Eyes of the Calculor Read Online Free

What has been your background with humans?"
    "I have been shot twice and raped once during the course of recruiting five dozen aviad brethren from among the humans. I have also killed eleven times."
    Terian shook his head. "After all that, you still have a trace of compassion for the human exterminators?"
    "They are just afraid of us, Fras Captain. Aviads are so much better in so many ways."
    "That does not make it any more pleasant to be killed by them. Some factions say we should kill them all—"
    The console before the captain suddenly hissed, then billowed acrid smoke. The light strips blackened and failed too, but clear panels in the roof allowed light from Mirrorsun to illuminate the interior of the Titan. Everything electrical had smoked, melted, or exploded at the same instant.
    "What in all hells has happened?" demanded Captain Terian, fanning at the smoke between him and the ruined console.
    "The nearest engine pod is trailing smoke, Fras Captain," reported Varel, staring through a roof panel. "Its propeller is just spinning unpowered."
    "Get up to the navigation bubble, check if any others have failed."
    Watch Officer Seegan burst into the bridge as Varel was climbing the steps. He reported that there was smoke everywhere, and that the passengers were beginning to panic.
    "All engine pods are trailing smoke, Fras Captain," called Varel from the navigation bubble. "Some propellers have jammed, others are just spinning unpowered."
    "All?" cried the incredulous captain.
    "All that I can see from here."
    "Then we are going to lose the sunwing."
    By now the smoke was dispersing, but in the distance someone was having hysterics and screaming that they were all going to die.
    "Even with total loss of power this thing will take over two hours to glide to the ground," Terian pointed out as he hurriedly thought through some figures he had learned for an examination years earlier. "That gives us space to breathe."
    "Fras Captain, breathing could actually be a problem; we are also losing air pressure," reported Seegan, staring at a large me-
    chanical dial. "We will be dead ninety minutes before the air can be breathed."
    Terian closed his eyes and put his hands over his ears as he thought for a frantic moment.
    "Perhaps not," he decided. "Draw your guns, come with me."
    Although there had been safety drills aboard the Titan, there was no precedent for total failure of all electrical systems with no warning whatsoever. They were at twice the height of Mount Everest, although none of them knew of Mount Everest as anything more than a folktale.
    The first thought of the passengers was to escape from the smoke, and the evacuation drills had made the location of the parachutes common knowledge. One of the musketeers strapped on a parachute, then led a group of passengers to the ferry bay of the Titan. The ramp was normally released by electrical relays when at lower altitudes, but now the switches remained firmly locked. Selecting an area of the low, sloping roof, the musketeer began slashing at the tough fabric. The already depleted air rushed out all the more quickly, sucking acrid smoke and fumes from the sunwing.
    Eight of the passengers tumbled out through the hole, but within minutes five of them were dead, suffocated as they hung from their parachute straps in the rarefied air. Three others knew that survival depended upon reaching breathable air quickly, and did not open their parachutes. By the time they had reached denser air, however, they were dead from the wind chill. They had been dressed for the warm, comfortable cabins of the Titan.
    Back aboard the crippled sunwing another three had died, suffocated by the smoke, but the captain had been quick to grasp what options were available for those aboard the doomed craft. Crippled the Titan might be, but it was descending in a long, shallow glide and would take a very long time to hit the ground. He and the two officers left the smoking control deck, shouting for all that