The atmosphere was the least of Treya's wonders, as far as Rue was concerned. She held her breath as a glow appeared on the horizon. Any minute now Treya's new sun would rise.
As she was waiting, Leda called. "You're due to dock in three hours, Rue! We'll all be there— the whole clan. We've got your landing ETA from the flight controllers, so don't you worry about a thing. Oh, I'm so looking forward to seeing you!"
A pinprick of light appeared on the limb of Treya and quickly grew into a brilliant white star. This seemed to move out and away from Treya, which was an illusion caused by Rue's own motion. Treya's artificial sun did not move, but stayed at the Lagrange point, bathing an area of the planet eighty kilometers in diameter with daylight. The sun was a sphere of tungsten a kilometer across. It glowed with incandescence from concentrated infrared light, harvested from Erythrion by hundreds of orbiting mirrors. If it were turned into laser power, this energy could reshape Treya's continents— or launch interstellar cargoes.
A flat line of light appeared on Treya's horizon. It quickly grew into a disk almost too bright to look at. When Rue squinted at it she could make out white clouds, blue lakes, and the mottled ochre and green of grassland and forests. The light was bright enough to wash away the aurora and even make the stars vanish. Down there, she knew, the skies would be blue.
She could have stared at that beautiful circle of earth and sea all day. Reluctantly, Rue closed the inscape window, which was flashing to show yet more messages received. She needed to rest, she knew, so she strapped herself into bed and turned out the light for a while. She couldn't sleep, but at least felt slightly refreshed when they finally landed at a beanstalk dock three hundred kilometers above the clouds.
"You'll be fine, you'll be fine," she told herself as the airlock slid open. She was dressed in a skirt for only the second time in her life, had her kit bag firmly over her shoulder, and had rehearsed a dozen opening lines to use on Leda, depending on what happened. Light speared her, she squinted behind the «sunglasses» the assemblers had built her, took one last deep breath, and stepped out.
Rue was momentarily blinded by the brightness; she hadn't counted on that. "H-hello?"
No one answered.
After her eyes had adapted enough that she could make out shapes, she looked around herself. She stood in a round windowed lounge about twenty meters across, paneled with eye-hurting colors and ringed by elevators. The windows gave glimpses of gantries and catwalks suspended in space above the azure horizon of Treya. Cables stretched above her all the way to the «sun» and below her all the way to the surface of the planet. Through the windows she could see other round lounges like her own, most of them swirling with people greeting or parting. The one she was in was empty.
Leda had been very precise about the lounge number and had said she'd be waiting. She'd also warned that reporters and camera crews might be there, since Rue was famous now. All Rue saw was a single humanoid serling, which flickered insouciantly behind a counter near the elevators. The silence was complete.
Rue dropped her bags, chewed her lip, and after a minute walked over to the serling.
It bowed to her. "Meadow-Rue Cassels?"
"Yes. Where is everybody?"
"I'm sorry, I can't answer that. I have some forms for you to fill out. Docking fees, stowage, per diem… How long are you planning to stay?"
"Um… I'm not sure. Listen, was my flight plan changed? I'm not sure I've landed at the right dock."
"Let me check." The serling paused for a moment, then said, "Your flight plan was finalized one week ago, Ms. Cassels. There have been no changes."
Maybe they're waiting below, she told herself. "Where are these forms?"
The serling pointed her to some inscape windows where she was to place her hand for signing. She read them carefully. "Wait— I thought my credit was good. This says there's a lien on the shuttle if I'm not able to pay within sixty days."
"That is correct. You have no other collateral."
"Yes I do. I have a whole comet's worth!"
The serling smiled. She could see the wall through its holographic face. "I'm sorry, but I have no record of that."
"Wait. I arranged to pay the docking fees on loan against my claim on comet… um, 2349-hash-MRRC. Right?"
The serling nodded. "Ah, yes, I see the cause of the confusion. That claim has been overturned."
Rue suddenly felt sick. "Overturned? How? Why?" A prior claim? But surely they'd have told me…
"Apparently the object you staked your claim against is not a comet after all," explained the serling.
"Then what is it?"
"According to my news feed, it is a ship. An interstellar cycler, to be exact."
She stood there for a while, unable to think. The serling waited patiently, inscape forms gently bobbing in front of it. Eventually Rue stuck out her hand and the red forms turned green. So much for the ship, she thought. Jentry's going to come out here and personally kill me for this.
The serling directed her to an elevator and she went without speaking. Throughout the long descent she kept her eyes shut against the light. Her head hurt.
When the elevator doors opened Rue found herself in the tall glass lobby of some kind of house. Building, she corrected herself, since this was obviously not a residence. People were bustling to and fro, ignoring her which was good because there must be hundreds of them here and she had never seen that many people in one place before. Rue stood there for a while, totally derailed. She had been all ready for a verbal fencing match with strangers who claimed to be kin and now she had no idea what to do.
The air was thick with water and scents. And it was very warm here— hot, in fact, and brighter than she had imagined any place could be. Rue took a few steps, but had to stop as a wave of dizziness assaulted her.
She took a few deep breaths and started walking again. The kit bag was heavy on her shoulder and she was sweating by the time she had passed through the huge archway at the end of the lobby. The heat enfolded her with as much intensity as the cold in the ringways of Allemagne. She forgot about it as soon as she looked up, though. For the first time in her life, Rue stood under a sky.
It went on forever, bigger and more beautiful it seemed than the stars. Gigantic white clouds were piled up all over. She craned her neck back and saw that one sat directly overhead. It must be kilometers away, because she saw the threadlike black lines of elevator shafts pierce it before disappearing in the blue.
Everything was huge and spaced far apart. A road ran by the building she had just exited and vehicles festooned with garish paintings and carved detail zipped past at reckless speeds. Everywhere there were green plants like the ones in Mom's terrarium only huge. There were many trees, real ones like she'd seen in books.
But the sun… Rue staggered and finally had to sit down. Nobody seemed to care; the only people standing on the steps were a dissolute looking fellow in rumpled clothing, who glanced at her sidelong but said nothing, and a woman in hospital greens who was talking on a ring phone. The light was blazing hot, the sun impossible to look at. The air was full of dust and other irritants; it was hard to breathe. Was this what Earth was like? How could these people stand it? And where was her welcoming party? Where was Leda? Oh yeah, they weren't coming. Rue was poor after all, they had no need of her now.
"Meadow-Rue Cassels?"