Deepsix

XXVI

There is little that is actually impossible if one is in a position to apply energy and intelligence. It is our willingness to conclude this or that cannot be done that usually defeats us. Consider for example how long the outhouse was with us.

— gregory macaluster, Notes from Babylon

Hours to breakup (est): 54

NEWSLINE WITH AUGUST CANYON

"This is August Canyon reporting from Deepsix, where, as you can see, Morgan's World has become by far the dominant feature in the sty. You're looking at the gas giant as it will appear tonight over the largest continent on the planet, a place aptly named Transitoria, where the Gregory MacAllister group remain stranded.

"A last-ditch rescue effort continues today, in which Universal News will play an integral part. At this moment, the science research vessel Wendy Jay is lying alongside the skyhook counterweight which scientists found here several days ago.

"To fill us in on the details of the mission, Miles Chastain, captain of the UNN starship Edward J. Zwick, is with us, although he's actually speaking from the Wendy Jay, where he's advising the rescue team.

"Captain Chastain, how precisely is-this going to work?"

Miles had just completed mounting lasers in the auxiliary housings on the hulls of four of the shuttles, and was now reviewing the allocation of the shuttle fleet to the needs of the operation. They had a total of seven vehicles: three from Wendy, two from the Star, and one each from the other two ships. He was consequently feeling a bit crowded when he got on the circuit with Canyon. He delivered a few responses that might charitably have been described as curt, and excused himself. But Canyon made it work, emphasizing the point that things were accelerating, that the operation was on the move, and that there was simply no time for small talk. It was all very dramatic. Miles had expected, as he sat down to go over mission requirements, that Canyon would be miffed. Instead, the newsman called to express his appreciation for what he called Miles's performance. "It was superb," he said. "Couldn't have scripted it better." He grinned. "I believe, Miles, if you ever get tired of piloting, you could have a career as a journalist."

They landed near a lake, refueled, and then hurried on to pick up MacAllister and Nightingale. It was a gloomy reunion. Hutch got a lot of commiseration. "Nice try," and "You did what you could." And: "Maybe this sky scoop will work."

Kellie remained uncharacteristically quiet.

The reactor switched on as soon as the engines were off, and commenced recharging the various systems. Mac slipped into a seat and commented how good it was to be indoors again.

The ground shook constantly.

"After a while," said Nightingale, "you don't notice it."

Morgan's wide arc was just dropping out of sight, behind the trees. The eastern sky was brightening, and the clouds had cleared off. It looked as if, finally, a sunlit day was coming. "So what about the sky scoop?" asked Nightingale. "What is it? Will it work? When does it happen?"

Hutch and Kellie had received more details from Beekman. But the planetologist, to use Kellie's phrase, had never learned to speak English. The description had been too technical, even for Hutch. She understood in general terms what they proposed to do, but she simply couldn't credit impossibilium with the capabilities they claimed for it. On the other hand, what else had they? "They're telling us day after tomorrow. Local time."

"Day after tomorrow?" Mac was horrified. "Aren't conditions supposed to be a little rough by then?"

"It's the best they can do. Pickup will be out over the Misty Sea. During late morning."

"Where in hell is that?" demanded Mac.

"The Misty Sea? Off the west coast. The rendezvous won't be far from here, really."

"Bottom line," pressed MacAllister. "Will it work?"

Surely Beekman's physicists knew what they were talking about. "Yes," Hutch said. "I'd guess it'll be tricky. But I think we'll get clear."

"Tricky?"

"The timing."

"When you say you think," said MacAllister, "it doesn't give me confidence."

"It's a long shot," said Kellie.

MacAllister was working hard to control his voice. "Okay," he said. "Now we're talking about being here a couple more days. What about this deterioration we keep hearing about? I mean, it's already a little weathery out there. How bad's it going to get? What's actually going to happen?"

"You really want the details?" asked Hutch.

"Of course." And then Mac's voice softened. "Please."

Everyone turned to look at her. "There've already been major quakes. Apparently none in this area yet. But there will be. And they'll get worse. Off the scale. We can look for chunks of land to be shoved as much as fifteen or twenty kilometers into the sky. There are going to be more volcanoes. Bigger and better. And giant storms." She paused momentarily and let them listen to the wind. "Higher tides than last night. Much higher. We'll have to find high ground somewhere. In three days, more or less, the atmosphere will get ripped away. We should be well away by then."

"That seems like a good idea."

"The oceans will go a few hours later.

"The outer crust will melt. That's tidal effects and volcanic activity, as I understand it. At that point the planet will seriously begin to come apart. They're figuring midnight Thursday or maybe a little later ship time, which is coincidentally about the same time here. Approximately forty hours later, the pieces will fall into Jerry and go splash."

"My God," said MacAllister. "There must be some way we can get off this goddam place. If the scoop doesn't work. Maybe we could get aloft, get swept off when the atmosphere goes, and then get picked up."

"Not possible," said Hutch.

"It's a chance." His eyes flashed angrily. "You sit here and keep telling us what won't work. What will?"

"It's not a chance," said Kellie. "Even if we did get tossed free without getting boiled, which wouldn't be very likely, there won't be anybody to pick us up."

MacAllister's breathing was becoming labored. "Why not?"

"Because the collision's going to put out a lot of energy. The neighborhood's going to explode like a small sun when things begin to happen. They're going to have to get the ships well clear before then."

"Speaking of which," added Hutch, "we ought to head for safer ground." She didn't like the way the area constantly bobbed and weaved.

MacAllister sighed. The endless supply of glib comments seemed finally exhausted. "You said Wendy's still looking for the capacitors. That means there's still a chance to find them, right?"

"There's a chance," Hutch said.

"Maybe we should go back and look ourselves," said Mac. "It's not as if we have any other pressing business." He sounded betrayed.

"We don't have working sensors," said Hutch.

"Which means," observed Nightingale, "that all we could do would be to spend our last hours mucking around hip-deep in the water. You really want to do that?" He gazed at MacAllister for a long moment, and then turned back to Hutch. "How the hell did we get into this, anyhow?"

They were casting about for someone to blame. Kellie hadn't revealed the details of their abortive attempt to retrieve the capacitors, Hutch was sure. But they felt resentful and frustrated, and they were scared. They'd certainly been listening during the salvage effort. They could not have missed Kellie's pleas. Hutch knew what that must have sounded like. Cowardly pilot blinks at the critical moment.

And she herself could not avoid thinking how easily things could have turned out differently. It had been only a matter of minutes. How many minutes had they squandered during the nine days of the march? If they'd left a little earlier one morning… Walked a bit later one night… Not stopped to poke into the chapel… If they'd left Nightingale and Mac sooner rather than later…

MacAllister turned a beaten gaze out the window. A wide stream gurgled past, tall green trees like nothing ever seen on Earth sparkled in the early-morning light, and a bright golden bird with red-streaked wings was walking around on the fuselage. The scene was idyllic. "Are we sure we can't ride this thing out of here? It doesn't seem as if it would hurt to try."

"We're sure. Essentially, what we've got is a rocket-assisted jet aircraft. The rockets are for maneuvering in zero gee, but they don't pack nearly enough punch to get us into orbit. We can use the spike to negate our weight, but only for a little while. A few minutes or so."

"So if we tried it…?"

"We'd probably get up to twelve, thirteen thousand meters, maybe a little higher. We'd have a couple of minutes to wave, and then we'd fall back. And incidentally, if we exhausted our lift capability in the effort, we'd have no way to land."

"I don't suppose," Mac persisted, "that one of the ships could come down to twelve thousand meters and pick us up?"

"No," said Kellie. "The superluminals can't navigate in the atmosphere."

"Nor the shuttles?"

"Nor the shuttles."

"So all we've got is the scoop."

"No." Kellie stared out at the rain. "Hutch is right: There's not much chance of finding the capacitors. But I don't think it would hurt to look. Maybe we'll get a break."

Hutch agreed, seeing no more useful way to spend the time, and Nightingale reversed his position and decided it was the only reasonable thing to do. Hutch engaged the spike and took off.

They sat quietly during the early minutes of the flight, as if by refusing to talk they could halt the passage of time and cling to these last hours. Nobody laughed anymore.

They were leaving the area of the bay when Hutch's commlink vibrated, Marcel calling. She put him on the allcom. "How are you folks holding up?" He sounded artificially cheerful. Marcel was a good guy and a competent captain, but she was discovering he was the world's worst actor.

MacAllister grumbled something she couldn't make out.

"We're okay," she said.

"I've a message for you."

"For me?" asked Hutch.

"For all of you. In fact, we have a lot of messages, thousands of them. The whole world is following this. And wishing you well."

"Nice to be at the center of attention," said MacAllister.

"Of course," he continued, "they're all at least two days old. The people sending them don't know about…"-he paused, trying to find a diplomatic way to phrase it-"… about losing the capacitors."

"You said there was one message specifically?"

"Two, actually."

"You want to read them?"

"First one's from the General Commissioner of the World Council. She says: We admire your bold effort to expand the limits of human knowledge and your willingness to embrace the hazards that inevitably accompany such undertakings. Be assured that all humankind joins me in praying for your safe return. Signed Sanjean Romanovska."

"Good," said MacAllister. "We'll all get monuments. Maybe even streets in Alexandria named after us."

"What else have you got?" asked Hutch.

"One from Gomez. It's for you."

"Read it," she said.

" 'Priscilla, I need not tell you that we here at the Academy are delighted that there will apparently be a happy ending to this unfortunate incident. You had us worried for a while. "

"Those of us down here," said MacAllister, "have been worried, too."

"What's the rest of it, Marcel?"

"It says, 'Now that you're out of danger, I want to ask you to take a look at the area designated Mt. Blue, where the base of the skyhook is reported to be located. It's essential that we know what happened on Deepsix. Where the advanced technology came from. I know it's asking a lot after what you've been through, but I know I can count on you. It's signed Irene."

"Irene?"

"That's what it says."

Back at the Academy, Irene Gomez could have fallen over Hutch in the corridor without knowing who she was. But it would be something for them to do. "Give us a minute," she told Marcel. Then she put him on hold. "What do you think?" she asked her companions.

"This isn't brain surgery," said MacAllister. "We have one chance to come out of this alive: find the capacitors. Maybe my vote shouldn't count. I can't say I care much what's on top of Mt. Blue. I think we should be concentrating on getting out of here. I mean, hell, they want to send us on another chase. I think we've had enough."

"Randy?"

He considered it. "Maybe Mac's right. Maybe we should take a look at the tower area first. If it seems hopeless, then we could make for the mountain."

Kellie shook her head. "I hate to be negative, but I've been there, at the tower, and I don't think we have much chance of finding anything. Those were big waves. God knows where the capacitors are now. But, on the other hand, I do know we won't find them on a moun-taintop."

Hutch reopened Marcel's channel. "We're going back to look for the capacitors."

"Okay. I can understand that."

"Send Irene my regrets."

There was an awkward pause. Then Marcel reminded them there was more mail. "The commcenter," he said, "has been overwhelmed with good wishes for you. For everybody."

Hutch was impressed. Sending a hypercomm message was not inexpensive. "Overwhelmed?"

"Thousands of them. Probably be more than that if we had a wider reception capacity. They tell us they're backed up pretty heavy at Relay. Whole classrooms of kids, in some cases."

"I don't suppose you have any way of sorting out the personal stuff?"

"Not easily. Even by last name, I can't be sure. We have sixteen messages for you from people named Hutchins. Eighteen for Randy from assorted Nightingales. Ditto for everybody else."

"All right," said Hutch. "Keep mine for now. Why don't you put somebody on with each of these other folks? They may have specific names they'll be looking for." She thanked him and disconnected. Nightingale stared at her, and she could see the judgment forming. Nobody in your entire life you want to hear from at a time like this?

Of her immediate family, only Hutch's mother was still alive. Relations between the two had been strained for years over Hutch's failure to settle down and have a family. Like a normal young woman. Of course, Hutch wasn't that young anymore, a fact that seemed to have escaped her mother. Or added to her sense of panic. Even though she remained at the height of her physical capabilities, as people routinely did for their first century or so, she had long since discarded the happy innocence one might expect of a bride.

She'd been around long enough to know precisely what she wanted out of life. She believed weddings had to happen reasonably early if they were to have a chance of success. Mates had to grow together. She knew what she would expect of a man, and there simply was no such creature in captivity. So if she'd been stuck with being alone, and sometimes lonely, she had at least not been lonely in a marriage, which was the worst of all worlds. Anyhow, she liked her independence.

Mom had never understood. Had never wanted to understand.

Hutch sat looking at her notebook. And finally, with reluctance, opened it and tapped in a message:

Mom,

It looks as if we're down to a couple of days. Things haven't gone as well as we'd expected. But we're hopeful. You'll know how it turned out by the time you receive this.

She thought about it, wrote some more, apologized for not being the daughter her mother had wanted, explained that she'd enjoyed her life, and hoped her mother would understand that she, Priscilla, would not have had it any other way.

Having broken through the wall, she wrote to a few others, mostly people connected with the Academy. Doesn't look promising at the moment.

They were good times.

I was thinking about you last night…

MacAllister looked over her shoulder and smiled. "Be careful, Priscilla. Don't say anything you can be held to when you get home."

There was no one with whom she could claim a romantic relationship. There'd been some men over the years, of course. One was dead. The others were happily married in suburban New Jersey or points west.

She sat quietly, trying to think what to say to old friends, and found herself regretting things not done. People for whom she had not made sufficient time. The great love that had never quite shown up. The child not borne.

Now that she faced possible termination, her life seemed curiously incomplete. She'd heard somewhere that, when death was near, one's regrets were not for one's actions, the assorted small and petty acts, the occasional immoralities, even the periodic cruelties visited on others. But rather one regretted things not done, adventures not undertaken, experiences left untasted, whether through some false code of morality or, more likely, shyness or fear of failure.

She smiled to herself. MacAllister had said somewhere, through fear of getting caught.

XXVII

Few of the virtues are realty useful. Fidelity leads to lost opportunity, truth-telling to injured feeling, charity to additional solicitations. The least productive, and possibly the most overrated, is faith. The faithful deny reason, close their minds to the evidence of their senses, and remain unfailingly optimistic in the face of disaster. They inevitably get just what they deserve.

— Gregory MacAllister, "Along for the Ride," Reminiscences

Hours to breakup (est): 45

Janet Hazelhurst's people had been transported to their stations and were ready to go.

John Drummond reported that his team had worked out the details for the assembly. "They've got it all down?" demanded Marcel. "Every step?"

"Every step."

"What about the rest of it?"

Beekman took him through the entire plan. The shuttles were fueled and ready. Phil Zossimov was on schedule with his collar and dividers. They were working on this, getting that set up. There were problems, but that was unavoidable on a jury-rigged operation this big.

"Nothing insurmountable?"

"Not so far."

Marcel had slept a few hours, and felt better than he had in a week. But he watched Beekman suspiciously.

"What?" asked Beekman. "What's wrong?"

"I'm waiting for you to tell me."

"Marcel, nothing is wrong. We're doing pretty well. Better than we have a right to expect."

They were still twenty minutes from the tower when Marcel told them Wendy's search team had given up trying to find the capacitors.

"Up to us," said Mac. "Good thing we didn't go to Mt. Blue."

Hutch felt better in flight, with full fuel tanks and the ground far below. Her natural optimism came back when she could throttle up. Even in these circumstances she could not escape the sense that with the jets running, anything was possible. She wondered at the recovery of her spirits and mentioned it to Mac, who suggested she was wired to assume the world was a permanent place, a view which had surely been shaken by recent events. Here among the clouds, however, they could see forever, and life did indeed seem infinite.

The day had closed in almost as soon as they'd left the ground. Hutch had gotten away from a long line of storms, and they were flying through gray, overcast skies streaked with dust. "Volcanoes, probably," said Nightingale.

Kellie shook her head. "I think they'd tell us if volcanoes were going off in the neighborhood."

Hutch wondered if that were so. Marcel might be reluctant to introduce still more bad news. In fact this had to be a nightmare for the people on Wendy. They might almost be wishing it were over.

There were occasional calls, from Embry, asking whether everyone was physically okay, and could she be of assistance in any way? Guilty conscience, probably.

And from Tom Scolari, also sounding guilty, telling her he was doing everything he could to help recover them. Scolari was with the Outsiders. "It's going to be okay," he said. Sure. How good was he at manufacturing landers?

Kellie got calls from friends on Wendy. "I wish," she said, "they'd just let me be. They keep telling me to hang in. What the hell else can we do?"

Mac received one from Nicholson, assuring him they were making "every effort to extract him from his plight." MacAllister thanked him politely and shook his head. "How's your plight, Hutch?.You know, I believe that's the first time I've ever actually heard a living person use that word."

The lander flew on through the deepening morning, on this twelfth local day since their arrival on Deepsix. It now seemed to Hutch as if their departure from Wildside had occurred in another lifetime.

Sometimes the clouds closed in, and they could see nothing. There was no other traffic in the sky, of course, and she was confident she was above any nearby peaks, but she disliked flying blind, with neither vision nor instruments. She was dependent exclusively on guidance from Wendy and the satellites. To complicate matters, they lost communications with the orbiting ships for almost six minutes.

"Local interference," their contact told them when the system came up again. "The storm systems are starting to play hell with communications."

Augie Canyon called, asked a few questions, and reminded them a lot of people were praying for them back home.

"Anybody here believe in life after death?" Kellie looked around at her companions.

"I do," MacAllister said carefully.

"You do?" Nightingale suppressed a smile. "You've made a career of attacking moralists and reformers, Mac. And whole sections of the country that you thought took their preachers too seriously. Which is to say that they took them at all. What are we getting here? A deathbed conversion?"

"Randy." MacAllister's expression denied all charges. "I'm shocked and dismayed that you would think that of me. I have only attacked people who pretend to have the answers to everything. For the very good reason that they're either imbeciles or charlatans. But that doesn't mean I've denied there's a spiritual dimension to life."

"Really? A spiritual dimension?" Nightingale arched his eyebrows. "Sir, what have you done with Gregory MacAllister?"

"Wait a minute," said Kellie. "That's a fairly sweeping statement anyhow. Are you making those charges about everyone who belongs to an established faith? What about Brother Dominic?"

Yes, thought Hutch. Brother Dominic was a modern St. Francis who'd worked forty years among the poor in east Asia. "A fine man," MacAllister allowed. "I'll give you that. But I'd say he's locked into a belief system that's closed his mind."

"You're talking about the Roman church?"

"I'm talking about any system that sets up a series of propositions that are supposed to be taken as the word from on high. Adherents

get so caught up in their certainties that they miss the important things. What does Brother Dominic know about quantum mechanics?"

"What do you know about quantum mechanics?" demanded Hutch.

"Not much, I'll grant you. But then, I don't pretend to be pious."

"I'm a bit slow," said Nightingale. "Make the connection for me."

"Randy, doesn't it strike you that anyone truly interested in the creator, if in fact there is a creator, would want to take time to look at his handiwork?" He smiled benevolently at Hutch. "Or her handiwork? Matter of fact, doesn't it seem likely that the creator might be a bit miffed at anybody who spends a lifetime walking around paying serious attention to church architecture and misses the stars?

"People who wear their religion on their sleeves talk a lot about going to Sunday school, reading the Bible, and doing good works. And I suppose there's no harm in that. But if I'd gone to the trouble to put all this together"-he raised his hands in the general direction of infinity-"and people never paid any attention to it, never bothered to try to find out how the world worked, then I think I'd get annoyed."

"I'm glad you're not running things," said Kellie.

MacAllister agreed. "There'd be a lot more direct action," he assured them.

"So," said Nightingale, unable to let it go, "the great atheist defends theology."

MacAllister shrugged. "Not theology," he said. "Belief."

The conversation reminded Hutch, if she needed reminding, how frightened she was. She worried about how she'd respond if the rescue plan didn't work.

Nightingale studied her, and that dark gaze seemed to penetrate her soul. He reached over and touched her wrist. "It's okay," he said. "Whatever happens, we're in it together."

NOTEBOOKS OF KANDALL NIGHTINGALE

It's good to be in the lander. Even though it can't get us out of here, at least we've regained a sense of minimal control over what's happening. I can't explain it, but being relegated to walking around in the woods for several days left me feeling absolutely powerless. Maybe things haven't changed a whole lot, but it's nice to be able to take off, and to look down on the real estate. It makes me feel human again.

On the other hand, maybe it's just a result of feeling safe from the local wildlife.

— December 5 or thereabout

Guided by Wendy, Hutch set down on an island to wait for the midday tide to recede. They were about fifteen klicks west of the tower.

"How long?" asked Mac.

"Make yourself comfortable," she said. "It'll be a few hours."

"That's a lot of wasted time, Hutch. Why don't we just go in and get started?"

"We'd get washed away. Be patient."

He stared out the window at the vast inland sea. "Patience requires time, Priscilla," he said.

"Gunther." Janet the welder was unhappy. "I've just been asked a question I don't know how to answer."

"Go ahead," said Beekman.

"All the shafts look the same. We've got teams spread out along 420 kilometers of the assembly, every eighty klicks."

"Where the braces are," said Beekman.

"Right. And we are going to free a single shaft and the asteroid from the rest of the construct."

"Okay. What's the problem?"

"To do that, we have to cut the shaft free from the braces. We have five braces to deal with, plus the configuration where the assembly joins the asteroid, which is a plate. My question to you is this: We do not want to extract the central shaft because it involves too much cutting and manipulation. By far, the easiest course is to cut and remove one of the outer shafts."

"And?"

"How can we be sure that each team works to free the same shaft? The thing's too long. The shafts are all identical. There's no way I can see to distinguish them."

"Oh." Beekman apparently hadn't thought about it either. "I suppose we could send a shuttle out. Mark the damned thing."

"You mean wait while a shuttle paints a stripe down one of them?

That'll take too long. We don't have that kind of time. Or, I suspect, that much marker."

Beekman frowned. She wondered whether other issues like this would come up, things no one had foreseen. "What about a hammer?" she suggested.

"What would we do with a hammer?"

"Rap on the shaft. Give each team a sonocap from Medical. Let them listen for it. I'd think the vibrations would carry, even over eighty klicks."

He made a face suggesting he didn't think much of the idea. "I'm not versed in sonics," he said. "But the shafts are connected at the braces. So they'd all vibrate. The amplitude would be different, I suppose, but I wouldn't feel confident with that kind of approach."

"What then?"

He took a deep breath. Exhaled.

Several members of her team were waiting below in the area they'd newly designated O Deck for the Outsiders. "Let me get back to you."

He was back in five minutes. "All right," he said. A detail of the assembly blinked onto one of her screens. "The shafts are regularly spaced. Eight on the perimeter. Six on the inner arc. One in the center."

The detail rotated, illustrating.

"If you look straight through it, there's only one position in which five shafts line up. We'll use one of the outer shafts from that position."

"Which one?"

"That's easy enough. One end of the assembly is pointed directly at the center of Deepsix. Have someone stand on top of the assembly. The shaft at the top that matches up will be the Alpha shaft. The one we use."

"How do we determine the top of the assembly?"

"Easy. Reckon from the planet. From the north pole. North is the top."

"Are we sure everyone will be able to find the north pole?"

"They won't have to. Instruct the pilot to align the shuttle so that the north pole equates to topside." His brow wrinkled. "I can't see any reason why it won't work."

"That's good, Gunther," she said.

He laughed. "That's why they pay me the big money." He thought about it some more. "Arrange things so all the teams make the mark at the same time. Don't forget the assembly's moving."

Beekman had just finished describing his solution to Marcel when his screen lit up. It was Mark Bentley, a fellow planetologist whose specialty was gas-giant cores. He was currently director of Moonbase's Farside Observatory, and a longtime close friend. In his spare time, Bentley was an accomplished amateur actor.

He looked unhappy. "I wouldn't want you to misunderstand, Gunny," he said. "But we're sacrificing everything we came here for."

Beekman knew that. A substantial number of the experiments weren't even running. Specialists had been pulled off their assignments and put on the rescue operation. Worst of all, Wendy was on the wrong side of Deepsix, her view of developing events limited to what she could see through her satellites. The mission was turning into a fiasco. "I know," he said. "What would you have me do?"

"Call it off."

Beekman was shocked. "What?"

"Gunny, I'd like to see those people out of there as much as anybody. But the scoop is a long shot at best." He was quiet for a minute, apparently thinking how he was going to defend the indefensible. "Can I be honest?"

"You always have been."

"The chance to watch this thing close up, it's too much to let get away. Gunny, the truth is, it's worth a few lives, if that's what it takes."

Beekman was surprised at his own reaction: Bentley was not necessarily wrong. From one point of view.

"Let it go," he continued. "You know what's going to happen: Something'll go wrong, the operation won't work, they'll all die anyhow, and we'll be left looking like idiots because we came all the way out here and got nothing."

"Mark, what would you have me do? We can't just write them off."

Bentley was quiet for a long minute. He knew. He understood it was not an easy decision. "I think they've been written off. By events. Somebody needs to point that out to Marcel."

Beekman felt a terrible weariness creeping up his insides.

"I'm not the only person here who feels this way, Gunny. It's not just me." He held out his hands. "Look, if there were a decent chance

of getting them off, I'd say go ahead. I wouldn't be happy about it, but I'd be willing to go along with it. But this isn't a decent chance. It's a gesture. And that's all it is. It's being done so when we go back, Clairveau can say he did everything he could. You know as well as I do that you can't make this work."

"I think we can," he said.

Bentley continued as if he hadn't spoken. "We won't have another opportunity like this. Not in our lifetimes. Maybe not in the lifetime of the species."

Beekman didn't know what was right.

"How the hell are we going to explain this when we go home?" demanded Bentley. "No we didn't save them, and no we didn't see the event. We were there, but we were busy."

Beekman wondered how authority on Wendy ran in such a case. Beekman was the project director, charged with ensuring that they made maximum use of their time and resources to record and analyze the event. Marcel was the ship's captain.

"Talk to him. Clairveau'll listen to you."

XXVIII

I'm always interested when a large-scale project is successfully completed. My own research shows that, in any organization numbering more than twenty-two people, no single person can ever be fbund who completely understands what's going on.

— Gregory MacAllister, Gone to Glory

Hours to breakup (est): 44

Pindar and Shira climbed into a shuttle and watched the launch doors open. Outside, a few hundred meters,away, they could see the assembly. It looked like a group of unconnected narrow tubes, running absolutely parallel, stretching unbroken in both directions. "Here we go," said the pilot. They glided quietly forward and, to Pindar's intense excitement, moved past the enclosing bulkheads and sailed into the night

The patch over the pilot's pocket read bomar. "Klaus," he said stiffly by way of introduction. His manner implied their presence was inconvenient. He was short and heavyset, with a Canadian accent Pindar thought he looked like a man who never enjoyed himself.

But the truth was Pindar barely paid any attention to the pilot He was captivated by the alien structure, its parallel tubes reaching toward infinity, vanishing finally in the stars.

Behind them the big luxury liner began to move. It accelerated, drew away, and its vast bulk dwindled and disappeared. It was, he knew, headed for the asteroid. Bomar advanced on the assembly, turned along its flank, braked, and coasted to a stop.

"Okay," he said. "You two are on."

It was an electric moment. Pindar activated his e-suit. Bomar

checked him, adjusted something on his back, and then looked at Shira. "Looks good," he said.

"Don't we get a go-pack?" asked Shira, eyeing the thruster harnesses stowed in the utility locker.

"Negative." Bomar's somber features softened with amusement. "You don't need one. Just do what you're supposed to and don't fall off."

"Right," said Pindar. His own voice seemed to have deepened somewhat.

Bomar opened the inner hatch. "Keep one foot flat on the metal at all times while you're on the thing. Okay?"

"Absolutely," said Shira.

"This is not something to smile about. Please get it right the first time. I don't want to have to do a lot of paperwork." He exhaled and looked like a man who wasn't used to accommodating amateurs. "They got your next of kin?"

That question had been on one of the forms. "Yes," said Shira.

"Keep it in mind while you're out there. All right, let's go."

Shira and Pindar had arrived at Station One. There was no brace there, nothing to hold the shafts together. They were 320 kilometers from the asteroid, the rock that had provided the counterweight to whatever space station had once been attached. Their assignment was simply to climb on board, select the correct shaft, and mark it.

Shira was not a classic beauty. Her ears were a little big, her nose a little long, and the e-suit handicapped her by pressing her rich brown hair down against her scalp. But she was nevertheless attractive in a way he couldn't formulate. She was self-possessed, methodical, seemed quite adroit at laughing at herself. And perhaps most enchanting of all, she showed no apprehension whatever about going outside. "Come on, Pindar," she said, picking up her utility pack and throwing it across one shoulder. She led the way into the airlock. When the inner hatch closed she turned to him. "I can't believe this is happening," she said.

Pindar tried not to roll his eyes. He felt much the same way but could never have brought himself to say it.

"You ever been outside before?" she asked.

"No. Yesterday was the first time." The training exercise. Prior to that, the opportunity had risen only once. He'd had a chance to put on an e-suit and stand on the hull of a ship in flight during an adventure tour, but he'd passed it up for an evening of poker.

The assembly stretched across the overhead monitor, its relative motion reduced to zero. Bomar had matched course, speed, and aspect.

"Opening up," he said.

The hatch slid upward. Shira was wearing shorts and a white blouse with gold-rimmed breast pockets. She looked as if she were primed for a tennis outing.

She caught him staring. "You're laughing," she said.

He looked down at his own garments: tan slacks and a black pullover. He wished he'd thought to bring work clothes, something old that he wouldn't care about if he ruined. The Star had offered jumpsuits to the volunteers, but he hadn't been able to find one in which he felt comfortable. "I think we're a bit overdressed for the occasion," he said.

The assembly was almost close enough to touch.

Shira moved past him to the lip of the airlock and simply allowed her forward motion to carry her across, as she'd been taught. No jumping, no sudden exertion. She caught hold of the nearest shaft, smiled back at him, and brought her magnetic boots into contact with the next tube below.

Pindar followed, thinking how this was the first alien anything he'd ever touched, how he'd be telling his grandkids about this in another half century. It was a big moment, and he was enjoying himself thoroughly.

He reached Shira's shaft and let his boots connect. "Okay, Klaus," he told the pilot. "We're clear."

"Strange feeling," said Shira.

He looked back the way he had come and saw Morgan, a vast cobalt arc split in half by sunlight. Even though it was still at a substantial distance, he could feel its weight. Its mass, he recalled. Use the proper terminology.

Deepsix, floating directly ahead at the end of the assembly, was white and blue and vulnerable. Lunch, he thought. Not much more than a snack for the monster that was moving in on it.

Shira touched his arm. "Let's find our shaft."

The shuttle drifted alongside.

Using the spacecraft as a guide, they climbed up. Shira led the way. At the first two steps, she paused, looked down through the shafts, shook her head, and moved on. The third try was golden.

"Okay," she said. She backed away to get a better look. "This is it. No question."

Pindar joined her, saw four shafts line up with the one he was standing on. He produced his squirt gun and splashed yellow dye on the metal. "I dub you Alpha," he said.

"You guys sure now?" asked Bomar.

"Of course," Shira sounded annoyed.

Beekman was unable to make up his mind. He stood near Marcel, uncertain whether to demand that they forget this fool's errand and return to the mission they'd come there for, or inform him that there were some malcontents and not to worry, that Beekman would handle it, but that the captain should be prepared for complaints.

The hours were slipping away, and their magnificent opportunity was dwindling. Bentley and several others were watching, waiting to see whether he would act.

Lori's voice was providing periodic updates from the various teams. In addition, the conversation from the lander cabin had been put on the speaker. The AI reported that all stations on the target shaft, the one they'd designated Alpha, had been successfully marked.

Marcel looked up at him. "So far, so good."

"Yes." Beekman looked directly into his eyes. "It doesn't sound as if our ground team has much confidence in us, though."

"I think I prefer it that way," said Marcel, glancing around at the technicians. "Provides extra incentive. I think everybody here would like to prove them wrong."

Maybe not everybody, Beekman thought.

Marcel looked into his eyes and frowned. "What is it, Gunny?"

"Nothing," said the project director. "Nothing that won't wait."

Canyon recognized an emotional situation when he saw one. They were still sitting on their island as the day crept forward, waiting for the water to go down, waiting to launch an almost hopeless search for the whatzis that had been washed away.

But they didn't want to talk to him. No matter how gently he tried to frame his questions, How does it fee] to know so many people are rooting for you? and If you had all this to do again, is there anything you might have done differently?

"Nobody wants to be rude," Hutch told him, "but I just don't think this is a good time for an interview."

"Okay," he agreed. "I understand how you feel. But if you change your mind, if anyone does, please call me. Okay?"

He was sorry about their situation. And he would have helped if he could. Sitting quietly, staring at the displays of the approaching giant, of the vast sea that surrounded the tower, he understood their frustration. He almost wished he'd followed his father's advice and gone into engineering.

He decided he'd try again when they got closer to the end. His superiors at home were pressing him to acquire what they were referring to as an exit interview with MacAllister. "After all, he's the one everybody knows." But Canyon trusted his own instincts on this one. It was the two women who packed the emotional impact, who would bring tears to people's eyes around the world. Especially Hutchins. Slight of stature, quiet, almost elfin in appearance, there was much of the girl-next-door in her. And Canyon knew if he could get her to agree to talk during the final hours, as he was sure he could, he would give the public an emotional jolt like nothing anyone had ever seen before. If Hutch wouldn't cooperate, Kellie was another possibility.

As to the others, he didn't much like Nightingale, and he was afraid of MacAllister. You never quite knew what he might say.

Hutch made a premature effort to land them at the tower, but the water was too deep and the currents too swift. So she turned away and retreated to another hilltop, and they waited another forty-five minutes, watching the tide run back to the northeast.

The second effort succeeded. She got down, and they piled out into hip-deep water. First they made a careful inspection of the tower, assuring themselves that the capacitors weren't there somewhere, missed by Kellie and Hutch in the preliminary search.

Then they waded out toward the south. They'd divided the area into parcels and they tried to work within their assigned boundaries, tried to be methodical. We'll stay on this side of a line between the tower and that tree over there. It wasn't very efficient, but it worked to a degree. The real problem was that the search area was immense.

Nightingale and Mac brought with them a conviction that the units could nevertheless be found, probably because they thought this was their only decent chance at survival.

The land was not as flat as it had seemed. The depth of the water varied, up to their ankles in some places,over their heads in others. The current was strong and, in deeper areas, consistently threatened to knock them over. Hutch had arrived with no illusions about their chances. Left to herself, she'd have put all her money on the sky scoop, gone to Mt. Blue, and spent the remaining time surveying the hexagon. But she was tired, and she was not up to arguing with two males who probably already thought she'd made an inadequate effort when there had still been a chance.

She'd expected Nightingale and Mac to give up fairly quickly because of the amount of effort required to maintain the search. And the sheer size of the search area. But as the hours passed, their determination, or their desperation-it was difficult to know which- grew. They moved farther and farther south of the tower.

Kellie, who was teamed with Nightingale, seemed to have become resigned. She stayed close to her partner, worked hard, plunging her hands beneath the surface constantly to examine one suspect rock or another. But Hutch could see that she had no real hope of success, could see it in the way she paused occasionally while they rested to look out over the vast expanse of running water, sometimes gazing north, no doubt wondering whether the capacitors might somehow have gotten on the wrong side of the tower. Or were fifty kilometers away. She could hear it also in the listlessness of her voice. And who could blame her?

Once they thought they had one of them, but it turned out to be something much like a turtle shell.

When it got dark, they quit. They were exhausted, annoyed, frustrated. They were aching from pushing against the currents and constantly bending over. The knowledge that the capacitors might be within a few meters at any given time had made it impossible to give up. But fianlly they crawled back to the lander, hauled themselves into the cabin, took turns cleaning up in the washroom, and collapsed into their seats.

The water was starting to rise again anyhow. Hutch took them up.

"Can I make a suggestion?" said Marcel.

"Go ahead."

"First, am I correct in assuming you've given up looking for the capacitors?"

Hutch glanced around. They all nodded.

"All right. I want to move you to high ground for the night." "Okay."

"For the moment, there's nothing more you can do. Tomorrow, I'd like to persuade you to go to even higher ground." "Mt. Blue," she said.

XXIX

We are all afflicted with a Lone Ranger syndrome, a belief in the masked stranger who arrives well armed at dawn and settles problems in a straightforward simplistic manner. The character, whose origin stretches back to the twentieth century, owes his longevity to the fact that he connects with our most primal impulses, and represents the way we truly would be, if only we could. That we cannot results not only from a lack of courage and ability, but also because the world is simply not built that way. When the night is dark and the storm closes in, one had best be prepared to help himself. Because as surely as the stars wheel overhead there will be no one else, masked or otherwise.

— Gregory MacAllister, Introduction to The Last Mythology by Eve Shiu-Chao

Hours to breakup (Est): 42

They locked down for the night atop a ridge in a howling blizzard not far from Bad News Bay. The ground shook constandy. Hutch slept off and on. She and Kellie both spent time listening hopefully to operational reports from the small armada overhead.

They heard Janet Hazelhurst issuing crisp directions to the Outsiders, who were getting ready to remove what they called the Alpha shaft from the assembly; they heard John Drummond's team working out the details of getting everything pointed in the right direction, and Abel Kinder debating the location of the pickup site with Drum-raond: "It's easier to get here, but the weather looks doubtful, so we need to go farther north."

They heard Miles Chastain and the shuttle pilots planning their assignments. In the early-morning hours, Marcel came on to give them details, the coordinates and altitude and timing of the pickup.

"We've moved it slightly," he said. "But not by much." Rendezvous would occur in precisely twenty-five hours and eleven minutes, mark. Three hours after sunrise day after tomorrow. "At 10,276 meters."

"Ten thousand two-seventy six?" said Hutch. "What happens if we come in at seventy-five?"

He laughed. "You'll be fine, but I'm serious about the precision of this. At its lowest point, we expect the center of the scoop will be at seventy-six. The mouth will be fifty-three meters in diameter. The lander, at its widest, is about fifteen meters. That means you have nineteen meters leeway on either side."

"All right. We should be able to do that. How much time are we going to have?"

"Pinpoint. A couple of seconds. We'll have everything timed so it arrives exactly where it's supposed to, when it's supposed to. But it's just going to be passing through. You get one shot at it. It conies in, it goes down, it starts back up. After that it's gone."

"Okay."

"I'll be with you the whole way. Even if I'm not, you'll be fine."

"Glad to hear it. I was starting to worry. Why might you not be?"

"There's a good probability we'll lose communications with you as the weather deteriorates. But you've got the details, and whatever else happens, you'll still be able to see the net coming in. Okay?"

"Yeah. That's good."

They listened while Beekman and his team hammered out the method of converting the metal webbing in which the asteroid was encased into the sack that would be used to pick up the lander. In night. And they heard a recording of the meeting at which the volunteers voted to call themselves the Outsiders. Marcel apparently thought the enthusiasm of their rescuers would help morale on the ground. It did.

Marcel explained that most of the volunteers were passengers from the cruise ship. A few were Kellie's colleagues from Wendy. Hutch's passenger Tom Scolari was among them. ("Are you serious?" she replied.) Almost none had ever been outside before.

Hutch was surprised to see Kellie surreptitiously wipe away a tear. "They're really trying," she commented.

Some of the Outsiders working along the assembly heard that the lander was on the circuit and could hear them. "We're coming,"they said. "Hang on." And "Don't worry. We'll get you out."

"Whatever it takes."

Outside, the wind continued to howl, and the snow piled up. Even with the transmissions, rescue seemed impossibly far away.

They woke in late morning to clearing skies. The blizzard had blown itself out, and a heavy blanket of snow sparkled under a bright sun. They broke out the last of their stocked fruit, which consisted of almost tasteless pulp protected inside a hard shell. They talked about how good it would be to have a real breakfast again, and agreed it was time to take a look at Mt. Blue. One way or the other, this would be their last full day on Deepsix.

"What's the top of the mountain look like?" Hutch asked Marcel. "What do we know about it?"

"Okay. You know it's been sheared off. The peak's gone. It's absolutely flat up there. Looks as if somebody took a scythe to it. But you can't see it because it's always wrapped in clouds."

"The building's on the summit?"

"Right. It's a ruin. Several stories high. With dishes. Probably solar collectors, although God knows how it would get any energy through all those clouds."

"Maybe they didn't used to be there," said Nightingale.

"Probably. Anyhow it's a big place. The building is a hexagon, roughly two hundred meters on a side. And I should add that everybody here's convinced it was the base of the skyhook."

"Why?" asked MacAllister.

"It's directly on the equator. And the sea to the west is full of debris."

"The elevator," said Hutch.

"Yes. It looks as if the elevator either broke apart or was deliberately cut. Our best guess is that it was severed at about eleven thousand meters. The upper section was dragged into space; the lower broke off the base and fell into the ocean.

"Is there a place for us to land?"

"Oh sure. No problem about that."

Well, it was nice to have something that didn't come with a problem. "All right," Hutch said. "We'll do it, Marcel. We have to stop first to pick up some food. And it would probably be a good idea to top off the tanks. Visibility up there is…?"

"Zero."

"Of course. Keep in mind we have no sensors. How am I supposed to land if I can't see?"

"I'll guide you in."

"I can't believe I've agreed to this," said MacAllister, as she took her bearing from the superluminal and turned onto her new course.

Nightingale cleared his throat. "It's why we're here," he said. "If we don't get some answers, we'll never hear the end of it." He looked directly at Mac.

Kellie laughed, and the momentary tension fell apart.

When Beekman's people named the various continents, seas, and other physical features across Deepsix, they'd called the range along Transitoria's western coastline the Mournful Mountains. It contained several of the highest peaks on Deepsix, soaring to seven thousand meters above sea level. At sixty-six hundred, Mt. Blue was not quite the tallest, but it was one of the more picturesque. A bundle of white clouds enclosed the upper levels. Granite walls fell away at sharp angles for thousands of meters, before mutating into gradual slopes that descended into foothills and forest.

Marcel had assigned Mira Amelia to provide weather updates and tracking information to the lander. She also kept them updated on the rescue effort. Mira maintained an optimistic front without becoming annoying. Kellie commented that Mira was a good analyst and that she wouldn't sound that way unless the program was very likely to work. It was an interpretation that they all needed to hear. Even MacAllister, who was visibly shaken at the notion of flying into a midair net, seemed to take heart.

They'd been aloft an hour and a half when Mira reported that the river they were now approaching eventually passed close to Mt. Blue. "There's some open country nearby. This would be the place to refuel. And maybe stock up."

Hutch went down through heavy weather ("It's worse everywhere else," said Mira) and landed in a driving rain on the south bank. The trees were loaded with fruit. They picked some pumpkin-sized de-lectables that they'd had before. The edible part was quite good, rather like a large dried raisin encased within a tough husk. They hurried back into the lander with them, out of the downpour. And ate up.

The simple pleasures of being alive.

They stored a hefty supply in cargo. Optimistically, Mac pointed out. Then they ran out the hose and refilled the tanks. When the job was finished they lifted off again.

Mt. Blue was on the coast. To the west, offshore, the sea had withdrawn and left a vast expanse of muddy bog.

"The water's on the other side of the world," Mira explained. She provided a course correction and instructed Hutch to go to sixty-eight hundred meters. She also relayed pictures of the mountain, taken from satellite.

"Here's something odd," she said. The north side was sheer precipice, from summit to ground level. A ninety-degree drop.

Nightingale stared at it. "That almost looks artificial."

"That's what we thought," said Mira. "Here's something else." She zeroed in.

Hutch saw vertical and horizontal lines along the face of the cliff. A framework of some sort. It ran from the summit all the way to the base, at ground level.

"What is it?" asked Kellie.

"We have no idea. If you get a chance, take a look."

Then she showed them what the scanners had seen at the moun-taintop: The summit was perfectly flat. And there, in the middle, was the hexagon.

Mira enhanced the image. The structure was enormous, occupying perhaps sixty percent of the total available ground space atop the mountain. It was half-submerged in a tangle of vegetation. But they could make out windows and doorways. Hutch noted an almost classical symmetry, unlike the overblown and overdecorated styles currently favored by her own civilization. The corners were flared. Otherwise, the structure was unadorned.

The top was jagged, as if upper levels had been broken off. On average it was about six stories high, less in some places, more in others. The top-one couldn't really call it a roof since it appeared the upper level was exposed to the sky-was covered with snow.

"Here's what it looks like under the snow," said Mira. She removed it, and they were looking down on chambers and passageways and staircases. All in a general state of collapse.

Mira sent them a reconstruction, revealing its probable appearance in its early years. The computer replaced the bushes and weeds with sculpted walkways and gravel courts, and installed gleaming windows and carved doors. The roof became an oval gridwork that rose into the clouds. It was magnificent.

"We think we found the missing pieces, by the way."

"You mean the mountaintop?"

"And the north side of the cliff. They're a group of hills about twenty klicks east. It's all a big river valley now. Most of the granite is covered by forest."

"So that means-"

"It came off a very long time ago. At least a thousand years. Probably a lot more." She paused. "Okay, if you're ready, I'm going to take you in."

"We're ready."

"There's plenty of room to set down," Mira said.

"Doesn't the cloud bank ever go away?" asked MacAllister. He meant the one that shrouded the mountaintop.

"We don't have any records that go back more than a few weeks," said Mira. "But it's been a permanent feature during the time we've been here. Several of the other peaks in this area are the same way."

She provided a course correction. Hutch slowed and eased into the clouds.

"Doing fine," Mira said. "No obstructions ahead. You're two hundred meters above the rock."

The mist grew dark.

Hutch turned on the spike. The seat pushed up slightly against her spine. She continued to reduce airspeed, lowered her treads, and put the thrusters into vertical mode.

Snow began to fall across the windscreen, and they picked up some interference.

Mira's voice disappeared in a burst of static.

Hutch switched to another channel and recovered the transmission.

"You're now approaching the lip of the plateau," Mira said. "You've got plenty of clearance, so there's nothing to worry about. Give me a descent rate of five meters per second."

Hutch complied.

Thunder rumbled below them. "Thirty seconds to touchdown, Hutch."

She watched them tick off on her counter, fired the thrusters, reduced airspeed to zero, and drifted in.

"Priscilla," asked MacAllister, "what happens if we lose radio contact?"

She was too busy to answer.

"No problem," said Kellie after a moment. "We just go back up. Sky's clear overhead."

"Fifteen seconds. Go three-quarter spike."

They dropped slowly through the mist. And touched down.

Hutch resisted the impulse to take a deep breath. She looked out through the side window but couldn't see more than a few meters into the fog. "Mira," she said, "thanks."

"My pleasure. I'll notify Marcel."

The four superluminals, directed by the Star's AI, assumed their positions along the assembly, in each case drawing up at one of the four locations marked with yellow dye, facing the asteroid. The smallest of the four, the Zwick, halted approximately thirty-eight kilometers from the rock. The others were spaced over the next 332 kilometers, Wildside second in line, followed by the Star, which could generate far and away the maximum thrust of the group, and finally, Wendy.

The positioning of the ships had been the most difficult part of the problem for John Drummond and his team. Posted in a shuttle drifting across the rocky surface of the asteroid, he went over his numbers one last time and found everything in order.

Janet Hazelhurst sat beside him to provide technical assistance to the Outsiders. And Miles Chastain, the skipper of the media ship, was in a shuttle roughly midway between the Star and Wildside, prepared to come to the assistance of anyone who got in trouble. Other shuttles were strategically placed to help. Each person who had gone outside was being tracked by one of the attending vehicles, which would immediately sound an alarm if anyone drifted away, or if any indication of distress or undue difficulty showed itself.

With so many inexperienced people trying to perform their work in a hostile environment, it seemed inevitable that someone, somewhere, would get hurt, would walk off and try to go into orbit, or would slice off somebody's foot with a cutter.

The e-suits were reliable. They would not shut off in a vacuum unless one knew a very complicated protocol. They were not subject to leaking. And they handled life support very effectively. Nevertheless,

Drummond remembered his own experience outside, and he was worried.

Wildside, empty save for the onboard Outsider team and its AI, drew alongside the assembly, its nose pointed forward, and stopped where its sensors detected a yellow splotch of dye. The dye marked the site that Wildside would take up during the operation, and it also marked Alpha, the target shaft.

Bill rotated the vehicle until its underside snuggled within centimeters of the assembly. Its cargo airlock opened and a two-person team emerged. Wearing dark lenses, they selected an unmarked shaft and cut eight pieces from it, each about six meters long.

They returned to the Wildside with them. They put two inside the ship for future use and set six in place on the hull directly adjacent to the Alpha shaft. This would be, in Janet's welding terminology, their filler.

They changed the settings on their lasers, substituting a heat beam for the cutter. They turned the beams on the filler. Sparks flicked off. The metal began to glow, and then to melt. Working quickly, they welded the filler to the hull, using scoops and riggers and other makeshift tools. Under Janet's watchful eye, they combed the now-pliant metal into place, creating saddles and links in the way they'd been shown.

One of the welders, whose name was Jase Power, commented that he thought the work was pretty professional. That drew cautious agreement from Janet. "You've got a career, Jase, if you want it. When we get home, I'll be glad to provide a recommendation."

When they'd finished preparations to make the attachment, they retired inside the ship, and the Al withdrew to a safe distance.

"What can you see?" Marcel asked Hutch. "What's out there?"

"Fog," said MacAllister.

"We can't see anything from here," said Hutch. "The mist is too thick." The visibility was about five meters.

"Okay. Let's talk about where you are. You already know the moun-taintop is sawed off. You're on the eastern side, fifty meters from the edge. That's to your rear. I don't need to tell you not to go that way.

"One side of the hexagon looks as if it juts out a little bit over the precipice. That's on the north, where the sheer face is. Did Mira show you? Four thousand meters or so straight down. So if a floor gives way or you walk through a door without looking, you could get a godawful surprise. I suggest you stay away altogether from the north side. Okay?"

"We'll be careful," Hutch said.

"The structure is directly ahead of you. Just follow the lander's nose. About thirty meters." He hesitated. "We think we've put you down immediately outside the main entrance. Look for a set of steps. Bordered by low walls."

Hutch acknowledged.

"Good luck," he said. "I'd appreciate a visual link when you have a minute. And I'll be back with you shortly."

Hutch activated her e-suit, pinned a microscan on her vest, and turned it on. "Anybody want to come?"

"Not me," said MacAllister. "I've had enough walking for this trip." He had the grace to look embarrassed. "This is a game for younger folks."

Kellie volunteered, but Hutch signaled that was not a good idea. "If you and I are both out there, and something happens, there's nobody left to fly the lander. So you have to stay. You can go in after I get back, if you want."

"I guess that leaves me," said Nightingale.

"Unless you'd rather not."

"No." Nightingale was reaching for his vest. "To be honest, I wouldn't miss it." He picked up one of the harnesses. "Do we need air tanks? We're up pretty high."

"No," said Hutch. "The converters'll work a little harder, but that's okay. They'll be fine."

They took lasers, plastic bags, and notebooks, and inserted them into their vests. They picked up backpacks, into which they could put artifacts. She strapped a lamp onto her wrist, spotted the rope she'd carried through the forests, and looped it over one shoulder. "You never know," she told Kellie.

"You look like Jack Hancock," said Kellie, referring to the popular adventurer-archeologist of the sims.

They opened up, and Hutch looked out, saw nothing but fog, and climbed down the ladder. Nightingale adjusted the temperature in his suit and followed. Kellie asked them not to fall off the mountain. Then she shut the airlock behind them.

The cold hardscrabble ground crackled underfoot. The air was absolutely still. Snow continued to fall.

Hutch felt alone. Nightingale had never been much company, and now he rambled on about the general gloominess of the place, how difficult it was to see anything, and how easy it would be to walk into a ditch. He was right about the visibility. The mist pressed down on her, squeezed her, forced her to look inward because she could not see out.

Kellie had asked at one point whether anyone believed in an immortal soul. Certainly Hutch didn't. The world was a cold mathematical machine that produced hydrogen, stars, mosquitoes, and superluminal pilots without showing the slightest concern for any of them. But now, as she stumbled through what might be her last hours, it was painful to think that if she got unlucky she could end in the bosom of that monster in the sky, her atoms floating in gray soup for the next few billion years. If you're there, she murmured to no one in particular, I'd love some help.

"There's a wall," said Nightingale.

"I see it." It was flat, plain, a little more than shoulder-high. The surface was rough against her fingertips. Probably granite.

They saw the steps Marcel had described and were surprised to discover they were close to human dimensions. Beyond, Hutch could see an entrance. If there'd been doors, they were missing. The entrance and the interior were piled high with snow and earth. Tough bristly shrubbery grew on both sides of the threshold.

Nightingale took the lead. His manner suggested it would be best if he were in position to confront any potential danger. In this environment, where vision was so limited, she doubted it would matter much who was standing where. She also thought it unlikely there'd be any large predators up here, for the simple reason there was probably no prey. And she guessed Nightingale had come to the same conclusion.

They passed through the entry into a wide corridor. The walls were plain, undecorated, unmarked in any way. The ceiling was comfortably high. They switched on their lamps in an effort to dispell the general gloom. But the fog reflected the light back into their eyes, so they shut them down again.

Small animals scattered before them. It was hard to get a good look at any of them, but Hutch heard wings and saw something that looked like a white chimp. A segmented creature with a lot of legs scuttled into a side corridor.

There were rooms off either side, partially illuminated by windows. The chambers were quite large. Most could have comfortably accommodated groups of fifteen or more. They were empty of any kind of furniture. Long paneled strips overhead might have been artificial lighting devices.

"It feels as if it's been here a long time," she told Marcel, showing him a picture.

The cross passages were equally devoid of special features.

Unlike the tower, which had seemed timeless, as if its builders had meant it for the ages, this structure, despite the granite, gave the impression of being a government make-do. A temporary construction.

They explored side corridors, passed more doorways and bare cubicles of varying sizes, filled only with whatever leaves and dirt had blown in. Most of the doors were missing. A few hung open; others were shut tight. No knobs or latches were visible. "Electronics," said Nightingale, examining one. "Looks like a sensor."

They crossed a room, passed through a door on the opposite side, and came out into a new passageway. One wall had been lined with windows, but whatever transparent material had sealed off the interior was gone, and the wind blew steadily into the building.

They went up a ramp.

Reluctantly, she began using her laser to mark the walls so they could find their way back.

They kept a channel open to Kellie and Marcel, recording their impressions, their sense of a structure that was part office building, part mall, part terminal. Commodious spaces in some areas. "Intended for large numbers of occupants."

"Large numbers?" asked Marcel.

"Wide corridors."

"How many people ride on a skyhook?"

"I don't know."

There were shelves and niches. All the surfaces were covered with thick dust, with centuries of accumulation, but whenever Hutch took time to wipe something clean, it looked as if it had been recently installed. Whatever it was, she decided, the construction material had resisted aging remarkably well.

They were in a passageway with a series of windows, all open to the outside.

"Hey." Nightingale dropped to one knee. "Look at this."

A sign. Hung in a wall mount. But the mount was low, down around her hips. It contained several rows of symbols. The symbols were faded, turned to gray, but not illegible. She made sure it became part of the visual record. Then she delightedly discovered she could lift the sign off the mount. It was a plaque, and it came out whole.

"Why is it down there?" she asked. "Why not put it at eye level?"

"It probably is at eye level," said Nightingale. "For the crickets."

She studied the symbols. "That's strange."

"What is?"

There were six lines. The style and formation of the characters varied extensively from one to another. But within each individual row they were quite similar. Some symbols were even repeated, but only in their own line.

"I'd guess we have six alphabets," she said.

"Is that significant?"

"What'll you bet it's the same message in six different languages?"

He shrugged. "I don't see why that's important."

"It's a Rosetta stone."

"Well, maybe. But I think that's overstating the case a bit. The message is too short to qualify as a Rosetta stone. It probably says only PASSENGERS past THIS point. Nobody's going to solve a language from that."

"It's a beginning, Randy. And the fact that we can put it in context might make it easier to translate. This place was a hub, for a while. A lot of the natives came through here."

"Going where?"

"You haven't figured it out?"

He looked at her. "You know what was going on here? What all this was about?"

"Sure," she said.

Hutch detected movement on the circuit and wasn't surprised to hear Marcel's voice: "It was a rescue mission, Randy."

Nightingale looked at her, and his brow creased.

Kellie broke in: "When they date this place, they'll discover it's three thousand years old."

"The ice age," said Nightingale. "The Quiveras Cloud."

"Sure." Mac speaking now. "Somebody tried to evacuate the locals."

"A whole planetary population?"

"No," said Hutch, "of course not. Couldn't have. Not with one skyhook. No matter how much time they had. I mean, the natives would have reproduced faster than they could be moved."

Nightingale nodded.

"We met some of the folks that got left," she added.

Outside, branches creaked in a sudden burst of wind.

"The hawks were the larger species."

"I'd think so."

"The rescuers."

"Yes."

"That's incredible. Did everybody know this except me?"

No one spoke.

She wrapped the plaque, but it was too large to put into her pack, so she hefted it under one arm.

Wall markings, most badly faded, began appearing with some regularity. She recorded what she could, started to put together a map to indicate where everything had been found, relied on her visual link to make a record of the place, and belatedly realized she hadn't been using her laser consistently and was lost. But that shouldn't be too much of a problem. They could follow the radio signals back in the correct general direction.

They walked into a bay and encountered their first furniture. Small benches, on a scale for the crickets. "But none for the larger species," said Nightingale.

They were a type of plastic, and they, too, seemed to have endured well.

Ramps led to both lower and higher levels. They went down, where they found more inscriptions, some in passageways, some on the walls of individual cubicles. These were at Hutch's eye level. Possibly a bit higher.

The offices and corridors seemed designed for the use of the hawks. The placement of inscriptions, and the size of the doors, supported that thesis.

Hutch wished the fog would go away so she could get a good look at her surroundings. "They brought everybody cross-country, some maybe by air, certainly some by hovercraft."

"How'd the hovercraft get up here?" The one they'd seen could never have climbed the mountain.

"That's a detail, Randy. They probably took them to an airport somewhere, and flew them up."

"Must have been one hell of an operation. I think I'd like to meet the hawks."

XXX

Life is a walk in the fog. Most people don't know that. They're fooled by the sunlight into thinking they can see what's ahead. But it's the reason they are forever getting lost or falling into ditches or committing matrimony.

— Gregory MacAllister, The Marriage Manual

Hours to breakup (est): 33

The asteroid was almost spherical. It was somewhat more than a kilometer in diameter, contained within a metal web that was itself attached to the assembly by means of a plate.

Janet watched an Outsider team descend onto the 'plate and begin to cut it loose from the assembly. When they were finished, only one shaft, the Alpha, would remain attached. And only 320 kilometers of that.

John Drummond oversaw the action on a bank of screens. He was charged with monitoring all the Outsider operations: the asteroid units, the four teams that would shortly go outside on each of the ships, the five that were now being dropped along the assembly to sever the Alpha from the bands that held the structure together, and the net unit that was en route with Miles Chastain.

She didn't particularly like Drummond, who behaved as if anyone not involved in advanced mathematics was wasting her life. There was a lot of pressure on him at the moment, and she understood that, but Janet had concluded that if circumstances were normal, he'd still be a jerk.

Their pilot's name was Frank. Frank didn't care much for Drummond either, and probably for the same reasons. She could hear it in his voice, but if Drummond noticed, he paid no attention. While Janet watched their teams spread out, Frank turned in his seat and informed them that one of the Star shuttles would be alongside in a few minutes. That would be Miles and Phil Zossimov, who wanted to get a look at the net.

"Okay, Frank." Drummond glanced down at his instruments. "We'll start in three minutes." He brought the asteroid up on his screen, rotated it, leaned forward, plumped his chin on his fist, and directed the AI to show him the proposed line where they would cut the net. The area where the plate connected to the assembly had been designated the north pole. A cursor appeared just off to one side of the plate and circled the asteroid, passing quite close to the south pole.

Janet looked out at the net, which was visible only when the shuttle's lights hit it the right way. Its links were narrow, no more than a finger's width, and they were closely connected, the interstices small enough that a human being could not have squeezed through.

Drummond admitted freely that, once they began cutting it, there was no way to be sure at precisely which point the asteroid would come loose. That lent a degree of uncertainty to the operation, but he seemed confident there was no possibility the rock would cause damage or threaten the team now on the far side of the plate.

She couldn't help noticing how close the shuttle was and wondered whether Drummond had considered the possibility it might come their way.

"Why will it go anywhere at all?" she asked him. "What makes you think it won't stay right where it is?"

"The center of gravity will change," he said, not entirely hiding a note of disdain. "It'll change for both the asteroid and the assembly. So they'll both change their dynamics somewhat."

"Can we predict what'll happen?" she asked.

"Not as precisely as I'd like. Under normal circumstances it'd be simple enough. But with the gas giant in the neighborhood, the calculations get a bit sticky." He looked at her, apparently trying to decide whether she was frightened. "There's really nothing to worry about, if that's what you're thinking." He checked their position on the screens. "Okay," he said into a mike. "Ready to go."

The AI took over. It accelerated, descended closer to the surface, and aimed the lasers that Miles's team had installed. Drummond warned the people among the shafts to get behind the plate and stay there. "Keep your heads down," he told them. "We're starting."

Janet knew that he'd have preferred to have no one out on the assembly while they were releasing the rock. Especially this close. But they had to cut fifteen shafts away from the plate, and there simply wouldn't be time to get the job done unless they'd started on it as soon as they arrived.

The shuttle moved in close. Janet could have put a foot out the airlock and touched the asteroid. In its flat masculine voice, the AI informed them portentously it was about to activate the lasers.

It performed a brief countdown, and twin lances of white light sliced into the dust.

The shuttle moved slowly north to south down the face of the asteroid. It passed just wide of the south pole and started back up.

"We're getting a good cut," said Frank. "We should have separation in a minute or so." Then he added, "Uh-oh."

Janet's heart picked up a beat.

"Everybody, heads up." It was the voice of Frank the pilot. "Rock swarm incoming. About thirty seconds. Get behind the plate on the assembly side."

Tom Scolari looked over the top of the plate to see if they were visible. The action brought a cold remonstrance from Janet, and he got back down. The other members of his team were complying.

"Stay behind the plate," warned Janet. "They're coming in over the asteroid. Keep low, and you'll be fine."

Something blurred past him, a quick silent shadow across the stars. And a second, little more than the whisper of his own heartbeat. It all happened so quickly he couldn't be sure. People were breathing on the circuit. Somebody made a scared noise.

He felt a vibration, and then a jolt. Out along the assembly, something flashed.

"That one hit," Janet said.

Another tremor shook them. Scolari gazed into the eyes of the woman beside him. She looked frightened.

He waited, listening to his pulse until Frank came back up: "That seems to be it, folks. Screen's clear."

"Everybody okay?" asked Drummond.

There were some acknowledgments, and Janet had them respond to their names. While they did, Scolari counted bodies. All present. All moving.

They looked at one another. The woman-her name was Kit- went back to work. But from that moment, whatever nonchalance he might have possessed earlier, Scolari understood that he'd put his life at risk. HΠwas glad not to be alone.

His instructions were simple: slice into as many of the shafts as possible. But no deeper than about halfway until the asteroid was gone. When the shuttle announced that separation was imminent, see that everyone stayed behind the plate. When it was over, when the rock had been disposed of, go back and finish the job, cut everything loose so that the Alpha shaft, the plate, and the net remained one piece but had been separated from the rest of the assembly.

Scolari was the oldest member of his team. He didn't know much about the personal lives of the others, only what he'd picked up from a few dropped hints. This one was on the prowl, that one was a mother of two. But they were all excited about helping rescue the landing party. Two were visibly scared. Maybe they all were, and some just better at hiding it. God knew he was scared. But the adrenaline rush was high, and he felt good. Watching the dancing lights of the lasers flickering around the edges of the plate, he felt incredibly alive. Everyone, he thought, should have a chance to do something like this at least once in a lifetime.

Back along the assembly, toward Deepsix, lights were approaching. He recognized the triangle of lamps on the prow: It was an Academy shuttle. Though whether it was from his own ship or from Wendy, he had no idea.

Janet's voice broke in: "All right, people. Everybody down. It should be any moment now."

The glow had moved around to the other end of the plate. That meant they'd cleared the south pole and were working their way up. Janet had assured them that when the rock began to move, there was no way it could come in their direction. And he believed her, but it was easier to accept in the illuminated ready room on the ship than out here sitting behind a narrow strip of metal that was all that shielded them from the monster.

He was leaning against the plate when it shuddered.

"Asteroid's away," said Janet.

One of the women, a middle-aged classics instructor with the unlikely name of Cleo, had backed off a bit and was gazing up. She was in tan coveralls and was wearing a blue scarf. Light from the laser fell across her features and her eyes were rising, looking at something behind him, over his shoulder. "There it goes," she said.

Scolari saw a black rim rolling out past one side of the plate, moving slowly. "And good riddance," Cleo added, waving farewell.

The confirmation that the rock had been cut loose was the signal for Lori to move Wildside up close again to the Alpha shaft. It guided the ship so that the shaft did not run directly parallel to the vessel's axis, but was angled at eighteen and a fraction degrees. The Zwick was also being attached off center, and aimed in the opposite direction, allowing these two vessels to start the rotation that would eventually bring Alpha's forward end to bear on Deepsix. When Wildside was lined up, Jase Power and his crew went back outside and welded ship and shaft together.

They completed the job without incident, examined their work, decided it looked okay, and waited for Janet's verdict. She insisted on close-ups, and minutes later a shuttle moved in for a sensor inspection. She directed them to go back and reinforce a couple of areas, then gave her blessing. "Very professional," she said. "Come back inside. Report when you're all in. And thanks."

Zwick was first to check in. "Attachment complete." They were welded to the Alpha shaft.

Wildside followed within seconds.

"We're all set," Janet told Drummond.

The asteroid, freed of its encumbrance, was seeking a new orbit. It would continue to circle Deepsix, at least for another day or so, until Jerry Morgan changed the deep-space geometry.

Drummond watched it go with a sense of satisfaction. It was rare, in his line of work, that he got to see so practical an application of his skills. It was true that Marcel and Beekman were technically making the decisions, but they were using Drummond's numbers. And, by God, it was a good feeling.

At the top of the assembly, the now-empty net was slowly spreading out. They had cut about three-quarters of the way around it when the asteroid came loose. Now the net trailed behind the assembly like a veil caught atop an endless stick.

Captain Nicholson announced to all vessels and shuttles that the first step had been successful, and that everything was proceeding according to schedule.

The shuttles now moved to deposit two-person Outsider teams at each of the five bands along the length of the assembly, where they would cut the Alpha shaft loose. And they placed Pindar and Shira on the assembly 420 kilometers from the plate. Here they began slicing through Alpha, to separate it from the other twenty-six-hundred-odd kilometers of its length. At the plate, Tom Scolari and his people had returned to work, striving to complete the cuts they'd begun earlier. When they were finished, there would remain as a unit only the Alpha shaft, the connecting plate, and the net.

All this activity was closely watched by Drummond and his team. His principal concern at the moment was to ensure that the separations at the various points along the shaft were made simultaneously. If they failed to do that, if one end of Alpha started to drift while another section somewhere was still secured to the assembly, it might snap.

The shuttle Scolari had seen approaching carried Miles and Philip Zossimov, whose image blinked onto Drummond's screen within seconds of the release of the asteroid. "May we go in close to take a look?" Zossimov asked.

"Stand by. It'll be a few minutes." Drummond opened his link to the Star. Marcel's carefully controlled features looked back at him.

"Right on schedule," Drummond said. "Be ready to go."

At the plate, Scolari's people were three minutes away from completing their cuts. They'd stopped at that point to wait for the signal from Drummond. All along the assembly, the same kind of thing was happening: One by one, each of the five teams at the bands, and Pindar and Jane at the far end of Alpha, were reaching the three-minute mark and reporting back to Drummond, who was watching his own timepiece.

When they'd all called in, he told them to wait for his signal. He reported again to Marcel, who told him to proceed.

"Ladies and gentlemen," he told the Outsider teams, "cut us loose."

Marcel and Nicholson, on the Star bridge, listened to the reports filtering back to Drummond.

Site Two was free.

The far end was free.

Sites One and Five.

Site Three.

Drummond queried Four.

"Just a moment, John." Then: "Yes-"

Aside from the rock swarm, there were two unsettling moments during the operation. One had come when the asteroid broke free. The other occurred when they finished cutting through the fifteenth shaft and the assembly separated.

Scolari had expected that the separation would be gradual. They'd cut through most of the shafts, and were working on the final three, when they simply started to snap off one by one, in precise drill, and Alpha abruptly began to float away, taking the plate and a kilometer or so of trailing net with it.

The assembly trembled, in reaction to the loss of mass. And that was it.

"Plate's free," Drummond told Marcel.

"Everybody okay?" Janet's voice.

Scolari looked around. "We're all here," he said.

"Very fine," she replied. "Well done."

He looked down the length of the assembly. Common sense told him that once the other fourteen shafts had been separated from the plate, they would drift apart, or drift together. Or something. It seemed impossible that the tubes could remain perfectly aligned with each other as they had been. He understood that the other bands were still in place, holding them together. That only the Alpha shaft had been separated. But the nearest connector was eighty kilometers away. Yet they remained parallel.

He was still holding his cutter. He folded it and put it in his vest. A voice in his earphone said, "Here comes our taxi, Tom." It was the Academy shuttle that had brought them to the assembly two hours earlier. It came alongside, and the pilot warned them to take their time getting in. The airlock opened. They climbed inside, cycled through, and congratulated one another.

Cleo beamed at him. "Talent I didn't know I had," she said.

Marcel signaled Nichokon with an almost imperceptible gesture. Nicholson pushed the button. Lori's voice acknowledged: "Activating phase two."

The Alpha shaft, freed from the main body of the assembly, was reduced to about thirteen percetit of its former length. Lori, the controlling AI, awaited incoming results from a wide array of sensors.

When she was satisfied all was in order, and the proper moment in her internal countdown arrived, she fired maneuvering thrusters on Zwick and Wildside, orchestrated to draw Alpha clear of the assembly, to ensure that no tumble developed, and to begin the long rotation that would end with the net and plate moving toward the point out over the Misty Sea where it would, they all hoped, rendezvous in twenty hours with Hutch's lander.

She monitored progress, which was slight but satisfactory, and when conditions allowed, she fired the main engines on Wildside, and four minutes later, on Zwick. The shaft began perceptibly to rotate toward its vector.

Approximately sixteen minutes after the Wildside ignition, she shut off the vessel's engines, and several minutes later did the same with Zwick.

Now there was a quick-scramble in what everyone perceived as the tightest part of the operation save the actual dip into the atmosphere.

The Outsiders on Wildside and Zwick hurried back out and released the ships from the shaft. There wasn't time to bring them back in, so they tethered down on the hulls while everyone waited. When they reported themselves secure, Lori moved the vessels cautiously to new positions along the shaft, and realigned them, bringing their axes parallel to Alpha. When that had been done, the Outsiders reattached the ships.

Meantime, the other two vessels, the Evening Star and Wendy, snuggled up against the shaft in their assigned places. More of Janet's people poured out of airlocks and secured them to the shaft.

The problem she had been waiting for developed on Wendy. One of the volunteers, a researcher from the science team, got ill out on the hull and brought up her lunch. The force field had no provision to handle that kind of event. It was flexible and made room, but the unfortunate woman was quickly immersed in her own ejecta. Panicked, she lost contact with the hull and drifted away from the ship.

A backup quickly replaced her and a shuttle was dispatched to do a rescue.

The replacement joined the effort almost without missing a beat.

It was a difficult maneuver because everything had to be completed within a restrictive time frame, barely two hours, or they'd lose their window. As it turned out, no one need have worried. The job was completed, and everyone, including the woman with the lunch, was back inside with eleven minutes to spare. All four vessels had been aligned directly front to rear along the shaft axis.

At Lori's signal, the four superluminals engaged their main engines and gently drew the Alpha shaft forward, beginning their long run toward the Misty Sea.

There were a few places where the floor had buckled or where the ceiling had caved in. They found fragments of fibrous materials in some of the cubicles off the concourse. Clothing, apparently. Small stuff.

She took samples of everything, continued to record the locations, and made voluminous notes.

A call came in from Canyon. "Hutch," he said, "I'd love to do a program from inside the skyhook. If you'd be willing." They were already broadcasting the visuals, he hoped she didn't mind, but it was a huge story back home. And everyone would like to hear her reactions.

"Give me a break, August. I can't walk around here pointing my vest at everything."

"You don't have to. The spontaneous shots work fine. We'll use a delay, and we can reconstruct anything that we miss. You don't have to worry; we can edit out whatever might not be appropriate, whatever you want us to. It'll make a great story. And I'd be in your debt."

"You won't see much. It's foggy."

"I know. We like foggy. It's atmospheric." He laughed at his own joke.

The Academy would love it. The romance of edge-of-the-envelope archeology. She glanced at Nightingale, who nodded his okay. "I'll make a deal with you," she said. "I'll comment occasionally when I think there's something worthwhile to be said. If you can avoid asking me any questions. Just leave me alone to do my work, and I'll try to cooperate."

"Hutch, I'd really like to do the interview."

"I'm busy," she said.

"Well, of course. Sure. We can do what you want. I understand entirely."

"This is a long empty corridor," she said. "It's probably been like this for three thousand years."

"Three thousand years? You really think it's that old?" he asked.

"Augie," she said, "you're incurable."

"I'm sorry."

"It's okay. Must be frustrating for you to be up there out of the action."

Momentarily his tone changed. "You know," he said quietly, "I'd almost accept a chance to go down there with you. It's that big a story."

"Almost," she said.

"Yeah. Almost."

Curiously, she felt sorry for him.

Hutch paid particular attention to the inscriptions. The six languages were always in the same order.

In the areas behind the concourses, among the passageways and cubicles, in what they'd come to think of as back offices, they discovered a seventh alphabet. "I've seen this before," she said, looking at an inscription that hung at the end of a corridor, where it branched off at right angles. Two groups of characters were engraved over symbols that could only be arrows. "They have to be places. Washrooms. Souvenirs here and ice cream over there. Baggage to your left."

Nightingale tapped his lips with an index finger. "I'll tell you where we saw it. At the hovercraft memorial."

At that moment, somewhere ahead, they heard a click.

It was sharp and clear, and it hung in the air.

Hutch's heart stopped. Nightingale caught his breath.

"An animal," she said.

They waited, trying to see into the fog.

There were closed doors along both sides of the passageway. As she watched, one moved. The movement was barely discernible, but it opened a finger's width. And stopped.

They drew close together for mutual support. Hutch produced her cutter. Neither spoke.

When nothing more happened, Hutch walked over to the door.

It closed, and she jumped.

It opened again.

"Maybe we ought to get out of here," whispered Nightingale.

"Wait." She tiptoed closer and tried to look through the opening, but as far as she could see there was nothing inside. Empty room and that was all.

She took a deep breath and tugged on the door. It opened a little wider and she let go and it swung shut. Then it opened again.

"Sensors?" asked Nightingale.

"Apparently. Still working."

She recalled that the building seemed to be equipped with solar collectors.

The door was not quite three meters high, constructed of the same plastic material they'd seen elsewhere in the hexagon. It had no knob and no latch. But she saw a diagonal green strip that might have been the sensor. And another green strip with faded characters that might have indicated who occupied the office, or what function it had performed.

In spite of his assurances, Canyon reentered the conversation: "Hutch, that was a riveting moment. How did you feel when you first heard the sound?"

Her next words would eventually travel around the world. She regretted having agreed to let Augie and his two billion listeners eavesdrop. She would have liked to put on a blase exterior, to behave the way heroes are supposed to, but she couldn't recall whether she'd made frightened sounds. "Terrified," she said.

The door opened again.

The ground shook. Another tremor.

They walked on. The door continued to open and close, the only disruption in the general stillness.

They climbed a ramp into a compartmented section. Eight or nine rooms, several with low ceilings. There were signs at belt level and small benches and knee-high rails around the bulkheads. A cricket-sized staircase went to an upper deck.

Several rooms were fitted with lines of chairs. Very much like the hovercraft cabin. In one the gauge abruptly shifted to their own comfort level.

The complex had no egress save the way they'd come in, down the ramp and back into the concourse.

"I think we just got onto the skyhook," said Hutch.

If so, whatever machinery might have made it work was safely concealed. "You might be right." He looked at the tiny handrails.

"It wasn't an advanced culture," she said. "How do you think the hawks were received when they arrived and told everybody they needed to get out?"

XXXI

It's customary to argue that intelligence grants an evolutionary advantage. But where is the evidence? We are surrounded by believers in psychic healing, astrology, dreams and drugs. Are we to accept the premise that these hordes of unfortunates descended from intelligent forebears?

I'm prepared to concede that stupidity does not help survival. One must after all understand not to poke a tiger with a stick. But intelligence leads to curiosity, and curiosity has never been a quality that helps one pour his or her genes into the pool. The truth must lie somewhere between. Whatever the reason, it is clearly mediocrity, at best, that lives and breeds.

— Gregory MacAllister, Reflections of a Barefoot journalist

Hours to breakup (est): 29

Several hundred people were gathered in the Star's theater, where it was possible to follow the rescue effort on a dozen screens and at the same time down a few drinks with friends. Marcel had been wandering through the giant ship, trying to occupy his mind while events played out, and had stepped into the theater when Beekman called to ask where he was. Moments later they met in a small booth off the observation deck. The project director looked pale.

"What's wrong, Gunther?" he asked.

They were standing near a display exhibiting the construction of the Evening Star. Here was the beginning, Ordway Conover talking to engineers, explaining that he wanted the most spectacular superlu-minal ever built. There was the Star in Earth orbit when it was only a keel. Here were the electronics installations, and there the Delta deck swimming pool. And the celebrities who had come to see it off on its maiden cruise. And its first captain, Bartlett Hollinger, bearded, gray-eyed, silver-haired, looking impossibly competent, and very much like the uncle everybody remembered fondly. "You know," said Beekman, "some of the people on Wendy think we're doing the wrong thing."

The statement initially startled Marcel. He understood Beekman to be suggesting that the rescue effort might be going wrong somewhere, that they'd missed something fundamental, something now irreparable. "In what way?" he asked, his voice little more than a whisper. "What do they think we should be doing?"

"They think we're neglecting the mission."

Marcel felt a surge of relief, and then, as Beekman's meaning became clear, of incredulity. And finally he had to choke down a rising tide of anger. "Is that how you feel?"

Beekman needed a long time to answer. "I'm not sure," he said at last. "We're never going to see anything like this again. Not in the lifetime of anybody here. We stand to learn more about gravity functions and planetary structure than we could pick up in a century of theo-rizing.-Marcel, it is true that we're letting a priceless opportunity get away from us."

"You want to abandon Kellie?"

"Of course not."

"You can't have it both ways, Gunny."

"You asked if I wanted to abandon her. I don't. You know that. But you and I both know that the big stick is probably not going to work. There are too many things that can go wrong. Maybe we'd do better to face that and get back to concentrating on what we came here for."

Marcel took a deep breath. "Gunther, let's turn this around for a minute. Make it your call. What do you want to do?"

"You'd abide by my decision?"

Marcel glanced up at a large framed picture of a young couple eating dinner off the promenade. Through a window, the Crab Nebula was visible. "Yes," he said. "I'll abide by your decision. What do we do? Do we write Kellie off? And the others?"

Beekman looked back at Marcel, followed his gaze to the portrait, stared at it a long time. That's unreasonable," he said at last.

"What is?"

"You know what I'm talking about."

"Sure. Making the call, as opposed to criticizing."

He made a rumbling sound in his throat. "All right," he said. "Do it your way. But somewhere down the road, we're going to pay a price."

The command crew on the bridge of the Star ooohed and aaahed as images of alien inscriptions and crumbling corridors and regally garbed hawks played across their screens. Lori systematically removed the fog and enhanced the pictures. Here was a series of empty cubicles along a broad concourse, there a gently curving passageway lined by doors engraved with symbols from alien alphabets. Marcel wondered whether they designated the kind of activity carried on behind the door, or whether they were the names of individuals.

Individual hawks. What had their lives been like? Did they sit around in the evening and play some sort of poker-equivalent? Did they enjoy conversation over meals? Did they have music?

He would have liked very much to be able to listen in when the decision had been taken to go to the rescue of the medieval world that was entering a dust cloud. It must have required a gigantic engineering effort on the part of a species that apparently didn't even have spike technology. How many had they saved? Where had they gone?

He heard the power levels rise, felt the ship adjusting course once more.

The hexagon was vast. A schematic was taking shape on the main wallscreen. Human-sized cubicles in the east wing, long concourses, sections that might have been waiting or storage areas, upper levels they hadn't even gotten to. Marcel thought he saw objects on a row of shelves on the north side, but he hadn't been present when they'd passed by, had seen only the record. Hutch and Nightingale had either missed the figures or thought too little of them to waste time. He'd avoided bringing the matter up later.

"The place is a treasure trove," said Drummond, watching from his shuttle. "It's a pity there isn't time to get a decent look at it."

They were lucky, Marcel reflected, that they'd seen anything. Scholars, he suspected, would be poring over the visual record for years.

Beekman appeared unexpectedly at his side. He'd been avoiding eye contact with Marcel since their conversation. "You know," he said, trying to pretend nothing had happened between them, "there'll be

some major changes at the top when all this gets back. Gomez will go-"

"You think so?" asked Marcel. Irene Gomez had been the Academy's director for more than ten years.

"She was part of the crowd that made the decision to pull out after the Nightingale fiasco. Now we're looking at this. And it's all going to be lost. This stuff's been going out from that character at Universal, what's his name?"

"Canyon."

"Canyon. Right. They'll get it back home day after tomorrow. The board of governors will call an emergency meeting. I'll bet Gomez is gone by the end of next week. And her department heads with her."

He looked pleased at the prospect. Marcel had no connection with the director and had never even seen her in person. But he knew she did not command the respect or the loyalty of Academy people. Of course, he thought, neither would Beekman if it ever got out he'd wanted to abandon the ground party.

"Invaluable stuff," Beekman said. His tone gave him away: Even if we lose the people, maybe it will have been worth it.

Lori's voice broke in: "Preliminary maneuvers are complete. We are on course."

They found a portrait in one of the cubicles.

It was mounted on a wall, hidden behind a layer of dust, but when Hutch peeled it away and wiped a cloth over it, the images came clear.

Two of the crickets were pictured on either side of a hawk, which must have been three times their size. It was difficult to be sure about scale because the hawk was visible only from the breast up.

The crickets wore the placid expressions of philosophers. They were draped in cowls, one hooded, one bareheaded. The skulls appeared to be hairless, and she saw no indication of eyebrows. Despite the prejudice induced by her knowledge of the technological limitations of their society, Hutch read intelligence in their faces.

The otherwise fearsome appearance of the hawk was diminished by the staff it carried. Its only concession to clothing was a dark ribbon tied around one shoulder. The chest was broad, and it owned a crest that stood proudly erect. It dwarfed its companions. Yet that they were companions was impossible to doubt.

The thing had a predator's eyes and fangs and fur where Hutch might have expected to see feathers. She was struck by the composure manifested by the crickets, who might easily have been gobbled down by such a creature.

There was something else.

"What?" asked Nightingale.

She couldn't make up her mind about the sex of the two crickets. But the hawk? "I think it's a female," she said.

Nightingale sighed. "How can you possibly tell?"

"I don't know, Randy." She tried to analyze her reaction. "Something in its eyes, maybe."

Nightingale reached for the picture and was pleased to see that it lifted from its mount. It was too big to put in his pack, so he simply carried it.

They had by then mapped much of the ground level of the structure. The elevator to the orbiting station had been located on the eastern side, at the juncture of north-south and east-west concourses. The upper levels, judging by their scale, seemed to have been given over to the hawks. It seemed that the crickets used only the ground floor.

It was getting dark when they got to the north side. Here they were cautious because this was the part of the structure that, according to Marcel, jutted out over the edge of the mountain.

They came to a collapsed ramp and looked down into a lobby at another portrait. Hutch used her vine, against his protests, to descend and retrieve it. It was a full-length image of a hawk.

It had no wings.

"That figures," said Nightingale. "It's too big to fly."

"Even if it had big wings?"

Nightingale laughed, but he kept it down. "Really big wings," he said. "Something as massive as we are, like that thing apparently was, would never be able to get off the ground under its own power."

"Maybe it comes from a world where the gravity is light."

They both spoke consistently in hushed voices, as if anything at normal decibels would be inappropriate. To remind them, when either got too loud, the sound echoed back.

"That's possible," Nightingale said. "But the gravity would have to be very light. And if that were the case, I don't think these creatures would have been at all comfortable on Maleiva III. No, I doubt there's anything avian about these things. I'd bet neither they nor their ancestors ever flew. The hawk resemblance simply gets us thinking that way."

Hutch knew that Kellie would want to take a look at all this, and they'd been inside now for a long time. "Time to start back," she said.

Nightingale looked pained. He would have gone on forever, if he'd been permitted. "Why don't we hold up just for a few seconds?" Off the northern concourse, twin ramps led down one level. "Let's take a quick look downstairs, then we can go back."

"Two minutes," she said.

They descended and found another broad passageway whose walls were covered with inscriptions in the six languages. Sometimes, instead of just a few words, there were whole sections of twenty lines or more devoted to each group of symbols. "This would be just what they need," she said. "We translated one of the languages of Quraqua with a lot less than this." It was an exciting prospect, but the wall would have to be cleaned and restored before it would be of much use. She used the microscan to get as much as she could, knowing that they were losing most of it.

There were other inscriptions. These were short, usually only two-or three-word groups. Hutch recognized the characters from the uppermost line on the artifact they'd found at the site of the hovercraft.

She tried to imagine the concourse when it was alive.

They came to a series of wide doorways, all on the right-hand side. Each opened into a chamber about four meters wide. The rooms were devoid of any kind of furniture.

She poked her head in, saw nothing, and went to the next one.

There were eight of them, of identical dimensions. Hutch looked in each, hoping to be surprised. They had low ceilings. Designed for the crickets.

At last they stood together in the eighth room, at the end of the passageway. There were no artifacts, no inscriptions, nothing. Just bare rooms. "Let's go," she said.

She started out, and the room moved. It was a momentary quiver, as if a pulse had gone through the building.

Quake, she thought.

Something began to grind in the walls. The room lurched.

"Get out, Randy!" She bolted for the exit. A door was already sliding, banging, clanking down out of the overhead. Nightingale froze, and she turned back. And then it was too late. She pulled up, and her chance was gone. The door chunked to a stop, a hand's width off the floor, and then crashed down onto the dirt. It cut off the light, and Hutch found herself crouching in the dark. She turned on her wrist-lamp.

"This is not good," said Nightingale.

The grinding in the walls got louder. The floor inched up. And fell back.

Mira's voke broke over the circuit: "What happened?"

"Don't know. Stand by."

Nightingale aimed his laser at the door and thumbed the switch. A white beam licked out, and the gray surface began to blacken. Then the floor dropped abruptly. Startled, he lost control of the laser and swept the room with it before dropping it. As designed, the thing automatically snapped off.

The room fell. Stopped. Slipped down a few meters.

"My God," said Nightingale. "What's going on?"

"Another elevator. A working one, looks like."

The chamber crunched down again. Marcel was on the circuit now. "What's happening? What's your situation?"

Canyon was still there, but aside from a word of encouragement, he kept mercifully quiet. They continued to bump, vibrate, and drop.

"On my way," said Kellie.

"No. Stay with the lander."

"I can't help from here."

"I don't think there's much you can do over here either."

Nightingale looked panicked. Probably like herself.

Something rattled beneath the floor.

The ceiling was too low for either of them to stand straight. They picked a corner of the room and retreated into it.

The grinding eased off, but the elevator continued its erratic descent. She used her laser to finish the job Nightingale had started, cutting a substantial piece out of the door. It was dark outside, and the fog was thick as ever. But the glow of her lamp revealed no wall. Instead she saw only a gridwork of struts and beams.

"What do we do?" asked Nightingale.

She widened the hole, making it big enough that they could get out if the opportunity offered. "It'll have sharp edges, though," she cautioned him. "Be ready to go if we get the chance."

The ride continued. Nightingale came over, looked out, but was careful not to get too close. There was still nothing to see except the gridwork, moving sporadically past as they continued down.

"I think we're in the basement somewhere," she said. And then, moments later: "I can see daylight below."

The elevator rattled and shook, and there were squeals and shrieks in the floor and ceiling. Suddenly a void opened. The mist was gone, and they were dropping through bright day.

"Where the hell are we?" demanded Nightingale.

She looked down the side of a sheer gray wall that fell forever toward green hills. "This is how the crickets got up to the skyhook."

Nightingale peered out and trembled. "You don't think we're going all the way to the bottom, do you?"

"That would be my guess. Unless their technology isn't too good. If that's the case, we might stop partway down and be expected to switch to another elevator."

It was hard to determine whether Nightingale thought that would be good news or not. There were a few clouds below them and others out on the horizon. Nightingale steeled himself, looked down, and gasped. "My God," he said.

"Stay away from it." She pulled him back.

Kellie heard it. "I don't care what you say," she said. "We're going to saddle up and come over there."

"No point. You can't reach us. Wait until we see how this plays out. I want you to be ready in case we need you in a hurry."

"Okay." She sighed. "Keep the channel open."

The banging and grinding subsided somewhat, and the ride smoothed out, became more constant, less bone-rattling, as if the machinery was becoming unlimbered.

They slowed, accelerated again, and jerked finally to a halt.

She looked down at a river valley so far below it made her head ache. They were, she realized, on the north face of the mountain, the section that appeared to have been artificially carved.

"What are we going to do?" breathed Nightingale. "We're stuck here."

The elevator trembled.

"Quake, I think," she said.

"That's what we need." He looked at her, his eyes full of fear. "Hutch, we need help."

"You've a talent for understatement, Randy."

"Can you give us a description," asked Kellie, "of where you are?"

She told her, and added "Pretty high up. I guess we're going to need air-to-air."

"Okay. Sit tight. We're on our way."

"How do you mean, 'air-to-air'?" asked Nightingale privately. "That doesn't mean what I think it does, does it?"

"Unless you want to try climbing down." Above them she could see the framework of girders, crossbeams, , and diagonals, the grid within which the elevator rode. The rear of the elevator was fitted against the face of the mountain. They were about fifty meters down. The cliff, as best she could see, was lined with shelves and outcrop-pings and even a few trees, but it would under no circumstances provide a means to scramble back up to safety.

"Can they really get us out of here?" asked Nightingale.

"It's lemon pie," she said.

The comment did nothing to alleviate his state of mind. "How?"

"Just ferry us out. Sit tight until she gets here."

He looked down, and she watched the little color that was left drain out of his face. The elevator dropped again, slightly, probably no more than a few centimeters. He gasped and turned a terror-stricken face toward her. "Best to stay away from it," she said.

"What are we going to do? Jump?"

"Something like that, Randy. But you'll be tethered, so you can't fall."

He shook his head. "Hutch, I don't think I can do it."

"Sure you can. No matter what, we can't stay here."

She could see that he felt humiliated as well as frightened.

They began descending again, slowly and steadily. "We're getting there," he said. "If we're patient, maybe everything'll be okay."

She said nothing, but simply sat down and waited for the lander to appear.

"What's holding the elevator up?" Marcel asked.

"The cable, I guess," said Hutch. She heard the welcome rumble of jets.

"That's a negative," said Kellie. "We do not see a cable."

Marcel made a worried noise. "Are you sure?"

"Yep. No cable."

"Then," pursued Marcel, "it must be a different kind of system from the one we use. Maybe they don't use cables. Maybe they glide up and down some sort of magnetic rail."

"I don't think so," said Kellie. "It has a cable mount on top."

"You sure?" asked Hutch.

"There's a couple meters of cable dangling from it."

XXXII

Everybody complains about the weather, and we have the technology now to do something about it, should we choose to. But we don't. The fact is, we need bad weather. A day at the beach is much more enjoyable if we know that somebody, somewhere, is getting rained on.

— Gregory MacAllister, "Reflections," Collected Essays

Hours to breakup (est): 27

Abel Kinder watched the numbers rippling across his screens. Off-the-chart high-pressure front moving down into the Nirvana Ocean to collide with extreme low pressure along the eastern coastline of Transitoria. Tornadoes spawning inland. Hurricanes boiling across waters normally too cold to support hurricane activity.

He punched Marcel's button.

"What do you have, Abel?" the captain asked.

"More heavy weather. When do we make the pickup?"

"Nineteen hours and change."

"I don't suppose you can speed it up."

"Negative. The schedule's out of our control. How heavy?"

"Extremely. I've never seen these kinds of readings before. Tell them to expect wind and rain. Especially wind."

"How much?"

"A lot"

Tom Scolari and Cleo, who had watched the asteroid rise into the night with such unabashed pleasure, were taken afterward to the Zwick. It was a small, boxy ship, bristling with antennas. universal news was emblazoned on its hull.

Janet informed him that they were assigned to the onboard Outsider team. "There's another job coming up in about seven hours. Until then, you can relax."

They were taken in charge by a short, unobtrusive man who might have been a librarian, and a tall willowy blonde with the manner of an aristocrat pretending to be a commoner. "Name's Jack Kingsbury," he said. "I'm the ship's welder." He managed a grin.

The woman was Emma Constantine. "It's good to have you on board," she said, with affected interest. "You people have been doing an extraordinary job." She had perfect diction.

"You're the rest of the team, I assume," Scolari said.

Emma wasn't. "I'm August Canyon's producer." She inspected them. "You two have a change of clothes with you? Damn, I don't understand that. They promised they'd see that you had some fresh clothes."

"Who promised?" asked Cleo before Scolari could react.

"My contact on Wendy. We wanted to do an interview. Live. But you both look a trifle mussed. Let me see if we can get something that fits."

Marcel had lost contact with the ground party. He sat disconsolately on the Star's bridge while Lori tried to raise less through the electrical storms that now blanketed the atmosphere.

The Star's working spaces were far more luxurious than Marcel's cramped command area on Wendy. The bridge had leather panels, soft-glo lighting, full-wall flexscreens, and a captain's chair that would have looked good at the C.O. Club.

He understood why this was so: On the Star, the bridge was part of the tour. It was the only operational part of the great ship that the passengers actually saw, so power and opulence were de rigueur. Only when they commenced the final series of course adjustments would the visits be halted.

Nicholson irritated Marcel. It was hard to say why. The man was friendly enough. Having reached the decision to assist, he never failed to respond quickly and effectively to the needs of the operation. He did what he could to make Marcel and his people comfortable, and he went out of his way to tolerate Beekman, who was capable

of occasional flashes of arrogance. It might have been that he tried too hard to live up to his image of what a starship captain should be. He talked as if he, Marcel, and Beekman operated on a higher plane than everyone else. He was quick to criticize, quick to suggest that the mission would have more chance of success if only they had more people on board like themselves.

He took aim particularly at the volunteers. They were amateurs. How could they be expected to get things right?

But the amateurs, Marcel pointed out several times, had so far done quite well.

In the short time he'd been on the Evening Star, Marcel had concluded that Nicholson had never learned the difference between maintaining distance between himself and his officers, and becoming aloof. The captain looked like a lonely man, and probably had no friend anywhere on the vessel.

Beekman and one of his physicists were huddled in a corner. Beekman had led the team that had analyzed course, velocity, and aspect of the Alpha shaft as it came free of the assembly. He and Drum-mond had calculated what was needed to turn it around and arrange for it to show up with the appropriate alignment tomorrow morning at the designated spot at the correct time on Deepsix.

There were a dozen or so visitors on the bridge, mostly overweight middle-aged couples talking about dinner or the evening's presentation in the Star Theater, which was to be a live production of Barry English's Indigo. Marcel had suggested canceling, because they expected to be making course adjustments through the evening, but Nicholson was afraid someone might be alarmed, or displeased, or resentful. The ship's movements were expected to be nominal. And, of course, everything would be known well in advance.

Beekman finished his conversation, excused himself, and came over. "We're in business," he said. "Everything's falling into place."

"Good." Marcel pushed away from the console while Beekman took a seat. "You and your people have been outstanding, Gunther."

"Thanks. We were concerned that the rotation would put too much stress on the shaft. That it would break somewhere. Or that the welds wouldn't hold. But we seem to have gotten through okay. I do believe you might actually pull it off."

"We might, Gunny. Or maybe you will. You and John and that army of part-time welders. Who'd've believed it?"

"Well, let's parcel out the credit when we have them home. There'll be a course adjustment in nine minutes. It'll be very slight. Nicholson knows."

"You've made my day, Gunny."

"You don't look happy. What's wrong, Marcel? The elevator thing?"

"Yes. Right now, it's scary."

"It'll be all right. They've got Kellie to help them. Are we talking to them yet?"

"No. They're still out."

The lander moved into position immediately in front of the elevator. Rain beat down on it, and lightning flared and boomed around them. Kellie, in the pilot's seat, was also fighting heavy winds along the face of the cliff.

"We'll have to make this fast, Hutch," she said. "I don't know how long I can stay here." She was referring to the power levels needed to sustain hover mode.

"Okay," Hutch said.

"Something else. The elevators are inside a gridwork."

"We know."

"Okay. Then you also know it's a crosshatch of beams, supports, and plates. That's what's holding you up. There must be tracks in there, and the elevators run up and down the tracks. Everything's old and jammed up. The metal's got to be warped. So the elevator can't ride freely."

"What are you trying to tell us, Kellie?"

"There's a clean break about fifty meters down. You get down there, and it just opens out into the great beyond. Bye-bye baby."

"All right. It feels pretty stable now. Let's go."

"Who's first?"

"Randy."

Nightingale looked at her, almost pleading. His face was ashen.

What did he want her to do? Leave him there?

The lander eased down until it lined lip directly with the elevator. Kellie opened the hatch and MacAllister showed them a line. "It's tied to the seat anchor, Randy," he said.

Nightingale nodded anxiously. "Okay."

MacAllister stared at Hutch, across a space of only a few meters.

He looked scared, too, but he was trying to appear nonchalant. How about that? The guy was a trooper after all.

The lander rose and fell, caught in an updraft. It rolled toward the elevator, then drifted away. "Not too close," Hutch said.

"Lot of wind here." Kellie's voice in her earphones.

Mac coiled the rope and measured the distance. "Ready, Hutch?"

"Yeah."

It spun toward her. She reached for it, watched it fall short. Mac reeled it in and tried again. Still short.

"You're too far out," he told Kellie.

Hutch heard a soft damn. The lander drew off, trailing line. When Mac was ready she started another approach.

The lander rose on a cushion of air. It dropped suddenly and to Hutch's horror MacAllister almost fell out. Nightingale stiffened. "Goddam downdrafts," said Kellie.

Mac retreated from the hatch. "You okay, Mac?" Hutch asked.

"You see what happened there?"

"I saw," Kellie told him. "Get a tether."

He was gone for a few moments. Then he emerged again wearing a line tied around his ample waist. The problem, of course, was that if he did fall out, Kellie couldn't leave the controls to haul him back in. She'd have to go all the way to the bottom to retrieve him.

"All right," said Mac, his voice surprisingly steady. "Let's try it again."

"This is a little delicate," said Kellie. "When you get the line, you're going to have to move fast." Hutch understood: If the wind caught the lander in the middle of the operation, it would rip the line, and whoever happened to be attached to it, out of the elevator.

Kellie made her approach. Hutch kept her eyes on Mac, watching him gauge his distance. The line was coiled in 'his right hand. The lander turned sideways, sank, wobbled, came back. It climbed, getting above her.

Mac saw his chance and the line came spinning in her direction. It unraveled and it was slick from the rain, but she scooped it out of the air and held on to it.

"Okay, Randy," she said. "Let's move it."

He shrank back, and she could see the struggle being fought behind his eyes.

"We don't have time to monkey around," she told him softly. "We stay here, we die."

"I know."

She waited for him.

"Hutch." Kellie's voice. "Let's go. I can't hold it here forever."

"We're working on it."

Nightingale stepped forward and closed his eyes. She coiled the line around his middle, crossed it under his armpits, and secured it in front. No way he could fall out of that. But he resisted as she tried to walk him to the opening.

"Hutch," he said, "I can't do this."

"It's okay, Randy. You're doing fine."

The elevator dropped again. Banged to a stop.

"Hutch!" said Kellie.

Nightingale got to the door and looked out at the lander. Rain blew in on him.

"Don't look down," Hutch said.

"Hurry it up," said Kellie.

"Hutch?"

"Yes, Randy?"

"If this doesn't work-"

"It'll work."

"If it doesn't-" He was reaching for the rim of the opening, found it, gripped it. The line stretching from him to the aircraft tightened and loosened as Kellie rode the drafts along the face of the precipice.

Hutch stepped up behind him and gently peeled his fingers away. "It always works," she told him. And pushed. He went out silently, without the scream she'd expected.

He fell. It must have been a sickening few seconds, but it ended quickly when the line took hold and he rolled out in a long arc beneath the lander. Kellie pulled quickly away while he swung back and forth, clutching the line, saying O God over and over.

Mac began to haul him in. Hutch watched Nightingale kick frantically, and she feared he might have a heart attack. "Relax, Randy," she told him. "You're okay. The hard part is over." And she continued talking to him in the most soothing tone she could muster until Mac's hand reached down finally, seized his vest, and dragged him into the aircraft.

The lander tilted slightly and started around again. Mac reappeared in the hatch with his line. "Okay, me proud beauty," he said. "You're next."

The elevator shook. Another quake, maybe. And it started down again. She backed away from the opening and got off her feet. Rain drummed on the roof. The elevator kept dropping, and it seemed for a few seconds to be almost in free fall. Her heart came into her throat. Then metal squealed, and the elevator banged to a stop.

Kellie was calling frantically. "I'm okay," Hutch said.

"Maybe not."

Hutch's heart, which was still fluttering, missed a beat. "What's wrong?"

"I'm sinking."

Spike depletion.

She watched the lander dropping lower. Kellie slowed the descent, hit the jets, and regained some altitude. She came around again. "We're going to have to get it right the first time," she said.

Mac stood in the airlock with his line. Kellie glided in overhead, killed the jets, reversed thrust, and brought the lander to a dead stop. It began to fall.

"No," Hutch said. "It won't work."

It was dropping too fast. Mac looked desperately in her direction.

"I'm going to have to land and recharge," Kellie said. "Hutch, I'm sorry. I don't know any other way to do this."

Hutch nodded and waved good-bye. "Take it down. I'll be here when you come back."

It was getting dark. Winds were high, and she had no sensors. A night rescue would be out of the question.

Kellie was fighting back rage and tears. "You can't stay in the elevator, Hutch."

Hutch watched the lander kick in its jets and bank away to the east. "Is it that bad?"

"It isn't good."

She looked out at the storm. And at the gridwork, the crossbars and diagonals and guide rails off to either side. If she could get to them.

A bolt of lightning exploded overhead, throwing everything into momentary relief.

The outside of the elevator was smooth, without handholds. Despite the low ceiling, the roof was out of reach. She saw no way to climb onto it, not without something to stand on.

It slipped again. Something banged hard against one of the walls.

She backed away and tried to think. It was hard, knowing what might happen at any moment, to keep her head clear.

She gathered up her vine, went back to the opening, and looked again at the roof. Then she got down on her belly, leaned out, and peered underneath. A pair of cables hung from the underside. And she saw the break, only a few meters down. A missing guide rail.

The way things were going, she had only a couple of minutes.

Hutch produced her laser, moved to one side of the doorway, and cut a hole belt high in the wall. Then a second one farther to the left at the level of her shoulders and a third one above her head directly over the first. The e-suit was supposed to protect her from extremes of heat and cold, but she wasn't sure what would happen if she put her foot on hot metal. On the other hand, she didn't have time to stand there and wait for everything to cool.

"Hutch-" Kellie's voice, broken up by the storm. "-on the ground and charging."

"Okay."

"Can you get out of the car?"

"I'll let you know."

She went back to the doorway, measured distances, tried to convince herself there was no difference between what she was trying and climbing onto a garage roof, which she had done many times in her girlhood.

She leaned out and grabbed the highest of the handholds. The rain took her breath away. Even though she was protected from it by the suit, the psychological result was the same as if the field were not there. The McMurtrie Effect again.

She gathered her courage, swung out onto the face of the elevator, inserted her foot into the bottom hole, climbed quickly up, and crawled onto the roof. The cable housing was centered, and the roof angled slightly down away from it. Her first impulse was to make for the housing, to get as far from the edge as she could. But that would accomplish nothing.

She watched the network of diagonal and horizontal bars move slowly past. Move up. They were round and desperately narrow. No thicker than her wrist. What kind of building materials did these people use, anyhow?

She edged toward the gridwork, tied one end of her vine around her waist, and stepped off the roof onto a passing crossbar. The elevator kept going, and she leaned away until it was clear. Then she looped her vine around the bar, pulled it tight, and realized she'd stopped breathing. She lowered herself into a sitting position, both legs off one side of the rail although she'd have preferred to straddle because it would feel safer, but it just wasn't comfortable.

"Hutch?" Kellie's voice.

"I'm off the elevator."

"You okay?"

"Yes. I think so."

"Where are you?"

"Sitting on a crossbar."

More lightning. They lost communication for a moment. When it came back, Kellie said, "How safe are you?"

"I'm okay."

"We'll have enough of a charge in an hour or so."

"Don't try it. You'll get us all killed. Wait till morning."

"Hutch-"

"Do what I'm asking you to. It's the b.est chance for everybody."

The elevator was still moving steadily down. Then it stopped, and for several minutes it seemed locked in place. Finally it dropped out of the framework, out of the guide rails, and began to fall. A long time later she heard it hit the forest below.

BREAKING NEWS

"One of the two persons stranded in an elevator early this morning remains in danger…."

Nicholson would have preferred to be in his cabin in the Adiron-dacks. He wanted nothing so much as for this entire business to be over and his part in it to be forgotten. He believed he was safe. But he'd been shaken, and he hated being put into a position that required him to continue to make decisions that might backfire. He was, in fact, determined to see that nothing went wrong, that he emerged blameless from the mission. If he could accomplish that, he would consider himself very fortunate.

Secondarily, he would like to see a successful rescue. Not only because it would help his case, but because when his own immediate fears had passed, he'd begun to feel some sympathy for the four people trapped on the ground.

He was aware that his priorities, had they been known, would have reflected poorly on him. And that judgment embarrassed him, putting an even heavier load on his shoulders. But he couldn't help how he felt. He resented Marcel, not for anything Weady's captain had actually done, but because he hadn't been able to come up with a rescue plan that didn't involve additional risk for Nicholson.

There was a mild jar as the ship began the course correction. He sensed the mass of the object that the Star was hauling. Saw it in the sluggishness of the ship's responses. And that was the way of it at the moment: the Star was tied to this impossible alien shaft, much as Nicholson was tied to his decision to allow two passengers and a lander to drop out of orbit.

Power flowed through the bulkheads as the four superluminals struggled to move their burden onto the designated course. They had no serious capability for lateral maneuvering. While the ships could change their own heading through the use of strategically placed highly flexible thrusters, only the main engines had the sheer capacity to affect the Alpha shaft. That meant they could, in practical terms, only move it forward, relying on gravity fields and inertia to do the rest.

But Lori reported, well into the maneuver, that they were still on target. To Nicholson the entire operation seemed hopelessly complicated. But he had as yet no reason to believe that the plan would not work. Other than his own instincts.

The engines went neutral. Power was being applied elsewhere, by one or more of the other ships. They couldn't calibrate power levels up and down, so the computers adjusted by firing the engines of the various ships in whatever combination was necessary to achieve the desired result. It was a symphony.

One of the auxiliary screens carried a generated image of the Evening Star. It was in the center of a group of constellations, warm and luminous against the void. The shaft was represented by a fingernail-thin line, which extended to the edges of the display. Arrows pointed, 44 km forward to Zwick, and to the rear, 62 km to Wildside.

He refilled his coffee cup, and he saw Marcel talking earnestly with Beekman. The schedule they'd worked out told him there'd be another few hours of maneuvering. Of correcting the long rotation and nudging Alpha into its precise trajectory.

Marcel finished his conversation, looked around, and caught Nicholson's eye. "How about some breakfast, Erik?" he suggested.

Nicholson glanced at Beekman. "I wonder whether we shouldn't stay here. In case something happens."

"Something's already happening," he said. "You know Hutch is stranded."

"Yes. I'd heard."

It was after 4:00 a.m. "I don't think there's much we can do for the next few hours. Lori has all the data she needs. The Outsiders are ready to go as soon as conditions permit."

"Suppose there's a problem?"

"If it's a little one, we can deal with it."

"And if there's a big one?"

"It'll be over," said Beekman matter-of-factly. "We are past the point where we can make major adjustments."

Maybe it was just as well to sit down with Clairveau and Beekman. If the operation succeeded, people would remember the image of the two captains and the head of the science team, putting the rescue together.

The electrical intensity of the storm showed no sign of diminishing. Rain pounded down on her, and the wind howled.

The immediate danger rose from the possibility one of the bolts would hit the grid. The e-suit would protect her from a low-level discharge, but she'd never survive a lightning strike. Fortunately, the elevator frame did not jut up into the air. It disappeared into the ruins atop the mountain. Nevertheless there was a lot of exposed metal. A bolt was inevitable.

She could see no way off the iron. The rock wall was smooth. The few bushes clinging to it would never support her. There was a tree above and not far to one side. It looked old and scrabbly, and she thought it had all it could do to hang on itself. Furthermore, it would have been a long jump, one she was pretty sure she couldn't make.

Kellie was constantly on the circuit, between bursts of interference checking on her, asking whether she was okay.

The rain battered her. The suit kept her dry, but it was hard to see.

"You're sure there's no way you can get off the iron?" Kellie asked.

Hutch shook her head wearily. They'd been over it and over it.

"That settles it."

"No. Don't come up. Wait it out."

"But-"

"I'll find a way to get clear. My best chance is for you to stay put."

Another bolt exploded overhead. She jumped and would have fallen off her perch had she not been secured. She'd almost gotten used to the constant fear, which left her feeling numb and exhausted. The tree sagged in the heavy rain.

The gridwork trembled. Quake or thunder, it no longer seemed to matter. She looked off to the east. Jerry would be rising soon, although the sky would be too heavy to allow her to see it. Thank God for small favors.

When the lander began to drop, Kellie had accelerated, gained altitude, and returned to the mountaintop, hoping that they might be able to find a way to effect a rescue from above. But the peak was still blanketed with fog, despite the heavy winds. The electrical activity had knocked out communication with Wendy, so there was no one to guide them in. When MacAllister urged her to try anyhow, she'd prudently pointed out that getting them all killed would do nothing whatever for Priscilla Hutchins.

Instead, she'd opted for a shelf halfway down the mountain. They could hear the ocean coming in, so she wanted to stay high.

MacAllister stared morosely out the window into the flickering darkness while rain hammered at them.

They growled at one another and complained about sitting and doing nothing. Late in the evening Mac finally fell asleep. Nightingale, having no one left to argue with, sat morosely in his chair until Kellie wondered whether he was awake. At about midnight, she lost communication altogether with Hutch.

The lightning continued through the night. She slept fitfully, and woke once to overhear a whispered conversation between her passengers. Nightingale was confessing to having delayed the rescue, was taking responsibility for Hutch's situation on his own shoulders. She could imagine what he was thinking: Priscilla had stayed behind so he could get off. Once again, a woman had rescued him at the cost of her own life. To her surprise Mac told him it could have happened to anybody.

He was hard to figure, that one. Mac characteristically turned a cynical face to the world. Yet he had urged her to try for the rescue,

even when she told him it couldn't be done, not in the dark, not in this wind, that they'd only be throwing their lives away.

He'd said very little since Hutch and Nightingale had left that morning to explore the hexagon. It must be hard on him, she thought. He's used to center stage. Everybody takes him seriously, hangs on his every word. He stays at the best hotels, enjoys media attention everywhere he goes. Now suddenly he's reduced to survival mode, hang on to your tether, life and death in the balance. And nobody gives a damn who he is. The only issue for the past twelve days has been: What can he do? And the reality is, he'd been able to do more than she would have thought.

When they got home, she decided, if they got home, she was going to ask Marcel to give Mac a commendation. That would be something worth seeing, Gregory MacAllister showing up at the Academy to receive an award. He'd never complained, other than to yell at inanimate objects, like Jerry. He'd done everything possible within his physical limitations, and he'd not turned out to be the general pain in the rear she'd expected when they began.

"My God," he said. The cabin brightened and darkened. Thunder ripped through the night.

"That one hit the elevators," Nightingale said.

"Hutch!" Mac tapped his commlink and spoke into it. "Priscilla. Answer up."

It was close to dawn, five hours to rendezvous with Marcel's scoop. But there was as yet no break in the darkness. Nightingale was sitting despondently, listening to the wind. MacAllister was bunched up behind him, his teeth clenched against every lightning strike.

MacAllister had never been comfortable with the sobriquet Hutch. It was a warehouse worker's name, utterly inappropriate for a gallant, if foolhardy, young woman. He wondered if all these people had tin ears.

He'd begun composing a tribute to her. It would appear in The Adventurers' Quarterly, the publication he'd edited for six years, and which still featured his occasional contributions.

"Anything?" he asked Kellie, who'd been trying the commlink again.

She shook her head. Just the heavy crackle of interference.

"It must be time," said Nightingale.

"Not yet," she said.

MacAllister went back to his project. Priscilla was from a small town in Ohio.

Where was she from? He'd have to look that up. It didn't make any difference, of course, whether it was Ohio or Scotland. Or even whether it was a small town.

Priscilla was from the lower Bronx.

It played just as well.

She worked for the Academy of Science and Technology, a pilot collecting standard pay, making the wearying runs between Earth and the dig site at Pinnacle or the black hole at Mamara.

Twenty years ago she was part of the expedition that discovered the Omega clouds, those curious constructs that erupt in waves from galactic center to attack swimming pools and twenty-story buildings. While everyone else on that mission wrote a set of memoirs, Priscilla Hutching simply went back to piloting.

We forgot about her. And we might never have noticed who she really was. Except that eventually they sent her to Deepsix.

He made a noise in the back of his throat and scratched out galactic center. It sounded too much like a park.

Nightingale got up and made for the coffee dispenser. Kellie had been trying off and on to read, but he could see she was making no progress.

Mac had almost finished when she straightened up. "Okay," she said. "The wind's down a bit. Everybody belt in." It was, he thought, brighter outside, but not by much.

He heard the whine of the engines and drew his harness down over his head. Panel lights blinked on. "Hang on," she said, and MacAllister felt the vehicle lift into the storm. In the same instant Kellie flicked on the running lights. They rose past walls and driving rain and writhing trees.

The lander fought its way into the sky while Nightingale tried again to raise Hutch.

Mac gazed hopefully out at the precipice. Occasionally, when the angle was right, he could see the gridwork. "Do we know where to look?" he asked.

"She was on the far left," said Kellie. "At sixty-three hundred meters."

Mac took to watching the altimeter.

In front of him, Nightingale was barely breathing.

"Elevator's gone," Kellie said. That was no surprise.

Nightingale swept the gridwork with binoculars.

"Any sign of her?" asked Mac.

"I'll tell you if I see something," he snapped.

Kellie stabbed at her link. "Hutch, you out there?"

The static broke momentarily, and they heard her voice!

"— Here-"

They all tried to talk to her at once. Kellie got them quiet. "Where are you?" she asked.

"Where you left me." The transmission broke up. "-see your lights."

"Okay, hang on. We'll be right there."

"Good. I'd be grateful."

"Hutch, what's your situation?"

"Say again?"

"What's your situation?"

"I'm okay."

"I see her," said Nightingale.

"Where?" Kellie asked.

"There." He jabbed his finger.

She was dangling from one of the crosspieces. Mac took only a moment to look, then reached behind him for the cable. He looped one end around the seat anchor and pulled it tight. Nightingale opened the inner airlock.

"Don't forget yourself," said Kellie.

He hadn't. Not after last time. He retrieved his own tether and tied himself firmly to the same base.

Kellie reminded them also to activate their e-suits. She matched air pressure. "Ready to go," she said.

A gust of wind hammered the lander, and Mac crashed to the floor. Nightingale helped him up.

Kellie opened the outer hatch. Wind and rain spilled into the airlock. And Mac saw why Hutchins was still alive. She'd converted her rope into a sling, looped under thighs and armpits, and lowered herself off the girder. Away from the metal.

"Hang on, Priscilla," he told her, though he knew she could not hear him over the roar of the storm.

"Are we close enough?" asked Kellie. The lander rose and fell.

"No," he cried. "We're going to have to do better than this."

"I don't know if we can."

The cable was general-purpose lightweight stuff. Something to be used for securing cargo or possibly marking off a dig site. In this wind he wanted something more like Hutchins's heavy vine.

He missed a couple times, and then shut off his e-suit long enough to remove a shoe. He tied the cable to it and waited for the right circumstances: a drop in the wind and the lander in close. When it happened he threw the shoe and the cable. The shoe sailed over the crossbar. Hutch swung back, swung forward, grabbed the line. She hauled it down and looped it around her middle and secured it under her arms.

Mac took up the cable and got ready.

"Hurry," Kellie pleaded, while she fought the storm and the down-drafts.

The laser appeared in Hutch's right hand. She showed the laser to them, signifying what she was about to do.

Mac glanced at the seat anchor, and tightened his grip. Nightingale, standing in the hatch, was not tethered. Mac pushed him back, out of harm's way.

Priscilla cut the vine and dropped down out of sight. The cable jerked tight. Mac held on, felt Nightingale move in behind him, and they hauled her in.

When she was safely on board, a wave of laughter engulfed them. Priscilla hugged Mac and kissed Nightingale. Kellie accelerated and shut down the spike to preserve its power supply. Then Hutch embraced her, too. They were happy, exhausted, tearful. She thanked them, wriggled out of the rope and cable, expressed her unbounded joy at being back in the lander, and hugged everybody again. She untied Mac's shoe and returned it ceremonially.

"Welcome home," said Kellie.

Mac eased himself into his seat. "Nice to have you back, Priscilla," he said.

She collapsed beside him, rubbed her thighs where the vine had supported her, and closed her eyes. "You wouldn't believe how good it is," she said, "to be here."

Kellie had been climbing steadily. Suddenly they emerged above the clouds. The air was less turbulent, but Nightingale caught his breath. He was looking up.

Mac followed his gaze. They could see the vast arc of the onrushing planet. The entire southwestern sky quailed beneath that purple monster. They could see into it, into its depths. Mac felt chilled. "What now?" he asked. "Do we make our rendezvous?" "Not yet," said Hutch. "It's too early. We've got more than four hours left."

He grimaced and looked down at the boiling clouds. "Do we really have to go back down there?"

Bill and Lori surprised the staff by showing up in tandem onscreen on the Star bridge. "I'm pleased to announce that maneuvering is complete," said Lori. "No further power applications need be made. Alpha will arrive at the designated point over the Misty Sea in the proper alignment at the specified time."

"Well done," said Bill. He seemed quite pleased.

Kellie found high ground near the base of the mountain, and set down.

Hutch went back into the washroom. When she came out a half hour later she looked scrubbed down, and she was wrapped in a blanket, waiting for her clothes to dry. "I hope nobody minds the informality," she said.

"Not a bit of it," said MacAllister, with a leer.

They passed around one of the bottles she'd salvaged from the Star. The wind blew, the rain fell, but for the moment at least, all was right with the world.

XXXIII

As there are some professions that demand believers in the amity of Providence, like those who work among the downtrodden, or who teach adolescents, there are others for which atheism is desirable. I am thinking particularly of pilots. When you are adrift among the clouds or the stars, you want someone in the cockpit who has as much to lose as you do if the party goes down.

— Gregory MacAllister, My Life and Loves

Hours to breakup (est): 20

Miles Chastain returned with Phil Zossimov to the net. This time he had his gear, a couple of assistants, and a load of material on two shuttles. Drummond waited with an Outsider team.

Miles been piloting superluminals for almost four years, the last three for Universal News. It paid well, and equally important at this stage of his life, the job took him to places where something was usually happening. He had, for example, hauled a news team out to Nok, the only world known to have a living native civilization, just in time to see the first shots fired in the latest round of an early-twentieth-century-style war. He'd accompanied the investigators to Kruger 60 when the Aquilar returned from the first probe across the Orion rift without its crew. He'd been the pilot when Universal did its award-winning special on the antique alien station orbiting Beta Pac III.

Now he was helping orchestrate the rescue off Deepsix. Not bad for a kid from a Baltimore row house.

He arrived within minutes after receiving the news that Alpha was on course, and no additional course changes would be needed. That meant Phil's team could begin its phase of the mission.

To release the asteroid, Drummond had cut the net almost three-quarters of the way around its circumference. The net now drifted glittering in the sunlight, two halves, partially entwined, a kind of bright tattered banner trailing from a very long post.

Their first objective was to finish what Drummond had begun: complete the cut. Get rid of one of the two halves.

Drummond's shuttle inserted itself within the drifting folds. One of his Outsiders exited the airlock and tied a cable to the half designated for disposal. He then returned inside the shuttle, which began to move away, straightening that portion of the net to prepare it for a laser cut.

Miles approached in the second vehicle and sliced through it until it was cleanly separated. Now Drummond's pilot dragged the severed portion away and released it to find its own orbit.

He returned and secured the remaining half to the shuttle. Then he gradually braked, drawing it out. When he was satisfied, he released it.

Miles moved in again.

The idea was to convert the remaining section into a sack. The part of the net attached to the plate would, when it was lowered into the atmosphere, constitute the top of the sack; the opposite end, the former south pole, would become the bottom. The task facing Miles's team was to join the severed sides near the bottom and bind them together, forming an area which would hang down toward the planetary surface, and into which, in just over six hours, the lander could de- scend. Or crash-land, if need be.

The shuttles took up positions on either side of the net, approximately one hundred meters up from the "bottom." Miles and three of the Outsiders climbed onto it and used the shuttles to help draw the lower sections together.

The rest of the Outsider team, which totaled eight in all, joined the effort. They'd been drilled specifically for this operation, but Miles never stopped worrying. They'd practiced on the Star's tennis nets, but that hadn't been the most realistic simulation.

He watched his people move out across the narrow space between the net and the airlock onto the metal links floating nearby. They connected their tethers as they'd been instructed, removed from their packs the clips which Marcia Keel had manufactured from chairs and coffee machines and cargo shelving, and began the process of binding the lower section of the net back together.

One advantage, at least: no lasers were in use. He'd hated putting lasers in the hands of the people along the assembly, and would have flat out refused to do it on the net, had he been asked. Fortunately, it wasn't necessary.

He was the only person out there with a go-pack. It was his responsibility to navigate along the edges, and to draw them close enough together that the Outsiders could connect them permanently. Only one drifted off during this phase of the operation, and Miles was quick to retrieve him.

He was uncomfortable about this aspect of the strategy. "This sack is three-quarters of a kilometer in diameter, Marcel," he said over a private channel. "It wouldn't take much for it to get tangled up. Then you'd have nothing."

"What's your suggestion?"

"I'd prefer to cut the thing down to a manageable size. Say 150 meters. Certainly no more than that."

"How long would it take you to do it?"

He looked across the hundreds of square meters of drifting net. They'd have to go back inside, do some complicated maneuvering, do the cutting, come back out, splice it together. "Twelve hours," he said.

"So that shoots it, no?" He could hear Marcel's impatience. "Do it as planned."

The Outsiders finished, and the bottom one hundred meters were stitched together into a sack. When they'd finished, Miles's shuttle picked them up.

Now it became the Phil Zossimov Show. Phil had brought along some tubing, cut and shaped like a ring. Miles admired the young Russian. He'd made it clear an hour earlier that the thought of going outside onto the net terrified him. But he showed no sign of reluctance as he stood in front of the volunteers and activated his e-suit.

The tubing constituted most of the life-support system taken from Wildside. The various pieces were marked to enable the assemblers to put them together with a minimum of confusion. Under Phil's direction, they went back outside.

Above the sack they had just made, the netting was open all the way to the plate. They cut sideways across the net just above the sack, opening a large space, and secured its edges to the tubing. When the tubing was in place, Zossimov connected a pump and a sensor.

He pumped air in until it became a rigid ring-shaped collar, forming a mouth about twenty-five meters wide. This collar would hold the net open, providing entry for the lander. The sensor, made from a hatch closer on Wildside, would activate a valve as soon as Hutch's lander passed through. The valve would open and release the air, the collar would collapse, and the danger of the spacecraft falling back out would be all but eliminated.

The next task was to ensure that the rear of the net would not drift forward and close the sack or block the entrance.

To accomplish that they brought out a load of bars that had been manufactured from the metal taken from Wildside's cargo bay, and designed with links so they could be connected to each other, end to end. There was also a supply of braces and supports.

Each bar was five meters long. (That had been the maximum length possible to get them in and out of the shuttles.) Altogether there were forty-six.

The Outsiders used them to assemble two rails, braced with supports. They connected the rails in parallel above and on either side of the ring, front to rear in the sack. When that had been accomplished, they had a container into which the lander should be able to maneuver.

All but Phil and Miles withdrew into the shuttles. Phil set the sensor.

"You sure it'll work?" asked Miles.

"Absolutely."

"How long will it take to close after the lander's inside?"

"It activates as soon as they pass through. I'm no physicist, so I can't tell you how fast the collar will deflate. But it shouldn't be longer than a few seconds. Especially at that altitude."

Miles inspected the collar. "I think we have ourselves a decent scoop."

At about the time Miles's people were climbing onto the net, the welding teams were spreading out across the hulls of the four super-luminals. Tom Scolari, Cleo, Jack Kingsbury, and an elderly man whom Scolari knew only as Chop, had responsibility for Zwick. The task should now be easy, because Jack and Chop had performed much the same assignment working alone earlier when they'd attached the star-ship to the Alpha shaft.

Scolari had been invited by Universal News to participate in an interview. Emma had found jumpsuits for him and Cleo, and the plan called for them to go on a live hookup when the job on the hull was finished. He was unnerved by the prospect, more frightened than he could ever have been about going outside.

It should have been easier to interview Chop and Jack, who'd been on board longer, and Scolari had wondered at first why Emma hadn't done that. But it became clear very quickly that neither of the two was very articulate. Jack responded to everything with one-word answers. And Chop scratched a lot. Scolari was concerned that they'd be resentful, but neither brought the subject up. When he told them about the pending interview, Chop had commented that he was glad they hadn't asked him.

Zwick was the leading vessel on the shaft, only thirty-eight kilometers from the net, which they could see shining in the sunlight. Sometimes it made Scolari think of a flag.

The shaft was currently welded to the belly of the Zwick. They went out through the cargo hatch on the port quarter and walked around to the underside, and it seemed as if the universe rotated as they did so, so that the hull was always down. It was an effect caused by the magnetic boots.

When they were ready, Cleo and Scolari retired to the rear, Jack and Chop went forward. They activated their lasers and began cutting the weld. Now that the shaft was safely on course, and no more corrections would be needed, they were to separate it from the ship and change its orientation. "Be careful," Janet reminded them from her station in Drummond's launch, which was up near the net. This was the most dangerous part of the operation for the Outsiders: cut too high, and they could slice or seriously weaken Alpha. Do that, they'd been told again and again, and repair would be impossible. The people below would die. Cut too low, and they could penetrate the ship. That indeed was not life and death. Everyone had been cleared out of areas vulnerable to puncture on all the vessels. But it would nevertheless, in Janet's dulcet admonition, have been unprofessional. A mess that someone else would have to clean up later.

The clear lesson: If they had to screw it up, cut low.

Getting it right wasn't all that hard, he discovered, so long as he kept his mind on what he was doing. The image of the gas giant, growing visibly larger by the hour, did tend to be a distraction.

They began cutting. Jack and Chop had done a good job the first time out. Their instructions had been to connect as much of the shaft as possible to the hull. They'd done that, and it required a long effort to free it. Zwick was by far the smallest of the superluminals, but she had accepted a twenty-six-meter length of the shaft before her hull curved away.

So they worked steadily, in the shadow of the giant. Scolari had heard that almost a full kilometer had been laid on the Star. Getting that off would be a monster job, but that was where they'd concentrated the volunteers.

Janet, as usual, was watching. Occasionally she offered advice or encouragement. She let them know that Wendy's crew had finished, that the people preparing the net to receive its payload were making progress. She always referred to the lander as the payload. Scolari decided she watched too many sims.

They needed an hour and a quarter to break the shaft loose, and they did it without inflicting any damage. Jack, who was the team leader, informed Janet when they were done. She acknowledged, thanked them, and directed them to retire inside the ship. "But, don't go far," she said.

"How long?"

"About four hours."

"We won't last that long."

It was hard to believe the sun had been in the sky an hour and a half. The wind roared across the lander. Rain hammered down, and the water coming off the mountain had become a torrent. They huddled inside the darkened cabin while the storm raged.

"I think conditions are deteriorating," said Mac.

Hutch nodded. "That would be my guess. We'd better tie down if we don't want to get blown into the ocean."

They went outside and struggled to lash the lander to the trees. The winds were approaching hurricane force. That meant flying objects, branches, rocks, and even birds that had gotten caught, became missiles.

They were all short of breath when they got back inside. They fell into their seats, feeling safer but not by much.

On the bridge of the Star, Nicholson and Marcel received Drummond's report. Only the giant liner itself was now still attached to Alpha.

Nicholson looked questioningly at Marcel. "Now?" he asked.

Marcel nodded.

Nicholson addressed the AI: "Lori, we are going to the next phase. You can turn Zwick around."

"Complying,"said Lori.

"Lori?" said Marcel. "Have we had any luck yet reestablishing contact with the ground party?"

"No, Marcel. I am still trying and will inform you when I am successful."

He nodded, and turned his attention to Zwick's status board, which was posted on one of the navigation screens. The media vessel, under Lori's direction, began to pull away from the shaft. Its thrusters would fire an orchestrated series of bursts, moving it out to one side, turning it around, and bringing it back, but facing in the opposite direction. Now, its main engines pointed toward Deepsix, it moved in once more to snuggle against Alpha.

During the course of the maneuver, word came down that the Outsiders had released the Star.

On board Zwick, Scolari and the other volunteers returned to the hull and began the cumbersome process of reattaching the shaft. Now the vessel was pointed in the opposite direction, away from Deepsix. Almost immediately, one of the shuttle pilots warned them of an approaching cloud.

"Cloud?" asked Scolari.

"Meteors and dust. Get back inside."

Scolari and Cleo needed no prompting. They made for the airlock, and warned Chop and Jack not to dawdle.

A few large rocks bounced off the metal. Minutes later, when they thought it was over, one penetrated the hull, knocked out the broadcasting studio and the library, and would have killed Canyon except that he'd left moments earlier to go to the washroom.

The warning had come from Klaus Bomar, who had taken Pindar and Sharon to mark the Alpha shaft. He was, as Pindar had observed, Canadian. A Toronto native, he'd been a commercial hauler, carrying supplies to the terraformers on Quraqua; and later he'd served as a longtime instructor at the Conciliar Spaceflight Academy near Winnipeg. He'd resigned his position there two months earlier, anxious to join the superluminals that were moving out to the new frontiers.

Klaus's wife was dead, his kids were grown and gone, so he'd barely hesitated once he decided he'd had enough of classrooms. He'd signed on with TransGalactic because they paid well and the big luxury liners were visiting the places he wanted to see, black holes and star cradles and giant suns and cosmic lighthouses.

This was his first flight with TransGalactic.

He was dazzled by the ingenuity of Clairveau and Beekman, and amused at Nicholson's ability to look as if he were commanding the operation.

He'd transmitted the warning to Zwik and another shuttle in the path of the debris field, then turned away in an effort to get clear.

Much of the debris orbiting Morgan consisted of nothing more that dust particles too small to be tracked by sensors. As Klaus completed his turn he veered directly into a high-velocity swarm that ripped the shuttle apart before he even knew he was in trouble.

XXXIV

There is a gem we all have that, when crisis comes, inevitably selects the wrong turn. It is why things run amiss, dreams remain unfulfilled, ambitions fail to materialize. Life, for most of us, is simply a series of blown opportunities. -Gregory MacAllister, Deepsix Diary

Hours to breakup (est): 12

Hutch could have used a trank. The ones that Mac had in his pack weren't supposed to affect the user after whatever period they were set for, so theoretically they should have been safe. But she'd always tended to react badly to the damned things. And she dared not risk impairing her judgment for the final flight.

The final flight. Up or down.

She tried to push her emotions away, out to some distant boundary. She thought about what lay ahead, tried to visualize this giant net that would be dropping out of the sky.

Precision, Marcel had been saying. Everything had to be done precisely right. One chance. The net would come down and it would go up. She'd have, at best, a minute or so to find the collar and navigate into it.

The mood in the cabin was subdued. MacAllister tried to lighten things a bit by proclaiming that if they came out of it alive he was going to seek out the bishop of New Jersey and submit to religious instruction.

They all laughed, but it had a hollow ring.

Periodically, without success, Hutch tried to regain contact with Marcel.

"I'll be glad," Nightingale said, "to get it over with. One way or the other."

Hutch nodded as if she agreed, but she didn't. Life was sweet, and she wanted to hang on to it as long as she could. But yes, she would be happy to end the suspense, to fly into Marcel's celestial sack and get hauled up to safety. It was just hard to visualize something like that actually happening.

Mac broke out some fruit and nuts, but she had no appetite.

"Do you good," MacAllister persisted.

"I doubt it." Nevertheless, it seemed like something she should do. She selected a dark red globule that resembled and tasted like a pomegranate. Nightingale picked a few nuts and settled back to enjoy them..Mac made coffee and filled all the cups.

"We going to have any trouble getting aloft in this?" he asked, indicating the storm.

"We'll be okay." She'd powered up to the extent possible. There was more than enough fuel in the tanks to take them out to the rendezvous. Even enough to get back, if need be. If it would matter. "We'll do fine. As long as it doesn't get too much worse."

They sat for a time, tasting the fruit, watching the rain.

"You guys all right?" she asked.

Nightingale nodded. "I'm sorry about the elevator," he said. "I-"

"It's okay. Don't worry about it."

Mac took a long sip of coffee. "Confession time, I guess."

"What've you got to confess, Mac?" asked Kellie.

"I…" He thought about it."… haven't always been reasonable."

"We know that," said Nightingale. "The whole world knows it."

"I just thought I wanted to say something. I've done some damage."

"Forget it. I'm sure nobody holds it against you."

"That's not quite so, but it isn't the point."

"Mac, you once said something about people who waste energy feeling sorry for themselves."

He frowned. "Not that I can recall. What exactly did I say?"

"'Best way to deal with a conscience is to beat it into submission so it knows who's in charge. "

"I said that?"

Nightingale had been looking out at the rain during the whole of this exchange. Now he turned and fixed his eyes on MacAllister. "Not really. But it's the best I can do on short notice. Let it go, Mac. It's-past."

The lander shook as another wave rippled through the ground. MacAllister snatched his plate before it could slide off onto the deck. "The whole world's coming apart," he said.

Kellie adjusted her harness. "How much longer?"

"Soon," said Hutch.

In fact, the winds seemed to be lessening. The rain slacked off, although it never really stopped. Hutch tried the radio again.

Suddenly the sky was filled with birds. They were all of one species, black with white wing tips, big, graceful, wings spread to catch the wind. Their flight was erratic, disorganized. To a degree, they were being blown across the sky. But they fought to maintain formation. The wind died, they regrouped, and then, like a single animal, they turned north. They know, she thought. They all know.

When the bombardment had stopped, Scolari and the other Outsiders went back onto the hull and finished the welding assignment. They laid the shaft directly down the length of the ship, as they had before. The same procedure was being followed by the Evening Star team. On the other two vessels, the crews were reattaching the shaft at twenty-seven- and thirty-one-degree angles. That would allow Wendy and Wildside, who'd be up front during extraction, to begin the process of inserting the shaft into orbit.

Shortly after they'd begun they heard about the death of the shuttle pilot who had warned them.

Scolari and his team finished in two and a half hours and came back into the airlock. All four vessels were again locked onto Alpha, except that they now faced the opposite direction.

Although he was new to TransGalactic, Klaus Bomar had been the oldest member of the Star's crew, save for the captain himself. Because he was a contemporary, Nicholson had occasionally invited him to his cabin for a drink, and had ended by becoming quite fond of him. Marcel had been wrong about Nicholson: He did have an onboard friend.

The news hit Nicholson hard.

One of Wendy's three shuttles pulled alongside Drummond's vehicle. The airlock opened, and Drummond took on a physician: Embry Desjardain.

Drummond's assignment was to stay near the sack, and pick up the ground team after they'd been hauled clear of the atmosphere. Embry was a precaution, in case a doctor was needed.

They introduced themselves and shook hands. Then Drummond turned to Janet. "I guess you're relieved," he said. "If you'd like to go back to the Star, your transportation's waiting."

She declined. "If you've no objection, I'd like to stay around for the rescue. You might be able to use some help."

Drummond glanced at Frank, who thumbed a switch. "Okay, Karen," he told the other pilot, "that's it."

Karen blinked her lights and moved away.

"Time to go," said Hutch. "Let's cut ourselves loose."

Marcel, Beekman, and Nicholson posted themselves on the Star bridge. They watched with satisfaction the various status reports coming in. Everything secure. Everyone on station.

All that remained now was to wait while the momentum of the new assembly, the alpha shaft and the four superluminals attached to it, carried the net into the atmosphere above the Misty Sea.

Nicholson had been uncustomarily quiet. Finally, he turned to Marcel and shook his hand. "Good luck," he said. And, repeating the gesture, "Good luck, Gunther."

"Marcel." Lori blinked onto his screen. 7 had momentary contact with the lander, but I have lost it again."

"Okay. Were you able to talk to them at all?"

"They're in the air. On their way to the rendezvous."

The three men nodded encouragement to each other. "Thank God. Was Hutch with them? Who did you talk to?"

"I talked with Captain Hutchins."

Marcel's eyes closed, and he breathed a prayer of thanks.

They flew through a sea of dark clouds, lightning strikes, roiling skies, and glowing red eruptions.

When finally they rose above the worst of the turmoil, Kellie succeeded in opening a channel to the Star.

"Let us trust we can maintain it this time," said Lori. "It's quite good to know everything is well. We've been worried. Are you on course?"

"We are indeed," Hutch said.

"Just a moment, please. I'll notify Captain Clairveau."

Marcel showed up within seconds. "Hutch," he said, "it's good to see you."

"And you, Marcel."

"How'd you get down off the elevator? What happened?"

"Tell you when we get there. Everything's in order here. We are approximately one hour ten minutes from rendezvous."

"Good."

"How are things at your end?"

She got more interference.

"… on schedule." He refined the previous data, giving them the exact position where the scoop would arrive. And he transmitted some visuals. "As you can see, the whole thing looks like a sack made out of chain-link netting. Here's the opening. A nice circular front entrance. More than wide enough for you to fly through. It'll be facing east, and it's near the bottom of the sack. Once you're inside, there'll be fifty meters of empty net below you. The collar will close. Just nestle in, set' down the best way you can, and leave the rest to us."

"We will."

"We may have some more very minor adjustments to the coordinates, depending on how the atmosphere affects the net, but don't worry about them because we'll take you every step of the way."

"Do we have a precise time yet?" she asked.

"It'll reach its lowest point of descent in exactly seventy-four minutes and…" He paused."… thirty seconds. Immediately after that, it'll start back up again." Another hesitation. "Can you make the altitude?"

"Probably. If we can't, don't wait for us." MacAllister paled. He needed reassuring, and she nodded confidently. "Just kidding, Mac. We'll do this with ease.

"Keep in mind," she added, "I have no easy way to navigate this thing. I'm not even sure which way is west anymore."

"You're doing fine. Although I'd like you to cut your speed by about thirty klicks and come left another eight degrees."

Hutch complied.

"That's good. I'll stay with you. How's the weather?"

"A trifle overcast."

Hutch quietly pulled back on the yoke, relying only on the lander's aeronautical capabilities to get to ten thousand meters. She would conserve her spike until she needed it.

Marcel transmitted more images of the lower section of the net. It would be hanging almost straight down out of the sky. Facing in her direction. "When you see it," he explained, "it'll be moving southwest at 180 kph. Its course will be 228 degrees-228.7. We'll bring you in close. When I tell you, engage the spike, and just float in."

"Marcel," she said, "I would not have believed this was possible."

"With a Frenchman"-he grinned-"everything is possible. Gravity will have hold of it by the time you get there, but we'll already be in braking mode."

"Okay."

"We're going to take you in just before we begin to move the shaft back out again."

"And you say the opening's fifty-three meters across?"

"That's correct. Half a football field."

"Can't miss," said Hutch.

"That's what we thought."

She said quietly, almost not wanting anybody to hear, "I do believe we're going to pull this off."

Nightingale looked down at the storms smeared across the sky. They were daubed with fire. Eerily lit black clouds boiled up into the higher altitudes.

He was having trouble controlling his breathing. Whatever happened, they would not be able to go back down there. God help him, he did not want to die out here. And he did not want the others to know how he felt. They were all scared; he realized that. But they seemed better equipped to deal with it.

Please, God, don't let me go to pieces.

Marcel's voice crackled in over the receiver, instructing Hutch to cut back speed or adjust course or go a bit higher. The voice was level and cool. Unemotional. Confident.

Easy enough for him to be confident. Nightingale would have given anything to be with Marcel at this moment, safely tucked away on one of the superluminals.

Hutch had said nothing about his behavior in the elevator, as far as he knew, to the others. Nor had she mentioned the incident to him, except to reply to his expressed regret. Yet he could read the disappointment in her eyes. The contempt. Years before, when MacAllister had held him up to worldwide ridicule, he'd been able to rationalize his behavior. Anybody could pass out under stress. He'd been injured. He'd not had much sleep during that period. He'd-

— whatever.

This time he'd failed in a more visible way. In a way he could rationalize neither to others nor to himself. When it was over, if he survived, he'd make for Scotland. And hide.

"Marcel, this is Abel. Deepsix is beginning to disintegrate."

Marcel put the climatologist on-screen. "How? What's going on?"

"Major rifts opening in the oceans and on two of the continents. Several volcanoes have been born on Endtime. There's a fault line east of Gloriamundi. One side of it has been shoved six thousand meters into the air. It's still coming up. There are massive quakes in both hemispheres. We've got eruptions everywhere. A couple have even shown up in the Misty Sea, not far from the lander's last position."

"They should be safe. They're pretty high."

"You think so? One just let go in Gloriamundi. Some of the ejecta will go into orbit."

"Show me where they are," he said. "The Misty Sea volcanoes."

Kinder was right: Two were close to the lander's flight path. But he couldn't reroute them in any significant way. Not if they were going to be in place when the net arrived. Best just to ride it out and hope.

"Thanks, Abel."

Kinder grunted, one of those pained sounds. Then someone pressed his shoulder, handed him a note. He frowned.

"What?" asked Marcel.

"Hold on." The climatologist looked off to one side, nodded, frowned again, talked to the individual. Marcel couldn't hear. Then he came back to the monitor. "Northern Tempus is doing an Atlantis."

"Sinking?"

"Yes."

One of the screens was focused on Wendy's hull. Marcel saw movement, but it happened so quickly he wasn't sure he hadn't imagined it. "Thanks, Abel," he said.

He was still watching the screen. A shadow passed across Wendy, and one of her sensors vanished. A communication pod broke open and its electronic components spilled into the void. He switched over to the AI and picked up Bill's voice in midstride: "… to several forward systems. Intensity seems to be lessening…" The voice failed, and the image flickered and went off. It came back, long enough for Bill to add the word assess; then it went down again.

Nicholson, in the command chair, took a report that communications with Wendy had failed.

He asked a technician whether she could restore them.

"Problem's not on this end, Captain," she said. Another technician was running the visuals backward.

Nicholson looked at Marcel. "What the hell's happening over there? Can you make it out?"

"More rocks, I think," said Marcel. "It'll get worse as Jerry gets closer.

The screen remained blank.

"What happens if we don't regain contact?"

"We don't need to. Bill knows what to do. All the AIs do. As long as there's no emergency that requires us to make adjustments."

Canyon sat in a pose one could only describe as relaxed attention. "So this was your first time outside a ship, Tom. Why don't you tell us what was running through your mind when you went through the airlock?"

Scolari willed himself to relax. "Well, August, I knew it was something that had to be done. So I just made up my mind to do it." It was a stupid response, but he had suddenly lost all capability to think. What's my name? "I mean, it wasn't something we could just walk away from. It's a life-and-death situation."

He looked over at Cleo, who was gazing innocently at the ceiling.

"And how about you, Cleo?" said Canyon. "It must have been pretty unnerving looking down and not seeing anything."

"Well, that's true, August. Although to be honest I never felt there was a 'down. It's not like being on the side of a building."

"I understand you got hit by a storm of meteors. How did you react to that?"

"I was scared for a minute," she said. "We just hid out until it was over. Didn't really see much."

"Listen," said Scolari, "can I tell you something on my own?"

"Sure."

"Everybody was scared out there today. I never knew when part of me might just disappear. You know what I mean? And even without the rocks, I don't like not having something solid underfoot. But I'm glad I did it. And I hope to God those four people come back. If they do, it'll be nice to know I had a hand in it." He managed a smile. "Me and Cleo and the others."

Miles Chastain was cruising the shaft, moving deliberately from one ship to the next, inspecting the work of the Outsiders.

Maleiva III was framed against the gas giant. The continents and seas were no longer visible, and the entire globe appeared to be wrapped in a thick black pall.

He was impressed that so many had been wilh'ng to risk life and limb during the course of the operation. He'd heard about the other events, the complaints by passengers ob the Star and by the science people on Wendy. He'd been through crises before, and he knew they tended to unmask people, to reveal who they really were, to bring out the best or the worst, whichever way an individual personality leaned. It was almost as if trouble stripped away the pretenses of daily life, the way Jerry Morgan was stripping Maleiva.

He was somewhere between Zwick, his own ship, and the Evening Star, headed down the shaft toward the net. The actual pickup of Hutchins and her people would be made by John Drummond's shuttle. Marcel wanted them out of the lander and the net as quickly as the transfer could be made. Miles's responsibility was to stand by in case of need.

He was alone. He'd returned Phil, the shuttle pilot, the assistants, and the Outsiders to the Star and had taken over the controls himself. He was approaching Zwick, which was facing him.

When the signal came, and they began to draw the shaft out of the atmosphere, they would be moving it into orbit. Once that had been achieved, it would become possible to retrieve the MacAllister party.

His message board lit up. Transmission from Zwick. Emma. Her usually sallow features blinked on-screen, but this time she was glowing. She invariably gave the impression, when she spoke to him, that she was thinking about something else, that she needed only give out

instructions. That Miles himself was somehow inconsequential. Probably, he'd concluded on the way out, it resulted from dealing with too many VIPs. Everybody else became a peasant.

"Yes, Emma," he said, "what can I do for you?"

"Miles, where are you located now?"

"In front of you. Coming up."

"My schedule says you're headed for the pickup."

"More or less. I'm just going down there to be available."

"Good. I want you to stop and collect us."

"Why?"

"It'll only take a minute."

"Why?" he asked again.

"Are you serious? They're about to do the rescue, or not, and you ask why we want to be there?"

He sighed. She was right, of course. "Okay. I'll dock in about six minutes."

"Good. And Miles, would you do something else for me?"

He waited.

"I want you to contact the other pilot, the one who's going to make the pickup. Tell him we'd like to do a broadcast as they come on board. Ask if he'll cooperate."

"Why don't you do that yourself?"

"Well, pilot-to-pilot… You know how it is. He'll be more receptive if it comes from you. A lot of these people out here resent us. They think we're in the way. Except when they need publicity for one reason or another. I just don't want to miss this." She was at emotional high tide. "It's going to be the news story of the decade, Miles."

"Emma, did you know the shuttles can't dock with each other? You'll have to go outside to make the crossing."

"I didn't know. But that's not a problem."

"They're going to be busy. I don't think they'll want to make time for a news team."

"Miles." She came down a bit from her high. "I'd like very much for this to happen."

Frank the pilot looked up at Drummond. "John," he said, "I don't have any objection as long as they stay out of the way. How about you?"

Drummond's immediate instinct was to deny permission but of

hand. But he couldn't really give a reason why except that he disliked Canyon. Nevertheless, there was plenty of room in the shuttle, and he guessed it was prudent to get on the good side of the media. "Okay," he said. "Tell them what you just told me."

Gravity had taken hold of the sack. The net gradually lengthened and began to-tumble toward the troubled atmosphere. The collar was open and easy to see, and the people who'd rigged it had even managed to mark it with a system of lights. If there were no problems on board the lander, if the lander showed up at the time and place it was supposed to, the whole thing should be easy to pull off. Almost anti-climactic.

Frank disagreed. "The collar only looks big because we're right on top of it. And we're descending at the same rate it is. The lander's going to be approaching at a more or less constant altitude. The net goes down and it comes up. The pilot's got to time things so she hits it at precisely the right moment. If she misses, that's the ball game."

They rode quietly. The physician, Embry, stared moodily out the window. Janet Hazelhurst was thumbing through the onboard library, apparently just turning pages. Drummond was sipping coffee, lost in his thoughts.

"Eighteen minutes to rendezvous,"said the AI. "We are on schedule."

The net continued to unfurl as it dropped toward the clouds. Drummond saw no tangles.

Frank slowed their descent. "This is as low as we want to go," he said.

Drummond nodded. "So far, so good," he told Marcel.

Another shuttle appeared and drew alongside. "The media have arrived," said Frank.

Drummond activated his e-suit and went into the airlock, from which he watched two people move clumsily out of the other spacecraft. They floated across the few meters separating the shuttles, and he took each by the hand and pulled them inside.

Canyon wasn't as tall as Drummond had expected, but there was no missing that mellifluous voice. He introduced himself with quiet modesty. "And this is Emma Constantine," he said, "my producer."

"We'll want to set up here," Emma told him, "if that's no problem." She indicated a section adjacent the airlock. "We'd like to do a quick interview with you before the rescue."

"Okay," he said.

"August will be asking you how you plan to go about this, who'll be going out with you-"

"Wait a minute," Drummond said. "I'm not going out. Frank's going to do that."

"Oh." She turned away from Drummond, and her eyes suggested he had just vanished from human memory. Canyon smiled at him and shrugged.

Frank saw something he didn't like on his navigation screen. "Everybody into their seats," he said. "Buckle down."

Nobody had to tell Canyon twice. He dived for the nearest chair. Emma was a little slower.

"What's wrong?" asked Drummond.

"Debris field." As soon as his passengers were locked in he began to accelerate.

The AI was talking to Frank, but the pilot had switched the conversation over to his earphones, obviously intending to avoid alarming the passengers. That alarmed Drummond.

"Everybody sit tight," said the pilot. "Nothing to worry about." They began to accelerate. "They're behind us," he explained. "We're going to outrun them."

"How bad is it?" asked Drummond.

Frank looked at one of the screens. "It's a pretty big swarm. Coming fast. We wouldn't want to be there when it arrives."

Behind Drummond, Canyon was talking into a microphone. He caught snatches of it: "… rescue vessel in trouble…""… meteors…" "… harm's way…" Suddenly the microphone was thrust in his direction."… speaking now to John Drummond, who's done most of the planning for this effort. He's an astronomer by trade-"

"A mathematician," Drummond said.

"A mathematician. And how would you describe our situation at the moment, Dr. Drummond?"

Drummond was impressed. He was speaking to an audience of probably several hundred million. Or would be when the signal reached home. How to describe the situation? He began to talk about the dust and debris that accumulates in a gravitational field. "Especially one around a body this massive." Morgan's image was on one of the monitors. He glanced at it.

Something banged off the hull. Drummond tightened up inside and became immediately concerned that the several hundred million viewers would see that he was terrified. "Are we broadcasting pictures, too?" he asked.

Emma, seated off to one side, nodded. They were.

It seemed suddenly to be raining on the shuttle. A hard staccato rattled across the hull.

"Ladies and gentlemen," said Canyon softly, in a voice that underscored Drummond's fears, "you can hear what's happening."

"How big is it?" asked Marcel.

"Big. Thousands of kilometers across. Frank's on the forward edge of it. But he's moving pretty quick and should be clear in a few seconds. I've also sent a warning to Miles."

"What about Zwick?"

Actually, he already knew the answer to that. His screens showed the swarm moving directly across the media ship's position. And, of course, unlike the shuttle, Zwick was unable to run.

After Emma and Canyon had left Zwick, the only people remaining on board were Tom Scolari, Cleo, Jack Kingsbury, and Chop. Sco-lari wasn't entirely comfortable being on a ship that was in effect nailed to a pole, with nobody else there. They knew that the shaft had been caught in the grip of Maleiva Ill's gravity well, and that it and everything attached to it was falling toward the surface.

They'd been assured there was no danger. It was a controlled fall. The AI would, at the appropriate moment, fire the engines, as would the AIs on the other three ships, and they would haul Alpha out of the well, along with the landing party.

All very simple.

Still, Scolari would have liked to see someone else on the ship, preferably someone wearing stripes on his sleeves who would know if something had gone wrong, and who'd be competent to fix things. It was why superluminals, which could be operated from the beginning to the end of a journey without human help, retained captains.

They were all in the common room. Cleo and Chop were munching on sandwiches, and Jack nursed a soft drink. Scolari would have preferred to be on the Star, where he'd have felt safer among the fifteen hundred tourists. Where people were actually on duty to make sure everything was okay.

They were reassuring one another when the AI broke in. "We have a swarm of dust and pebbles approaching at high speed," it said in its smoky female voice. "Please retire to an acceleration station at once."

They looked nervously at one another. "Are we in danger?" asked Chop.

"The danger is minimal," said the AI. "However, in accordance with standard safety procedures, please put on an e-suit."

Acceleration stations consisted of bunks installed throughout the ship. There was a rack of six against one bulkhead in the common room. They collected e-harnesses and breathers from the emergency panel and strapped them on. Then they activated the fields.

"It thinks a meteor might come through the hull," said Cleo, looking scared.

Scolari put on his most reassuring manner. "It's just a precaution."

Chop's eyes moved nervously around the interior. Kingsbury clapped a hand on Scolari's shoulder. "When this is done, lad, I'd like to buy everyone a drink."

They climbed in, and the restraints settled over them.

"Make mine Hebert's," he said.

"I'll inform you," said the AI, "when the emergency has passed." There was, he told himself, really no reason to be alarmed.

"I wonder how far away they are," said Chop. "The rocks."

A new voice spoke in his earphones: "This is Captain Clairveau. Your AI has just informed me that you folks are alone on Zwick. Are you okay?"

"Jack Kingsbury here. We're fine, Captain. I wonder if you can tell us what's happening?"

Before he could answer, there was a hammerblow forward, the ship shuddered, and Scolari's earphones clicked. The sound of the carrier wave changed.

"Captain," said Scolari, "are you still there?"

There was another clang. It echoed through the chamber.

The transmission died.

An automated voice said, "Fourteen minutes." "We've reestablished communications with Wendy," Lori told the bridge. "Zwick is still down."

Marcel was studying the situation screen, which depicted the de-

bris field as a blinking yellow glow. Some of the rocks were entering the atmosphere. But it appeared that the worst would be over in another couple of minutes.

"Lori," Marcel said, "do we have a picture of them anywhere? Of Zwick?"

"No. Only vehicle close enough is Miles, but he doesn't have an angle. I'll let you know as soon as we get something."

The comm board lit up. "Captain Clairveau." It was Drummond.

"Go ahead, John."

"Bad news…"

Marcel held his breath. Drummond was still speaking, so it couldn't be too bad. "What is it?"

"Transmitting visual."

An auxiliary screen lit up and Marcel found himself looking at the net. The bottom of the net.

The sack.

Except that the sack wasn't there anymore.

Where the net should have flared out to provide a haven for the lander, where the collar should have lighted the way, everything simply hung down toward the clouds, limp and dead.

"What happened?"

"Don't know, Marcel. It must have been hit."

He willed the image away.

"Must have been a strike directly on the collar," said Drummond. "Or the supports. Everything collapsed."

"Thirteen minutes,"said the voice.

The AI warned Scolari and the others that Zwick was about to fire its engines. The process of slowing and eventually reversing Alpha's descent phase had begun.

It also informed them that communications with the other vessels had been reestablished.

XXXV

Survival in a crisis is often a matter of sheer good fortune. The good fortune may consist of the timely arrival of a platoon of Peacekeepers, of having a power source unexpectedly kick in, of sitting in the correct part of the aircraft. Most frequently, it is being with the right people.

— Gregory MacAllister, Spiritual Guidance forTentmakers

Hours to breakup (est): 10

"… not an unbeatable problem…" Marcel's image seemed to lose definition on-screen. He was still talking, but Hutch was no longer hearing him.

"… can still maybe ease your way in…"

She stared straight ahead, through the windscreen, into the ashen sky that went on forever. Off to her right, a huge pall of smoke trailed upward. A volcano, they were telling her. Behind her, somebody moved. But no one spoke.

"… bad luck, but we'll just have to work around it…"

She clung to the yoke as though it could save her. Move it forward, drop the flaps, the lander angled down. Nice, dependable physics.

"… still manage…"

She killed the sound, left him mouthing the words, staring at her with empty eyes. Curiously, she felt sorry for him. He had gone far beyond what anybody could have expected, and it had simply blown up at the last second.

A meteor strike. How could they have been so unlucky?

"What now?" asked MacAllister.

She could barely hear him.

"My God," breathed Nightingale.

"How about nosing our way in?" said Kellie. "We know there's an opening. All we have to do is find it."

"Yeah." Nightingale reached forward and squeezed her shoulder. "It doesn't sound all that hard."

She brought Marcel back. "You said the collar's collapsed. But it had lights. Can you still light it up?"

"Negative," he said. "There's no response from it."

"If we can find the collar, what's to stop us from just pushing our way in?"

"Not a thing. It's not exactly what we'd planned, but you might be able to do it. If it's not too badly tangled. It's hard to tell what the precise conditions are."

Might. If.

"Hell, Marcel, the plans are by the board." She stared at her instruments. "I hate to put it to you in these terms, but we don't have any place to land."

"I know."

"Am I still on course?"

"Yes, Hutch. Dead on."

Unhappy choice of phrase. She saw him cringe, realizing what he'd said, wishing he could recall it.

"There it is," said Kellie.

It was a long filmy garment descending out of the sky. She watched it come down, saw the winds sucking at it, twisting it, pushing it first one way and then another. That surprised her, at this altitude, and she grasped finally how light the construction material really was.

But the whole thing had collapsed. It wasn't just the ring. The support rails, which actually separated back from front and the sides from each other and consequently made the sack, were down, too. She could see them caught up in the linkage. One fell away as she watched. She tracked it down into the clouds below.

There was no sack to ease into.

"What are we going to do?" asked Nightingale, unable to keep the terror out of his voice. "What in God's name are we going to do?"

She would at that moment have taken pleasure in throwing him out of the spacecraft.

"You're coming in too fast," said Marcel. "Cut back ten klicks. No, twelve. Cut back twelve."

She eased off. And tried simultaneously to slow her heartbeat.

"Six minutes," Marcel told her. "It'll still be in the descent phase. At the very end. Just before it starts up again. You'll have not quite ninety seconds to get on board. Then the net will start back up."

"Can you give us a little more time?"

"Unfortunately not. If we try to do that, we'll lose control of the shaft. Won't be able to pull it out at all." He looked as if he felt additional justification was necessary. "Hutch, if we don't retract it on schedule, it'll go into the ocean."

She studied the sequence Marcel had given her. At the moment, two of the four superluminals were using their main engines to brake the descent. Over the next few minutes, that application of power would slow Alpha, bringing it briefly to a halt. Then it would start up.

She knew approximately where the opening should be, but she couldn't see it, could see only a jumbled mass of chain linkage. "Anybody see the collar? Marcel, is it facing us? Is it still on the east?"

"I can't tell, Hutch. Your picture is better than ours. The atmosphere's been raising hell with the scopes."

"I can't see anything," said Kellie. "It's a tangle."

"What do you think?" asked Marcel. "Can you do it?"

"It isn't going to work," said Kellie. "It's too screwed up. You won't be able to push into that."

"I agree," said Hutch.

"Hutch." Mac's voice went high. "We don't have anything else."

"Maybe we have." She took a deep breath. "Okay. Everybody relax. And here's what we're going to do."

Kellie's dark eyes met hers, and a message passed between them, a question. Hutch nodded.

Kellie opened the storage cabinets and started pulling out air tanks. She handed one to Nightingale.

"What's this for?" he asked, looking genuinely puzzled.

"Everybody into your e-suit," said Hutch.

"Why?" demanded Mac.

Hutch's voice was level. "We're going to abandon ship."

"Hutch," said Marcel, "slow down. Cut back six klicks."

Hutch complied. Her adrenaline was pumping, and she was trying to rush things. "How many tethers do we have?" she asked Kellie.

Kellie rummaged around in the cabinets. Hutch heard one of the e-suits "activate. Nightingale's.

"Two," said Kellie. She gave them to Mac and Nightingale, and showed them how to use the clips. "Just hook it on the web, and it'll lock."

"Hutch," said Nightingale. "Are you telling me we're going outside? We're going to jump?"

She nodded. "I can put you right next to the net, Randy. You can walk over."

"My God," he said.

Hutch turned back to Marcel. "How thick are the links in the net?"

"Narrow. Think of your index finger. Why do you ask?"

"I wanted to be sure our tethering clips would work. We're going to bail out."

"What? You can't do that, Hutch."

"Why not? Listen, it's our best chance, and I don't have time to argue."

Kellie cut two more pieces of cable and handed one to Hutch. Hutch pulled on her air tanks and activated her e-suit.

"Yours and Hutch's don't have clips," said Mac.

"We'll do fine," Hutch told him. "Now listen: When we get there, I'm going to lay this thing directly alongside. We're going to match its rate of descent, so the only thing you're going to have to do is lean out and grab hold. And climb on."

Nightingale had gone chalk white.

"It'll work, Randy. No reason it won't. Once you're across, clip yourself on. Okay? It'll look scary, but you'll be safe. When you're there, and tethered, you can relax and enjoy the ride."

She wanted to tell Nightingale they were going to be cutting things close, that there'd be no time to freeze in the airlock. But she restrained herself, knowing she might only cause the logjam she feared.

Kellie looked steadily at her. "Why don't you let me take the controls?"

Hutch shook her head. "Thanks," she said. "I got it."

"I'll toss you for it."

"It's okay."

"Wait a minute," said Nightingale. "What's going on?"

"There won't be anybody to hold it steady for her," said Kellie.

"I'll get out," said Hutch.

Kellie persisted. "Maybe we should go back to trying to find the collar."

"Won't work. Forget it. I'll manage."

They were in close. They came out of a cloud bank and saw sunlight. The net hung out of the sky, directly in front of them.

Kellie was right, of course. The spike would hold the lander at a constant altitude, but the net was moving. Once Hutch let go of the controls, the net and the lander would separate very quickly. She could expect to get to the airlock and find the net thirty meters away.

Well, there was no help for it.

Damn.

"What about the wind?" asked Nightingale.

"No problem at this altitude."

He was looking at her desperately. Poor son of a bitch was terrified. She tried to give him an encouraging smile. But there was no time to talk things over. She reduced the air pressure in the cabin to duplicate conditions outside. Then she opened the inner airlock hatch. "Mac," she said, "you first. Go when I tell you."

MacAllister nodded. "Thanks, Hutch," he said. And then he gazed wistfully at her. "Thanks for everything." He walked into the lock, and the outer hatch opened.

Never look down.

The net was hopelessly snarled.

"Wait till I tell you, Mac." She moved closer, felt the links brush the hull. Be careful: She didn't want to get tangled. "Okay, Mac. Go."

MacAllister hesitated, and she caught her breath. Please, Lord, not another one.

Then he was gone. Hutch pulled qukkly away to give him room, to reduce the possibility of hitting him or the net with the spacecraft.

Kellie was leaning out, looking off to one side. "He's okay," she said. "He's on."

"Kellie, you're next. Wait for the signal." This way, if Nightingale panicked, he'd kill only himself.

Kellie leaned close to her in passing. "Love you, Hutch," she said.

Hutch nodded. "You too."

Kellie got into the airlock.

Nightingale was pulling more cable out of the locker. She wanted to ask what he was doing, but she was busy with other things.

Hutch brought the lander back in close. "When I tell you," she said.

Kellie waited, muscles tensed.

"Now. Do it."

Kellie stepped out into the sky. Hutch pulled away again.

"Okay." Kellie's voice rang on the circuit. "I'm on board."

Two for two.

The net's rate of descent was slowing. Hutch matched it and moved in again. "Your turn, Randy," she said.

He stood looking at her. "How are you going to get out?"

"I'll get out."

"How?"

The net stopped, paused, and began to rise. Hutch adjusted the lander's buoyancy, pushed into the linkage.

"Go,"she said.

He was standing immediately behind her.

"Not without you." His voice sounded odd.

"Randy, I can't hold it here forever."

He leaned down, showed her the piece of cable he'd just taken from the cabinet, and began to loop it around her waist.

"What are you doing?" she demanded.

The cable was about forty meters long. He hurried to the airlock and she saw that he'd tied the other end around his own middle. "After I'm out," he said, "count to one, and come."

"Randy, this is crazy. If I don't get clear-"

"We both go. Up or down together."

The net was rising more quickly, accelerating, but she stayed with it. It clinked against the hull.

Hutch might have untied the tether. But it gave her a chance. Hell, it gave her a good chance. "Okay, Randy," she said. "Go/"

He disappeared into the airlock, and then he was gone. She veered off, giving him room, listening for him to tell her he was okay. But he was breathing too hard to speak, or maybe his vocal cords were frozen and the cable between them was snaking out of the cabin. / hope you're hooked to something, buddy. She let go the yoke, leaped full tilt across the deck, and dived through the airlock, scooping the tether as she went so it wouldn't become tangled with the lander. The net was already out of reach, rising and drifting away.

Nightingale would almost have preferred to stay in the cabin, with its comforting bulkheads and its seats, to go down with it, rather than throw himself into the sky.

There had been a moment, when he was tying himself and Hutch together, that he'd thought he was really looking for an excuse to avoid the jump. And maybe that's what it had been. Maybe he'd hoped she would refuse his help, and he could then have simply, magnanimously, stayed with her, shielded from that terrible hatch.

But she'd trusted him, and that trust had fueled his determination not to humiliate himself again. The net had been within easy reach. He had simply taken it, gathered it into his arms, and dragged himself from the spacecraft. Then he was alone and the lander was veering away and he was hanging on, his eyes shut.

The net was rippling and moving. Nightingale clung to it, stood on it, felt its folds all around him, made himself part of it. He got his eyes open. The lander looked very far away, and the line that connected him to Hutchins lengthened until he feared he would be torn from his perch. Where was she?

Connect the tether.

He had to let go with one hand to do that. Impossible.

He concentrated on the links, on the smooth burnished surface of the chain, on the way they were fastened. On getting secured to the net before Hutch came out of the airlock.

On anything other than the open void that yawned all around him.

He pried a hand loose, gathered up the tether, which dangled from his vest, and hooked it to a link. Pulled on it. Felt it lock down.

The net was moving up, accelerating. He was getting heavier. Below him, Hutch came out of the lander, tumbling.

He lost sight of her. Loose cable spilled into the sky, and he slid both arms into the links, grabbed hold of Hutch's line, which was tied securely around his middle, and braced himself. "I've got you," he told her.

The jolt ripped the cable out of his hands and yanked hard at his midsection. It dragged the loop down past his beltline to his knees, tore his feet off the cable, and for a terrifying moment he thought they were both going to take the plunge. But his tether held. He grabbed frantically for her line and clung to it with one hand and to the net with the other.

Someone was asking whether he was okay. Hutch's line was slipping away, and he gathered his nerve and let go of the net to get a better grip. He looked down at her swinging gently back and forth above the cloud tops.

He was afraid his own tether would part under the strain.

"Hutch?" he cried. "You okay?"

No answer.

She'd become an anchor, a deadweight, and he couldn't hold on, couldn't hold on. He squeezed his eyes shut, and his shoulders began to hurt.

He tried to pull up, tried to figure out a way to fasten her to the net, but he couldn't let go with either hand, or he'd lose her.

Kellie was asking for a goddam status report. "Hanging by my fingernails," he told her.

"Don't let go," said Mac. Good old Mac, always full of obvious advice.

His arms and shoulders began to ache. "Hutch? Help me."

Stupid thing to say. She was swinging back and forth, God knows how far below the bottom of the net, and she obviously couldn't help herself.

Why didn't she answer? Was she dead? Killed in the fall? How far had she fallen anyhow? He tried to calculate, to give his mind something else to concentrate on.

"I can't hold her much longer," he screamed at the circuit, at anyone who was listening. He was bent over and she weighed too much and he couldn't get her line up any higher. "Please help."

Marcel came on. "Randy, don't let go."

"How much longer?" he demanded. "How much longer do I have to hang on?"

"Until you're in orbit," he said. "Fourteen minutes."

His spirit sagged. Never happen. Not close. Fourteen minutes. I might as well drop her now.

Hutch had gotten the breath knocked out of her when she fell. She'd heard the voices on her circuit but they'd been distant and unintelligible until that last.

"Randy, don't let go."

"How much longer?"

She looked up at the line, arcing overhead for what seemed an interminable length, up to the net. Up to Nightingale, twisted and hanging on. Reflexively she thought about trying to climb it, to get to safety, but it was a long way. She couldn't manage it under these circumstances, and she didn't want to put additional pressure on Nightingale.

"I'm okay, Randy," she told him.

"Hutch!" He sounded so desperate. "Can you climb up?"

"I don't think so."

"Try."

"Not a good idea," she said.

"All right." He sounded so tired. So scared.

"Don't let go, Randy."

"I won't, Hutch. God help me, I won't."

"It's because we're lifting you out," Marcel told him. "Hang on."

"What do you think I'm trying to do?" He delivered a string of epithets, howling curses at tethers and landers and starship captains.

"Randy." Marcel's voice, cutting through his rage.

"Yeah? Goddam, yes, what do you want?"

"We're going to try something."

Oh God, he wanted to let go.

"Thirty seconds," said Marcel. "Just hold her for thirty seconds more."

His arms and back were on fire.

"She's going to get heavier," Marcel continued. "But only for thirty seconds. Hang on that long, and it'll be okay."

"Why? What?"

"On a five count. One."

"For God's sake, do it."

He waited. And abruptly the net jerked up. The line tore at him. Tore the flesh off his hands. Cut to bone.

He whimpered. He screamed.

He hated Hutchins. Hated her. Hated her.

Let go.

Please God let go.

The line curved away from him, disappearing under the net.

Won't.

Voice in his head or on the circuit telling him to hang on.

Any moment now.

We're almost there.

Won't.

Won't pass out. Won't let go.

Mac's voice, but the words unintelligible.

Not this time.

Not this time.

And suddenly the weight vanished. For a terrible moment he thought she was gone. But he floated free. Weightless. Zero gee.

He still held on.

"Randy." Marcel now. "You have about forty seconds. Tie her to the net. Tight. Because it's coming back. The weight's coming back."

His fingers ached. They refused to open.

"Randy?" Kellie now. "You okay?"

"I'm here."

"Do what they tell you."

"Half a minute, Randy. Get it done." Marcel sounded desperate.

There was no down anymore. He drifted peacefully through the sky, waiting for the agony in his hands and shoulders to subside.

"Randy." Hutch's voice sounded small and far away. "Do it, Randy."

Yes. He pulled slowly, painfully on her line. Hauled it in. Looped it through the net. And tied it. Knotted it. Square knot. Never come loose.

Not in a million years.

They were moving again, rising, the weight flowing back. "It's okay," he said. "I've got her."

He hurt. Everything he had hurt.

But a joy unlike anything he'd ever known before washed through him.

XXXVI

Most of us sleepwalk through our lives. We take all its glories, its wine, food, love, and friendship, its sunsets and its stars, its poetry and fireplaces and laughter, for granted. We forget that experience is not, or should not be, a casual encounter, but rather an embrace. Consequently, for too many of us, when we come to the end, we wonder where the years have gone. And we suspect we have not lived.

— Gregory MacAllister, Deepsix Diary

"Hey!" Mac sounded frantic. "What just happened?"

"They went to zero gee," said Kellie. "To give Randy a chance to get himself together."

"How'd they do that?"

"You understand they were never trying to pull the net straight out of the atmosphere, right? You understand that?"

"Not really. But go ahead."

"They had to angle the extraction, to get us into orbit. That neutralizes gravity and allows them to pick us up. They were probably turning into a parabola right from the start. What they must have done was to pick up the pace. Remember how heavy you got?"

"I have a vague recollection, yes."

"That gains time. Then they cut the engines. In all four ships."

"What's that do?"

"The whole system begins to drop back. It puts us in free fall."

"Did we want that?"

"Zero gee, Mac. It makes everything weightless. Until they restart the engines, which of course they had to do pronto. But it gave Randy time to get Hutch aboard."

"I'll be damned." "Probably that, too."

One of the shuttles moved in just ahead of the Star and used a laser to cut through the Alpha shaft. This divided the system into two sections. The Star and Zwick remained attached to the trailing portion, whose length was reduced to a more manageable eighty kilometers; the other two vessels remained connected to the balance, which was over two hundred kilometers long, and which they could not hope to control. But other shuttles rendezvoused fore and aft to set Wendy and Wildside free, leaving the separated pieces spinning off into the dark.

The Star and Zwick, carrying what remained of the shaft, the net, and its four passengers, continued maneuvering cautiously toward orbit.

Hutch was still trailing behind the linkage. "Randy," she was saying, "you did a helluva job."

Nicholson came on the circuit to inquire after the welfare of his passenger Mr. MacAllister. And belatedly of the others. Whoever they might be, thought Kellie. The Star was planning a celebration in their honor.

Canyon showed up, en virtuo, to inform Kellie she was on live, and to ask if she was all right.

"Pretty good," Kellie told him. He tried to conduct an interview, and she answered a few questions, then pleaded exhaustion. "Mac would enjoy talking to you," she added.

When at last they achieved orbit, they didn't need anyone to let them know. Their weight simply melted away. This time for good.

Marcel, sounding as cool and collected as he had through most of the crisis, congratulated them on their good fortune. "I thought," he said, "you might like to hear what's going on in the main dining room."

They listened to the sound of cheers.

The sky was black. Not the smoky debris-ridden sky of the dying world below, but the pure diamond-studded sky that one sees from a superluminal.

Nightingale, still cautiously hanging on to the net, gave her a nervous little wave, as if he didn't want to show too much emotion.

She was drifting toward him. "Hi, Hutch," he said. "I didn't freeze."

No, you didn't, she thought. And she said: "You were outstanding, Randy."

"Welcome to the accommodations, Hutch," said Kellie.

And Mac: "Nice to have you aboard. Next time you'll want to reserve a better seat."

Lights moved among the stars.

"You all right?" risked Nightingale. He reached for her, and she felt a sharp pain in her left shoulder when she responded. But what the hell.

"I'm fine," she said.

"I'd never have dropped you." Nightingale's voice sounded strange.

She nodded yes. She knew.

"I'd never have let you go. Not ever."

She took his head in her hands, gazed at him a long time, and kissed him. Deep and long. Right through the Flickinger field.

"There they are." Embry pointed at the screen and Frank enhanced the picture. They were still far away, but she could make out Hutch, even amid the tangles. One of the others, Kellie probably, waved.

Frank set course and reported to Marcel that he was about to pick up the survivors.

Embry had already been on the circuit with them. "Be especially careful with Hutchins," she said. "I think she's got a problem."

"Okay, Doc," said Frank. "We'll be careful."

They closed on the net.

"Get Hutchins first. Just pull up alongside her. I'll bring her in."

"You need help?" asked Frank.

"It wouldn't hurt."

The situation demanded a human pilot, so Frank looked around for a volunteer. He'd gotten the impression, from bits and pieces of things said, and from nonverbal clues, that Drummond didn't like the idea of going outside. Janet Hazelhurst caught his eyes and eased out of her chair. "Just tell me what to do," she said.

Drummond tried to look as if he'd been about to offer, but had been too late.

Hutch watched the lights coming. It was okay to relax. She closed her eyes and floated. The shuttle came alongside, and she could hear voices on the circuit. Somebody was cutting through the tether, taking her off the net.

The pain in her shoulder got worse. Now that she was safe.

Hatches closed somewhere. More lights appeared. Bright and then dim. Lowered voices. Pressure on the injured shoulder. Restraints. A sense of well-being flooding through her.

Somebody was telling her it was over, she was okay, nothing to worry about.

"Good," she said, not sure to whom she was speaking.

"You look all right, Skipper."

Skipper? She opened her eyes and tried to pierce the haze.

Embry.

"Hello, Embry. Nice to see you again." Randy was still there, off to the side, staying close. Then he became indistinct, as did Embry, the restraints, the voices, and the lights.

From Nicholson's bridge, Marcel directed the fleet of shuttles. They deployed near the Star and Zwick and cut them free of the shaft. At Beekman's suggestion, they salvaged six samples, each four meters long. Five were intended for research, and one would go on display at the Academy. At Nicholson's request a smaller piece was picked up and earmarked for exhibition on the Star.

Another shuttle approached the connecting plate and separated it from the net and from the stump of the Alpha shaft. It hovered momentarily while its occupants inspected the symbols engraved across its face. Then they cut it neatly into two pieces of equal size. Shortly thereafter, Wendy approached and took both pieces into her cargo hold.

The remaining fragments of Alpha, and the net, floated away into the dark.

Because time was pressing, no immediate attempt was made to return the captains to their respective ships. Miles, in fact, was retained as acting captain on Wendy. Hutch, of course, was in no condition to be sent back to Wildside. Guided from the bridge of the Star, the shuttles were taken into whichever bays were convenient, and, with little more than a day remaining before the collision, the fleet began to withdraw.

By then conditions on the planetary surface had become so turbulent that the orbiting vehicles were themselves at hazard. Marcel guessed that much of the data coming in from the probes had been lost after Wendy's communications went down. This assumption was confirmed by Miles. "They are not a happy group over here," he said.

Beekman sympathized. "You can't really blame them. Some of them have been preparing twenty years for this mission, and they lost a substantial piece of it." He gazed steadily at the banks of screens, which displayed views of the impending collision, taken from an array of satellites.

Marcel really didn't give a damn. He'd been through too much over the two weeks. He was tired and irritable, but they'd gotten Kel-lie and the others back, and that was all he cared about. Chiang Har-mon had died down there. One of Hutch's people had died, one of Nicholson's passengers, and one of his crew. One of Nicholson's pilots had died during the rescue. In the face of that, it was hard to work up too much regret that they had lost some details on the formation of high-pressure fronts during a planetary traffic accident. "We'll do better next time."

Beekman pursed his lips and looked thoughtful. "There'll be no next time. Probably not in the life span of the species."

Too bad, thought Marcel. But he didn't say anything.

It seemed as if the entire atmosphere of Deepsix had become one massive electrical storm. Blizzards swept the equatorial area, and giant hurricanes roared across the Coraggio and the Nirvana. A mountainous tide soared thousands of meters above nominal sea level. The range along the northern coast of Transitoria, which had held back the tides so long, vanished beneath the waters.

The worlds moved inexorably toward each other. But it was a mismatch, thought Hutch, a pebble falling into a pond.

She watched from her bed in the Star's dispensary. She'd required minor surgery for a torn muscle and a broken rib, and they didn't want her moving around for a bit. With his hands wrapped Randy sat off to one side, wearing a shoulder brace. Mac was off somewhere giving an interview; and Kellie was down getting some goodies at the snack bar.

Hutch's link chimed. Canyon's voice: "Hutch, I'll be down to see you later. Meantime, I thought you'd like to know we're a big hit back home. They're a couple days behind, of course. Last we heard, the whole world was listening while the tide broke through and got the whatchamacallits. They think you don't have a chance now. Wait till they see the finish. You guys will be celebrities when you get back."

"Nice to hear," grumbled Nightingale.

"Anyhow, our numbers are through the roof."

"Sounds as if you'll do pretty well yourself, Augie," said Hutch.

"Well, I can't see that it'll hurt my career any." His eyes literally Hashed. "Wait until they get to the lander!"

"Yeah," said Nightingale. "That sure was a hoot."

Canyon kept going: "Incidentally, you folks have acquired a sobriquet back home."

"I'm not sure I want to hear what it is," Hutch said.

"The Maleiva Four."

"By God," said Nightingale, "who thought that up? Magnificent, August. My compliments to the cliche unit."

When he was gone, she looked at Nightingale severely. "You were awfully hard on him. He means well."

"Yep. But he'd have been happier if we'd fallen off the goddam thing."

"Why do you think that?"

"Better story."

Mac came into the room, carrying flowers, which had been grown in the Star nurseries. He beamed down at Hutch and held them out to her. "You look good enough to have for lunch," he said.

She accepted a kiss and smelled the bouquet. They were yellow roses. "Gorgeous. Thanks, Mac."

"For the Golden Girl." He gazed at her. "What are they saying? The medical people?"

"They'll let me up tomorrow." She turned her attention back to Nightingale. "You," she said, "should ease up. Let people do their jobs and don't be such a.crank."

"I enjoy being a crank."

Roiling clouds of immense proportions billowed out of Maleiva Ill's atmosphere. Fireballs erupted and fell back. And erupted again. The entire black atmosphere seemed to be expanding, fountaining into the sky, a burning river beginning to flow toward the placid disk of the gas giant.

"Here it comes," said Mac.

Nightingale nodded. "Everything that's loose anywhere on Deep-six is being ripped out now and sent elsewhere." His voice was quiet. Resigned.

Mac shifted in his chair. "There's no point getting sentimental over a piece of real estate," he said.

Nightingale stared straight ahead. "I was thinking about the lights."

"The lights?" Hutch's brow furrowed.

"I don't think we told you. Forgot in all the rushing around. At Bad News Bay. We saw something out in the water. Signaled back and forth."

"A boat?"

"Don't know what it was."

Steam was pouring off Deepsix. Fire and lightning swirled across the vast expanse of its clouds.

Kellie came back with donuts and coffee.

MacAllister was still there a half hour later when Marcel, Nichol-son, and Beekman came by to see how she was doing. Hutch thought all three looked tired, happy, relieved. They shook hands all around. "We're glad to have you back," Marcel said. "Things looked a little doubtful there for a while."

"Did they really?" asked Mac. "I thought we had it under control all the way."

Nicholson beamed at him. "We're planning a little celebration tomorrow," he said. Hutch caught the flavor of the remark, that dinner with the two captains was an Event, and that they should all feel appropriately honored. But he was trying to do the right thing. And what the hell, it was a small enough failing.

"I'd be delighted to attend," said Mac.

"As would I." Hutch gave him a warm smile.

Marcel introduced Beekman as the manager of the rescue operation. "Saved your life," he added.

Hutch wasn't sure what he meant. "You mean all our lives."

"Yours, specifically. Gunther came up with the zero-gee maneuver."

Tom Scolari called, and his image formed at the foot of her bed. He was wearing dark slacks and a white shirt open to his navel. Sending somebody a message, looked like. "Glad you came through it okay," he said. "We were worried."

"Where are you now, Tom?"

"On Zwick."

"Good. Did you get interviewed?"

"I don't think there's anybody out here who hasn't had a chance to talk on UNN. Listen"-his eyes found hers, and glanced over at Mac-"you guys put on one hell of a show."

"Thanks. We had a lot of help. Not to mention your own. I understand you're a pretty good welder."

"I'll never be without work again."

"Next time you tell me not to do something," she added, "I'll try to take you more seriously."

He grinned and blew her a kiss. "I doubt it."

She woke up in the middle of the night and noticed they were no longer accelerating. It was, finally, over.