The Ninth Circle Read Online Free PDF

minimum, any faster-than-light craft’s inertial field kept the ship’s innards from bulleting out through its hull when the ship deviated from a dead-straight line.
    Stouter force fields, like Merrimack ’s, could withstand antimatter warheads.
    The Beauty ’s force field was adequate to deflect space clutter. It was not designed to stand against space weapons.
    Manny, the pilot, assured Glenn there weren’t going to be any warships where they were going. “We’re in the bloody Outback. Traffic is thin here, even for outer space. This is good coffee. Thanks.”
    Glenn nodded. She slid into the copilot’s seat and cradled her own cup of coffee in her hands.
    The pilot said, “It’s not as if space is choked with LGMs waiting to pounce on us traveling faster than light.”
    “Of course not,” Glenn agreed.
    The pouncing would be within the star system while they traveled at sublight speed.
    And Glenn was not worried about little green men. “Tall, bronze, and arrogant men are more my concern.”
    “Romans?” Manny said, surprised. “You don’t really think there are Romans out here?”
    Glenn tilted her head, neither yes nor no. “ Ubiquitous is a Roman word.” She had to assume that Rome knew about the planet Zoe. Zoe was the most Earthlike world ever discovered.
    Always assume Rome knows.
    Glenn had a professional paranoia regarding the Empire. She still had the wartime mind-set of an officer of a space battleship recently at war with the Roman Empire. Two years was too long for a peace to last.
    She watched Manny go through the approach routine. Nothing to do really but monitor the ship’s programmed flight.
    At the star system’s edge, the Beauty ’s engine whined, surged to full. Speeding up or slowing down, it took as much power to pass the light barrier either way you went.
    The ship’s engine peaked. Stars appeared in the forward viewport.
    The Beauty ’s engine quickly wound back down. Momentum carried her swiftly into the star system.
    A distant yellow sun loomed ahead of them. Steadily shining bright dots that were probably planets appeared above and below it.
    The ship executed a gentle quarter roll. Beauty had entered the system on an oblique. The lazy roll brought her on plane with the local planetary orientation—-a position that made sense to humans accustomed to viewing images of laterally arrayed planetary systems.
    Through the forward view screen, the planet Zoe took center stage.
    Hanging in the star-specked blackness, the world appeared as a hazy blue-white marble, growing larger and larger. With the planet’s yellow sun in the background, Glenn could almost imagine the Spring Beauty had turned around and gone home to Earth. Until she saw the moons.
    As Spring Beauty turned, the two moons passed into view from behind the planet. The pair twisted around each other, as tight as conjoined twins. A hazy dumbbell-shaped halo surrounded both of them as they swapped atmospheres.
    Glenn had been told that the tidal effect between the lunar pair and Zoe was roughly equal to the tidal draw between the Earth and Moon.
    Expedition notes described Zoe as an Earthlike world orbiting in the Goldilocks zone of a singly formed G2V star.
    The notes didn’t do her justice. Zoe was beautiful, glowing blue and green, draped in cotton white.
    “I never get tired of that view,” Manny said.
    They were gazing out the forward view screen, sipping coffee and listening to the quiet stirrings of waking brains behind them within the ship. Then, without prelude, a loud crack! jarred everyone. Splashed coffee over Glenn’s fingers.
    Felt like something struck the ship’s hull.
    Several overlapping voices sounded from aft, “What was that?”
    Someone—it sounded like Dr. Rose—moved forward to the control room yelling, “Hey! Manny! Fly us around the asteroids.”
    “I didn’t fly us into that,” the pilot said.
    “Then explain how we hit it.” Aaron Rose braced himself in the hatchway.
    “ It