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eBook Category: Science Fiction
eBook Description: How could you win a poker game against an opponent capable of seeing your cards clairvoyantly, and stacking the deck telekinetically? A trip on the ultimate luxury ship, with an impossible challenge....

eBook Publisher: Fictionwise.com, Published: Analog, 2005
Fictionwise Release Date: September 2006

6 Reader Ratings: Great Good OK Poor

Available eBook Formats [MultiFormat - What's this?]: Adobe Acrobat (PDF) [413 KB], eReader (PDB) [68 KB], Palm Doc (PDB) [57 KB], Rocket/REB1100 (RB) [52 KB], Microsoft Reader (LIT) [102 KB] - PocketPC 1.0+ Compatible, Franklin eBookMan (FUB) [125 KB], hiebook (KML) [155 KB], Sony Reader (LRF) [91 KB], iSilo (PDB) [47 KB], Mobipocket (PRC) [60 KB], Kindle Compatible (MOBI) [88 KB], OEBFF Format (IMP) [79 KB]
Words: 15277
Reading time: 43-61 min.
Microsoft Reader (LIT) Format: Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud ENABLED
Adobe Acrobat (PDF) Format:  Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud ENABLED
All Other formats: Printing DISABLED, Read-aloud DISABLED

"Vajra creates a colorful and fascinating antagonist in this piece, and the mystery of Moelqai's motivations sustains a good underlying tension. The story begins with an irresistible hook, and many of the descriptive details are exquisite. The conflict adds imaginative and intricate detail to the David-versus-Goliath formula."--Tangent

Imagine, if you will, a cruise ship. Think big: half again the length of the QE3 and with every frill available to the latter 21st century. Imagine sybaritic cabins with cumulous beds, steaming aroma-chromo-therapeutic swimming pools, and cuisine to make Brillat-Savarin drool in his grave.

Now try to imagine that this wonderliner, the Mistral Majesty, occupies an unfortunate position for any purely marine vessel: in midair almost two miles above an unearthly ocean, about to fall....

Elija Cauless, Acting Captain, covertly swiped his damp palms across his immaculate white trousers.

"Ladies and gentlemen, we have the situation totally under control," he lied in a ship-wide broadcast. "Please remain calm."

He punched the PA's off-switch and rechecked the altimeter. Knowing their precise elevation--to the inch!--only added a sour irony to his fear. A

self-calibrating laser altimeter had always seemed absurd on a vessel designed to sail the high seas rather than the high skies.

True, the patrons had been promised "ADVENTURE'S PEAK IN LUXURY'S LAP" as the animated brochures proclaimed at ninety decibels to anyone slow to find the mute button. But this was surely excess adventure, even for the blasé.

The ship pitched forward and Elija felt another tadpole of sweat wiggle down his scalp toward the puddle near his hatband. He gripped the arms of his chair and tried to feel grateful. In conventional circumstances, the imminent fall would be inevitably and redundantly fatal. Not that a cruise ship could get in this predicament in conventional circumstances.