Ark

73

November 2052

It took nearly a year to implement the Split.

They broke up the warp generator, under Zane Glemp’s uneven leadership, and used spares to rebuild it as two copies of itself. Kelly and Wilson thrashed out which subgroup would take which hull; it was decided that it was fairer for Kelly’s crew, with their shorter journey back to Earth, to take Seba, the fire-damaged hulk, while Wilson took Halivah. That decision seemed logical, but Holle wondered to what extent personal politics had again played their part. And they equipped a single shuttle glider to take Elle’s crew down to Earth II, with a share of tools and raw materials and seed stock from the store bequeathed to the project long ago by Nathan Lammockson.

They began to say their goodbyes, first to the colonists of Earth II. Wilson arranged a kind of ceremony, in which each of the colonists was given a small stainless-steel globe of their new planet, manufactured in the Ark’s machine shop. Holle found it almost impossible to say good-bye to the Candidates, like Cora and Thomas and Elle, with whom she’d grown up, and shared a common mission all her life, and with whom she’d expected to grow old. Now she’d never see them again.

The two hulls were still linked by the tether, still wheeling around their common center of gravity over the steel ocean of Earth II, when the colony shuttle was released. Everybody left aboard the Ark followed the little craft’s progress as it cut into the new world’s tall, thin atmosphere, and created a shining contrail of incandescent plasma that dipped down toward its landing place on the Belt.

Then came the final sorting-out between the twin hulls, Seba and Halivah, the last transfer of materials, the last handshakes. Holle hated to let go of the Shaughnessys, who she had worked closely with since the launch at Gunnison. But they wanted to go home.

And then, for the second time since Jupiter, the tether was cut by its explosive guillotine, and the hulls drifted apart.

Seba was to be the first of the hulls to create its warp bubble. From Halivah, Holle watched curiously from the cupola, beside Venus. It happened as Seba was crossing the face of Earth II, from Holle’s point of view. A whole section of the planet, a rough disc, seemed to crumple as if crushed by an invisible fist, the colors of land and sea running like wet paint. But then it rebounded, and Seba was gone.

It was only then that Wilson discovered that Kelly Kenzie had kidnapped Mike Wetherbee, the only doctor, and taken him away to Earth. Wilson’s rage endured for days.