Over Freezing Altitudes

by Kate MacLeod

  Scout folded up the robe and held it out to the tribunal enforcers. The nearest stepped forward to take it, then they all bowed together. Scout returned the gesture, feeling awkward. She could have made it look more regal if she’d still been in the robe, but the floral-patterned leggings and pastel tunic didn’t have the same gravitas.

  She missed her own clothes. The leggings didn’t even have any pockets, and the shoes were little more than slippers.

  At least she still had her belt. She buckled it around her hips, adjusting the double straps to sit one around her waist and the other lower on her hips. The pouches were all bulging, stuffed with everything she owned in the universe.

  “Come on, dogs,” Scout said, picking up their leashes to lead them down the airlock. They were nervous until the moment they saw the ship’s interior before them, then they surged forward, anxious to return to a world that made sense around them. Scout skipped to keep up.

  Then the dogs reached the end of the artificial gravity and went sailing through the air, pulling the now-weightless Scout after them while they followed diverging trajectories, making a V shape out of their leashes.

  Minato caught Gert in her thin arms before she could collide with a computer panel. She slowed Gert’s momentum without tumbling away herself or even losing the two-fingered grip she maintained in the doorway. Scout hadn’t spent a lot of time in microgravity, but she had spent enough to appreciate this girl’s mastery of moving in it.

  “Sorry,” Scout said as she pulled Shadow into her own arms to keep him contained. “They’ve been in free fall before, but I don’t think they ever really got used to it.”

  Minato hugged Gert close to her side. Gert tried to twist around to see who was holding her. She was far more suspicious of strangers than Shadow, but she wasn’t doing her low-pitched warning growl, and the hair on her back was smooth and flat, not rankled up. Still, she wasn’t going to be satisfied until she was free, and she squirmed mightily.

  She was a big girl. Minato’s thin arms must be stronger than they looked.

  “One of the other harbor pilots has an old shaggy dog, but he doesn’t have nearly as much energy as these two,” Minato said to Scout. She turned Gert around and set her moving down the long hallway that ran perpendicular to the airlock. Then she propelled herself gently across the room to lean past Scout and close the door behind her. Scout managed to half raise her hand in one last farewell to the tribunal enforcers who had rescued her before the outer door clanged shut. Then Minato closed the inner hatch, and Scout could hear the harbor ship’s connecting tube telescoping shut, metallic pings and grinds echoing around her.

  “Come on,” Minato said from the doorway. “It’s more comfortable in the cabin.”

  “Okay,” Scout said, tucking Shadow under her arm and following Minato down the hallway, past a pair of closed doors to the main cabin at the front of the ship.

  Screens showed the world around them, the crystal ship defined by the ship’s computer in green lines connecting points that were defined by strings of numbers that changed as the ship receded. The planet’s atmosphere dominated the screens before them, the tops of the towers under the city dome hidden in the clouds but also defined by the computer by outlines and numerical values.

  Gert was hovering near something in the front of the cabin, something like a ball covered in long shanks of hair resting on top of a large, round tank that was anchored to the floor with retractable legs.

  Then the ball moved to look up at Gert, and Scout realized it was a man’s head. Everything from the man’s earlobes down was inside of the tank. Lights were flashing in panels on the sides of the tank, and a small screen occasionally updated a list of data, adding a new line to the bottom and pushing everything else up one line every moment or two. Was it medical equipment, or something necessary to pilot the ship?

  Because the tank was positioned where all the screens were converging. He had to be the one controlling things. The pilot, Minato’s father, Umi. But how could he with his hands and mouth out of view? Did he have controls unseen inside the tank?

  “You’re lucky; there are no storms today. Pretty calm winds,” Minato said as she brushed past Scout to look at something on one of the panels. She made an adjustment and moved on to the next panel. “It’s a short trip. We just have to sink down to match altitude and then glide in.”

  “I’ve never been on a balloon before,” Scout said. She didn’t feel like they were sinking, probably because she was still floating weightless in the air. Minato went to her father’s side and murmured something to him as she caught hold of Gert, then towed the big black dog back to Scout.

  “They are pretty unique to Schneeheim as harbor ships,” Minato said, pushing Gert over to Scout. She hooked a foot around a handle set in the floor so she could remain near Scout and the dogs. Scout had an arm around each dog, which left no hands to spare to hold herself steady. Minato caught her elbow to gently hold her in place.

  Scout felt like she was being assessed and guessed that while Umi piloted the craft, Minato made sure the passengers were comfortable. She gave Scout a reassuring smile and continued speaking. “Schneeheim was very volcanic in its past. At the same time, it’s so small its gravity is only about a third of standard. That makes for huge mountains. The tallest peak is nearly higher than the atmosphere here at the port city. Perfect for high-altitude airships. Airships combine balloons, where the atmosphere is thick enough to float, with small rockets for where it’s not.”

  “This is only the second planet I’ve been to,” Scout admitted.

  “Me too,” Minato said with a sudden smile. “I was born on Agate, nearer to Galactic Central. I haven’t been back there since I was eight, though. I can’t handle full gravity for long, and my father not at all. But don’t worry, I can manage just fine on Schneeheim. I’ll be taking you through processing and handing you off to the Torreses, who are waiting for you.”

  “You know the Torreses?” Scout asked. Relief started to bubble up inside her. She could ask Minato all about them, get a sense of who they were before she met them. But then Minato shook her head, and that momentary feeling of relief evaporated in a flash.

  “Not personally,” Minato said. “They arranged for my father and me to pick you up. The tribunal enforcers don’t really talk, you know.”

  “Yes, I know,” Scout said. She must have sounded more miserable than she felt because Minato’s hand on her elbow gave her a little squeeze.

  “Long journey?” she guessed. “It’s nearly done, and I’ll be with you the rest of the way. You’re not alone here.”

  Scout mustered up a smile and hugged her dogs. Clearly, that silent journey had been too long, leaving her too much time to worry. The Torreses were Liam’s friends and had put themselves at risk just as he had done, all to get Scout off her world before festering hostilities erupted into outright war. They had to be good people.

  Scout just wasn’t used to depending on others. It felt unnatural to have to do it now. But she knew she wasn’t alone.

  Of course, she had the dogs. The three of them would get through all this together, even if two of them didn’t actually know what was going on. It was a comfort just having them there with her.

  No one with dogs was ever alone.

  4

  Scout, a dog tucked under each arm, propelled herself out of the cabin doorway and back down the hall to the airlock. She made a long arc down its length, touching down halfway to her destination. The next bound only took her half as far, and from there she was taking something closer to steps than sailing jumps.

  Gravity was coming back faster than she had expected. She set the dogs down and let them walk the last bit of the way.

  There were no screens in the airlock room, no way to see what was happening as the floor bucked under her feet and she caught hold of the doorway to keep from falling to the ground. They buoyed back up, then dropped again, shimmying a bit from side to side.

  Scout closed her ey
es and willed the rising bile taste at the back of her throat to subside. She really didn’t want to throw up. Who knew where that would all end up if she did.

  The floor dropped away beneath her, startlingly fast this time, and Scout yelped out loud.

  “It’s all right,” Minato said, finally following Scout to the back of the craft. Scout opened her eyes to see Minato smiling at her as she made her way down the hallway. Metallic braces on her legs rang loudly with each step, and she was leaning forward over a pair of canes in her hands. Her face was flushed, and she was winded even by that short walk, but her smile never wavered.

  “You said there wasn’t a storm,” Scout said.

  “Oh, this? This is gentle skies,” Minato assured her. “Although you do look a bit green. Don’t worry, we’ll be docking in just a moment, and then you’ll be standing on firm ground. You’ll feel better in a jiffy.”

  Scout nodded, hoping it was true but not trusting herself to speak as another shimmy of the ship around her brought the bitter bile taste back.

  Minato seemed to know the instant the directional rocket was about to fire, putting out a hand to catch Scout before she could lurch back and gently supporting her until all of a sudden they were perfectly still.

  “See? Better already,” Minato said, braces clanging as she crossed the room to open the airlock doors one after the other. “We’ll be outside, but only for a moment. Just keep following me, and you’ll be fine.” Scout nodded, adjusting the dogs’ leashes in her hand, then followed Minato out of the airship.

  Although they were once more moving through the telescoping attachment to the airlock, it wasn’t sealed on the other side, just locked down to the edge of an open platform. Scout was momentarily blinded by all the whiteness, a bright sun dancing through wisps of white cloud that skittered over the platform and swirled all around them.

  Then there was a break in the clouds, and she saw just how high up they were, over the top of the glistening dome. Under the dome, Scout could see clusters of towers, all of enormous height, all with their tops a long way beneath the platform where she stood.

  Scout felt a momentary wave of vertigo, a sensation like she was already tumbling forward, although in fact she wasn’t even standing close to the edge at all. Then a sudden memory hit her, of being on another platform high above a cityscape on Amatheon Orbiter 1 and Geeta—with the intentions of saving her from certain captivity—throwing her over the side. She had landed only a few meters’ fall later in a safety net, but for one eternal moment, she had thought she was going to fall for the rest of her short life.

  “Scout, I need you to keep walking,” Minato said to her, a commanding tone in her voice that compelled Scout to open her eyes and take a step closer to that voice. “The air is thin out here, and you haven’t adapted to it yet. We need to get you indoors. Just keep walking, you’ll be fine. I’ve got you.”

  Scout took another step and felt Minato wrapping an arm around her, her walking stick dangling from her wrist as she hugged Scout close. She had to put her weight on Scout, but there wasn’t much of that, spindly as she was, especially not on this planet. She guided Scout across the platform to a large set of glass doors.

  Then they were inside, out of the wind and clouds. The doors closed behind them, and Scout took a deep breath so full of oxygen it made her dizzy. But that feeling quickly faded, and she felt her mind sharpening.

  “Better?” Minato asked, and Scout managed a nod. Minato let her go and fussed a moment to get her cane back in her hand. Scout looked down at her dogs, who were both breathing in tongue-lolling pants. If the thinness of the air had bothered them at all, they were at least recovering quickly.

  As Minato led the way, Scout realized they had not yet reached the top of the tower itself, only an enclosed part of the long ramp where they had docked. The view of the city was still dizzying, but being out of the wind with the clouds forced to pass around the glass enclosure and not blow around her all wet and cold was a definite improvement.

  The bounteous oxygen helped too.

  The hallway ended in a large room that felt almost star-shaped with all of the other ramps bristling off from its central core. The ceiling was a single glass dome, and Scout realized as she looked up at it that so far she had only been looking down at the long drop to the city below.

  The view up was even more dizzying. There was no sky, only the faintest wisps of clouds stretching and dissipating in long, thin tendrils and beyond them the starry expanse of space. Occasionally something out there winked at her, a distant ship drifting in orbit.

  “We really are above the atmosphere here?” Scout said.

  Minato looked up as if she had forgotten there was something up there. “Most of it,” she said. The central core of the room was a bank of elevators that sensed their presence and opened their doors invitingly.

  “Does the gravity get stronger as we go down?” Scout asked as she led the dogs into the elevator.

  “No, why would it do that?” Minato asked, pushing the button to close the doors and then leaning against the wall to rest. Her face was flushed, and she appeared nearly out of breath.

  “That happens in space stations with spin, I guess,” Scout said. “Although the one I was on, the change was so slight I didn’t notice it. But they said some people did.”

  “Huh. Never heard of that,” Minato said. “Interesting.”

  “Are you all right?” Scout asked. “Do you need help, or to get back to your ship? I could probably find my way from here—”

  “No, I’m okay,” Minato said, pushing away from the wall as the elevator slowed to a halt. “I know I look like I’m beat from just that little walk, but that’s good for me. I actually have a set number of hours I’m supposed to spend on the surface every week, and I’m a bit low at the moment, so taking you around works out perfect for me.”

  “Someone schedules your time?” Scout asked.

  “My doctor. It’s important to move about in gravity as much as I can for as long as I can. Someday I’ll probably end up like my dad, floating in a pressure tank and never able to come back out. I’m trying to push that day as far into the future as possible. Sorry, I know it’s a bit much to watch for some people.”

  “Don’t apologize,” Scout said, feeling her cheeks flush furiously. “I should apologize to you if I made you feel self-conscious at all. You shouldn’t have to explain yourself to me.”

  “It’s all right,” Minato said. “I’m used to it.”

  Scout racked her brains for something more supportive to say. “I don’t really know what it’s like for you, but I can see you’re working hard to make the best of it. I totally respect that. I knew someone back home who had a hover chair. She got around with it just fine, but she was looking for work in free fall where she could move pretty much like everyone else.”

  “That’s kind of why my father and I are here,” Minato said. The doors opened, and she led the way down another long hallway. Scout could hear voices from behind some of the closed doors, and more voices in some larger, more echoey space ahead.

  Minato stopped at one of the doors and knocked softly before opening it and stepping aside to let Scout and the dogs go in first. The dogs lunged forward, always anxious to explore a new space, but Scout felt a prickle up her spine, every hair on the back of her neck suddenly standing on edge.

  She kept a firm grip on the leashes as she looked up and down the hall. Back the way they had come it was still empty, every door closed, all the way back to the bank of elevators. In the other direction, she could see someone dressed like a doctor walking quickly away from her, eyes on a tablet in his hands. A pair of men not dressed like medical staff were talking together, arms crossed and laughing, not looking her way.

  They didn’t look familiar to her. But something had. Someone had. For just a moment she could have sworn someone was watching her. Someone with blue-gray eyes in a shade she could never forget.

  Eyes just like Clementine, the lac
onic girl assassin who had tried to kill Scout back on Amatheon. Who would have succeeded, too, if not for the heroics of Scout’s dog Gert.

  But it couldn’t be Clementine. Aside from them being a five-day journey through hyperspace away from Amatheon, Clementine was dead.

  “Everything all right?” Minato asked.

  “Yes,” Scout said. She could hardly say she’d just seen a ghost, especially as there was no sign of anything now.

  But still, the prickly feeling of being watched didn’t leave her.

  She followed the dogs inside the room and let Minato shut the door behind her. It closed with a satisfyingly heavy click. It might not hold up to an actual attack, but it was enough to separate her from watching eyes.

  Yet the feeling of unease lingered. It couldn’t possibly be Clementine back from the dead to haunt her, but the fact was that Clementine had been an assassin trained by Shi Jian. Was Scout’s subconscious trying to give her a warning?

  She would have to mention it to the Torreses when she met up with them, even if it only made them look at her like she was crazy. She needed someone else to know.

  This snowy little world just didn’t feel safe.

  5

  Scout vaguely remembered doctor visits when she was a child, but after her parents died and she was left on her own at age ten, those had become a thing of the past.

  Until a week ago. Now she had been inside so many examining rooms, medical pods, and other doctor-related spaces she was heartily sick of them.

  “Hello, Minato,” said the woman who was already in the room. She looked like a plump grandmother with rosy cheeks and long white hair in a braid wrapped several times around the crown of her head. She smiled at Scout, then at each of the dogs in turn. “Scout Shannon and company. I’m Dr. Schneider, but as we’re all friends here, you can just call me Heidi. I’m all ready for you; this should just take a moment.”