After The First Jump III

See After The First Jump II.

Nearer the surface, gravity compresses the atmosphere hard. Joelle in Chinook guides Williwaw, holothetically linked to its instruments. Gravity is Jovian. The atmosphere tosses and tumbles the boat and fills it with noise. Williwaw passes through monstrous storms of thunder, lightning, gales, rain and hail, then enters a peaceful region of thick warm air between a violet and indigo sky and an aureate ocean of intricately moving clouds. Danaans, royal blue, whale-sized and -shaped, with wings, arms or trunks and hands, rise from the clouds and dance around Williwaw.

Addendum: Rereading Anderson's text, I have had to amend this post slightly.

After The First Jump II

See After The First Jump.

The ship's boat, Williwaw, descends into the planet's atmosphere:

the hemisphere below is amber and gold;

on one horizon, there are red and purple bands and cosmic blackness;

on the opposite horizon, orange clouds reflect dawn light from the tiny red dwarf sun;

the day side of the planet is bright and changeable with undulating streams and whirlpools;

the explorers discuss their beliefs in God and life;

Caitlin names the planet after Danu, the mother goddess of the Tuatha de Danaan.

After The First Jump

Poul Anderson, The Avatar, XXVII.

The spaceship, Chinook, has jumped by T machine to another region of space:

the bearings of nearby galaxies show that Chinook is now about 500 light years from Sol towards Hercules;

the position is defined more precisely when, e.g., Deneb and the Orion Nebula have been identified;

Chinook has been transported to the system of a red dwarf with five planets, none terrestroid;

the ship orbits a Jovoid planet with twelve moons;

the holothetes, a woman and a Betan linked to the ship's computer, detect artificial radio transmissions in the planet's atmosphere.