High Enough

                                               HIGH ENOUGH

by Patricia Renard Scholes

         Every one of the skysweepers was assembled by the time the gasmining crew finished their two-day orientation of Farliwen Fey.  Engineer Marten Halbert had seen to it.  He had also overseen the building of the mining station, a dubious structure that moved with every air current on the planet.

            Within the planet.  For all he knew, the whole planet was no more than gasses and crystal clouds, with no solid ground at all.  Looking down into the Drift, all he could see were more swirls and eddies, thickening mists that darkened rather than solidifying.  He preferred chipping away the frozen gasses of Girthon, his first assignment.  He preferred real ground beneath him.  This wispy place niggled at his stomach.

            The clomp of magneboots on metal drew his attention from his handiwork to the first skysweeping crew.  They hovered around the new designs, whether confused or admiring, Marten couldn't tell.  The only one who approached him was the foreman.     

            "These things read to go, Marty, old sod?"

            "Marten," he corrected, glaring at her.  "Get it straight, Sal, old gal."  He hated to be called Marty.  But it was hard to stay mad at Sally Gatlin.  He had known her since Girthon, where he had thought her too young and too feminine for gas mining, especially in heavy grav.  But Sal knew her stuff then, and she knew it now.

            "'Old gal,' is it?  A few years ago you called me a baby."

            "A few years ago you were.  You've aged nicely."  He grinned at her.

            She pretended to be insulted for a couple of beats.  "Did you have any trouble with the modifications?"

            "Basic light grav mods."  He shrugged.  "I didn't get into any trouble until I had to allow for air flow.  Skysweepers are usually more compact than this."  He glared at the new flow-through design, angry at it.

            This time her irritation was no pretense.  "You know the conditions of our contract with the Feyin as well as I do.  Our structures must be designed for minimum impact.  If we cause the death of anyone, our stay will be immediately terminated."

            He snorted, his imagination catching the image of a willowy, white-limbed Feyin struggling with a skysweeper.  It would just about serve them right if they got caught in a 'sweeper's current.

            "You missed orientation."  Her eyes flashed at him with accusation.

            "If you remember, I was modifying skysweepers.  Fill me in.  The short version."

            She sighed.  "The Rilwe farm in the level below us.  If their nets drift up this high, we're supposed to work around them.  You've seen them?"  She cocked her head to one side, a gesture that made her seem deceptively vulnerable.