The forward watching gondola was not a military bridge. It was a floating conservatory of monstrous vanity.
Suspended beneath the dreadnought’s bow, enclosed by a three-hundred-degree hemisphere of curved, heavy quartz glass, the chamber was seventy feet wide and forty feet deep. It had been built as a private botanical safe hall for Lord Malakor, an eighty-year-old oligarch who could no longer endure the natural air of the world he governed.
Tiered marble shelves lined the curved walls, crowded with hundreds of exotic, high-pressure glass terrariums. Inside them grew rare high-sky orchids, glowing mosses, and genetically altered glass-like ferns whose fronds shone with pale, pressure-sparking soft glow. These were not mere ornaments. They were living filters, bred at monstrous expense to scrub the sulfur fumes from the air and saturate the room with pure, floral oxygen. The air was thick, cloying, and humid. He smelled of expensive jasmine perfumes, damp potting soil, and the sharp, healing tang of liquid menthol.
Through the massive panoramic quartz dome, the view was dizzying. Cloud-Rest castle hung seventy-four yards below. It looked like an ancient stone island rising from a sea of boiling white mist. The two-inch heavy dark metal cable ran straight down from the keel like a weighted drop-line, pinning the monstrous vessel to the mountaintop. Outside the glass, the mountain gale shrieked against the curved panes. But inside the high-pressure safe hall, the silence was broken only by the wild hiss of air-powered valves and the groan of dying steel frames.
