From Amazon.com
Five carefully selected people, each with the chance to earn $1 billion. The catch? They have to descend into Saturn's upper atmosphere and establish a factory that will produce meta, the fuel that powers interplanetary flight. With only enough meta to get them to Saturn, failure will cost them their lives. And all too soon the crew becomes marooned on the back of what they dub a Rukh, a 4-kilometer-long creature that swims in Saturn's upper atmosphere and has two brains, male and female. This engaging book by physicist Robert L. Forward evokes the sense of wonder of old-time science fiction.
From Library Journal
Three male and two female human specialists are paid $1 billion each to voyage to Saturn to convert helium in the upper atmosphere into metahelium fuel. When part of their apparatus is swallowed by one of the giant, flying, birdlike creatures they call rukhs, the crew finds a way to communicate and cooperate with the rukhs so both survive. The hard science, while technical, lends credence to Forward's (Camelot 30K, Tor, 1993) suspenseful story. Highly recommended for sf collections.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.
