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of high clouds drifting across its face. The sky was ablaze with brilliant scarlet and orange. Above the sunset, a golden haze darkened to a deep blue, and violet, and finally the blackness of space above them. In the slanting light, the featureless cloud deck below the ship had been transformed into a tumbled landscape of red foam. Great mountain ranges of cloud rolled past beneath, with foothills, ramparts and huge winding valleys that emptied into lakes of darkness.
    ‘It’s beautiful,’ Clare said.
    ‘I’m glad you think so. I never tire of watching the sunsets here.’
    The young lieutenant that had helped pin on Clare’s insignia came and stood next to her.
    ‘Of course, it’s not real; we’re making sunsets happen every day by flying faster than the planet’s rotation. Incredible that we can come to this planet and recreate our own world’s day and night, by the speed of our flight.’
    Clare looked at him. He was about her age, somewhere in his twenties, with a narrow face and short-cut black hair, and pale blue eyes that you just couldn’t help but stare into. He was the sort of young officer that looked magnificent in a uniform, and Clare was suddenly conscious of her own borrowed outfit.
    ‘My weather officer, First Lieutenant Coombes. If there’s turbulent air on Venus, he can find it,’ Donaldson said dryly. Coombes grinned. ‘Don’t encourage him to talk about this planet, or else you’ll be here all evening.’
    ‘I could do with a reminder of how day and night works here, sir,’ Clare said. ‘I read up about it but it was some time ago.’
    Donaldson smiled good-naturedly and waved his hand for Coombes to continue.
    ‘Well, the planet’s winds at this altitude are moving faster than the planet’s rotating, plus we’re adding our own airspeed to that. The net effect is that we’re moving westward over the planet’s surface at nearly nine hundred kilometres per hour, which is enough to go round the planet in one Earth day at these latitudes.’
    There was a short pause while Clare tried to take all that in.
    ‘We’ve tried other diurnal cycles, but this one works best for the crew – you get a normal cycle of day and night, every twenty-four hours,’ a short and cheerful-looking female officer standing near the captain added helpfully.
    ‘Captain Donahue, medical officer,’ Donaldson said. Clare shook the offered hand, and was introduced in turn to the rest of the officers, who ran communications, logistics and catering, deck operations, maintenance and engineering. ‘And this is our flight operations officer, Captain Shaffer. He looks after everything on the flight deck and in the airspace around the ship.’
    ‘Pleased to meet you, sir.’ Clare offered her hand. The flight operations officer was powerfully built, with sandy hair clipped in a traditional Marine Corps style, and a penetrating gaze. He shook her hand in a strong, dry grip.
    ‘You’ll be reporting to Captain Shaffer while I’m away.’ Hartigan smiled apologetically at Clare. ‘The return flight to Earth has been brought forward, so I’m taking some passengers up to the Indianapolis first thing tomorrow.’
    ‘Yes sir.’ She nodded politely to Shaffer, acknowledging her new chain of command, before turning back to Hartigan. ‘Will you be away for long, sir?’
    ‘Well, they want me to stay up there at least until the Denver leaves for Mars, then there’s another two flights due in from Earth with passengers for the other carriers. Should be about ten days I guess.’
    Clare felt slightly uneasy at the sudden change in plans; she had been expecting Hartigan to be here for at least the first few days of her training. Now she would be on her own on a strange ship, reporting to a new commanding officer.
    ‘Don’t worry, Foster, you’ll be well looked after.’ He smiled, as if he had read her mind. ‘And with Captain Shaffer’s permission, you might get to see a spaceplane launch from the carrier.