The scorched iron sphere of Liquid silver drifted into the lower side of the forward viewports, a lonely, battered cinder scarred by billions of years of raw solar bombardment. In the blazing light of the star, the planet’s sunward hemisphere was a blinding plateau of molten silicates and boiling sulfur pools, streaming heat that registered on the Aethelgard’s external hull sensors at over four hundred and fifty degrees. Beyond it, the Sun loomed like a living wall of golden fury. It filled seventy percent of the total sky horizon.
Inside the main lab bay, Arthur Vance stood before the chemical synthesizer, adjusting the flow rate of a chilled heat-proof glass flask. The air inside the cabin had grown thick and heavy. It smelled of ozone, heated high-pressure fluid. The faint metal tang of overstressed sky scrubbers. Even with the ship’s triple-layered heat shields engaged, the surrounding heat inside the lower decks had crept up to thirty-four degrees. That turned every breath into a warm, humid weight in the lungs.
Grimm was lying flat on his belly beneath the central cutting-open table, his massive black glass legs sprawled outward like a rug to maximize contact with the cooled steel floor plates. The hound’s black tongue lolled from the side of his mouth, panting in short, rhythmic huffs. His thick coat, normally cool to the touch, radiated a dull, fire-like warmth from his dense bone marrow, reacting to the intense gravity slope of the nearby star.
