Surface Detail

The Halo 7 rolled magisterially across the misty plain, its stately progress marked by little lofted tufts and wisps of vapour which seemed to cling longingly to its tubes and spars as though reluctant to let go. The giant Wheel left a temporarily cleared track through the mist behind it like a wake, affording glimpses of the land beneath before the silent grey presence flowed slowly back in.

Veppers floated in the pool, looking out over the misted landscape to where some high, rounded hills rose out of the grey, maybe twenty or more kilometres away. The water around him trembled and pulsed as the pool car’s shock absorbers struggled to iron out the Halo 7’s trundling progress across the mist-swaddled terrain.

The Halo 7 was a Wheel, a vehicle built to navigate the great plains, rolling hills and shallow inland seas of Obrech, Sichult’s principal continent. One hundred and fifty metres in diameter by twenty across, the Halo 7 looked entirely like a giant fairground wheel which had broken free from its supports and gone rolling across the land.

The Veprine Corporation’s Planetary Heavy Industries Division (Sichult) constructed several standard sizes and types of Wheel. Most were mobile hotels, taking the rich on cruises across the continent; the Halo 7, Veppers’ own privately owned vehicle, was the grandest and most impressive of the largest spokeless class, being no greater in diameter than the rest but possessing thirty-three rather than thirty-two gondolas.

The Halo 7’s separate cars held sumptuous bedroom suites, banqueting halls, reception rooms, two separate pool and bath complexes, gyms, flower-filled terraces, kitchens, kitchen gardens, a command and communication pod, power and services units, garages for ground vehicles, hangars for fliers, boat-houses for speedboats, sailboats and minisubs, and quarters for crew and servants. Much more than a mode of transport, the Halo 7 was a mobile mansion.

Rather than being fixed to the Wheel’s rims, the thirty-three cars could alter position, either at Veppers’ whim or according to the dictates of the landscape beneath; negotiating – and especially traversing – a steep slope, where there was no ready-made Wheel road, all the heavier pods could be brought down close to the ground, preventing the device from becoming dangerously top-heavy and so allowing it take on angles of lean that looked both unlikely and alarming. Perched at the top in a gimballed observation gondola during such a manoeuvre, Veppers had been known to take great delight in terrifying guests with that trick. Getting from one pod to another could mean as little as a single step if the cars had been brought up against each other, or a ride in one of several circumferential elevator units that moved round a smaller-diameter ring fixed inside the Wheel’s principal structure.

Veppers gazed out at the distant blue hills, trying to remember if he owned them or not.

“Are we still within the estate?” he asked.

Jasken was standing at the pool-side, keeping politely out of his master’s view. Jasken was scanning the misty landscape, the Enhancing Oculenses covering his eyes zooming in on details, revealing the ground’s mostly chilly heat signature and showing him any radio sources. “I’ll ask,” he said, and muttered something, putting a finger to the comms bud attached to his ear as he listened. “Yes, sir,” he told Veppers. “Captain Bousser informs us we are about thirty kilometres inside the estate’s boundaries.” Jasken used a small keypad on the back of the cast covering his left arm to call up the requisite overlay on the view the Oculenses were presenting. Thirty klicks was about right.

The Halo 7’s commander, Captain Bousser, was female. Jasken suspected she had been hired for her pleasing looks rather than on merit, so, where possible, he checked any assertions she made, waiting, so far unsuccessfully, for a mistake he could use to convince Veppers of her unfitness for the post.

“Hmm,” Veppers said. Now he thought about it, he didn’t really care whether he owned the hills or not. His right hand went to his face without him thinking about it, his fingers very gently tracing the prosthetic covering that had replaced the tip of his nose while the flesh and cartilage re-grew beneath. It was a pretty good fake, especially with a bit of makeup on top, but he was still self-conscious about it. He’d cancelled a few engagements and postponed many more in the days since the debacle in the opera house.

What a mess that had been. They hadn’t been able to keep it completely quiet, of course, especially as he’d had to cancel that evening’s engagement at such short notice. Dr. Sulbazghi had come up with their cover story, which was that Jasken had accidentally sliced the tip of his master’s nose off while they were fencing.