It pulled to a stop under their hotel, a massive column of steel and glass whose base was linked to the ground only by conduits of coolant necessary to keep its occupants in comfort. The structure did not actually touch the ground, suspended by stasis fields a few hundred feet above the jungle canopy. Even here, this far north, the humidity was oppressive, and the pervasive smell of rotten eggs permeated everything.
“Who farted?” Misty asked.
“The planet itself,” Jack replied, smiling, the smell worse here than at the spaceport. Soon they and their luggage were climbing up the hotel side in a glasma-enclosed platform, belching volcanoes occupying all one hundred eight degrees of their view. One cone stood silent.
“We came here to see those?” Misty looked bewildered.
“Sort of,” Jack sai
