Sci Fi Weekly Gallery Image 23 July 2007

One thing I do most Mondays is check Sci Fi Weekly and, as a form of Sf-writing calisthenics, write a few paragraphs inspired by the week's Featured Artist image. 2007's images are archived here. The image for this week's edition (#535, 23 July 2007) is "Battlehorse Scylla" by Kevin M. Rooke:

Kevem brought the Scylla around for final descent. While his augmented muscle memory brought her down his gaze wandered to the monitors' view of Io. God knows why anyone would want to live on this motherless Irishman of a world. Sure the view of Jupiter was breathtaking, poised as it was over the hills north of the settlement, and the atmo machines spat out enough oxygen to form thin cirrus clouds and dye indigo the black zenith. The landscape's colors, a palette of yellows, oranges, and reds, looked like no other place in the solar system.

Then the Scylla touched and the engines ratcheted down. Silence descended, save for the ping of gammas picked up by the outside radiation detectors. Kevem squeezed into the rad suit and slid the compressor mask over his face. The straps tightened themselves over his ears.

Time to cycle the airlock. The outer hatch opened and Kevem winced. The mask never fully cut the stench. All the sulfur-reducing bacteria and metal sulfide ovens couldn't keep Io from stinking of marsh gas and putrid farts. Hurry up, get paid, get the local stevedores to offload the cargo, toss back some drinks and a doxy (and pay extra to make sure both were filtered of sulfur), then haul ass.