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eBook Category: Science Fiction
eBook Description: On the edge of explored space, an extraordinary artifact sits in the upper atmosphere of a gas giant--a floating castle. When exo-archaeologist Jerard Pauli is sent to investigate the structure's cavernous depths, he stumbles across a gate that takes him far way, to a dangerous new world full of similar structures, and he becomes lost amidst this myriad of drifting islands. After Pauli accepts that he may never see home again, he finds that this new world has its own ancient story and sinister purpose

eBook Publisher: Eternal Press, Published: 2008, 2008
Fictionwise Release Date: May 2008

7 Reader Ratings: Great Good OK Poor

Available eBook Formats [MultiFormat - What's this?]: Adobe Acrobat (PDF) [374 KB], eReader (PDB) [102 KB], Palm Doc (PDB) [51 KB], Rocket/REB1100 (RB) [52 KB], Microsoft Reader (LIT) [137 KB] - PocketPC 1.0+ Compatible, Franklin eBookMan (FUB) [117 KB], hiebook (KML) [171 KB], Sony Reader (LRF) [133 KB], iSilo (PDB) [46 KB], Mobipocket (PRC) [84 KB], Kindle Compatible (MOBI) [132 KB], OEBFF Format (IMP) [81 KB]
Words: 16100
Reading time: 46-64 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
ISBN: 978-1-897559-04-8

An Appointment

A chill wind gushed through the open balcony. Jerard Pauli shivered and closed the patio door, which led out to his roof terrace. He wondered if he wouldn't be better moving back to Brazil. The carnivals, the friendly people, the weather; there was much that drew him back. As he pondered this, a husky female voice broke through his thoughts.

"Boss, you have a call."

"Thanks Maria, I'll take it now," he told his user-agent. The flat panel in the wall faded from a virtual aquarium through black and into the image of a smartly dressed man in his late fifties.

"Professor Pauli, I'm Bernard Russell. Thank you for applying for the job. We'd like to take you through to the next stage in the interview, a meeting with me here at our virtual campus," said the man.

Pauli regarded this for a moment before answering.

"Professor Russell, I'd be delighted to accept your invitation. When would be a suitable time?"

"Now."

Pauli nodded. The man disappeared from view and the aquarium returned. Pauli sat down on his chair, placed the virtual reality halo on his head, pulled on the fingerless gloves he would use to navigate and switched from the real into the virtual.

Around him his office appeared; walls, furnishings, doors and windows, all speeding up and arranging themselves.

"Would you like me to accompany you, boss?" Maria asked him.

"No need, just punch me through."

The scene fell away, Belgium fell away, Earth fell away, spinning like a desktop globe and sho0ting back up toward him. The U.S. and then Washington rushed upwards. He dropped down into the city where an office formed itself out of disparate shapes around his virtual persona. He and Bernard Russell shook simulated hands.

"Forgive me for rushing this along, but we are in a desperate hurry to get things moving. Let me be frank with you. You meet our academic criteria, but as you know, few exoarchaeologists have any real, non-terrageiongate, fieldwork. Whether we hire you or not will depend on your assessment of this virtual mock-up of the site. Since you've already signed the necessary releases, we can get moving."

Russell gestured his hand and the walls of the office fell away to reveal a haunting scene. Clouds hovered above, slipping in elegant strips through the atmosphere; wisps and puffs of white, streaks of green, slivers of white, all tumbling in and out of a sky of both blue and turquoise, wherein both colors mixed as uncomfortably as oil and water.

Below them, the same haunting scene unfurled, layers and layers of clouds, descending deeper and bluer, down into hazy, impossible depths.

Pauli gasped; the structure across from him was something else! It hovered, held aloft by an unknown force, drifting between the cloud banks; a castle atop a floating rock.

"Well Professor Pauli, what do you think?"

"What do I think? I think you pulled this off a gaming server."

Russell laughed then.

"We get that a lot."

Pauli looked. Its towers rose and ended in bulbous roofs or sharp spires. Grass and vines had already reclaimed much of the structure. Blocks of stone had collapsed inwards, but these breaches in the walls took up such a small area, less than five percent of the whole. Though there were many towers, one single tower also suffered from the ravages of time, and the roof had collapsed back into a courtyard. Apart from the destruction, the rest of the scene was idyllic. There were streams and rivers and little cotton ball clouds hanging above.

"From what you can see now, we'd like your professional opinion--your best guess. How that fits in with our data will determine whether you get this job or not."

Pauli grinned.

"So you want me to explain a floating castle in scientific terms?"

"You could say that."

The scene shifted and they were taken slowly around on a preconfigured flyby.

"No problem. Judging by what I can see, our structure here is in the upper atmosphere of a gas giant. This gas giant will have a mass of at least fourteen times that of Earth, probably more. The bigger the better since it will have more resources and produce more energy. Our extraterrestrial civilization would likely have opted big. The gas giant will have a rapidly spinning core of heavier elements, and, due to the dynamo effect, will be producing very strong magnetic fields.

"The plants you see there, which cover this structure, indicate we are rather close to this system's star, inside the comfortable zone. For that same reason the upper atmosphere is likely to be composed of mainly hydrogen, and the color you see in the atmosphere indicates methane. Without a look at the star I can't guess how close exactly. I would also hazard a guess this system contains only a few small rocky planets, this gas giant, and maybe another gas giant. Gravity at this height is going to be quite nice, somewhere near Earth gravity.

"Our ancient extraterrestrial architects sliced an asteroid in half, equipped it with some mechanism to keep it aloft, and dropped it into this planet's upper atmosphere to create habitable surface area. It draws all the energy it would ever need from the planet's magnetic field, and that probably supplies the energy to keep it aloft. I cannot even begin to speculate how. I guess you'll need to hire a cutting edge physicist as well. The structure must have a field around it to hold in the atmosphere required to maintain life, which is very different from the atmosphere of this gas giant. And the habitat will need shielding from radiation, which will likely to be very strong.

"The structure itself is thirty miles across. Most will be inundated with plant life, possibly some animals, and I would guess there's a good deal of flat, undeveloped land in there which was once used as farm land. There is at least one other structure like this, possibly more. The beings who created this originated from a small rocky planet similar to Earth. At the point they created this structure, they had been in space a long time; enough to realize the full potential of gas giants using a very simple methodology. That opened to them hundreds of times more living space, more energy, and more resources than the small rocks a young civilization such as us hold so dear."

Russell held up his hands. "Okay, that's enough Professor. Can you leave tonight?"