Cities of the air, p.1
Cities of the Air, page 1
Praise for
SUN OF SUNS
A Kirkus Best of 2006
A Romantic Times Top Pick
A 2007 Campbell Award Finalist
“Outrageously brilliant and absolutely not to be missed.”
—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“Over the years, science fiction has provided us with awesome environments, the best ones based on careful logic. There were Hal Clement’s Mission of Gravity and Robert Forward’s Dragon’s Egg. Karl Schroeder’s new novel is in a class with these masterpieces. The longer one ponders Sun of Suns, the less paradoxical—and the more intricately sensible—it comes to be.”
—Vernor Vinge, author of A Fire Upon the Deep
“Schroeder has accomplished the enviable task of creating a fascinating new universe for readers to explore: a spaceborne steampunk environment that conjures up images of neo-Victorian-era flying vehicles traveling among piecemeal floating communities. A rousing, old-fashioned, pulplike adventure yarn.”
—Starlog
“Schroeder brilliantly adds another level to an absorbing adventure as the complexities of Virga are slowly revealed.”
—Rocky Mountain News
“We already knew that Karl Schroeder could do Kubrick. Now it turns out he can do Dumas as well. And more: not since Middle Earth have I encountered such an intense and palpable evocation of an alien world. Sun of Suns puts the world-building exercises of classic Niven to shame.”
—Peter Watts, author of Blindsight
“Full of marvelous images and cutting-edge ideas. Schroeder has the rare and invaluable ability to develop wholly new concepts and turn them into compelling narratives. The scientists are already studying Schroeder’s ideas. Take him very seriously.”
—Stephen Baxter, author of Ark
“Schroeder’s deft alchemy fuses scrupulously detailed, mind-expanding world-building with unabashed, rip-roaring pulp adventure to produce a twenty-four-carat story sparkling with science fiction’s finest virtues.”
—Paul McAuley, author of The Quiet War
Praise for
QUEEN OF CANDESCE
“Set against one of the lushly realized worlds that are rapidly becoming [Schroeder’s] trademark. Queen of Candesce has a backdrop that’s simultaneously steampunk and space opera, a complex and believably flawed lead character, and plenty of action and intrigue.”
—Interzone
“Damned good . . . The strong prose supports a skillfully developed plot and a number of complex, yet easy-to-follow, political intrigues. The hard SF rigorously governs Virga, but it never becomes so dominant that it bores those readers more interested in high adventure than in engineering puzzles. The characterizations are sharp, and the protagonist, Machiavellian genius Venera Fanning, is excellent company as she plots her escape, plans her revenge on her husband’s enemies, and grows and changes despite her worst intentions. . . . Confirms that Karl Schroeder belongs in the front ranks of SF world-builders.”
—SciFi
“Comparable to classic SF epics like John Varley’s Gaean trilogy and Jack L. Chalker’s Well of Souls series, Schroeder’s saga is an awe-inspiring example of masterful world-building. A myriad of themes, from rogue artificial intelligences to the evolution of human bodies and culture, make this futuristic epic one to reckon with.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
VIRGA
Cities of the Air
TOR BOOKS BY KARL SCHROEDER
Lady of Mazes
Permanence
Ventus
Sun of Suns
Queen of Candesce
Pirate Sun
The Sunless Countries
KARL SCHROEDER
VIRGA
Cities of the Air
A TOM DOHERTY ASSOCIATES BOOK NEW YORK
Table of Contents
Title
Copyright
Sun of Suns
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Queen of Candesce
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in these novels are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
VIRGA: CITIES OF THE AIR
Sun of Suns copyright © 2006 by Karl Schroeder
Queen of Candesce copyright © 2007 by Karl Schroeder
All rights reserved.
A Tor Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC
175 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10010
www.tor-forge.com
Tor® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.
ISBN 978-0-7653-2670-6
First Trade Paperback Edition: July 2010
Printed in the United States of America
0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
SUN OF SUNS
TO THE INDISPENSABLE:
Cory Doctorow, Phyllis Gotlieb, Sally McBride,
David Nickle, Helen Rykens, Sara Simmons,
Michael Skeet, Hugh A. D. Spencer, Dale Sproule,
Allan Weiss, and Theresa Wojtasiewicz
Acknowledgments
As always, I’d like to acknowledge the hard work and good advice of my editor, David Hartwell, as well as Denis Wong at Tor Books; my agent, Donald Maass, for having the good grace to run with this project when I unexpectedly dropped it in his lap; and of course, Janice and Paige for their patience during my extended periods of impractical musing and daydreaming.
1
HAYDEN GRIFFIN WAS plucking a fish when the gravity bell rang. The dull clang penetrated even the thick wooden walls of the corporation inn; it was designed to be heard all over town. Hayden paused, frowned, and experimentally let go of the fish. Four tumbling feathers flashed like candle flames in an errant beam of sunlight shooting between the floorboards. The fish landed three feet to his left. Hayden watched the feathers dip in a slow arc to settle next to it.
“A bit early for a spin-up, ain’t it?” said Hayden. Miles grunted distractedly. The former soldier, now corporation cook, was busily pouring sauce over a steaming turkey that he’d just rescued from the oven’s minor inferno. His bald skull shone in the firelight. “They might need me all the same,” continued Hayden. “I better go see.”
Miles glanced up. “Your ma left you here,” he said. “You been bad again. Pick up the fish.”
Hayden leaned back against the table, crossing his arms. He was trying to come up with a reply that didn’t sound like whining when the bell rang again, more urgently. “See?” he said. “They need somebody. Nobody in town’s as good with the bikes as I am. Anyway, how you gonna boil this fish if the gravity goes?”
“Gravity ain’t gonna go, boy,” snapped Miles. “It’s solid right now.”
“Then I better go see what else is up.”
“You just want to watch your old lady light the sun,” said Miles.
“Don’t you?”
“Today’s just a test. I’ll wait for tomorrow, when they light it for real.”
“Come on, Miles. I’ll be right back.”
The cook sighed. “Go, then. Set the bikes going. Then come right back.” Hayden bolted for the door and Miles shouted, “Don’t leave that fish on the floor!”
As Hayden walked down the hall to the front of the inn another stray beam of sunlight spiked up around the plank floorboards. That was a bad sign; Mom would have to wait for deep cloud cover before lighting the town’s new sun, lest the Slipstreamers should see it. Slipstream would never tolerate another sun so close to their own. The project was secret—or it had been. By tomorrow the whole world would know about it.
Hayden walked backward past the well-polished oak bar, waving his lanky arms casually at his side as he said, “Bell rang. Gotta check the bikes.” One of the customers smirked doubtfully at him; Mama Fifty glared at him from her post behind the bar. Before she could reply he was out the front door.
A blustery wind was blowing out here as always, even whistling up between the street boards. Sunlight angled around the edges of the street’s peaked roof, bars and rectangles of light sliding along the planking and up the walls of the buildings that crammed every available space. The street boards gave like springs under Hayden’s feet as he ran up the steep curve of the avenue, which was nearly empty at this time of day.
Gavin Town came to life at dus
If he went to work on the bikes Hayden wouldn’t be able to see the sun, so he took a detour. Slipping down a narrow alleyway between two tall houses, he came to one of the two outer streets of the town—really little more than a narrow covered walkway. Extensions of houses and shops formed a ceiling, their entrances to the left as he stepped into the way. To the right was an uneven board fence, just a crack open at the top. An occasional shuttered window interrupted the surface of the fence, but Hayden didn’t pause at any of them. He was making for an open gallery a quarter of the way up the street.
At moments like this—alone and busy—he either completely forgot himself or drowned in grief. His father’s death still weighed on him, though it had been a year now; was it that long since he and his mother had moved here? Mother kept insisting that it was best this way, that if they’d stayed home in Twenty-two Town they would have been surrounded by reminders of Dad all the time. But was that so bad?
His father wouldn’t be here to see the lighting of the sun, his wife’s completion of his project—their crowning achievement as a family. When Hayden remembered them talking about that, it was his father’s voice he remembered, soaring in tones of enthusiasm and hope. Mother would be quieter, but her pride and love came through in the murmurs that came through the bedroom wall and lulled Hayden to sleep at night. To make your own sun! That was how nations were founded. To light a sun was to be remembered forever.
WHEN HAYDEN WAS twelve his parents had taken him on his first visit to Rush. He had complained, because lately he’d come to know that though Slipstream was a great nation, it was not his nation. His friends had jeered at him for visiting the camp of the enemy, though he didn’t exactly know why Slipstreamers were bad, or what it meant to be a citizen of Aerie instead.
“That’s why we’re going,” his father had said. “So that you can understand.”
“That, and to see what they’re wearing in the principalities,” said Mother with a grin. Father had glowered at her—an expression his slablike face seemed designed for—but she ignored him.
“You’ll love it,” she said to Hayden. “We’ll bring back stuff to make those pals of yours completely envious.”
He’d liked that thought; still, Father’s words had stuck with him. He was going to Rush to understand.
And he thought he did understand, the moment that their ship had broached the final wall of cloud and he glimpsed the city for the first time. As light welled up, Hayden flew to a stoutly-barred window with some other kids—there was no centrifuge in this little ship, so everybody was weightless—and shielded his eyes to look at their destination.
The nearby air was full of travelers, some riding bikes, some on prop-driven contraptions powered by pedals, and some kicking their feet to flap huge white wings strapped to their backs. They carried parcels, towed cargos, and in the case of the fan-jets, left behind slowly fading arcs and lines of white contrail to thatch the sky.
Their cylindrical frigate had emerged from the clouds near Slipstream’s sun, which it made an inferno of half the sky. Seconds out of the mist and the temperature was already rising in the normally chilly ship’s lounge. The other boys were pointing at something and shouting excitedly; Hayden peered in that direction, trying to make out what was casting a seemingly impossible shadow across an entire half of the view. The vast shape was irregular like any of the rocks they had passed on their way here. Where those rocks were usually house-sized and sprouted spidery trees in all directions, this shape was blued with distance and covered with an even carpet of green. It took Hayden a few seconds to realize that it really was a rock, but one that was several miles in diameter.
He gaped at it. Father laughed from the dining basket, woven of wicker, where he perched with Mother. “That’s the biggest thing you’ve ever seen, Hayden. But listen, there’s much bigger places. Slipstream is not a major state. Remember that.”
“Is that Rush?” Hayden pointed.
Father pulled himself out of the basket and came over. With his broad laborer’s shoulders and calloused hands, he bulked much bigger than the kids, who made a place for him next to Hayden. “The asteroid? That’s not Rush. It’s the source of Slipstream’s wealth, though—it and their sun.” He leaned on the rail and pointed. “No . . . That is Rush.”
Maybe it was because he’d never seen anything like it before, but the city simply hadn’t registered in Hayden’s mind until this moment. After all, the towns of Aerie were seldom more than two hundred yards across, and were simply wheels made of wooden planks lashed together and spoked with rope. You spun up the whole assembly and built houses on the inside surface of the wheel. Simple. And never had he seen more than five or six such wheels in one place.
The dozens of towns that made up Rush gleamed of highly polished metal. They were more cylindrical than ring-shaped, and none was less than five hundred yards in diameter. The most amazing thing was that they were tethered to the forested asteroid in quartets like mobiles; radiating from each cylinder’s outer rim were bright sails of gold and red that transformed them from mere towns into gorgeous pinwheels.
“The asteroid’s too big to be affected by the wind,” said Father. Hayden shifted uncomfortably; Father was not trying to hide the burr of his provincial Aerie accent. “The towns are small enough to get pulled around by gusts. They use the sails to help keep the wheels spun up.” This made sense to Hayden, because wind was the result of your moving at a different speed than whatever airmass you were in. Most of the time, objects migrated outward and inward in Virga to the rhythm of slowly circulating rivers of air. You normally only experienced wind at the walls of a town or while flying. Many times, he had folded little propellers of paper and let them out on strings. They’d twirled in the rushing air. So did the towns of Rush, only much more slowly.
Hayden frowned. “If that big rock isn’t moving with the air, won’t it drift away from the rest of Slipstream?”
“You’ve hit on the very problem,” said Father with a smile. “Slipstream’s more migratory than most countries. The Slipstreamers have to follow their asteroid’s orbit within Virga. You can’t see from here, but their sun is also tethered to the asteroid. Ten years ago, Slipstream drifted right into Aerie. Before that, we were a smaller and less wealthy nation, being far from the major suns. But we were proud. We controlled our own destiny. Now what are we? Nothing but vassals of Rush.”
Hayden barely heard him. He was eagerly staring at the city.
Their ship arrived at midday to find a traffic jam at the axis of one of the biggest cylinders. It took an hour to disembark, but Hayden didn’t care. He spent the time watching the heavily built-up inner surface of the town revolve past. He was looking for places to visit. From the axis of the cylinder, where the docks sat like a jumble of big wooden dice, cable-ways radiated away to the other towns that made up the city. One wheel in particular caught his eye—a huge cylinder whose inside seemed to be one single building with balconies, coigns and glittering glass-paneled windows festooning it. This cylinder was surrounded by warships, which Hayden had seen in photos but never been close to before. The massive wooden vessels bristled with gun ports, and they trailed smoke and ropes and masts like the spines of fish. They were majestic and fascinating.
“You’ll never get there,” said Father drily. “That’s the pilot’s palace.”
After ages they were finally able to descend the long, curving, covered stairway to the street. Here Hayden had to endure another interminable wait while a man in a uniform examined Father’s papers. Hayden was too distracted at the time to really notice his father’s falsely jovial manner, or the way his shoulders had slumped with relief when they were finally accepted into the city. But after some walking he turned to Mother and kissed her, saying quietly, “I’ll be back soon. Check us into the hotel, but don’t wait for me. Go and do some shopping, it’ll take your mind off it.”
