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  ‘One Four Seven, your fuel state four decimal nine. Landing system lock. Clear to land, release hook and hold for instructions when down.’

  Hartigan scanned the instruments and glanced up at the scene outside. The carrier was clearly visible now, a dark arrowhead grazing the high clouds, with two bright strobe lights winking on each wingtip. He could just make out the lines of lights that marked the flight deck.

  His left hand moved to rest on the sidestick, and Clare glanced across for a moment. If there had been any issues with the approach so far, he would take over and fly the final stages of the landing himself.

  ‘Proceed,’ he said, and sat back in his seat.

  Clare tried to swallow, but her throat was dry. She had flown this so many times in the simulator, but doing it for real was scarily different, and she had half-expected him to take over. Now she was flying a real spaceplane down to a landing on a carrier, and there were just seconds to go. Everything had been checked, the craft was configured correctly; all she had to do was fly the guidance cues onto the deck. But it was real –the carrier that grew in size with every second was real, the people behind her were real, the carrier’s deck was real and could smash them from the sky if they didn’t land precisely right, the—

  ‘Call the ball.’ Hartigan’s calm voice brought her back to the task in hand, as he reminded her to make the traditional carrier pilot’s call that the optical landing system was in sight. With the autopilot riding the glideslope right down to the deck, it was rarely needed, but it was a last-ditch visual reference that could save their lives if the automatic systems failed.

  Clare’s attention came off the instrument panel now and she concentrated entirely on the visual approach. She looked through a head-up display panel that projected a series of green lines and markers over the scene, showing her landing path. The carrier was clearly visible now, its gigantic shape holding steady in the sky ahead. To the left side of the flight deck, an orange light shone out steadily, lined up against a row of green reference lights. If they were too high or too low, the ‘ball’ would move up or down accordingly, but the autopilot was bringing them in precisely on the glideslope.

  ‘One Four Seven, we have the ball, fuel state four decimal seven, established for landing.’

  ‘One Four Seven, land.’

  Clare squeezed the autopilot disconnect button on her sidestick, and a warning tone sounded in their headsets. She was flying the craft manually now; the autopilot had done its job and placed them on final approach. The spaceplane could of course land itself, but USAC required that its pilots stayed proficient at making landings unaided.

  Her eyes remained on the approach. She could see the flight deck now, outlined in yellow lights, and the black smears where countless aircraft tyres had slammed into the deck. The green lines on the head-up display steadied over the scene, and now a green trapezium appeared, outlining where she would hit the deck. To the right of the deck, the golf-tee shape of the control tower glinted in the sunlight, and to the left the flattened saucer of the landing radar turned steadily on its turret. The mouths of the carrier’s four giant engines loomed under its wings.

  ‘One kilometre,’ Hartigan said softly.

  ‘Decide,’ the flight computer prompted.

  ‘Land,’ Clare said firmly, and her left hand reached out to rest on the thrust levers. Hartigan placed his hand on top of hers, ready to help her push them forward.

  The carrier swelled suddenly, changing from a small shape in the sky ahead to a looming behemoth as their eyes took in its true scale. Its gigantic wings stretched out to each side, the mouths of its engines yawned in front of them, tiny figures moved behind the windows at the rear, and it still kept coming.

  The engines’ note rose abruptly and fell, rose again and steadied as they swept in, the autothrottles keeping the spaceplane’s speed constant all the way in. The deck rushed towards them, the green touchdown box on the head-up display expanding with it, then the red threshold lights flashed beneath them, the control tower raced past to their right, and the spaceplane slammed into the deck, ramming them into their seats.

  Clare and Hartigan shoved the thrust levers forward in a reflex action, and the engines’ noise rose to a scream, but the arresting hook had caught the cable, and they were flung forward into their seat straps as the spaceplane’s forward speed was wrenched away by the arresting gear. Spoilers flipped up automatically to kill the lift over the wing, and the craft sank down on its landing gear. Hartigan’s hand came off Clare’s, and she eased the thrust levers back as the spaceplane jerked to a halt and rolled backwards slightly. Clare raised the hook, releasing the cable, and stood on the brakes. The arresting cable snaked and rippled as it was hauled back along the length of the deck.

  ‘One Four Seven, good trap. Hold there.’

  She held the big spaceplane steady, her hand still resting on the throttles. The 460 kilometres per hour headwind roared around the cabin, shaking the spaceplane as it clung to the deck, pressed down by aerodynamic forces. Ahead of them, the rest of the deck stretched forward into the sky, a line of red lights showing where the flight deck ended.

  ‘One Four Seven, move forward and line up on elevator ahead.’

  ‘Line up on elevator, One Four Seven.’

  Clare increased thrust and the spaceplane’s nose dipped slightly, then she eased off very gently on the brakes, holding the sidestick back slightly to keep weight on the main gear. The craft moved forward slowly onto a section of deck marked out with heavy yellow lines. A display of coloured lights set into either side of the deck guided them in.

  ‘Forward a bit more,’ Hartigan said, ‘don’t bounce on the brakes, let it move slowly. That’s it – watch your lineup.’

  Clare nudged the rudder bar slightly to keep them straight, and they rolled neatly onto the spot. The indicator lights changed to STOP.

  ‘One Four Seven, hold it there. Clamps going in.’

  The spaceplane shook slightly as powerful hydraulic clamps closed around the nose landing gear, anchoring it firmly to the deck and preventing any chance of an inadvertent liftoff.

  ‘One Four Seven, you are clamped and safe. Fold wings and signal ready to lower.’

  Hartigan nodded to Clare, and she pulled the thrust levers back and reached up to the overhead panel. Outside, the downturned wingtips of the spaceplane unlocked and folded slowly over until they lay above the wings, allowing the spaceplane to fit within the confines of the elevator.

  ‘One Four Seven, ready to lower.’

  A moment later, the section of deck on which they stood started to move downwards. The roar of air faded as they sank inside the carrier, but the din of the engines increased, bouncing off the walls of the hangar. Metal walls, dirty with old oil stains and covered with pipework and ducting rose up around them. The elevator slowed and stopped, and on the deck above them, a huge spoiler plate flipped up, deflecting the air over the open elevator pit. A deck handler wearing a facemask walked onto the elevator and signalled for them to lower the spoilers and set the parking brake, then made the sign to cut engines.

  ‘Good landing, lieutenant,’ Hartigan observed as he moved the four fuel control levers to CUTOFF. The noise of the engines faded, and the interior lights blinked as the ship went onto battery power. He went onto the intercom: ‘Okay, we’re down and safe. Can you keep your faceplates down and seat straps fastened until we’ve been pushed back into the hangar.’

  He released the intercom, and then pressed it again with a smile. ‘Sorry, I nearly forgot – welcome to Venus, and the USAC carrier Langley. We’re flying at sixty-one kilometres above the planet’s surface. Temperature outside is a balmy minus twelve degrees Celsius, and it’s a beautiful day.’

  CHAPTER TWO

  Clare dropped the bulky escape suit, her helmet and the rest of her equipment onto the floor, and collapsed onto the bed. She felt exhausted. After so long in space, the walk from the hangar to her assigned cabin, on the upper accommodation deck,
had taken all her strength.

  She closed her eyes and just lay there, listening to the faint roar of the engines. It was wonderful to lie down on a real bed, in a real gravity field, instead of the centrifugal version of the space tug. Beneath her, the Langley moved slightly as it settled out on a new heading. The sensation was like being on board a large ship, she thought, but who could have ever envisaged such a ship, sailing through the skies of a distant world?

  She had brought the spaceplane in, and she swelled with pride at the thought. Apart from a couple of minor points, Hartigan had been happy with her performance, and he was going to clear her for carrier qualifications once she had acclimatised.

  How many times had she flown that in the simulator, she wondered. Hundreds? It felt like thousands, and none of them had been like the real thing. Now here she was, lying in her own cabin on board a flying aircraft carrier circling round Venus, and she had just landed a fully loaded spaceplane on it.

  If my parents could see me now …

  The lovely thought bounced round inside her head in lazy curves, and faded to a comfortable blackness. Her breathing steadied, and the sunlight moved across the room as the carrier changed course.

  She woke suddenly, over two hours later. For a moment, she thought she was in her room at home, on her parents’ farm, and then she realised where she was. She lifted herself up on one shoulder and looked around at her new surroundings.

  The room was much bigger than she had expected, and so was the bed; it was nearly a full single size, not the narrow bunks that were all you usually got in space. A small bedside table stood next to the bed, a desk for writing by the door, and a washbasin and mirror on the opposite wall.

  A washbasin. Suddenly the reality of being in an environment with real gravity hit home, and she grinned to herself. Down the corridor was a shower room, a real shower with decent water jets, and tonight she would eat dinner in the galley, and it would have been cooked in a real galley. She felt suddenly hungry at the prospect and sat up on the edge of the bed, moving carefully, but there was no dizziness and she felt stronger already after the sleep. She stood up slowly. Still okay.

  There was a small curtain in the wall at the end of the bed, and she pulled it aside to reveal a rounded window that looked out onto a magnificent cloudscape, mellowing in the early evening sunlight. It looked so like Earth, the blue sky and the cloud deck below them, and the Sun sinking towards the horizon.

  Except that it was sinking the wrong way, sliding leftwards down the eastern sky, and it was bigger – nearly twice the size that it appeared from Earth. She gazed at the unfamiliar sight for some time, as the light of the Sun yellowed in the high-altitude haze.

  Her comlink beeped for her attention, and she looked around, trying to locate the source of the noise. She scrabbled about amongst the pile of her belongings that she had dumped on the floor.

  ‘Lieutenant Foster,’ she managed at last.

  ‘Captain’s steward here, Ma’am. Colonel Donaldson sends his compliments, and he’d like you to join him for dinner this evening, nineteen thirty for twenty hundred hours. It’s dress uniform ma’am – we can lend you something if you need it?’

  ‘Sure. Er, I mean, yes thanks, I’d be pleased to accept, but I’ve got nothing of my own with me.’ Travelling in space meant packing light, and all she had was two spare sets of the dark blue flight suits that everyone wore while on board.

  ‘No problem Lieutenant, there’s another officer on board about your build and she’s offered to lend you her dress uniform. She’ll be up when she comes off duty in an hour. We’ll look forward to seeing you this evening, ma’am.’ The steward hung up, and Clare stood in the sunlight from the window, wondering what this was about. Dress uniform was reserved for the most formal of occasions in the USAC, and she couldn’t think of any state occasion that was due soon. Must be something happening on board, she supposed. She looked at her reflection in the mirror, and saw the tell-tale signs of living without access to a proper shower for weeks.

  ‘Better get yourself spruced up,’ she said to herself, and reached for her wash bag.

  She had showered and finished writing up her flight log when the knock on the door came. At the door was a female first lieutenant carrying a zippered clothes carrier and a pair of boots, and Clare’s single item of luggage, the standard large holdall which was all they were allowed.

  ‘Hey. This was left outside for you.’

  ‘Thank you ma’am. Guess I must have been asleep when they dropped it off.’ Clare stepped back to let her in. The lieutenant breezed into the room, dropped the holdall in a corner and flung down the carrier on the bed.

  ‘Hope these fit. Lorna Gray.’ They shook hands, and Gray looked Clare up and down. ‘I think you’ll be okay apart from the jacket – it might be a bit loose on you.’ She held up the boots. ‘I’ve no idea if these’ll fit you. We’ve only got two spare women’s pairs on board, and the others would only suit a giant.’

  Clare laughed. ‘Do you know what the occasion is?’

  ‘No idea. I only just got off duty and I had a message waiting for me. How long are you on board for?’

  ‘Just over four months. Until the next flight to Mercury. Unless I flunk my carrier quals, in which case I’ll be here for longer.’

  ‘You’ll be fine. Did you bring in the Olympus earlier?’

  Clare nodded.

  ‘I was watching you. What grade did they give you?’

  ‘A fair one-wire. I pulled back slightly.’

  ‘Looked okay to me.’ Gray grinned. She wasn’t quite as tall as Clare, and was a little curvier. Her dark brown hair was cut quite short, and she had a relaxed manner that put Clare at her ease. ‘Any one-wire’s a good landing. Say, are you flying tomorrow morning?’

  ‘I don’t think so. I’ve got to wait at least twenty-four hours to acclimatise to the gravity.’

  ‘Well, you’re standing up at least. Makes you acclimatised in my book.’ Gray glanced round. ‘How do you like your cabin? You’re lucky to get one with a window; most visitors get assigned one of the inboard cabins.’

  Clare told her that she liked the cabin, and smiled. Gray was open and friendly, and they talked a while more about life on board the carrier. Clare learned that Gray was just over three-quarters of the way through an eighteen-month tour of duty on the Langley. ‘Then I’m due some leave on Earth before my next posting, which looks like another tour on Mars.’

  ‘You’ve been to Mars before?’ Clare asked, trying not to let the envy show in her voice. She had always wanted to see Mars; she had pored over maps of the planet and its two tiny moons in her bedroom as a child, wondering what it was like, and she was hoping for a posting there herself one day.

  ‘Yeah, I was there for thirteen months. It was good to see the place, and the difference that the terraforming’s made, but I was ready to come home by the end of the tour. Once you’ve seen one dune field, you’ve seen them all. Phobos was interesting, though – fantastic views of Mars. It fills a quarter of the sky, you can see every feature, and it goes through its phases in just a few hours.’

  She glanced at her watch. ‘Listen, I’ve got to hit the gym before dinner, which I’m sure won’t be as good as yours, and here I am talking away. Let’s meet up when you’re acclimatised.’ She waved her hand at the uniform. ‘Just bring this lot back tomorrow. No rush.’

  ‘Thanks.’ Clare stood up and moved to the door with her.

  ‘You’re welcome. Have a good time tonight. See you later.’

  After Gray had left, closing the door behind her, Clare took the uniform out and hung it up. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d had to wear dress uniform – it might even have been on her passing-out parade. She’d spent most of her time in space or in training since then. She wondered if she’d be able to remember all the etiquette – captains could be so formal.

  She sighed, and started to get ready.

  CHAPTER THREE

  The invitation was f
or 19:30, and she made sure she was punctual. She felt horribly conspicuous, clunking down the corridors in the dark blue cutaway jacket, tight breeches and black riding boots, the gold braid on the jacket catching the light, and everyone seemed to be looking at her.

  Maybe it’s just some joke they always play on the new girl, she thought as she made her way to the captain’s staterooms, which were towards the front of the ship, the deck below hers. When she got there, however, her worries evaporated; Captain Hartigan was standing by the door, equally conspicuous in what was also obviously a borrowed outfit. He had clearly visited the ship’s barber that afternoon; his thinning hair had been cut neatly, and even his moustache trimmed.

  ‘Evening, sir,’ Clare said amiably, wondering what required all the preparations. In all the time she had known Hartigan, she had never seen him look so smart.

  ‘Ah, Foster. All ready?’

  ‘Yes, sir. What’s the occasion?’

  ‘You are,’ he said, smiling, and knocked on the door while she was still registering what he’d said. The door was opened from the inside, and Hartigan guided her into a large room with at least ten other officers there, standing by a huge panoramic window looking out onto the sky. They were also in dress uniform, holding drinks as they admired the sunset. A long table, set for dinner, sat in the centre of the room.

  ‘Lieutenant Foster, welcome aboard.’ The Langley’s commanding officer, Colonel Donaldson, a tall, grey-haired man in his early fifties, stepped forward and shook her hand. ‘Now, you stand here, and Captain Hartigan just here please.’ He had positioned them by the flag in the corner of the room, and the other officers put their drinks down and moved up to stand in front of the captain. He waited until they were all assembled.

  ‘Good evening ladies and gentlemen. I’m pleased all of you could join me as we recognise one of our own, Second Lieutenant Foster, on the occasion of her promotion to First Lieutenant.’