Bugs in the System

by Graeme Morris

“Venturi is a gas giant — a huge ball of gas that tried to be a star, but never quite made it. Now it just moans and grumbles and throws out magnetic storms once in a while. The atmosphere would suffocate you except that you'd probably freeze first, or be torn apart by the thousand kilometer an hour winds. You can't even land there because it hasn't got a surface, not unless you count an ocean of liquid hydrogen.

“But, we didn't let that stop us, not while there were all kinds of valuable chemicals swirling around in that gas-ball. That's where the extraction platform comes in. It bobs around like a cork in the upper atmosphere, sucking in gas and distilling out the good stuff. Trouble is, there's something very wrong down there. I don't know what it is, but it's already cost eight good crewmen.

“Are you really sure you want this job?”

32 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 1985

Reviews

[Patrick · Rating 5 out of 5]

This reads like a Tennant-era episode of Doctor Who, and that's high praise coming from me.