Deepsix

XIII

One of the sure signs of a moron is that he, or she, babbles about the glories of the wilderness. Moonlight. Cool crisp air. The wind in the trees. Flights of birds overhead. Be assured these people always do it virtual. That way one dmgs no mud into the house.

— Gregory MacAllister, "Boy Scouts and Other Aberrations," Editor at Large

Hours to breakup (est): 240

They melted snow, boiled the water, and drank it down. There'd been water in the lander, but there had been no practical way to retrieve it MacAllister predicted they'd all break out in hives by dinner. He added, more seriously, that they'd better start learning how to hunt They estimated that they had a six-day food supply. That means," he added, "we'll be traveling on empty stomachs when we get to Tess."

Their destination lay south-southwest but they couldn't immediately proceed in that direction because they had no way to cross the crevice that now divided the landscape as for as they could see.

They made snowshoes and put all their gear and food into sample bags and the two backpacks Hutch had salvaged from the lander. Hutch provided MacAllister with a cutter and showed him how to use it Then they took a last look at the tower and the capacitors and struck off across the plain.

"You'll be out of the snow in a day or two," Marcel told them. That was good news. Once they had solid earth underfoot they'd be able to move more quickly. But it was a struggle for the two older men right from the beginning. Nightingale developed a blister after they'd gone about a kilometer. Hutch treated it with ointment from the medkit. Within another hour, MacAllister was limping and grumbling.

Their first challenge was to find a way across the chasm. They walked along the northern edge, moving slowly so the two could keep up. Hutch wondered whether MacAllister had been right, that he and Nightingale should have been left behind to take their chances.

At a patch of forest, they called a halt and fashioned walking staffs for everyone. "Don't need it," protested Kellie.

"Use it anyhow," Hutch insisted. "It's good for you."

Nightingale took his gratefully. MacAllister manfully swallowed his discomfort and smiled. "We all look good with staffs," he said. "Adds a certain panache."

They traveled well into the afternoon before they were able to get around the crevice. Gradually it closed, and the plain was solid again. They turned southwest.

Aside from bird sightings, all of which Nightingale treated with barely muted alarm, they encountered their first full-size native beast shortly afterward. It was about the size of a moose, shaggy, with white fur and unsettling blue eyes that gazed steadily at them with. Hutch thought, cool intelligence. For all that, it did not look particularly ferocious. Its snout was shoved into an icy stream, and it did not straighten up as they approached.

They drew their weapons nonetheless, switched on the power, and spread out.

It looked at each of them in turn, studying Hutch with special attention as if it recognized that she was directing the small party.

Hutch glanced at the worried faces and unsteady hands of her comrades, concluded she was in as much danger from them as from the creature, and moved out of MacAllister's line of fire.

As the last of them were passing, it startled them by rearing up onto its hind legs. A collar of hard bone rose around its neck. The collar ended in two long spikes, one flanking either jaw. The creature had a wide mouth full of shark's teeth and a permanent grin that reminded Hutch of an alligator.

"That thing's all dental work," whispered MacAllister.

It inspected Nightingale and showed him its teeth. Nightingale froze.

Armored ridges protected the animal's underside and its back. Its claws looked like daggers.

"Stay cool," said Hutch. The exobiologist stood absolutely still, his eyes wide. She slowly inserted herself between him and the creature. It swung its long jaws her way, looked back at Nightingale, and hesitated.

"We're not in its food chain," said Chiang.

MacAllister snorted. "By the time it discovers that, somebody's going to have a decided limp."

It looked at them, waiting perhaps for a hostile act.

The drawback of the cutter was its limited range. Notched up to full power, it had little effect beyond a few meters. MacAllister leveled his weapon and his thumb hovered over the punch pad. He was going to shoot.

"No." Hutch kept her eyes on the creature. "Don't do it, MacAllister. Everybody back away."

"Why don't we just kill it while we can?" the editor insisted.

"Slowly," said Hutch.

MacAllister frowned at her. "It's a mistake."

Hutch made her voice cold. "Do what I say."

The animal watched and after a few moments appeared to lose interest. It dropped back onto all fours and recommenced drinking.

After they'd gotten to what appeared to be a safe distance, Kellie let out her breath. "Shoo," she said quietly.

Nightingale thought he'd gotten through the experience pretty well. He felt he'd stood his ground, and believed he was ready to use his weapon if need be. He found it hard, however, to control his trembling afterward.

"You all right?" Kellie asked him.

He nodded and tried a smile. "I'm fine," he said.

They had no compass. Marcel followed their progress from Wendy and occasionally issued course corrections. The landscape remained unfailingly bleak, cold, and desolate. By late in the day they were seeing more hills. Occasional flocks of birds appeared overhead.

Nightingale was not in anything resembling the kind of physical condition required for this sort of effort. Everything he owned hurt. There was, however, consolation in the knowledge that MacAllister was having an even harder time. Hutch, who was certainly aware that she was encumbered by two people who preferred taxis wherever they went, continued to call frequent breaks.

The other four talked constantly. Chiang and the two women seemed to have accepted MacAllister in spite of his abrasiveness. Nightingale was once again hampered by his natural shyness and de-fensiveness. He tried to make acute observations, throw in occasional witty remarks, but it didn't work. Nobody really seemed to listen to him. He was the outsider, and gradually he withdrew and concentrated his efforts simply on trying to keep up.

It should have been different. After all, they were the only five human beings on the planet. That fact alone should have bound them together, should have prevented the development of factions and militated against the exclusion of any single member.

It was unfair, especially in light of the fact he'd given them their one chance at survival.

By sundown, he was limping badly and was being actively assisted by Kellie. They'd arrived in a glade, and Hutch called a halt. Nightingale eased himself gratefully to the ground, killed his field, pulled off his shoes, and rubbed his soles. By God it felt good.

He applied more of the salve from the medkit. Warmth spread through his feet, and then a general sense of relief.

The others fell quiet.

And something moved in the shrubbery.

There was a scramble for weapons.

The thing looked like a big scorpion, a scorpion the size of a child's wagon. It had a pair of antennas, which swept them in a kind of rhythm. Mandibles clicked audibly. The tail was shorter by far, and bisected. It had eight legs.

"Stay still," said Hutch,

It didn't matter. At the same moment, the creature charged Chiang. Chiang fell over backward, firing wildly. Hutch and Kellie burned it simultaneously. The thing let go a high keening sound, changed direction, and went for Hutch. They caught it again, and the scorpion crashed into a rock, rolled over, and lay on its back with its legs moving weakly.

"That's the biggest bug I've ever seen," Chiang said, getting to his feet.

MacAllister examined his cutter. "It's a good weapon," he said. "Will it run down? How much energy does it have?"

"It'll recharge on its own," said Hutch. "Just like your suit. But yes, there are limits. Don't play with it."

It wasn't a scorpion, of course. There were major differences, other than size and the tail, which mounted no stinger. The narrowing between cephalothorax and abdomen wasn't correct. The eyes were wrong. The segmenting was unique. Its chelae were smaller. The head was more heavily armored. Not for the first time, Nightingale mourned the lost opportunity to examine this world's biology.

There had been some thought of stopping there for the night, but they now agreed unanimously that it would be a good idea to move on.

Nightingale had not been able to get used to the shortened days. When they finally made camp, an hour later, he was bone weary and half-starved. They were in light forest, on the crest of a long, gently curving ridge. It had gotten dark. Overhead the superluminals moved serenely among the constellations, and he would have given much to be aboard one of them. Nevertheless, he was, by God, keeping up.

They broke out the reddimeals.

Nobody was dressed for this kind of weather. The heaviest garment anyone wore was probably MacAllister's black sweater. The two women were in jumpsuits. Chiang had only a light pullover shirt and a pair of shorts. And Nightingale's slacks and casual shirt were designed for a far more balmy climate. None of this would have mattered much were it not that they had to shut off the e-suits to eat.

They collected some wood and built a fire. When it was up and burning steadily, they keyed the reddimeal containers, which cooked the food. Then, at a kind of prearranged signal, they got as close to the fire as they could, shut off the suits, and gobbled chicken, beef, and whatever else showed up in the dinners. Everything tasted good that night.

Kellie made coffee. Nightingale swallowed everything down and, as quickly as he could, buttoned up again. He hated having to gulp his food when he was so hungry. But it was just too cold to linger over it.

They held a council of war, and agreed it was time to think about testing some of the local food supply, in order to conserve the reddimeals. If they discovered the native stuff was inedible, they would have to resort to rationing. There should be some game in the woods, and Kellie suggested to everyone's horror that the scorpions might make a food source. If any more showed up.

No one wanted to discuss it further.

They asked Nightingale, the resident expert. Did he know what they could expect to find? Was the local food edible?

"No idea," he said. "Nobody knows. We terminated the mission too quickly, and what we learned was inconclusive. Deepsix biology uses levo sugars and not dextro. So that's okay. They use DNA to make proteins, which is good. You might get some nutrition, but I doubt it. You have at least an equal chance of being poisoned. The fact is we have a supply of reddimeals, and we're only talking about a few days.

"What I mean is…" He paused, then plunged ahead: "We don't have to worry about subsisting indefinitely. What we're really interested in is satisfying our appetites. We could ration, go on half meals. But that's not going to help old guys trying to walk long distances. There's no real way we can be sure about toxins or allergens. If there's, say, a poison, our immune system may not even recognize it, or if it did, it might have no defense against it. I think we're reasonably safe, but I can't guarantee it."

Hutch nodded, called Embry on Wildside, and asked for advice.

"Best would be not to go near anything local," she said.

"That'll give us some very hungry people."

Embry wasted no time becoming irritated. "Better hungry than dead."

There was a long silence. "If you really have to do this," she continued, "have someone sample the stuff first. A very small sample. Very small. Give it some time. A half hour, at least. If he doesn't throw up, or get diarrhea-"

"Or fall over," said MacAllister.

"— or fall over, you're in business." Embry took a deep breath. "Hutch," she said, "I feel guilty about the way things turned out."

"It's okay. You didn't cause the quake."

"Still… Well, anyhow, I wanted to wish you luck. Anything I can do, I'm here."

"I know."

They'd covered eleven kilometers that first day. Not bad, considering they'd gotten a late start, had to detour around the crevice, and were walking through snow.

They had, of course, no bedding. Nightingale made himself as comfortable as he could, lay back in the firelight, and wondered if his body would ever feel right again.

They decided to forget trying to divide the nineteen-hour days into standard temporal terminology, because nobody was ever quite sure what nine o'clock actually meant. Instead they thought in terms of dusk and dawn, noon and midnight. There were roughly nine hours of darkness, which they divided into four watches. Midnight came when Morgan's World rose.

Nightingale unstrapped his oxygen converter and laid it beside him, where it would continue to work, without pressing into his shoulders. He slept for a while, woke, noticed that the fire had burned down, heard someone throw a fresh branch onto it, slept some more, and eventually found himself gazing up at the stars.

Morgan had moved over into the west. It was framed within a stellar rectangle. A couple of stars lined up under the rectangle, providing it with a stand or stem. To primitive people, he thought, it would have become a constellation. A flower, perhaps. Or a tree. Or a cup.

Morgan. It was a commonplace name for a world-killer.

It glittered through the branches, the brightest star in the sky.

Clouds were approaching from the west. By the time Chiang knelt beside him and told him the watch was his, the only visible light was the fire.

He checked his cutter and put on the night goggles. They'd stopped atop a ridge where they could see for kilometers in all directions. Tomorrow they'd cross a narrow basin and begin a long uphill climb into dense forest.

A few flakes drifted onto his arm.

Nightingale glanced over at the sleepers. MacAllister had punched up a mound of snow to serve as a pillow. Kellie seemed to be dreaming, and he judged by her expression that it was not altogether unpleasant. He suspected Hutch was awake, but she lay unmoving, with her face in shadow. Chiang was still trying to get comfortable.

Ordinarily, he would have hated the guard duty assignment. Nightingale liked to keep his mind active. Time not spent in a book or doing research or attempting to solve a problem was time wasted. He had no interest hanging about in a wilderness for two hours peering into the dark. But that night, he stood atop the ridge, watching the snow come down. And he enjoyed the simple fact that he was alive and conscious.

Marcel brought Wendy back to Deepsix. He felt better if he could stay closer to the people on the ground. They were just completing their first orbit when Beekman came onto the bridge. "Marcel," he said, "we've finished the analysis of the material we took from the artifact."

"And…?"

"They're enhanced carbon nanotubes."

"Which are what?"

"Precisely the sort of material you'd want to have if you were building a skyhook. They're extremely light and have incredible tensile strength." Beekman lowered himself into a chair and accepted some coffee. "We'll be taking back a whole new technology. Probably revolutionize the construction industry." He looked quizzically at the captain. "What's wrong?"

"I don't like the plan to get our people off the ground."

"Why?"

"There are too many things that can go wrong. Tess may not fly. They may not even get there in time. There may be some incompatibility between the capacitors and the onboard spike. Another quake could bury the damned things beyond recovery."

"I don't know what we can do to change any of that."

"I'd like a backup option."

Beekman smiled patiently. "Of course you would. Wouldn't we all? What do you suggest?"

"The ship going to Quraqua. The Boardman. It's big, loaded with construction equipment. Mostly stuff they're going to use to put together the ground stations. I looked at the manifest. It has hundreds of kilometers of cable." Marcel laid emphasis on the last word, expecting Beekman to see immediately where he was headed.

"Go on," Beekman said, showing no reaction.

"Okay. If we were to get some of the cable off the Boardman, and tie together about four hundred kilometers of it, we could attach one end to a shuttle."

"And crash the shuttle," finished Beekman.

"Right. We take it down as far as it'll go, which would be within a couple of kilometers of the surface before we'd lose it. It crashes. But the cable's down. On the ground."

"And we use it to haul them out."

Marcel thought it seemed too simple. "It won't work?"

"No."

"Gunther, why not?"

"How much does the cable weigh?"

"I don't know."

"All right. Say it's on the order of three kilograms per meter. That's not very heavy."

"Okay."

"That means one kilometer of the cable would weigh in at about three metric tons."

Marcel sighed.

"That's one kilometer. And this thing is going to stretch down from orbit? Three hundred kilometers, you say?"

He did the math in his head. The cable would have to be able to support roughly nine hundred metric tons.

"You see the problem, Marcel."

"How about if we went for lighter material? Maybe hemp rope? They've got hemp on board."

Beekman made a noise in his throat. "I doubt the tensile strength of rope would be very high. How much do you think a piece one meter long would weigh?"

So they sat, drinking coffee, staring at one another. Once they called down and talked to Nightingale, whom Marcel knew to be the security watch. Any problems? What time did you expect to leave in the morning? How's everybody holding up?

That last question was designed to elicit a comment from Nightingale on his own physical condition, as well. But he only said they were fine.

Marcel noticed that he was beginning to feel disconnected from those on the ground. As if they were somehow already lost.

XIV

Walking through these woods, filled with the creatures of an alternate biosystem, constitutes an unusual emotional experience. They are all extinct, or shall be within a very few days. The sum total of six billion years of evolution is about to be erased, leaving nothing behind. Not so much as a tail feather.

And good riddance, I say.

— Gregory MacAllister, Deepsix Diary

Hours to breakup (est): 226

All the sunrises on Deepsix were oppressive. The sky was inevitably slate, and a storm was either happening or seemed imminent

Kellie Collier stood atop the ridge, surveying the woods and plains around her. In all that wilderness, nothing moved save a pair of wings so high and far as to present no detail to the naked eye. Through binoculars, she judged it to be not a bird at all. It had fur and teeth, a duckbill skull, and a long, serpentine tail. As she watched, it descended into a patch of trees and emerged moments later with something wriggling in its claws.

She turned toward the southwest. The land sloped downhill and rose again gradually and then almost precipitously toward a long spine. The spine extended from one horizon to the other. It was going to be a difficult climb with Nightingale and the great man in tow. The wind tugged at her, trying to blow her off the ridge. Reminding her that they had ground to cover and that time was short.

Hutch lay quietly near the fire, and Kellie saw that her eyes were open. "How we doing?" she asked softly.

"Time to go," said Kellie.

She nodded. "Let's give them a little longer."

"I'm not sure we shouldn't push a bit harder."

"It won't help us," Hutch said, "if they start breaking down." MacAllister snored peacefully with his head pillowed against one of the packs; Nightingale lay near the fire, his shoes off to one side.

Kellie sat down beside her. "We've a long way to go," she said.

"We'll make it," said Hutch. "As long as no one collapses." She looked into the fire. "I don't want to leave anybody behind."

"We could come back later for them."

"If they aren't eaten first. You really think either of those guys could stay alive on his own?"

"One of us could stay with them."

Hutch shook her head. "We're safer keeping our firepower concentrated. If we split up, we are absolutely going to lose somebody else." She took a deep breath and looked at Kellie. "We'll stay together as long as we can. And if we get behind, we'll do what we have to."

Kellie liked to think of herself as the last of the fighter pilots. She'd begun her career as a combat aviator for the Peacekeepers. When the Peacekeepers became effectively obsolete (as they did every half century or so), when the latest round of civil wars had been fought and the dictators put to bed, she'd learned to fly spacecraft and transferred to the Patrol. But the job had been surprisingly routine. The Patrol simply didn't go anywhere. They patrolled. When people drank too much or neglected their maintenance or got careless, Kellie and her colleagues had shown up to rescue whoever was left.

But she never really traveled. A zone was assigned and she just went round and round, visiting the same eight or nine stations over and over. And during those years, she'd watched the Academy's superluminals coming in from places that no one had names for yet. Or from conducting surveys of the Omega clouds. Or from examining the space-twisting properties of neutron stars and black holes.

She'd lasted less than a year before giving it up to interview for a pilot's job with the Academy. The money was about half as much, the ships were more spartan, the fringe benefits barely existed. But the people with whom she traveled tended to have wider interests than the Patrol crews. And she loved the work.

That morning, though, she was having second thoughts. As MacAllister would have put it, there was something to be said for boredom.

Nightingale sat up, looked around, and sighed. "Love the accommodations," he said. He struggled to his feet. "Back in a minute."

She woke Chiang. "Duty calls," she said. "Go with him."

Chiang made a face, took a moment to figure out what he was being asked to do, got up, and trailed along behind the older man. Nobody went anywhere alone. The designated commode was halfway down the back side of the hill, in a gully. There was just enough ground in the way to provide a modicum of privacy.

Kellie filled a pot with snow and put it on the fire.

MacAllister rolled over and looked up at her. "What time's the tour start?" he asked.

"Sooner the better," said Kellie.

Hutch rubbed her eyes, closed them again, and looked at the gray sky. "Another glorious morning on Deepsix." She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Then she fished for her cup and toothbrush.

Off to the east, something was moving. Kellie raised her binoculars and looked out across a stretch of grassland downslope. A herd of fur-bearing animals were approaching. They were big, lumbering creatures, with trunks and tusks. Their heads were extraordinarily ugly, much in the manner of rhinos. She watched them veer off and disappear into a wall of forest, but she could hear them for a long time after.

They disposed of another round of reddimeals. Kellie had bacon, eggs, and fried apples. She washed everything down with coffee.

"While we're on the trail," said Hutch, "let's see what we can hunt up for lunch."

"Right." MacAllister raised his coffee. "I suspect we're all anxious to taste the local fare." Kellie wondered if he could ask for the correct time without sounding cynical.

They trekked down the south slope, into and out of patches of trees, crossed a stream at the bottom, and started up the far side. Occasional furry creatures, the local equivalent of squirrels, showed themselves, as well as a few larger animals that looked as if they might serve for a meal. If anybody could get close enough to use a cutter. But the creatures kept their distance. "We need a weapon that'll work at long range," said Chiang.

Hutch asked whether anybody had experience with a bow and arrow.

Nobody did.

They crossed the valley and started uphill, up the long increasingly steep slope Kellie had studied from the crest of her ridge the night before. The snow became soft, and the walking grew more difficult. Nightingale's blisters got worse, and MacAllister struggled and grumbled. Hutch called a break.

The sun was directly overhead and they were still about an hour below the summit. A few donuts remained, which they divided. Mac insisted he was feeling fine and thought they should get going. Nightingale agreed, although he was obviously in some discomfort, and they set off.

They reached the crest and discovered that the land dipped sharply and then started uphill again, but at a more moderate angle. MacAllister observed that the entire planet seemed to run uphill.

They pressed on for another hour before they stopped, built a fire, and made coffee. "We can feed anyone who's hungry," Hutch said. But a nineteen-hour day was short, and lunch followed hard on breakfast. Consequently no one was anxious for an undue delay. "We'll eat an early dinner," she promised.

During the afternoon march Nightingale said that he was cold.

Hutch checked his gear and saw that his powerpak was failing. She replaced it with one of the units she'd pried out of the lander.

A freak thunderstorm broke over them, eliciting an observation by MacAllister that lightning wasn't supposed to occur at low temperatures.

That brought a response from Marcel: "Some of our people here say it's a result of Morgan's approach. It translates into unusually severe high- and low-pressure areas. Consequently, you get screwy weather."

They walked through a steady downpour while thunderbolts boomed overhead. The rain hissed into the snow, which turned to slush. The e-suits kept them dry, and they trudged on.

Nightingale seemed distracted, self-absorbed, remote. While they walked, his eyes were rarely focused. His gaze was directed inward, and when Kellie spoke to him, he invariably asked her to repeat herself.

He remained walled off from the others, resisting everybody's efforts at small talk. He did not snap at anyone, showed no sign of anger. But it was as though he walked alone through those frozen forests.

She began to notice that the lamp on his commlink was constantly glowing. She could see he wasn't talking with any of the others. Someone on Wendy, perhaps?

It gave rise to a suspicion. "Randy?" she said, using a private channel

He looked up at her and came back from someplace far away. "Yes, Kellie? Did you say something?"

"Could I ask what you're listening to?"

"Right now? Bergdorf s Agronomy on Qaraqua." He looked over at her and smiled. "Might as well make the time count."

As she'd guessed, he was tied in to one of the ships' libraries. "Yes," she said. "I know what you mean. But it might be a good idea if you shut it down. It's dangerous to do what you're doing."

"Why is that?" He became defensive.

"Because there may be critters in the area who will mistake you for a hamburger. We've got five pairs of eyes, and we need them all. You don't want to be thinking about other things while we're moving through tiger country."

"Kellie," he said, "it's not a problem. I can listen and watch-"

"Randy. Please do what I'm asking you to."

"Or you'll blow the whistle on me?"

"Or I'll make off with your staff."

He sighed visibly, a man of culture put upon by the barbarians of the world. She stayed with him until he showed her his thumb and pressed it to his commlink. The lamp went out. "Okay?" he asked. "Satisfied?"

Kellie could see Hutch talking, too. She glanced around at the others. You always knew who was conversing with whom because people inevitably look at one another during a conversation. But Chiang and MacAllister were not using their links. That probably meant Hutch was talking to Marcel.

She missed Marcel.

Kellie had not realized how much she enjoyed the company of the tall Frenchman. She'd thought he had looked at her with a touch of envy when she'd asked to make the descent to the surface.

At the moment they'd be having late night snacks on Wendy. She would have given a great deal to join him at his table, to listen to him talk about the elegance of Dupre and Proust.

After a while, the rainstorms blew off, and the sun broke through. But it was only momentary. More clouds were building in the west.

They were buffeted by rain and sleet for most of the rest of the day. Although the e-suits kept them warm and dry, a constant wind made progress difficult, and the rain tended to smear vision. In addition, Hutch knew from long experience there was a psychological factor: When the weather was cold and wet, and your eyes made it clear you were wearing no more than a jump suit, that you should be shivering and miserable, it was difficult to be entirely comfortable. It was called the McMurtrie Effect.

They cleared a ridge and finally started downhill, but the descent was steep, and they had literally to lower MacAllister from one perch to level ground. They came at last to a river. It looked deep, but the current appeared placid.

"How're we doing for time?" Kellie asked.

Progress reports came regularly from Marcel, but they were directed to Hutch. "Thirteen so far today," she said.

Kellie frowned. Not great. But it was enough.

"Everybody here can swim?" asked Hutch.

Surprisingly, only Chiang lacked the skill.

The river was wide, and it looked deep in midstream. Thick twisted foliage hung down along both banks. They surveyed the area, looking for a local alligator-equivalent, but saw nothing.

"We still don't know what's in the water," said Nightingale. "I suggest we build a raft."

"Don't have time," said Hutch. If there was anything in the river, there was a good chance that the e-suits would prevent their being perceived as prey. There would, after all, be no scent.

"I don't think you should rely too heavily on that," said Nightingale.

Hutch waded in until she was hip deep. Then they waited. Her heart pounded, but she tried to look calm. She watched the river and the banks for any sudden movement. But nothing came for her, and she felt more confident with each passing minute. When they were at last convinced it was safe, they found a dead limb Chiang could cling to and pushed off. MacAllister turned out to be an accomplished swimmer. Chiang said nothing while they towed him across, but Hutch saw that he felt humiliated. It would have been less difficult for

him, she realized, had Kellie not been there. She was pleased to see that Kellie was also aware of the situation and made a point of staying close to him. She caught an amused smile from MacAllister, who seemed to miss none of the undercurrents among his companions.

They arrived on the far side in good order and resumed their march. Eventually the country turned uphill again. Chiang, who had been leading, fell toward the rear. Kellie moved up beside him and took him again to the front. She said something to him on a private channel.

He was replying when a snowbank rose, roared, and charged. Hutch saw only talons and green eyes and long, curved teeth while she fumbled for her laser, got it into her hand, lost the grip, then dropped it.

Kellie, directly in the thing's path, went down and tried to scramble out of the way. MacAllister seemed to have forgotten about his cutter. Instead, he raised his staff and brought it down on the creature's skull. The thing spat and growled and a cutter beam flashed close to Hutch's face. The growling went high-pitched, then stopped. When Hutch stumbled to her feet, helped by Nightingale, it lay twitching. Its head was half severed, and a red-brown viscous liquid pumped out onto the snow. Its dead eyes continued to watch her.

It was about the size of a bear. Chiang was standing off to one side, his cutter held straight out. He saw Hutch, nodded, shut it off, and lowered it.

Hutch checked her parts. Everything seemed to be there. "I never saw it," she said, patting MacAllister's shoulder. "Hell of a job with the staff."

Kellie embraced Chiang and kissed his cheek.

"What was it?" Chiang asked.

"Dinner," said Hutch. "If all goes well."

They sliced off gobs of meat and wrapped them in plastic bags.

Toward the end of the afternoon, they topped the last rise, and the land began a long gentle decline. The storms had cleared off, and they had, for the first time since leaving the tower, a bright cheerful sky. They kept on until sundown, and Kellie urged that they continue. But the pace was too much for Mac and Nightingale, so Hutch called a halt near a stand of old trees that would provide firewood and privacy. They'd logged eighteen kilometers.

Pretty good, actually.

"Especially," said Nightingale, lowering himself onto a downed tree trunk, "when you consider this is hard country. It'll level out soon. And we should be almost out of the snow."

MacAllister also looked exhausted.

"Chiang," Kellie said, "let's get some wood." She picked up a dead branch and, as if that were a signal, the ground shook. Just once, for a few seconds.

They built a fire and roasted the meat. It smelled good, not unlike venison.

"Who's going to sample it?" asked Mac.

Hutch took a piece, thinking how being a leader wasn't all it was cracked up to be. She would follow Embry's prescription and go very slowly.

"Let me cut it for you," said Nightingale. He sliced off a narrow strip, held it so she could see it in the firelight, and surprised her by turning off his suit and taking a bite.

They watched him. "Thanks," said Hutch.

He shrugged, chewed it methodically, commented that it was good, and swallowed. Then he reactivated the field.

Hutch wondered why he'd done it. Nightingale did not strike her as someone who was given to the gallant gesture. She suspected he was responding on some level to MacAllister's presence. Showing him how wrong he had been.

A half hour passed. The meat looked ready. Chiang put on the coffee.

Nightingale showed no ill effect and announced that the rest of them could hang about if they liked, but that he was ready to eat. They looked at one another, killed the fields, and carved up dinner. It was quite good.

Conversation during meals was limited because of the low temperatures. Eating was strictly business on Deepsix, and if she lived through this, Hutch knew she would always recall these quick impersonal meals, nobody talking while they huddled as close to the fire as they could get, bolting food and coffee in the sting of cold air.

Happy days on the prairie.

They had no salt, no condiments of any kind, but that seemed only a detail.

Hutch made an announcement during the meal: "Marcel," she said, "tells me that the media are only a couple of days away. They were coming to shoot the collision, but now it's all about us."

"Of course," said Chiang.

"Anyhow, they're asking whether they'll be able to interview us when they get here."

MacAllister was clearly enjoying his supper. "That should be intriguing," he said, between bites. "We can have an end-of-the-world party right there on Universal News, which reports only the facts. Without bias or principle." It was a mild reference to Universal's Without bias or distortion credo. He looked toward the eastern sky, bright with unfamiliar constellations. It was too early yet for Morgan. "Yes, indeed," he said. "If they play it right, they should be able to get their best numbers of the year. Except maybe for the World Bowl."

"Hutch, we got a response from the Academy on your early reports at the tower. They congratulate you for your work and want you to keep digging. That's the phrase they use. Look for more evidence of the state of their science, it says. They want you to let the other sites go because there isn't time."

"Good," she said. "Tell them we'll comply."

"They also want you to be careful. They say to avoid any hazardous situations."

"Augie, wake up."

Emma didn't always sleep well, and she sometimes prowled the ship at night. What she did out there he didn't know. It was even possible she ran an occasional liaison with the captain. He didn't really care all that much. As long as she was available when he needed her. But she had hold of his arm at the moment, and was dragging him out of a very sound sleep. His first thought was that the Edward J. Zwick had sprung a leak. "What's wrong?" he asked, looking up at her.

She was the image of delight. "Augie, we've gotten a huge break."

He tried to imagine what it could be, but utterly failed. In any case, he thought, surely it could wait until morning.

"They've had an accident," she said. "Some of them are stranded down there. They're trying to find a rescue vessel and apparently not having much luck."

That woke him up. "What kind of accident? Was anybody killed?"

"Yep. Two or three. And you know who's among the strandees? MacAllister."

"My God. Is that right?"

"Absolutely."

"How could that happen?"

"Don't know. They're not putting out details yet. But we've got a great story falling into our laps." She pressed her lips against his cheek. "I've already been in touch with them. With Clairveau. And there's no competition within light-years." She clapped her hands and literally trembled with joy.

Canyon was still trying to grasp what she was telling him. "They're going to get them off okay, right?"

"Hell, I don't know, Augie. Right now it's touch and go. But if we're lucky, things will stay tense for a while. At least until we get there."

"We might have a problem," said Beekman.

The ocean and the northern coastline were on-screen. The area looked cold and gray, and the tide was very far out. Marcel wasn't sure he wanted to hear what Beekman was about to tell him.

"It's like what happens," said Beekman, "when a tsunami is coming."

Marcel waited impatiently. It was hard to feel any serious alarm. The coast was a long wall of high mountains. He'd been prepared to hear that there might be disturbances at sea, but the shoreline looked pretty well protected. "Is a tsunami coming?" he asked.

"Not exactly." They were seated in armchairs, in Beekman's office. The project director wore a short-sleeved shirt printed with frolicking dragons that he'd bought in Hong Kong. "It's just going to be another very high tide. The problem is that, as Morgan approaches, it's going to keep getting higher. Every day. The water's getting distorted by Morgan's gravitational pull. Mounting up. It's the first stage."

"What's the final stage?"

"The ocean gets ripped out of its bed."

"Gunny," Marcel said, "that's not going to happen tomorrow."

Beekman nodded. "No."

"If it's a problem, why didn't we talk about it before?"

"Because it didn't look as if it would become a factor. Because the coastal range has the ocean effectively blocked off until you get so far east it doesn't matter anymore."

"What's changed?"

"There are sections of the range that might not hold. That might collapse."

"Where?"

Beekman showed him.

"When?" he asked.

"Don't know. They could stand up until the water has to come over the top. If that happens, there's nothing to worry about. Or they could give way."

"Okay. What's the earliest it could break down?"

"We don't know that either. We don't have enough detailed information to be sure."

"Make a guess."

"Midnight, Tuesday. Our time."

Marcel checked his calendars. "That gives them eight days. Local days."

"Yes."

"They've lost a couple of days."

"That shouldn't be a major problem for them. They still have adequate time. But keep in mind, Marcel. It's only a guess."

Marcel nodded. "I'll alert Hutch." He felt the bulkheads closing in on him. "Do we have any ideas for a backup plan?" he asked.

"You mean if Tess won't work?"

"That's right."

He shook his head. "Short of hoping for divine intervention, no. If Tess won't fly, they're dead. It's as simple as that."

XV

One timer fully appreciates civilization until the lights go out.

— Gregory MacAllister, "Patriots in the Woodshed," The Incomplete MacAllister

Hours to breakup (est): 210

There's got to be a way."

Beekman's eyes were bloodshot "If there is," he said, "I'd be grateful to know how."

"Okay." Marcel got up and looked down at him. "You've been talking about the tensile strength of the stuff we cut off the assembly. How about if we removed a piece of that?"

"To do what?"

"To reach them. To give them a way off the surface."

"Marcel, it would have to be three hundred kilometers long."

"Gunny, we've got four superluminals up here to work with."

"That's fine. You could have forty. So you've also got a very long shaft. What are you going to do with it?"

"Ram it down through the atmosphere. It wouldn't collapse under its own weight, would it?"

"No," said Beekman. "It wouldn't. But we'd have no control over it. Atmospheric forces would drive it along the ground at supersonic speed." He smiled sadly. "No, you wouldn't want to try to hitch a ride on something like that"

Marcel was just tired of all the defeatism. "Okay," he said, "I'll tell you what I want to happen. You've got a brain trust of major proportions scattered around this ship. Get them together, do it now, put everything else aside And find a way."

"Marcel, with any luck less will be enough to get them off." "There are too many things that can go wrong. And if we wait until they do, there'll be no time to come up with an alternative." He leaned over and seized Beekmarfs arm. "Consider it an intellectual challenge, if you want. But find a way."

Chiang was still awake when Morgan appeared in the east. Surrounding stars faded in its glow, which' seemed to have acquired a bluish tint. It was starkly brighter than it had been the previous evening. He could almost make out a disk.

He stood his watch under its baleful light. After Nightingale relieved him, he lay a long time watching it move through the trees. It seemed to him that he'd barely fallen asleep when Kellie roused him. "Time to get rolling, big fella," she said.

While they sat wearily around the campfire, breakfasting on the leftover creature meat, Hutch announced that more news had come down from Wendy.

"Not good, I take it," said MacAllister.

"Not good. We've lost a day or two," said Hutch. "The tides are rising along the north coast. Because of Morgan. There are mountains up there, but there's a possibility the water will break through onto the plain."

"A couple of days?" said Kellie.

"We've still got plenty of time."

"They think if it breaks through, it'll go all the way to the tower?" asked Nightingale.

"That's what they're saying."

"We need to hustle up," said Chiang.

The short days were beginning to work on them and they debated whether they should try to switch back to a twenty-four-hour clock and simply ignore the rising and setting of the sun.

Embry advised it would not be a good idea, that their metabolisms would try to adjust to local conditions. "Anyway," she added, "I doubt you want to be walking around down there in the dark."

They had only about seven hours of sunlight left when they finally got moving.

"You'll come out of the snow line later today," Marcel told them. "Looks like relatively easy going from that point on."

"Okay," said Hutch.

"Oh, and you've got another river to cross. A wide one this time. You'll get to it toward the end of the day." "Any bridges?" "Ho, ho."

"Seriously, can you guide us to the easiest crossing point?" "You like wide and slow or narrow and fast?" "We need a place where we can wade." "Can't tell from up here." "Make it wide and slow."

Chiang didn't care for MacAllister. He treated Kellie and Hutch as if they were lackeys and gofers, persons whose sole purpose was to make the world comfortable for people like himself. He ignored Nightingale altogether. He behaved well enough toward Chiang, although there was a degree of condescension that probably was not personal but rather reflected the editor's attitude toward everyone.

Even the gas giant became a target for him. While the others thought of the approaching juggernaut with a degree of awe, MacAllister took to referring to the world by the full name of its discoverer. It became Jerry Morgan at first, and eventually just plain Jerry.

"Well, I noticed Jerry was pretty bright last night."

And, "I do believe Jerry's become a crescent."

Chiang understood that the great man was frightened, maybe more so than the rest of them because he had a reputation to protect, and he was probably not sure how he'd hold up if things got worse instead of better.

The snow was thinning out, and they began one by one to discard their snowshoes.

They'd broken back out onto a broad plain. It was rolling country, marked by a few scattered trees and occasional patches of thick shrubbery. Toward midafternoon, two autumn-colored bipeds that seemed to be constructed exclusively of fangs and claws tried a coordinated attack from opposite sides. They'd been hiding behind hills and charged as the company passed. But the lasers drove them off and caused MacAllister to observe that these primitive life-forms were no match for somebody with guts and a good weapon. He looked meaningfully at Nightingale, and Hutch had to step between them again.

Tough fibrous grass pushed up through the snow, which by midday disappeared altogether. Purple and yellow shrubbery appeared, with thick stalks and wide, flat-bladed leaves that looked sharp enough to draw blood. They passed through a tree line, and the sunlight faded behind a canopy of branches and leaves. Eight-legged creatures scrambled up the trunks, and Nightingale once again regretted that there was no time for inspection.

They were small and almost invisible against the woodland background, with backs that resembled walnut shells, and triangular heads. They had antennas and beaks and mandibles that twitched constantly. He noted that, when he approached them, the antennas swung in his direction. Some hurried around to the far side of a convenient tree, out of his sight. One simply withdrew into a shell, like a turtle, and clung unmoving to thick bark. When Chiang approached, it fired black spray at him. In the direction of his eyes. It splattered against the e-suit.

Startled, Chiang fell back and went down. "You were lucky," said Nightingale, helping him up. "We don't know these creatures at all. It's a good idea not to be deceived by appearances. If you see something that looks like a chipmunk, don't assume it'll behave like one."

"We need to keep moving," said Hutch. "No time for admiring the critters."

Some of the trees were hardwoods, very much like oak and maple. Others had soft fleshy stems and short prickly branches. Bulbous purple fruit hung from them. Hutch broke off a sample, scooped out a small piece, killed her field, and tried it. She looked pleased. "Not bad," she said.

But when Chiang asked to share she shook her head. "Let's give it a while. See what happens."

They were pushing through heavy undergrowth when Chiang almost walked off the edge of a crag. The ground simply vanished underfoot. At first he thought he was going into a hole, but the bushes opened up, and he was looking down about six meters onto a scrabble of hard rock and tough-looking greenery. MacAllister grabbed his arm and, after a nervous moment while they struggled for balance, hauled him back.

"That's two we owe you, Mac," said Kellie. It was the first time anyone had used the shortened form of his name without derision.

The land became increasingly rough, scarred by gullies and ravines.

The earlier problem of getting MacAllister down some of the descents recurred. They tried using cable, but it was thin and smooth, hard to hold on to. And tying it around his waist and using it to lower him down an embankment offended his dignity.

Hutch looked around at the vines that snaked up tree trunks and hung out of the branches and tried to pull one loose. The vine resisted, and it took all of them to drag it out of the tree. When they had sufficient length she cut it, and MacAllister, by then covered with bruises and ready for any kind of solution, consented to use it. It worked fine. He could hang on while they lowered away, and even assist the operation. When the ground finally flattened out, in mid-afternoon, he threw the vine away, but Hutch retrieved it, coiled it into a loop, and draped it around one shoulder.

Chiang noticed that MacAllister was no longer volunteering to drop back in order to allow the rest of the party to move ahead more quickly. Instead, he silently endured whatever indignities he had to, and worked hard to maintain his pace.

They stopped at a pool, hidden among trees and rocks. "What do you say," suggested Hutch, "we take a break and clean up a bit?"

Kellie was already pulling her blouse out away from her body. "I'm for it," she said. "You guys clear out and build a fire. But guard the trail."

"What if you get in trouble?" asked Chiang.

She laughed. "My clothes'll be able to go for help."

The men retreated. Hutch extracted a small piece of leftover meat and threw it into the water to see if anything would happen. When nothing did, she took up the sentry's position. Kellie shut off her field and wrapped her arms around herself for warmth. Then she took a deep breath and removed her jumpsuit. "What've we got for pneumonia?" she asked.

"Same as usual," Hutch smiled. "Coffee."

The place looked safe. Consequently, in the interests of saving time. Hutch handed her the soap and a washcloth, laid out two towels and another washcloth, put her own weapon on a rock by the water's edge, removed her gear and her clothes, and waded into the water. It was frigid.

"Nothing like a brisk dip," Kellie said through lips that were chattering so badly she could barely get the words out.

An icy wind rippled the surface.

"Polar bear nudie club," said Hutch.

"Water's warmer than out there, though. Once you get used to it."

"I betcha."

In fact it was. The water shocked her system as she waded deeper, feeling the frigid tide rise past thighs and hips to her breasts. But once in its embrace, her body adjusted. She scrunched down to keep out of the cold air.

Kellie covered herself with soap and handed it to Hutch, who quickly rubbed some onto her washcloth and began to remove the accumulated dirt and sweat of several days.

Kellie cleaned herself as best she could, and submerged. She came back up into the cold air gasping and shivering. Hutch, also half frozen, moved close to her and they embraced, sharing what body heat they could. When the joint trembling got down to a reasonable level, so that she could speak again, Hutch asked whether she was okay. "Dandy," Kellie said.

They retreated into shallower water, finished the job, grabbed the towels, and wiped themselves dry. Then, still naked, they put on their links and belts, reactivated the energy fields, and turned up the heat.

It was a luxurious moment. Hutch stood in the bright sunlight and clasped her arms to her breasts in an instinctive effort to absorb the warmth.

"That was really a thrill out there," said Kellie. "We have to do it again."

"Bonded forever," said Hutch.

They gazed at one another, and Hutch wasn't quite sure what had happened.

When feeling returned, they bent to the task of washing their clothes. From time to time Chiang called to ask whether they needed help. Kellie assured him they were doing fine, but Hutch could see the pleasure she was taking in the game.

When they'd finished they handed out their clothes to Chiang, and he passed blankets in to them. The clothes were hung over the fire, the women took up sentry duty in their blankets, and the men went into the pool. An hour later they were all dressed and on their way again.

Chiang was unsure what to do about Kellie. The extreme hazard in which they'd been placed had sharpened his desire for her. He had begun seriously considering making a marriage proposal. That notion would have been absurd a few days ago on Wendy. But now somehow it seemed like a good idea to commit himself to living his life with this extraordinary woman, and to find out whether she'd be receptive. He'd decided he wanted her, and he suspected that the opportunity would never be better.

Tonight he would ask.

It was getting dark when they filed out onto the riverbank. "Did Marcel say wide?" demanded MacAllister. "It's the Mississippi."

It was broad and still and lazy in the fading light. Had it been frozen, Chiang estimated they would have needed ten minutes to walk across.

"Marcel," said Hutch, "does this thing by any chance go in our direction?"

"Negative. Sorry. You don't get to travel by boat."

"How do we get across?" asked MacAllister.

It had a steady current. "We don't swim," said Hutch.

Nightingale nodded. "That's a good decision for several reasons." He pointed, and Chiang saw a pair of eyes rise out of the water and look their way.

"Alligator?" Kellie asked.

"Don't know," said Hutch.

Nightingale repeated Hutch's test and threw a small piece of meat well out into the stream. A fin broke the surface momentarily, and then there was a brief commotion in the water.

Something in the foliage across the river screeched. A loud racket followed, more screeching, flapping of wings. A large vulpine creature with black wings flew off, and the general stillness returned.

Chiang examined the trees. "Anybody good at raft-building?"

"Just tie some logs together, right?" said Kellie.

"This," said MacAllister, "should be a constructive experience for us all."

The pun provided some mock laughter.

"Let's get to it," Hutch said. "We'll cut the trees now, stay here tonight, and put the raft together first thing tomorrow."

"How'd we do today?" asked MacAlIister.

"Pretty well," said Hutch. "Twenty kilometers."

"Twenty?"

"Well, nineteen. But that's not bad."

Chiang spent the evening working up his courage. After the logs were set aside and the vines collected, Kellie sat quietly eating. When she'd finished and buttoned up her e-suit, he saw his chance. Get on her private channel and do the deed.

"Kellie." His voice didn't sound right.

She turned toward him, and her features were limned in the firelight. He watched shadows move across her face, and she seemed more beautiful than any woman he had ever known. "Yes, Chiang?" she said.

He started to move toward her but caught himself and decided it was best to stay where he was. "I-wanted you to know I'm in love with you."

A long silence. The shadows moved some more.

"I've been looking for an opportunity to tell you."

She nodded. "I know," she said.

That threw him off-balance. "You know?" He had never said anything.

"Sure."

He got to his feet, driven to some form of action, but he settled for stirring the fire. "May I ask how you feel about me?" He blurted it out, and immediately knew it sounded clumsy. But there was no way to recall it.

"I like you," she said quietly.

He waited.

She seemed lost in thought. He wondered whether she was searching her feelings, or looking for a way to let him down gently. "I don't know," she said. "The circumstances we're under… It's hard to see clearly."

"I understand," he said.

"I'm not sure you do, Chiang. Everything's compressed now. I don't trust my feelings. Or yours. Everything's very emotional. Let's wait till we're back on Wendy. When it's not life-and-death anymore. Then if you want to take another plunge at this, I'll be happy to listen."

Nightingale assumed guard duty. He surveyed the campsite, saw right away there were too many places where something could come up on them unseen, and decided to position himself near the river-bank, where the ground was clear. Chiang picked up the water container and went to the river's edge. MacAlIister gathered some branches and started a fire. The women began trying to work out what the raft should look like.

Nightingale studied the water. It was shallow inshore, but muddy and dark. He watched Chiang make a face at it and venture out a few steps. Nightingale asked what he was doing, and Chiang explained he was after clear water. He scooped up some and it must still not have looked very good because he got rid of it and went out a bit farther.

"That's a mistake," said Nightingale. "Forget it. We'll figure out something else."

"It's not a-" Chiang's expression changed, and he cried out. Something yanked his feet from under him. He went down and disappeared into the current.

Nightingale whipped out the cutter, ignited it, and charged after him. He couldn't see why Chiang had fallen, but he caught a glimpse of blue-gray tendrils.

Something caught him, whipped around his ankles, and tried to drag him down. Then it had his arm. Nightingale sliced at the water. Mud-colored fluid spurted from somewhere.

He almost dropped the laser.

MacAlIister arrived, cutter in hand, at the height of the battle. He lashed around like a wild man. The water hissed and tendrils exploded. Nightingale came loose, and then Chiang. By the time the women got there, only seconds after it had begun, it was over.

"It's okay, ladies," said MacAllister, blowing on his cutter as if it were an old-style six-gun. "The shooting's over."

That night they could see Morgan's disk quite clearly. It resembled a tiny half-moon.

They assembled the raft in the morning. They lined up the logs and cut them to specification. Hutch, unsure of her engineering, required crosspieces to hold the craft together. They fashioned paddles and poles, and there was some talk about a sail, but Hutch dismissed it as time-consuming on the ground that they didn't know what they were doing.

It appeared that they were at a drinking hole. A few animals wandered close from time to time, looked curiously at the newcomers, kept their distance, dipped their snouts in the current when they could, and retreated into the forest.

The sun was overhead by the time the raft was ready. Relieved to be under way again, they climbed aboard and set off across the river.

The day was unseasonably warm. In fact, it was almost warm enough to turn off the suits. MacAllister sat down in front, made himself comfortable, and prepared to enjoy the ride.

They'd scouted out a landing spot earlier. It had a beach and no rocks that they could see and was a half kilometer downstream.

Chiang and Hutch used the poles, Kellie and Nightingale paddled, and MacAllister allowed as how he would direct. They moved easily out into the current.

Nightingale watched the banks pass by. He turned at last to Hutch. "It was criminal of them," he said, "simply to abandon this world."

"The Academy claimed limited resources," she said.

"That was the official story. The reality is that there was a third-floor power struggle going on. The operations decision became part of a tug-of-war. The wrong side won, so we never came back." He gazed up at the treetops. "It never had anything to do with me, but I took the blame."

MacAllister shielded his eyes from the sun. "Dreary wilderness," he said.

"You didn't know that, did you, MacAllister?" said Nightingale.

"Didn't know what?"

"That there were internal politics involved in the decision. That I was a scapegoat."

MacAllister heaved a long sigh. "Randall," he said, "there are always internal politics. I don't think anyone ever really thought you prevented further exploration. You simply made it easy for those who had other priorities." He looked downriver. "Pity we can't get all the way to the lander on this."

Kellie was watching something behind them. Nightingale turned to look and saw a flock of birds hovering slowly in their rear, keeping pace. Not birds, he corrected himself. More like bats.

They were formed up in a V, pointed in their direction.

And they weren't bats, either. He'd been misled by the size, but they actually looked more like big dragonflies.

Dragonflies? The bodies were segmented, and as long as his forearm. They had the wingspread of pelicans. But what especially alarmed him was that they were equipped with proboscises that looked like daggers.

"Heads up," he said.

All eyes turned to the rear.

MacAllister was getting to his feet, getting his cutter out. "Good," he said. "Welcome to Deepsix, where the gnats knock you down first and then bite."

"They do seem to be interested in us," Hutch said.

There might be another problem: They were well toward the middle of the river, and the current was carrying them faster than anyone had anticipated. It was obvious they were going to miss their selected landing place.

The river had become too deep for the poles. Chiang and MacAllister took over the paddles and worked furiously, but they made little headway and could only watch helplessly as they floated past their beach.

The dragonflies stayed with them.

They were operating in sync, riding the wind, their wings only occasionally giving vent to a flurry of movement. "You think they could be meat-eaters?" Hutch asked Nightingale.

"Sure," he said. "But it's more likely they're bloodsuckers."

"Ugly critters," said MacAllister.

Hutch agreed. "If they get within range, we're going to take some of them out."

"Maybe it's not such a bad thing," said Chiang, "that this world is going down the tube."

MacAllister laughed. It was a booming sound, and it echoed off the river. "That's not a very scientific attitude," he said. "But I'm with you, lad."

"Oh, shut up, Mac," said Nightingale. "It's the efficiency of these creatures that makes them interesting. This is the only really old world we know of, the only one that can show us the results of six billion years of evolution. I'd kill to have some serious time here."

"Or be killed." MacAllister shook his head, and his eyes gleamed with good humor. "Your basic mad scientist," he added.

Chiang drew his paddle out of the water and laid it on the deck. "They're getting ready."

Nightingale saw it, too. They'd been flying in that loose V, spread out across maybe forty meters. Now they closed up, almost wingtip to wingtip.

MacAllister watched Nightingale draw his cutter. "I'm not sure," he said, "that's the best weapon at the moment." He put his own back into his pocket and hefted the paddle. "Yeah." He tried a practice swing. "This should do fine."

The dragonflies advanced steadily, approaching to within a few meters. Then they did a remarkable thing: They divided into three separate squadrons, like miniature fighter planes. One stayed aft, the others broke left and right and moved toward the beams.

Hutch held up her hand. Wait

They began to close.

The boat was completely adrift now, headed downriver.

"Wait."

The ones in the rear moved within range. Kellie and Chiang were in back, facing them.

"Not yet," said Hutch. "If they come at us, be careful where you fire. We don't want to take any of our own people out."

Hutch was on the port side, MacAllister to starboard. Nightingale dropped to one knee beside Hutch.

The flanking squadrons moved within range.

"On three," she said. "One…"

"You know," said Nightingale, "this isn't necessarily aggressive behavior."

"Two…"

"As long as they don't actually attack, there's no way to know. They seem to be intelligent. They might be trying to make contact."

MacAllister shifted his position to face the threat. "Say hello, Randy," he said.

Three,"she said. "Hit 'em."

The ruby beams licked out.

Several of the creatures immediately spasmed and spiraled into the water, wings smoking. One landed in what appeared to be a pair of waiting jaws and was snatched beneath the surface.

The others swept in to attack. The air was filled with the beat of wings and a cacophony of clicks and squeals. One of the creatures buried its proboscis in the meaty part of Hutch's arm. MacAllister threw himself at it, knocked her down and almost into the water, but he grabbed the thing, pulled it out, and rammed it against the side of the boat. Laser beams cut the creatures out of the air. Nightingale took a position at MacAllister's back and killed two of them in a single swipe.

Mac meantime stood over the fallen Hutchins like a Praetorian, swinging his paddle, and bashing the brains out of any and all attackers. Amid all the blood, shouts, screams, and fury, and the electric hiss of the weapons, Nightingale grudgingly realized that the big dummy was emerging as the hero of the hour.

And quite suddenly it was over. The dragonflies drew off. Nightin-gale could count only five survivors. They lined up again, and for a moment he thought there would be a second assault. But they lifted away on the wind, wings barely moving, and turned inshore.

He looked around, assured himself that no one had been seri-ously injured, and listened to Hutch reassure Marcel. She was sitting on the deck of the raft, holding her injured shoulder.

"Hurts," she said.

Marcel listened to it all and never said a word. When it was over he took a seat near one of the wallscreens where he could look down on Maleiva III's surface.

He had never felt so utterly helpless.

XVI

If there is one characteristic that marks all sentient creatures, it is their conviction of their own individual significance. One sees this in their insistence on leaving whatever marks they can of their passing. Thus the only race of starfaring extraterrestrials we know about distributes monuments dedicated to themselves in all sorts of unlikely places. The Noks, with their late-nineteenth-century technology, put their likeness in every park they have. Earth has its pyramids. And we pay schools and churches to name wings, awards and parking areas after us. Every nitwit who gets promoted to supervisor thinks the rest of creation will eventually happen by and want breathlesssfy to know everything about him that can possibly be gathered.

— Gregory MacAllister, "The Moron in the Saddle," Editor at Large

Hours to breakup: 180

There was no single space on board Wendy that was large enough to accommodate everyone. So Beekman compromised by inviting a half dozen of his senior people to the project director's meeting room. Once they were assembled a technician put them on-line to the rest of the ship.

Beekman started by thanking them for coming. "Ladies and gentlemen," he continued. "You're all aware of the situation on the surface. If we're fortunate, there'll be no need for an alternative course of action. But if we don't have one, and we need it, five people will die.

"We were invited to make this flight because somebody thinks we're creative. This is an opportunity to demonstrate the validity of that proposition. I've been telling the captain all along that, if the plan to retrieve and install the capacitors doesn't work, there is no alternative to saving the lives of our people I'd like you to prove me wrong.

"I don't need to tell you that we're running out of time. And I also don't need to tell you that I personally see no way to do it. That's why we need you. Stretch what's possible. Devise a course of action. Find a solution.

"I won't waste any more of your time here. But I'll be standing by. Let me know when you have something."

They beached the raft, limped ashore, and collapsed. Kellie got the medkit out and Nightingale set to work repairing the wounded. No toxin or biological agent could penetrate the field, so the only problem was loss of blood.

Despite the optimistic report that had gone up to Wendy, Nightingale alone had come away uninjured.

Fortunately, the wounds were superficial, but Kellie and MacAllis-ter had both lost too much blood to continue.

The attackers had gotten Kellie twice in the right leg. Hutch in the shoulder, MacAllister in the neck. That one looked painful, but Mac just grimaced and did the kind of thing he usually did, commenting on the ancestry of the dragonflies. Chiang had taken bite wounds to the stomach and an arm.

They felt entitled to a rest and, once safely away from the river, they took it. Everyone fretted about losing time, but there was simply no help for it. Nightingale felt emotionally exhausted and would have liked to sleep, but as the only member of the group who hadn't been injured, he was assigned the watch.

They rested for four hours. Then Hutch roused them and got them on the road again.

The forest was filled with insects and blossoms and barbed bushes and creeper vines. Insects buzzed flowers, transferring pollen in the time-honored manner they'd found in every other biosphere. It was evidence once again that nature always took the simplest way. The external appearance of many of the creatures was different, but only in detail. Animals that resembled monkeys and wolves put in brief appearances. They were remarkably similar to kindred creatures elsewhere. The monkeys had long ears and hairless faces and looked very much like tiny humans. The wolves were bigger than their distant cousins, and were equipped with tusks. There was even an equine creature that came very close to qualifying as a unicorn.

The differences weren't limited to appearance. They watched a group of wolves give wide berth to a long-necked pseudo-giraffe which was munching contentedly on a tree limb and paying them no attention. Was the animal's meat toxic? Did the creature possess a long-range sting? Or perhaps skunk scent? They didn't know and there was neither time nor (except for Nightingale) inclination to linger long enough to find out.

Two more potential threats emerged. One was a python-sized serpent with green-and-gray coloring. It watched them with its black marble eyes. But it was not hungry, or it sensed that the oversized monkeys would not prove an easy quarry.

The other was a duplicate of the feline they'd seen from the tower. This one walked casually out of the shrubbery and strolled up to them as if they were old friends. It must have expected them to run. When they didn't, it hesitated momentarily, then showed them a jaw full of incisors. That was enough, and they cut it down with little trouble or regret.

Plants everywhere react to light, and a patient observer can watch them turning their petals toward the sun in its journey across the sky. There were occasional shadings here, structures, odd organs, that led Nightingale to suspect that this forest had eyes. That it was possibly aware, in some vegetative manner, of their passage. And that it followed them with a kind of divine equanimity.

In another few centuries, give or take, Maleiva and its attendant worlds would be out of the cloud and conditions would return to normal. Or they would if the land was still going to be here. The woods felt timeless.

He wondered if the forest, in some indefinable way, knew what was coming.

And whether, if it did, it cared?

"Hey, Hutch." Chiang's voice. "Look at this."

Chiang and Kellie had gone out to gather firewood. Hutch was seated on a log, rotating her shoulder. She got up and disappeared into the woods. MacAllister, who was security, stayed nearby, but his eyes strayed toward Nightingale, and there was a weariness in them, suggesting he had little patience left for anyone's enthusiasm. They could find a brontosaurus out there, and he wasn't going to care. The only thing that mattered to him was getting home. Everything else was irrelevant.

"It's a wall," said Kellie. Nightingale could see their lights moving out in the darkness.

MacAllister looked at the time, as if it had any relation to the current progress of days and nights. It was almost twelve o'clock back in orbit, but whether noon or midnight, Nightingale had no idea. Nor probably had MacAllister.

Nightingale was desperately weary. He sat with his eyes closed, letting the voices wash over him. A wall just did not seem all that significant.

There was nothing more for several minutes, although he could hear them moving around. Finally, unable to restrain his curiosity, he asked what they'd found.

"Just a wall," said Chiang. "Shoulder-high."

"A building?"

"A wall."

There was a brief commotion in the trees. Animals fighting over something.

"Lot of heavy growth around it," said Kellie. "It's been here a long time."

Nightingale thought about getting to his feet. "Is it stone?"

"More like bricks."

"Anybody see the end of it?"

"Over here. It turns a corner."

"There's a gate. With an arch."

For several minutes they clumped around in the underbrush with no sound other than an occasional grunt. Then Chiang spoke again, excited: "I think there's a building back there."

They had not seen any kind of structure since leaving the tower. Nightingale gave up and reached for his staff. MacAllister saw that he was having difficulty and started over to help. "It's okay, Gregory," he said. "I can manage."

MacAllister stopped midway. "My friends call me Mac."

"I didn't know you had any friends." He collected a lamp and turned it on.

Mac looked at him with a half smile, but there was no sign of anger.

"What kind of arch?" Nightingale asked Kellie.

"Curved. Over a pair of iron gates. Small ones. Pretty much rusted away. But there are some symbols carved into it. Into the arch."

Nightingale, leaning on his staff, started for the woods. "Do they look like the ones back at the tower?"

"Could be," said Hutch. "Hard to tell."

Metal squealed. Somebody had opened the gate. "Why don't we see what's inside?" said Chiang.

It hurt to walk. MacAllister sighed loudly. "You ought to just take it easy. They find anything important, they'll let us know."

"They already found something important, Gregory. Maybe this thing was a country estate of some sort. Who knows what's inside?"

"Why do you care? It's not your field."

"I'd like very much to know who the original inhabitants were. Wouldn't you?"

"You want an honest answer?"

"I can guess."

"I'm sure you can. I know who the original inhabitants were. They were very likely little hawk-faced guys with blowguns. They murdered one another in wars, and, judging from that tower back there, they were right out of our Middle Ages. Hutch would like to know what gods they worshiped and what their alphabet looked like. I say, who gives a damn? They were just another pack of savages."

Nightingale arrived at the wall, and it was indeed brickwork. It was low, plain, worn, buried in shrubbery and vines. He wondered what kind of hands had constructed it.

He advanced until he'd reached the gates. They were made of iron, originally painted black, he thought, although now they were heavily corroded and it was hard to be sure. Nevertheless, one of them still moved on its hinges.

They were designed for ornamentation rather than security. Individual bars were molded in the shape of leaves and branches. The artwork seemed mundane, something Nightingale's grandmother might have appreciated. Still, it was decorative, and he supposed that told them something more about the inhabitants.

He heard MacAllister coming up behind him. He sounded like an elephant in deep grass. The light from his lamp fell across the arch.

It was curved brickwork. The symbols that Kellie had mentioned were engraved on a flat piece of stone mounted on the front. Nightingale thought it was probably the name of the estate. "Abandon hope," he said.

"Keep out," offered MacAllister.

The ground was completely overgrown. If there'd ever been a trail or pathway, nothing was left of it now.

They passed through the gate and saw the others inspecting a small intact building, not much larger, Nightingale thought, than a children's playhouse. It was wheel-shaped, constructed entirely of gray stone, with a roof that angled down from a raised center.

He could see a doorway and a window. Both were thick with vegetation.

Chiang cut his way through to the entrance. He cleared away some of the shrubbery, and they filed in, under the usual low ceiling. First the women, then Chiang, and then Nightingale.

The interior consisted of a single chamber and an alcove. In both, vegetative emblems, flowers and branches and blossoms, were carved into baked clay panels that covered the walls. A stone table dominated the far end of the chamber.

The place smelled of decay. MacAllister finally squeezed through the door and squatted so he wouldn't have to stand bent over. "It doesn't look all that old," he said. He put one hand on the floor to steady himself.

Chiang stood by the table. "What do you think?" he asked, pressing his fingers against it. "Is it an altar?"

The other races of whom humans had knowledge had all established religions early in their history. Nightingale recalled reading Barashko's classic treatise, Aspects of Intelligence, in which he'd argued that certain types of iconography were wired into all of the known in-telligent species. Sun-symbols and stars, for example, inevitably showed up, as did wings and blood-symbols. There was often a martyred god. and almost everyone seemed to have developed the altar. "Yes," Hutch said. "I don't think there's any question that's what it is." It was rough-hewn, a pair of solid blocks fastened together with bolts. Hutch played her lamp on it, wiped down the surface, and studied it.

"What are you looking for?" asked Nightingale.

"Stains. Altars imply sacrifices."

"Oh."

"Like here."

Everyone moved forward to look. Nightingale walked into a hole, but Kellie caught him before he fell. There were stains. "Could be water," he said.

Hutch scraped off a sample, bagged it, and put it in her vest.

MacAllister shifted his weight uncomfortably and looked around. He was bored.

"It's on a dais," said Kellie. Three very small steps led up to the altar.

MacAllister stood, more or less, and walked closer. "The chapel in the woods," he said. "What do you suppose became of the god-in-residence?"

Hutch flashed her light into a corner. "Over here." She got down on a knee, scooped at the debris and dirt, and lifted a fragment of blue stone. "Looks like part of a statue."

"Here's more," said Chiang.

A score of pieces were scattered about. They set them on the altar and took pictures from a variety of angles, which would allow Bill to put them together.

"The fragments are from several distinct figures," the AI reported back a few minutes later. "We have one that's approximately complete."

"Okay," said Hutch. "Can we take a look?"

Marcel sent the image through Kellie s link and it blinked on.

Nightingale had seen right away that the statuary had not depicted the hawk-image they'd seen back at the tower. In fact the figure that appeared could hardly have been more different: it had no feathers. It did have stalked eyes. A long throat. Long narrow hands ending in claws. Four digits. Eggshell skull. Ridged forehead. No ears or nostrils. Lipless mouth. Green skin texture, if the coloring had not faded. And a blue robe.

It looked somewhat like a cricket.

"What happened to the hawks?" asked Nightingale.

"One or the other is probably mythical," said Hutch.

"Which? Which is mythical and which represents the locals?"

She frowned at the image. "I'd say the hawk is mythical."

"Why?" asked Chiang.

"Because," said MacAllister, "the hawk has some grandeur. You wouldn't catch hawks imagining heroes or gods who looked like crickets"

Nightingale exhaled audibly. "Isn't that a cultural prejudice?"

"Doesn't make it any less valid. Prejudices aren't always invalid, Randy."

The robe was cinctured down the middle, open at the breast. Its owner wore sandals, and it carried a rod whose top was broken off. A staff. The right arm was also broken, at the elbow. Had it been there, Nightingale was certain, it would have been lifted toward the sky. In prayer. In an effort to invoke divine aid. In a signal to carry on.

Among the missing pieces were an antenna, a leg, a chunk of what could only have been a thorax. But the head was intact. And it struck Nightingale that, despite MacAllister's comment, the creature did possess a certain dignity.

"What do you think?" asked Hutch.

The question was directed at him, but MacAllister answered it. "It's not bad workmanship," he said.

There was much in the image that spoke to Nightingale. The creature had endured loss and was making its appeal, or perhaps was simply resigning itself. To what? he wondered. To the common death, which is the starting point for all religions? To the everlasting cold, which had become part of the natural order?

"They would have been worth knowing," said Hutch.

Nightingale agreed.

He was the last to leave.

They'd put a couple of the pieces into artifact bags, taken a final look around, and filed out. Hutch paused at the doorway and turned back toward him. "Coming?" she asked.

"They've probably been dead a few centuries," he said.

She gazed at him and seemed worried. He suspected he looked pale and gray. "There may be a few survivors left. Out in the hills somewhere."

Nightingale nodded. "But their civilization's gone. Everything of consequence that they ever did is lost. Every piece of knowledge. Every act of generosity or courage. Every philosophical debate. It's as if none of it ever happened."

"Does it matter?" she asked.

He had no answer. He walked slowly out of the chapel and paused in the doorway. "I guess not. But I'd prefer to think it's only a pile of rock and water that's going to get swallowed next week by Jerry. And not a history."

Hutch nodded. "I know."

He looked at the artifact bag. "The god. Who's here to rescue the god?"

She gazed at him and he saw a sad, pensive smile. "We are," she said. "We're taking him home with us."

"Where he'll have no believers."

"Careful, Randy. Keep talking like that and people will think you're an archeologist."

A few minutes later, as they walked under the arch, a temblor hit. They stopped and waited for it to pass.

Beekman appeared on-screen wearing a triumphant smile. "We were right, Marcel," he said. "It's there."

Marcel, wrapped in his own dark thoughts, had been staring down at the planetary surface. "What's where, Gunther?"

"The skyhook base."

"You found it!"

"Yes. It was right where we thought."

"On the west coast."

"Mt. Blue. There's a large structure on top. Six-sided. About two hundred meters across. It's enormous."

"How high is it?"

"It's about six, seven stories. Looks as if it was broken off at the top."

"And the rest of it?"

"In the ocean. It's all over the sea bottom. Hundreds of square kilometers of wreckage." He brought up pictures.

Marcel looked at the outline of the mountaintop structure, and then at vast agglomerations of underwater debris. Some pieces even jutted above the surface.

"It's been a while since it happened," said Beekman. "The fragments that stick up out of the water look like rocky islands." That had in fact been the assessment during Wendy's original hasty survey. "We really don't have the right people or the equipment to do an analysis, but we think that if we reassembled the pieces on the bottom, we'd have a piece of the skyhook approximately a hundred kilometers high."

"I wonder where the station itself is?" said Marcel.

Beekman shrugged. "Who knows? We don't even know how long ago it broke up. But once we get through this, it would be worth the Academy's time to send another mission out here to look for it."

Marcel studied the images. "I don't understand," he said, "how these people could build a skyhook, but not leave anything in the way of a skyscraper. Or any other kind of technological artifact. Is everything buried under the glaciers?"

"Nobody has any idea," said Beekman. "And we have neither time nor equipment to conduct a survey. I suggest we just gather as much evidence as we can. And keep an open mind."

"What you're telling me is that we may never get the answers to any of this."

Beekman could not have agreed more completely. "That's exactly right," he said.

Marcel sighed. "There should be something. Structures of some sort. I mean, you can't just have a lot of walled candlelit cities, and at the same time run equipment into orbit." He flipped a pen across his console. "They did check for that, right? The tower had no electrical capability? No real power source?"

He meant Hutch and her team. "She was asked to look for technology," said Beekman. "But I think they assumed there was none. I think we all assumed it."

"Well, there you go then. Maybe we were just not looking closely enough."

"I don't think that could be. I mean, this was a blowgun culture."

"Has it occurred to you," Marcel said, "that maybe the tower was a museum? Maybe our artifacts were somebody else's artifacts first."

"That would require a fairly unlikely coincidence."

"Gunther, when will we get back a reading on the skyhook's dates?"

"Shouldn't take long. We scanned the samples and sent the results. The Academy will have them by now. We asked for a quick turnaround, so we should get them in a few days." He crossed his arms. "It's really sad. I know damned well there are people back at the Academy who'd do anything to get a look at the base of the skyhook."

Marcel said nothing.

"Maybe if the lander works okay," Beekman suggested, "we could ask Hutch to take a peek. Before they come back to orbit."

"Not a chance," said Marcel. "If the lander works, we're bringing them home. No side stops."

Captain Nicholson had carefully assigned full responsibility for the lander accident to Wetheral who, he'd reported, had taken the vehicile without permission. Probably, he suggested, the passengers had offered him a substantial sum for the service. He added that they were not likely to be aware that the flight was unauthorized. Because one of the passengers was the renowned editor and essayist Gregory MacAllister, he advised Corporate to find a way to overlook the incident. If he survives, Nicholson had argued, MacAllister would be a dangerous adversary should TransGalactic assume he was in some way responsible and try to take legal action against him. If he does not, there would be little advantage to pursuing him beyond the grave. Undoubtedly Corporate could collect damages from his estate, but the cost in public relations would be enormous. Best call it an unfortunate incident.

He'd been eating a listless breakfast, trying to maintain a conversation with the frivolous guests at his table, receiving periodk updates from Clairveau. The landing party had been attacked by giant flying bugs, and they'd discovered a chapel of some sort in the forest. The important thing was that they were still on schedule to reach less. At this point, that was all that mattered.

The experience had driven a lesson home: He would never again allow himself to be talked into violating procedure. Not ever. Not for any reason. Periodically one or another of his guests jerked him back to the table With a question about the gift shop on the Starlight Deck or the collision parties planned for Saturday night. He moved his eggs around on his plate and answered as best he could.

One bad decision, allowing MacAllister to have his way, threatened to negate the solid performance of a lifetime. And it had not been his idea at all. He had in fact been pressured. Placed in a no-win situation by a pushy passenger with power and a management that wouldn't have backed him had MacAllister become offended.

It was an outrage.

His link vibrated against his wrist. He raised it casually to his ear. "Captain," said his officer of the deck. "Eyes only for you. From Corporate."

This would be management's first response to the debacle.

"Be there in a minute," he whispered. Please, Lord, let me survive this one time. He drew the cloth napkin to his lips and rose, apologizing for the interruption but explaining he had to make a command decision. He smiled charmingly at the ladies, shook hands firmly with their escorts, and heard himself referred to as a good man as he hurried away.

He went directly to the bridge, heart pounding. The OOD, who could not have missed the gravity of the situation, greeted him with a polite nod. Nicholson returned the gesture, sat down in his chair, and directed the AI to put the message through.

FROM: DIRECTOR, OPERATIONS TO: CAPTAIN, EVENING STAR DTG 11/281625 CONFIDENTIAL // EYES ONLY

ERIK,

YOU UNDERSTAND MAJOR LIABILITY POTENTIAL HERE.

DO WHATEVER YOU CAN TO EFFECT MACALLISTER'S RESCUE. KEEP ADVISED.

YOU MIGHT WANT TO CONTACT PRESCOTT.

BAKER

Contact Prescott.

Prescott was a law firm that specialized in defending off-world nonjurisdictional cases. They were telling him he could expect to be held accountable. That signaled the end of his career, at the very feast. If they elected to prosecute, God knew what might happen to him.

He sat miserably staring at the message. And he envied MacAllister.

XVII

Watching Harcourt die taught me a theological lesson: Life is short; never fail to do something you really want to do simply because you're afraid of being caught.

— Gregory MacAllister, "The Last Hours of Abbey Harcourt," Show Me the Money

Hours to breakup (est): 153

The news that the mission had found the skyhook base didn't cheer anybody on the ground. They were far too engaged worrying about their skins.

"Pity it's not up and working," said Chiang. "We could use a skyhook."

"Actually," said Hutch, "it is nearby."

"Really? Where?"

"On the western side of the continent. It's on a mountaintop on the coast."

"I wouldn't mind seeing it before we go," said Nightingale.

MacAllister shook his head. Do these people never learn? "I think," he said, "we should not tempt fate. Let's concentrate on getting our rear ends out of here."

"There might be a way." The grayness that had settled about Beek-man had lifted slightly. Only slightly, but Marcel caught a glimpse of hope.

Marcel had been convinced by the intensity of Beekman's consistent position that no alternate method of rescue was possible. The captain had been standing on the bridge for two hours staring out at the spectacle of the approaching giant, thinking how it had all been bravado, challenge the best minds they had, come up with something, when it was quite dear there was nothing anybody could come up with.

Now he was confronted by this same man, gone partly mad, perhaps. Marcel did not believe him. "How?" he asked.

"Actually, it was your idea."

"My idea."

"Yes. I repeated our conversation to several of them. John thinks you might be on to something."

"John Drummond?"

"Yes."

"What am I on to?"

"Lowering a rope. Cutting off a piece of the assembly. We've been looking at the possibility of constructing a scoop."

"Could we actually do something like that? You said it was impossible."

"Well, we can't get it down to the ground. They're going to have to make some altitude. But if they can do that, if they can get Tess into the air, get up a bit, then yes, it might be possible." He sat down and pushed his palms together. "I'm not saying it'll be easy. I'm not even saying it'll be anything but a long shot. But yes, if we set things up, and we get lucky, it might be made to work."

"How? What do we have to do?"

Beekman explained the idea they'd worked out. He drew diagrams and answered questions. He brought up computer images and ran schematics across the displays. "The critical thing," he concluded, "is time. We may not have enough time for all this."

"Then let's get started. What do you want me to do?"

"First, we need a lot of help. We need people who can go outside and work."

"I can do that. So can Mira."

"I'm not talking two people. I'm talking whole squadrons."

"Okay. So we ask for volunteers. Do a little basic training."

"This is stuff that's going to take people with some coordination. Our folks are all theorists. They'd kill themselves out there."

"So what kind of coordinated types do we need?"

"To start with, welders."

"Welders."

"Right. And I have to tell you, I have no idea where we'd be able to get them."

"Welding? How hard can it be?"

"I don't know. I've never done it."

"It seems to me we only need one person who knows how to do it. I mean, he can teach the others."

"So where do we find the one person?"

"Nobody here?"

"I've already looked."

"All right. Then we go to the Star. There are fifteen hundred people over there. Somebody ought to know something about it." He was already scratching notes. Suddenly he looked up and frowned. "It won't work," he said.

"Why not?"

"You're talking about a lot of e-suits. We have four on board. Maybe a few more on the other ships."

"We already checked it out. Hutch was hauling a shipment of them. They're on board Wildside, generators, boots, everything we need."

"Okay." Marcel felt a fresh surge of hope. "What about the welds? Will they actually hold? We're putting a lot of weight on them."

Beekman nodded. "We're confident. That's the best I can tell you. We have four ships to work with, and that's a lot of lock-down space. The material is superlight. So yes, if you ask me will it hold, I'm sure it will, if we do a good job."

"All right. What else do we need?"

"We're still working on it."

"Okay," he said. "Put together a complete list. Get it to me as soon as you have it. And, Gunther-"

"Yes?"

"Assume we're going to have to use it."

Nicholson was loitering in the dining room with several of his passengers when his commlink vibrated. "Command call, sir,"said the AI's voice.

He excused himself and retreated to a private inner lounge. "Put it through, Lori."

Marcel Clairveau materialized. "Erik," he said, "I need your help." -

"Of course. What can I do for you?"

"You're aware that we have no assurances the people on the ground will ever be able to reach orbit."

"I understand the situation completely." To Nicholson, facing ruin and disgrace whatever he did, it was hard to get emotionally worked up. So he had to make an effort to show that he was dismayed.

"There might be another way to go. If we have to. It would be on the desperate side, but it would be prudent for us to be prepared." He paused, looking steadily into Nicholson's eyes. "We'll require your assistance."

"You know I'll do what I can."

"Good. We need some volunteers, especially anyone with experience working in space, any engineers, anybody who has helped with large-scale construction. And a welder. Or several welders. But we have to have at least one."

Nicholson shook his head, puzzled. "May I ask why, Captain?"

"Some of them, the ones who are willing, will be given a couple of days' training. Then, if we need to go ahead with the alternative plan, most of them will go outside."

"My God, Marcel." Nicholson's pulse began to pound. "Have you lost your mind?"

"We'll be very careful, Erik. We'll do it only as a last resort."

"I don't care how careful you plan to be. I'm not going to permit my passengers to be sent outside. You have any idea how Corporate would react if I allowed something like that?"

"Corporate might not be too upset if you succeeded in rescuing MacAllister."

"No, "he said. "It's out of the question."

Marcel's image gazed at him. "You understand there'll be an investigation when it's over. I'd have no choice but to file a complaint against you."

"File and be damned!" he said. "I won't let you risk my passengers."

When darkness fell Wendy reported that they'd covered another twenty-four kilometers. By far their best day yet. That was attributable largely to the fact that the ground had become easier, and both MacAllister and Nightingale seemed to be growing accustomed to the routine.

They stopped by a stream, caught some fish, and cooked them. MacAllister acted as taster this time. He swallowed a small piece and became almost immediately violently ill. They threw the rest back and used the last of the reddimeals.

MacAllister was still retching at midnight, when Jerry rose. (They'd all picked up his habit of referring to it by Morgan's first name. It seemed less threatening that way.) The disk was quite clear. It was in a half-moon phase.

The gas giant was well above the trees before his stomach settled down enough to let him sleep. By dawn he was back to his normal abrasive self. He refused Hutch's offer to give him a couple more hours to rest.

"No time," he said, directing their attention toward Morgan. "Clock's running."

They set off at a good pace. The assorted wounds from the battle on the river were healing. Nightingale had soaked his blisters in warm water and medications, so even he was feeling better.

The land was flat and the walking easy. During the late afternoon, they broke by the side of a stream, and Marcel told them they were within seventy-five kilometers of the lander.

Plenty of time. "What's the northern coast look like?" Hutch asked.

"It's holding."

"Is that good or bad?"

"It's touch-and-go," he said. "We think you'll be all right."

Despite the good news, they pushed hard. Hutch shortened their breaks, and they literally ate on the march. Twice they were attacked, once by a group of things that looked like tumbleweeds, but which tried to sting and take down Hutch; and later, toward the end of the afternoon, by a flock of redbirds.

Nightingale recognized the redbirds as the same creatures that had overwhelmed the original expedition. This time there were fewer of them, and they were beaten off with relative ease. Kellie and Chiang were gouged during the incidents, but neither injury was severe.

Late that afternoon, they came across a field of magnificent purple blossoms. The flowers resembled giant orchids, supported by thick green stalks. They were within sixty-three kilometers of the lander, with four days remaining.

They hoped.

Nightingale looked exhausted, so Hutch decided to quit for an hour. They were, she thought in good shape.

They'd sampled several different types of fruit by then and had found a couple they enjoyed. Mostly they were berries of a fairly

tough nature, inured to the climate, but edible (and almost tasty) all the same. They located some, passed them around, and were glad to get off their feet.

Hutch wasn't hungry, and ate only enough to satisfy her conscience. Then she got up.

"Where you going?" asked Chiang.

"Washroom," she said. "I'll be back in a minute."

"Wait." Kellie jumped up. "I'll ride shotgun."

Hutch waved her away. The orchid patch was isolated, and beyond it they could see for a long distance. Nothing could approach unnoticed. "It's okay. I'll yell if I need help." She walked into the shrubbery.

After she'd finished, lured by the exquisite beauty of the giant blossoms, she took a few minutes in seclusion to enjoy the sense of well-being attendant on the forest. The day had grown uncharacteristically warm, and she liked the scent of the woods, mint and musk and pine and maybe orange. Consequently she left the e-suit off.

She approached one of the blossoms and stood before it. She stroked the petal, which was erotically soft.

Hutch regretted that these magnificent flowers were about to go extinct, and wondered whether it might be possible to rescue some pollen, take it back, and reproduce them at home. She walked from one to the next, gazing at each. At the fragile gold stamen and the long green shaft of the pistil, surging up from the receptacle. She stopped in front of one. The woods grew utterly still. She glanced around to be sure no one was watching, wondered why she cared, and stroked the pistil with her fingertips. Caressed it and felt it throb gently under her touch.

"You okay, Hutch?"

She jumped, thinking that Kellie had come up behind her, but the voice was on the link.

"I'm fine," she said. "Be back in a minute."

A tide of inexpressible well-being rose through her. She took the pistil in her hands, drew it against her cheek, and luxuriated in its warmth.

The flower moved.

The soft sheaths of the petals brushed her face. She inhaled the sweet green scent, and the burden of the last few days dropped away.

She rubbed her shoulders and cheek against the blossom. Closed her eyes. Wished that she could stop time. Felt a tide of ecstasy sweep through her. She came thoroughly alive, rode some sort of wave, understood she was living through a moment she would remember forever.

She rocked slowly in the flower's embrace. Fondled the pistil. Felt the last of her inhibitions melt.

The blossom moved with her. Entwined her. Caressed her.

She got out of her blouse.

The outside world faded.

And she gave herself to it.

She was drowning when the voices pulled her back. But they were on the link and far away. Of no concern. She let them go.

Everything seemed far away. She drank the sensations of the moment, and laughed because there was something perverted about all this, but she couldn't quite pin it down and didn't really care. She just hoped nobody walked out of the woods and saw what she was doing.

And then she didn't care about that either.

She wasn't sure precisely when the light grew harsh, when the erotics switched off and the sheer joy vanished and she was simply looking out of a cave, as if she were buried somewhere back in her brain, unable to feel, unable to control her body. She thought she was in danger, but she couldn't rouse herself to care. Then something was tugging at her, and the voices became urgent. There was a great deal of pulling and shoving. The petals gave way to the hard earth, and she was on the ground. They were all kneeling around her and Kellie was applying ointment, telling her to keep still, assuring her she'd be okay. "Trying to punch out a tree?" asked MacAllister, using the coital expression of the moment. "I don't think I've ever seen that before."

The blossom lay blackened and torn. Its fragile petals were scattered, and the pistil was broken. She was sorry for that.

"Come on, Hutch, talk to me."

The other flowers swayed in sync. Or was it a breeze causing the effect?

Her neck, arms, and face burned. "That's quite a ride," she said. And giggled.

Kellie looked at her disapprovingly. "At your age, you should know better."

"It must put out an allergen," said Nightingale. "Apparently pretty strong stuff."

"I guess." Hutch still felt detached. As if she were curled up inside her brain. And she was resentful.

"I think you're a little too big for it," Nightingale explained. "But it was doing its damnedest when we got here."

"Why do I hurt?" she asked.

"It tried to digest you, Hutch."

Kellie was finished with the medication, so they activated her suit. That had the effect of getting her a supply of air with the peculiarities added by the environment filtered out. The sense that everything was funny and that they should have let her alone began to fade. She held out her arms and looked at dark patches of skin.

"Enzymes were already working when we took you out," said Kellie.

"Psychotic flower," she said.

Chiang laughed. "And oversexed Earth babes."

Her clothing was in tatters, and Nightingale produced one of the Star jumpsuits they'd recovered from the lander. "It looks big, but it's the smallest we have."

She was shivering now. And embarrassed. My God, what had she been doing when they found her? "I can't believe that happened," she said.

"Do you remember your first rule?" asked Nightingale.

"Yeah." Nobody goes off alone.

She couldn't walk. "Some pretty good burns there," said Kellie. "We'd better stop here for the night. See how you are tomorrow."

She didn't object when they carried her back. They laid her down and built a fire. She closed her eyes and recalled an incident when she'd been about thirteen, the first time she'd allowed a boy to get inside her blouse. It had been in a utility shed out back of the house, and her mother had walked in on them. The boy had tried to brazen it out, to pretend nothing had happened, but Hutch had been humiliated, had gone to her room and thought the world was about to end, even though she'd extracted a promise that her father would not be told. This in return for a guarantee that it would not happen again. It hadn't. At least not during that summer.

She felt a similar level of humiliation. Lying with her eyes closed, hearing no conversation because everyone was off-channel so as not to disturb her, she listened to the fire and to the occasional sound of footsteps, and wished she could disappear somewhere. Her reputation was demolished. And with MacAllister here, of all people. He'd eventually write an account of all this, and Hutch and the blossom could expect to show up on Universal News.

Was there anybody else, she wondered, in the whole history of the species, who had tried to make it with a plant?

It was dark when she woke. The fire had died down, and she could see Kellie seated on a log nearby. The flickering light threw moving shadows across her features.

The giant blossom had shown up in her dreams, part terrifying, part exhilarating. For a while she lay quietly, thinking about it, hoping to assign the entire experience to fantasy. But it had happened.

She decided that she would sue the Academy when she got home.

"You awake?" Kellie asked.

"Reluctantly."

She smiled and kept her voice low. "Don't worry about it." And, after a moment: "Was it really that good?"

"How do you mean?"

"You looked as if you were having a great time."

"Yeah. I guess I was." She pulled herself up. "How late is it?" Morgan was directly overhead, getting bigger all the time. Half the giant world was in shadow.

"You're changing the subject."

"What can I tell you, Kellie? I just lost control of everything."

Kellie stirred the fire. Sparks rose into the night. "A big pitcher plant. It's a strange place."

"Yeah, it is."

"It could have happened to either of us. But everyone understands." She looked at Hutch's right arm. "You should be all right in the morning." Apparently during the encounter Hutch had succeeded in getting altogether out of her clothes. She had burns on both legs, her right arm, her pelvic area, waist, breasts, throat, and face. "You were a mess when we brought you back here," Kellie added with a smile.

Hutch wanted to change the subject. "We lost a little time today."

"Not really. We did all right. Randy was done for the day anyhow."

Hutch stared off into the darkness. She could see the outlines of the giant blossoms against the sky. "Randy thinks they have eyes," Kellie said.

She shuddered. Hutch had been assigning the experience to a simple programmed force of nature. But eyes. That made it personal.

"Maybe not exactly eyes," she continued, "but light receptors that are pretty sophisticated. He says he thinks the local plant life is far beyond anything we've seen elsewhere."

Hutch didn't like being so close to them. She felt violated.

"He thinks they may even have a kind of nervous system. He's looked at a couple of the smaller ones. They don't like being uprooted or dissected."

"How do you mean, they don't like it?"

"The parts move."

"They sure do," she said.

The Edward J. Zwick arrived in the Maleiva area without fanfare. Canyon looked at Morgan's World through the scopes, and at Deep-six, and felt sorry for the people trapped on the ground.

Zwick was named for a journalist who'd been killed while covering one of the numerous border wars in South America at the end of the century. Its captain was a thirty-eight-year-old former Peacekeeper named Miles Chastain. Miles was tall, lean, quiet. Something in his manner made Canyon uncomfortable. The man always seemed so serious.

He was, Canyon thought, the sort of person to have on your side if war broke out, but not someone you'd routinely invite for dinner. He had never been able to get close to the captain on the long voyage from Earth.

Emma had complained that Wilfrid, the AI, was better company. Certainly he was friendlier. Her attitude suggested the absurdity of his earlier suspicion that an affair of the heart was being conducted in the midnight corridors of the Zwick.

The captain spent most of his time in the cockpit or in his private quarters. He never initiated conversation unless business called for it. And once they arrived in orbit around Deepsix, there was really little for him to do except await the collision.

His commlink vibrated. It was Emma. "August," she said, "I just overheard an odd conversation between Kellie Collier and Clairveau."

"Really? What about?"

"Clairveau was wondering why they were late getting started.

Kellie Collier told him that Hutchins was resting. That she'd been attacked by a plant."

"By a plant?"

"That's what she said."

XVIII

Put men and women in the same room and everyone's IQ drops thirty-six points. Psychologists have recorded it, tests have shown it, studies leave no doubt. Passion doth make fools of us alt.

— Gregory MacAllister, "Love and Chocolate," Targets of Opportunity

Hours to breakup (est): 140

Lori's matronly image appeared on Nicholson's command screen. The AI was wearing a formal black suit with a white scarf. That was designed to impress him that the business she wished to transact was quite serious. Of course, he knew what it was.

7 think it's a mistake to refuse to help," she said.

"My first duty is the safety of my passengers, Lori."

"The regulations are a bit murky in this situation. In any case, one of your passengers is in extremis. In addition, you have instructions from Corporate to cooperate with any rescue effort."

"That transmission won't be worth a damn if somebody volunteers and gets killed."

"/ quite agree, Captain. But I have to point out that if the current situation does not change, and Mr. MacAllister loses his life, you will be in severe difficulty for having withheld assistance."

"I know."

The only course that might get you through undamaged is to help where you can and hope no one is injured. If that happens…"

Nicholson ran his fingers through his hair. He could not see which course was safer.

"It is not my decision, Captain," she said. "But it is my responsi-

bility to offer counsel. Do you wish me to contact Captain Clairveau?"

Marcel had instructed Beekman to continue working on the extraction plan. He intended to have another try at persuading Nichol-son to help. But he needed to give him time to think about the decision he'd made. Time to fret.

The auxiliary screen began to blink. CAPTAIN NICHOLSON WANTS TO SPEAK WITH YOU.

It was quicker than he'd expected.

"We also need somebody who can rig a remote pump."

"A remote pump?"

"Listen, Erik, I know how all this sounds. But I don't have time to go over everything at the moment. We started late and we've got a lot of ground to cover. Please just trust me for now."

"All right, Marcel. I'll make an announcement at dinner this evening."

"No. Not this evening. That'll be too late. Round up whatever volunteers you can get now. I'll want to talk to them, too. The ones who will help, and that we can use, will come over forthwith."

"My God, Marcel, that's pressing it a bit, isn't it? Are we talking this minute?"

"Yes, we are."

"At least tell me what you're planning to do?"

" We are going to make a skyhook, Erik."

"Bill."

"Yes, Marcel."

"Tomorrow morning we'll take all four ships out to the assembly. Coordinate with the other AIs."

Nicholson got on the Star's public address system, informed his passengers and crew that he knew everyone was aware of the difficulties that had been encountered extracting the landing party from Maleiva HI, but went on to describe them anyway. "We are still endeavoring," he said, "to mount a rescue." He gazed steadily into the lens, imagining himself as an old warrior rallying the troops to victory. "To provide insurance that we succeed," he continued, "we need your help.

"Let me now introduce Captain Clairveau of the Wendy jay, who'll explain what we hope to be able to do. I urge you to listen carefully, and if you feel you can assist, please volunteer.

"Captain Clairveau."

Marcel explained the general plan and made an emotional plea for passengers and crew to come forward, even those who possessed no special skills. "We're going to have to train people, and we have only a couple of days to get it done. Most of the volunteers may be asked to go outside. That will depend on what happens on the ground.

"I'd like to underscore the fact that while going outside entails a degree of risk, it is not innately dangerous. The suits are safe. But I wanted you to know that up front. And I'd like to thank you in advance for listening."

Within ten minutes after he signed off, Nicholson found himself awash with volunteers.

"There's one more thing, Erik."

My God. What else could the man want?

"We both know this operation is going to require extremely close coordination among the four vessels. There is simply no margin for error."

"I understand that. What do you need?"

Marcel looked down from the overhead screen. It struck Nicholson that the man was aging before his eyes. "During the operation, I'll want you to turn control of the Star over to us. We'll run everything from here."

"I can't do that, Marcel. Even if I wanted to, I couldn't. It's against the regs."

Marcel took a moment before responding. "If we don't do it this way, we can't possibly succeed."

Nicholson shook his head. "There's no way I can comply. That's too much. No matter how the operation turned out, they'd hang me."

Marcel stared at him a few moments. "Tell you what," he said. "How about if we come over there? And run the operation from the Star?"

An hour seldom passed that Embry didn't thank her good sense for passing on Hutch's offer to go on the mission. She had mourned Toni's death, and she wished she could do something for the others.

But if she'd learned anything from this experience, it was that you didn't undertake potentially lethal assignments on the fly. These things required adequate preparation and planning. The sober truth was that a few people at the Academy hadn't done their jobs, they'd tried to compensate by rushing Hutchins in, and now poor Hutch was stuck with paying the price.

During the first couple of days, before things went wrong, both she and Tom had simply been annoyed at the delay. She'd sent messages off to people at home, complaining about having to spend an extra month or so floating around in the middle of nowhere. She'd even told several of her friends that she was considering legal action against Hutchins and the Academy.

Tom had been more tolerant. He was apparently accustomed to Academy mismanagement and didn't seem to expect them to be organized. He was not at all surprised that the original survey had missed the presence of ruins on Deepsix. "A planet's a big place," he'd told her. If the civilization had been in an early stage of development when the ice age hit, as was apparently the case, there would have been few cities to find. It was no wonder, he argued, that they hadn't realized what they had. He'd have been impressed, he said, if they had detected it.

The turmoil on the ground was reflected in the apprehension onboard Wildside. Embry had experienced pangs of guilt when she realized the implication of the lost landers. She could not see how she was in any way responsible for any of this, and yet she was trying to take it on her own shoulders. Ridiculous.

She and Tom had from the beginning been sitting by the monitors listening to the conversations between the landing party and the command people on Wendy. When Clairveau had contacted them to let them know that a rescue vessel was on the way, she'd demanded to know how such a thing could be allowed to happen in the first place. He'd apologized, but explained that they simply could not provide for all contingencies. How could anyone have foreseen that both landers would be destroyed?

She might have replied that the second lander, the vehicle from the Evening Star, should not even have been there. It hadn't been part of what passed for Academy planning. There'd been only one lander really available, so the risk had been considerable right from the start.

Circumstances. It all came down to circumstances. After her conversation with the captain of the Wendy Jay, Tom had argued that it just wasn't always possible to eliminate the element of danger. It didn't matter, he said, what someone had done or not done twenty years earlier. The only thing that mattered was the present situation. Hutchins had been given a directive, she'd decided the payoff was worth whatever risk might be involved, and she'd consequently chosen to accept the assignment. You couldn't fault her for that.

But people had died, and more people might follow. It was hard for Embry to accept the position that nobody was responsible. When things went wrong, in her view, someone was always responsible.

But something positive was coming out of the wreckage. She and Scolari, left alone and forgotten on Wildside, save when somebody needed medical advice, had taken comfort in each other's arms.

They listened to Canyon's periodic reports on the news link, she with contempt, Tom with his usual tolerance. "He probably feels it just as much as we do," he told her. "It's just that for public consumption he has to let his feelings show. That's what's distasteful."

She didn't believe it. Canyon was exploiting the disaster, profiting by it, and was probably thanking his lucky stars he'd been sent out here.

She was sitting with Tom, talking about future plans, how they would handle things when they got home. They lived on opposite sides of the North American continent, and would be forced to conduct a virtual relationship for a while. Neither was quite ready yet to make a permanent commitment. But that was not necessarily a major detriment. In an age of sophisticated technology, there was little even of an intimate nature that could not be carried out at long range.

Tom was describing how they should get together during their vacations when the monitor buzzed. Incoming.

"Put it up, Bill," he told the AI.

Clairveau's image blinked on. He looked tired, she thought. Worn-out. "Tom," he said, "I understand you have some lasers on board? Portables?"

"Yes. They have some back there somewhere."

"Good. I need you to break them out. I'll send a shuttle for them."

"What are you going to do?" asked Embry. "Why do you need lasers?"

"To rescue your captain."

"Really?" asked Tom. "How?" "Later. I'm on the run at the moment." "Do you need help?"

"By all means," said Clairveau. "We need all the help we can get." When he'd signed off, she could feel the tension in the compartment. "Tom," she said finally, "you don't know anything about welding." "I know," he said. "But how hard can it be?"

"Ladies and gentlemen, this is Captain Nicholson. As you're aware, the original schedule called for us to leave our present position in two days, on Monday, and to withdraw approximately seventy million kilometers in order to be well out of the way when the collision occurs Saturday evening.

"We have, however, offered to assist in the rescue effort. That means we'll be staying in the immediate area somewhat longer. I want to stress that the Evening Star will at no time be at hazard. Let me repeat that, there will be absolutely no danger to this ship. We'll be away long before anyone need be concerned.

"You may wonder what part the Evening Star will play in rescuing the stranded scientists. We're making a detailed explanation available on the ship's net. Simply go to the Rescue site. A specially produced and embossed copy of the plan, which you may wish to keep as a souvenir of the occasion, will be distributed later today.

"We also intend to present everyone on board with a skyhook pin as a special memento.

"Ship's meals this evening will be served compliments of Inter-Galactic Lines. Happy hour will begin, as usual, at five. If you have any questions, my officers will be available throughout the ship.

"Thank you very much for your patience during a difficult period. Be assured we will keep you informed as matters develop."

Within minutes after the captain's address, Marcel arrived with several people in tow. They were the team of mathematicians and physicists who were planning the backup mission. They were escorted to the temporary command center Nicholson had set up.

Nicholson sat quietly while they talked of releasing the asteroid, detaching a shaft and the net from the rest of the assembly, rotating it almost 360 degrees, and putting it on a trajectory for Deepsix. They traced the anticipated changes in stress on the shaft when the rest of

the assembly was removed. They calculated how they could use four superluminals to rotate the shaft without breaking it.

The ideal length.for the shaft, they determined, would be 420 kilometers. The shaft would be removed from the asteroid end, said a tall, athletic-looking man introduced as John Something-or-Other, smiling at his feeble attempt to make a joke.

When they'd finished, there were several questions. Nicholson himself asked one: "Are we sure that a weld between the shaft, which must be made of a substance none of us has ever heard of, and the hull of a starship, will take?"

"It'll work," said a small, waspish young man. "We've already tried it."

The conversation became sufficiently technical that Nicholson couldn't follow it any longer, and after a while he slipped out. They all seemed to know what they were doing. Maybe there'd be a reasonably happy ending at that. Maybe he could even emerge as a hero.

They sent a shuttle for Tom, and he hadn't been gone twenty minutes before Embry discovered she did not like being alone on Wild-side. The ship was full of echoes and vokes. Of systems clicking on and shutting off. Of the sound of warm air flowing through blowers and ducts. Of the onboard electronic systems talking incessantly to themselves. Bill the AI inquired whether she was okay, and she had to say yes or he'd want to diagnose her problem. She couldn't even ignore him because he would simply repeat the query, and he had endless patience.

It had endless patience. Best to keep the details straight.

She was not among those people who could entertain herself carrying on a conversation with an AI. Bill was, after all, only a simulation, not a real person. A lot of people tended to lose sight of that fact, and she'd had to refer several of them to the shrinks.

She was up front on the flight deck, seated in the pilot's chair. Deepsix lay below her, a mass of oceans and glaciers save for the narrow green-brown belt along the equator. A huge snowstorm blanketed the continent they called Northern Tempus.

None of the other three ships was in the sky. She felt utterly alone. They'd invited her to move over to Wendy, but she'd declined. Packing was inconvenient, and anyhow she'd have to come back here if the rescue was successful. After all, it would only be a matter of a few days.

If things went badly, on the other hand, God knew when she could expect to get home. She didn't want to seem indifferent, or cold-hearted, but she also didn't want to spend the winter out here. If Hutch and the others were lost, another long delay would be likely, lasting probably several more weeks, while a new pilot came to Maleiva to recover Wildside.

Her link vibrated. She was grateful for the interruption. "Yes?" she said.

"Embry." Marcel's image popped up on one of the auxiliary screens. "How are you making out?"

"Okay."

"I need a favor."

"What can I do for you?"

"If we have to go to the backup operation, we'll need all four ships. And we have to get set up so we'll be ready to launch if needed. What I'm trying to tell you is that Wildside is going to be doing some maneuvering."

"There's no pilot over here, Marcel."

"I know. We're going to have Lori operate her."

"Who's Lori?"

"The Star's AI."

"The Star's AI? What's wrong with Bill?"

"It's a long story. I'll be happy to tell you about it when we get time."

"Is it safe?"

"Sure. Now, can I get you to punch a code into the command console? It's right in front of the pilot's seat."

"The black panel with the blinking lamps?"

"That's it." He gave her a string of numbers, and she dutifully entered them. "That allows me to talk directly with the AI," he said. His eyes narrowed somewhat. "Now, you're sure you're doing okay?"

"I'm fine, Captain."

"Good. So you know: Tomorrow we're going to take Wildside out of orbit. You'll be going out to the skyhook assembly with the rest of us. There'll be a lot of activity when we get there, and we'll be putting some people aboard your ship. You don't have to do anything. Just sit tight. There's no danger."

"You mean to me. What about Hutch? What are her chances?"

"The truth?"

"Of course."

"I'd say the chances are decent."

He blinked off, and she sat staring at the blank screen. Then she opened a channel to the Evening Star, A young, female, redheaded simulation in the ship's uniform appeared. "Good morning," it said. "How may I help you?"

"When is the Star returning to Earth?"

"We are scheduled to depart Sunday the tenth, ma'am." The day after the collision.

"Would it be possible to book passage?"

The simulation appeared to glance at a monitor, although Embry knew that was not necessary. "Yes, it would," she said. "We have several excellent staterooms on our Festival Deck. Can I reserve one for you?"

With luck, she'd be able to bully the Academy into picking up the tab. "How much?" she asked.

"One-ten."

Steep. "I'll get back to you if I decide to do it," she said. No need to commit now. If everything went well, and the rescue worked, she wouldn't need it. And it would be a little embarrassing to be sitting over on the Star when Hutch and the others came back on board.

XIX

There's not much to differentiate one savage from another, whether you find him in a jungle or on the streets of a modem city. They are best left to themselves, and are worth serious study only by those interested in manufacturing a better blowgun. -Gregory MacAllister, The Modern World and Good Luck

Hours to breakup (est): 129

"Evening Star. How may we be of service?"

"This is John Drummond. On the Wendy Jay. I wonder if you could provide thrust information for the Star?"

"That would be no problem. Ship specifications are available. Please submit a transmission code."

The electronics wizard they were looking for turned out to be little more than an adolescent His name was Philip Zossimov. He was a product of the University of Moscow who served as a consultant to the British firm Technical Applications, Ltd. He had thick brown hair, a quiet demeanor, and an expression that implied he could do anything.

Beekman explained how they planned to manage the rescue. "But," he said, "we need to find a way to hold the mouth of the net open."

Zossimov asked to see pictures of the asteroid. "How are you arranging to get rid of it?" he asked. "The asteroid?"

"After we cut through the net," Beekman said, "it will drift off on its own. We can make adjustments if it would help you in your task."

"No," he said. "Go ahead as you intend. But you'll need a ring-shaped collar. I don't suppose you happen to have one?"

"No. That's why we needed you."

"Yes. Very good. All right, we'll have to make one." He looked around at the working staff, obviously unimpressed. "It's a two-part problem," he said. "We install the collar at the front of the net to hold it open, and then, once the lander is inside, we have to close it to make sure it stays inside."

"That's correct."

"All right. I'll want to see the specs."

"For…?"

"The ships. All of them."

"Okay," said Beekman. "I'll arrange it." He directed Bill to make them available. Then he turned back to Zossimov. "Philip," he said, "can you do it?"

"Oh, yes, I can do it. We'll need some parts, of course."

"Cannibalize anything. Katie here will work with you. She's a physicist with a specialty in quantum gravity. You don't care about that. What's important is that she knows Wendy. Do what you have to. But make it work."

"There's a possibility," he said, "we may have to shut down one of the ships."

"You can't do that. We need all four for the maneuvers."

"I see. What about life support?"

"We can evacuate one, if need be."

Hutch was still showing the aftereffects of her bout with the blossom. They'd given her an extra hour and a half to sleep.

"We don't have that kind of time," she complained when they finally woke her.

"Randy needed the time, too," Kellie said. "And this looked like a good way to provide it without laying more guilt on him for holding us up."

They fed her a quick breakfast and got on the road.

While they walked, Hutch talked to Marcel, who seemed unduly irritable. He denied that he was feeling out of sorts, but she recognized that he was worried because they were falling behind schedule. She did what she could to allay his concerns. We're close now, she told him. There don't seem to be any problems we can't handle. Try not to worry.

He asked about the orchid. Hutch looked accusingly at Kellie.

"I provided no details," Kellie said privately.

"Just a minor skirmish with a man-eating plant," Hutch told him.

"A plant? You mean an oversize Venus flytrap? Something like that?"

"Yeah," she said. "That's close enough."

When she'd signed off a few minutes later, Kellie grinned at her. "More like a woman-eating plant."

They'd gone only a few more steps when MacAllister got a call. Incoming visual.

"Somebody wants to talk," he told the others.

The image took shape, projected by MacAllister's link. They were looking at a young man. Brushed-back attractive. Lean, angular jaw. Good smile. Dark brown hair neatly cut. He wore a white pullover shirt and gray slacks, and his expression suggested he understood he was intruding but hoped no one would mind.

"August Canyon," said MacAllister.

The visitor looked pleased. "Good morning, Mr. MacAllister. It's a pleasure to meet you, sir." He was seated on a fabric chair, which floated a meter or so above the ground, as they walked. "I know this is a difficult time for you. But I'm sure you're aware that the entire world is following this. I wonder if you'd care to comment for the interglobal audience?"

"About Deepsix?"

"Yes."

"Sure. This place is a pit. And I'll admit to being scared half out of my mind."

"Well. I'm sure you are." He smiled pleasantly. "But help is on the way, of course?"

"No. As I understand it, no help is available." MacAllister was falling behind the others, so he picked up his pace a bit. Canyon, of course, stayed right with him. "Tell me, you don't happen to have a lander on board, I don't suppose?"

"I'm afraid not. Wish we did. We thought we were just coming out here to record an astronomical event. Never occurred to anybody there might be a story on the ground, too."

"Yes." MacAllister looked over at Hutch. Hutch had also felt for a moment that they might have gotten lucky. But Marcel would have had the media vessel in his database, and would have known. Still, there was always human oversight. Common enough, and one hoped.

"Are we on now?" MacAllister asked. "Is this being broadcast somewhere?"

"No," Canyon said. "We're recording, but we wouldn't broadcast. Not without your permission. But the public knows what's happening here. And they're concerned. Did you know that churches all over the world have been praying you'd come through this? There was a prayer meeting on the New White House lawn the other day."

"They're praying for me?" MacAllister looked shocked. "Most of them have damned me for an atheist."

Canyon squirmed. "Everyone wants you to come out of this, Mr. MacAllister. All of you, that is."

"Well, August, I have to tell you that I think that's all goosefeath-ers. If you follow my meaning."

Canyon smiled. "I don't think you realize how much interest there is. Did you know that Parabola's already started making a sim?"

"Really. How does it come out?"

Canyon put an aw shucks expression on his well-scrubbed features. "I guess they're waiting to see."

Kellie made a noise deep in her throat.

"August," MacAllister said, "if you want to find out how we're doing, you're talking to the wrong person. Priscilla Hutchins over there is in charge. She knows more about the situation than I do."

The image turned her way, and Hutch stepped into range of the scan so he could see her. Canyon kept her in view, but suddenly began speaking to his audience in a hushed, urgent tone. "This is Priscilla Hutchins, who was attacked last night by a killer plant. Priscilla, I wonder if you'd care to tell us precisely what happened."

"It grabbed me from behind," she said.

"What kind of plant was it?"

"Big." Hutch glanced over at Kellie. "August, I don't want to seem uncooperative, but time's pressing."

"I understand, Priscilla. And if you like, I'll get out of your way until we can find a more auspicious moment. We'd like very much to set up a live interview, though. At your convenience. If we could just sit and talk for a while. About your feelings. What it's like being on the ground under these circumstances." He put on an expression that was intended to be sympathetic. "Whether you're confident you'll be able to get clear before, you know-" He showed a lot of teeth, suggesting

he understood that he was being insensitive to their situation, but that his job required it.

"He's a jerk," Kellie said on a private channel. "Don't give him anything."

"Do what he asks," said Nightingale, also privately. "There's a lot in this for all of us. If we play our cards right. Why not cooperate with him?"

That had been Hutch's thought. She could end up talking to management groups for eight thousand a throw. Maybe hire a ghostwriter to do her memoirs. That wasn't bad. Her old friend Janet Allegri had recently published her account of the Omega mission, The Engines of God, and had made very good money.

And what the hell: Canyon had to make a living. Why should she make problems for him? Moreover, it would give them all something else to think about for a while. "Okay, August," she said. "We'll do it. Tonight. After dinner."

XX

That anyone could believe the human animal was designed by a divine being defies all logic. The average human is little more than an ambitious monkey. He is moronic, self-centred, cowardly, bullied by his fellows, terrified that others will see him for what he is. One can only assume his creator was in something of a hurry, or was perhaps a member of an Olympian bureaucracy. The more pious among us should pray that next time he does the job right. But we might in justice concede that there is one virtue to be found in the beast: he is persistent.

— Gregory MacAllister, Bridge with the Polynesians

Hours to breakup (est): 123

"Can we really do it?"

John Drummond nodded. He was actually on Wendy, virtually in the Star planning room. "Marcel, it depends on the altitude they can reach with the lander."

"How high does it have to go?"

"At least ten thousand meters. Below that, we can't hope to control events."

Beekman indicated his agreement. "The higher they can take the lander, the better our chances," he said.

"We have to know in advance," continued Drummond, "how high they can go so we can plan the insertion."

"We have no way to determine-"

"Marcel, it would be a considerable help."

"I don't really care how much help it would be. There's no way to find out. Assume they can make ten thousand. And proceed accordingly."

Drummond looked pained. "You're sure? We can't have them do a test run when they get to the lander? If we knew what we were dealing with-"

"We can't do a test run because to make the test valid, she'd have to exhaust the spike. That would mean a very hard bounce going down."

"How about a computer simulation?"

"The data stream from the lander is very likely going to be unreliable. Let's just make the assumption at ten thousand and get it done. Okay?" He was trying to keep the irritation out of his voice but not having much luck.

Drummond sighed. "This is becoming a speculative exercise, Marcel."

"Of course it is, John. We can do only what we can do. What about getting the shaft away from the assembly and aimed in the right direction? Can we do that?"

"Yes," he said. "We have to turn it around. I can't see that it'll be a problem. But it will be a delicate maneuver.

"You have only four vessels. One of them can pour it on-"

"The Evening Star."

"The Evening Star" said Beekman. "But it's still only four ships trying to wrestle a four-hundred-kilometer-long shaft onto a vector. Without breaking anything. That's the real risk. Put any strain at all on the shaft and it's going to snap and that'll be the end of the project. But we can do it."

"All right, then." Marcel felt better than he had since the quake. "Let's make it happen. John, I want you to help set up the timetable. We've got a couple of systems designers coming over with the people from the Star. Use them as you need them. Get Bill to coordinate with the AIs in the other ships." He looked over at Beekman. "How about our welder?"

"We've got one. Name's Janet Hazelhurst. She spent a few years doing orbital construction until she got married. Says she knows what it's about, but it's been a while and she'll step aside if we have anybody better. She claims, though, that she can do whatever has to be done."

"Do we have anybody better?"

"No, Captain, we do not."

"All right. Let's hope she's a good teacher. Assign forty volunteers to her and have her show them the fine points of welding. Get them started right away."

"Who's going to do the instruction on the e-suits?"

"Miles Chastain is on Zwick. He's a good man, and I'm sure he'll help. We'll get him over here right away." Marcel checked his notes. "Gunther, we're going to need some clips to hold the net together. Do we have a metal worker?"

They had two. One was a retiree from Hamburg, the other a Chinese entrepreneur. Marcel brought them in and explained what was needed. Could it be done?

How much time did they have?

Three days. Tops.

Yes. It should be sufficient. But they would need help. Marcel assigned them a couple of world-class physicists as gofers.

And they would need metal. Lots of metal.

That could be a problem. Starships did not carry much expendable metal.

Bill broke in: "Captain, the people from the Evening Star have been assembled in the Bryant Auditorium and await your pleasure."

Marcel acknowledged. "Let's go say hello to our volunteers."

Within the hour, teams were going through Wendy, compartment by compartment, dismantling side panels from beds, wall sections, and anything else that was metallic. In the meantime, the retiree and the entrepreneur began to jury-rig their equipment. It was a challenge, but they would, by God, make it happen.

At about the time Beekman's bed was being taken apart, all four superluminals left orbit.

Canyon's commlink vibrated. It was Chastain. He brought the image up. The captain was seated in the cockpit. "August," he said, "in case you're wondering, we're headed out to the assembly. You might be able to get some good visuals."

"Yes," said Canyon. "I've done a few interviews on it. I'll tell you, Miles, I wish it had turned out to be an alien ship. It's a long piece of metal, but it's still just a piece of metal."

"I know. I've also received a request from Captain Clairveau on Wendy. They're still working on ways to bail out their people, and they want our help. So I'm putting Zwick at their disposal."

"Good," said Canyon, thinking how well that would play. UNN to the rescue. "But why do they need us? What do they want us to do?"

"I don't have the details." He glanced at the time. "There's a briefing in four minutes. I'll pipe it in. You might want to inform Emma."

Canyon nodded. However the scenario went, it couldn't help but translate into a huge boost in the ratings. Who out there would be so jaded as not to watch?

Janet Hazelhursf took control of her volunteers in the Bryant Auditorium. They were required to sign a document holding Trans-Galactic harmless in the event of misadventure. When that had been accomplished, Captain Clairveau of the Wendy Jay talked to them about the dangers of the situation. "We hope that you won't have to go outside," he said. "I want to emphasize that your training is precautionary only."

Janet noted that some of the volunteers looked disappointed to hear it. That, she thought, was an encouraging start.

"If you do have to go out," Clairveau continued, "we'll do everything possible to minimize the risk. But to be honest, it'll be in your hands. The real danger arises because of your lack of experience in what we'll be asking you to do. You'll be functioning in a zero-gee environment, and you'll be using lasers.

"The e-suit that you'll be wearing will be comfortable. It'll keep you warm, and it is almost foolproof. But it will not withstand a laser, so we'll expect you to be careful. We're going to show you how to use the lasers, how to weld, and how to do it in zero gee. And how to do it safely. You'll have an opportunity to practice under zero-gee conditions inside the ship. You'll do nothing for the next three days except practice."

Clairveau was tall, good-looking, confident. Janet was inclined to trust him. "As you know," he continued, "Morgan's World is getting close. That means there'll be some debris floating around out there. Rocks. Dust. Ice. Who knows-

"We'll have sensors on the lookout constantly. But there's no way to be absolutely safe. Consequently, if any of you want to rethink doing this, we'll understand."

A few did.

"I have people at home who depend on me."

"I'm sorry. I wanted to help, but I didn't think it would be like this."

"I have kids."

"Sometimes I have a problem with heights."

Most stayed.

Janet was newly widowed. Not that she minded. Her ex had always been something of a bore. He'd had no imagination, had spent a lifetime watching himself portray Robin Hood and George Washington and Leonidas at Thermopylae (except that in his version the Spartans won), and his idea of a romantic evening out consisted of having dinner at the lodge with his buddies.

She'd considered not renewing every time extension came up. But she'd never taken that fatal step because her husband had loved her. He'd remained faithful, God help her, and had always remembered birthdays and anniversaries. They'd had two good children, and he had been an exemplar of a father. She could not have failed to renew without devastating him, and there was no way she could have brought herself to do that. So she'd stayed with him, bored and yearning for excitement, through all those long years.

Everyone thought they were an ideal couple. / wish my George were more like your Will. Will had even retained his good looks, although the smile had lost some of the old electricity. When an undetected aneurysm killed him, she'd mourned for an appropriate period, and then boarded the Evening Star, as she told her friends, to try to get past her loss.

Her fellow passengers knew nothing of all this. Janet had discovered that she loved her newfound freedom, and she'd been having a pretty good time.

Now she had an opportunity to call on an old skill and do something heroic. She was charged with the responsibility to train the volunteers in welding and cutting techniques. Marcel had sat with her, and they'd planned how they would handle the operation. She started by asking who knew what a weld was. She demonstrated by joining two pieces of metal.

"Simple," she said.

She let one of the volunteers do it.

The trick to achieving a proper weld, she informed her students, was to get intimate contact between the two surfaces. Expose clean metal. Then the atoms can be joined properly. Intimately. It was her favorite term. When we're finished, the atoms in the two pieces will be as close to each other as the atoms in either piece are to each other. That was the goal.

She explained proper technique, demonstrated, let them try it, and kept them at it until they could do it without thinking. They practiced cutting up shelving that was no longer in use, taking apart storage bins and slicing cabinets. Then they put everything back together.

"It's easy to do in here," she warned them. "When you get outside, you'll find you have a lot to think about. But the job is the same, and the technique is the same. Just do not allow yourself to be distracted."

She had some pieces of what they all called impossibilium, the material from which the assembly was made. They practiced cutting it and welding it back together. She emphasized safety, and booted three who were too casual in their approach. "Mistakes will cost," she told them. "Careless will get you killed. Or will kill someone else." And later: "It's really not hard. But you have to keep your mind on what you're doing."

She sent them off to dinner and brought them back for another round.

This time, when she gave them a chance to leave, everyone stayed.

They worked until almost 11:00 p.m. Then she thanked them for their attention, dismissed them, and told them they would start next day at six. "We'll be working in our e-suits tomorrow," she said. "I want you to get used to them."

Someone wanted to know whether that meant they were going outside after all.

"No," she said. "Not yet." And she was pleased to hear them grumble.

The Evening Star offered a handful of compartments to Marcel's team. Unfortunately, no VIP accommodation remained available for the captain himself. Nicholson offered, in the time-honored tradition, to donate his own quarters to his visitor. Marcel, as was expected, replied that would never do, and that he would be pleased to take whatever could be had. A cot by the forward mixer, he said, would serve the purpose. He received a unit on the port side amidships that was far more comfortable, and more spacious by half, than his quarters on Wendy.

It was late morning when he left the welders, and he'd been up all night. He climbed out of his uniform and lay down, planning to nap for a half hour before returning to Nicholson's bridge. He'd barely closed his eyes when his link chimed.

"Marcel?" It was Abel Kinder's voice. Abel was the senior climatologist on Wendy. He was heading a team monitoring conditions around Deepsix for signs of planetary disintegration.

"Hello, Abel," he said. "What do you have?"

"Some serious storms, looks like. And an intensification of seismic activity."

"Any of it in the tower area?"

"They're going to have some movement, but the worst of it should be northeast of them. At sea."

"What about the storms?"

"Big ones are developing. What's happening is that the atmosphere responds to Morgan's gravitational pull just the way the oceans do. So you have big slugs of air and water moving around the planet. Everything heats up from the tidal activity. The normal scheme of things is becoming unhinged. Cold water shows up in warm latitudes, the high-pressure areas over the poles get disrupted…"

"Bottom line, Abel?"

"Hard to say. The weather machine is being turned to soup. Anything can happen. You'll want to warn your people to be on the lookout for hurricanes, tornadoes, God knows what. We don't have enough sensors on the ground to be able to monitor everything, so we can't even promise an advance warning."

"Okay."

"They're just going to have to stay loose." "Thanks, Abel."

"One more thing. These storms'll be big. Unlike anything anybody's ever seen at home. Category seventeen stuff."

XXI

Memorials are polite fictions erected in the general pretense that we are selfless and generous, compassionate to those in need, brave in a just cause, faithful unto death. To establish the absurdity of these conceits, one need only glance at the conditions which inevitably erupt whenever police protection, however briefly, fails.

— Gregory MacAllister, Gone to Glory

Hours to breakup (est): 107

They recorded eighteen kilometers before quitting for the day. When Canyon reappeared to conduct his interview, he told them to relax, that he'd do all the work, and that when they got home they'd discover they were all celebrities.

It was in fact simple enough. He tossed them softballs. Were they scared? What had they seen that most impressed them? Were there things on Deepsix worth saving? Who was this astronomer in the tower he'd heard about? What was the biggest surprise they'd seen on this world?

Hutch knew what hers had been, but she talked instead about the giant dragonflies.

He asked about their injuries. None major, said MacAllister. Just a few cuts and scratches. But he admitted to having learned a bitter lesson about keeping in decent physical condition. "You just never know," he said, "when you're going to be dumped into a forest on a strange world and made to walk two hundred kilometers. I recommend jogging for everyone."

Later, when Jerry Morgan rose, it was almost the size of Earth's moon. It was, of course, still at half phase, where it would remain. The upper and lower cloud belts, somber and autumn-colored, were flecked with gold. A broad dark band lay at the equator. Hutch could pick out the altitude in the northern hemisphere where Maleiva HI, Transitoria, and the tower would make their fatal plunge.

Under other circumstances, it would have been a strikingly lovely object.

NEWSLINE WITH AUGUST CANYON

"Earlier today, I spent some. time with the five brave people who are stranded on Maleiva III while the giant planet named for Jeremy Morgan bears down on them. Four are scientists. The fifth is the celebrated writer and editor, Gregory MacAllister. They're trekking overland in a desperate effort to find a spacecraft left here twenty years ago. It's their only hope for getting off the surface before this world ends, which it will do in six days.

"Will they succeed? Nobody knows, of course. But we'll be talking to them in a special broadcast this evening. And after you've met them, I think you'II feel as I do, that if it can be done at all, these five people will bring it off-"

Marcel and Beekman increasingly gave way on the radio to surrogates, who kept them on course. Left to themselves, traveling through unfamiliar country, without identifiable landmarks or indeed landmarks of any kind, they'd have become hopelessly lost. There were jokes about Hutch's ability to guide them by the position of the sun, which was nil. Even at night, with clear skies and rivers of stars, she'd have been helpless. If there was a marker star, either north or south, she couldn't find it. She doubted that such a star would even be visible from the equator.

But it didn't matter. Somebody was always on the circuit. Guide right.

Angle left.

No. Not around the hill. Go over it.

Then, without warning, Marcel had a mission for them: "There's something up ahead. It's not at all out of your way, and we'd like you to take a quick look."

"What is it?"

"We don't know. A structure."

Hutch begrudged every minute spent off-trail. She glanced at the others, soliciting opinions. They were willing to indulge a minute. But only a minute. Nightingale thought it was a good idea. So long as it was indeed nearby. "Okay," she said. "We'll take a peek, let you know what it is. But then we're moving on."

It was on the shore of a lake, tangled deep in old-growth trees and shrubbery. They could see only a few glints of metal, and were unsure it was a structure at all, so completely had the forest embraced it.

They cut down some bushes, and Hutch's first impression was that they'd found a storage dome. Until they uncovered a line of windows. Most were still intact. Kellie walked around to the rear. "It's got a tail," she reported..

"A tail?"

"Twin tails, in fact. It's an aircraft."

It had a flared bottom. Symbols were stenciled on one side, so faint as to be barely noticeable. There was a windscreen up front. The vehicle was about the size of a commuter airbus. But it had no wings. Ground transportation, decided Hutch, despite the tail. Unless they had antigravity.

Judging by the trees that had engulfed it, it had been there for centuries. Hutch paced it off, and they relayed visuals back to Wendy. Thirty-eight meters along its length, probably six in diameter. Crumpled severely to starboard, somewhat less on the port side.

Chiang climbed a tree, produced a lamp, and tried to look inside. "Nothing," he said. "Get me a wet cloth."

Kellie broke off a few flat-bladed leaves, soaked them cautiously at the edge of the lake, and handed them up. Chiang wiped the glass.

"You know," said Kellie, "wings or not, this thing does have an aerodynamic design. Look at it."

She was right. It had flowing lines and was tapered front and rear.

"What's happening?" asked Canyon. They knew he habitually listened in on the allcom, and on conversations between the ground party and the orbiting ships.

Hutch brought him up to date. "I'll give you the rest when we know what it is," she said. "If it's anything."

Chiang had his lamp pressed against the glass. "There are rows of seats inside. Little ones. They look a bit thrown about."

"Little seats?" asked MacAllister. "Same gauge as back at the tower?"

"Yes. Looks like."

"Now that's really odd."

"Why?" asked Hutch.

"Look at the door." It was hard to see behind the tangle of growth, but it was there. Hutch saw what was odd: the door was about the right size for her.

It was almost at ground level, and it even had a handle, but when MacAllister tried to open it the handle broke off. So they cut a hole through it.

The interior was dark. Hutch turned on her lamp and looked at roughly thirty rows of the small seats divided by a center aisle, five on either side. Some had been torn up and lay scattered around the cabin. She saw no sign of organic remains.

The floor creaked. It was covered by a black fabric that was still reasonably intact.

The bulkheads were slightly curved. They were water-stained and, toward the front, broken open. There were scorch marks.

The cockpit supported two seats. But unlike those in the body of the craft, they were full-size, large enough to accommodate her. One was broken, twisted off its mount. There was also some damage to the frame that supported the windscreen. She looked down at what had once been an instrument panel.

"Crashed and abandoned," said Kellie, behind her.

"I think so."

"What's with the big seats?" asked MacAllister. "Who sat in them?"

Nightingale swept his light from front to rear. "It's pretty clear we have two separate species here," he said.

"Hawks and crickets?" suggested Hutch. "They're both real?"

"Is that possible? On the same world?"

"We have more than one intelligent species on our world. What I wouldn't expect to see is two technological species. But who knows?"

They examined a lower compartment that must have been used for cargo, but it was empty. And the power plant. It had employed liquid fuel to power a jet thrust. Air intakes. Plastic skirts around the base. Hutch got Beekman back on the circuit. "Are we sure," she asked, "the locals never went high-tech?"

"That's what the Academy says."

"Okay. When you talk to the Academy again, you can tell them there's a hovercraft down here."

"Let's go," said MacAllister. "No more time to dawdle."

Hutch stripped off a piece of a seat and put it into a sample bag.

They removed a few gauges from the instrument panel and bagged those as well. None had legible symbols, but it should be possible eventually to enhance them.

Chiang took Hutch aside. "There's something else for you to look at. Over here." In the woods.

He'd found a black stone wall.

It was about six meters long. And engraved. It had several rows of symbols, and a likeness of the hovercraft.

Hutch could assume that the rock had once been polished, that its edges had been sharp, that the inscription had been crisp and clear. But the weather had worn it down. And the inscription ran into the ground.

She checked the time.

"It'll only take a minute," said Chiang.

She nodded, and they dug it out while MacAllister urged them to move on. Two deeply etched parallel lines of symbols were engraved across the top, over the likeness of the wrecked vehicle. But this one was lean and powerful, undamaged, and she knew that the sculptor intended that it be perceived as hurtling through the sunlight.

Below the image of the hovercraft, two groups of characters, side by side, had been carved using block bold symbols. And beneath those two, another series, much more numerous, smaller, ten lines deep. Four across except the last line, which had only three. These might in fact have been using a different alphabet altogether. It was impossible to know because they were not block letters. Rather they had a delicate, complex character.

"What do you think?" Hutch asked. "What's it say?"

" 'Ajax Hovercraft, " said MacAllister, who was fidgeting off to one side. "The two groups near the top constitute regional distribution centers, and these"-the smaller groups-"are local offices."

"Anybody else want to try?" asked Kellie.

"We really should get moving," said MacAllister.

Nightingale joined them. "Its proximity to the wreck," he said, "suggests it's a memorial." He stared thoughtfully at it. "These"-the lines at the top-"are the names of the pilots. And the others are those of the passengers."

"What about the top line?" asked Kellie.

"If it's a memorial," said MacAllister, "then it's a salutary phrase, Stranger, Tell the Spartans, something on that order."

"So what was going on here?" asked Chiang.

"Pretty obviously a traffic accident," said Nightingale. "A wreck."

"Of course. But where were they going?"

"Maybe," said MacAllister, "they were migrant workers of some sort. Farmhands. Indentured labor."

"Slaves?" suggested Chiang.

Nightingale nodded. "Maybe."

"Do you put the names of slaves on a memorial?" Hutch shook her head. "That doesn't sound right."

"In human history," said MacAllister, "people sometimes had great affection for their slaves." He shrugged. "Who knows what an alien culture might be up to?"

They pressed forward late into the evening. When at last they'd made camp for the night, they did more interviews with Canyon. Chiang enjoyed the opportunity to perform on an international stage, to look heroic, to say the things that were expected of him. We'll get home. Smile into the scanner. There are a lot of people rooting for us. But every time he glanced over at Kellie he thought he detected a trace of mockery in her smile.

When he'd finished he was embarrassed.

The others were just as shameless. Nightingale's voice got deeper, MacAllister tried to suck his belly in, Kellie talked as if they didn't have a care in the world. And even Hutchins, their forthright captain, couldn't resist preening. They were for the moment famous, and it was affecting them.

Canyon talked to them individually. As he finished with them they drew around the fire and tried to pretend that nothing unusual had just happened. He was still on the circuit with Kellie, getting what he liked to call context.

Chiang disliked the forest at night. There was no way to maintain security. It would have required three guards to keep the possibility of a surprise attack to a minimum.

This was their eighth night out. He thought the count was right, but everything was beginning to run together and he was no longer sure. To date, no predator had tried a night assault. The probability, therefore, was that, if it were going to happen, it would have already occurred. Nevertheless, Chiang worried and fretted, as was his nature.

He could see Canyon's image seated on a log facing Kellie. He was asking his questions, and she listened attentively, sometimes nodding, sometimes growing thoughtful. "Oh, yes,"she might be saying, "we're confident we can get the lander working once we get there." Or: "No, we really haven't discussed that possibility. We don't expect it to happen that way." Although there was no logical basis for jealousy, Chiang was irritated anyhow. There was something in Canyon's manner that seemed like a clumsy attempt at seduction.

In addition, Canyon couldn't hide the fact that he really had no idea what the people on the ground were feeling. And he also revealed that his primary concern in all this was to ring up high numbers back home, to please his bosses, to move up the food chain. Taking pictures of a collision between two worlds had been precisely the right assignment for him. He could have delivered himself of a few generalities, It looks as if it's going to be an incredible smash-up, call in, say, a couple of the astrophysicists on Wendy for color commentary, and it would all have worked fine.

But he just wasn't the person to talk to people in trouble.

This was Chiang's last thought. He'd been standing at the edge of the firelight, surveying the surrounding darkness, occasionally flashing his lamp into the night. And suddenly the world vanished, as if someone had folded it up and put it away.

MacAllister was also bored with Canyon. The previous night's interviews had been transmitted a few hours later to Earth. It was a long ride, even at hypercom, and they would not appear on anybody's screen for another day and a half. By then, probably, they would have found Tess, and the issue of survival would have been resolved. In their favor, he hoped. He imagined them spotting the abandoned spacecraft, hurrying toward it, climbing inside, pumping power into it, and flying back in the luxurious comfort of its passenger cabin to the tower. He could see them setting down and recovering the capacitors. Hutch and Kellie would install them with a minimum of fuss. Then they'd cheer as Tess lifted off and soared into orbit.

The trees sighed in the wind, and the fire crackled. He watched Kellie talking with Canyon, saw her pause, saw Canyon ask another question. He knew precisely what it would be.

"What are your thoughts when Morgan's World rises every night, and you see that it keeps getting bigger?" (Tonight it would, he suspected, look like a Chinese balloon.)

"Is there anything you'd like to say to the folks back home?"

Yes, thought MacAllister. In spades, there is. Life is sweet.

The image of the newsman appeared solid, and even a trifle back-woodsy by firelight. He leaned toward Kellie, apparently listening intently, although MacAllister knew he was formulating his next question.

And in the middle of this pacific, sleepy scene, there came a sudden shriek.

Something sailed past MacAllister's head. A few days earlier he'd have sat dumbfounded, wondering what was happening. But his reflexes had improved considerably. He shouted a warning and threw himself on the ground.

Rocks whipped past them. One hit his shoulder, and another struck his skull. There were more screams, high-pitched, rather like those of angry children. He was fumbling for his cutter. Somebody's laser blazed out, and bushes erupted in fire. A tree, ripped through by a cutter beam, crashed to the ground.

A dart thunked into one of the fire logs. MacAllister saw movement in the trees; then crickets in furs charged into the camp. They were impossibly ugly savages, not at all like the robed figure who'd occupied the country chapel.

He got his weapon up just in time. Two of them were after him, with javelins. He cut them in half, the crickets and the javelins. He took out another, who was about to stab Kellie from behind. Hutch directed them to back into a tight circle, but MacAllister was too busy defending himself to try to get into a formation. Everything was utter confusion.

The crickets never stopped shrieking. Somebody cut one in two, from skull to sternum. Nightingale stepped into the middle of a charge and swung his cutter left and right. Limbs flew and the attack disintegrated. As suddenly as they'd come, the crickets broke and melted back into the forest.

Several bushes were ablaze. Something fell out of a tree and crashed beside him. It was carrying a javelin. It tried to get up and run, but MacAllister, enraged, slashed it anyhow, and the creature screamed and lay still.

Hutch and Kellie pursued the fight to the edge of the trees. Nightingale stood among those he'd killed, legs spread, cutter raised, like a modern Hector. The heroic stance was a bit much, but MacAllister was nonetheless impressed by his behavior. Well, put a man's life on the line, he thought, and most of us can perform at a fairly high level.

The attack had disintegrated, and the sounds of battle seemed to be receding. Through it all, unfazed, Canyon remained seated in his armchair. He couldn't see beyond the narrow range of the link, which had been set up on a stump. He simply kept demanding over and over to be told what was happening.

Universal News Network on the spot, thought MacAllister.

Nightingale finally explained they were being attacked.

Canyon kept talking, asking for details. Attacked by whom? Had anyone been hurt? MacAllister shut off the sound feed from the newsman and rubbed his head. It hurt, but he couldn't tell through the field whether he was bleeding. Otherwise, he thought he was okay. Couple bumps, nothing more.

Marcel was back on the circuit, asking the same questions. "Crickets," Kellie responded, although he couldn't see her. "Talk in a minute."

MacAllister was swept up in a curious combination of horror and exhilaration. By God, that had felt good. We're all savages at heart, he thought.

Hutch came back into the camp, looked at him, and glanced around. "Everybody okay?" she asked.

Nightingale signaled he was fine. He was shining his lamp into the trees, assuring himself they were gone. "I guess we just met the locals."

"How about you, Mac?"

"Alive and well," said MacAllister. "I don't think those little sons of bitches will be back soon."

"Where's Chiang?" she asked.

MacAllister stared down at one of the bodies. It had sickly pale skin with a greenish tint and a hairy ridged skull. Its eyes were open, but it seemed dead.

It would have stood not quite as high as his hip. When he poked it, the creature stirred and made a sad mewling sound.

Kellie's voice broke in, subdued. "Over here," she said. "I found him."

Chiang lay still. Blood poured down inside his e-suit, leaking out of half a dozen wounds.

"Kill the suit," said MacAllister.

"No." Kellie had thrown herself on the ground beside him. Her voice was low and strange. "It's all that's holding him together."

Hutch knelt and picked up his wrist. "Mac," she said, "get the medkit."

MacAllister turned and hurried over to Hutch's backpack. "No pulse," Hutch said.

"He's not breathing." Kellie's voice was thick.

Reluctantly, they punched off the suit and Hutch tried direct administration of his air supply.

Somebody must have spoken Embry's code because her voice came on the circuit. "Don't move him," she said.

And Marcel: "Put out guards. They may come back."

"I got it," said Nightingale.

Kellie said, "Burn anything that moves."

"Do you have the kit yet?" Embry again.

"Mac's getting it."

"Mac, hurry up. What's the bleeding look like? Let me see it."

MacAllister returned with the medkit. Hutch took it and signaled for him to help Nightingale. Kellie pulled out a couple of pressure bandages and began applying them. Mac stood for a moment, staring down at Chiang. Then he turned away.

Nightingale was checking another dead attacker. MacAllister hoped Chiang's assailant was among the corpses.

They stayed together and circled the campsite. The exobiologist looked drained. MacAllister wondered for the first time whether he might have been unfair years before to Nightingale. "You've been here before, haven't you, Randy?" he said.

"Yeah." Nightingale made a face like someone who'd just bitten into bad fruit. "There's a little bit of deja vu about this." He paused and took a deep breath. "I really hate this place."

MacAllister nodded. "I'm sorry." He wasn't sure what he meant by the phrase.

"Yeah. Me too." Nightingale's features hardened. He looked as if he were going to say more. But he only shrugged and looked away.

MacAllister listened to the conversation on the allcom.

"Give him the R.O."

"Doing it now."

"Kellie, you need to stop the blood. Clamp down tighter."

"It's not working, Embry." "Stay with it. Any pulse yet?" "A trace."

"Don't give up. Kellie, get a blanket or something on him." MacAllister looked toward the east, toward Deneb, while Chiang slipped away.

They buried him where he fell, during a ceremony at dawn. MacAllister, whose reputation ordinarily denied him the luxury of sentiment, found a stone, cut Chiang's name and dates into it, and added the comment: DIED DEFENDING HIS FRIENDS.

They dug the grave deep and lowered him in. Kellie wanted to conduct the ceremony, but she kept choking up, and finally she asked Hutch to finish.

He did not belong to an organized church, Kellie said, although he had a strong faith. Hutch nodded, didn't try to sort it out, and simply consigned him to the ground-she could no longer bring herself to say earth-observed that he had died too soon, and asked whatever god might be to take charge of him and to remember him.

Kellie stood paralyzed, resisting all offers of support, as they filled in the grave.

Nightingale announced that the attackers were vertebrates, but that their bones were hollow. "Birds?" asked MacAllister.

"At one time," he said, "I think so." He described filaments between arms and ribs that seemed to indicate that the species had only recently lost its flight capabilities.

They went through the creatures' garments. There were pockets, which contained fruits and nuts and a few smooth rocks. Ammunition.

"Let's get moving," said Hutch.

"What about these things?" asked Nightingale. "Shouldn't we bury them, too?"

Kellie's face hardened. "Let their own take care of them."

NEWSLINE WITH AUGUST CANYON

"Tonight we have bad news. An hour ago, the landing party was attacked-»

Beekman was looking out from a virtual cliff top over a turbulent ocean when Marcel arrived. Snow whipped across the crest and fell into the night, but it was a ground blizzard stirred up by fierce winds, and had nothing to do with the skies, which were clear. Morgan was high overhead.

The tides on Maleiva III were, as a matter of course, gentle. There was no moon, so the only visible effects were generated by the distant sun. But tonight, with the gas giant approaching, the sea was monstrous. Huge waves pounded the cliffs on Transitoria's north coast.

"Tomorrow night," he said, without turning toward Marcel.

Marcel sank against a bulkhead. "My God, Gunny. That's still another day they've lost."

"There are weaknesses in the range. Fault lines, Harry tells me. Worse than we thought. They're going to give way tomorrow night."

"You're sure?"

"Yeah. We're sure." He turned sad eyes toward Marcel. "There was no way we could know-"

"It's okay. Not anybody's fault." A cold hand gripped his spine. "They're still thirty klicks away."

Beekman nodded. "I'd say they better get moving."

XXII

Tides are like politics. They come andgo with a great deal of fuss and noise, but inevitably they leave the beach just as they found it. On those few occasions when major change does occur, it is rarefy good news. -Attributed to Gregory MacAllister by Henry Kilbum, Gregory MacAllister: Life and Times

Hours to breakup (est): 78

In fact, Canyon had belatedly realized there was still another big story developing: the reaction of the people on board the other ships to the plight of the ground team.

He'd become uncomfortable interviewing Hutchins and her other trapped rabbits. It was too much like talking to dead people. So he'd switched over and done human-interest stories on the other superluminals. He'd found a young woman who'd been the traveling companion of the reporter who'd died in the Evening Star lander. She'd wept and struggled to hold back a case of galloping hysteria, and on the whole it had just made for a marvelous show. There were several people who'd been personally skewered or whose fondest beliefs had been shredded by MacAllister. How did they feel now that MacAllister was in danger of his life? For the record, they delivered pieties, expressing their fondest hope that he could be brought safely out. Even when the interview had formally ended, most said they wished him well, that nobody deserved what was happening to him, but something in their voices belied the sentiments. Only one, a retired politician who'd run a campaign on the need for moral reform, damned him outright. "Nothing against the man personally," he'd said, "but I think it's a judgment. We'll be better off without him."

Everyone on the Wendy jay had been hit by Chiang's death. There was, he reflected, nothing like losing one of-your own to bring home reality. Now they were worried about Kellie, and several of the younger males seemed stricken at the possibility of losing her, too. Her boss, Marcel Clairveau, regretted that he'd allowed her to go down to the surface. Occasionally, when he spoke of her, his voice trembled. That also made good copy.

He'd interviewed the physician left on Wildside about Nightingale. She expressed sorrow, of course, but it was a perfunctory response. He was quiet, she said, very reserved. Never got to know him. Canyon had done his homework and knew Nightingale's background. There was a dark irony, he thought, that every time Nightingale touched down on this world, people died.

Canyon hadn't said anything like that, at least not for public consumption. But the observation would show up in his broadcast after the situation had sorted itself out. He was putting a great deal of time into writing the spontaneous observations that he would make in the wake of the event.

Canyon knew the right questions to ask, and he was able to work most of his subjects up to a state of near hysteria. If Hutchins and her friends came out of this, he thought, they'd be heroes of the first order.

His own career prospects looked brighter than ever. What had begun as routine coverage of a planetary collision that was of interest primarily because the event was so rare and people liked fireworks, was instead turning into one of the human-interest stories of the decade. And it was all his.

"Marcel, you need to get some rest." Worry lined Beekman's eyes.

"I'm all right," Marcel said. Too many things were happening just then.

"There's no point exhausting yourself. Do that and you won't be there when we need you." Marcel had slept only intermittently during the past few days, and it had always been a jumpy kind of rest. "There's nothing more for you to do at the moment. Why don't you get off the bridge for a while? Go lie down."

Marcel thought about it. The various elements of the extraction were going forward, and maybe he'd become little more than a kibitzer anyhow. "Yeah," he said, "I think I will." He propped his chin on his hands. "Gunny, what have we overlooked?"

"We're in good shape. For the moment, there's nothing more to be done." He folded his arms and stood waiting for Marcel to retire.

Embry was sitting up front in the pilot's seat, listening to the occasional crackle of conversation between the ground, Marcel, and Augie Canyon, who was interviewing Randy Nightingale. They sounded, she thought, in surprisingly good spirits, and she wondered how that could be.

Wildside had completed its movement, with the other three vessels, to a rendezvous near the assembly. Sitting in an empty ship while it fired thrusters and changed course had underscored her solitude. AIs were AIs and God knew she worked with them on a regular basis, as any practicing physician did. But somehow the voices that diagnosed a spinal problem or suggested a rejuvenation procedure were fundamentally different from an intelligent superluminal that made all its own decisions and on which she was the only passenger.

The message light blinked and an unfamiliar female face appeared on one of her screens. "Embry?" She was wearing an Academy arm patch.

"Yes. What can I do for you?"

"Embry, my name's Katie Robinson." Her diction was precise, and Embry wondered if she'd had theatrical experience. "We're about to leave Wendy. We're coming over and will be there in a few minutes. I'd like you to pack a bag. Get all your belongings. We're going to bring you back with us."

"May I ask why?" said Embry.

"Because we're going to remove your life support."

They arrived within thirty minutes and went directly to work. There were eight of them. They went down into the storage bay and stripped most of the metal from the bins, containers, cabinets, storage units, and dividers. Then they came topside and went through the compartments and the common room, doing much the same sort of thing.

Katie helped her clear out her own quarters. When she was finished they repeated the process, taking most of the metal: the bed panels, the lamps, a foldout table, a built-in cabinet. They thanked her, apologized for the inconvenience, loaded everything into their shuttle, including her, and left.

The trank hadn't worked. Kellie listened to the sound of distant tides-they had finally camped near Bad News Bay-and watched Jerry Morgan, a vast swollen moon, sink toward the hills. The eastern sky had already begun to lighten. Hutch was their sentry, and her slim form leaned against a tree, just beyond the fire's glow.

She gave up finally, pulled herself into a sitting position, and wrapped her arms around her knees.

"Did you love him, Kellie?" The voice startled her. It was MacAllister. He was lying with his back to her, but he rolled over now. His face was in shadow, and she couldn't make out his expression.

"No," she said. And, after a moment: "I don't think so."

"I'm sorry." He sat up and reached for the coffeepot.

"I know," she said. "We're all sorry."

He poured a cup and offered her some. But she declined. She didn't really want to put anything in her stomach.

"Sometimes," he said, "I think life is just one long series of blown opportunities."

She nodded. "You know what I really hate," she said. "Leaving him here. In this godforsaken place."

"It's no worse than any other, Kellie. He'll never know the difference."

She felt empty. "He was a good guy," she said, biting down a wave of anger and tears. Suddenly the grief rose in her, and she couldn't contain it. She clamped her teeth together and tried to hold on. MacAllister took her in his arms. "Let it come," he said.

Hutch was talking to someone. Kellie had collected herself, tamped down the storm, and was feeling drained. She pour herself some water.

Hutch stiffened. Lifted her arms in frustration. Kellie knew the gesture, and it raised the hair on her scalp.

The conversation ended, and Hutch strode swiftly into the ring of the campfire. "Let's move, folks. We're down to our last day." She knelt beside Nightingale and gently shook him.

"That can't be right," said MacAllister. "They told us we had until tomorrow night."

"They've changed their minds. Come on, we have to get rolling."

Mac needed no further prompting. He was searching for his toothbrush. "How far do we still have to go?" he asked.

"Thirty klicks," she said. "Give or take."

"In one day? We'll never make it."

"Yeah, we will."

"Hutch," Mac said privately, "it's not as if we're going to get there and you can turn the key and start the damned thing. How long's it going to take to get it up and running? Assuming we can do it at all?"

"A few hours," she admitted.

He looked at the approaching sunrise and rubbed his feet. "Then we have to get back to the tower and recover the capacitors. By what time?"

"Late tonight. Around midnight."

He held out his hands helplessly. "We need to go to Plan B."

Nightingale was watching while he tried to pull himself together. "What's going on?" he asked.

She explained.

"I'll be with you in a minute." He limped down to the creek to wash his face in icy water and brush his teeth. Mac went with him.

"You okay?" she asked Kellie.

Kellie was fine. Kellie would never be better. "You and I are going to have to do a sprint," she said.

"I know," said Hutch.

"We'll have to leave them."

"Mac's already been suggesting that."

The tides were loud in Bad News Bay. They came out onto a promontory and looked out over the water. It was a vast inland sea, the far shore lost in the distance.

"Ground gets rough to the south," Marcel told them. "Angle off your present course and head southwest for about a kilometer. There's a small lake. Circle the lake and keep going, same direction. It looks like easier country."

"Okay."

Far below, the bay was peaceful. Gulls skimmed along the surface, and Hutch saw something that looked like a large turtle basking in the rising sun.

They turned and faced each other. "We'll wait for you here," said Nightingale.

Hutch nodded.

Kellie was looking from one of them to the other. "We'll be back as soon as we can."

They had checked with Marcel. They were on high ground, and should be safe from the tides.

The four of them walked together along the rim until they found an open area that would be wide enough to set the spacecraft down. "Since time's pressing," Hutch said, "we're going to go to the tower first. Then we'll be back for you."

Kellie looked down the face of the cliff. "Don't wander around in the dark," she added.

"We won't."

Mac shook himself and rubbed his spine against a tree, not unlike an elephant, Hutch thought.

"I have to tell you," he said, "I love this plan. Anything that gets me off my feet." He extended his hand and his voice softened. Became personal. "Good luck, ladies."

Kellie pushed past the hand, embraced him, and planted a large wet kiss on his lips. "You're a jerk, MacAllister," she said. "But you're worth saving."

Hutch looked at Nightingale, hesitated, told herself what the hell, and repeated the ceremony.

Kellie, amused, shook her head. "Love fest," she said. "Who'd've thought?"

Kellie and Hutch followed the shoreline for a time, angled away from it when Marcel told them to, and struck off again to the southwest. The land was heavily forested, marked with ravines and ridges, with rocky bluffs and narrow waterways, and with occasional mountains.

A herd of gray creatures with faces like camels and long floppy ears rumbled past in great ground-eating leaps and disappeared behind a line of hills.

Marcel sent them around a mountain and across a trail. Animal or something else? Of course, in a world in which flying creatures attacked in synchronized squadrons and hunting cats walked erect, the line between sentience and pure animal behavior had grown a bit murky.

They kept moving.

At about noon, in the middle of a forest, they came upon a balustrade. Above it, Hutch saw a coved dome. Two domes. Twins.

"By God," said Kellie. "Look at that thing."

The domes were connected by a cornice.

"It's a temple." Hutch stopped in her tracks and stared.

It had six columns. They were fluted and supported a triangular pediment, on which a frieze had been carved. The frieze depicted two crickets, one seated in a shell of some sort, the other standing. The one in the shell was handing something, a cylinder, to the other.

No. On closer inspection Hutch saw it was a scroll.

"Lovely," said Kellie.

Hutch was glad for the excuse to stop moving for a minute. "It's baroque," she said. "Very close to eighteenth-century Parisian. Who would have thought…"

She could see an entrance hidden among the columns, and marble steps leading up to it. Kellie started toward them.

"No time," said Hutch.

"There's more over here."

A cylindrical structure was set at right angles to the temple. Pedestals projected every few meters, and a sculpted frieze circled as much of the building as she could see. It had a polyhedral roof supported by braces, and was adorned by roll molding and a small dome. The figures in the frieze seemed to show crickets in various poses, talking, reading, picking fruit from trees, playing with their young. Some were on their knees before a sun symbol.

There might have been an entire city hidden within the trees. She caught the outlines of majestic buildings, resplendent with arches and rounded windows and parabolic roofs. With galleries and buttresses and spires. And overgrown courts and abandoned fountains.

It was not a city that had ever known artificial lighting or, probably, a printing press. But it was lovely beyond any comparable complex Hutch had seen before. The detritus of centuries had blown across it, burying it, encasing it within a tangle of branches and bushes and leaves. But it nevertheless made her blood run to stand before the silent structures.

It might have been that the unearthly beauty of the place was enhanced by the encroaching forest, or by the sense of timelessness, or by its diminutive scale.

They stood entranced, relaying the visuals to Wendy. This time only silence came back. No one was asking them to take a moment to explore.

They spent less than two minutes at the site. Then they hurried on. A rainstorm washed over them. Black clouds rolled in, and lightning bolts rippled down the sky.

They lost contact with Marcel for almost two hours. The rain continued steadily, then changed to sleet. Tremors periodically shook the ground, severely enough to throw both women off their feet.

"Lovely day for a stroll," Kellie commented.

A line of trees appeared ahead. They plunged in. Something in the shrubbery went into a series of frenzied clicks. Hutch, in no mood for problems, and not wanting to give anything a clear shot at them at short range, cleared out the section with her laser. There were screeches, crashing around, animals charging off into the bush. They never got a good look at anything.

Marcel came back. "Bad weather?"

"Electrical storms."

"We see them. But you're doing fine. You should be there by early evening."

"I hope so."

"Hutch, I have another message for you from the Academy."

"What's it say?"

He hesitated. "It says they want you to take all precautions to avoid any further loss of life."

"Good. Tell them I'd never have thought of it myself."

"Hutch."

"Tell them whatever you like. I don't really care, Marcel."

The sun broke through. The sky cleared, and they hurried on. Something they couldn't quite make out tracked them for a while from the tops of a series of ridges. It ambled in the manner of an ape, but it apparently thought better of attempting an attack and eventually dropped out of sight.

"Scares me a little," said Kellie.

"Why's that?"

"At home, a cougar or a tiger or a gator, if it was hungry, would go for you. Most of these critters keep their distance."

"You're suggesting…"

"They're bright enough to know we're more dangerous than we look."

By late afternoon, when the light began to change, they were out in open country again. "Almost there," Marcel said. "Five klicks."

The ground was uneven and covered with thick grass. Hutch was spent. Kellie, with her longer legs, was managing a bit better. But she, too, looked weary.

Periodically they talked to Mac and Nightingale. They were, they said, enjoying the view. There'd been a high tide at about midday, and the water had come well up the cliff face. But they believed they had a substantial safety margin. MacAllister commented that he was more comfortable than he'd been since leaving the Star and didn't know whether he'd ever get up on his feet again.

The sky turned purple and threatening.

"Three klicks."

It was impossible to miss the worry in Marcel's voice.

"If you can move a little quicker, it would be a good idea."

The splotch of light that represented the sun sank toward a line of hills. Rain began to fall.

The lander, cold and silent, stood on the banks of a river so narrow it scarcely deserved the name. It was, in fact, an idyllic scene: a line of trees, a few rocks, the river, and the dying light. The trees marked the edge of the forest into which Tess's crew had disappeared on that long-ago morning.

It seemed almost to be waiting for them. Hutch was pleased to see the old logo, the scroll within the orbiting star still defiantly crisp on the hatch. The lander was green and white, the colors all the Academy's vehicles had worn in the early days. And the legend academy of science and technology shone proudly on its hull.

They jogged across the remaining ground, not all-out because they couldn't see the holes and furrows. But Hutch remembered the voracious redbirds and glanced uneasily at the woods. "We've got Tess," she told Marcel.

Marcel acknowledged, and she heard applause in the background.

Fortunately the hatch was closed. The ladder was still in place. Hutch climbed it, opened the manual control panel beside the airlock, pulled out the handle, and twisted it. The hatch clicked, and she pulled it open.

So far, so good.

They wasted no time getting through the inner door into the cabin. A layer of film and dirt covered the ports and windscreen, darkening the interior. Hutch sat down in the pilot's seat and scanned the console. Everything appeared to have been properly shut down.

In back, Kellie opened the engine panel in the deck and exposed the reactor. "Do we know what we're doing?" she asked.

"Find the boron. I'll be right there."

"Where are you going?"

She held up the collapsible container she'd taken from the Star lander. "Down to the river to get some water. You look for the boron."

Hutch wished that the pilot twenty years ago had had the foresight to land at the water's edge. The river was fifty meters away. She hurried down to it, filled the container, and dragged it back. When she got to the lander, Kellie showed her a canister.

"White powder?" she asked.

"That's it."

"So what now?"

"We start the reactor." A metal cylinder about the size of her arm was attached to the side of the device. The cylinder was equipped with a small crank.

"How do we do that? Is there a switch?"

"We'll have to jump-start it," Hutch said. She shut down her e-suit and removed the Flickinger generator. "I'll need yours, too."

Kellie complied, turned off the power, and handed it over.

Hutch dug into her pack. "I have a connector cable here somewhere."

Kellie disappeared in back for a moment and returned with one. She held it up for inspection. "Two inputs?" she asked.

"Perfect." Hutch tied it to both generators and attached the other end to a post on the reactor. Then she detached the cylinder and poured a half cup of water into it. She turned the crank several times and reconnected the cylinder to the reactor. Then she added a spoonful of boron. "Okay," she said at last. "I think we're ready to go."

"Glad to hear it."

"The system has a built-in Ligon roaster. All we have to do is start it." She pressed her thumbs against the ignition switches for the Flickinger generators and pushed.

A yellow lamp on the reactor began to glow. Hutch's spirits went up a notch.

"Now what?" asked Kellie.

"Be patient. It's going to roast off a few impurities and give us enough hydrogen to run the reactor." She closed her eyes and added, to the god within, I hope.

Kellie poked her. "Hate to wake you, Hutch. But we've got a green light."

The reactor was running on its own.

Hutch squeezed Kellie's arm, went back into the washroom, poured some river water into her hands, and washed her face. "It has to charge," she said. "That's going to take a while. And there's nothing we can do to speed things up. But so far we're doing pretty well."

She went outside, and Kellie boosted her up onto the hull. Hutch knelt beside the comm pod. The laser cut was clean, but she was able to replace damaged parts with the pieces she'd recovered from the Star lander. She rewired everything and, when she was satisfied it would work, climbed back down and returned to the pilot's seat.

She waited a few more minutes. Kellie paced the cabin nervously. "We don't have a lot of time, Hutch," she said. It was getting dark.

"I know." Hutch propped her chin on her palm and scanned her instruments. "All right, Collier, if you're feeling lucky, let's see if we've got some power." She put the vehicle into a test mode. Indicators and gauges jumped. "That's my baby. Internal systems look good."

"What's next?"

"Fuel."

The rain had stopped, but the sky was still thick with clouds.

Hutch emptied the rest of the water into the fuel tank. They found a pump and hose for the tank, but the hose was only twenty meters long. "A bit short to reach the river," said Kellie.

Hutch handed her the collapsible container. "File a complaint when we get home." She removed the lander's drinking water tank, which was not collapsible, and cradled it in her arms. "We need a lot," she said.

"What's the reactor actually do to the water?" Kellie asked as they hurried toward the river.

"It electrolyzes it. Separates the hydrogen and oxygen and gets rid of the oxygen." And of course the lander would then run on the hydrogen.

They hauled water through the dark for the better part of three hours. They emptied each container into the fuel tank, hurried back to the river, refilled, and unloaded again.

When they had enough power to get some lift out of the spike, Hutch eased into her seat, murmured a prayer, and pressed a stud. Her control panel came to life, and she raised a joyous fist. "On our way, baby," she said.

She opened the command menu and pressed the green field marked Tess. Nothing happened except that the charge level dipped.

"Tess?" Hutch said. "Are you there?"

A status line appeared on the AI monitor. It was flat.

"Looks as if Tess has gone to a happier world," said Kellie.

"I'd say."

"Try again?"

"No point. It just eats up power." She extracted the control yoke from its bin and locked it into position.

Now she took a deep breath and started the turbines.

They sputtered, coughed, tried again, and finally staggered into life. She talked to them and coaxed them along until the power flow became smooth. "I do believe we're in business," she said.

"Do we have any lift?"

"Let's find out." Hutch directed power into the spike. The gauges quivered and moved up a few notches. They were getting about twenty percent. Actually not bad, considering the age and probable condition of the capacitors. Not enough to get them into orbit, of course. Not nearly enough. But enough to get them off the ground.

Hutch opened the manual start-up compartment and activated the flight systems. Several lamps blinked on, gauges that would indicate airspeed, altitude, fuel mixture, engine temperature.

She couldn't taxi across the field and take off like twenty-first-century aircraft because she had no wheels. But the spike would get her up a couple of meters, and she could take it from there.

She drew her harness down and locked it in place. The spike activator was an illuminated gold panel. She pushed on it. Lamps changed color, and the word engaged appeared on her screen. Hutch felt her weight diminish somewhat. She put the thrusters into the lift mode and fired them. The vehicle rose.

It didn't go high. She could have jumped out without fear. But it was sufficient unto the day.

Kellie planted her lips on her cheek.

She maneuvered the spacecraft toward the river and brought it down on the bank. Then she shut everything off and they hustled outside.

Marcel chose that moment of absolute joy to break in. "Bad news. The water's breaking through."

"What are prospects?"

"It's not major yet. But it's going to get worse in a hurry."

They attached the hose to the reactor tank, dropped the other end into the river, and started the pump. Twenty minutes later, they had full tanks.

They retrieved the pump and hose, waited patiently for another half hour while the reactor did its work. Then they lifted into the air and turned toward the northeast. Hutch raised her flaps and gunned it.

XXIII

Despite all these years, we have not yet found anyone smarter than homosapiens. The Noks remain caught up in their endless wars. Everyone else is dead, missing, or gone back to the woods. We are winning by default. -Gregory MacAllister, Is Anyone Listening?

Hours to breakup (est): 75

After Hutch and Kellie disappeared into the forest. Nightingale and MacAllister built a fire. Whatever adrenaline had been keeping MacAllister going now deserted him, and he sat almost motionless, eyes closed, propped against a tree. Nightingale had also reached the limits of his endurance, but he was frightened at the prospect of falling asleep, leaving nobody on watch.

He made coffee, drank it down, and felt marginally better.

Thank God the ordeal was almost over. This time tomorrow, if everything went well, he'd be out of it, back on Wildside, enjoying a hot shower, sleeping in a real bunk, ordering up whatever meals might cross his mind.

MacAllister mumbled something. His breathing fell to a regular pattern, and Nightingale listened to the wind in the trees and the hum of insects.

He looked out over the bay. Far below, large sea-colored birds flew in wide lazy circles, occasionally diving toward the water. He refilled his mug, sipped from it, put it down, dozed off, and snapped awake again when something touched his leg. It was a big bug with ten or twelve pairs of segmented legs and a vicious-looking set of claws.

About the size of a lobster. He screamed, rolled away, and watched it scuttle back into the shrubbery.

Big bug. Hell of a reaction from a professional.

MacAllister never stirred.

But the incident had the effect of bringing him thoroughly awake. He talked to Hutch and Kellie, left the circuit on so he could listen in on their conversation, and occasionally traded comments with the Wendy mathematician who was their current contact. Then he began to sink again. "Trouble staying awake," he eventually told the mathematician.

"Okay." She had a burgundy voice. "Take off your link, set it for wide-angle visual, and let's aim it back into the woods. I'll try to keep watch for you."

They wouldn't be able to see everything, she explained, but it would be better than nothing. He killed his field, removed the link, and set it on a rock. Then he buttoned up again.

"If we see anything," she told him, "I'll give a yell."

Nightingale lay back, listening to the sullen roar of the tide. Then he closed his eyes.

He was vaguely aware of rain. Later he heard thunder. Another quake woke him briefly. And eventually he noticed that it had grown dark. MacAllister had apparently wakened long enough to throw a couple more logs on the fire. But he was fast asleep at the moment.

The tide was coming in. MacAllister sat gazing bleakly out over the bay.

"How're we doing?" Nightingale asked. "Did they find the lander?"

"Ah." MacAllister poured himself a fresh cup of coffee. "You're awake." He reached out and patted him on the shoulder, the way one might a pet collie. "Yes," he said, "I'm happy to report they got there okay." He made a second cup for Nightingale. "Far as I can tell, they're doing fine."

"Did they get it started?"

"Yes they did. A couple of hours ago, in fact." Broad smile. "They're loading up on fuel now. Randy, I do believe we're going to get away from this place with our skins after all."

"I hope so."

It was too cold to leave the suit off long, so Nightingale drank the coffee down and reactivated the field. That was something else he was looking forward to: being able to do basic physical maintenance without getting half-frozen.

A scattering sound drifted up over the lip of the precipice. They looked at each other and drew their cutters from their vests. Nightingale walked to the edge and looked down. The entire face of the cliff was moving.

Coming this way.

"Heads up!" he told MacAllister.

Two pairs of jointed limbs appeared over the edge, scrabbled for a hold, and then a hardshell black creature, with somewhat the appearance of an ant about the size of a guard dog, climbed up onto flat ground. It weaved momentarily, righted itself, and clacked off past them into the dark.

But not before Nightingale had assessed it. The thing had claws like a garden shears, eight thin segmented legs, and several sets of stalks.

A second one cleared the crest and lurched past them. Several more were scratching wildly for a grip on the bare rock.

Chittering and clacking, they hoisted themselves up, crossed through the firelight, and kept going.

"Mac?"

MacAllister had backed against a tree. "Yes," he said in a small voice. "I'm here."

"I think we're going to get lots of these things." More were scrambling onto the summit. Mac's cutter flashed on.

Nightingale was looking frantically for a refuge. "They're trying to get away from the rising tide."

"What are they?"

"Big and clumsy. And dangerous."

The numbers coming over the lip of the cliff seemed endless. "What do we do, Randy? Get behind the fire?"

"No! That's not safe. If there's a stampede, they'll run right over it. Over us. Find yourself a tree."

"I'm not sure…" He was gazing uncertainly at a tall hardwood. "They're too big to climb."

"Get back of one."

Hordes of the creatures wobbled past them. They ran in a pseudo-mechanical fashion, legs synchronized, mandibles pointed front as if they were expecting resistance. Those that moved too slowly or got in the way of bigger animals had their legs or antennas sheared off. One crashed into Nightingale, went down, and before it could get to its feet, was trampled. Another blundered into the fire, whistled pitifully, and ran on, trailing smoke.

When the panic was over, the dead and dying hardshells were heaped on all sides.

A straggler appeared. It was having a hard time getting onto level ground. After an interminable struggle, it succeeded, and they saw why: Two of its legs and several antennas were gone.

"What happens when they come back?" asked MacAllister.

"It won't be the same," said Nightingale. "It won't be a stampede."

"That doesn't mean they won't be dangerous."

"That's true. Also, they could be looking for a snack by then. It might be prudent to clear out of the area."

Mac was looking both ways along the rim. "I agree. Which direction? Back the way we came?"

"That doesn't sound like Gregory MacAllister."

Mac laughed and shouldered his pack. "All right then," he said, "onward it is."

Both were refreshed by their long rest at the summit, and they set out at a steady pace. The arc of the gas giant was rising behind them, and the forest grew so bright they didn't need their lamps. Not much longer.

A fresh voice broke into his thoughts. Canyon.

"I hear things are happening, Dr. Nightingale," he said. "I wonder if you'd care to describe them for us?"

"This is not a good time, August," Nightingale said, and severed the connection.

"Exactly the right way to deal with the media," said MacAllister.

"Hell, Mac, I thought you were the media."

"I am indeed," he said.

They stayed close to the rim of the escarpment. The bay spread out below them, a vast arm of the sea, smooth and hazy in Morgan's light. Along the shore, large tracts of woodland were in the water.

"Tide's come pretty far in," said Nightingale.

It was rising visibly as they watched. "You figure we're really high enough, Randy?"

Nightingale laughed. They were a long way up. "I have to think that's the celebrated MacAllister wit."

"Oh, yes. It is that."

The forest literally went over the edge of the summit in some areas, and they were often so close to the precipice that a misstep could have ended in disaster. But occasionally the foliage opened out as much as a half kilometer. The glare of the giant planet had become so bright they were able to switch off their lamps.

MacAllister touched Nightingale's shoulder and pointed out over the water. A light was burning.

"It just came on," he said.

And while they watched, it went off.

They peered into the semi-dark, but could make out nothing.

The light came back on.

"What do you think it is?" asked MacAllister.

"Marine life."

It went off. Nightingale lifted his lamp, pointed it out to sea, and blinked it.

The light in the water blinked back.

Mac frowned. "I do believe somebody's saying hello."

That hardly seemed possible. "It's a luminous squid or something," he said. "We're looking at a mating call."

"It wants to mate with us?"

"It wants to mate with the lamp." Nightingale blinked again. A complicated series of longs, shorts, and mediums flashed back.

Mac got dangerously close to the edge. "It looks like a code."

"Did you know," asked Nightingale, "that some of the fireflies back home are really imitating other species of fireflies? Mimicking a desire to mate? When the recipient shows up for a big time, he gets eaten." He narrowed his eyes, trying to pierce the darkness. It appeared to be simply a light on the surface. He imagined a hand raising a lantern from the depths.

"Can you make it out, Randy?"

"Just water."

MacAllister blinked his light and looked expectantly seaward. There was, Nightingale thought, an element of play in his manner. He was enjoying this.

A reply came back, another complicated series.

"I can't tell what's doing it," Nightingale said. "It looks as if the light's in the water." He stared at it. "We should record it."

MacAllister nodded. "It almost seems like a fishing boat out there trying to talk to us."

The ground shook. Somewhere below, a piece of rock broke off and fell down the face of the cliff into the bay.

Nightingale caught his breath, moved well back from the precipice, and waited for more shocks. When none came, he directed his scanner to record. At his signal, MacAllister blinked a couple of times, and again the lights flashed. One. Followed by two. Followed by three.

Nightingale felt a chill run down his back.

"Your squid can count," said Mac. "Do you think that intelligent life might have developed at sea?"

Well, it had back home. But it had taken a long time to recognize because it was nontechnological. Dolphins and whales were clever. And squids. But they didn't take to mathematics without prodding. "It's had a long time to evolve," Nightingale said.

Mac flashed once.

The answer came back: Two.

Nightingale pushed Mac's lantern down, and raised his own. He sent Three.

It answered: Four.

He looked through the glasses again. "My God," he said. "We're going to come back with this story and no answers and people are going to scream."

The ground trembled again, more intensely this time. "Randy," said Mac, "this is not a good place to be right now."

"I know."

MacAllister took his shoulder. "Come on. Before we both go into the pond."

Nightingale nodded, pointed his lamp at the light source, and blinked again. Once. Good-bye.

The offshore light blinked back. Twice.

"They're still counting," said Nightingale.

"How you guys doing?" Kellie's voice, sounding cheerful and relieved.

"Okay," said Nightingale, who could not take his eyes off the bay. "Good. I thought you'd want to know. We'll be in the air in a few minutes."

Thank God,

"They're good babes," MacAllister told him on the private channel.

XXIV

Good fortune is less a product of talent or energy than it is a matter of timing. Being at the right place when the watermelon truck flips. This is how promotions happen, and how fortunes are made. Arrive at the intersection a minute behind, when the police are on the scene, and everything is undone.

— Gregory MacAllister, Lost in Babylon.

Hours to breakup (est): 63

Kellie looked down at Bad News Bay and sucked in her breath. The entire lower coastline had gone underwater, and the cliff top along which they'd walked was now not much more than a promontory.

"What do you think?" asked Hutch. She was referring to the diagnostic, and not the state of the bay.

"I don't know why the Al is disabled. Probably general degradation."

"Okay. What else?"

"We've got problems with temp controls. Onboard communications are okay. Capacitors are at max, but we've only got twenty-one percent That's all they'll take, apparently. Sensors are out. Forward dampers are down. We're getting a warning on the electrical system."

Hutch made a face. "Not imminent shutdown, I hope?"

"Negative."

"Okay. When we get time I'll take a look at it. We've got plenty of spare parts on board."

Normally, the pilot would run the diagnostic herself, but normally the AI would be operating the spacecraft. Hutch was busy.

Kellie ticked off a series of other problems, mostly minor, others potential rather than actual. "We wouldn't want to do a lot of flying in this buggy. But it should get us to the tower."

Hutch leveled off at two thousand meters, informed Marcel's surrogate they had no sensors, and with her help set course. The surrogate asked whether there was any chance they could ride this lander back to Wendy? As it was at the moment?

"Negative," Hutch said. "We can lift off and set down. We can even hover for a bit. But take it to orbit? That's not going to happen."

Kellie took a minute to call Nightingale. "How you guys doing?" she asked.

"Okay."

"Good. We're overhead." Then, to the surrogate: "Allie, do we have time to pick up the rest of our crew?"

She nodded and throttled up. "Negative. The plain is flooding as we speak. Lots of water."

In the illumination cast by Jerry Morgan, the countryside was ghastly. Kellie saw the area where Chiang had died, and thought she could pick out the spot where the hovercraft was located. They soared over the dragonfly river.

Marcel came on the circuit. "Hutch," he said, "there's a lot of water cascading into the valley. A lot. The tide keeps getting higher, and a long section of ridge has simply collapsed."

It would continue to do so as Morgan moved across the sky. To the south, they saw roiling smoke.

"Volcano," Marcel said. "They're erupting all over the globe tonight."

"What's the situation at the tower?"

"The water hasn't gotten there yet in any quantity. But it won't be long. Run your afterburners."

"Afterburners," said Hutch. "Aye." A joke, of course. She was already at maximum thrust.

Marcel continued: "The tower's in a wide plain. There's a funnel of sorts that empties into it from the north. The water's coming through the funnel. When it hits the plain, it spreads out a bit. That's kept us out of the soup. But it won't contain things forever."

"Any guesses on time?"

"How long's it going to take you to get there?"

"Twenty minutes."

"It might be enough," he said. "You'll want to hit the ground running."

"Mac."

"Yes, Priscilla."

"Mac, be careful. We'll be back as quickly as we can." "We'll be waiting." "You and Randy'll be okay?" "We won't be if you don't get those batteries." "Capacitors, Mac."

"Bear with me. I was never much of a technician. But by all means go get them. We'll leave a light on for you here."

Marcel came up again. "Hutch." And she read everything in his voice, all the futility and despair and exasperation that had been building for days. "You might as well break it off. Go back and-"

"What do you mean, break it off?"

"Just what I said. You don't have time to do this."

Kellie cut in. "Goddammit, Marcel, we can't just break it off. We've got nowhere else to go here."

"We're working on a backup plan. Forget the capacitors."

"What's the backup plan?"

"It's complicated."

"That's what I thought," said Kellie. "Give it to me in a couple of words."

"We're going to try to take you right out of the sky."

"You're what?"

"Pick you up in flight. I can't explain now."

"I'm not surprised."

"We're building a device that might work."

"Marcel," said Hutch, "what's your level of confidence in this scheme?"

He apparently had to think about it. "Look. Nobody's ever tried anything like this before. I can't promise success. But it's a chance."

"Right." Kellie stared at Hutch. "Go for the tower."

Hutch agreed. "I think we better get the capacitors." She leaned forward in her chair as if she could urge the spacecraft to more acceleration.

"Hutch-" He sounded desperate.

Kellie shook her head. Get there or nothing else matters.

They were already at full throttle, had been since leaving the river.

"How much time do we have?" asked Kellie. "Before the water reaches the tower?"

"The tower's getting its feet wet now."

"How deep? How bad is it?"

"It's deep enough. You simply don't have time for this."

"We're out over the plain," said Hutch, "and we don't see any water yet."

"Take my word for it."

"We're going to look, Marcel. We'll let you know."

Kellie went private. "We're not over the plain, Hutch," she said. They were in fact passing over forest and ridges.

"We're only a couple of minutes away." Hutch went back to Marcel. "If it looks at all possible, we're going to try it."

"I wish you wouldn't."

"I wish we didn't have to. Now tell me about the water: What are we going to see? Waves? A gradual rise? What?"

"There's a wave on its way. Actually, a series of waves, running close together."

"How far are they? From the tower? How high?"

"High enough to submerge the capacitors. They're at ground level, right?"

"Yes. On a table."

"They're probably already in the water."

"Any chance we can beat the waves? Any chance at all?"

"You've got about fifteen minutes."

They were ten minutes away. Give or take. "Okay, Marcel. All or nothing."

"Speaking of which: You're off course. Come twelve points to port."

Hutch moved the yoke to the left, and watched the guidance indicators. "Okay?" she asked.

"Yeah," he said despondently. "Looks fine."

Kellie listened to the steady roar of the jets and watched snow-covered ridges sweep past.

"We did a minimum charge," Hutch told her. "That means there's a possibility we may have to install the new capacitors before we can get off the ground. That could get interesting. You might take a look in back. Make sure we have everything close to hand in case we have to do the connections."

"We going to do this in the backseat?"

"If things get tight, yes. We won't take time to remove the onboard capacitors. Just pull the connectors. We'll load the new ones in back as best we can, tie them in, and get the hell away. So we'll need electrical cable and wrenches ready to go."

Kellie went back and began laying everything out.

The lander passed over the last line of hills and came out over the plain. They picked up the snow cover and the ground became ethereal, a spectral countryside of glistening trees and silver-etched shadows. Then the tones changed, and they were over water.

It looked shallow. Shin-high, knee-high. They could still see ground shrubbery. Kellie reported everything ready in the backseat.

Hutch watched the time and looked for the tower. "Can't be far now." And to Marcel: "What happens if they get wet? The capacitors?"

"They aren't designed to be waterproof, Hutch. If they get wet, they will have to be dried out. Maybe they'd still be usable. I really can't say for certain, and we can't find the information in the database. But it's a circumstance we should have tried harder to avoid."

Hutch understood what he was saying. They should have walked faster. She cut fuel and dropped close to the ground. The lander slowed. "Kellie, keep an eye open."

Trees and hills were creating wakes. A few animals fled before the current, and a pack of the wolflike creatures they'd seen early in their trek were moving southwest toward higher country, only their heads visible above water. They weren't going to make it.

"Hutch." Marcel again. "You're coming up on the tower. Three points to port, directly ahead, about two thousand meters."

She killed the jets. The lander coasted through the silver light. "It might be shallow enough that we can still do this," said Kellie.

"I see it." Hutch bent over the controls. "I'm going to try to set down with as little help from the spike as we can manage. We want to save enough to get us out of here."

She had no choice, however, but to use the system to stay aloft. power levels were therefore falling. The reactor automatically shut down while they were in flight, so available power consisted of what-ever had been stored in batteries or capacitors. And to save time they'd stored an absolute minimum.

Marcel's voice: "You've got about six minutes before the ocean gets there."

"How big's the first wave?"

"It's spreading out. Diminishing. But at the moment it's maybe ten meters." Almost as high as the tower.

"There's our baby." Kellie pointed. There was no sign of the chasm.

The tower rose out of the floodwaters, bleak and cold and desolate, but still standing. It seemed to Hutch almost biblical, last trace of a vanished civilization, a final defiant rocky digit raised against the unforgiving skies.

"Going down." She lowered the treads.

"We might be okay," said Kellie.

The lander's lights reflected off running water. Hutch went to reverse thrust, brought the vehicle almost to a standstill, and lowered it gently toward the ground.

To the north, she could make out a moving gray wall. "Here comes the wave," she said, activating her e-suit.

Hutch pushed the yoke forward and felt a mild jar as they touched down. Kellie opened the airlock and splashed out into the surge.

The current tried to drag her off her feet.

Hutch started out behind her, but she stopped in the airlock and watched the mountainous wave bearing down on them. Abruptly, to Kellie's dismay, she called her back. "Forget it," Hutch said. "There isn't time."

Marcel broke in. "Let it pass," he said. "Then try it."

"No!" Kellie fought to stay on her feet. The current was moving north in the direction of the oncoming wave.

Hutch sounded cold and calm in her receiver: "It won't do any good if we lose the lander."

"We won't be able to find them afterward," Kellie said. "Dead now or dead later: What's the difference?" She was only steps away from the entrance, and she kept going.

"Won't improve things if we can't find you either," Hutch said.

The wave was enormous, rising high and rising higher. A huge crest folded over and crashed down. Kellie stumbled into the tower. The capacitors lay on the worktable where they'd left them, covered by the tarp.

The water swirled around her ankles. The roar of the onrushing sea was deafening.

"Come on!" Hutch let her hear a cold flat tone. "Kellie, I have to pull out."

She actually touched one of the capacitors through the cloth. She couldn't leave without them. Couldn't possibly leave without them. Just pick the thing up and hustle back with it. But she needed Hutch. Couldn't get both of them alone.

"… get the lander clear."

Kellie and the wave. It had a nice ring.

"God."

She couldn't hope to carry it, though. Not in time-

She broke away finally and stumbled back through the muck. It was hard going, and she fell at the entrance, rolled, and came up running. Hutch stood in Tess's hatch looking back past her shoulder. Looking up. Kellie splashed across the few meters as Hutch ducked inside. She heard the engines turn over, felt the shadow of the wave. The lander began to lift. The hatch was still open, but she had to jump for the ladder. She caught the bottom rung, hung on, dangled while Tess went up, watched the wall of water engulf the tower. It crashed over it. Submerged it. They were rising too slowly and then the vertically positioned jets cut in and they soared. She clung desperately, suddenly as heavy as a load of iron. She screamed, and the wave thundered beneath her.

The jets died, and Hutch let the lander sink a few meters. Kellie scrambled for a better grip, dragged herself up a couple more rungs, and got a foot on the ladder.

The tower was gone. She could smell seawater.

She fell in through the hatch and looked for something to throw at Hutchins, seated at the controls, not even looking back.

"You were going to leave me," she said. "You were actually going to leave me down there."

"I'm responsible for two more people." Hutch's voice simmered with anger. "If you want to kill yourself, that's one thing. But I wasn't going to let you kill all of us."

"We could have done it, goddam you." She closed the hatch.

Hutch finally turned and looked at her. "You had your hands full getting back as it was. What makes you think you could have done it carrying one of the capacitors?"

"We were too slow getting out of the lander. If we'd gone in as soon as we got here. No hesitation. Just done it-"

"We'd both be dead."

Hutch circled around, and they flew over a sea of rampaging water. There was no sign of the tower. And a second wave was becoming visible.

They watched it in silence. It rolled in and swept past, higher than the first.

"We should have tried" said Kellie.

She saw the tower, rising out of the flood, water pouring from its windows. Incredibly, it was still intact, other than a couple of pieces missing from its roof.

"Next one's three minutes away," said Hutch.

The third wave was the giant. It kept building, and Hutch took them higher. A few trees had managed to keep their uppermost branches out of the water. But this one rolled over them and over the tower.

They waited, watching for the stone roof to reappear.

Marcel asked what had happened.

"Don't know yet," said Hutch.

MacAllister and Nightingale also called in. "We may have gotten here too late," Hutch told them.

Hutch thought there was still a chance.

She engaged the jets, moved into a wide arc around the place where the tower had been, and shut down the spike, conserving energy.

"It's over," said Kellie. Her voice shook.

"No. When the water subsides, we'll go down and look."

But the site was now located at the bottom of a turbulent lake. The water level rose and sank as they watched. More waves thundered in. Sometimes the newly formed sea exposed large swatches of ground. But Hutch was no longer sure where the tower had even been.

"Hutch." Marcel's voice. "It should start to recede in an hour or so."

"We've got an ocean at the moment," she said. "You say recede. Is the water going to go back out?"

"Well, not really. Some of it will. But a lot of it's going to stay right where it is. At least for the next few days."

"Good," said Kellie. "We don't have anything better to do. We'll just-"

"That's enough," said Hutch. She continued to circle.

MacAllister called again. "Listen, you did your best. Don't worry about it."

All these people depending on her.

Kellie gave Hutch a withering look, and Hutch was getting tired of that, too.

Over the next forty-five minutes, more waves, large and small, swept through the area. Morgan moved silently across the sky into the west, enormous and bright and lovely.

At last the water began to ebb, running back the other way. A wake appeared off their starboard side. It was the tower, broken and shattered.

Cautiously, Hutch set the lander down in the retreating current and began recharging the reactor. They sat in strained silence almost an hour, until the force of the runoff had subsided. Then they climbed out into the current. The water came to their waists.

The top of the tower and the upper chambers had been ripped off. The worktable was gone, as were the capacitors. They looked carefully at the ground floor. They even took lamps and swam down the staircase to the level below. But there was nothing.

They searched the surrounding area, marking off sections and walking and swimming through them as thoroughly as they could.

Jerry set, and the sun rose.

XXV

Luck does not come out of a vacuum. It is manufactured by organization. -Gregory MacAllister, "TheArt of JulioAgostino," Editor at Large

Hours to breakup (est): 60

NEWSLINE WITH AUGUST CANYON

"The small landing party marooned on Maleiva III lost a race with the sea hours ago when the giant tides being stirred up by the approach of Morgan's World flooded extensive northern tracts of the continent everyone here calls Transitoria, and washed away two capacitors that would have lifted the stranded explorers into orbit Nevertheless, authorities on board the Evening Star insist they have not given up.

"It's the middle of the day here, Tuesday, December 5. Inside sources expect that conditions on Maleiva III will deteriorate tomorrow, and grow much worse Thursday. They are predicting that the planet will begin to break up Thursday night. A last-ditch effort is being mounted to construct a kind of sky scoop. Universal personnel will be closely involved in the attempt, and I'll be back with details on a special broadcast later today.

"This is August Canyon, in orbit around Deepsix."

Janet's volunteers were near the end of their third day of training when word came. They would be going outside.

Tonight.

The reaction was mixed. The news was accompanied by a sober moment while they digested the fact that the stakes, for them, had just gone up. Janet detected a trace of apprehension, now that a seri-

ous commitment had been made. But they went back to work with a will.

As to herself? She was delighted she'd come.

Chastain stopped by the Bryant Auditorium to talk to the volunteers about the Flickinger field. They were now calling themselves the Outsiders.

Only one of the thirty-odd volunteers had ever worn an e-suit before entering the training program. He reviewed how the systems worked, took questions, played a sim, and inspected harnesses. They talked about the Flickinger field, what it could do, what it could not do. He laid down some basic safety procedures, like not losing physical contact with the ship or with the alien assembly on which they'd be working.

After dinner the outsiders were called back for an evening session, during which Janet introduced Mercedes Dellamonica, Nichol-son's executive officer. She was a cool, unemotional native of Mexico City. She, Marcel, and Janet accompanied the trainees outside in groups of fifteen, each taking five. They walked around on the hull, got used to conditions, got used to the systems, acquired enough skill with the communications package to get by, and received once again all the appropriate warnings, including a demonstration by Mercedes, who deliberately lost contact with the surface, floated off, and had to be rescued.

They did some zero-gee welding. Afterward they were required to give a final demonstration of their skills. When they'd finished, two more were excused,

A few tennis nets had been strung together outside, courtesy of Captain Nicholson, and those who were scheduled to work on the asteroid net got some practice climbing around on them.

At the end of the session, around eleven, they were herded into a dining room adjoining the captain's own. An assortment of snacks was served, compliments of the Star. Their instructors were present, and when everyone was assembled, Captains Nicholson and Clairveau filed in. Nicholson made a short speech, thanking them for their effort, and expressing his confidence that they would succeed. Afterward they were called forward individually and awarded certificates emblazoned with an image of a woman dressed apparently for an afternoon on the links, carrying a welding torch, and sitting confidently atop two of the assembly shafts.

Behind the two captains, stretched across the bulkhead, was a banner carrying the same image. Below the woman, dark green script spelled out Evening Star. Above was the legend The Outsiders.

Pindar Koliescu was delighted with himself. He'd gone outside with the rest, had handled the e-suit with aplomb, had shown a decent adroitness wielding the laser. He felt he understood enough to cut and weld with the best of them. Not bad after only three days' practice. But then he'd always been a quick study.

He was the founder of Harbinger Management Systems, which specialized in teaching people how to supervise subordinates and oversee resources. It was mundane stuff, but it was sorely needed in the commercial world of the early twenty-third century. Harbinger had made him wealthy and allowed him to indulge his principal hobby: cruising into the unknown with beautiful women.

His partner on this tour was Antonia Luciana, an exquisite and insatiable young Roman who had kept him in quite a good mood since the start of the voyage. Antonia had tried to discourage him from joining the rescue effort, had struggled to hold back tears when he insisted, had then suggested she would have liked to go along too but doubted her ability to learn the requisite skills within the time frame. She had also admitted that the prospect of going outside terrified her.

In the manner of the excellent manager he was, he understood, and left her to applaud his pending heroics.

Pindar was enjoying himself thoroughly. He'd gotten caught up in the emotional swirl surrounding the rescue effort, he had come to feel a kinship with the four people on the surface, and he understood that no display of courage and skill on his part, however memorable it might be, would be satisfying unless the rescue succeeded.

The ceremony was short. "You'll all want to get a good night's sleep," Captain Clairveau told them at its conclusion. "We've set up special quarters for you. I'm told you already know about that, and you know where they are. We'll escort you there anyhow when we've finished here." He grinned. "Consider yourselves in the military for the duration. Your morning will start early. I'd like to remind you that after you leave this room everything becomes real."

They gave Janet the last word. She thanked her fellow Outsiders, assured them she'd be with them throughout the operation, and gave them their final instructions.

Pity. Antonia would have been thoroughly aroused by his pending exploit. Pindar consoled himself that he was making a magnanimous sacrifice and trooped off with the others.

Before bedding down for the night he called her. Her lovely image took shape and shimmered in front of him. She'd adapted her signal to present herself with precisely the degree of insubstantiality that enhanced her natural beauty. "It's going fine," he assured her. "They're breaking us into groups of two and three. I've been assigned as a team leader. Can you imagine that? Me, a-skyhog?"

"You will be careful?" said Antonia. "I want you to come back to me." She tried to purr, but it didn't work because she was really worried for him, and that knowledge stirred him, demonstrated it was not just his position and power that had won' her over. It forced him to recognize once again that he must be an extraordinary person to command such affection from one so lovely.

"Have no fear, Amante," he said. "You just relax and enjoy the rescue."

"Pindar." She peered at him closely, as though to see into him. "You're really not afraid?"

"No," he said. "Everything will be fine."

"Will I be able to see you?" She meant on the viewscreens.

"I'm sure you will."

She tilted her head and smiled. "I'll be glad when it's over."

In the morning, they were awakened early, at about five, and marched back to the same dining room, where they received a light breakfast. Afterward he met his partner, an attractive brunette whose name was Shira DeBecque. He and Shira boarded a shuttle headed for Wendy. They talked over their tasks en route, and arrived on the science ship in good spirits. There they met the shuttle pilot who'd be working with them during the balance of the morning, received their schedules, and set up their gear.

Marcel could see the dismay in Ali Hamir's eyes. Ali was Wendy's lead technician. He'd thought there was a decent chance to reconfigure the scanners and conduct a successful search for the capacitors. But resolution below the surface of objects smaller than a human being had not proved possible. The wave action had picked up and re-deposited millions of rocks and other pieces of debris. There was no way to determine which two, if any, might be the missing units.

Marcel blamed himself for the failure at the tower. There'd been time to get to Tess and recover the capacitors had he not relied on the wave projections. He should have hustled them along. He should have insisted they do what they had finally done: split up and make best time for the lander. He and Hutch had discussed it, but she'd believed the danger too great to leave anyone behind. Marcel had gone along with her, reluctantly. Now he saw the magnitude of his error.

Several of Ali's people were seated in front of the operational screens, forlornly watching hundreds of markers blinking. Rubble in the muck beneath the newly created inland sea.

"Hopeless," said Beekman.

Moose Trotter, a mathematician from the University of Toronto and, at 106, the senior member of the mission, had always seemed unfailingly optimistic. But Moose now looked like a man in pain, wandering from station to station, neglecting the work that had brought him there.

Marcel had been asked whether, if the sky-scoop initiative didn't work out, communication with the ground party should be cut off as conditions worsened. Benny Juarez, a close friend of Kellie's, thought anything less than granting the victims their privacy during their last hours, if it came to that, would be indecent.

Nicholson was getting an update from his engineer when Mercedes Dellamonica called him. "What have you got, Meche?" he asked.

"A delegation," she said. "Maybe a dozen people at the moment, but it looks like more coming. They're unhappy about the rescue effort."

The locator put her on the bridge. "On my way," he said. He called the kitchen and ordered several cartloads of refreshments sent up and then left the operations center and took the elevator topside. He rehearsed his comments on the way. But he was taken aback by the sheer number of angry passengers. More were trying to push into the area from outside.

The exec was standing behind a table trying to talk into a microphone. He strode through, got to Mercedes, and turned to face the crowd.

They got louder. Nicholson knew many of them. He was almost an ideal cruise-ship captain. One of his strengths was that he never forgot a name. Laramie Payton, a building contractor from the American

Northwest, asked the question Nicholson knew would be at the top of the agenda: "What's this about our being welded to that alien thing?"

"Laramie," he said smoothly, "I've explained all that already. There's no danger. You can rest assured I wouldn't do anything that would put the Evening Star at risk. We will be welded, but keep in mind this is a very big, ship. If we need to, at any time, we'll be able to break away from the assembly as easily as you could break an egg. So you just don't have to worry about that at all."

Hopkin McCullough, a British communications tycoon, demanded to know how he could be so sure. "They're talking about pushing that thing down into the atmosphere. How do we know we won't go down with it?"

Nicholson raised his hands. "We have engines, Hop. The fact that we're helping push isn't going to affect our ability to maneuver if we have to. It's just not a problem. Anybody else?"

He gave a few more reassurances. The donuts and coffee arrived. The disorder subsided, and the captain strolled out among his patrons, clapping some on the back, and chatting idly with others. "I can understand why you'd be worried, Mrs. Belmont," he'd say, "but there's really no cause for concern. We're going to rescue those people tomorrow and then we'll be on our way."