jumpsuit name tag. C Webster.
“Nice to put a face to the voice,” said Shay.
“So weird you’re here, “ said Cat, “like Shay Laren in person, in my work. Nuts!”
“That was my old stage name,“ Shay said, twisting further in her seat. The small desk was like something from school, not designed for sociability, at least not with those behind you.
“Yeah, well, that AI thing isn’t the same. Sorry that happened to you. I assume the fact that you’re here means all that news about your big payout wasn’t true?”
The payout rumour. This had been sent to torment her. A further indignity over the agony of a corporation stealing her face and wearing it for profit. It had been her brother that had brought it to her attention. Shay had opted to revert to her pre-fame habits of assiduously avoiding the news, preferring not to deal in corporate propaganda. The label hadn’t been merely content to own her back catalogue, identity and likeness, voice and style; they also had to smear her, brand her ‘greedy’ and ‘cashing out to avoid work’. The label had been vicious, as had the various pundits and talking heads associated with the corporation’s news outlets and friendly media concerns. The lies stung her in a way nothing else had, not even the deed of stealing her very soul.
“I wouldn’t believe everything you read or watch,” Shay said softly, feeling that tears weren’t far off. It had been a bloody long day. What she wouldn’t give for a bath and some quiet time tucked up on her couch with a book.
“Sorry if I’m being a pest; I was a fan. Just, you know, strange seeing you here,” said Cat.
Shay shrugged, “Strange for me, too.”
“My sister went to see you play in London, the Brixton show. She drove my mother to distraction playing your first album. What was the song from that, the catchy one?”
“I thought they were all catchy, “ said Shay, her face stern. She waited a beat before breaking into a smile.
“Just joking. It was Ellipsis, the disco-inspired one.”
Cat took the bait, then laughed, relieved: “Yeah, that’s it. She got it stuck in my head for ages when I was home. I used to be on sea steads before this, so I had to go home regularly. Chucked that, though; more dosh up here. Guess that’s why you’re here, too?”
Shay could feel the others in the room observing her. Curiosity tinged with something, but she couldn’t say what. It unsettled her. Cat registered it too, turning to one of the other women, then around to the men at the back of the room, a silent challenge. She turned back to Shay, leaning forward again.
“All gossiping bastards up here, take no notice, pal,” said Cat.
“What is it that you do?” asked Shay
“Me? Glorified plumber me. As you’ll have noticed, they don’t like too much automation up here. So they pay the likes of me to keep this place from sinking beneath the vapour boundary. I’m supposed to be on trim and ballast systems, but in reality, I do everything. Same with the rest of the maintenance people,” said Cat.
She looked down at the coloured piping around Shay’s jumpsuit.
“Blue? So you’re research. Oh, heck, you’re royalty here. I’m orange, same as these shit munchers. Maintenance.” said Cat, indicating the rest of the room.
As Shay went to reply, a door at the front of the class slid open and in came a small woman, clipboard and officious glare.
“Chat later,” said Cat, nodding to the front. Shay turned back as the whole class ended their conversations and focussed on the front of the room.
“I realise that most of you are veterans, but some of us aren’t, so pay attention, no talking, and we’ll get through this as quickly as possible. For those of you who don’t know who and what I am, my name is Angela Shields, and I am the safety coordinator for Venera, so I have the joy of issuing the safety briefs. So, like I said, pay attention, and we’ll be out of here quickly.”
She crouched before Shay, “Please stay afterwards, Ms McLaren.”
Shay nodded and watched as the lights went down and a holo projection appeared at the front of the room. It displayed the Artemis Corporation logo and was titled Venera City Orientation. What followed was a cheaply made, basically edited slideshow with a voice-over. A neutral American voice, speaking an anodyne, corporate English. It was incongruent with the language Shay had been marinating in the past week.
“Venera City is a floating complex of facilities fifty-five kilometres above the Venusian surface,” said the voice as a drone-captured video of the city played. It was a clear day, and Shay could see the full, spoked wheel of balloon-like structures called “domes” sitting atop a thick thatch of cloud. There were three domes, each resembling old-fashioned spinning tops. They all tapered up and down to single points, bowing out to their full diameter in the middle. Three giant rings connected three domes circumferentially, with long, straight and thin arms joining the domes to a central axle. It was atop one of these arms they had landed just a short time ago. Shay recognised the antennae spines on the top half of the central spoke, what had been a tower minutes earlier. The video changed to a 3D wireframe holo-graphic of Venera City. A pulsing green dot showed where they were, in the central axle, which towered above all the other structures. It also extended down, reaching into the cloudy depths. Shay glanced around the room to see some people sleeping or looking vacantly at the windowless walls.
“Can we not just fast-forward this bit, Angela?”
Shay looked around at the speaker. L Myers, his tag read. He was wiry, and she remembered seeing his shock of red hair several times whilst on Mariner. It had been him that Cat had told to “fuck off” earlier. The presentation paused, and Angela walked through the holo, staring her prey down.
“No, we cannot; this is a tier-one research facility, and that means rules, and this is one of them.”
The guy sitting next to Myers opened his eyes and smacked his colleague with a lazy backhand to the shoulder.
“Shut the fuck up, Myers, you complain every time, and it just makes the thing longer.”
“Thank you, Steve, but I have this. And try to stay awake, please,” said Angela, to a salute from Steve and a glower from Myers.
“Interesting you have such an attitude to safety, Myers, given the number of loss time accidents your department has had this year. Eyes front, and let’s get out of here ASAP; some of us have dinner waiting,” said Angela as she retreated through the still holo. Playback resumed.
The emotionless voice continued, “The spire extends several hundred metres above the landing arms and several hundred metres beneath the arms. It is the structure we are in now, where all new arrivals come through before being distributed to the domes. The primary function of the spire is to provide air traffic control and communications with space and surface assets...”
Shay daydreamed of Ben, wondering if he had complained about repeated orientation videos. He could be uppity sometimes but not as petulant as Myers. The rest of the presentation explained that the domes were home to food production, labs, automated micro-factories (fabricaria), crew quarters and storage. Each dome was self-sufficient, producing its own power and atmosphere. This meant in an emergency they could operate independently. The 3D wire frame returned to show escape routes and exits, and then the final portion of the video explained alarm sounds and escape procedures. As the lights came back up, the others filed into the hallway at the front of the class. Shay waited as Angela instructed, and Cat tapped her shoulder and said, “See you around. I’m in Dome Three. Give me a shout if you fancy dinner or owt.”
“Thanks, will do,” said Shay, finding that she meant it. It had been a lonely time this past week.
Angela waited until the class emptied, and it was just her and Shay before moving to the far end of the classroom and fiddling with a panel on the wall. It looked like an old-fashioned light switch. Angela adeptly extracted it, plucking some cables from their allotted terminals. The lights flickered, and speakers overhead made a faint buzzing sound. Shay watched as Angela checked behind some plain folders stacked against the side wall and then returned to the front of the room.
“Can’t be too careful. Walls have ears in some places,” said Angela, sitting by Shay on a desk.
“Anyway, we have a few minutes tops, so firstly, I just want to offer my condolences about Ben. He was a friend. I’ll miss him. Unbelievable circumstances you come out here in. Secondly, you must tread carefully. I don’t know exactly what is happening here, but something is. I am unsure whether Artemis Corp is involved, but something isn’t right on Venera. I have my theories, but we can talk about that another time. Remember, the walls have ears; not everyone here is on the level. We won’t discuss this again, but try finding Ron Silverbaum. He works in Hydroponics in Dome One. He might be able to help if you want to know more about your father.”
Shays’s mind raced, her mouth dry. Her heart switched from staccato to presto. All the questions she had been stewing on, all the things she couldn’t say on the journey over, threatened to bubble from her and blow the lid off her exhausted top. But as she went to speak, there was a wrapping of knuckles against the classroom door.
“Everything alright in there?”
Angela put her finger to her lips and moved to the back of the classroom and the exposed panel, shouting, “Yes, yes, we just had some issues with the lighting; I thought I could fix it. Give me a second.”
Angela replaced the cables and the panel cover, and the lights flickered, and the ceiling mounted speakers popped. The door at the front of the class slid open, and behind it was a large man in a black jumpsuit. His tag read E James, Security.
“Errol,” said Angela, “crisis averted, got the thing working again.”
Errol looked at her and back to Shay, sitting at her desk. She felt her cheeks flush.
“You shouldn’t fiddle with those panels, Angela. I thought a safety rep would know better than that,” he said, his southern state drawl dripping in suspicion.
They left the class, Shay following Angela and Errol behind. Angela made apologetic noises whilst Shay was stunned into silence by Angela’s outburst. She avoided meeting Errol’s suspicious stare as they walked the corridors. What did it all mean? Who was this Silverbaum guy? Errol reprimanded Angela for “a breach of the safety and security standards of the facility.”
Angela’s riposte of, “Well, it’s not uncommon,” fell weakly from her mouth.
Angela insisted upon showing Shay to her quarters, demonstrating how to use a holo point to interrogate the City’s systems to discover where Shay’s quarters were. Minus the glare of Errol James, they took the transporter to Dome Three, where Shay was billeted. The transporter was essentially a large elevator that moved in several different axes. It had seats and was more like a small train than an omnidirectional lift. The sides of the transporter were glass, allowing them to see the interior of the transport rings and Venera’s exterior. The two women made small talk, Angela pointing out features of the city as they passed. But visibility was low, and only things illuminated by the harsh blue beacons were visible in the thick, roiling cloud. Following Shay’s gaze, Angela said, “We are right at a vapour boundary, the optimal point to float the facility. That’s why the cloud always looks thicker beneath us. Go down ten or so kilometres, and the atmosphere becomes supercritical.”
They got out at a circular corridor, carpet tiled and with no exterior views. Doors and hatches lined its smooth walls, following the exterior curve. Shay could only see several metres in either direction before the wall curled away, obscuring her view.
“Room 302,” said Angela, shaking Shay’s hand.
In Angela’s palm, Shay felt a folded sheet of paper, which she took and put into her pocket.
“Thanks, Angela,” said Shay, “maybe I shall see you soon?”
With a nod and a smile, the small safety rep indicated that, indeed, she would. Shay followed the gently glowing room number signs and pressed her finger to a panel at the allotted door.
“Home sweet home,“ she said to the plain walls and small bed. It was bizarre, like arriving at a hotel with no luggage. Shay slipped her shoes off, not bothering to find a control to shutter her window, content to collapse onto the bed. She was warm, cosy, gravity heavy and close to content. Sleep came for her like an assassin, undetected and sudden.