The latest short story up on Noble Cobra Magazine is one I originally wrote for the Uranus issue of the Planetary Anthology Series. They passed on it, but I dug it out, did a little editing, and now offer it to you. Enjoy!

Far, far above the world there sat an old man. His head was bald and spotted, his thin, papery skin drawn tight over his wasted muscles, and his purple veins stood out sharp against the faded tan of his flesh. Yet the eyes that gazed down upon the planet below still gleamed as sharp and as cunning as they had when he was a young man.

But that had been long, long ago, and even the mighty Jacob Dunn couldn’t hold off death forever.

He sat upon his chair, but his chair didn’t sit upon the floor. Nothing in Jacob’s private chamber was permitted to rest upon the floor. His chair hovered a foot above the surface, while his bed, desk, and other furniture hung on suspenders from the ceiling. Those who entered to attend upon him were required to wear specialized slippers.

The entire floor of the office was a window of ultra-clear plastic. It was so treated and so developed that it was functionally invisible, making it appear as if there were no floor at all, and the old man dwelt suspended in space over the world he had made.

The intravenous tubes in his arms and chest pinched as he shifted his position slightly. The city of Hesperia was almost directly beneath his feet, on the shore of the Red Sea – red due to the excessive mineral content, which not only gave it its distinctive scarlet tone, but also made it famously healthy and rich in life. Forests of purple and blue leaves spread out over the hills like a carpet. To the east, the sun was sinking toward the curve of the horizon.

And all that he surveyed was his; his inventions had purified the atmosphere, his wealth had brought the settlers and seeded the waters, and his direction had built the cities.

It had been a long, hard struggle. First working his way through school while he took two degrees at once. Then courting and marrying Leah Fairweather, the banker’s daughter. That solved his money issues for the time being; he’d been able to get his company off the ground and start work on his atmospheric process. Then the new laws, being cast out by the board, the divorce…but it didn’t matter; by then he had enough money of his own to stake everything on the mission to Hesperus. He and five hundred volunteers had come to this world when it was a mere rock orbiting a distant sun. Now it was a lush garden with a population of close to twenty thousand and infinite room to grow.

Hesperus was his life’s work and his one passion. His office held no books and no paintings. No music played over the speakers. He’d had no time for any such interests in his ninety-odd years of life. He’d married twice, and he had one son, but they were hardly more than business associates. All his energies and almost all of his time had been directed to creating Hesperus. Now, sitting in his chair, cancer eating away at his bones, he had nothing left to do but to gaze upon what he had created.

Read the rest here.

Also, looking for the cover image, I found this artist’s impression a Uranus sunrise, which I thought was really cool, but it didn’t feel right to use it without asking, so I put it here.