Page 8 of Atlas: Colony: Nyx #5(Intergalactic Dating Agency)

EIGHT

"How can there possibly be snow in the Colony? There's no sky!"

Atlas turned to find Peri staring at the snow in disbelief, even as it crunched beneath her boots.

"It's not natural snow. It's made by machines for the ski slope." Atlas pointed at the mountain, barely discernible in the darkness. During the day cycle, a timer turned the spotlights on along the ski trails, but in the night cycle now, the only lights were at the cable car station, their destination.

"Because you can't possibly have a city in space without an artificial ski slope. Ask to see the sky with stars, though..."

"Of course you can't see the sky from inside the Colony. The city is shielded to keep out cosmic radiation, which includes visible light," Atlas said. He wouldn't expect a farm girl to know much about such things, but a little education never hurt anybody.

"All the more reason to live on a planet with an atmosphere," Peri grumbled.

Planetary atmospheres did have some advantages, but they also had drawbacks, too. Especially when it came to observing phenomena outside of that atmosphere. Not to mention the abundance of people breathing that atmosphere...

But he understood that not everyone liked solitude the way he did. Perhaps Peri liked being around people. She could return to them soon enough, once the comet had passed. And he could return to his solitude, avoiding people. Better for both of them.

Atlas ducked his head to enter the cable car control room, turning the system on before connecting it to his tablet. There were manual controls in the gondola, but even after the Central Intelligence had gone mad, he still trusted computers more than he did his own instincts. Most Titans would call him a traitor for even thinking such things, but most Titans hadn't worked with an AI driven computer system doing complex calculations on celestial bodies. He'd also heard that most Titans who worked closely with the Central Intelligence had fallen victim to the earliest attacks, and hadn't survived to reach the Titanic , let alone the Altan System, but somehow Halcyon had made it to the Colony, and she'd seen to it that he had a computerised interface on his tablet during construction. It was a Human made interface, much like the one at the observatory, and nowhere near as intuitive and easy to use as the one he'd had that was powered by the Central Intelligence, but he'd made do. Now if he could only get the evidence he needed with this comet, he'd be satisfied.

"Hop in, and I'll take us up," he said, shoving open the gondola door.

Peri hesitated for a second, then tucked her frilly skirt around her thighs so it wouldn't catch on the door, and stepped inside.

Atlas hid his smile. She needn't have worried – the door was wide enough for him to step in without snagging his enviro suit – but that skirt did take up an awful lot of space. More than the rest of her.

He planted himself on the opposite side of the gondola both to keep it balanced and so as not to scare her. Not that she looked like she was easily frightened. As they started up the slope, she seemed more intent on looking out the windows than watching him.

"It's prettier when it's all lit up," he said, then lifted up his tablet. A moment later, he'd found the controls for the ski slope lights, and he watched them glow to life with considerable satisfaction. "See?"

"I wish I'd come up here sooner, so I could go skiing. Oh, well. Maybe I'll get a chance later," she said. She seemed sad.

"The ski slope is open most days. I believe there are even ski instructors to help you learn," Atlas said. He didn't imagine she'd had a chance to do much skiing on a farm.

A slight smile touched her lips, but she didn't turn away from the window. "Oh, I don't need lessons. My dad used to take me skiing most weekends in winter. Where we lived, it was an easy drive to most of the alpine ski fields. He said I could get a job as a ski instructor anywhere in the world after I graduated. Neither of us ever thought there'd be much demand for ski instructors out here in the stars."

"Is that who you sent a message to, at the station? Your father, in the Ag Dome?" Atlas asked, suspecting he already knew the answer as the words left his lips.

"No, Dad's...he was gone before I even left Earth. He told me to do whatever it took to get to the stars, because my instincts wouldn't guide me wrong." She turned to face him. "No, I sent a message to Star Farm, where all the owners are a collective of kick arse women. And they'll collectively come here and kick your giant arse if anything bad happens to me with you, so that's all the warning you get. But between my instincts and the way Hercules was warning you not to accept my assistance, something tells me I won't need to call the girls for help. Will I?"

Atlas shook his head. "I mean you no harm. Once the job is done, you can return safely home, or to the pub, to claim your favour from Hercules." The bottom of the gondola scraped on the snow at the top of the slope, letting him know they'd arrived. He hastily powered down the cable car, followed by the trail lighting. The only lights he left on led to the entrance to the observatory. "Follow me, please."