raining? He turned away from the crew quarters and climbed the
roundabout path that led back to the equipment hold. Although he was uneasy about the
weird floating monster he’d encountered, he was curious enough—and uncomfortable enough
from a brimming bladder—to risk a quick peek outside.
A flux of cool, moist air filled Rafa’s lungs as he rounded the corner and stepped
through the tortured metal of the hatchway they’d battled a few hours before. The
lights were out. Water dripped from obscure shadows, creating unnaturally loud echoes
in the chamber. Starlight streamed through the rent in the hull that had admitted all
the mud and moisture; it spilled across the puddles on the metallic deck plates and
created stark, angular silhouettes where it struck the motionless machinery.
He breathed deeply, sampling the scents of the alien atmosphere. Ozone, tinged with
the hints of greenery and flowers. Smelled like a park or a garden after a storm on
Earth. Smelled alive. Splashing through the ankle-deep pools of water in the corner, he
approached the gaping tear in the hull to look outside.
The rain had stopped. Overhead, clouds were beginning to disperse, leaving behind
patches of indigo studded with stars. Rafa had never seen so many stars, even far out
at sea. This planet was in a dense local cluster; the night sky sparkled and
shimmered with diamond dust in a hundred hues. A few degrees above the horizon hung a
point of blue fire, easily outshining the rest of the night sky.
That would be Erisa Alpha, Rafa was sure—the whitish giant around which their own
smaller, orange sun orbited. More empty space separated them from the distant jewel
than separated Pluto from Sol, yet Rafa saw that it cast shadows across the night
landscape.
The arresting beauty of the far-off sun was complemented by Erisa Beta II’s rings,
which knifed in an incandescent arc from horizon to horizon. They’d mentioned the rings
in their training, but a casual footnote scarcely did them justice.
Most planetary rings developed from matter that failed to coalesce as the main mass
of a planet came together under the tug of gravity. Typically such rings circled the
equator, rotating in the same direction as the surface that had once been nearly
contiguous. These rings, on the other hand, had formed far out of the equatorial plane,
when a wandering moonlet strayed within the planet’s Roche limit and was torn apart by
unbalanced tidal forces. The unusual orientation meant that from the surface the rings
appeared to rise and set, morphing continually in curvature and width as the view for
the observer changed from oblique to edge-on and back again.
Rafa had a breathtaking three-quarters view. Backlit by a sun just below the
horizon, the rings glowed in graduated pastel bands of lavender, yellow, rust, and
copper green. For several minutes he stood silently in the darkness, oblivious to the
morning chill and the distant sounds of the wakening crew.
* * *
Back in the commons, the floor was littered with ration wrappers and spittle.
Whemper and the kid with the nose ring were bantering lewd remarks for the benefit of
the women. When Rafa told them to knock it off Whemper snarled. “Wishing you had a
piece of the action, preacher man? You ain’t so holy just because you go out and pray
for the rest of us.”
There was a general snicker.
Rafa sank onto a discarded crate and closed his eyes. “I wasn’t praying for you,” he
muttered in disgust.
“Good! I don’t need some holier-than-thou hypocrite pleading my case!”
Rafa opened his eyes and leaned forward again, becoming genuinely annoyed. “What is
your problem, Whemper? Can’t you control that verbal diarrhea?”
Whemper opened his mouth to make a sarcastic comeback, but broke into a spasm of
coughing instead. When he was finally done he added another rosy circle of spittle to
the floor and staggered over to the enclosure where Rafa had
roundabout path that led back to the equipment hold. Although he was uneasy about the
weird floating monster he’d encountered, he was curious enough—and uncomfortable enough
from a brimming bladder—to risk a quick peek outside.
A flux of cool, moist air filled Rafa’s lungs as he rounded the corner and stepped
through the tortured metal of the hatchway they’d battled a few hours before. The
lights were out. Water dripped from obscure shadows, creating unnaturally loud echoes
in the chamber. Starlight streamed through the rent in the hull that had admitted all
the mud and moisture; it spilled across the puddles on the metallic deck plates and
created stark, angular silhouettes where it struck the motionless machinery.
He breathed deeply, sampling the scents of the alien atmosphere. Ozone, tinged with
the hints of greenery and flowers. Smelled like a park or a garden after a storm on
Earth. Smelled alive. Splashing through the ankle-deep pools of water in the corner, he
approached the gaping tear in the hull to look outside.
The rain had stopped. Overhead, clouds were beginning to disperse, leaving behind
patches of indigo studded with stars. Rafa had never seen so many stars, even far out
at sea. This planet was in a dense local cluster; the night sky sparkled and
shimmered with diamond dust in a hundred hues. A few degrees above the horizon hung a
point of blue fire, easily outshining the rest of the night sky.
That would be Erisa Alpha, Rafa was sure—the whitish giant around which their own
smaller, orange sun orbited. More empty space separated them from the distant jewel
than separated Pluto from Sol, yet Rafa saw that it cast shadows across the night
landscape.
The arresting beauty of the far-off sun was complemented by Erisa Beta II’s rings,
which knifed in an incandescent arc from horizon to horizon. They’d mentioned the rings
in their training, but a casual footnote scarcely did them justice.
Most planetary rings developed from matter that failed to coalesce as the main mass
of a planet came together under the tug of gravity. Typically such rings circled the
equator, rotating in the same direction as the surface that had once been nearly
contiguous. These rings, on the other hand, had formed far out of the equatorial plane,
when a wandering moonlet strayed within the planet’s Roche limit and was torn apart by
unbalanced tidal forces. The unusual orientation meant that from the surface the rings
appeared to rise and set, morphing continually in curvature and width as the view for
the observer changed from oblique to edge-on and back again.
Rafa had a breathtaking three-quarters view. Backlit by a sun just below the
horizon, the rings glowed in graduated pastel bands of lavender, yellow, rust, and
copper green. For several minutes he stood silently in the darkness, oblivious to the
morning chill and the distant sounds of the wakening crew.
* * *
Back in the commons, the floor was littered with ration wrappers and spittle.
Whemper and the kid with the nose ring were bantering lewd remarks for the benefit of
the women. When Rafa told them to knock it off Whemper snarled. “Wishing you had a
piece of the action, preacher man? You ain’t so holy just because you go out and pray
for the rest of us.”
There was a general snicker.
Rafa sank onto a discarded crate and closed his eyes. “I wasn’t praying for you,” he
muttered in disgust.
“Good! I don’t need some holier-than-thou hypocrite pleading my case!”
Rafa opened his eyes and leaned forward again, becoming genuinely annoyed. “What is
your problem, Whemper? Can’t you control that verbal diarrhea?”
Whemper opened his mouth to make a sarcastic comeback, but broke into a spasm of
coughing instead. When he was finally done he added another rosy circle of spittle to
the floor and staggered over to the enclosure where Rafa had
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