Queen of Candesce Read Online Free Page B

knew it was a man-made sun that warmed their faces and lit the crops they grew on millions of slowly tumbling clods of earth. But the world itself? One glance up from your own drudge-work might encompass vast, cloud-wreathed spheres of water, miles in extent, their surfaces scaled with mirror-bright ripples; thunderheads the size of nations, which made no rain because rain required gravity but rather condensed balls of water the size of houses, of cities, then threw them at you; and a glance down would reveal depths of air painted every delicate shade by the absorption and attenuation of the light of a dozen distant suns. How could such a place have an end? How could it have been made by people?
    Venera had seen the outer skin of the world, watched icebergs calve off its cold black surface. She had visited the region of machine-life and incandescent heat that was Candesce. The world was an artifact, and fragile. In her coat pocket was something that could destroy it all, if you but knew what it was and how to use it.
    There were things she could tell no one.
    A thing she could tell was that her adopted home of Slipstream had been attacked by a neighboring power, Mavery. Missiles had flashed out of the night, blossoming like red flowers on the inner surface of the town-wheels of Rush. The city had been shocked into action, a punitive expedition mounted with her husband leading it.
    She explained to Diamandis that Mavery’s assault had been a feint. He listened in mesmerized silence as she described the brittle dystopia known as Falcon Formation, another neighbor of Slipstream. Falcon had conspired with Mavery to draw Slipstream’s navy away from Rush. Once the capital was undefended, Falcon Formation was to move in and crush it.
    The true story was that Venera’s own spy network had alerted them to this plot. Chaison and Venera Fanning had taken seven ships from the fleet and left on a secret mission to find a weapon powerful enough to stop Falcon. The story she told Diamandis now was that her flagship and its escort were pursued by Falcon raiders, chased right out of the lit air of civilization into the darkness of permanent winter that permeated most of Virga.
    That had been a month ago.
    After that, more things she could tell: a battle with pirates, being captured by same; escape, and more adventures near the skin of the world. She told Diamandis that they had sailed toward Candesce in search of help for their beleaguered country. She did not tell him that their goal was not any of the ancient principalities that ringed the sun. They were after a pirate’s treasure, in particular the one seemingly insignificant piece of it that now rested in Venera’s jacket. They had come seeking the key to Candesce itself.
    In Venera’s version, the Slipstream expedition had been met with hostility and chased into the furnace-like regions around Candesce. Her ships had been set upon and half of them destroyed by treacherous marauders of the nation of Gehellen.
    In fact, she and her husband had orchestrated the theft of the pirate’s treasure from under the noses of the Gehellens and then fled with it—he back to Slipstream and she into the Sun of Suns. There she had temporarily disabled one of Candesce’s systems. While it was down, Chaison Fanning was to lead a surprise attack on the fleet of Falcon Formation.
    Slipstream’s little expeditionary force was no match for the might of Falcon—normally. For one night, the tables should have been turned.
    Venera had no idea whether the whole gambit had been successful or not. She would not tell Diamandis—would not have told anyone—that she feared her husband was dead, the force destroyed, and that Falcon cruisers ringed the Pilot’s palace at Rush.
    â€œI was lost overboard when the Gehellens attacked,” she said. “Like much of the crew. We were close to the Sun of Suns and as dawn came, we burned…. I had foot-fins, and