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elusivity's review against another edition
4.0
Interesting story. Not sure whether it works as short story -- solid world-building and ideas packed into such shortened length, which could easily become a novella or more.
Victorian balloonist hired by baron to fly himself and a speechless foxlike woman up into the skies. At high altitudes, the balloonist begins to experience hallucinations while the baron passes out and fox woman became more alert and reveals herself to be telepathic, whose broadcasted thoughts shows as being from an extremely advanced society. The baron had been scheming to steal these glimpses of technology from her mind to sell, while killing any balloonist who'd come to know too much. A previous balloonist who had escaped such an assassin attempt comes to warn the current balloonist. He decides to take fox woman 8 miles above the Earth while leaving the baron behind. At such height, fox woman becomes fully conscious and tells him she is akin to Napoleon or Hannibal for an alien species, whose failure in a war led to her civilization being destroyed and her exile to oxygen-heavy earth. She asks him to help her and he agrees. Back on ground, they hide while the baron shoots a poor farmer who'd put on the balloonist's discarded clothing. The previous balloonist then comes out in ambush, killing the baron in the belief he is saving Earth from an alien Napoleon. In the end, the balloonist built a low-pressure chamber while arranging to build a space ship so fox woman can fulfill her desire and wreak vengeance ... on the alien empire who destroyed her civilization, leaving Earth behind.
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