Journey - Book II of the Five Worlds Trilogy by Al Sarrantonio Page B

shelf just to the side of the gear; as he reached it, Dalin tugged on the rope to stop his progress, and tentatively tapped on the ice with his boot.
    It seemed solid enough.
    “Dalin!” Shatz Abel shouted.
    “It’s all right! Let me down all the way!”
    The rope lowered, then went slack; Dalin removed it from his waist and now stood firmly on the ice ledge—
    It crumbled beneath him.
    Calling out, Dalin sought with his hands to grab at the still-solid ledge where the provisions were stacked; but the ice was slick, and he felt himself sliding down. He had a brief look below and saw nothing but chasm, slivers of broken ice tumbling into an endless hole.
    He looked up and saw Shatz Abel’s shocked face looking over the ledge above, his hand still gripping the slack, now-useless rope.
    Dalin fell into nothingness.
    And then was surrounded by a shimmering sheet of light, which seemed to float out of the walls of the chasm.
    The goblin.
     

Chapter 8
     
    O f all the useless and unpleasant tasks Carter Frolich had to perform, his weekly audience with Prime Cornelian was the most irksome.
    Though he always tried to control his anger and impatience, it always broke to the surface, to the detriment of everything he was trying to accomplish. Like it or not, he continued to need the High Leader; like it or not, his fate and the fate of his beautiful Venus were tied to the Martian warlord.
    “Cornelian, how are you?” Frolich said to the High Leader’s loathsome Screen image. Already having blundered, he sought to correct himself: “I mean of course, High Leader, how are you?”
    “Well enough,” the Martian said. He seemed preoccupied, as he often did—which was fine with Frolich.
    “Are things well?” Frolich said, seeking to be diplomatic; the last thing he expected was a truthful answer.
    “Not precisely, Frolich,” the High Leader said. “There’s been a coup of sorts on your home planet, Earth, and though it really was needed, it seems to have made things worse. And Wrath-Pei vexes me.”
    “Oh?” Frolich said politely, though he had absolutely no interest any longer in what went on on Earth. Venus was his home now—no, was his life; and only Venus’s welfare concerned him.
    “I was wondering, High Leader, if you’ve been able to consider my requests for that feeder tube upgrade project—”
    With a wave of one metallic hand, Cornelian dismissed Frolich’s concerns. “Not now. Perhaps next week. You don’t have any trouble to report to me, do you?”
    “Of course not.”
    “Good. Since the deactivation of half the Plasma Corps last month, I was concerned there might be … trouble.”
    Frolich had never seen the High Leader so preoccupied. To his diplomatically acute mind, it seemed the perfect time to ask for what he wanted.
    “High Leader, do you think the power from the deactivation could be diverted to the Maat Mons plan—”
    “Don’t bother me with your toys!” the High Leader erupted.
    “I’m sorr—”
    The High Leader’s quartz orbs stared straight into Frolich through the Screen. Through his anger, the High Leader spoke slowly and distinctly: “Just tell me plainly: are things quiet on Venus?”
    “Yes.”
    “Good.”
    The Screen went mercifully blank, leaving Carter Frolich staring at it for a moment, before all but forgetting that the High Leader had even spoken to him. All that mattered was Venus.
    Carter turned from the blank Screen to the rest of the cavernous chamber. It was the perfect place to work and dream: the Sacajawea Center’s Piton Room, set four hundred feet high into the flank of the extinct volcano Sacajawea Patera like a jewel. It was an eagle’s nest, jutting out nearly a hundred feet, its floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking a panorama out of Eden: Lake Clotho Tessera to the east, on its shores Lakshmi Planum, which would one day grow into a city; in the middle distance other communities, which, though disrupted in their growth, would one day prosper; and