This is a short excerpt from the beginning of the second chapter of my published novel, Journey to Xanadu.
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It was raining. Drops of burning cold liquid methane rolled down the external ice wall of the Xanadu complex and off the heavily insulated bird-suits of the two figures who had just stepped out of the air lock.
“This is crazy,” said Pyotr. “Not only flying all the way, but flying in this?”
“Think of it this way,” replied Mara. “We’re not going to be seen, are we?”
“I can barely even see the hills,” grumbled Pyotr. “If we get lost, we’re right in the tar-pit. Possibly literally.”
Mara chuckled. “Trust me to navigate better than that, buttercake. We’re not going to get lost.”
Pyotr stared out into the thick brown air. With a bit of decent sunlight, Titan might actually be quite an attractive world despite the conditions; the problem was that there never was a bit of decent sunlight. Those who were born here were generally untroubled by it, but Pyotr had been born under the shimmering glass domes of Mars and lived there for most of his childhood. In an ideal system, he would have loved to return to Mars and stay there for the rest of his life. This, sadly, did not look like being an ideal system; however, even if he never saw Mars again, the prospect of getting off Titan was still one that very much appealed.
“You know what?” he said. “I hate this place. I mean, really hate it. I can live with it inside the complex because there’s so much light and colour about, but out here it really hits me in the guts what a depressing world this is.”
“Never heard you put it quite like that before,” replied Mara, “but I knew you didn’t exactly have a deep emotional attachment to Titan. That’s fine. Neither do I. We’ll both be off here soon enough.”
“And there’ll be the sun,” mused Pyotr. “And the stars. On Mars you can just go and lie down in a field and gaze up at the night sky.”
“What’s a field?” asked Mara, puzzled. “I know what it means in robotics, but that can’t be what you’re talking about.”
“A field,” explained Pyotr, “is like… OK, have you ever seen pictures of grass?”
“Yes,” Mara replied.
“Right. Imagine a dome about the size of Central Circle, only it’s all glass and steel. The domes on Mars have the same basic structure as here, only difference being you can see it – it’s not covered with a thick layer of ice on the outside and insulating materials on the inside. And you can see the sky. The sun, the moon, all the stars… a bit like being in space, but there’s decent gravity. The surface of the planet is made of silicates. You add some water and composted organic matter to the sand under the dome, you plant a lot of grass mixed up with clover and flowers and stuff, and then you just let it all grow. When they grow, you’ve got a field.”
Mara’s frown could clearly be heard in her voice. “And what’s it for? Sounds like an awful waste of surface.”
“Some of them are recreational spaces. But we keep animals on quite a lot of them. Sheep and dairy cattle. You can keep them in stalls, but it’s much kinder to give them room to graze, and we’ve got that room on Mars.”
“Sounds weird,” said Mara.
“It would be to you, I suppose,” replied Pyotr with a sigh. “But you need to see one. Don’t judge it till you have.”
“I’d like to,” Mara conceded. “But, listen, buttercake, we’re not getting anywhere just talking. Let’s fly.”
She spread the wings of the bird-suit, took a run across the ice-gravel, and flapped off into the thick rainy air. Pyotr followed, alternately flapping and gliding behind her. Birding had never been a hobby of his in the past, but he had taken it up with enthusiasm since becoming involved with Mara; it was about the only way they could regularly meet without attracting attention. And he had to concede that, apart from the scenery, it was a lot of fun. The one advantage of that heavy, smoggy, totally inhospitable atmosphere was that you could put on a bird-suit, flap your wings, and take off, as generations of children on Earth had dreamed of doing.
They had to fly for about half an hour before their destination hove into view, although if Titan had been an airless world it would have been easily visible from their starting point. It was a dome of ice standing on its own, constructed along the same lines as the domes of the complex but much smaller. It had a gate rather than an airlock, and this gate was guarded by two robots of the sort referred to on Titan as “parandroids”. They were roughly human-shaped apart from the wings, but no great effort had been made to make them look humanoid in any other respect. They could hold a simple conversation, but principally they were intelligent mobile security cameras.
Pyotr flew closer to Mara. “You sure we can get in?” he asked doubtfully.
“You watch.”
---
It was raining. Drops of burning cold liquid methane rolled down the external ice wall of the Xanadu complex and off the heavily insulated bird-suits of the two figures who had just stepped out of the air lock.
“This is crazy,” said Pyotr. “Not only flying all the way, but flying in this?”
“Think of it this way,” replied Mara. “We’re not going to be seen, are we?”
“I can barely even see the hills,” grumbled Pyotr. “If we get lost, we’re right in the tar-pit. Possibly literally.”
Mara chuckled. “Trust me to navigate better than that, buttercake. We’re not going to get lost.”
Pyotr stared out into the thick brown air. With a bit of decent sunlight, Titan might actually be quite an attractive world despite the conditions; the problem was that there never was a bit of decent sunlight. Those who were born here were generally untroubled by it, but Pyotr had been born under the shimmering glass domes of Mars and lived there for most of his childhood. In an ideal system, he would have loved to return to Mars and stay there for the rest of his life. This, sadly, did not look like being an ideal system; however, even if he never saw Mars again, the prospect of getting off Titan was still one that very much appealed.
“You know what?” he said. “I hate this place. I mean, really hate it. I can live with it inside the complex because there’s so much light and colour about, but out here it really hits me in the guts what a depressing world this is.”
“Never heard you put it quite like that before,” replied Mara, “but I knew you didn’t exactly have a deep emotional attachment to Titan. That’s fine. Neither do I. We’ll both be off here soon enough.”
“And there’ll be the sun,” mused Pyotr. “And the stars. On Mars you can just go and lie down in a field and gaze up at the night sky.”
“What’s a field?” asked Mara, puzzled. “I know what it means in robotics, but that can’t be what you’re talking about.”
“A field,” explained Pyotr, “is like… OK, have you ever seen pictures of grass?”
“Yes,” Mara replied.
“Right. Imagine a dome about the size of Central Circle, only it’s all glass and steel. The domes on Mars have the same basic structure as here, only difference being you can see it – it’s not covered with a thick layer of ice on the outside and insulating materials on the inside. And you can see the sky. The sun, the moon, all the stars… a bit like being in space, but there’s decent gravity. The surface of the planet is made of silicates. You add some water and composted organic matter to the sand under the dome, you plant a lot of grass mixed up with clover and flowers and stuff, and then you just let it all grow. When they grow, you’ve got a field.”
Mara’s frown could clearly be heard in her voice. “And what’s it for? Sounds like an awful waste of surface.”
“Some of them are recreational spaces. But we keep animals on quite a lot of them. Sheep and dairy cattle. You can keep them in stalls, but it’s much kinder to give them room to graze, and we’ve got that room on Mars.”
“Sounds weird,” said Mara.
“It would be to you, I suppose,” replied Pyotr with a sigh. “But you need to see one. Don’t judge it till you have.”
“I’d like to,” Mara conceded. “But, listen, buttercake, we’re not getting anywhere just talking. Let’s fly.”
She spread the wings of the bird-suit, took a run across the ice-gravel, and flapped off into the thick rainy air. Pyotr followed, alternately flapping and gliding behind her. Birding had never been a hobby of his in the past, but he had taken it up with enthusiasm since becoming involved with Mara; it was about the only way they could regularly meet without attracting attention. And he had to concede that, apart from the scenery, it was a lot of fun. The one advantage of that heavy, smoggy, totally inhospitable atmosphere was that you could put on a bird-suit, flap your wings, and take off, as generations of children on Earth had dreamed of doing.
They had to fly for about half an hour before their destination hove into view, although if Titan had been an airless world it would have been easily visible from their starting point. It was a dome of ice standing on its own, constructed along the same lines as the domes of the complex but much smaller. It had a gate rather than an airlock, and this gate was guarded by two robots of the sort referred to on Titan as “parandroids”. They were roughly human-shaped apart from the wings, but no great effort had been made to make them look humanoid in any other respect. They could hold a simple conversation, but principally they were intelligent mobile security cameras.
Pyotr flew closer to Mara. “You sure we can get in?” he asked doubtfully.
“You watch.”