Saturn

SELENE: ASTRO CORPORATION HEADQUARTERS

Pancho Lane frowned at her sister. “His name isn’t even Malcolm Eberly. He changed it.”

Susan smiled knowingly.

“Oh, what diff’s that make?”

“He was born Max Erlenmeyer, in Omaha, Nebraska,” Pancho said sternly. “He was arrested in Linz, Austria, for fraud in ’eighty-four, tried to flee the country and—”

“I don’t care about that! It’s ancient! He’s changed. He’s not the same man he was then.”

“You’re not going.”

“Yes I am,” Susan insisted, the beginnings of a frown of her own creasing her brow. “I’m going and you can’t stop me!”

“I’m your legal guardian, Susie.”

“Poosh! What’s that got to do with spit? I’m almost fifty years old, f’real.”

Susan Lane did not look much more than twenty. She had died when she’d been a teenager, killed by a lethal injection that Pancho herself had shot into her emaciated arm. Once clinically dead she had been frozen in liquid nitrogen to await the day when medical science could cure the carcinoma that was raging through her young body. Pancho had brought her cryonic sarcophagus to the Moon when she began working as an astronaut for Astro Manufacturing Corporation. Eventually Pancho became a member of Astro’s board of directors, and finally its chairman. Still Susan waited, entombed in her bath of liquid nitrogen, waiting until Pancho was certain that she could be reborn to a new life.

It took more than twenty years. And once Susan was revived and cured of the cancer that had been killing her, her mind was almost a total blank. Pancho had expected that; cryonics reborns usually lost most of the neural connections in the cerebral cortex. Even Saito Yamagata, the powerful founder of Yamagata Corporation, had come out of his cryonic sleep with a mind as blank as a newborn baby’s.

So Pancho fed and bathed and toilet trained her sister, an infant in a teenager’s body. Taught her to walk, to speak again. And brought the best neurophysiologists to Selene to treat her sister’s brain with injections of memory enzymes and RNA. She even considered nanotherapy but decided against it; nanotechnology was allowed in Selene, but only under stringent controls, and the experts admitted that they didn’t think nanomachines could help Susan to recover her lost memories.

Those years were difficult, but gradually a young adult emerged, a woman who looked like the Susie that Pancho remembered, but whose personality, whose attitudes, whose mind were disturbingly different. Susan remembered nothing of her earlier life, but thanks to the neuroboosters she had received her memory now was almost eidetic: if she saw or heard something once, she never forgot it. She could recall details with a precision that made Pancho’s head swim.

Now the sisters sat glaring at each other: Pancho on the plush burgundy pseudoleather couch in the corner of her sumptuous office, Susan sitting tensely on the edge of the low slingchair on the other side of the curving lunar glass coffee table, her elbows on her knees.

They looked enough alike to be immediately recognized as sisters. Both were tall and rangy, long lean legs and arms, slim athletic bodies. Pancho’s skin was little darker than a well-tanned Caucasian’s; Susan’s a shade richer. Pancho kept her hair trimmed down to a skullcap of tightly-curled fuzz that was flecked with spots of fashionable gray. Susan had taken treatments to make her dark-brown hair long and luxurious; she wore it in the latest pageboy fashion, spilling down to her shoulders. Her clothing was latest mod, too: a floor-length faux silk gown with weights in its hem to keep the skirt hanging right in the low lunar gravity. Pancho was in a no-nonsense business suit of powder gray: a tailored cardigan jacket and flared slacks over her comfortable lunar softboots. She wore sensible accents of jewelry at her earlobes and wrists. Susan was unadorned, except for the decal across her forehead: a miniature of Saturn, the ringed planet.

Susan broke the lengthening silence. “Panch, you can’t stop me. I’m going.”

“But… all the way out to Saturn? With a flock of political exiles?”

“They’re not exiles!”

“C’m on, Soose, half the governments back Earthside are cleaning out their detention camps.”

Susan’s back stiffened. “Those fundamentalist regimes you’re always complaining about are encouraging their nonbelievers and dissidents to sign on for the Saturn expedition. Encouraging, not deporting.”

“They’re getting rid of their troublemakers,” Pancho said.

“Not troublemakers! Free thinkers. Idealists. Men and women who’re ticked with the way things are on Earth and willing to warp off, zip out, and start new lives.”

“Misfits and malcontents,” Pancho muttered. “Square pegs in round holes.”

“The habitat will be populated by the best and brightest people of Earth,” Susan retorted.

“Yeah, you wish.”

“I know. And I’m going to be one of them.”

“Cripes almighty, Soose, Saturn’s ten times farther from the Sun than we are.”

“What of it?” Susan said, with that irritating smile again. “You were the first to go as far as the Belt, weren’t you?”

“Yeah, but—”

“You went out to the Jupiter station, di’n’t you?”

Pancho could do nothing but nod.

“So I’m going out to Saturn. I won’t be alone. There’ll be ten thousand of us, f’real! That is, if Malcolm can weed out the real troublemakers and sign up good workers. I’m helping him do the interviews.”

“Make sure that’s all you’re helping him with,” Pancho groused.

Susan’s smile turned slightly wicked. “He’s been a perfect gentleman, dammit.”

“Blister my butt on a goddam’ Harley,” Pancho grumbled. And she thought, Damned near thirty years I’ve been working my way up the corporation but ten minutes with Susie and she’s got me talkin’ West Texas again.

“It’s a great thing, Panch,” said Susan, earnest now. “It’s a mission, really. We’re going out on a five-year mission to study the Saturn system. Scientists, engineers, farmers, a whole self-sustaining community!”

Pancho saw that her sister was genuinely excited, like a kid on her way to a thrill park. Damn! she said to herself. Susie’s got the body of an adult but the mind of a teenager. There’ll be nothing but grief for her out there, without me to protect her.

“Say it clicks, Panch,” Susan asked softly, through lowered lashes. “Tell me you’re not ticked at me.”

“I’m not sore,” Pancho said truthfully. “I’m worried, though. You’ll be all alone out there.”

“With ten thousand others!”

“Without your big sister.”

Susan said nothing for a heartbeat, then she reached across the coffee table and grasped Pancho’s hand. “But Panch, don’t you see? That’s why I’m doing it! That’s why I’ve got to do it! I’ve got to go out on my own. I can’t live like some little kid with you doing everything for me! I’ve got to be free!”

Sagging back into the softly yielding sofa, Pancho murmured, “Yeah, I suppose you do. I guess I knew it all along. It’s just that… I worry about you, Susie.”

“I’ll be fine, Panch. You’ll see!”

“I sure hope so.”

Elated, Susan hopped to her feet and headed for the door. “You’ll see,” she repeated. “It’s gonna be great! Cosmic!”

Pancho sighed and got to her feet.

“Oh, by the way,” Susan called over her shoulder as she opened the office door, “I’m changing my name. I’m not gonna be called Susan anymore. From now on, my name is Holly.”

And she ducked through the door before Pancho could say a word more.

“Holly,” Pancho muttered to the closed door. Where in the ever-lovin’ blue-eyed world did she get that from? she wondered. Why’s she want to change her name?

Shaking her head, Pancho told the phone to connect with her security chief. When his handsome, square-jawed face took shape in the air above her desk, she said:

“Wendell, I need somebody to ride that goddamned habitat out to Saturn and keep tabs on my sister, without her knowin’ it.”

“Right away,” the security chief answered. He looked away for a moment, then said, “Um, about tonight, I—”

“Never mind about tonight,” Pancho snapped. “You just get somebody onto that habitat. Somebody good! Get on it right now.”

“Yes, ma’am!” said Pancho’s security chief.

LUNAR ORBIT: HABITAT GODDARD

Malcolm Eberly tried to hide the panic that was still frothing like a storm-tossed sea inside him. Along with the fifteen other department leaders, he stood perfectly still at the main entrance to the habitat.

The ride up from Earth had been an agony for him. From the instant the Clippership had gone into Earth orbit and the feeling of gravity had dwindled to zero, Eberly had fought a death struggle against the terror of weightlessness. Strapped into his well-cushioned seat, he had exerted every effort of his willpower to fight back the horrible urge to vomit. I will not give in to this, he told himself through gritted teeth. Pale and soaked with cold sweat, he resolved that he would not make a fool of himself in front of the others.

Getting out of his seat once the Clippership had made rendezvous with the transfer rocket was sheer torture. Eberly kept his head rigidly unmoving, his fists clenched, his eyes squeezed down to slits. To the cheerful commands of the flight attendants, he followed the bobbing gray coveralls of the woman ahead of him and made his way along the aisle hand over hand from one seat back to the next until he glided through the hatch into the transfer vehicle, still in zero gravity, gagging as his insides floated up into his throat.

No one else seemed to be as ill as he. The rest of them — fifteen other men and women, all department leaders as he was — were chatting and laughing, even experimenting with allowing themselves to float up off the Velcro carpeting of the passenger compartment. The sight of it made Eberly’s stomach turn inside out.

Still he held back the bile that was burning his throat. I will not give in to this, he told himself over and over. I will prevail. A man can accomplish anything he sets his mind to if he has the strength and the will.

Strapped down again in a seat inside the transfer rocket, he stared rigidly ahead as the ship lit off its engines to start its flight to lunar orbit. The thrust was gentle, but at least it provided some feeling of weight. Only for a few seconds, though. The rocket engines cut off and he felt again as if he were falling, endlessly falling. Everyone else was chattering away, several of them boasting about how many times they had been in space.

Of course! Eberly realized. They’ve all done this before. They’ve experienced this wretchedness before and now it doesn’t bother them. They’re all from wealthy families, rich, spoiled children who’ve never had a care in their lives. I’m the only one here who’s never been off the Earth before, the only one who’s had to fight and claw for a living, the only one who’s known hunger and sickness and fear.

I’ve got to make good here. I’ve got to! Otherwise they’ll send me back. I’ll die in a filthy prison cell.

Through sheer mental exertion Eberly endured the hours of weightlessness. When the woman in the seat next to him tried to engage him in conversation he replied tersely to her inane remarks, desperately fighting to keep her from seeing how sick he was. He forced a smile, hoping that she would not notice the cold sweat beading his upper lip. He could feel it soaking the cheap, thin shirt he wore. After a while she stopped her chattering and turned her attention to the display screen built into the seat backs.

Eberly concentrated on the images, too. The screen showed the habitat, an ungainly cylinder hanging in the emptiness of space like a length of sewer pipe left behind by a vanished construction crew. As they approached it, though, the habitat grew bigger and bigger. Eberly could see that it was rotating slowly; he knew that the spin created a feeling of gravity inside the cylinder. Numbers ran through his mind: The habitat was twenty kilometers in length, four kilometers across. It rotated every forty-five seconds, which produced a centrifugal force equivalent to normal Earth gravity.

In his growing excitement he almost forgot the unease of his stomach. Now he could see the long windows running the length of the gigantic cylinder. And the Moon came into view, shining brightly. But seen this close, the Moon was ugly, scarred and pitted with countless craters. One of the biggest of them, Eberly knew, housed the city-state of Selene.

Swiftly the habitat grew to blot out everything else. For a moment Eberly feared they would crash into it, even though his rational mind told him that the ship’s pilots had their flight under precise control. He could see the solar mirrors hugging the cylinder’s curving sides. And bulbs and knobs dotting the habitat’s skin, like bumps on a cucumber. Some of them were observation blisters, he knew. Others were docking ports, thruster pods, airlocks.

“This is your captain speaking,” said a woman’s voice from the speakers set above each display screen. “We have gone into a rendezvous orbit around the habitat. In three minutes we will be docking. You’ll feel a bump or two: nothing to be alarmed about.”

The thump jarred all the passengers. Eberly gripped his seat arms tightly and waited for more. But nothing else happened. Except -

His innards had settled down! He no longer felt sick. Gravity had returned and he felt normal again. No, better than normal. He turned to the woman sitting beside him and studied her face briefly. It was a round, almost chubby face with large dark almond eyes and curly black hair. Her skin was smooth, young, but swarthy. Eberly judged she was of Mediterranean descent, Greek or Spanish or perhaps Italian. He smiled broadly at her.

“Here we’ve been sitting next to each other for more than six hours and I haven’t even told you my name. I’m Malcolm Eberly.”

She smiled back. “Yes, I can see.” Tapping the name badge pinned to her blouse, she said, “I’m Andrea Maronella. I’m with the agrotech team.”

A farmer, Eberly thought. A stupid, grubbing farmer. But he smiled still wider and replied, “I’m in charge of the human resources department.”

“How nice.”

Before he could say more, the flight attendant asked them all to get up and head for the hatch. Eberly unstrapped and got to his feet, happy to feel solid weight again, eager to get his first glimpse of the habitat. The inner terror he had fought against dwindled almost to nothing. I won! he exulted to himself. I faced the terror and I beat it.

He politely allowed Maronella to slide out into the aisle ahead of him and then followed her to the hatch. The sixteen men and women filed through the hatch, into an austere metal-walled chamber. An older man stood by the inner hatch, tall and heavyset; his thick head of hair was iron gray and he had a bushy gray moustache. His face looked rugged, weather-beaten, the corners of his eyes creased by long years of squinting in the open sun. He wore a comfortable suede pullover and rumpled tan jeans. Two younger men stood slightly behind him, clad in coveralls; obviously underlings of some sort.

“Welcome to habitat Goddard,” he said, with a warm smile. “I’m Professor James Wilmot. Most of you have already met me, and for those of you who haven’t, I look forward to meeting you and discussing our future. But for now, let’s take a look at the world we’ll be inhabiting for at least the next five years.”

With that, one of the young men behind him tapped the keyboard on the wall beside the hatch, and the massive steel door swung slowly inward. Eberly felt a puff of warm air touch his face, like the light touch of his mother’s faintly remembered caress.

The group of sixteen department leaders started through the hatch. This is it, Eberly thought, feeling a new dread rising inside his guts. There’s no turning back now. This is the new world they want me to live in. This huge cylinder, this machine. I’m being exiled. All the way out to Saturn, that’s where they’re sending me. As far away as they can. I’ll never see Earth again.

He was almost the last one in line; he heard the others oohing and aahing by the time he got to the open hatch and stepped through. Then he saw why.

Stretching out in all directions around him was a green landscape, shining in warm sunlight. Gently rolling grassy hills, clumps of trees, little meandering streams spread out into the hazy distance. The group was standing on an elevated knoll, with a clear view of the habitat’s broad interior. Bushes thick with vivid red hibiscus and pale lavender oleanders lined both sides of a curving path that led down to a group of low buildings, white and gleaming in the sunlight that streamed in through the long windows. A Mediterranean village, Eberly thought, set on the gentle slope of a grassy hill, overlooking a shimmering blue lake.

This is some travel brochure vision of what a perfect Mediterranean countryside would look like. Far in the distance he made out what looked like farmlands, square little fields that appeared to be recently plowed, and more clusters of whitewashed buildings. There was no horizon. Instead, the land simply curved up and up, hills and grass and trees and more little villages with their paved roads and sparkling streams, up and up on both sides until he was craning his neck looking straight overhead at still more of the carefully, lovingly landscaped greenery.

“It’s breathtaking,” Maronella whispered.

“Awesome,” said one of the others.

Eberly thought, A virgin world, untouched by war or famine or hatred. Untouched by human emotions of any kind. Waiting to be shaped, controlled. Maybe it won’t be so bad here after all.

“This must have cost a bloody fortune,” a young man said, in a strong, matter-of-fact voice. “How could the consortium afford it?”

Professor Wilmot smiled and touched his moustache with a fingertip. “We got it in a bankruptcy sale, actually. The previous owners went broke trying to turn this into a retirement center.”

“Who retires nowadays?”

“That’s why they went bankrupt,” Wilmot replied.

“Still… the cost…”

“The International Consortium of Universities is not without resources,” said Wilmot. “And we have many alumni who can be very generous when properly approached.”

“You mean when you twist their arms hard enough,” a woman joked. The others laughed; even Wilmot smiled good-naturedly.

“Well,” the professor said. “This is it. This will be your home for the next five years, and even longer, for many of you.”

“When do the others start coming up?”

“As the personnel board approves applicants and they pass their final physical and psychological tests they will come aboard. We have about two-thirds of the available positions already filled, and more people are signing up at quite a brisk pace.”

The others asked more questions and Wilmot patiently answered them. Eberly filtered their nattering out of his conscious attention. He peered intently at the vast expanse of the habitat, savoring this moment of discovery, his arrival into a new world. Ten thousand people, that’s all they’re going to permit to join us. But this habitat could hold a hundred thousand easily. A million, even!

He thought of the squalor of his childhood days: eight, ten, twelve people to a room. And then the merciless discipline of the monastery schools. And prison.

Ten thousand people, he mused. They will live in luxury here. They will live like kings!

He smiled. No, he told himself. There will be only one king here. One master. This will be my kingdom, and everyone in it will bend to my will.

VIENNA: SCHÖNBRUNN PRISON

More than a full year before he had ever heard of habitat Goddard, Malcolm Eberly was abruptly released from prison after serving less than half his term for fraud and embezzlement.

The rambling old Schönbrunn Palace had been turned into a prison in the aftermath of the Refugee Riots that had shattered much of Vienna and its surroundings. When Eberly first learned that he would serve his sentence in the Schönbrunn he had been hopeful: at least it wasn’t one of the grim state prisons where habitual criminals were held. He quickly learned that he was wrong: a prison is a prison is a prison, filled with thugs and perverts. Pain and humiliation were constant dangers; fear his constant companion.

The morning had started like any other: Eberly was roused from sleep by the blast of the dawn whistle. He swung down from his top bunk and waited quietly while his three cell mates used the sink and toilet. He had become accustomed to the stench of the cell and quite early in his incarceration had learned that complaints led only to beatings, either by the guards or by his cell mates.

There was a hierarchy among the convicts. Those connected with organized crime were at the top of the prestige chain. Murderers, even those poor wretches who killed in passion, were accorded more respect than thieves or kidnappers. Mere swindlers, which was Eberly’s rap, were far down the chain, doomed to perform services for their superiors whether they wanted to or not.

Fortunately, Eberly maneuvered himself into a cell where the top con was a former garage mechanic from the Italian province of Calabria who had been declared guilty of banditry, terrorism, bank robbings, and murders. Although barely literate, the Calabrian was a born organizer: he ran his section of the prison like a medieval fiefdom, settling disputes and enforcing a rough kind of justice so thoroughly that the guards allowed him to keep the peace among the prisoners in his own rough manner. When Eberly discovered that he needed a man who could operate a computer to keep him in touch with his family in their mountaintop village and the remnants of his band, still hiding in the hills, Eberly became his secretary. After that, no one was allowed to molest him.

It was the mind-numbing routine of each long, dull day that made Eberly sick to his soul. Once he came under the Calabrian’s protection, he got along well enough physically, but the drab sameness of the cell, the food, the stink, the stupid talk of the other convicts day after day, week after week, threatened to drive him mad. He tried to keep his mind engaged by daily visits to the prison library, where he could use the tightly-monitored computer to make at least a virtual connection to the world outside. Most of the entertainment sites were censored or cut off altogether, but the prison authorities allowed — even encouraged — using the educational sites. Desperately, Eberly enrolled in one course after another, usually finishing them far sooner than expected and rushing into the next.

At first he took whatever courses came to hand: Renaissance painting, transactional psychology, municipal water recycling systematics, the poetry of Goethe. It didn’t matter what the subject matter was; he needed to keep his mind occupied, needed to be out of this prison for a few hours each day, even if it was merely through the computer.

Gradually, though, he found himself drawn to studies of history and politics. In time, he applied for a degree program at the Virtual University of Edinburgh.

It was a great surprise when, one ordinary morning, the guard captain pulled him out of line as he and his cell mates shuffled to the cafeteria for their lukewarm breakfasts.

The captain, stubble-jawed and humorless, tapped Eberly on the shoulder with his wand and said, “Follow me.”

Eberly was so astonished that he blurted, “Why me? What’s wrong?”

The captain held his wand under Eberly’s nose and fingered the voltage control. “No talking in line! Now follow me.”

The other convicts marched by in silence, their heads facing straight ahead but their eyes shifting toward Eberly and the captain before looking away again. Eberly remembered what the wand felt like at full charge and let his chin sink to his chest as he dutifully followed the captain away from the cafeteria.

The captain led him to a small, stuffy room up in the executive area where the warden and other prison administrators had their offices. The room had one window, tightly closed and so grimy that the morning sunlight hardly brightened it. An oblong table nearly filled the room, its veneer chipped and dull. Two men in expensive-looking business suits were seated at it, their chairs almost scraping the bare gray walls.

“Sit,” said the captain, pointing with his wand to the chair at the foot of the table. Wondering what this was all about, and whether he would miss his breakfast, Eberly slowly sat down. The captain stepped out into the hallway and softly closed the door.

“You are Malcolm Eberly?” said the man at the head of the table. He was rotund, fleshy-faced, his cheeks pink and his eyes set deep in his face. Eberly thought of a pig.

“Yes, I am,” Eberly replied. Then he added, “Sir.”

“Born Max Erlenmeyer, if our information is correct,” said the man at the pig’s right. He was prosperous-looking in an elegant dark blue suit and smooth, silver-gray hair. He had the look of a yachtsman to him: Eberly could picture him in a double-breasted blazer and a jaunty nautical cap.

“I had my name legally changed when—”

“That’s a lie,” said the yachtsman, as lightly as he might ask for a glass of water. An Englishman, from his accent, Eberly decided tentatively. That could be useful, perhaps.

“But, sir—”

“It doesn’t matter,” said the pig. “If you wish to be called Eberly, that is what we will call you. Fair enough?”

Eberly nodded, completely baffled by them.

“How would you like to be released from prison?” the pig asked.

Eberly could feel his eyes go wide. But he quickly controlled his reactions and asked, “What would I have to do to be released?”

“Nothing much,” said the yachtsman. “Merely fly out to the planet Saturn.”

Gradually they revealed themselves. The fat one was from the Atlanta headquarters of the New Morality, the multinational fundament alist organization that had raised Eberly to manhood back in America.

“We were very disappointed when you ran away from our monastery in Nebraska and took up a life of crime,” he said, genuine sadness on his puffy face.

“Not a life of crime,” Eberly protested. “I made one mistake only, and now I’m suffering the consequences.”

The yachtsman smiled knowingly. “Your mistake was getting caught. We are here to offer you another chance.”

He was a Catholic, he claimed, working with the European Holy Disciples on various social programs. “Of which, you are one.”

“Me?” Eberly asked, still puzzled. “I don’t understand.”

“It’s really very simple,” said the pig, clasping his fat hands prayerfully on the tabletop. “The International Consortium of Universities is organizing an expedition to the planet Saturn.”

“Ten thousand people in a self-contained habitat,” added the yachtsman.

“Ten thousand so-called intellectuals,” the pig said, clear distaste in his expression. “Serving a cadre of scientists who wish to study the planet Saturn.”

The yachtsman glanced sharply at his associate, then went on, “Many governments are allowing certain individuals to leave Earth. Glad to be rid of them, actually.”

“The scientists are fairly prestigious men and women. They actually want to go to Saturn.”

“And they are all secularists, of course,” the yachtsman added.

“Of course,” said Eberly.

“We know that many people want to escape from the lives they are leading,” the pig resumed. “They are unwilling to submit to the very necessary discipline that we of the New Morality impose.”

“The same thing applies in Britain and Europe,” said the yachtsman. “The Holy Disciples cleaned up the cities, brought morality and order to the people, helped feed the starving and find jobs for the people who were wiped out by the greenhouse floods.”

The pig was nodding.

“But still, there are plenty of people who claim we’re stifling their individual freedoms. Their individual freedoms! It was all that liberty and license that led to the near-collapse of civilization.”

“But the floods,” Eberly interjected. “The greenhouse warming and the droughts and all the other the environmental disasters.”

“Visitations by an angry God,” said the pig firmly. “Warnings that we must return to His ways.”

“Which we have done, by and large,” the yachtsman took up. “Even in the bloody Middle East the Sword of Islam has worked miracles.”

“But now, with this mission to Saturn—”

“Run by godless secularists.”

“There will be ten thousand people trying to escape from the righteous path.”

“We cannot allow that to happen.”

“For their own good.”

“Of course.”

“Of course,” Eberly agreed meekly. Then he added, “But I don’t see what this has to do with me.”

“We want you to join them.”

“And go all the way out to the planet Saturn?” Eberly squeaked.

“Exactly,” the yachtsman replied.

“You will be our representative aboard their habitat. We can place you in charge of their human resources department.”

“So that you’ll have some hand in selecting who’s allowed to go.”

The pig added, “Under our supervision, of course.”

“In charge of human resources? You can do that?”

“We have our ways,” said the yachtsman, grinning.

“Your real task will be to set up a God-fearing government aboard that habitat,” the pig said. “We mustn’t allow the secularists to control the lives of those ten thousand souls!”

“We mustn’t let that habitat turn into a cesspool of sin,” the yachtsman insisted.

“A limited, closed environment like that will need a firm, well-controlled government. Otherwise they will destroy themselves, just as the people of so many cities did here on Earth.”

“You’re too young to remember the food riots.”

“I remember the fighting in St. Louis,” Eberly said, shuddering inwardly. “I remember the hunger. My sister dying from the wasting disease during the biowar.”

“We don’t want that happening to those poor souls heading out for Saturn,” said the pig, his hands still folded.

“Whether they realize it or not,” the yachtsman said, “they are going to need the kind of discipline and order that only we can provide them.”

“And we are counting on you to lead them in the direction of righteousness.”

“But I’m only one man,” said Eberly.

“You’ll have help. We will plant a small but dedicated cadre of like-minded people on the habitat.”

“And you want me to be their leader?”

“Yes. You have the skills, we’ve seen that in your dossier. With God’s help, you will shape the government of those ten thousand souls properly.”

“Will you do it?” the yachtsman asked, earnestly. “Will you accept this responsibility?”

It took all of Eberly’s self control to keep from laughing in their faces. Go to Saturn or remain in jail, he thought. Be the leader and form a government or live another nine years in that stinking cell.

“Yes,” he said, with quiet determination. “With God’s help, I accept the responsibility.”

The two men smiled at one another, while Eberly thought that by the time the habitat reached Saturn he and everyone in it would be far away from the strictures of these religious fanatics.

Then the pig said, “Of course, if you fail to accomplish our goals, we’ll see to it that you return here and serve out the remainder of your sentence.”

“We might even add a few more charges,” said the yachtsman, almost genially. “There’s a lot in your dossier to choose from, you know.”

DEPARTURE MINUS 45 DAYS

James Colerane Wilmot was a peer of the realm, a baronet who had left his native Ulster in the wake of the Irish Reunification despite his family’s five hundred — odd years of residence there.

To his credit, he felt no bitterness about leaving his ancestral home. The family had never been wealthy; for more than a dozen generations they had struggled to maintain a shabbily dignified lifestyle by raising sheep. Wilmot had no interest whatsoever in animal husbandry. His passion was the study of the human animal. James Colerane Wilmot was an anthropologist.

He was also a very able administrator, and as adroit as they come in the quietly fierce internecine warfare of academia. He felt that being named to head this strange collection of people in their mission out to distant Saturn would be the acme of his career, a real, carefully controlled research program, an actual experiment in a field that had never been able to conduct experiments before.

A closed, carefully limited community in a self-sufficient ecology and a self-contained economy. Every feature of their physical existence under control. Individuals from Europe, the Americas, Asia, and Africa. Free-thinkers, mostly, people who chafed under the restrictions of their own societies. And the scientists, of course. The avowed purpose of this mission was the scientific study of the planet Saturn and its giant moon, Titan.

Wilmot knew better. He knew the true purpose of this flight to Saturn, and the reason its real backers wanted their financial support kept secret.

The Chinese had refused to join the experiment, as usual; they kept to themselves, isolationists to their core. But otherwise most racial and religious groups were represented. What kind of a society will these people create for themselves? An actual experiment in anthropology!

Wilmot glowed inwardly at the thought of it, even though the purpose behind this experiment, the underlying reason for this venture to Saturn, troubled him deeply. Yet he put aside such worries, content to revel in the prospects lying before him.

His office was a reflection of the man. It was as close to a duplicate of his office at Cambridge as he could make it. He had brought up his big clean-lined Danish styled desk and its graceful chair that molded itself to his spine, together with the bookcases and the little round conference table with its four minimalist chairs. All in white beech, clean and efficient, yet warm and comfortable. Even the carpet that almost covered the entire floor had been taken from his Earthside office. After all, Wilmot reasoned, I’m going to be living and working here for five years or more. I might as well have my creature comforts around me.

The only new thing in the office was the guest chair, another Danish piece, but of shining chrome tubular supports and pliant butterscotch-brown leather cushions.

Manuel Gaeta sat in it, looking much more relaxed than Wilmot himself felt. The third man in the room was Edouard Urbain, chief scientist of the habitat, a small, slim, dark-bearded man, his thinning hair slicked straight back from his receding hairline; he was seated in one of those spare, springy-looking chairs from the conference table in the corner. Wilmot did not particularly like Urbain; he thought the man an excitable Frenchman, despite the fact that Urbain had been born and raised in Quebec.

“I can see that you’re physically and mentally fit,” Wilmot was saying to Gaeta, gesturing toward the wallscreen that displayed the man’s test scores. “More than fit; you are an unusual specimen, actually.”

Gaeta grinned lazily. “It goes with the job.”

His voice was soft, almost musical. He was on the small side, but solidly built, burly. Lots of hard muscle beneath his softly pleated open-necked white shirt. His face was hardly handsome: his nose had obviously been broken, perhaps more than once; his heavy jaw made him look somewhat like a bulldog. But his deep-set dark eyes seemed friendly enough, and his grin was disarming.

“I must tell you, Mr. Gaeta, that—”

“Manuel,” the younger man interrupted. “Please feel free to call me Manuel.”

Wilmot felt slightly perplexed at that. He preferred to keep at least a slight distance from this man. And he noted that although Gaeta seemed quite able to speak American English, he pronounced his own name with a decided Spanish inflection. Wilmot glanced at Urbain, who did nothing except raise one eyebrow.

“Yes, sorry,” Wilmot said. Then, “But I must tell you, Mr. … um, Man-well, that no matter what your backers believe, it will be impossible for you to go to the surface of Titan.”

Gaeta’s smile did not fade one millimeter. “Astro Corporation has put up five hundred million international dollars for me to do the stunt. Your university consortium signed off on the deal.”

Urbain broke his silence almost explosively. “No! It is impossible! No one is allowed to the surface of Titan. It would be a violation of every principle we are guided by.”

“There must have been a misunderstanding,” Wilmot said more smoothly. “No one has been to Titan’s surface, and—”

“Pardon me,” said Gaeta, “but that’s just the point. If somebody else had already been to Titan there’d be no reason for me to do the stunt.”

“Stunt,” Wilmot echoed disapprovingly.

“I have the equipment,” Gaeta went on. “It’s all been tested. My crew comes aboard tomorrow. All I need from you is some workshop space where they can set up my gear and check out the equipment. We’re all set with everything else.”

Urbain shook his head vehemently. “Teleoperated probes only will be sent to the surface of Titan. No humans!”

“With all respect, sir,” Gaeta said, his voice still soft and friendly, “you’re thinking like a scientist.”

“Yes, of course. How else?”

“See, I’m in show biz, not science. I get paid to do risky stunts, like surfing the clouds of Jupiter and skiing down Mt. Olympus on Mars.”

“Stunts,” Wilmot muttered again.

“Yeah, stunts. People pay a lotta money to participate in my stunts. That’s what the VR gear is for.”

“Virtual reality thrills. Vicarious experiences.”

“Cheap thrills, right. It brings in the big bucks. My investors’ll make their half-bill back the first ten seconds I’m on the VR nets.”

“You risk your life so that other people can get their adventure plugged into a virtual reality set,” Urbain said, almost accusingly.

If anything, Gaeta’s smile widened. “The trick is to handle the risks. Do the research, buy or build the equipment you need. They call me a daredevil, but I’m not a fool.”

“And you want to be the first man to reach the surface of Titan,” Wilmot said.

“Shouldn’t be that tough. You’re going out there anyway, so we hitch a ride with you. Titan’s got an atmosphere and a decent gravity. Radiation levels are nowhere near as bad as Jupiter.”

“And contamination?” demanded Urbain.

Gaeta’s brows hiked up. “Contamination?”

“There is life on Titan. It is only microscopic, I grant you: single-celled bacterial types. But it is living and we must protect it from contamination. That is our first duty.”

The stuntman relaxed again. “Oh, sure. I’ll be in an armored space-suit. You can scrub it down and bathe me in ultraviolet light when I get back. Kill any bugs that might be on the suit’s exterior.”

Urbain shook his head even more violently. “No, no, no. You don’t understand. We are not worried about the microbes contaminating you. Our worry is that you might contaminate them.”

“Huh?”

“It is a unique ecology, there on Titan,” Urbain said, his blue eyes burning with intensity, his beard bristling. “We cannot take any chances on your contaminating them.”

“But they’re just bugs!”

Urbain’s jaw sagged open. He looked like a Believer who had just heard blasphemy uttered.

“Unique organisms,” corrected Wilmot sternly. “They must not be disturbed.”

“But they’ve landed probes on Titan,” Gaeta protested, “lots of ’em!”

“Each one was as thoroughly disinfected as science can achieve,” Urbain said. “They were subjected to levels of gamma radiation that almost destroyed their electronic circuits. Some of them were actually disabled during the decontamination procedures.”

Gaeta shrugged. “Okay, you can decontaminate my suit the same way.”

“With you inside it?” Wilmot asked quietly.

“Inside? Why?”

Urbain replied, “Because when you get into your suit you will be leaving a veritable jungle of microbial flora and fauna on every part of its exterior that you touch: human sweat, body oils, who knows what else? One fingerprint, one breath could leave enough terrestrial microbes to utterly devastate Titan’s entire ecology.”

“I’d have to stay in the suit while you fry it with gamma rays?”

Wilmot nodded.

Urbain said flatly, “That is the only way we will allow you to go to Titan’s surface.”

DEPARTURE MINUS 38 DAYS

He’s really handsome when he smiles, Holly noted silently. But he’s always so serious!

Malcolm Eberly was peering intently at the three-dimensional display floating in midair above his desktop. To Susan he looked like a clean-cut California surfer type, but only from the neck up. His blond hair was chopped short, in the latest style. He had good cheekbones and a strong, firm jaw. Chiseled nose and startling blue eyes, the color of an Alpine sky. A killer smile, too, but he smiled all too rarely.

She had bent over backwards to please him: dressed in the plain tunics and slacks that he preferred, let her hair go natural and cut those stubborn curls short, took off the decal she had worn on her forehead and wore no adornments at all except for the tiny asteroidal diamond studs in her ears. He hadn’t noticed any of it.

“We’ve got to be more selective in our screening processes,” he said, without looking up from the display. His voice was low, richly vibrant; he spoke American English, but with an overlay of a glass-smooth cultured British accent.

“Look.” Eberly thumbed his remote controller and the display rotated above the desktop so that Susan could see the three-dimensional chart. The office was small and austere: nothing in it but Eberly’s gray metal desk and the stiff little plastic chair Susan was sitting in. No decorations on the walls. Eberly’s desktop was antiseptically bare.

She leaned forward in the uncomfortable squeaking chair to inspect the series of jagged colored lines climbing steadily across the chart floating before her eyes. Just as she had remembered it from last night, before she’d gone home for the evening.

“In the two weeks since you’ve started working in the human resources office,” Eberly said, “successful recruitments have climbed almost thirty percent. You’ve accomplished more work than the rest of the staff combined, it seems.”

That’s because I want to please you, she said to herself. She didn’t have the nerve to say it aloud; didn’t have the nerve to do anything more but smile at him.

Unsmilingly, he continued, “But too many of the new recruits are convicted political dissidents, troublemakers. If they caused unrest on Earth, they’ll probably cause unrest here.”

Her smile crumpled. She asked, “But isn’t that the purpose of this mission? The reason we’re going to Saturn? To give people a new chance? A new life?”

“Within reason, Holly. Within reason. We don’t want chronic protesters here, out-and-out rebels. The next thing you know, we’ll be inviting terrorists to the habitat.”

“Have I done that bad a job?”

She waited for him to reassure her, to tell her she was doing her job properly. Instead, Eberly got to his feet and came around the desk.

“Come on, let’s go outside for a bit of a stroll.”

She shot to her feet. She was just a tad taller than he. From the shoulders down Eberly was slight, skinny really. Thin arms, narrow chest, even the beginnings of a pot belly, she thought. He needs exercise, she told herself. He works too hard in the office. I’ve got to get him outside more, get him to the fitness center, build him up.

Yet she followed him in silence down the hallway that led past the habitat’s other administrative offices and out the door at its end.

Bright sunshine was streaming through the long windows. Colorful butterflies flitted among the hyacinths, multihued tulips, and bloodred poppies that bloomed along the path. They walked in silence along the path that ran past the cluster of low white buildings and down the shoulder of the hillside on which the village was built. The tan-bricked path wound around the lake at the bottom of the ridge and out into a pleasant meadow. A bicyclist passed them, coasting down the gentle slope. Leafy young trees spread dappled shade along the path. Susan heard insects humming in the bushes and birds chirping. A complete ecology, painstakingly established and maintained. Looking at the grassy field and the clumps of taller trees standing farther along the gently curving path, she found it hard to believe that they were inside a huge, man-made cylinder that was hanging in empty space a few hundred kilometers above the surface of the Moon. Until she glanced up and saw that the land curved completely around, overhead.

“Holly?”

She snapped her attention back to Eberly. “I-I’m sorry,” she stuttered, embarrassed. “I guess I wasn’t listening.”

He nodded, as if accepting her apology. “Yes, I forget how beautiful this is. You’re absolutely right, none of us should take all this for granted.”

“What were you saying?” she asked.

“It wasn’t important.” He raised his arm and swept it around dramatically. “This is the important thing, Holly. This world that you will create for yourselves.”

My name is Holly now, she reminded herself. You can remember everything that happens to you, remember your new name, for jeep’s sake.

Still, she asked, “Why’d you want me to change my name?”

Eberly tilted his head to one side, thinking before he answered. “I’ve suggested to every new recruit that they change their names. You are entering a new world, starting new lives. A new name is appropriate, don’t you agree?”

“Oh, right! F’sure.”

“Yet,” he sighed, “very few actually follow my suggestion. They cling to the past.”

“It’s like baptism, isn’t it?” Holly said.

He looked at her and she saw something like respect in his piercing blue eyes. “Baptism, yes. Born again. Beginning a new life.”

“This’ll be my third life,” she told him.

Eberly nodded.

“I don’t remember my first life,” Holly said. “Ear’s I can remember, my life started seven years ago.”

“No,” Eberly said firmly. “Your life began two weeks ago, when you arrived here.”

“F’sure. Right.”

“That’s why you changed your name, isn’t it?”

“Right,” she repeated, thinking, He’s so bugging serious about everything! I wish I could make him smile.

Eberly stopped walking and slowly turned a full circle, taking in the world that stretched all around them and climbed up over their heads to completely encircle them.

“I was born in deep poverty,” he said, his voice low, almost a whisper. “I was born prematurely, very sick; they didn’t think I would live. My father ran away when I was still a baby and my mother took up with a migrant laborer, a Mexican. He wanted me to die. If it weren’t for the New Morality I would have died before I was six months old. They took me into their hospital, they put me through their schools. They saved me, body and soul.”

“I’m glad,” Holly said.

“The New Morality saved America,” Eberly explained. “When the greenhouse warming flooded all the coastal areas and the food riots started, it was the New Morality that brought order and decency back into our lives.”

“I don’t remember the States at all,” she said. “Just Selene. Nothing before that.”

He chuckled. “You certainly seem to have no trouble remembering anything that’s happened to you since. I’ve never seen anyone with such a steel trap of a mind.”

With a careless shrug, Holly replied, “That’s just the RNA treatments they gave me.”

“Oh, yes, of course.” He started walking again, slowly. “Well, Holly, here we are. Both of us. And ten thousand others.”

“Nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety-eight,” she corrected, with an impish grin.

He dipped his chin slightly in acknowledgment of her arithmetic, totally serious, oblivious to her attempt at humor.

“You have the opportunity to create a new world here,” Eberly said. “Clean and whole and new. You are the most fortunate people of the ages.”

“You too,” she said.

He made a little gesture with one hand. “I’m only one man. There are ten thousand of you — minus one, I admit. You are the ones who will create this new world. It’s yours to fashion as you see fit. I’m completely satisfied merely to be here, among you, and to help you in any way that I can.”

Holly stared at him, feeling enormous admiration welling up within her.

“But Malcolm, you’ve got to help us to build this new world. We’re going to need your vision, your…” she fumbled for a word, then … “your dedication.”

“Of course, I’ll do what I can,” he said. And for the first time, he smiled.

Holly felt thrilled.

“But you must do your best, too,” he added. “I expect the same dedication and hard work from you that I myself am exerting. Nothing less, Holly.”

She nodded silently.

“You must devote yourself totally to the work we are doing,” Eberly said. “Totally.”

“I will,” Holly answered. “I already have, f’real.”

“Every aspect of your life must be dedicated to our work,” he insisted. “There will be no time for frivolities. Nor for romantic entanglements.”

“I don’t have any romantic entanglements, Malcolm,” she said, in a small voice. Silently she added, Wish I did. With you.

“Neither do I,” he said. “The task before us is too important to allow personal considerations to get in the way.”

Holly said, “I understand, Malcolm. I truly do.”

“Good. I’m glad.”

And Eberly thought, Carrot and stick, that’s the way to control her. Carrot and stick.

DEPARTURE MINUS TWO HOURS

Eberly chose to stand with his back to the oblong window of the observation blister. Beyond its thick quartz the stars were swinging by slowly as the mammoth habitat revolved lazily along its axis. The Moon would slide into view, so close that one could see the smoothed launching pads of Armstrong Spaceport, blackened by decades of rocket blasts, and the twin humps of Selene’s two buried public plazas, as well as the vast pit where workers were constructing a third. Some claimed they could even see individual tractors and the cable cars speeding along their overhead lines to outlying settlements such as Hell Crater and the Farside Observatory.

Eberly never looked out if he could help it. The sight of the Moon, the stars, the universe constantly swinging past his eyes made him sick to his stomach. He kept his back to it. Besides, his work, his future, his destiny was inside the habitat, not out there.

Standing before him, facing the window with apparently no ill effect, stood a short heavyset woman wearing a gaudy finger-length tunic of many shades of red and orange over shapeless beige slacks. Sparkling rings adorned most of her fingers and more jewelry decorated her wrists, earlobes, and double-chinned throat. Ruth Morgenthau was one of the small cadre of people the Holy Disciples had planted in the habitat. She had not been coerced into this one-way mission to Saturn, Eberly knew; she had volunteered.

Beside her was a lean, short, sour-faced man wearing a shabby pseudoleather jacket of jet black.

“Malcolm,” said Morgenthau, gesturing with a chubby hand, “may I introduce Dr. Sammi Vyborg.” She turned slightly. “Dr. Vyborg, Malcolm Eberly.”

“I am very pleased to meet you, sir,” said Vyborg, in a reedy, nasal voice. His face was little more than a skull with skin stretched over it. Prominent teeth. Narrow slits of eyes.

Eberly accepted his extended hand briefly. “Doctor of what?” he asked.

“Education. From the University of Wittenberg.”

The ghost of a smile touched Eberly’s lips. “Hamlet’s university.”

Vyborg grinned toothily. “Yes, if you can believe Shakespeare. There is no mention of the Dane in the university’s records. I looked.”

Morgenthau asked, “The records go back that far?”

“They are very sketchy, of course.”

“I’m not interested in the past,” Eberly said. “It’s the future that I am working for.”

Vyborg nodded. “So I understand.”

Eberly glanced sharply at Morgenthau, who said hastily, “I have explained to Dr. Vyborg that our task is to take charge of the habitat’s management, once we get underway.”

“Which will be in two hours,” Vyborg added.

Eberly focused his gaze on the little man, asking, “I have seen to it that you are highly placed in the Communications Department. Can you run the entire department, if and when I ask you to?”

“There are two very prominent persons above me in the department,” Vyborg replied. “Neither of whom are Believers.”

“I know the organization chart!” Eberly snapped. “I drafted it myself. I had no choice but to accept those two secularists above you, but you are the one I have chosen to run the department. Can you do it?”

“Of course,” Vyborg answered without hesitation. “But what will become of my superiors?”

“You can’t ship them home, once we get started,” Morgenthau pointed out, a smile dimpling her cheeks.

“I will take care of them,” Eberly said firmly, “when the proper moment comes. For now, I want to know that I can rely on you.”

“You can,” said Vyborg.

“Completely and utterly. I want total loyalty.”

“You will have it,” Vyborg said firmly. Then he smiled again and added, “If you can make me head of communications.”

“I will.”

Morgenthau smiled, satisfied that these two men could work together and further the cause that she had given her life to serve.

Holly was getting frantic. She had searched everywhere for Malcolm, from his austere little office to the other cubbyholes in the human resources section, then down the corridors in the other sections of the administration building. No sign of him anywhere.

He’ll miss the breakout! she kept telling herself. She had it all planned out, she would take Malcolm to the lakeside site down at the edge of the village. Professor Wilmot and his managers had arranged more than a dozen spots around the habitat where people could gather and watch the breakout ceremonies on big vid screens that had been set up out in the open. The lakeside was the best spot, Holly thought, the prettiest and closest to their offices.

But Malcolm was nowhere to be found. Where could he be? What’s he doing? He’ll miss everything! People were streaming along the paths toward the assembly areas where the big screens had been set up, couples and larger groups, chatting, smiling, nodding hello to her. Holly ignored them all, searching for Eberly.

And then she saw him, striding along the path from the woods with that overweight Morgenthau woman beside him. Holly frowned. He’s spending a lot of time with her, she thought. But a smile broke across her face as she watched them: Morgenthau was puffing hard, trying to keep up with Malcolm’s longer strides. Serves her right, Holly thought, as she started down the path to intercept them and bring Malcolm over to the shore of the lake. She wanted him standing beside her as the habitat started its long flight to Saturn. Nobody else, she told herself. He’s got to stand with me.

Sitting up in bed, Pancho Lane stared unhappily at the hologram image of Goddard hanging in space. It appeared as if one half of her bedroom had disappeared, to be replaced by the darkness of space with a miniature habitat floating in the middle of the scene, revolving slowly. The Moon edged into view, pockmarked and glowing brightly. Pancho could see the laser beacon that marked the top of Mt. Yeager, just above Selene, not all that far from her own bedroom.

She’s really doing it, Pancho grumbled to herself. Sis is really going off in that danged tin can, getting as far away from me as she can get. I saved her life, I broke my butt paying her medical expenses and the cryonics and all that, I nursed her and taught her and wiped her shitty ass, and now she goes traipsing off into the wild black yonder. That’s gratitude. That’s a sister’s love.

Yet she couldn’t work up real anger. She knew that Susie needed to break away, needed to start her own life. Independently. Every kid’s got to go out on her own, sooner or later. Hell, I did myself when Susie was just a preteen.

Not Susie, she remembered. She calls herself Holly now. Got to remember that when I call her. Holly.

Well, if things don’t work out for her I’ll send a torch ship out to bring her home. All she’s got to do is ask. I’ll fly out to her myself, by damn.

The holographic view of Goddard winked out, replaced by a life-sized image of Professor Wilmot. To Pancho, watching from her bed, it seemed as if the man’s head and shoulders hovered in midair across her bedroom.

“Today we embark on an unprecedented voyage of discovery and exploration,” Wilmot began, in a slow, sonorous voice.

“Blah, blah, blah,” Pancho muttered. She muted the sound with a voice command and then ordered her phone to get her security chief. I just hope Wendell got somebody really good to keep an eye on Sis. If he hasn’t I’ll toss him out on his butt, no matter how good he is in bed.

“Vyborg makes a good addition to our cadre,” Morgenthau said as she walked beside Eberly, heading back to the lakeside village.

Eberly brushed at a brilliant monarch butterfly that fluttered too close to his face. “He’s ambitious, that’s clear enough.”

“There’s nothing wrong with ambition,” said Morgenthau.

“As long as he can follow orders.”

“He will, I’m sure.”

Inwardly, Eberly had his doubts. But I’ve got to work with the material at hand, he told himself. Morgenthau has practically no ambition, no drive for self-aggrandizement. That makes her a perfect underling. Vyborg is something else. I’ll have to watch him closely. And my back, as well.

To Morgenthau he said, “Information is the key to power. With Vyborg in communications we’ll have access to all the surveillance cameras in the habitat.”

“And he could help us to tap into the phones, as well,” Morgenthau added.

“I want more than that. I want every apartment bugged with surveillance cameras. Secretly, of course.”

“Every apartment? That’s… it’s a tremendous task.”

“Find a way to do it,” Eberly snapped.

Holly tried not to run, she didn’t want to appear that anxious, but the closer she got to Eberly and Morgenthau, the faster she trotted. As she approached, she wondered why Malcolm had chosen to be with Morgenthau. She’s not much to look at, Holly giggled to herself. Really, she’s too much to look at. And all decked out like she’s going to some wild-ass party. She’d be pretty if she dropped twenty or thirty kilos.

Eberly looked up and recognized her.

“Malcolm!” Holly called, slowing to a walk. “Come on! The ceremonies’ve started already. You’re gonna miss it all!”

“Then I’ll miss it,” Eberly said severely. “I have work to do. I can’t waste my time on ceremonies.”

He walked right past her, with the Morgenthau woman slogging along beside him. Holly stood there with her mouth hanging open, fighting desperately to keep from crying.

BREAKOUT

Hardly anyone aboard Goddard knew about the “bridge.” Actually, the massive habitat’s navigation and control center was in a compact pod mounted on the outside skin of the huge cylinder like a blister on a slowly-rotating log.

Captain Nicholson’s title was an honorific. She had skippered spacecraft out to the Asteroid Belt and had once even commanded a trio of ships on a resupply mission for the scientific bases on Mars.

Of the four-person crew that ran the navigation and control center, Nicholson, her first mate, and her navigator intended to return to Earth as soon as they had established Goddard in orbit at Saturn. Only the systems engineer, Ilya Timoshenko, had signed on for the mission’s full duration. In fact, Timoshenko never expected to see Earth again.

Samantha Nicholson did not look like a veteran spacecraft commander. She was a petite woman who had allowed her hair to go silvery white. The descendent of a long line of shipping magnates, she was the first of her family to heed the call of space, rather than the sea. Her father disowned her for her stubborn, independent choice; her mother cried bitterly the first time she left Earth. Nicholson consoled her mother and told her father she neither needed nor wanted the family fortune. She never returned to Earth, but made Selene her home instead.

Timoshenko admired the captain. She was capable, intelligent, even-handed whenever a dispute arose, and when necessary she could peel four layers of skin off a man with language that would have made her mother faint.

“X minus thirty seconds,” said the computer’s synthesized voice.

Timoshenko eyed his console. Every single icon was in the green.

“Ignite the thrusters on my mark,” said Captain Nicholson.

“Roger,” the first mate replied.

Normally Timoshenko would have sneered at her insistence on human control. The four of them knew perfectly well that the computers actually ran the propulsion system. This lumbering oversized sewer pipe would be pushed out of lunar orbit at precisely the right instant even if none of them were on the bridge. But the captain kept the old traditions, and even Timoshenko — normally as dour and scornful as a haughty, patronizing academic — respected the old lady for it.

The computer said, “Ignition in five seconds, four … three … two…”

“Fire thrusters,” the captain said.

Timoshenko grinned as his console showed the computer command and the human action taking place at the same instant.

The thrusters fired. Goddard broke out of lunar orbit and began its long flight path to the planet Saturn.

Even with Duncan Drive fusion engines, an object as massive as the Goddard habitat does not flit through the solar system the way passenger carriers or even automated ore haulers do.

Part of the problem is sheer mass. At more than a hundred thousand tons, the habitat is equal to a whole fleet of interplanetary ships. To push the habitat to an acceleration of even one-tenth g would require enormous thrust and therefore a bankrupting amount of fusion fuel.

Yet the major problem is the spin-induced gravity inside the habitat. A major acceleration from rocket thrust would turn the world inside the cylinder topsy-turvy. Instead of feeling a gentle Earthlike pull “downward” the inhabitants would also sense an acceleration pushing them in the direction of the rocket thrust. Life within the habitat would become difficult, even weird. It would feel to the inhabitants as if they were constantly struggling uphill, or traipsing downhill, even when walking on normal-looking flat ground.

So Goddard accelerated away from the Moon at a leisurely pace, a minute fraction of a g. The force went unnoticed by the ten thousand inhabitants, although it was closely monitored by the habitat’s small crew of propulsion engineers.

It would take fourteen months to reach the vicinity of Jupiter, giant of the solar system. There Goddard would replenish its fusion fuels, isotopes of hydrogen and helium delved from Jupiter’s deep, turbulent atmosphere by automated skimmers operated from the space station in orbit around the enormous planet. Jupiter’s massive gravity would also impart a slight extra boost to the habitat as it swung past.

Eleven months after the Jupiter encounter, Goddard would slip into orbit around ringed Saturn. By then, more than two years after departing the Earth/Moon vicinity, anthropologist James Wilmot expected the subjects of his experiment would be ready to form the political systems and personal bonds of a new society. He wondered what form that society would take.

Malcolm Eberly already knew.

DEPARTURE PLUS THREE DAYS

The great advantage of having a scientist in charge of the habitat, thought Malcolm Eberly, is that scientists are so trustingly naïve. They depend on honesty in their work, which leads them to behave honestly even outside their sphere of expertise. In turn, this makes them believe that those they associate with are honest, as well.

Eberly laughed aloud as he reviewed his plans for the day. It’s time to start things in motion. Now that we’re on our way, it’s time to start these people looking to me as their natural leader.

And who better to begin with than Holly? he thought. My newborn. She had been sulky, pouting, since he had been so curt with her at the breakout ceremony. He saw that his morning’s messages included one from her; she had called him twice yesterday, as well. Ah well, he told himself, time to make her smile again.

He told the phone to locate her. The holographic image that appeared above his desktop showed that she was in her office, working.

As soon as she recognized Eberly’s face her expression lit up with hope, expectation.

“Holly, if you have a moment, could you come to my office, please?” he asked pleasantly.

She said, “I’ll be there f-t-l!”

Eff-tee-ell? Eberly wondered as her image winked out. What could — Ah! Faster than light. One of her little bits of slang.

He heard her tap on his door, light and timid.

Let her wait, he said to himself. Just long enough to make her worry a bit. He sensed her fidgeting uncertainly outside his door.

When at last she tapped again he called, “Enter.”

Holly wasn’t pouting as she stepped into Eberly’s office. Instead, she looked apprehensive, almost afraid.

Eberly got to his feet and gestured to the chair in front of his desk. “Sit down, Holly. Please.”

She perched on the chair like a little bird ready to take flight at the slightest danger. Eberly sat down and said nothing for a few moments, studying her. Holly was wearing a forest green tunic over form-fitting tights of a slightly lighter green. No rings or other jewelry except for the studs in her earlobes. Diamonds, he saw. Since the Asteroid Belt had been opened to mining, gemstones were becoming commonplace. At least she’s taken off that silly decal on her forehead, Eberly noted. She’s rather attractive, really, he thought. Some men find dark skin exotic. Not much of a figure, but she’s got good long legs. Should I find someone to get her involved romantically? No, he concluded, I want her attention focused on me, for now.

He made a slow smile for her. “I hurt you, didn’t I?”

Holly’s eyes went wide with surprise.

“I didn’t mean to. Sometimes I become so wrapped up in my work that I forget the people around me have feelings.” With a sigh, he continued, “I’m truly sorry. It was thoughtless of me.”

Her expression bloomed like a flower in the sunshine. “I shouldn’t be such a pup, Malcolm. I just couldn’t help it. I wanted to be beside you at the ceremony and—”

“And I let you down.”

“No!” she said immediately. “It was my own dimdumb fault. I should’ve known better. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to cause you any trouble.”

Eberly leaned back in his comfortable chair and gave her his patient fatherly smile. How easily she’s maneuvered, he thought. She’s apologizing to me.

“I mean,” Holy was prattling on, “I know you’ve got lots to do and all the responsibilities for the whole habitat’s human resources and all that and I shouldn’t have expected you to take time out and stand around watching the ridic’ ceremonies with me like some schoolkid at commencement or something…”

Her voice wound down like a toy running out of battery power.

Eberly replaced his smile with a concerned expression. “Very well, Holly. It’s over and done with. Forgotten.”

She nodded happily.

“I have an assignment for you, if you can find the time to work on it.”

“I’ll make the time!”

“Wonderful.” He smiled again, the pleased, grateful smile.

“What’s the assignment?”

He called up the habitat’s ground plan and projected it against the bare wall. Holly saw the villages, the parks and farmlands and orchards, the offices and workshops and factory complexes, all neatly laid out and connected by paths for pedestrians and electric motorbikes.

“This is our home now,” Eberly said. “We’re going to be living here for at least five years. Some of us — many of us — will spend the rest of our lives here.”

Holly agreed with a nod.

“Yet we have no names for anything. Nothing but the engineers’ designations. We can’t go on calling our home towns ‘Village A’ and ‘Village B’ and so forth.”

“I click,” Holly murmured.

“The orchards should have names of their own. The hills and the woods — everything. Who wants to go shopping in ‘Retail Complex Three’?”

“Yeah, but how will we pick names for everything?”

“I won’t,” Eberly said. “And you won’t, either. This is a task that must be done by the residents of the habitat. The people themselves must choose the names they want.”

“But how—”

“A contest,” he answered before she could complete her question. “Or rather, a series of contests. The residents of each village will have a contest to name that village. The workers in a factory will have a contest to name their factory. It will engage everyone’s attention and keep them busy for months.”

“Cosmic,” Holly breathed.

“I need someone to work out the rules and organize each individual contest. Will you do this for me?”

“Absotively!”

Eberly allowed himself to chuckle at her enthusiasm. He went on, “Later, you’ll have to form committees to judge the names entered and count the votes.”

“Wow!” Holly was almost trembling with anticipation, he could see.

“Good. I want you to make this your top priority. But tell no one about this until we’re ready to announce it to the general populace. I don’t want knowledge of this leaking out prematurely.”

“I’ll keep it to myself,” Holly promised.

“Fine.” Eberly leaned back in his chair, satisfied. Then he cocked an eye at her and said, “I notice that you called me several times. What is it you wanted to talk to me about?”

Holly blinked as if suddenly shaken awake from a dream. “See you? Oh, yeah. It’s prob’ly nothing much. Just some details, not a big deal, really, I guess.”

Leaning slightly forward, Eberly thought that her persistent calls were merely a thinly-disguised attempt to get to see him. He rested his arms on his desk. “What is it, then?”

With a concerned knitting of her brows, Holly said, “Well… I was running routine checks on the dossiers of the last batch of personnel to come aboard and I found some discrepancies in a few of them.”

“Discrepancies?”

She nodded vigorously. “References that don’t check out. Or in-completed forms.”

“Anything serious?” he asked.

“Ruth Morgenthau, for example. She’s only got one position filled in on the prior-experience section of her application.”

“Really?”

“It’s a wiz of a good one,” Holly admitted. “Chief of administrative services for the Amsterdam office of the Holy Disciples.”

Eberly smiled faintly. “That is rather impressive, don’t you think?”

“Uh-huh, but it’s only one and the form calls for at least three.”

“I wouldn’t worry about it.”

She nodded. “Kay, no prob. But there’s one guy, he claims references from several universities but I can’t find any mention of him in any of their records.”

“False references?” Eberly felt a pang of alarm. “Who is this person?”

Holly pulled a palmcomp from her tunic pocket and pointed it at the wall opposite the one showing the habitat’s layout. She glanced at Eberly, silently asking permission. He nodded curtly.

A human resources dossier appeared on the wall. Eberly felt himself frowning as he saw the name and photo at its top: Sammi Vyborg.

Scrolling down to the references section of the dossier, Holly highlighted the names of five university professors.

“Far’s I can dig, he never attended any of those schools,” she said.

Eberly leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers, hiding his intense displeasure, thinking furiously. “Have you contacted any of those professors?”

“Not yet. I wanted you to see this before I go any deeper.”

“Good. Thank you for bringing this to my attention.”

“I can query each of the profs. But what do we do with Vyborg if they don’t back him?”

Eberly spread his hands. “Obviously we can’t let the man remain in the post he’s been assigned to. If he has falsified his references.”

“We can ship him back Earthside when we refuel at Jupiter, I guess,” Holly mused. “But what do we do with him till then? Put him to work in the farms or something?”

“Or something,” Eberly temporized.

“Kay. I’ll query the—”

“No,” he said sharply. “I will contact these professors. Each one of them. Myself.”

“But you’ve got so much to do.”

“It’s my responsibility, Holly. Besides, they’re much more likely to respond quickly to a query from the chief of human resources than from one of the chief’s assistants.”

Her face fell briefly, but she quickly brightened. “Yeah, guess so.”

“Besides, you’re going to be very busy arranging the contests.”

She grinned at that.

“I’ll take care of it myself,” Eberly repeated.

“Doesn’t seem fair,” she murmured. “I’m sorry I brought it to you. I should have done it without bothering you.”

“No, Holly. This is something that should have been brought to my attention. You did the right thing.”

“Kay,” she said, getting slowly to her feet. “If you say so. Still…”

“Thank you for bringing this to me,” Eberly said. “You’ve done a fine job.”

She beamed. “Thanks!”

“I’m sure it’s just a mistake or a misunderstanding somewhere along the line. I know Vyborg personally. He’s a good man.”

“Oh! I didn’t know—”

“All the more reason to check this out thoroughly,” Eberly said sternly. “There can be no personal favoritism here.”

“No, of course not.”

“Thank you, Holly,” he said again.

She went to the door, slowly, as if reluctant to leave his presence. He smiled at her and she finally left his office, sliding the door shut quietly.

Eberly stared at the dossier still on his wallscreen, the false references still highlighted.

Idiot! he fumed. There was no need for Vyborg to pad his dossier. He’s let his ego override his judgment.

Still, Eberly said to himself, a mistake like this gives me a little leverage over him. Something to make him more dependent on me. All to the good.

Now to correct his folder. And he began dictating to his computer the glowing references from each of the university professors that would be placed in Vyborg’s dossier.

DEPARTURE PLUS 28 DAYS

“Come on,” groused Manuel Gaeta, “there’s gotta be a way. There’s always a way, Fritz.”

Friederich Johann von Helmholtz got up from his knees and drew himself to his full height. Despite his imposing name, he was a short, slim, almost delicately-built man — and the best technician in the solar system, as far as Gaeta was concerned. At the moment, however, there was precious little good will flowing between them.

Fritz’s burr-cut head barely rose to Gaeta’s shoulders. Standing beside the muscular stuntman, the technician looked almost like a skinny child. Both of them were dwarfed by the massive cermet-clad suit standing empty in the middle of the equipment bay.

“Of course there is a way,” Fritz said, in precisely clipped English. “You get into the suit. We seal it up. Then we go through the sterilization procedure that Professor Wilmot and Dr. Urbain insist upon, including the gamma-ray bath. And then you die.”

Gaeta huffed mightily.

Fritz stood beside the empty suit, his arms folded implacably across his slim chest.

“Jesoo, Fritz,” Gaeta muttered, “those Astro Corp suits paid half a bill for me to be the first man to set foot on Titan. You know what they’ll do to me if I don’t do it? If I don’t even try ’cause some tightass scientists are worried about the bugs down there?”

“I would imagine they will want their half billion returned,” Fritz said calmly.

“And we’ve already spent a big chunk of it.” Fritz shrugged.

“They’ll take it outta my hide,” Gaeta said, frowning with worry. “Plus, nobody’ll ever back me for another stunt. I’ll be finished.”

“Or perhaps dead.” Fritz said it without the faintest flicker of a smile.

“You’re a big help, amigo.”

“I am a technician. I am not your financial advisor or your bodyguard.”

“You’re un fregado, a cold-blooded machine, that’s what you are.”

“Insulting me will not solve your problem.”

“So what? You’re not solving my problem. Nobody’s solving my problem!”

Fritz pursed his lips momentarily, a sign that he was thinking. “Perhaps … no, that probably would not work.”

“Perhaps what?” Gaeta demanded.

Reaching up to pat the bulky suit on its armored upper arm, Fritz mused, “The problem is to insert you into the suit after it has been sterilized without contaminating it.”

“Yeah. Right.”

“Perhaps we could wrap you in a sterile envelope of some sort. A plastic shroud that has been decontaminated.”

“You think?”

Cocking his head to one side, Fritz added, “The problem then becomes to get you sealed into the shroud without contaminating it.”

“Same problem as getting into the maldito suit in the first place.” Gaeta broke into a string of Spanish expletives.

“But if we did it outside the habitat, in space,” Fritz said slowly, as if piecing his ideas together as he spoke, “then perhaps between the ambient ultraviolet flux out there and the hard vacuum the contamination requirements could be satisfied.”

Gaeta’s dark brows shot up. “You think?”

Fritz shrugged again. “Let me run some numbers through the computer. Then I will talk with Urbain’s planetary protection team.”

Gaeta broke into a grin and thumped Fritz on the shoulder hard enough to make the smaller man totter. “I knew you could do it, amigo! I knew it all along.”

DEPARTURE PLUS 142 DAYS

Eberly had sat for more than two hours, utterly bored, as each of the habitat’s sixteen department heads gave their long, dull weekly reports. Wilmot insisted on these weekly meetings; Eberly thought them pointless and foolish. Nothing more than Wilmot’s way of making himself feel important, he told himself.

There was no need to spend two or three hours in this stuffy conference room. Each department chairman could send in his or her report to Wilmot electronically. But no, the old man has to sit up at the head of the table and pretend that he’s actually doing something.

For a community of ten thousand alleged troublemakers, the habitat was sailing on its way to Saturn smoothly enough. Most of the population were relatively young and energetic. Eberly, with Holly’s unstinting help, had weeded out the real troublemakers among those who applied for a berth. Those whom he accepted had run afoul of the strictures of the highly-organized societies back on Earth one way or another: unhappy with their employment placement, displeased when the local government refused to allow them to move from one city to another, unwilling to accept a genetic screening board’s verdict on a childbearing application. A few had even tried political action to change their governments, to no avail. So here they were, in habitat Goddard, in a man-made world that had plenty of room for growth. They turned their backs on Earth, willing to trek out to Saturn in their ridiculous quest for personal freedom.

The trick is, Eberly thought as the chief of maintenance droned on about trivial problems, to give them the illusion of personal freedom without allowing them to be free. To make them look to me for their freedom and their hopes for the future. To get them to accept me as their indispensable leader.

It’s time to begin that process, he decided as the maintenance chief finally sat down. Now.

Yet he had to wait for the security director’s report. Leo Kananga was an imposing figure: a tall, deeply black Rwandan who insisted on being addressed as “Colonel,” his rank in the Rwandan police force before he volunteered for the Saturn mission. His head shaved bald, he dressed all in black, which accented his height. Despite his impressive appearance, he had nothing new to report, no great problems. A few scrapes here and there in the cafeteria, usually young men making testosterone displays for young women. An out-and-out brawl at a pickup football game in one of the parks.

“Sports hooligans,” Kananga grumbled. “We get fights after vids of major sporting events from Earth, too.”

“Maybe we should stop showing them,” suggested one of the women.

The security chief gave her a pitying smile. “Try that and you’ll have a major disturbance on your hands.”

Great God, Eberly thought, they’re going to argue the point for the next half hour. Sure enough, others around the table joined the discussion. Wilmot sat in silence at the head of the table, watching, listening, occasionally fingering his moustache.

Which of these dolts will be loyal to me? Eberly asked himself as they wrangled on. Which will I have to replace? His eyes immediately focused on Berkowitz, the overweight chairman of the communications department. I’ve promised his job to Vyborg, Eberly thought. Besides, Berkowitz would never be loyal to me; I couldn’t trust a Jew who’s spent all his life in the news media.

At last the teapot-tempest over sports hooligans ended. Without a resolution, of course. That type of discussion never produces results, Eberly believed, only hot air. Still, I should remember sports hooligans. They might become useful, at the proper moment.

Wilmot stroked his moustache again, then said, “That completes the departmental reports. Have we any old business to take up?”

No one stirred, except that several people seemed to eye the door that led out of the conference room.

“Any new business? If not—”

“I have a piece of new business, sir,” said Eberly, raising his hand.

All eyes turned toward him.

“Go ahead,” Wilmot said, looking slightly surprised.

“I think we should consider the matter of standardizing our clothing.”

“Standardizing?”

“You mean you want everyone to wear uniforms?”

Eberly smiled patiently for them. “No, not uniforms. Of course not. But I’ve noticed that great differences in clothing styles cause a certain amount of… well, friction. We’re all supposed to be equals here, yet some of the people flaunt very expensive clothing. And jewelry.”

“That’s a personal decision,” said Andrea Maronella. She was wearing an auburn blouse and dark green skirt, Eberly noticed, touched off with several bracelets, earrings, and a pearl necklace.

“It does cause some friction,” Eberly repeated. “Those sports enthusiasts, for example. They wear the colors of the teams they favor, don’t they?”

Colonel Kananga nodded.

Berkowitz, of all people, piped up. “Y’know, some people show up at the office dressed like they were going to work on Wall Street or Saville Row, while the technicians come in looking like they’ve been dragged on a rope from lower Bulgaria or someplace.”

Everyone laughed.

“But isn’t that their right?” Maronella countered. “To dress as they choose? As long as it doesn’t interfere with their work.”

“But it does interfere with their work,” Eberly pounced, “when it causes jealousy and rancor.”

“Those hooligans wear their team colors just to annoy the buffs who root for other teams,” Kananga said.

“I think that if we offered guidelines about dress codes,” Eberly said, calm and reasonable, “it would help considerably. Not mandatory codes, but guidelines for what is appropriate and expected.”

“We could offer counseling,” said the chief of medical services, a psychologist.

“And advice about style.”

They wrangled over the issue for more than half an hour. Finally Wilmot put it to a vote, and the board decided to generate voluntary guidelines for appropriate dress during working hours. Eberly graciously accepted their decision.

The first step, he told himself.

MEMORANDUM

SELENE: ASTRO CORPORATION HEADQUARTERS

Pancho paced across her office as she spoke, feeling frustrated because there was no feedback from the person she was addressing. Communications beyond the Earth/Moon vicinity were almost always one-way affairs. Even though messages flitted through space at the speed of light, the distances to Mars, the Belt, and beyond were simply too great for a real-time, face-to-face chat.

So Pancho rattled on, hoping that Kris Cardenas would reply as quickly as possible.

“I know it’s a lot to ask, Dr. Cardenas,” she was saying. “You’ve spent a lot of years there at Ceres and made a life for yourself. But this migration out to Saturn is a chance to build something brand new for yourself. They’ll be happy to have your expertise, you can count on that. There’s probably a million ways your knowledge of nanotechnology will help them.”

By force of habit Pancho glanced up at the image floating in the middle of her office. Instead of Kris Cardenas’s face, it showed only her own neatly typed words.

“I’ll personally pay all your expenses and add a big bonus,” Pancho went on. “I’ll pay for a major expansion of your habitat out there at Ceres. She’s my little sister, Kris, and she needs somebody to watch over her. I can’t do it; I’m hoping that you can. Will you do this for me? Just for a year or so, just long enough so Sis gets squared away and can stand on her own feet without doing anything foolish. Will you help me on this, Kris? I really think it’ll be to your advantage and I’d appreciate it enormously.”

Pancho realized she was practically begging. Almost whining. So what? she asked herself. This is Susie I’m talking about.

But she took a breath and said more evenly, “Please get back to me as soon as you can on this, Kris. It’s important to me.”

In her cozy quarters aboard the habitat Chrysalis in orbit around the asteroid Ceres, Kris Cardenas intently watched Pancho’s earnest face as the Astro Corporation board chairman paced back and forth across her plushly furnished office. Cardenas noted the tension in every line of Pancho’s lanky body, every gesture, every word she spoke.

I don’t owe her a thing, Cardenas told herself. Why should I uproot myself and trundle out to Saturn on that weird expedition?

Yet, despite herself, she felt intrigued. Maybe it’s time for a change in my life. Maybe I’ve done enough penance.

Despite her calendar years, Dr. Kristin Cardenas looked no more than thirtyish, a pert sandy blond woman with a swimmer’s shoulders and strong, athletic body, and bright cornflower-blue eyes. That was because her body teemed with nanomachines, virus-sized devices that acted as a deliberate, directed immune system that destroyed invading organisms, took apart plaque forming in her blood vessels atom by atom, and rebuilt tissue damaged by trauma or aging.

Cardenas had won a Nobel Prize for her research in nanotechnology, before the fundamentalist governments of Earth succeeded in banning all forms of nanotech on the planet. She had carried on her work at Selene for years, helping the lunar nation to win its short, virtually bloodless war against the former world government. But because she had taken nanomachines into her own body she was not allowed to return to Earth, even for a brief visit. She lost her husband and children because they dared not come to Selene and risk being exiled from Earth with her. Cardenas bitterly resented the shortsighted attitudes of the “flatlanders” who had cost her her children and grandchildren, a bitterness that had led her to homicide. She had allowed her knowledge of nanotechnology to be used to sabotage a spacecraft, which caused the death of industrialist Dan Randolph.

The government of Selene locked her out of her own nanotech lab. She fled to the mining station on Ceres, in the Asteroid Belt, where she remained for many years, serving as a medical doctor and eventually as a member of Ceres’s governing board. Penance. She helped to build the miners’ community at Ceres, and she had refused to do any nanotech work since fleeing from Selene.

Am I being foolish? she now asked herself. Should I apply for a slot on the Saturn expedition? Would they take me if I did apply?

Staring at Pancho’s engrossed image frozen on her wallscreen, Cardenas decided to try. It’s time to begin a new life in a new world, she thought. Time for a new start.

The cafeteria was a strange place to hold such a sensitive meeting, Eberly thought. Yet, on the other hand, the clattering, bustling cafeteria was one of the few places in the habitat that would be virtually impossible to bug with listening devices. Too much background noise, too many people moving about.

“I understand that you are from Rwanda,” Eberly said pleasantly, as he picked at the salad on the table before him.

“Col. Kananga was a high official in the national police force,” said Morgenthau, whose plate bore an arrangement of fresh fruit slices.

“So I gathered from your dossier,” Eberly said, with a smile. “It’s unfortunate that you were asked to leave the country.”

If the barb hurt Kananga, the tall, lean Rwandan gave no indication of it. He said merely, “I was asked to clear up a difficult situation, and once I did so, I was rewarded with a choice between a public trial for police brutality or permanent exile.”

Eberly pursed his lips sympathetically. “Politicians,” he murmured.

“Yes,” said Kananga, his voice like the rumble of a lion. “Politicians.”

Morgenthau forced a smile. “Col. Kananga is interested in working with us, Malcolm.”

“Good,” said Eberly, without taking his eyes from the Rwandan’s dark, impassive face. “You could be useful in the government we will set up once we arrive at Saturn.”

“I would expect to keep my position as chief of security,” Kananga said flatly.

“I don’t see why you shouldn’t,” Eberly replied. Then he added, “If you can follow my orders absolutely and without fail.”

Kananga allowed the trace of a smile to curl his lips slightly. “I know how to follow orders.”

“Good. If you are loyal to me, I will be loyal to you. You’ll find me a trustworthy leader. I won’t turn on you for doing your job.”

The Rwandan’s smile broadened enough to show some teeth. “Even if I am … eh, zealous, let us say, in carrying out your orders?”

“Zeal is no sin,” Morgenthau said, “when you’re doing God’s work.”

Eberly said, “Just follow my orders, do your work well, and you won’t have to worry about being shipped back to Rwanda once we’ve arrived at Saturn.”

Kananga nodded wordlessly.

When she received Cardenas’s request, Holly raced from her desk to find Eberly. He was in the office complex’s cafeteria, sitting with Morgenthau and a lean, skeletally thin man whose complexion was darker than her own, the nearly purple black of the true African. They were deep in an intense discussion, their heads leaning forward like conspirators.

Holly scurried up to their table and stood at Eberly’s elbow. None of them paid any attention to her. They continued to talk in hushed, confidential tones, too low for Holly to hear their words over the clatter and conversations that clanged off the bare walls of the busy cafeteria.

She waited several moments, fidgeting impatiently, then broke into their tête-à-tête with, “Excuse me! Malcolm, I hate to interrupt but—”

Eberly looked up sharply at her, clear displeasure in his piercing eyes.

“I’m sorry, Malcolm, but it’s important.”

He took a breath, then said, “What is important enough to intrude in my discussion?”

“Dr. Cardenas wants to join us!”

“Cardenas?” asked Morgenthau.

“Kristin Cardenas,” Holly said, grinning enthusiastically. “The nanotech expert. She won the Nobel Prize! And she wants to come with us!”

Eberly seemed less than pleased. “Do we need an expert in nanotechnology?”

“That’s a dangerous area,” said the black man. His scalp was shaved bald, Holly saw, although there was a fringe of a beard outlining his jawline.

“It’s outlawed on Earth,” Morgenthau agreed, adding a muttered, “Unholy.”

Holly was surprised at their obtuseness. “Nanotech could be really helpful to us. We could use nanomachines to do most of the habitat’s maintenance work. And healthwise, nanomachines could—”

Eberly stopped her with an upraised finger. “Nanomachines are outlawed on Earth because they could run wild and devour everything in their path.”

“Turn everything into gray goo,” Morgenthau muttered.

“Only if somebody programs ’em to do that,” Holly countered. “Those flatlanders back Earthside are scared of terrorists or nutcases going wild with nanomachines.”

Morgenthau glared at her but said nothing.

“Shouldn’t we be concerned about that, as well?” Eberly asked mildly.

“We’ve screened everybody aboard,” Holly said. “We don’t have any violent types here. No fanatics.”

“How can we be sure of that?” Morgenthau was obviously unconvinced.

Looking at Eberly, the black man said slowly, “Properly used, nanomachines could be of great help to us.”

Eberly stared back at him for a long moment. “You believe so?”

“I do.”

“Would Dr. Cardenas agree to work under our terms, I wonder?” Eberly mused.

“We could ask her and find out,” Holly prompted. “She’s on Ceres now. We could pick her up when we go through the Belt. I checked the flight plan; we’ll be within a day’s flight of Ceres. She could buzz out to us on a torch ship, no prob. I could get my sister to set up a flight for her, betcha.”

Eberly stroked his chin. “Even though we have a full compliment now, I suppose we could make room for one person of Dr. Cardenas’s caliber.”

“If Wilmot approves of it,” said Morgenthau.

“Wilmot.” Eberly almost sneered. “I’m in charge of human resources decisions, not Wilmot.”

“But something like this—”

“I’ll take care of it,” he insisted. Turning to Holly, he said, “Inform Dr. Cardenas that I would like to discuss this with her personally.”

“Cosmic!” Holly blurted.

She was about to turn and head back to the human resources office when Eberly grasped her wrist.

“You haven’t met Colonel Kananga, have you?”

The black man got to his feet like a jointed scaffolding unfolding. He was almost two meters tall, a full head taller than Holly.

“Our director of security, Colonel Leo Kananga, from Rwanda,” said Eberly. “Holly Lane, from Selene.”

Kananga extended his hand. Holly took it in hers. His long fingers felt cold and dry. His grip was strong, almost painful.

Kananga smiled at her, but there was no warmth in it. Just the opposite. Holly felt an icy shudder run down her spine. It was like looking at a skull, a death’s head.

DEPARTURE PLUS 145 DAYS

As she climbed the stairs to the roof of the administration building, Holly wondered why Eberly had summoned her to the rooftop. She stepped through the metal door and looked for him. No one else was there. She walked to within two steps of the roof’s edge and turned full circle. She was alone.

He’s always so prompt, she thought. Why isn’t he here?

Then she realized that she was more than a minute early, and she relaxed somewhat. He’ll be here, she told herself, right on the tick.

Gazing out from the three story-high roof, Holly could see the other buildings of the village, low and gleaming white in the sunlight. The long slash of the solar window overhead was too bright to look at for more than a momentary glimpse. Even so, the after image of its glare burned in her eyes.

Everything is going well, Holly thought. The habitat is functioning smoothly, everybody doing their jobs as they should. Some trouble with one of the solar mirrors a few days ago, but the maintenance crew went out in spacesuits and fixed it. Now it was swiveling properly again, keeping sunlight streaming through the long windows while the habitat rotated along its axis.

We need sunshine, Holly thought. No matter where we go, no matter how far from Earth we travel, human beings need sunshine. It’s more than simple biology, more than the need for green plants at the foundation of the food chain. Sunlight makes us happy, drives away depression. Must be awful back Earthside when they have clouds and storms and they don’t see the Sun for days and days. No wonder the flatlanders are a little crazy.

She glanced at her wrist again. He’ll be here, she told herself. He’s always on time. Why’s he want to see me up here, though? Just the two of us. She felt a nervous thrill race through her. Just the two of us.

Maybe he feels about me the way I feel about him. Maybe just a little, but -

“There you are.”

She whirled and focused her attention on Eberly, who was walking slowly across the rooftop’s slightly rubbery surface toward her. He really is handsome, she saw. So full of energy. But he ought to dress better, Holly thought, scrutinizing the baggy gray slacks and darker shapeless tunic that hung a size or so too big from his shoulders.

“I wanted to have a word with you outside the office,” he said as he stopped an arm’s length from her.

“Sure, Malcolm.” She had to make a conscious effort to keep her hands from fidgeting.

“There are too many listening ears down there,” he went on, “and what I have to say is for you only.”

“What is it?” she asked, trembling.

He looked over his shoulder, as if expecting to find someone hiding behind him.

Turning back to Holly, he said, “I see from your reports that you are ready to launch the naming contests.”

Business, Holly realized, crestfallen. He wants to talk about business.

“You are ready, aren’t you?” he asked, oblivious to her letdown.

“Right,” she said, thinking, Nothing but business. I don’t really mean a thing to him.

“You’ve set up the rules for each contest?”

Holly nodded. “It was pretty easy, f’real. And I think that using a lottery to pick the committees for judging each individual contest is the best way to go.”

“I agree,” Eberly said. “You’ve done a fine job.”

“Thanks, Malcolm,” she said glumly.

“I’ll have to get Wilmot’s approval, and then we can launch the contests. I should be able to make the announcement within a few days.”

“Fine.”

His face grew serious. “But there is something else, Holly.”

“What is it?”

He drew in a breath. “I don’t want you to think of this as a reprimand—”

“Reprimand?” A pang of alarm raced through her. “What did I do?”

He touched her shoulder with one extended finger. “Don’t be frightened. This is not a reprimand.”

“But… what?”

“You and I have been working together for several months now, and in general your work has been excellent.”

She could see there was bad news coming. She tried not to cringe or let her fear show in her expression.

“However, there is one thing.”

“What is it, Malcolm? Tell me and I’ll fix it.”

The corners of his lips curled upward slightly. “Holly, I don’t mind you addressing me by my given name when we’re alone,” he said softly, “but when we are with other people, that is altogether too familiar. You should call me Dr. Eberly.”

“Oh.” Holly knew from Eberly’s dossier that his doctorate was honorary, awarded by a minor Web-based college that sold courses on languages and public speaking.

“When I introduced you to Colonel Kananga a few days ago,” he went on, “it was altogether improper for you to address me by my first name.”

“I’m sorry,” she said in a small voice. “I didn’t realize…”

He patted her shoulder in a fatherly manner. “I know. I understand. It really isn’t all that important, except that for persons such as Kananga and Morgenthau and such, respect is very essential.”

“I didn’t mean to be disrespectful, Mal — I mean, Dr. Eberly.”

“You can continue to call me Malcolm when we’re alone. But when there is a third person present, it would be better if you observed the formalities.”

“Sure,” Holly said. “No prob.”

“Good. Now, we’d both better be getting back to work.”

He turned and started for the door that led back inside the building. Holly scampered after him.

“About Dr. Cardenas,” she said.

“Yes?” Without turning or slowing his pace.

“She’s agreed to work under our guidelines. She’ll be joining us at our closest approach to Ceres. It’s all set.”

“Good,” Eberly said, unsmiling. “Now we need to draw up the guidelines that will regulate her work.”

“We’ll need Professor Wilmot’s approval for that, won’t we?”

He grimaced. “Yes, we will. Unless…”

Holly waited for him to finish the thought. Instead, Eberly yanked open the door and started down the metal stairs toward his office.

Two days later, Eberly sat behind his bare desk studying the face of Hal Jaansen, head of the habitat’s engineering department.

Ruth Morgenthau sat beside Jaansen, looking worried. She wore one of her colorful tunics and enough jewelry, Eberly thought, to tilt the entire habitat in her direction. She’s paying absolutely no attention to the dress codes, he said to himself. She’s flaunting her independence, making me look like a fool. But he kept the distaste off his face as he watched Jaansen.

The man doesn’t look like an engineer, Eberly thought. Jaansen was one of those pale blond Norsemen; even his eyelashes were so light that they were practically invisible. He had a clean, pink, well-scrubbed look, and instead of the engineer’s coveralls that Eberly had expected, Jaansen wore a crisply starched old-fashioned shirt with an open collar and neatly creased chocolate brown trousers. The only clue to his profession that Eberly could see was the square black palm-sized digital information processor that rested on his thigh, balanced there precariously. Jaansen touched it every now and then with the fingers of his left hand, as though to reassure himself that it was still there.

“Nanotechnology is a two-edged sword,” he was saying, somewhat pompously, Eberly thought. “It can be used for a tremendous variety of purposes, but it also poses grave dangers.”

“The gray goo problem,” Morgenthau murmured.

Jaansen nodded. His face was square-cut, stolid. Eberly decided that the man had very little imagination; he was a walking bundle of facts and information, but beyond his technical expertise he had no interests, no knowledge, no ambitions. Good! Eberly said to himself.

“Gray goo is one thing,” Jaansen replied. “Nanobugs have also been deliberately programmed to destroy proteins. Take them apart, molecule by molecule.”

“So I’ve been told,” said Eberly.

“We’re made of proteins. Nanobugs can be designed to be killers. That’s a real danger in a closed ecology like this habitat. They could wipe out everybody in less than a day.”

Morgenthau gasped a disbelieving, “No! Less than a day?”

Jaansen shrugged his slim shoulders. “They can reproduce themselves out of the materials around them in milliseconds and multiply faster than plague microbes. That’s why they’re usually programmed to be de-functioned by near UV.”

“De-functioned?” asked Eberly.

“Near UV?” Morgenthau inquired.

“De-functioned, deactivated, broken up, killed, stopped. Near ultraviolet light is softer — er, not so energetic — as ultraviolet light of shorter wavelength. So you can use near UV to stop nanobugs without causing damage to people.” He broke into a toothy grin as he added, “Except maybe they get a suntan.”

Eberly steepled his fingers. “So nanomachines can be controlled.”

“If you’re verrry careful,” Jaansen replied.

“But the risks are frightening,” Morgenthau said.

Jaansen shrugged again. “Perhaps. But take the EVA we had to do on the solar mirrors a few days ago. Nanomachines could have been inserted into the mirror motors and repaired them without anyone needing to go outside.”

“Then they could be very useful,” said Eberly.

“They’d be extremely helpful in all the maintenance tasks, yes, certainly,” Jaansen replied. “They would make my job much easier.” Before either of the other two could speak, he added, “If they’re kept under strict control. That’s the hard part: keeping them under control.”

“Can they be controlled well enough to do only what they’re programmed to do, without running wild?” Morgenthau asked.

“Yes, certainly. But you’ve got to be verrry careful with the programming. It’s like those old fairy tales about getting three wishes, and the wishes always backfire on you.”

“We’ll have Dr. Kristin Cardenas to be in charge of the nanotechnology group,” Eberly said.

Jaansen’s ash-blond brows rose a respectful few centimeters. “Cardenas? She’s here?”

“She will be, in a few months.”

“That’s good. That’s extremely good.”

“Then it’s settled,” Eberly said. “You will work with Cardenas to draw up guidelines for using nanomachines.”

Jaansen nodded enthusiastically. “I’ll be glad to.”

“I don’t like it,” Morgenthau said, grim-faced. “It’s too dangerous.”

“Not if we can keep them under control,” said Eberly.

Jaansen got to his feet. “As I said, it’s a two-edged sword. Cardenas is the top expert, though. We’ll be lucky to have her.”

“I don’t like it,” said Morgenthau, once the engineer had left. “Nanomachines are dangerous … evil.”

“They’re tools,” Eberly countered. “Tools that could be useful to us.”

“But—”

“No buts!” Eberly snapped. “I’ve made my decision. Dr. Cardenas will be welcome, as long as she works under our guidelines.”

Looking doubtful, almost fearful, Morgenthau said, “I’ll have to discuss this with my superiors in Amsterdam.”

Eberly glared at her. “The Holy Disciples asked me to direct things here. I won’t be second-guessed by a board of elders sitting back on Earth.”

“Those elders asked me to assist you,” said Morgenthau. “And to make certain you didn’t stray off the path of righteousness.”

Eberly leaned back in his desk chair. So that’s it. She’s the link back to Amsterdam. She’s here to control me.

Keeping his voice calm, he said to Morgenthau, “Well, I’ve made my decision. Dr. Cardenas will be joining us in three months, and there’s nothing that Amsterdam or Atlanta or anyone else can do about it.”

She looked far less than pleased. “You still have to convince Wilmot to let you introduce nanotechnology into the habitat.”

Eberly stared at her for a silent moment. Then, “Yes, so I do.”

CONFIDENTIAL REPORT

DEPARTURE PLUS 268 DAYS

And this is where we grow most of our fruit,” Holly was saying as she and Kris Cardenas strolled leisurely through the orchard’s long straight rows of trees: oranges on their left, limes on their right. Grapefruit and lemons were behind them; they were approaching apples, pears, and peaches. The trees were lined up as precisely as marching cadets.

Cardenas had arrived aboard the habitat the day before. Now she seemed lost in wonder. “I haven’t seen a tree in so many years…” She turned and laughed, head upturned. “Not one tree since I left Selene and here you’ve got a whole orchard full of them! It’s like California, almost!”

Holly asked, “There aren’t any trees on Ceres?”

“Not a one,” replied Cardenas, a bright smile on her youthful face. “Nothing but hydroponics tanks.”

“We have hydroponics farms, too,” Holly said, “as a backup in case any troubles come up with the crops.”

“And bees!” Cardenas exclaimed. “Aren’t those bees?”

“Uh-huh. We need them for pollinating the trees. They make their hives in those white boxes over there.” Holly pointed toward a set of square white skeps sitting among the trees. Laughing, she added, “Would you believe, one of my hardest problems was finding a couple of beekeepers.”

Cardenas looked at her with those brilliant blue eyes of hers. “You know, you really don’t realize how much you miss open spaces and trees and … well, even grass, for god’s sake. Not until you see something like this again.”

They walked on through the orchard, heading for the farms out beyond the trees. Eberly had given Holly the task of showing Dr. Cardenas around the habitat. He called it orientation; Holly called it fun.

As they walked through the neatly aligned rows of trees, they heard a thin, quavering voice off to their left. Singing.

“Who’s that?” Cardenas wondered.

Holly ducked through the low branches of a young peach tree and cut toward the edge of the orchard, Cardenas close behind her.

The orchard ended in an earthen embankment that led down to the irrigation canal. Water flowed smoothly through the sloping concrete walls of the canal. Up ahead of them they saw a solitary man lugging a double armful of sticks and leafy bushes, singing in a high, scratchy voice. Spanish, Holly thought. It sounds like a Spanish folk song.

“Hello,” Cardenas called to the man.

He dropped his burden and squinted through the late afternoon sunlight at them. Holly saw he was elderly. No, he looked old. Lean body half bent with age, skinny arms, wispy white hair that floated about his head like a halo, scraggly dead white beard. She had never seen a truly old person before. He wore a droopy shirt that had once been white, sleeves rolled up above his elbows, and shapeless, baggy blue jeans.

“Hola!”he called back to them.

The two women approached him. “We heard you singing,” Holly said.

“It was very lovely,” Cardenas added.

“Thank you,” said the man. “I am Diego Alejandro Ignacio Romero. My friends call me Don Diego, because of my age. I am not truly a nobleman.”

The women introduced themselves. Then Holly asked, “You must work for the maintenance department, right?”

Don Diego smiled, revealing perfect teeth. “My occupation is in the communications department. On Earth, I taught history. Or tried to.”

“What are you doing here, then?”

“The Church was not happy with my studies of the Counterreformation and the Inquisition.”

“No, I mean, working out here by the canal.”

“Oh, this? This is my hobby. I am attempting to create a little wilderness.”

He gestured along the canal, and Holly saw that there were bushes and small trees set up haphazardly along the sloping packed-earth banks. Someone had moved a few good-sized rocks here and there, as well.

“Wilderness?”

“Yes,” said Don Diego. “This habitat is too neat, too ordered. People need something more natural than rows of trees planted precisely two point five meters apart.”

Cardenas laughed. “A nature trail.”

“Si.Yes, a nature trail. Built by hand, I’m afraid, because nature is a stranger to this place.”

“Why did you sign up for this mission?” Cardenas asked.

Don Diego pulled a checkered handkerchief from his shirt pocket and mopped his brow. “To help build a new world, of course. And perhaps to teach anyone who expressed an interest in history, if I am allowed.”

“You’d like to teach?”

“I was professor of Latin American history at the University of Mexico until I was forcibly retired.”

Without thinking, Holly asked, “How old are you?”

He eyed her for a moment, then smiled. “You don’t see many as aged as I, do you?”

Holly shook her head.

“I have ninety-seven years. Ninety-eight, in four months.”

Cardenas said, “You could take rejuvenation treatments—”

“No,” he replied amiably. “Not for me. I want to grow old gracefully, but I am unwilling to postpone death indefinitely.”

“You want to die?” Holly blurted.

“Not necessarily. I maintain my health. I have taken injections to grow my third set of teeth. Also injections to rebuild the cartilage in my joints.”

With a smile, Cardenas said, “You’re getting your rejuvenation treatment one shot at a time, instead of all at once.”

He thought about that for a moment. Then, “Perhaps. It would not be the first time I have played the fool on myself.”

Holly asked, “Does the maintenance department know what you’re doing here?”

For the first time, Don Diego looked apprehensive. “Eh … not yet,” he said slowly. Before Holly could say anything more, he added, “I have not interfered with the flow of water in the canal. If anything, I believe I have made this area more beautiful, more natural, and serene.”

Cardenas looked at the tangle of bushes and rocks, then up over the embankment’s edge at the straight rows of fruit trees. Finally she looked back into the old man’s red-rimmed eyes.

“I agree,” she said. “You’ve created some beauty here.”

“You will not report this to the maintenance department?” Don Diego asked.

Cardenas glanced at Holly.

“I will tell them myself, of course,” he said, “when I have finished this stretch of the canal.”

Holly grinned at him. “No, we won’t tell anybody.”

Cardenas agreed with a nod.

“May we come and help you, now and then?” Holly asked.

“Of course! I am always glad for the company of lovely women.”

Less than three kilometers away from them, Malcolm Eberly and Professor Wilmot were following a lab-coated technical manager through one of the small, highly automated factories that produced the habitat’s manufactured goods. This one was turning out the pharmaceutical pills and drugs that the habitat’s population needed to maintain their health, and the meat-based proteins they required for a balanced diet. The two men were inspecting the rows of processors that produced the medications and gengineered food: shoulder-tall stainless steel vats that gleamed in the overhead lights. The factory was practically silent; the only sound other than their own voices was the background hum of electrical power.

“…can’t allow infectious diseases to get a start here,” the factory manager was saying as he led the two men down the row of processors. “In a closed ecology like this, even the sniffles could be dangerous.”

Eberly turned to Wilmot, beside him. “That’s one of the reasons why I approved Dr. Cardenas’s application to join us. With her knowledge of nanotechnology—”

“You should have consulted me first,” Wilmot said sharply. He stopped in the middle of the aisle and fixed Eberly with a severe gaze.

Eberly stopped too, and glanced at the factory manager, who pretended not to hear as he kept on walking slowly along the row of humming vats.

“But, Professor,” Eberly said placatingly, “I sent you a memorandum. When you didn’t reply, I naturally assumed you approved of our taking Dr. Cardenas aboard.”

“You should have come to me in person to discuss it,” Wilmot said. “That’s what I expected.”

“You placed me in charge of human resources matters. I assumed you would be elated to have Dr. Cardenas with us.”

“You assume too much.”

The factory manager, a bland-looking technician in a long pale blue lab coat, cleared his throat and said, “Urn, the rest of the processors are pretty much just like these here. We can program them to produce any of the medications required out of the raw materials coming in from the chem labs.”

“Thank you,” said Wilmot, dismissing the man with a wave of his beefy hand.

The manager scurried away, leaving Eberly alone with the professor. As far as Eberly could tell, the manager was the only human on the factory’s staff.

He looked up at Wilmot. The professor was much taller than Eberly, big-boned. He looked decidedly displeased.

“You don’t approve of allowing Dr. Cardenas to join us?” Eberly asked in what he hoped was a properly obsequious whine.

Wilmot opened his mouth, shut it again, and fingered his moustache momentarily before replying, “I’m not certain that I would have approved her application, no.”

“But she is here,” Eberly said. “She arrived from Ceres yesterday morning.”

“I know. You exceeded your authority by inviting her, Dr. Eberly.”

“But I didn’t invite her! She asked for permission to join us.”

“Even so, you should have brought the matter to me. Immediately. I am the one in charge here, and I have to justify every decision I make to the university consortium board back on Earth.”

“I know, but—”

“You know, but you bypassed the rules of procedure,” Wilmot hissed. “You acted on your own authority.”

“I thought you would be pleased,” Eberly bleated.

“This habitat must run on established procedures,” Wilmot said, his voice as low as Eberly’s but much stronger. “We cannot have anarchy here! There is a set of regulations that was drawn up by the best minds the consortium could tap. We will follow those regulations until we arrive at Saturn and the people select the form of government they desire. Is that clear?”

“Yes, sir. Perfectly clear.”

Wilmot drew in a deep breath. Then, somewhat more softly, he went on, “Once we’ve achieved orbit around Saturn the people can draw up a constitution for themselves and elect officers and all that. Form their own government. But while we are in transit we will follow the regulations set down by the consortium. No one will deviate from those regulations. No one!”

“I thought you would be happy to have Dr. Cardenas.”

Wilmot fiddled with his moustache again. “Nanotechnology,” he muttered. “Serious stuff, that.”

Eberly realized that the professor was not angry. He was worried, perhaps frightened. A weight lifted from Eberly’s shoulders; he had to consciously keep himself from smiling.

“Ah, yes,” he said, in a hushed tone. “Nanotechnology. In a closed environment such as ours…” He let the thought peter out in mid-sentence.

Wilmot resumed walking along the nearly silent processors. “I realize that nanomachines can be of enormous help to us. And I know that Dr. Cardenas is the leading expert in the field. Still…”

Thinking quickly, Eberly suggested, “If you don’t want her here, I can order her back to Ceres.”

Wilmot looked shocked. “Throw her out? We can’t do that! We’ve already accepted her. You did, rather, but you did it in the name of our community and we can’t go back on our word.”

“No, I suppose not,” Eberly agreed meekly.

Wilmot paced on, determined to get to the end of the row of processors, even though each one looked alike and there was no longer anyone with them to explain anything.

Matching the professor’s long-legged strides as best as he could, Eberly said, “I suppose we could order her not to engage in any nanotechnology work. She served as a medical caregiver in Ceres, I understand.”

The professor glared down at Eberly. “We can’t do that! She’s a bloody Nobel laureate, for the lord’s sake! We can’t have her dispensing pills.”

“But nanotechnology has its dangers—”

“And its advantages. We’ll have to supervise her work very closely. I want foolproof safeguards around her laboratory. Absolutely foolproof!”

“Yes, of course,” Eberly replied, thinking, The only fool here is you, Professor. You’re the one who’s frightened of nanotechnology, yet you will allow it here in the habitat because you’re too unbelievably polite to send Cardenas back to Ceres.

It was all he could do to keep from laughing in the professor’s face.

Instead, he shifted the subject. “Sir, have you had a chance to study the proposal for naming the various parts of the habitat?”

“This silly contest thing?” Wilmot snapped.

“A series of contests, yes. The psychologists believe it will be beneficial to the general mental health—”

“The psychologists actually endorse the idea?”

Realizing that Wilmot had no more than skimmed the proposal, at best, Eberly went on, “The political scientists we consulted with back on Earth believe such contests can help to strengthen group solidarity.”

“Hmph,” muttered Wilmot. “I daresay.”

“All the proposal needs is your approval, sir,” Eberly urged subtly. “Then you can announce it to the general population.”

“No, no,” said the professor. “You make the announcement. It’s your idea, after all.”

“Me?” Eberly asked as innocently as he could.

“Yes, of course. I can’t be bothered with it. You announce the contests. Damned silly business, if you ask me, but if all those consultants endorse it, I won’t stand in your way.”

Eberly could barely contain his elation. He wanted to leap into the air and give an exultant whoop. Instead he meekly paced along the row of processors beside Professor Wilmot, thinking to himself, He chastised me about Cardenas, so he felt he had to placate me about the contests. How wonderfully predictable he is.

“I haven’t walked this much in years,” Kris Cardenas said, puffing slightly. “I feel kind of light-headed.”

Holly smiled. “It’s the gravity. We’ve climbed closer to the midline; the g force gets lighter.”

They had left Don Diego at the irrigation canal and walked through the plowed farmlands, then climbed the grassy hills down at the endcap of the habitat. Cardenas sat on the grass, her back propped against a young elm tree. One of the habitat’s ecologists had made a personal crusade of trying to save the elm from the extinction it faced on Earth.

Cardenas huffed out a breath. “Whew! I’m glad I spent all those hours in the centrifuge at Ceres. Mini-g can be seductive.”

“You’re in good shape,” Holly said, sitting beside her.

“So are you.”

The habitat stretched out before them, a green inside-out world, like a huge tunnel that had been landscaped and dotted with tiny toy villages here and there.

“What did you think of that crazy old man?” Holly asked.

Cardenas looked out at the landscaped perfection of the habitat: everything in its place, everything neat and tidy and somehow almost inhuman. It reminded her of store window displays from her childhood.

“I think we could use a few more crazies like him,” she said.

“Maybe so,” Holly half-agreed.

They sat in silence for a few moments, each absorbed in her own thoughts.

“I read your bio,” Holly said at last. “I expected you to look a lot older than you do.”

Cardenas didn’t flinch, exactly, but she gave Holly a quick sidelong glance. “If you’ve read my bio then you know why I look younger than my years. And why I was living at Ceres.”

Ignoring the tension in her voice, Holly asked, “How old do you think I am?”

Within ten minutes they were fast friends: two women whose bodies were far younger than their ages.

INFIRMARY

The man lay wheezing on the gurney, his eyes swollen nearly shut.

The young doctor looked perplexed. “What’s the matter with him?”

“I don’t know!” said the woman who had brought him in. She was close to hysteria. “We were walking out in the park and all of a sudden he collapsed!”

Leaning over the patient, the doctor asked, “Do you know what happened to you?”

The man tried to speak, coughed painfully, then shook his head negatively.

Glancing up at the monitors that lined the wall of the emergency cubicle, the doctor saw that it couldn’t be a heart attack or a stroke. He felt a surge of panic: not even the diagnostic computer could figure out what was wrong! The male nurse standing on the other side of the gurney looked just as puzzled and scared as he felt.

The head nurse pushed past the woman and into the cubicle. “Take his shirt off,” she said.

The doctor was too confused and upset to argue about who gave orders to whom. Besides, if the gossip around the infirmary was anywhere near the truth, this tough Afro-American had put in plenty of years with the Peacekeeping troops. She had a reputation that scared him.

With the male nurse helping, they pulled the man’s shirt off. The patient’s chest and arms were lumpy with red welts. His skin felt hot.

“Hives?” the doctor asked.

The nurse turned to the woman, staring wide-eyed at them, hands clenched before her face.

“Walkin’ in the park?” she asked.

The woman nodded.

“Anaphylactic shock,” the nurse said flatly. “Epinephrine.”

The doctor gaped at her. “How could he—”

“Epinephrine! Now! He was stung by a fuckin’ bee!”

The doctor barked to the male nurse, “Epinephrine! Now!”

The head nurse pulled a magnifying lens out of its slot on the cubicle wall and extended its folding arm across the patient’s body. The doctor accepted the hint and took the lens in one hand. Within seconds he found the barb of the bee’s stinger imbedded in the patient’s left forearm, just above the wrist. With a tweezers he gently pulled the stinger out, rather deftly, he thought.

When he looked up the head nurse had gone and the patient was already breathing more easily.

“I never saw a bee sting before,” he admitted to the woman, who also looked much better now. “I interned in Chicago, downtown.”

The woman nodded and even managed to smile. “He must be allergic.”

“Must be,” the doctor agreed.

The male nurse unclipped the patient’s ID badge from the shirt they had dropped to the floor and slid it into the computer terminal. The man’s name, occupation, and complete medical history came up on the display. No mention of allergies, although he did have a history of bronchial asthma. The doctor noted that the patient had grown up in Cairo and had been a lawyer before running into trouble with the Sword of Islam and accepting permanent exile instead of a fifty-year prison term for political agitation. Aboard the habitat he worked in the accounting office.

“A lawyer?” the male nurse grumbled after the patient had recovered enough to walk home with his girlfriend. “Shoulda let him croak.”

DEPARTURE PLUS 269 DAYS

The next morning when Holly arrived at her cubbyhole office, there was a message on her desktop screen from Eberly. Without even sitting at her desk, she went straight to his office.

The door was open; he was already at his desk, deep in discussion with a young Asian couple. She hesitated. Eberly glanced up at her and nodded briefly, so she stayed in the doorway and listened.

“We understand the regulations and the reasoning behind them,” the young man was saying, in California English. Holly saw that he was tense, sitting stiffly on the front five centimeters of the chair.

“It’s my fault,” said the woman, leaning forward and gripping the edge of Eberly’s desk with both hands. “The protection I used was not sufficient.”

Eberly leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers. “The rules are quite specific,” he said gently. “Your only choice is an abortion.”

The man’s face crumpled. “But… it’s only this one case. Can’t an exception be made?”

“If an exception is made for you,” Eberly said, “others will expect the same consideration, won’t they?”

“Yes. I see.”

Eberly spread his hands in a gesture of helplessness. “We live in a limited ecology. We’re not allowed to expand our population. Not until we arrive at Saturn and prove that we can sustain larger numbers will anyone be allowed to have children.”

“I must have an abortion, then?” the woman asked, her voice shaking.

“Or we could put you off when we refuel at Jupiter and you could return to Earth.”

The young man shook his head slowly. “We can’t afford the transport fare. Everything we had was invested in this habitat.”

Eberly asked, “Do you have religious inhibitions against abortion?”

“No,” the man answered, so quickly that it made Holly wonder.

“Is there no other way?” the woman asked, almost begged.

Eberly steepled his fingers again and tapped them against his chin. The young couple strained forward unconsciously, waiting for a word of hope.

“Perhaps…”

“Yes?” they said in unison.

“Perhaps the fertilized zygote could be removed and frozen — kept in storage until it’s decided that we can expand our population.”

Frozen!Holly shuddered at the idea. Yet it had saved her life. No, she thought. It had allowed her to begin a new life after her old one ended in death.

“Then the zygote can be reimplanted in your womb,” Eberly was saying. “You’ll have a perfectly normal baby; you’ll simply have to wait a year or two.”

He smiled brightly at them. They looked at each other, then back to him.

“This can be done?” the young man asked.

“It would require special permission,” said Eberly, “but I can take care of that for you.”

“Would you?”

He hesitated just a fraction of a second, then smiled again and answered, “Yes. Of course. I’ll handle it for you.”

They were unendingly grateful. It took a full ten minutes of handshaking and bowing before Eberly could usher them out of his office. They did not even notice Holly standing by the doorway as they left, still bowing their thanks.

“That was wonderful of you, Malcolm,” Holly said as she went to the chair that the woman had been sitting in.

“Population control,” he muttered as he stepped behind his desk and sat down. “I made certain that the human resources department got that responsibility. The ecologists wanted it, but I wrangled it away from them.”

Holly nodded.

Pointing to the still-open doorway with a grin, Eberly said, “There’s a couple who will be loyal to me forever. Or until their child becomes a teenager.”

Holly did not see any humor in that. “You wanted to see me?” she said.

“Yes,” he said as he snapped his fingers, the signal for his computer to boot up.

Holly waited in silence as the image formed above Eberly’s desk. It was a list of some sort. It was facing him, so to her the hologram was turned backwards, inverted. She sat and waited while he studied the list. The office seemed small and bare and, somehow, cold.

At last he looked up from the image and gazed directly at her. Holly felt those laser blue eyes penetrate to her soul.

“There are going to be some changes in this office,” he said, without preamble, without asking how she was or noticing that she was wearing a plain sky blue tunic over her slacks, with no adornments other than her name badge, just as the dress code guidelines called for.

“Changes?”

“Yes,” Eberly said. “I won’t be able to continue directing the day-to-day operations of this office. I will be busy organizing the government of the habitat.”

“Government? But I thought—”

“Holly,” he said, leaning forward slightly in his desk chair, toward her. She leaned toward him, too. “Holly, we have ten thousand men and women here. They must have a voice in choosing the kind of government they want. And their leaders.”

Holly said, “You mean the government we’ll create once we get to Saturn.”

Eberly shook his head. “I don’t believe we should wait until we arrive in Saturn orbit. The people should decide on the government they want now. Why wait?”

“But I thought that as long as we’re in transit out to Saturn we have to—”

“We have to follow the protocols set down by the consortium,” Eberly finished for her.

“Yes,” Holly said.

“Why?” he demanded. “Why should we allow ourselves to be governed by rules written by a group of university graybeards who remained behind on Earth? What right do they have to force us to obey their rules?”

Holly thought a moment. “That’s what we agreed to, though.”

“It’s time to end that agreement. What difference does it make if we do it now or wait until we arrive at Saturn?”

She thought his question cut both ways. Why rush into this now?

“We should not allow arrogant old men to tell us what we can and cannot do,” Eberly said, with some heat. His face was reddening, Holly saw.

“Maybe not,” she agreed, half-heartedly.

“Of course not,” he said. “The people must decide for themselves.”

“I guess.”

“These contests you’re setting up to pick names for the villages and everything else, they are a part of my plan,” he confided.

That surprised her. “Your plan?”

“Yes. By themselves, the contests are little more than trivia, entertainment for the masses. But they serve a larger purpose.”

“I click,” Holly said. “Getting the people to vote in the contests will be like a sort of training exercise, right? It’ll prepare the people to vote for their government when the time comes.”

Eberly gave her the full radiance of his best smile. “You are extremely bright, Holly. Extremely bright.”

She could feel her cheeks grow warm.

But Eberly’s face grew somber. “There’s something else, though. Something lacking.”

“Lacking?”

With a preoccupied nod, Eberly muttered, “Some sort of goal, something that I can focus everyone’s attention on.” He looked into Holly’s eyes and said, “I need an aim, a lofty mission for these people, something to unite them behind me.”

“We already have a goal,” Holly reminded him. “We’re going to explore Saturn and its moons.”

Eberly made a disappointed grumble. “That’s a goal for the scientists. What about the rest of us?”

She shrugged. “There’s the rings. They’re pretty spectacular. Maybe we could make entertainment videos—” Suddenly Holly’s eyes flashed wide and her mouth dropped open.

“What is it?” Eberly asked.

“The rings,” she said. “They’re made of ice. Water ice.”

He frowned, uncomprehending.

“Water’s valuable, isn’t it? Miners in the Asteroid Belt get as much for water ice as they do for gold, don’t they? More, even.”

“Water ice,” Eberly murmured.

“The rings are made of it.”

“We could sell it, yes. We could be rich on it!”

“If Dr. Urbain gives permission to mine the rings.”

“Urbain,” Eberly growled. “That academic.”

“But he’s in charge—”

“Not once we get a new constitution in place.”

“Oh,” said Holly. “I click.”

Eberly raised a warning finger. “Not a word about this to anyone, Holly. I don’t want to get Urbain broiling before we’re ready for his resistance.”

“I’ll keep quieter than a tomb.”

“Good. We both have a lot of work ahead of us, Holly.”

She nodded.

“While you are running the contests,” he said, utterly serious, almost grim, “I must devote all my efforts to drawing up a constitution for the people.”

“So, if you’re going to be busy setting up this new constitution and everything, who’s going to run the office here?”

“You will.”

Holly gulped. “Me?”

He smiled at her surprise. “Of course you. Who else?”

“But I can’t be in charge,” she squeaked. “I’m just an assistant, a house mouse—”

Eberly’s smile widened. “Holly, haven’t you been my assistant? What better qualifications for the task can there be?”

She wanted to turn handsprings. “But… d’you think the prof will okay me being named director?”

His smile vanished. “Wilmot,” he muttered. “No, he would definitely not approve of someone as junior as you being named director. Him and his rigid regulations.”

Holly watched his face, waiting for a ray of hope.

“I want you to head this office, Holly,” he said. “You can do the work, I know you can.”

“I’d do my warping best.”

“Of course you will. But since I can’t officially name you director, I must place someone else in the acting director’s position. A figurehead. To placate Wilmot.”

“Figurehead? Who?”

“Ruth Morgenthau will fill the role nicely. She’s working in the administrative services office at present. I can transfer her here and Wilmot won’t blink an eye.”

Morgenthau, Holly thought. So that’s why he’s been spending so much time with her.

“She’s rather lazy, you know,” he said, grinning naughtily. “And rather vain. We’ll let her sit at this desk and stay out of your way. You will run the department.”

“She would do that?”

Nodding, he replied, “She’d leap at the chance. More prestige, less work. She’ll love it.”

“I click.” Holly tried to grin back at him, but it was forced.

He reached across the desk and lifted her chin so he could stare into her eyes. “It all depends on you, Holly. Will you take on this responsibility? Will you do this for me?”

Holly felt a rush of emotions surge through her: gratitude, loyalty, a longing to please Malcolm Eberly, a yearning to have him love her.

“Yes,” she said breathlessly. “I’ll do anything for you, Malcolm.”

He smiled dazzlingly. And thought, This ought to make Morgenthau happy: the trappings of authority, a whole department to lord it over. It should keep her busy enough to stay out of my way.

WHAT’S IN A NAME? BULLETIN

MEMORANDUM

THE FIRST RALLY

Although there were two full-service restaurants in the village, virtually everyone ate in the big, noisy cafeteria almost every day. The restaurants were small, intimate, run by harried entrepreneurs who obtained their foods directly from the people who ran the farms and the fish tanks. Just as the nutritionists of Selene had learned, aquaculture produced more protein per unit of input energy than barnyard meat animals could. Before leaving the Earth/Moon region, several farmers had suggested bringing rabbits or chickens aboard for their meat. Wilmot had sternly rejected the idea, citing horror stories from Australia of runaway rabbit overpopulation and the diseases that cooped-up birds caused.

So the habitat’s residents got their protein from fish, frogs, soy derivatives, and the processed products of the food factory, popularly known as “McGlop.” When they did not make their own meals in their quarters, they usually ate in the cafeteria.

The cafeteria was the biggest enclosed space in the habitat, and between meals it often served as a makeshift theater or auditorium. It was after the habitat had cleared the Asteroid Belt and started on the leg of its flight that would take it to Jupiter, that Eberly called a public meeting there.

The meeting was set for 22:00 hours, and there were still a few people finishing their dinners when Eberly’s team — including Holly — began to move all the tables and chairs to one side of the spacious room to clear the floor for the incoming audience.

Eberly stood frowning impatiently at the far end of the room, next to the little stage on which he planned to make his speech. He could see the cafeteria staff and its robots, across the way, cleaning their steam tables and display cases, rattling piles of dishes and glassware. He did not see a large crowd assembling.

Ruth Morgenthau scanned the thinly scattered audience. “All the people from my department are here,” she claimed.

“Not many others, though,” said Sammi Vyborg.

Colonel Kananga smiled thinly. “This is all being vidded. I’ll have the names and dossiers of everyone here.”

“It’s the names of those who are not here that I want,” Eberly growled.

“A simple matter of subtraction,” said Kananga. And he smiled as if amused by some inside joke.

Once the last of the diners had gotten up and their tables were shoved out of the way, Morgenthau climbed heavily the three steps of the speaker’s platform and spread her arms for silence. The muted buzz of the crowd’s many separate conversations slowly stopped and everyone turned toward her expectantly.

Holly had been positioned by the main door, which opened out into the village’s central green. Her duty, Eberly had told her, was to encourage anyone outside to come in, and to discourage anyone inside from leaving. He had given her two rather large, muscular young men from the security department to help her in the latter task. She felt disappointed that so few people had turned out for Eberly’s speech. There was no other public entertainment on the agenda for this evening; she had made certain of that before scheduling his appearance. With ten thousand people in the habitat, she had expected more than a couple of hundred to show up.

At least Dr. Cardenas had come in, giving Holly a cheerful hello as she strode through the open door. But where’s everybody else? Holly wondered.

Still, Morgenthau smiled jovially at the audience as if everyone this side of Calcutta had crowded the cafeteria floor. She thanked the people for coming and promised them an evening “of the greatest importance since we started this long journey into a bright and glorious future.”

Holly watched the faces of the onlookers. They appeared more curious than anything else; hardly fired with enthusiasm for a glorious future.

Then Eberly climbed up onto the stage and stepped to the podium. He nodded curtly to Morgenthau who, still smiling, stepped to the back of the stage.

Why doesn’t she get off the stage? Holly wondered. She’s distracting people’s attention from Malcolm.

For several long moments Eberly simply stood at the podium, gripping its sides, staring out at the audience in cold silence. The crowd begin to stir uneasily. Holly heard muttering.

At last Eberly began to speak. “Each of you has received an announcement of the series of contests to be held for the purpose of naming the villages and other features, both natural and architectural, of this habitat.”

“I didn’t get an announcement,” came a man’s low grumble from the audience. Kananga glared and pointed; two husky young black-clad men converged on the man.

Eberly smiled at the heckler, though. “The announcement is in your mail. Simply check your computer; it’s there, I promise you.”

The man looked startled by the two security officers now standing on each side of him in their black coveralls.

Eberly resumed, “This is your habitat. It is your right to choose the names you want for its natural and man-made features. Besides, these contests will be fun! You will enjoy them, I promise you.”

People glanced at each other and murmured. A few turned around and started walking toward the door.

“I’m not finished,” Eberly said.

The crowd paid scant attention. It began to break up. A woman raised her voice loudly enough for everyone to hear, “I don’t know about you, but I’ve got work to do tomorrow morning.” More people began drifting toward the door.

“Listen to me!” Eberly demanded, his voice suddenly deeper, stronger, more demanding. “You are the most important people in this habitat. Don’t turn your backs on your own future!”

Their muttering stopped. They turned back toward Eberly, every eye focused on him.

“The others,” Eberly said, in a voice more powerful than Holly had ever heard before, “those who are too lazy, or too timid, or too poorly informed to be here, will envy you in time. For you are the ones who are wise enough, strong enough, brave enough to begin to seize the future in your own hands. You understand that this is your habitat, your community, and it must be controlled by no one except yourselves.”

“Right!” someone shouted.

Holly was staring at Eberly, dimly aware that everyone in the crowd was doing the same now, listening, hearing that richly vibrant voice and the mesmerizing message it carried.

She jumped nearly out of her skin when someone tapped her on the shoulder.

“Hey, I didn’t mean to spook you.”

Holly saw a smiling, solidly built youngish man with a rugged bulldog face. Dark eyes and darker hair.

“What’s going on?” he asked in a stage whisper.

Holly gestured toward the stage and whispered back, “Dr. Eberly is giving a speech.”

“Eberly? Who’s he?”

She shook her head and touched a finger to her lips, then pantomimed for him to come into the cafeteria and listen. Still smiling, the man stepped past her, then stood at the rear of the crowd and crossed his beefy arms over his chest.

Eberly was saying, “Why should you be governed by rules made hundreds of millions of kilometers away, written by old men who know nothing of the conditions you face? What do they know of the problems you encounter every day? What do they care? It’s time for you to create your own government and choose your own leaders.”

Someone began clapping. The rest of the crowd took it up, applauding and even cheering out loud. Holly clapped along with the others, although she noticed that the newcomer kept his arms folded.

Soon Eberly had them roaring their approval with almost every sentence he spoke. The crowd became a single, unified creature: an animal with many heads and hands and bodies, but only one mind, and that mind was focused entirely on Eberly’s message.

“It’s up to you to build this new world,” he told them. “You will be the leaders of tomorrow.”

They applauded and stamped and whistled. Holly thought they would storm the platform and carry Eberly off on their shoulders.

The newcomer turned to her and shouted through the noisy accolade, “He knows how to turn ’em on, doesn’t he?”

“He’s wonderful!” Holly yelled back, hammering her hands together as loudly as she could.

Eberly smiled brilliantly and thanked the audience several times and finally stepped down from the platform, to be immediately surrounded by admiring people. The rest of the crowd began to break up and drift outside.

The newcomer asked Holly, “Am I too late to get something to eat?”

“The cafeteria’s closed until tomorrow morning,” Holly said. Gesturing toward the food dispensers, she added, “You can get something from the machines.”

He wrinkled his pug nose. “Stale sandwiches and sodas that make you belch.”

Holly giggled. “Well, there are the restaurants. They stay open till midnight, I’m pretty sure.”

“Yeah,” he said, “I guess that’s it.”

The last of the crowd was leaving, little knots of two or three, talking about Eberly’s speech.

Kris Cardenas stopped beside Holly. “I’m going over to the Bistro for some dessert. Would you like to join me?”

The newcomer said, “Why don’t the two of you join me?

Holly glanced at Cardenas. She knew the man’s face, but she couldn’t recall his name or occupation.

Sensing her puzzlement, he said, “My name is Manuel Gaeta. I’m not part of your regular population here, I’m -

“You’re the stuntman,” Holly blurted, remembering now.

Gaeta smiled, almost shyly. “My publicity people say I’m an adventure specialist.’”

“You’re the one who wants to go down to the surface of Titan.

He nodded. “If Professor Wilmot lets me do it.”

“Why on Earth would anyone want to go to the surface of Titan?”

Cardenas asked.

Gaeta grinned at her. “Because it’s there. And nobody’s done it before.”

With that, he took each of the women by the arm and started off for the Bistro, halfway across the village.

PROFESSOR WILMOT’S QUARTERS

James Colerane Wilmot followed a comfortable routine almost every night. A lifelong bachelor, he usually had an early dinner with friends or colleagues, then retired to his quarters for an hour or two of watching history and a glass of whisky, neat.

He had known that Eberly intended to make a speech of some sort that evening, but had not let the knowledge interfere with his nightly custom. Eberly ran the Human Resources Department well enough, Wilmot thought, which meant that no one brought complaints about the department to Wilmot’s attention. He exceeded his authority by allowing that nanotechnology woman to join the community without Wilmot’s approval, but that could be handled easily enough. If the man wants to make a speech, what of it?

He felt a bit rankled, therefore, when his phone chimed in the middle of one of his favorite vids, Secrets of the Star Chamber. He checked the phone’s screen and saw that it was a minor assistant calling. With an irritated huff, Wilmot blanked the holographic image and opened the phone channel.

Bernard Isaacs’s face appeared in midair: round, apple-cheeked, tightly curled hair. He seemed flushed with excitement, or perhaps worry.

“Did you hear his speech?” Isaacs asked urgently.

“Whose speech? Do you mean Eberly and his silly contests?”

“It’s more than contests. He wants to tear up the protocols and write a new constitution, form a new government!”

Wilmot nodded, wondering what the problem was. “When we reach Saturn, yes, I know. That’s in our plan of—”

“No!” Isaacs interrupted. “Now! He’s telling them they should do it now.”

“Telling who?”

“Anyone who will listen!”

“Can’t be done,” Wilmot said, completely calm. “Everyone signed the agreement to stick by our protocols until we establish the habitat safely in Saturn orbit.”

“But he wants to do it now!” Isaacs repeated, his voice rising half an octave.

Wilmot raised a hand. “That’s not possible and he knows it.”

“But—”

“I’ll have a talk with him. See what he’s after. Possibly you misunderstood his intention.”

Isaacs’s round jaw set stubbornly. “I’ll send you a vid of his speech. You can see for yourself what he’s up to.”

“Do that,” Wilmot said. “Thank you very much for informing me.”

He clicked the phone connection off, noting that the redrecording light immediately lit up. Isaacs was sending Eberly’s speech. Wilmot’s brows knitted slightly. Isaacs isn’t the excitable type; at least he hasn’t been until now. I wonder what’s got the wind up in him?

Wilmot resolved to review Eberly’s speech. But not until he finished the vid on Henry VIII’s means of extracting confessions from his subjects.

Two hours later, after watching Eberly’s speech several times and helping himself to another healthy-sized whisky, Wilmot sat back in his favorite easy chair with an odd little smile playing across his lips.

So it’s finally begun, he said to himself. The experiment begins to get interesting. At first I was afraid they would all be anarchists, troublemakers, but so far they’ve behaved rather well, damned little sign of rebelliousness or mischief. Probably they’re all getting themselves accustomed to their new world, adapting to life in the habitat. Most of them have never had it so good, I suppose. But this man Eberly wants to rouse them a bit. Very good.

Fascinating. Eberly puts out this silly damned dress code, and no one complains. They either ignore it, or they decorate their clothes with scarves and sashes. These people aren’t going to be led around by their noses, that’s clear enough.

But Eberly wants to control them, apparently. I wonder what ticked him off? Most likely it was that little dressing down I gave him about the Cardenas woman. Instead of submitting to authority or sulking, he takes political action. Fascinating. Now the question is, what will the general population do? He only got a handful of people to listen to him, but by the start of the workday tomorrow the entire habitat will know of his speech. How will they react?

More importantly, he thought, how should I react? Move to thwart him? Cooperate with him?

Wilmot shook his head. Neither, he decided. I must not insert my own prejudices into this experiment. It won’t be easy to stay out of it, though. I can’t simply disappear; I have a role to play. But I mustn’t let it interfere with their behaviors.

Of course, he thought, none of them knows the real purpose of this mission. No one even guesses that it exists. And I must keep it that way. If anyone got the slightest hint of it, that would skew the experiment terribly. I’ll have to be very careful in phrasing my report back to Atlanta. It wouldn’t do to have some snoop in the communications department find out what’s really going on here.

He got up from his chair, surprised at how stiff he felt, and headed for his bedroom. I’ll play it strictly by the book, he decided. The agreed-upon protocols will be followed at all times. That should offer enough resistance to Eberly to force his next move. I wonder what it will be?

Eberly finally got rid of his admirers and made his way to his own quarters, flanked only by Morgenthau, Vyborg, and Kananga.

Once inside his spartan apartment, he said excitedly, “They loved me! Did you see the way they reacted to me? I had them in the palm of my hand!”

“It was brilliant,” said Vyborg quickly.

Morgenthau was less enthusiastic. “It was a good beginning, but only a beginning.”

“What do you mean?” Eberly asked, disappointment showing clearly on his face.

Morgenthau sat heavily on the room’s only couch. “It wasn’t much of a crowd. Fewer than three hundred.”

Vyborg immediately agreed. “Less than three percent of the total population.”

“But they were with me,” Eberly said. “I could feel it.”

Looking up at him, Morgenthau said, “Three percent might not be all that bad.”

“What about the other ninety-seven percent?” Kananga asked.

She shrugged. “It’s as Malcolm said in his speech. They’re too lazy, too indifferent to care. If we can capture and hold an active minority, we can lead the majority around by its collective nose.”

“What will Wilmot’s reaction be?” Vyborg asked.

“We’ll know soon enough,” said Eberly.

A crafty expression came over Morgenthau’s fleshy face. “Suppose he simply ignores us?”

“That’s impossible,” Vyborg snapped. “We’ve made a direct challenge to his authority.”

“But suppose he feels so secure in his authority that he simply ignores us?” Morgenthau insisted.

Eberly said, “Then we will raise the stakes until it’s impossible for him to ignore me.” He smacked his fist into the open palm of his other hand.

Kananga said nothing, but a wisp of a smile curled his lips slightly.

Holly, Cardenas, and Manuel Gaeta were the last customers in the Bistro. The human hostess had gone home, leaving only the simple-minded robots to stand impassively by the kitchen door, waiting for the people to leave so they could clean the last remaining table and the floor around it.

“…your basic problem is contamination?” Cardenas was asking the stuntman.

Gaeta glanced at the dessert tray the hostess had left on their table: nothing but crumbs. They had finished the coffee long ago.

“Contamination, right,” Gaeta said, suppressing a yawn. “Wilmot and the geek boys are scared I’ll hurt the bugs down there on the surface.”

“That’s an important consideration,” Holly said.

“Yeah, right.”

Cardenas said, “I can solve your problem, I’m pretty sure.”

Gaeta’s eyes widened. “How?”

“I could program nanomachines to break down any residues of perspiration or whatever organic materials you leave on the outside of your suit. They’ll clean it up for you, break down the organics into carbon dioxide and water vapor. No sweat.”

“Literally!” Holly accented the pun.

Gaeta did not smile. “These nanomachines… they the type that’re called gobblers?”

“Some people call them that, yes,” Cardenas replied, stiffly.

“They can kill you, can’t they?”

Holly swiveled her attention from Gaeta’s swarthy, wary face to Cardenas, who was suddenly tight-lipped.

For a long moment Cardenas did not reply. At last she said, “Gobblers can be programmed to attack proteins, yes. Or any carbon-chain organics.”

“That’s pretty risky, then, isn’t it?” he asked.

Holly saw that Cardenas was struggling to keep her voice calm. “Once you’re sealed inside the suit, the nanobugs can be sprayed over its outer surface. We can calculate how long it would take them to destroy any organics on the suit. Double or triple that time, then we douse the whole assembly in soft UV. That will deactivate the nanobugs.”

“Deactivate?” Gaeta asked. “You mean, like, kill them?”

“They’re machines, Manny,” she said. “They’re not alive. You can’t kill them.”

“But would they come back later and start chewing on organics again?”

“No, we’ll wash them all off. And once they’re deactivated, they don’t revive. It’s like breaking a motor or a child’s toy. The pieces don’t come back together again spontaneously.”

Gaeta nodded. But Holly thought he didn’t look convinced.

THE MORNING AFTER

“What did you think of his speech last night?”

Ilya Timoshenko looked up from his console in Goddard’s navigation and control pod. There was very little actual work for them to do; the habitat was sailing through the solar system on a course that Isaac Newton could have calculated to a fine accuracy. The fusion engines were purring along smoothly, miniature man-made suns converting hydrogen ions into helium and driving the habitat along on the energy released. Bored as usual with the utterly routine nature of his duty shift, Timoshenko had been daydreaming about the possibilities of designing a fusion engine that converted helium into carbon and oxygen. After all, that’s what the stars do when they run low on hydrogen; they burn the helium they’ve accumulated. The carbon and oxygen from helium fusion would be valuable resources in themselves, he realized.

But Farabi, the pipsqueak navigator, wants to get me involved in politics, Timoshenko thought sourly.

“What speech?” he muttered. The two men were alone on the bridge. Captain Nicholson had decided that there should be two of them in the control center at all times, despite the fact that the computer actually ran everything. We humans are redundant here, Timoshenko often told himself. Yet the captain insisted, and her three underlings obeyed.

“Eberly’s speech,” Farabi said. “Last night in the cafeteria. I thought I saw you there.”

“Not me,” said Timoshenko. “You must have seen somebody else and thought it was me.”

“It was you. I saw you.”

Timoshenko glared at the man. Farabi claimed that he was an Arab from one of those desert lands that had once supplied the world with oil. He was small and wiry, his skin nut brown, his nose decidedly hooked. Timoshenko thought he was more likely a Jew from the ruins of Israel hiding from the real Arabs. Timoshenko himself was as Russian as can be, only slightly taller than Farabi, but thick-bodied, muscular, with a heavy thatch of unruly auburn hair.

It was politics that had gotten him exiled to this newfangled Siberia. His career in engineering, his coming marriage, his family ties that went all the way back to Heroes of the Soviet Union — all wiped out because he couldn’t keep his mouth shut once he started drinking. So they set him up with this woman who accused him of rape and now he was on his way to Saturn, courtesy of the government and those pissant psalm-singers who ran it.

“I wasn’t there,” he insisted, even though it was a lie. “I have no interest in politics.”

Farabi gave him a disbelieving look. “Have it your own way, then,” he said softly.

Timoshenko focused his attention on the glowing icons spread across the top of his console. Why can’t people behave as predictably as machines? he asked himself. Why can’t people just do their jobs and leave me alone?

“I just thought,” said Farabi, sitting at the next console, “that Eberly raised some good points. We should get involved in the management of the habitat. After all, it’s our home, isn’t it?”

Wiping sweat from his forehead, Timoshenko bit back the reply that sprang to his lips. He wanted to say, This isn’t a home, it’s a prison. No matter how comfortable it is, it’s a prison and I’m going to be locked inside it for the rest of my life, while you’ll be free to go back to Earth after we reach Saturn.

Instead, he said only, “I have no interest in politics.”

“Maybe you should become interested.”

“Politicians.” He spat the word. “They’re all alike. They want to be the boss and make you jump to their tune. I want nothing to do with them.”

Nadia Wunderly was one of the few people in the habitat who had followed Eberly’s suggestion and changed her name. Her parents, staid New Hampshire dairy farmers, had christened her Jane, but she had always thought the name was too ordinary to suit the adventure in her soul. All through her school years she had been plagued with the “Plain Jane” tag; she hated it, even though she had to admit when she looked into a mirror that she was indeed rather plain: her figure tended toward the rotund unless she exercised mercilessly and dieted like a penitent monk; her face was also round, although she thought her big gray eyes were attractive. Owl eyes, she thought, remembering that the goddess Athena was owl-eyed, too.

Wunderly was always trying new hairdos; nothing seemed to help her straight, mouse-brown hair. When she came aboard the habitat as part of the science team, she immediately dyed her hair brick red, gave herself the goal of losing ten kilos by the time they reached Saturn, and changed her name to the smoky, exotic-sounding Nadia.

As she watched the morning news vid replay of Eberly’s speech, she wondered what the man was driving at. We have a government, don’t we? she asked herself while spooning up her breakfast cereal and soy milk. And we all know why we’re going to Saturn: to study the planet and its moons and life forms and most of all its rings. Those glorious, beautiful rings. This is a science mission. Doesn’t Eberly understand that?

She dressed in the approved tunic and slacks and took one of the electrobikes standing in the racks at the entrance of her apartment building. Running late, she realized, so she let the bike’s quiet little electric motor speed her along the winding path to the science offices up at the top of the hill. I’ll pedal home, she told herself, all the way. That’ll recharge the battery and burn off some calories.

Nadia said hello to everyone she passed as she hurried through the corridors to her workspace, which was nothing more than a cubicle barely large enough to house a desk, chair, and some filing shelves. She saw Dr. Urbain hurrying by; he passed too quickly for her to catch his eye. Later, she thought. After I’ve finished the proposal and it’s ready to show to him.

She started working on the proposal. Urbain demanded a fully documented plan of research from each scientist on the staff. All the others were avid to study Titan and the organisms living there. They were competing with one another like grad students trying to finagle a fellowship. Which was fine, as far as Nadia was concerned. She was interested in those blessed rings. And she had them all to herself. The rest of the staff were all slobbering over Titan, leaving the rings to her alone.

I can’t miss, Nadia thought. I’m the only one. I’ve got them all to myself.

She pulled up the latest telescopic views of the rings and soon became completely engrossed in watching their mysterious, tantalizing dynamics. How can they weave those strands? she asked herself. What makes those spokes appear and disappear like that?

Above all, why does Saturn have such a glorious set of rings, in the first place? They can’t be very old, their particles will fall into the planet in a matter of a few million years. How come they’re sitting out there for us to see? How come we’re so lucky? How come Jupiter and the other gas giants have teeny little dark rings that you can hardly see, while Saturn has this gorgeous set hanging around it? What makes Saturn so special?

Hours went by as she watched the rings in their convoluted, hypnotic ballet. She forgot about the other scientists competing for Urbain’s favor. She forgot about the proposal she needed to finish. She forgot about Eberly and his speech and everything in her endless fascination with Saturn’s glowing, beckoning rings.

Oswaldo Yañez could think of nothing except Eberly’s speech. He buttonholed other doctors in the infirmary, he stopped nurses on their rounds to ask their opinions, he chattered about the speech with each of the patients he saw that morning.

As he tapped the chest of a construction mechanic who came in complaining of a strained back, Yañez spoke glowingly of Eberly’s ideas.

“The man is absolutely right,” he insisted. “He’s a genius. It takes real genius to cut through all the details and get to the heart of the situation.”

His patient, wincing slightly as he sat up on the edge of the examination table, replied, “Just gimme a shot, Doc, and let me get back to work.”

All through the morning Yañez prattled on in his animated, rapid Spanish-accented English to anyone and everyone who came within earshot. He was a round little man with a round, cheerful leprechaun’s face that was very animated, especially when he was as excited about a subject as he was about Eberly’s speech.

Yañez was not a political exile, nor a rebel, nor a convicted criminal. He was an idealist. He had run afoul of the medical orthodoxy of Buenos Aires because he believed that their ban against therapeutic cloning was based on outmoded religious beliefs rather than the clear evidence of medical gain to be had by regenerating tissues damaged by disease or trauma. The medical board had given him his choice: he could go on the Saturn mission or he could remain in Buenos Aires and be stripped of his license to practice medicine. Yañez made up his mind immediately: a new, clean world was preferable to the slow death of the spirit that would inevitably destroy him if he remained. He asked only that his wife be allowed to accompany him. She was quite surprised when he broke the news to her.

Now he was exhilarated by Eberly’s bold words. “We should take charge of this habitat,” he repeated all day long. “We should form our own government and build this new world the way it should be built. And Eberly is clearly the man to lead us.”

DEPARTURE PLUS 284 DAYS

Professor Wilmot leaned back in his desk chair, enjoying the familiar comfort of the padded leather upholstery. The holowindow to his left showed a three-dimensional view of the rocky coast where the River Bann empties into the cold and restless North Channel. It was like looking through a window in the old family estate. Strange, he thought, the only time I miss the old country is when I look at scenes like this. Distance lends enchantment, I suppose.

The phone buzzed and announced, “Dr. Eberly to see you, sir.” Wilmot sighed heavily and blanked the view of his ancestral homeland. Back to the business at hand, he told himself as he ordered the office computer to open the door from the anteroom.

Malcolm Eberly stepped in, with one of his young assistants, a leggy, tawny-skinned young woman wearing a hip-length tunic of pale green that showed her slim legs to good advantage. No decorations of any kind, except her name badge. She’s being an obedient little underling for him. Wilmot almost smiled. If you think you can distract me with her, my boy, you have another thing coming.

Wilmot smiled genially and said, “Come in! Sit down. It was good of you to come on such a short notice.”

Eberly was in a sky-blue tunic and blue-gray slacks. The shoulders looked padded to Wilmot’s critical eye.

“When the chief administrator calls,” Eberly said good-naturedly, “it’s best to come at once.”

Nodding graciously, Wilmot said, “It’s good to see you again, Miss Lane.”

She looked surprised for a moment, then smiled, pleased that the chief administrator remembered her name, forgetting that it was spelled out on the tag above her left breast.

“I saw the speech you made last night,” Wilmot said to Eberly. “Very impressive.”

Eberly clasped his hands together as if praying. “I’m pleased that you think so.”

“You realize, of course, that we will not be able to make any changes in our governing regulations until we establish ourselves in Saturn orbit.”

With a slight shake of his head, Eberly said, “I see no reason to delay.”

“Obviously,” said Wilmot. “But the regulations are in force and we all agreed to follow them.” Before Eberly could reply, Wilmot asked, “Tell me, why are you in such a rush to change things? Are there problems that I’m not aware of?”

Eberly pursed his lips and tapped his prayerful fingertips against them. Stalling for time to think, Wilmot reckoned.

At last, Eberly answered, “The regulations are too stifling. They allow the people no flexibility. They were written by administrators and academics—”

“Like myself,” Wilmot interjected, with a good-natured smile.

“I was going to say, administrators and academics who remained back on Earth; political theoreticians who’ve never been off the Earth. Nor ever plan to be.”

Wilmot edged forward in his chair and glanced at the young woman. “Miss Lane, do you feel that our existing protocols are stifling you?”

Her eyes went wide, startled, then she looked at Eberly.

“Miss Lane?” Wilmot repeated. “Are we stifling you?”

“I’ve never been on Earth,” Holly replied slowly, hesitantly. “At least, I don’t remember my life there. As far as I can recall, I’ve spent my whole life in Selene. And now here in the habitat, of course. Living in Selene was…” she struggled briefly for a word, “well, easier, in some ways. I mean, if you ran into a problem you could always go to one of the governing boards and appeal. Like, for your monthly water allotment, or to increase the size of your quarters.”

“And we have no such boards of appeals here,” Wilmot said softly.

“No, we don’t,” Holly replied. “Everything’s set in cement. There are the rules and nothing else. End of story.”

Wilmot brushed his fingertips against his moustache thoughtfully.

“The real problem,” Eberly burst out, “is that these regulations were written by people who live in a world that must be tightly controlled. They all share the same basic, underlying view that society must be hierarchical and controlled from the top.”

Wilmot felt pleased that the discussion was moving into his field of interest. “Aren’t all societies controlled from the top? Even the so-called democracies are ruled by a small elite group; the only difference is that a democracy can shift its elite without bloodshed and give the general populace the illusion that they have made a telling change.”

“There are too many controls,” Eberly repeated. “Back on Earth, with a global population climbing well past ten billions despite the greenhouse warming and all the other ecological disasters, tight control is very necessary. But this is not Earth.”

Wilmot pretended surprise. “Don’t you believe that we must regulate our population size? Don’t you understand the need to mete out our resources according to our ability to replenish them? We live in a very limited environment, you know.”

Obviously struggling to contain his impatience, Eberly said, “This habitat could feed and house ten times the existing population. Why must we behave as if we are on the brink of famine?”

“Because we will be on the brink of famine if we don’t control population size,” Wilmot replied mildly.

Eberly shook his head vigorously. “You assume that we are a closed ecology, that we have nothing available to us except what we produce for ourselves.”

“Isn’t that the truth?” Wilmot shot back.

“No! We can trade for resources with the asteroid miners, with the bases on Mars and in Jupiter orbit, with Selene, even.”

“Trade what?” Wilmot asked. “What do we have to trade with?”

Eberly smiled as if he were turning over his trump card. “We will have the most precious resource of them all: water.”

Wilmot felt his brows go up. “Water?”

“Saturn is surrounded by massive rings, which are composed of pieces of ice. Water ice. We can become the providers of water for the entire solar system once we reach Saturn.”

“Water,” Wilmot repeated, in a near whisper.

“Water,” Eberly said again. “And fusion fuels, too. Once we are in Saturn orbit, it will be cheaper for us to scoop fusion fuels from the planet’s atmosphere than it is to scoop them from Jupiter.”

“But we’ll be twice as far from Earth—”

“I’ve had experts do the analysis,” Eberly said, almost smugly. “You can check the numbers yourself. Once we are in Saturn orbit we can drive the Jupiter operation out of business!”

“Extraordinary,” Wilmot murmured, looking up at the ceiling panels, thinking furiously. “Even if that is a workable proposition,” he said, “it will have to wait until we are at Saturn, won’t it?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Then there is no point in trying to alter our system of governance until then, is there?”

Eberly placed his hands on his thighs and said very reasonably, “The people should be ready to launch into action as soon as we reach Saturn. Why should they delay? They should be free to select the form of government they want, the form that will work best for them, now, while we are in transit, so that the new government can be in place when we get to our destination.”

With you at its head, Wilmot added silently. That’s what you’re after, isn’t it? This is nothing more than a power game. Fascinating.

Aloud, he said to Eberly, “Perhaps there is some merit in your idea.”

Holly blurted, “You think so?”

Wilmot smiled at her and said, “Why don’t we agree on this: You can start the process of writing a new constitution. Canvass the population and determine what kind of a government they want for themselves. Begin the process immediately.”

“We’ll have to poll the people, draw up various types of constitutions, nominate candidates—”

“Yes, yes,” Wilmot said. “Do all that while you’re carrying out your little contests about naming things. But there will be no change in our governing regulations until we are firmly established in orbit about Saturn. Is that clear? You can spend the time left in transit to form your new government, but it will not be installed in office until we are at our destination.”

Eberly thought a moment, eyes cast downward, then looked squarely at Wilmot and said, “Yes, I can agree to that.”

“Good,” said Wilmot, getting to his feet and extending his hand across the desk. “We are agreed, then.”

Eberly and Holly stood up and shook Wilmot’s hand in turn. As they left his office, Wilmot sank back into his chair, thinking that he should write up this encounter and have it ready to send back to Atlanta as quickly as possible.

DATA BANK

It is the most beautiful sight in the solar system: Saturn and its glowing, glorious rings.

They arch above the planet’s equator like a bridge of light, circling the ponderous flattened sphere of the planet, hovering above its middle as if in splendid defiance of gravity.

The second-largest planet of our solar system, Saturn is slightly smaller than Jupiter, but orbits twice as far from the Sun. Like Jupiter, Saturn is a gas giant world, composed almost entirely of the lightest elements, hydrogen and helium. If you could build a swimming pool nearly ten times the size of Earth, Saturn would float in it: the planet’s density is slightly less than water’s.

Approaching Saturn, the planet’s pale yellow and tan clouds churn across a disc that is noticeably flattened by its frenetic spin rate. Saturn’s day is a scant ten hours and thirty-nine minutes. Yet to the ancients, Saturn was the farthest planet they could see, and the slowest in making its way around the sky. At ten times the Earth’s distance from the Sun, it takes 29.46 Earth years for Saturn to circle the Sun once.

The ring system is what makes Saturn so beautiful, so intriguing. Jupiter and the farther worlds of Uranus and Neptune have narrow, faint rings circling them. Saturn has broad bands of rings, shining brilliantly, suspended about the planet’s middle, hanging in emptiness like a magnificent set of halos.

When Galileo first turned his primitive telescope to Saturn he thought he saw a triple planet: His small lenses could not make out the rings, to him they looked like strange ears sprouting on either side of the planet. He wrote to the German astronomer Johannes Kepler a letter in code, so that it could be read only by its intended recipient.

“I have observed the highest planet to be triple-bodied,” Galileo wrote in an anagram. Kepler misunderstood, and thought that Galileo meant he had discovered two moons of Mars.

As telescopes improved, astronomers discovered those impossible rings. To this day, Saturn is one of the first objects that amateur astronomers turn to. The sight of the ringed planet never fails to inspire admiring, delighted sighs.

Saturn’s beautiful rings are composed of particles of ice and ice-covered dust. While most of the particles are no larger than dust motes, some are as big as houses. The rings are about four hundred thousand kilometers across, yet not much thicker than a hundred meters. They have been described as “proportionally as thick as a sheet of tissue paper spread over a football field.”

The rings’ total mass amounts to that of an icy satellite no more than one hundred kilometers in diameter. They are either the remains of one or more moons that got too close to the planet and were broken up by gravitational tidal forces, or leftover material from the time of the planet’s formation which never coalesced into a single body because it was too close to Saturn to do so.

The rings are dynamic. Hundreds of millions of particles circling the mammoth planet, constantly colliding, bouncing off one another, breaking into smaller fragments, banging and jouncing like an insane speedway full of lunatic drivers.

The dynamics of the rings are fascinating. There are gaps between the major rings, spaces of emptiness caused by the gravitational pulls of Saturn’s several dozen moons. The rings are accompanied by tiny “sheepdog” satellites, minuscule moons that circle just outside or just inside each ring and apparently keep them in place with their tiny gravitational influence. The rings are self-sustaining: As particles are sucked down into the planet, new particles are chipped off the shepherd moons by constant collisions with the hurtling, jostling particles, abraded off these tiny moonlets as they grind their way around the planet, constantly bombarded by the blizzard of tiny icy particles through which they orbit.

The main rings are actually composed of hundreds of thinner ringlets that appear to be braided together. Spacecraft time-lapse photos also show mysterious spokes weaving through the largest of the rings, patterns of light and dark that remain unexplained and fascinating. Perhaps Saturn’s extensive magnetosphere electrically charges the dust particles in the ring and levitates them, which may give rise to the spokes.

The planet itself presented an enigma to the inquisitive scientists from Earth. Like the more massive Jupiter, Saturn is heated from within, its core of molten rock seething from the pressure of the giant world squeezing down upon it. But Saturn is smaller than Jupiter, farther from the Sun, and therefore colder. Where Jupiter harbors a flourishing biosphere of aerial organisms in its thick hydrogen atmosphere, and an even more complex ecology of seagoing creatures in its deep planetwide ocean, Saturn seems bereft of life, except for the cold-adapted microbes that dwell in its upper cloud deck.

“Saturn is a dead end, as far as multicellular life is concerned,” pronounced a disappointed astrobiologist after the earliest probes scanned the vast ocean that swirls beneath the ringed world’s perpetual clouds, “just over the edge of habitability for anything more complex than single-celled organisms.”

Wistfully, he added, “Just a little warmer and we would have had a duplicate of Jupiter.”

Among the billions of ice particles that make up the rings, some prebiological chemical activity has been detected by robotic probes, but no evidence for living organisms has been found, as yet.

Saturn’s giant moon, Titan, is an altogether different matter, however. A rich ecology of hydrocarbon-based microbes exists there, placing Titan off-limits for any development or industrial exploitation. No one but scientists are allowed at Titan, and even they have refrained from sending to its surface anything except completely sterilized robot probes.

The scientific community and the International Astronautical Authority are agreed that humans must not endanger Titan’s ecology with the threat of contamination.

But others do not agree.

INTRADEPARTMENTAL MEMORANDUM

TIME, TIDES, AND TITAN

Edouard Urbain imagined himself standing on the shore of Titan’s hydrocarbon sea.

Larger than the planet Mercury, Titan is a cold and dark world, some ten times farther from the Sun than Earth is. Only pale and weak sunlight filters through the clouds and smog of Titan’s thick, murky atmosphere.

Urbain pictured himself standing on an outcropping of ice, staring through his spacesuit helmet’s visor at the black, oily sea surging across the rough, jumbled ice field below. In the distance a sooty “snowstorm” was approaching, a wall of black hydrocarbon flakes blotting out the horizon as it came closer.

Then the bleak, frozen landscape suddenly grew brighter. He looked up, and the breath caught in his throat. The clouds had broken for a moment and he could see Saturn riding high above, magnificently beautiful, ten times larger than a full Moon on Earth, its rings a slim knife edge slicing across the middle of the gaudily striped body of the planet. There is no lovelier sight in the entire solar system, he thought.

But the tide was coming in. Pulled by the immense gravitational power of Saturn, the hydrocarbon sea was a frothing tidal wave swiftly advancing across the broken landscape of ice, a slimy crawling monster swallowing everything in its path, submerging spires and boulder-sized chunks of ice, covering the frozen ground in hissing, bubbling black oil, flooding the world from horizon to horizon. Soon it would drown even the prominence Urbain was standing on, slithering halfway across Titan before reversing its course.

Someday I will stand by that sea, Urbain told himself, equipped to sample it and search for living organisms in the black, oily liquid. Someday.

He sighed and looked around his cramped little office, returning to reality. No one will go to the surface of Titan, not for many years to come, he knew.

Then his eyes fell on the three-dimensional schematic of the landing vehicle that hovered above his desk. It looked bulky and cumbersome, but to Urbain it was the epitome of pragmatic elegance. You will go down to Titan’s surface, my beauty, Urbain said silently to the drawing.

Designing the lander had been little more than child’s play, he realized. It was being built by his engineers and technicians, under his meticulous direction. That much was actually rather simple.

The big accomplishment was carrying it to Saturn, establishing this habitat in orbit around the ringed planet, where Urbain and his scientists could control the lander in real time.

Time had defeated earlier attempts to explore Titan remotely. It took more than an hour to send a signal from Earth to Saturn, even when the two planets were at their closest. Remotely-controlled probes failed, no matter how sophisticated they were, because of that time lag. For decades scientists on Earth gnashed their teeth in frustration as one probe after another trundled blithely into a crevasse or was blanketed in oily black snow, simply because it took hours for their human controllers to get the proper commands to them.

No longer, Urbain told himself. Now we will control the lander from a mere few light-seconds away. If necessary, we can establish a command post in orbit around Titan itself and cut the reaction time to less than a second.

But no human will set foot on Titan, he knew. Not for many years. The thought saddened him, in his heart of hearts. He wanted to plant his own boots on that cold, dark, black-ice surface. Deep in the place where he kept his most secret desires, Edouard Urbain wanted to be the first man to reach the surface of Titan.

DEPARTURE PLUS 317 DAYS

“Jezoo, it’s like a movie set down here.”

Holly was leading Manuel Gaeta along the utilities tunnel that ran beneath the village. Overhead lights flicked on automatically as they walked along the tunnel, then went dark again once they had passed. The walls were lined with electrical conduits, plumbing pipes, valves, control panels, phone screens spaced every hundred meters. More pipes ran overhead, color coded blue for potable water, yellow for sewage heading to the recyclers, red for hot water going to the waste heat radiators outside the habitat. The tunnel hummed with the constant throb of pumps and electrical equipment. Holly could feel the metal deck plates vibrating through the soles of her softboots.

“What’s a movie set?” she asked.

“Where they shoot vids,” Gaeta replied, eying all the ductwork around them as they moved along the tunnel. “You know, if they need to do a scene in ancient Rome they build a set to look like ancient Rome.”

“Oh. Sure. I click. But how does this look like a movie set?” He grinned at her. “Like the back side of a set. They’re all fake, just a facade, usually made out of plastic. You go behind, it’s all propped up with girders and scaffolds.”

“And this reminds you of that?” she asked, puzzled.

“Kinda,” he replied. “I mean, a couple dozen meters over our heads is the village—”

“No, we’re past the village now,” Holly corrected. “We’re underneath the park, heading for the farms.”

“Whatever. Up top it all looks so real, but down here you realize it’s all fakery.”

“It is not!” she said, with some heat. “It’s as real as real can be. You eat the food we grow on the farms, don’t you? You sleep in an apartment in the village. How real can it get?”

Gaeta held up both hands in a mock surrender. “Hey, whoa. Don’t take it so personal. I just meant, this whole habitat is an artificial construction. It looks like a real village and real farms and all that, but when you’re down here you realize it’s all inside a big machine.”

“Well, f’sure,” Holly said. “Everybody knows that.”

They walked in silence for a while, the overhead lights turning on for them and off again once they passed. Like magic, Holly thought. Then she remembered that she should have been in the office, working. But this is fun, she told herself, exploring the tunnels. Why work all the time? A person ought to have a little fun now and then.

The tunnel branched up ahead, and one wall opened up to reveal another tunnel that crossed theirs at a lower level.

“This way,” Holly said, swinging a leg over the guardrail.

“Down there?” Gaeta asked.

“Sure.” She flipped over the metal railing, grasped its bottom rung and hung there for an instant, then dropped to the metal flooring of the lower tunnel, four meters below.

“Come on,” Holly called up to Gaeta. “It’s a shortcut to the farms.”

He leaned over the rail, looking dubious. Then slowly, methodically, he clambered over the rail and let himself drop down beside her, landing lightly on the balls of his feet.

“For a stunt guy,” she chided, “you’re warping cautious.”

“That’s how a stunt guy stays in one piece,” he replied, grinning. “There are old stuntmen and bold stuntmen, but there are no old, bold stuntmen.”

Holly laughed, understanding.

“How far to the farms?” Gaeta asked.

“Not far now.”

“How far?”

She wrinkled her brow for a moment, then answered, “Less than three kilometers.”

“You certain of that?”

“I’ve got all the tunnels memorized,” Holly told him.

“All of them? Every one? Every kilometer?”

“Every centimeter.”

He laughed. “All up in your head, huh?” he teased, tapping his own temple.

Holly pulled her handheld from her tunic pocket and pressed the locater key with her thumb. The screen showed a schematic of the tunnels that threaded beneath the habitat’s landscaping, with a blinking red cursor identifying their location.

Gaeta peered at the little screen over her shoulder. She could feel his warm breath on the back of her neck, sense his body heat.

“I’ll be damned,” he said, slightly awestruck. “You were right on the button.”

“I told you, didn’t I? I’ve memorized the whole layout of the habitat. Every centimeter of it.”

Gaeta placed his hand on his heart and made a little bow. “Perdone me, senorita. I apologize for doubting you.”

“De nada,”said Holly, which just about exhausted her knowledge of Spanish. She promised herself she would learn more.

Their adventure had started just before lunch, when Gaeta had popped into Holly’s office asking about authorization for an excursion outside the habitat.

“Gotta test the suit,” he explained. “We’ve made half a dozen modifications to it and we need to test it in hard vacuum.”

Looking up at him from her desk chair, Holly noticed that his eyes were the darkest brown she had ever seen.

“You need to see the Safety Department about that,” she said. “This is Human Resources.”

Gaeta made a small shrug. “Yeah, I know, but I thought maybe you could help me with it. I don’t know any of the people in the Safety Department, and at least you and I have met before.”

She thought that sounded something like a lie. Or maybe an excuse to see me? Holly wondered. With hardly a moment’s thought, she phoned the Safety office and made an appointment for Gaeta to talk with them.

Then he asked her to lunch and they began chatting about his plans for getting down to the surface of Titan and living in the habitat and before she knew it Holly was telling him her life story, or as much of it she remembered.

“Let’s take the afternoon off,” he suddenly suggested.

Holly sipped at her coffee, thinking that there was too much work waiting at her desk even though Manny was kind of handsome in a beat-up way and when he smiled like that those dark, dark eyes lit up like candles on a birthday cake.

“And do what?” she asked.

He spread his hands and grinned at her. “Nothing. Just loaf. Take it easy for a few hours.”

“I have a better idea,” Holly said, putting her coffee cup down with a tiny clink.

“What?” he asked.

“Let’s go exploring,” said Holly.

So she led him to one of the access hatches built into the back of the administration building and down the metal ladder into the utilities tunnel.

“Like going down to the Morlocks,” he muttered as they clambered down the ladder.

“Oarlocks?” Holly asked, puzzled.

Gaeta just laughed.

As they walked along the tunnel, talking, looking, discovering, Holly realized that here she was all alone with this guy and nobody knew where she was. What’ll I do if he starts to come on to me? she wondered. And another part of her mind asked, What’ll you do if he doesn’t come on to you?

He’s a stallion, all right, Holly thought as they prowled along the tunnel. Not much taller than she, but strong, muscular. She had never had the chance to do any sexual experimenting while under her sister’s watchful eye, although according to what Pancho had told her she’d had her share of toy boys — and even serious lovers — when she’d been in school before she’d died.

Could I make Malcolm jealous? she wondered. He hasn’t paid any attention to me at all. Maybe if he finds out I’m seeing this stud, he’ll take some notice. Maybe -

“How well do you know Dr. Cardenas?” Gaeta asked as they paused at a fork in the tunnel.

Holly hesitated a moment, picturing the tunnel layout in her mind. “That way,” she pointed, “leads out to the farms. This way goes to the factories.”

He scratched his chin. “We gonna walk all the way back to the village?”

“Sure. It’s only three, four klicks.”

“There’s no transportation?”

Holly laughed. “Don’t tell me you’re tired!”

“Naw, not really. I was just thinking it’s getting close to dinnertime and I ought to take a shower, you know, and get into some fresh clothes.”

Holly felt her pulse speed up. Is he trying to get me to his apartment?

“I got a dinner date with Dr. Cardenas,” he explained, “and I oughtta look decent for her.”

Holly’s face fell. “With Dr. Cardenas?”

He must have seen her disappointment. She realized that a blind man could have seen it.

“It’s the only time we can talk about how she can make the nanobugs to decontaminate my suit,” he explained. “She’s so damn’ busy setting up her lab the only chance I get to talk with her is at dinner.”

“Oh.”

“It’s strictly business.”

“Yeah. I click.”

Gaeta gave her a sheepish little-boy look. “You wanna come, too? Bring a friend — we can make it two couples.”

With a start, Holly realized she didn’t have a friend she could call for a dinner date. She had plenty of acquaintances, but most of them were from the office. Ever since coming into the habitat she had spent all her time, all her thoughts, on Eberly. Until this day when Gaeta had popped into her office.

And now this.

“No,” she said firmly. “Thanks anyway. I have a lot of work to catch up on.”

He nodded glumly. “I’ve taken you away from your work, huh?”

“That’s all right,” Holly said. “It was a fun afternoon.”

She started back down the tunnel in the direction they had come from. Gaeta quickly caught up with her.

“Maybe you could have dinner with me tomorrow?” he suggested.

Holly brightened. “Tomorrow? Sure, why not.”

“Great,” he said, smiling at her.

When Gaeta got back to his apartment he stripped, showered, and decided the depilatory was still working well enough so that he didn’t need to shave yet. As he pulled on his clothes, one eye on the digital clock by his bed, he commanded the phone to send a message to Wendell Sloane, in Selene.

“Mr. Sloane,” he said, slightly uncomfortable at being so formal. “Progress report on Ms. Lane. Nothing much new to report. She’s still working in the Human Resources Department. Doesn’t appear to have any personal attachments; no boyfriends, not much of a social life at all. I had lunch with her this afternoon. She’s really a fine young lady: very bright, very sharp. She seems happy in her work here in the habitat. Tell her sister she’s got nothing to worry about as far as she’s concerned. But I’ll keep on looking out for her, just like you want. Just wanna let you know there’s no problems here.”

That oughtta keep the suits back in Selene satisfied for a while. Without their backing, this whole Titan stunt would go down the tubes. Astro Corporation was the major funding source for Manuel Gaeta and his team.

Sammi Vyborg sat rigidly at his desk, looking past the open door of his cubbyhole office at the larger office across the corridor. It belonged to his immediate superior, Diego Romero.

Vyborg glanced at the numerals of the digital clock flashing away in the corner of his desk. Every day it’s the same routine, Vyborg grumbled to himself. He spends the morning pretending to work, takes his lunch, then goes out for the afternoon. I sit here buried in duties and chores and he spends every afternoon out of the office. The number two man in the department, and he only puts in half a day, at best.

Don’t get mad, Vyborg reminded himself. Get even. It’s time to set this lazy old incompetent against the director. With a bit of luck, I can bring them both down.

Romero stepped out into the corridor and slid his office door shut. Turning, he noticed Vyborg watching him.

“Buenos tardes,”he said, with a smile and a slight bow.

Vyborg smiled back at him, sourly.

As soon as Romero was gone, Vyborg got up from his desk and walked down the corridor to the office of the Communications Department’s director, Zeke Berkowitz. He rapped once on the half-open door, making it rattle against its track.

“Come on in,” Berkowitz called. As Vyborg slid the door all the way open and stepped into the office, Berkowitz smiled and said, “Ah, Sammi. What can I do for you?”

Amiable was the word for Berkowitz. The man had spent a long and successful career in the video news business, first as a local reporter, then as a network anchorman, and finally as a global executive. He never made an enemy, although in the cutthroat world of news broadcasting many people had tried to chop him down, stab him in the back, or even forcibly retire him. He survived it all with a smile and a homily about Christian charity, liberally sprinkled with self-deprecating Jewish humor.

When he reached mandatory retirement age, the still-youthful Berkowitz moved into academia, happily teaching a new generation of would-be journalists and public relations flacks the realities of the communications business. It was at an international conference that he met James Wilmot, the famous anthropologist; the two men became instant friends, even though they lived and taught on opposite sides of the Atlantic Ocean. Years later, when Wilmot invited Berkowitz to be head of the Communications Department on the Saturn-bound space habitat, Berkowitz — recently a widower after fifty years of loving marriage — accepted the opportunity to get as far away from his memories as he could.

Now he sat back in his desk chair, handsome and suntanned, slightly chubby, a series of holograms on the wall behind him showing him at tennis tournaments and on golf courses. He smiled warmly at the dour, pinch-faced Vyborg.

“What’s the matter, Sammi?” Berkowitz asked jovially. “You look as if you swallowed something ugly.”

Taking the chair in front of Berkowitz’s desk, Vyborg began, “I don’t enjoy bringing this to your attention—”

“But you’re going to do it anyway. Must be important.”

“I think it is.”

“Okay. Out with it.”

“It’s Romero.”

“Old Don Diego? What’s he done that bothers you?”

Vyborg hesitated just long enough to show Berkowitz that what he was doing was distasteful to him. “It’s very difficult for me to say this, since he’s my direct superior, but… well, he’s simply not pulling his own weight.”

“He isn’t.”

“No, he isn’t. He spends only half a day in the office and then he’s gone. How can he do his work?”

“That’s why we’ve got you, Sammi.”

Startled, Vyborg blurted, “What?”

Berkowitz put on his most amiable grin and, clasping his hands prayerfully on the desktop, said, “Diego Romero is a wonderful old coot, a great teacher with a very distinguished career behind him.”

“Behind him,” Vyborg echoed.

“He’s in this department more or less because Wilmot wanted him aboard this habitat and had to find a place for him somewhere. So he’s working with us.”

“But he’s not working,” Vyborg snapped. “He’s hardly ever at his desk.”

“That’s okay, Sammi. I haven’t given him much to do. I rely on you to get the work done. Leave Don Diego alone. He’s going to be very valuable to this habitat — as a teacher.”

“A teacher?” Vyborg gasped. “They got rid of him in Mexico because he was teaching unauthorized garbage. Do you want him teaching his blasphemies here?”

Berkowitz’s smile diminished by less than a millimeter. “Freedom of thought is not blasphemous, Sammi. He’s a great teacher.”

Vyborg muttered, “Yes, and he’s teaching the rest of the office staff how to get by without working.”

“If you find anybody goofing off in this department, you tell me about it. Pronto. Don Diego’s a special case. Leave him alone.”

Admitting defeat, Vyborg nodded and rose from his chair. “I understand. I’m sorry to have bothered you.”

“No bother at all,” Berkowitz said grandly. “My office door is always open to you, Sammi.”

Vyborg looked around the director’s office. It was much more spacious than his own. It even had a window that looked out onto the park and the shimmering lake beyond. Without another word he turned and walked out, thinking, I’ll have to get rid of them both, somehow.

By the time he got back to his own office, Vyborg had brightened considerably. Berkowitz wants to allow Don Diego to teach heretical ideas, he realized. That makes Berkowitz just as guilty as the old man himself. Perhaps I can get them both in one swoop.

But as he sat at his desk again his mood darkened once more. That means I’ll have to wait until we’re established at Saturn. Much too long. I can’t wait all those months, more than a year, actually. I want to get rid of them now.

DEPARTURE PLUS 318 DAYS

When Holly got to her office the next morning there was a message on her screen:see me immediately. morgenthau.

It still bothered Holly to see Ruth Morgenthau sitting at Eberly’s desk. Even though nearly two months had passed since Eberly had left the office, Holly always expected to see Malcolm there. Instead, when she opened the director’s office door, Morgenthau was behind the desk, her fleshy face dark and ominous.

Even before Holly could sit down, Morgenthau demanded, “Where were you yesterday afternoon?”

Holly stiffened. “I took the afternoon off. I caught up on my work from my quarters, after dinner.”

Morgenthau asked, “Were you ill?”

Holly thought that a simple lie could end this conversation. Instead, she replied, “No. I — I just needed some time away from the office, that’s all.”

“Do you think you’re working too hard?”

“I enjoy my work.”

Morgenthau drummed her chubby fingers on the desktop. Despite the dress code they had agreed to, the woman’s fingers were heavy with jeweled rings, and her tunic ablaze with colors. Holly noticed that the desk was littered with papers. Malcolm had always kept it immaculately clear.

“Sit down, please, Holly,” Morgenthau said.

Holly took one of the chairs in front of the desk, feeling resentment simmering inside her. I’m entitled to take an afternoon off if I want to, she said to herself. I’m running this warping office. I’m doing all the work. I can go off and have a little fun if I want to. But she said nothing and meekly sat down.

Morgenthau stared at her for a long moment, then said, “You know, and I know, that you are really running this office. I’m just a figurehead covering for Malcolm while you do all the real work.”

Holly almost blurted out her agreement, but she managed to keep silent.

“I don’t mind that arrangement,” Morgenthau continued. “In fact, I find it quite satisfactory.”

Holly nodded warily, expecting worse to come.

“But,” Morgenthau resumed, “you don’t have to rub my face in it. You must show at least some outward respect for my position.”

“I do!”

“Yesterday you did not. It is not proper for you to take the afternoon off without informing me. Actually, you should ask my permission, but I don’t want to be a stickler. Still, how does it look when someone like Professor Wilmot asks me a question and I tell him that my assistant will look up the information and my assistant isn’t at her desk? Isn’t even in the office? And I don’t know where she is?”

“You could have called me. I always carry my comm.”

“You should keep me informed of your whereabouts at all times. I shouldn’t have to search for you.”

Holly’s temper was rising. “You don’t like me very much, do you?”

For an instant Morgenthau looked surprised, almost startled. Then she admitted, “You are not a Believer. And, worse, you’re a reborn. I find that…” she struggled for a word, “…distasteful. Almost sinful.”

“It wasn’t my decision. My sister did it when I was too sick to know what was happening to me.”

“Still. You tried to avoid God’s judgment on you. You tried to cheat death.”

“Wouldn’t you?”

“No! When God calls me, I’ll be happy to go.”

The sooner the better, Holly snarled silently.

“But my religious beliefs are not the subject of this conversation. I want you to keep me informed of your whereabouts at all times.”

Holding back her anger, Holly replied, “I understand.”

Breaking into a smile that looked forced to Holly, Morgenthau added, “During office hours, of course. What you do when the office is closed is on your own conscience, naturally.”

“Of course.”

“Unless it involves Dr. Eberly.”

So that’s it! Holly realized. She’s clanked up because she can see that I’m interested in Malcolm. Maybe she knows more than I do. Maybe she can see that Malcolm’s interested in me!

“Dr. Eberly is much too busy for personal involvements of any kind, Holly. You should stop trying to distract him.”

She’s trying to protect him. She’s standing between Malcolm and me.

Holly got to her feet. “I should have told you I was taking the afternoon off,” she said coldly. “It won’t happen again.”

“Good!” Morgenthau smacked her hands together loudly enough to startle Holly. “Now that that’s out of the way — I’ll be out of the office all day. You’ll be in charge.”

Surprised at her sudden change in tone, Holly asked, “Where will you be?”

Morgenthau laughed lightly and waggled a finger in the air. “No, no, it’s not necessary for me to tell you where I’m going. I’m the department chief, remember. I can come and go as I wish.”

“Oh, right. F’sure.”

“For your information, however,” Morgenthau said as she pushed herself up out of the desk chair, “I will be with Malcolm all day. We are going over several drafts of possible constitutions.”

Eberly sipped herbal tea while Vyborg and Jaansen argued with quiet passion. Kananga was obviously bored with the argument, while Morgenthau watched it in silence as she nibbled on pastries.

Kananga’s a man of action, Eberly thought. He doesn’t think very deeply, which is good. He makes a useful tool. Morgenthau, though, she’s different. She just sits there watching everything, silent as a sphinx. What’s going on inside her head? How much of this is she reporting back to Amsterdam? Everything, I suppose.

“If you allow the people all these personal freedoms,” Vyborg was saying, almost hissing, actually, “the result will be chaos. Anarchy.”

“Most of the inhabitants have come to this habitat to escape repressive regimes. If their individual liberties are not guaranteed, they’ll reject the constitution altogether.” Jaansen leaned back on the sofa, smiling as if he had won the argument.

“Individual liberties,” Vyborg spat. “That’s the kind of license that nearly caused the collapse of civilization. If it weren’t for the New Morality—”

“And the Holy Disciples,” Morgenthau interjected, then, glancing at Kananga, she added, “and the Sword of Islam.”

Jaansen frowned at her and Vyborg, both. “No matter what you think, these people will not accept a constitution that doesn’t guarantee their historical freedoms. They’re here because they got fed up with the restrictions back on Earth.”

Vyborg thought otherwise. He continued to argue.

Sitting at the end of the coffee table, Eberly thought that Vyborg, in the room’s best armchair with his skinny legs tucked under him, looked rather like a coiled snake: lean, small, dark, his eyes glittering menacingly. Jaansen was just the opposite: cool, pale, but as immovable as a glacier. And he kept that damned palmcomp in his hand, fiddling with it like some voodoo charm.

Kananga butted in. “In a closed ecology like this, we can’t tolerate fools and troublemakers. Pop them out an airlock without a suit!”

Morgenthau laughed. “My dear Colonel, how can we resort to airlock justice if each citizen is guaranteed due process of the law for any offense they might commit?”

“Exactly my point!” Vyborg exclaimed, staring straight at Jaansen. “We have no room here for legal niceties.”

Pursing her lips for a moment, Morgenthau said, “There is another possibility.”

“What?”

“I’ve heard that some scientists on Earth are experimenting with electronic probes they put inside peoples’ skulls. They attach the probes to the brain—”

“Bioelectronics,” Jaansen said.

“Yes,” agreed Morgenthau. “With these probes attached to various brain centers they can control a person’s behavior. Prevent violent criminal behavior, for example.”

Vyborg scowled. “What of it?”

“Perhaps we can use such probes to control behavior here,” said Morgenthau.

“Insert neural probes to control people’s behavior?” Jaansen shuddered.

“It could work,” said Morgenthau.

“They would have to agree to the operation,” Vyborg pointed out.

Kananga countered, “Not if they were found guilty of criminal behavior.”

“It might be a way to control the people,” Morgenthau said.

Shaking his head, Jaansen said, “The population would never agree to it. These people aren’t stupid, you know. They wouldn’t give the government that kind of power over them.”

“We wouldn’t have to tell them,” Kananga said. “Just do it.”

That started an argument that grew steadily more fervent. Eberly watched and listened, sipping his tea, while they squabbled louder and louder.

At last he asked them, “May I make a point?” He spoke softly, but all eyes immediately turned to him.

“Even in the so-called democracies back on Earth, the desperate conditions caused by the greenhouse crash have led to very authoritarian governments. Even in the United States, the New Morality rules most of the large urban centers with an iron fist.”

“Which is why most of these people joined this habitat,” Jaansen pointed out. “To find more freedom for themselves.”

“The illusion of freedom,” muttered Kananga.

“Secularists,” grumbled Morgenthau. “Troublemaking unbelievers. Agnostics and outright atheists.”

Jaansen shifted the palmcomp from one hand to another as he said, “I don’t disagree with you, really. I’m a Believer, too. I understand the need for firm control of the people. But those secularists aren’t fools. Many of them are scientists. Even more are engineers and technicians. All I’m saying is that if you try to get them to agree to a constitution that does not include the kind of individual liberties they expect, they’ll reject the constitution.”

“Not if we count the votes,” Morgenthau said with a heavy wink.

“Be serious,” Jaansen countered.

“It’s been done,” she said, snickering.

Eberly let out a long sigh. Again, they all turned to him.

“None of you understand history,” he said. “If you did, you would see that this problem has been faced before, and resolved properly.”

“Resolved?” Vyborg snapped. “How?”

Smiling with superior knowledge, Eberly said, “More than a hundred years ago Russia was part of the conglomeration called the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.”

“I know that,” Vyborg said sourly.

“Soviet Russia had a constitution, the most liberal constitution on Earth. It guaranteed freedom and brotherhood to everyone. Yet their government was among the most repressive of them all.”

Jaansen seemed intrigued. “How did they manage that?”

“It was simple,” Eberly replied. “In the midst of all those highflown constitutional phrases about liberty and equality and the brotherhood of man there was one tiny little clause that said, in effect, that all the rest of the constitution could be suspended temporarily in case of an emergency.”

“An emergency,” repeated Kananga.

“Temporarily,” said Vyborg.

Eberly nodded. “It worked quite well. The Soviet Union was in a permanent state of siege, and the government ruled by terror and deceit. It worked for nearly three quarters of a century, until the Soviet government collapsed under pressures from the Western nations, especially the old United States.”

“We would have no outside pressures to contend with,” Vyborg said.

Eberly spread his hands. “So we give the people the sweetest, kindest, most liberal constitution they have ever seen. But we make certain that we have that emergency clause in it.”

Morgenthau laughed heartily. “Then, once the constitution is in effect, all we have to do is find an emergency.”

“Or make one,” Vyborg added.

Even Jaansen smiled. “And then, if anyone objects—”

“We stick a neural probe into his brain,” Morgenthau said, “and turn him into a model citizen.”

“A model zombie,” Jaansen muttered.

“Or better yet,” said Kananga, grinning, “out the airlock with them.”

JUPITER ENCOUNTER MINUS THREE DAYS

Eberly asked Jaansen to sweep his apartment for bugs at least once a week.

“Are you really worried that Wilmot is spying on you?” the tall, pale Norseman asked as he walked across the bedroom, electronic detector in his hand.

Eberly, shorter, darker, replied, “It’s what I would do if I were in his place.”

“Are you bugging his office?” Jaansen asked, with a smile.

“Of course.”

“Well, in three days we fly past Jupiter,” said Jaansen. “It’s a milestone.”

Eberly agreed with a curt nod. “I’m more interested in what happens inside the habitat than outside.”

Jaansen, ever the engineer, pointed out, “We’ll be taking on fresh fuel. Without it we won’t be able to get to Saturn.”

“I have other things on my mind. More important things.”

“Such as?”

“The coming elections.”

Jaansen clicked off the detector and announced, “You’re all clean. No cameras, no microphones, no electrical power drain anywhere, down to the microvolt. Nothing that shouldn’t be here.”

“Good.” Eberly walked him back into the sitting room and gestured him to the sofa.

Sitting himself in the easy chair, Eberly said, “Sooner or later, we must get the people to vote on a new constitution and new leaders.”

Jaansen nodded, tucked the detector into one pocket and pulled out his inevitable handheld computer from another.

“I’ve been thinking about the elections,” Eberly said.

“They’re a long way off.”

“Less than a year now. We must prepare for them.”

Jaansen nodded, fiddling with his palmcomp.

“The scientists will vote for one of their own, probably Urbain.”

Another nod from Jaansen.

“They form a sizable bloc of votes.”

“Not a majority, though.”

“Not of themselves,” said Eberly. “But suppose the engineers and technicians vote with them?”

Recognition dawned on Jaansen’s face. “That could be a majority. A solid majority.”

“Therefore we must somehow split the engineers and technicians away from the scientists,” Eberly said.

“How can we do that?”

Eberly smiled. “Let me explain what I have in mind.”

Edouard Urbain tried to control the trembling he felt inside him as he stared out the observation port. The giant planet Jupiter, no more than a bright star only a few days ago, was now a discernable disk even to the naked eye, obviously flattened at its poles, streaked with muted colors from bands of clouds racing across the face of that enormous world. Four tiny stars flanked the disk: the moons that Galileo discovered with his first telescope.

Tucked into a close orbit just above those multihued clouds, Urbain knew, was the research station Thomas Gold. I could have been there, he told himself for the thousandth time. I could have been leading the teams studying the life-forms on Europa and Jupiter itself. Instead I am here in this glorified ark, stuck in along with renegades and madmen like this Gaeta fellow.

He knew it was his imagination, but Jupiter seemed to be getting larger as he watched. No, we are not that near to it yet, Urbain said to himself. Three days from now, that is when the spectacle will occur.

Habitat Goddard’s complement of scientists and their equipment was far smaller than Urbain had asked for. The university consortium was unwilling to send their best people on a multiyear voyage out to Saturn. Let them sit on their thumbs while the habitat lumbers its way out to that distant planet? No, never. Urbain recalled the face of the consortium’s chief scientist with perfect, painful clarity:

“We can’t tie up our best people for several years like that, Edouard. You take a skeleton team out to Saturn. Once you’re established in orbit about the planet, we can shoot our top researchers out to you on a torch ship, get them there in a month or two.”

The implied insult still burned in Urbain’s heart. I am not one of their top people. A lifetime of work on Mars and the Moon, three years in orbit around that hellhole of Venus, a life dedicated to planetary science, and all they think me capable of is playing nursemaid to a skeleton crew of also-rans.

It rankled. It cut. His wife had refused to come with him; instead, she sued for a divorce. She had warned him, over the years, that he was foolish to ignore the political aspects of his career.

“Make friends,” Jeanmarie had told him, over and again. “Play up to those who can do you good.”

He could never do it. Never play that game. He had done good work, solid work, perhaps not the level that wins Nobel Prizes, but important contributions nevertheless. And now this. The end of the road. Exiled to Saturn. I’ll be retirement age by the time I can work my way out of this habitat.

I should have paid more attention to Jeanmarie. I should have heeded her advice. I should have paid more attention to the New Morality counselors. They pull the strings behind the scenes. Mediocre Believers get promotions while honest researchers like me are left behind.

A wasted life, he thought.

Yet, as he looked out at Jupiter glowing like a beacon in the dark depths of infinite space, the old excitement simmered within him. There’s a whole universe out there to explore! Worlds upon worlds! I won’t be able to study Jupiter or its moons, but I’ll be at Saturn before any of the others. I’ll be directing the first real-time probes of Titan’s surface.

He thought of the tracked rover vehicle that his staff was building. It will roam across the surface of Titan and obtain more data about that world in a few weeks than all the scientists back on Earth have been able to amass in their lifetimes. Before the bright youngsters get there on their torch ships I’ll already be getting data from Titan. And from the cloud deck of Saturn. And the ice rings.

Perhaps my life won’t be a waste, after all, thought Edouard Urbain. Perhaps this time I’ll hit the jackpot. Perhaps there is a Nobel Prize waiting for me in the future, after all.

Perhaps, he even thought, Jeanmarie will return to me.

In the workshop where he and his team labored, Manny Gaeta was walking Kris Cardenas around his EVA suit. Von Helmholtz and his four technicians stood at the benches that ran along two walls of the chamber, watching their boss and the nanotech expert as they slowly paced around the heavy, bulky suit, like shoppers inspecting a new outfit built for Frankenstein’s monster.

She had arrived at the lab carrying a small briefcase, which she had left on the floor by the door as soon as Gaeta came over to greet her. The technicians stayed well clear of it.

Now she and Gaeta stared up at the suit, looming head and shoulders above them, gleaming in the light from the ceiling lamps.

“It’s big,” Cardenas murmured. With its helmet and jointed arms, it reminded her of a medieval suit of armor.

“It’s gotta be big,” Gaeta said as they paced slowly around it. “Lots of gear inside.”

“You’ve got room in there for a cafeteria,” she joked.

With a rueful grin, Gaeta answered, “Nope. Just enough room inside for me to squeeze in. The rest is packed with sensors, cameras, VR transmitters, servomotors to move the arms and legs, radiation armor, life support systems—”

“Systems? Plural?”

“You bet. Redundant systems are the only way to go. One craps out, you can live on the other.”

Cardenas peered at the gleaming armor’s bright finish. “Is this cermet?”

“Partly,” said Gaeta. “Lots of organometallics in it, too. And semiconductor surfaces, protected by borosilicates and Buckyfilament shields.”

“How do you put it on?”

He walked her around to the suit’s back. “You climb in through the hatch.”

Cardenas broke into a laugh. “Like the trapdoor in old-fashioned long johns!”

Gaeta tilted his head to one side. “I never thought of it like that, but yeah, you’re right. Kinda like that.”

Sobering up somewhat, Cardenas said, “Could you show me how you get into it?”

“Sure. You want to go in? It’s okay, I can help you.”

Cardenas shook her head. “No. You get into it.” Nodding toward the briefcase she had left by the door, “Then I can take samples of whatever residues you leave on the outside.”

“Samples?”

“If you want nanomachines specifically tailored to clean up your residues, I have to know exactly what they are, down to the molecular level.”

Gaeta nodded his understanding. “Okay.” He called to von Helmholtz, “Yo, Fritz, I gotta get inside.”

Von Helmholtz and the four techs started for the suit. The chief technician hesitated, though, and asked, “Dr. Cardenas, will you need your case?”

“Yes I will, thank you.”

He brought the briefcase to Cardenas while two of the technicians began unsealing the suit’s hatch and the other two booted up the monitoring consoles standing along the far side of the lab.

“You plan to go outside when we pass Jupiter?” Cardenas asked Gaeta as von Helmholtz handed her the briefcase.

“Yep. We’ll have a couple hundred million VR viewers sharing the experience as we zip past Jupiter. Should be fun.”

“Flying past Jupiter as seen from outside. I’d like to experience that myself,” Cardenas said.

The technicians swung open the hatch in the back of the suit and Gaeta stepped to it. Over his shoulder he told Cardenas, “Sure, why not? Fritz can fix you up with a VR rig, can’t you Fritz?”

“It would be an honor,” said von Helmholtz. Cardenas couldn’t decide if he meant it or he was being snotty.

She watched as Gaeta hiked one leg up over the rim of the hatch, grabbed the sides with either hand, and then pulled his other leg in. His head disappeared into the darkness inside.

She heard a thud, then a string of muffled Spanish curses.

“It’s pretty tight in there,” one of the technicians said, grinning at her.

Gaeta called, “Okay, I’m set.” The techs closed the hatch and sealed it shut.

Walking around to the front of the suit, Cardenas had to crane her neck to see Gaeta’s face through the heavily tinted visor of the helmet.

The right arm of the suit stirred into motion with a buzz and whirr of servomotors.

“Hello, Kris,” boomed Gaeta’s voice, amplified powerfully, as he waved at her. “Wanna dance?”

But she was already on one knee, opening the briefcase that carried her analysis tools, all business.

JUPITER ENCOUNTER MINUS TWO DAYS

The cafeteria was bustling and noisy with the clatter of silverware and a hundred buzzing conversations. Ilya Timoshenko ignored the lines of people waiting at the various counters, preferring to punch out his lunch selections from the automated dispensers. He had filled his tray with a McGlop sandwich and a bowl of steaming soup; now he stood before the beverage dispenser.

“Decisions, decisions.”

Timoshenko turned his head to see that it was Jaansen, one of the top engineers, standing next to him, tall and lean and pale as the winter sun.

Without a word, Timoshenko slid his plastic cup beneath the cola nozzle and leaned on the button. Then he walked away, looking for a table where he could be alone. As he unloaded his tray, though, Jaansen walked up to the table, carrying a salad and a glass of milk.

“Do you mind if I sit here?” Jaansen asked, already putting his sparse lunch on the table. “I need to talk with you.”

Timoshenko said, “About what?” Jaansen was one of the bosses, several rungs up the ladder above him.

“Politics,” said Jaansen as he pulled out his chair and sat down. Suddenly Timoshenko had no appetite. He sat facing the pale Norseman. “I have no interest in politics.”

“You did once. You were quite an activist.”

“And look where it’s got me.”

Jaansen waved a hand vaguely. “This isn’t so bad, is it? If you have to be exiled, this is better than most places.”

Despite himself, Timoshenko asked, “Were you exiled?”

“No, I chose to come here. For me, this is an opportunity to be in charge of a major engineering operation.”

“To be a boss, you mean.”

“You could be a boss, too,” Jaansen said. “The biggest boss of all.”

Timoshenko scowled at him.

“I mean it, Ilya. You could run for the office of chief administrator, once the new constitution is put into effect.”

“You’re joking.”

“I’m serious. You could run, and you could win. All the engineers and technicians would vote for you. That’s a major bloc of votes.”

“Why would they vote for me?”

“Because you’re one of us. Everybody knows you and respects you.”

Timoshenko grunted derisively. “I have very few friends. Hardly anybody knows me, and those who do don’t like me very much. I can’t say that I blame them, either.”

Jaansen would not be put off. Pulling his palmcomp from his tunic pocket he began tapping out numbers as he spoke.

“Politics boils down to arithmetic,” he said, pecking away. “You are much more respected by your fellow workers than you think. They’ll vote for you in preference to Urbain, and—”

“Urbain? He’ll be running for office?”

“Of course. He’s head of the science department, isn’t he? The scientists think they own this habitat. They think we’re all here to serve them. Of course he’ll run. And he’ll win, unless you can rally the engineers and technicians.”

Timoshenko shook his head. “I have no interest in politics,” he repeated. But he stayed and listened and looked at the numbers Jaansen was pecking out on his palmcomp.

Half an hour later, on the other side of the crowded, noisy cafeteria, Edouard Urbain was trying to finish his lunch and get back to his office. The cold potato soup was a poor imitation of vichyssoise. He hadn’t had a decent meal since leaving Montreal. Wilmot has no interest in cuisine, of course. Once I become chief administrator I will see to it that the cooks learn how to cook.

There were a thousand things to do; construction of the roving vehicle was running into difficulties and the Jupiter encounter was almost upon them and this man Eberly wanted to draft a constitution for the habitat and make himself the chief administrator. Impossible! Urbain told himself as he sipped the unappetizing soup. This is a scientific mission, the entire purpose of this habitat is science. A scientist must head the government.

“Are you as excited as I am?”

Urbain jumped as if someone had poked him. Looking up, he saw the chief engineer, the Norseman Jaansen, smiling gently at him. Reluctantly, Urbain gestured him to the empty chair on the other side of his table.

“Excited?” he asked as Jaansen took the proffered chair.

“About the Jupiter flyby.”

“Ah, yes. I suppose I am,” Urbain muttered as he spooned up the last of the mediocre soup. Then he noticed that Jaansen was empty-handed. “Aren’t you having lunch?”

“I’ve already eaten,” said the engineer. “I was on my way out when I saw you sitting alone.”

Urbain preferred to eat alone. But he said nothing and reached for his cup of tea. They served wine, of a sort, in the restaurants. The cafeteria did not.

Jaansen said, “I can’t think of anything but the flyby. And the refueling procedure. I’ve checked everything associated with the procedure a dozen times, but still I can’t help worrying that I’ve forgotten something.”

“That is why we create checklists,” Urbain said tartly.

Jaansen smiled. “Yes, I know. But still…”

Urbain finished his tea. “If you’ll pardon me,” he said, starting to push his chair back from the table.

Jaansen touched his sleeve. “Do you have a minute? There’s something I’d like to discuss with you.”

“I must get back at my lab.”

Jaansen nodded, his ice blue, pale-lashed eyes looking disappointed. “I understand.”

Nettled, irritated at the pang of guilt he felt, Urbain conceded, “A minute, you say?”

“Maybe two.”

“What is it?” Urbain asked. He leaned over to pull his tray from beneath the chair and began placing his dishes on it.

“I need your help. Your guidance.”

“About what?”

The engineer glanced around almost furtively before replying, “You know that the chief of Human Resources is forming a committee to draft a new constitution for us.”

“Yes, so I have heard.”

“And once the constitution is put into effect, we will vote on a government.”

Urbain nodded as he asked himself, What is he driving at?

“I presume that you will head that government,” Jaansen said.

“Ah, yes. I suppose I will.”

Looking quite earnest, Jaansen asked, “Are you prepared to make such a sacrifice? It will be a heavy responsibility.”

Urbain began to reply, hesitated, then formed the words in his mind before answering, “I have thought about this quite seriously. It is a serious responsibility, you are entirely correct there. But since this is a scientific endeavor, it must have a scientist at its head. As chief scientist, I really have no choice in the matter. I must accept the responsibility.”

“Assuming the people elect you,” said Jaansen.

“Of course they will elect me. Who else could they vote for?”

JUPITER ENCOUNTER MINUS ONE DAY

“And where will you be when we fly past Jupiter?” asked Don Diego.

Holly looked up from the raspberry bush she was planting along the embankment. “In my office,” she said with a smile. “I’ve got to get my work done sometime.”

The old man wiped his sweaty forehead with the back of a gloved hand. “You don’t consider what we are doing as work?”

“This is fun. I mean, it’s physical labor, y’know. But it’s fun. Besides, when I say ‘work’ I mean the job I was hired to do.”

“You seem to spend part of each day here with me,” Don Diego said as he tugged at a stubborn coil of steel cable, half-buried in the ground.

“I like being out here.” Holly realized that she enjoyed being outdoors, away from her office. She enjoyed working and talking with this older man, this serious yet lighthearted man who listened so well and had so much to teach her.

“Careful,” Holly warned as he strained to pull the stubborn cable out of the ground. “That might be connected to something important.”

He shook his head. “No, it is just some of the junk that the construction crews left behind. Instead of cleaning up the area as they were paid to do, they threw most of their leftovers down the embankment, figuring that no one would notice.”

Holly went over to help him. Together they pulled the coiled length of cable free. Sure enough, it was connected to nothing. Just leftover trash from the habitat’s construction.

“Maybe we ought to organize cleaning crews to go through all the culverts and embankments,” Holly thought aloud. “We could prob’ly scavenge some useful materials.”

“I worry more about the effects on our health. Steel rusts, and the rust seeps into our drinking water supplies.”

“Everything’s purified when the water’s recycled,” Holly said.

He nodded warily. “Still, I worry.”

Holly returned to the raspberry bush, tamped down the freshly turned earth around it, then straightened up slowly, hands on the small of her back.

“That’s enough for me,” she said, looking up at the long solar window. It was half in shade. “Dinnertime.”

“Will you allow me to make dinner for you at my hacienda?” Don Diego asked, pulling off his stained, soiled gloves.

Holly smiled. His hacienda was a one-bedroom apartment, she knew, just about the same size and layout as her own.

“Why don’t I cook tonight?” she suggested.

He looked embarrassed for a moment, then said, “You are a wonderful person in many ways, Holly, but I think I’m a better cook than you.”

“Will you teach me how to make chili?” she asked eagerly.

“Out of soymeat and pinto beans,” he replied. “Of course. I will even show you how to prepare the beans so they do not cause gas.”

“Ain’t I ever gonna get dinner?” Manny Gaeta complained. “The cafeteria’s probably closed by now.”

“Then it doesn’t matter, does it?” retorted Fritz von Helmholtz.

Inside the armored suit, Gaeta was standing a good half-meter off the deck plates. He looked down at von Helmholtz through the heavily tinted visor of the helmet.

“Cabrón,”Gaeta muttered. Fritz can be a real pain in the ass sometimes, he thought.

Von Helmholtz looked up from his handheld and frowned at him. “We have to do the vacuum test first.”

“It’s damned hot in here. I’m sweating.”

“Turn up the cooling,” von Helmholtz said, unfazed.

“I don’t wanna run down the batteries.”

“We can recharge them overnight.”

Gaeta knew he could stop the test by simply powering down the suit and popping the hatch. He’d been in the clunker for hours now, going through every procedure that they would need to record the Jupiter flyby. Gaeta felt tired and sweaty and uncomfortable.

But Fritz is right, he knew. Check everything now. Make certain everything is working. Don’t want any surprises when you’re outside.

“Vacuum test, right,” he muttered, scanning the Christmas tree of monitoring lights set into the collar of the helmet. Everything in the green, except for two amber lights: a low battery and an air fan that was running slower than design nominal. Maybe that’s why it’s so damn hot in here, he thought.

Fritz was over by the big monitoring console, studying the diagnostics screen. “That fan will have to be replaced,” he said into the pin mike at his lips.

One of the technicians nodded glumly. “There goes my dinner date,” he grumbled.

Straightening up and turning toward Gaeta, Fritz curled a beckoning finger. “Come, my little sylph. To airlock number fourteen.”

Gaeta began to walk. The suit felt stiff, despite the servomotors that were slaved to his arms and legs. “I feel like the Tin Woodsman in here,” he told Fritz. “Oil can! Oil can!”

Fritz did not smile one millimeter. “The bearings are self-lubricating. As you exercise the suit, the joints will smooth out.”

“Yeah. Sure.”

Gaeta followed Fritz toward the wide double doors of the lab. One of the other techs opened them. Gaeta was surprised to see Holly Lane standing in the hallway outside. Her eyes went wide when she saw the suit clunking toward her.

He moved one arm slowly and flexed the fingers in a robotic wave. “Hi, Holly,” he called.

“Manny? Is that you in there?”

“It’s me.”

She hefted a small plastic bag. “I brought you some chili. Homemade.”

Von Helmholtz said, “We have no time for a meal at present. We are very busy.”

“Come on along, Holly,” Gaeta called. “We’re goin’ down to airlock fourteen.” He resumed his plodding walk out into the hallway.

“You’re going outside now?” Holly asked, scampering out of his way.

“Naw. The Safety guys nixed my EVA. They got a whole crew out there to take on the fuel tanks comin’ up from Jupiter. I’ll just stay in the ’lock while they open it to the outside, keep out of their way. We’ll vid the Jupiter pass tomorrow; that’s when we’ll be closest.”

“Can I watch?”

“Sure,” Gaeta said, enjoying the nervous tic in Fritz’s right cheek. “Come on along.”

TANKER GRAHAM

“Hey, Tavalera, look sharp now, we’re starting the rendezvous maneuver.”

Raoul Tavalera grumbled an obscenity under his breath. I know we’re starting the frigging rendezvous maneuver, he answered the skipper silently. Why the fuck else are we out here?

The Graham was little more than a pair of powerful fusion engines and a habitation pod that housed its crew of two: the hardassed skipper and Tavalera, who was counting the days until his obligatory Public Service duty was finished and he could return to his native New Jersey. Once he got back, he planned to kiss the ground and never, ever leave the surface of planet Earth again.

Cramped little Graham towed three enormous spheres full of the hydrogen and helium isotopes that fed fusion engines. They would soon be attached to the approaching habitat; once that task was finished, Graham and her two-person crew could return to the relative safety and dubious luxury of station Gold, in orbit around massive Jupiter.

The skipper was buckled into her command chair, her ugly, pasty face almost completely hidden beneath her sensor helmet. All Tavalera could see of her was her mean, lantern jaw and the cruddy coveralls that she’d been wearing ever since they had left the space station, four days ago.

When Tavalera had first come out to Jupiter he had been excited by the prospect of skimming the Jovian clouds. He pictured a daredevil operation, diving into the upper fringes of Jupiter’s swirling clouds, scooping those isotopes out of the planet’s incredibly deep atmosphere. Risky and exciting — and vitally necessary. Jovian fusion fuels fed civilization’s electrical power generators and nuclear rockets all across the solar system, from Earth out to the Asteroid Belt and beyond.

Back then, Tavalera had envisioned an exhilarating life of thrilling missions into Jupiter’s clouds and swarms of adoring chicks begging for his attention. The reality was boringly different. The screaming dives into the maelstrom of clouds were done by robot spacecraft, teleoperated from the safety of station Gold. Tavalera’s only flight missions were routine ferrying jobs, transferring fuel tanks to ships from the Earth/ Moon region or the Belt. And the women aboard the space station chose their men by rank, which meant that Tavalera — a mere grubby engineer doing his Public Service tour of duty — was quite low on the totem pole. Besides, he growled inwardly, most of the women were ugly, and the few pretty ones were likely to be dykes.

He began to count the missions, count the days and hours and minutes until he could be released and go home. This mission had been particularly dull; four frigging days towing three enormous fuel containers, plodding out to a rendezvous point to meet the approaching habitat, on its way to Saturn. Tavalera’s own coveralls stunk with four days’ accumulated crud. The skipper had tweaked him about it, asked him why he couldn’t take a shower with his clothes on. Bitch! he thought.

Now all he had to do was sit tight and watch the control panel displays while the skipper maneuvered those three huge tanks to the approaching habitat. It had been a difficult mission; they’d used up most of Graham’s own fuel climbing up over Jupiter’s north pole to get clear of the fifty million — electron-volt synchrotron radiation that hugged the planet’s equator. Then they had to maneuver farther from Jupiter than any of his earlier missions had gone, a full twenty diameters upsun, outside the bowshock of the planet’s enormous magnetosphere and its own fearsome radiation. Downsun the magnetosphere’s tail stretched all the way out to Saturn’s orbit.

The main display screen showed the habitat in a false-color infrared image. Tavalera looked up at the observation window and saw it dimly outlined in sunlight that glinted off its long, tubular body. To him it looked like a section of sewer pipe floating silently through empty space.

“Releasing tank number one,” said the skipper, mechanically.

Tavalera saw that the release light winked on, green. Cranking up the magnification on his screen, he watched a small army of technicians in spacesuits and one-man transfer flitters hovering at the far end of the habitat, waiting to grapple the spherical tank and attach it to the flying sewer pipe.

Tank one went smoothly, as did tank two.

Then the skipper said, “Uh-oh.”

Tavalera’s heart clutched in his chest. Trouble.

“Got a hangup on tank three,” she said calmly. “You’ll have to go outside and clear it.”

Tavalera had been dreading that possibility. He didn’t mind flying through the dead vacuum of space inside a ship, even a gnat-sized one like Graham. But being out there in nothing more than a flimsy space-suit — that was scary.

The skipper raised the sensor helmet off her face. “Well, brightboy, didn’t you hear me?” she snapped. “Get into your suit! We’ve got to clear that hangup before that bugger of a habitat sails out of our range.”

We, Tavalera muttered to himself. She said “we” have to clear the snag. But she means me. She’s staying in here.

Reluctantly he unstrapped and pushed himself off his chair, floating to the rear of the module where the spacesuits were stored. It took only twenty minutes or so to get into the suit and connect all the lines, but from the way the skipper swore at him it seemed like hours. She came back to check him out, and did it so swiftly that Tavalera knew she couldn’t have done it right. Then she shoved him toward the airlock.

“Get going, chump.”

Gaeta felt hungry, tired, sweaty, and generally dismal as he waited for the technicians to open the airlock’s inner hatch. Looking down on them from inside the armored suit, he wondered what was taking the idiotas tarugas so long to simply tap the right numbers on the airlock’s wall-mounted keyboard.

Fritz pressed one hand to his earplug and muttered something into the pin mike at his lips.

“What’s the holdup?” Gaeta demanded.

“Safety director,” said Fritz. “They have a team of people EVA and they want to make certain they’re nowhere near this airlock when we open it.”

“Maldito.I’m not going outside, I’m just going to stand in the open airlock. Haven’t you told them that?”

“They know—” Fritz tilted his head and pressed at the earplug again. “Say again?” He listened, nodded, then looked up at Gaeta. “Five more minutes. Then we can cycle the airlock.”

“Five minutes,” Gaeta grumbled.

Holly stepped in front of him, looking almost like a little elf as she peered up toward the visor of his helmet.

“Is there any way I can get some of this chili to you?” she asked with a smile. “You must be starved in there.”

He grinned back at her, wondering how much of his face she could see through the heavily tinted visor. Silently he thanked her for her unwitting beneficence to him. Gaeta had tried for more than a year to hitch a ride on the Saturn-bound habitat. Then Wendell had called from the Astro corporate headquarters and in less than two weeks everything had been arranged. All he had to do was keep an eye on this skinny kid, which was no hardship at all. In fact, as Gaeta looked down on Holly, he realized that she wasn’t skinny; she was slim, trim, and altogether pretty damned attractive. Una guapa chiquita.

“I’m starving, all right,” he said to Holly, “but there’s no way to open this tin can without ruining the test we want to make.”

She nodded, a little glumly.

Fritz abruptly waved her away from Gaeta as he said to the technicians, “Open the inner hatch.”

“I thought you said five minutes,” Gaeta snapped, surprised.

As one of the techs tapped out the hatch’s code, Fritz said tightly, “Five minutes until we can open the outer hatch. We can get ready for that now. I haven’t had any supper, either.”

Gaeta laughed as the heavy hatch popped slightly ajar. Two of the techs swung it all the way open. Massive though it was, his suit could only fit through the outsized airlock hatches designed to receive cargo. The suit was not built to bend at the waist or to flex in any way except at the arms and legs. Inside it, Gaeta felt as if he were driving an army tank.

He caught a glimpse of Holly standing to one side, watching intently, as he thumped across the coaming of the hatch and planted both his booted feet inside the airlock.

“Closing the inner hatch,” came Fritz’s brittle voice in the earphones built into his helmet.

“Copy you’re closing inner hatch,” Gaeta said.

They were all behind him now, outside his field of view. He could see the airlock’s control panel on the bulkhead to his left, red and green displays. The light dimmed as the inner hatch closed and one of the red telltales flicked through amber to green. Gaeta was sealed alone inside the blank-walled chamber, like an oversized robot in a metal womb. He felt a need to urinate, but that always happened when he was nervous. It would go away. It better, he thought; we didn’t bother to connect the relief tube.

“Pumping down,” said Fritz.

“Pump away,” he replied.

He couldn’t hear the pumps that sucked the air out of the chamber; couldn’t even feel their vibrations through the thick soles of the suit’s boots. How many times have I been in this suit? Gaeta asked himself. The first time was the trek across Mare Imbrium. Then the Venus plunge. And skimming Jupiter. About ten, twelve test runs for each stunt. Close to fifty times. Feels like home, almost.

“Opening outer hatch in thirty seconds,” Fritz said.

“Open in thirty.”

“No foolishness, remember.”

Gaeta shook his head inside the helmet. The perfect worry-wart, Fritz was. “I’ll just stand here like a statue,” he promised. “No tricks.”

“Ten … nine…”

Still, Gaeta thought, it would be fun to just step out and jet around a little. Maybe do a loop around the habitat. We’ve got to test the suit’s propulsion unit sooner or later.

“Three … two…”

Fritz would shit a brick, Gaeta chuckled to himself.

“Zero.”

The outer hatch slid slowly open. At first Gaeta saw nothing but empty blackness, but then the polarization of his visor adjusted and the stars came into view. Thousands of stars. Millions of them. Hard little points of light spangling the emptiness out there like brilliant diamonds strewn across a black velvet backdrop. And off to one side slanted the gleaming river of the Milky Way, a sinuous path glowing across the sky, mysterious and beckoning.

Gaeta was not a religious man, but every time he saw the grandeur of the real world his eyes misted and he muttered the same hymn of praise: “The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein.”

RENDEZVOUS PROBLEM

Like a lobster crawling across the sea bottom, Tavalera inched weightlessly hand over hand along the rigid Buckyfiber cable connecting Graham to the fuel pod. Once he reached the tank, he clambered slowly from one handhold to another across the huge metal sphere. As soon as he reached the balky connector, he snapped a tether to the nearest clamp built into the tank’s curving surface. It frightened him to work in empty space without a safety line, but the suit tethers were too short to span the distance between Graham’s airlock and the jammed connector on the fuel tank. Once safely connected, he leaned forward as far as he could in the spacesuit, trying to play his helmet light on the connector that refused to unlock.

Every time he had to do an EVA he expected to feel cold, numbed by the frigid vacuum of deep space. And every time he was surprised that he got so hot inside the suit. Five minutes out here and I’m boiling like a guy in a soup pot, he grumbled to himself. He blinked perspiration out of his eyes and cursed himself for forgetting to wear a sweat-band.

“Well?” The skipper’s voice sounded nastier than usual in his helmet earphones.

“I’m trying to see what the hangup is,” Tavalera said. “Gimme a couple minutes.”

“Put the camera on it, let me take a look.”

I’d like to shove the camera up your skinny ass, Tavalera growled silently. He dutifully unhooked the minicam from his equipment belt and clicked it into its slot on the left shoulder of his suit. Its light added to the light of his helmet lamp.

Shaking his head, Tavalera said, “I can’t see why it won’t unlock. Everything looks normal to me.”

The skipper muttered something too low for him to make out. Then she said, “Check the receiver.”

Tavalera instead checked his tether. He had no intention of drifting off the fuel tank and wafting off into interplanetary space. Sure, there were plenty of people from the habitat outside, but how could he be certain they’d be able to grab him? Or even try to?

“Well?” Even testier than before.

“I’m workin’ on it,” he grumbled.

The receiver checked out: Its battery was almost fully charged and it was receiving the command signal from the ship.

“Must be a mechanical problem,” Tavalera said.

“Try the override.”

“That won’t do any good if the problem’s mechanical.”

“Try the override,” the skipper repeated.

Huffing impatiently, wondering how much radiation he was absorbing by the second, Tavalera punched out the override commands on the receiver’s miniature keypad, not an easy thing to accomplish in a spacesuit’s gloves.

“No joy,” he reported.

“I can see that,” said the skipper. “It must be mechanical.”

“Right.” That’s what I told you, fartbrain, he added silently.

“If we don’t get it loose in fourteen minutes we’re going to miss the rendezvous. The habitat will be too far away from us.”

And then we can go home, Tavalera thought. Let somebody else fly the frigging fuel tank out to those dipshits. Who the hell told them to go out to Saturn in the first place?

“You’ll have to disconnect it manually,” the skipper said.

“Great.”

“Get to it!”

There was no way to open the metal latch with his hands, he saw. It was made of heavy asteroidal aluminum, thick and sturdy, designed to stay closed until it received the proper electronic command. If it opened easily it could release the tank prematurely, or even cause a collision.

“Cut it off,” said the skipper. “Use the laser.”

Tavalera looked up at the Graham, hanging a hundred meters or so away from the spherical tank. To him, it looked more like a thousand kilometers. Through the transparent bubble of the crew module he could see the skipper sitting in her command chair, although he couldn’t make out the features of her face. Just as well, he thought. She makes a hatchet look lovable.

“Come on,” the skipper urged, “the clock’s ticking.”

He pulled the hand laser from his equipment belt, wondering if it was powerful enough to saw through the aluminum latch. Probably drain my suit batteries and I’ll asphyxiate out here. A lot she cares.

“Move it!”

“I’m movin’ it,” he yelled back, clicking the safety off the laser and holding its stubby snout a bare centimeter from the obstinate latch.

Grimacing, he pressed the firing stud. Harsh bright sparks leaped from the stubborn latch.

Gaeta stood in the airlock, looking out at the universe, resisting the urge to go sailing out there.

“All systems in the green,” Fritz told him. “Four more minutes until termination of the test.”

Four minutes, Gaeta thought. I bet I could swoop all the way around the habitat in four minutes.

As he looked out, though, he saw two huge spherical tanks swing into view, and several spacesuited figures clambering on them. The fuel tanks, he realized. Better not get snarled up with those guys. Men at work. And women.

Jupiter came into view as the habitat rotated, a distant fat sphere streaked with faint colors, flattened at the poles like a beach ball that some kid was sitting on. And then another sphere, farther away than the others. Or maybe just smaller.

Another fuel tank? Gaeta remembered somebody saying there were three of them. A small spacecraft hovered near the tank. Probably the ferry ship, he thought. Then he saw sparks flashing from the tank. What the hell are they doing to it?

“Three minutes,” came Fritz’s flat voice. He sounded bored.

Gaeta grinned. I’ve got enough juice in the propulsion tank to jet all the way around this sewer pipe, he told himself. Fritz wouldn’t be bored then!

“What are you laughing about?”

Gaeta realized he must have chuckled and Fritz picked it up. “Laughing? Who, me?”

Fritz replied, “No, the Man in the Moon. What were you laughing about?”

“Nothing,” Gaeta said, still thinking what fun it would be to take off and do a spin around the habitat.

“Well?” the skipper demanded, testier than ever.

Tavalera clicked off the laser and peered at the latch. The beam had cut halfway through it.

“Gimme another couple minutes,” he said.

“Get with it, then. Our window closes in less than ten minutes.”

Nodding inside his fishbowl helmet, Tavalera turned on the laser again. Sparks flashed blindingly.

“What’s the holdup?” demanded a new voice in his earphones.

Probably the boss of the habitat crew waiting for the third fuel tank, Tavalera realized.

“We have a malfunction on the tank’s release mechanism,” the skipper answered. “We’re on it. We’ll have it on its way to you in a matter of minutes.” Her tone was a half-million times sweeter than when she spoke to Tavalera, he thought.

“The attachment point is rotating out of position,” came the other voice, male, deep, irritated. “And my crew is running out of time. We weren’t scheduled to be out here this long.”

“I’ll adjust the capture angle,” the skipper said, a little tenser. “It should be no problem.”

“Time’s burning.”

“Yes, yes, just be a little patient. We’re working it.”

We, Tavalera grumbled silently.

“Tavalera,” the skipper yelled at him loudly enough to make him wince. “Get it done!”

“It’s almost there,” he said, angling his shoulder so she could see that the latch was nearly burned through.

Then the laser winked out.

“What’s happening?” she bellowed.

“Dunno,” Tavalera muttered, shaking the stupid little gun. “Capacitor needs to recycle, I think.”

“Bend it back!”

“Huh?”

“The latch, you stupid slug! It’s almost sawn through. Bend it back with your hands! Now!”

Without thinking, Tavalera let the laser float off on its tether and grabbed the metal latch with both gloved hands. It wouldn’t budge.

“Break it off!” the skipper screamed at him. “Get it!”

Desperate, Tavalera grabbed the laser with one hand while he still gripped the latch with the other. Maybe the capacitor’s got one more squirt, he thought, pulling the trigger.

It all happened so suddenly that he had no chance to stop it. The laser fired a set of picosecond pulses and the latch came loose in Tavalera’s hand, throwing him badly off balance. He went sprawling and dropped the laser, which went spinning out to the end of its tether, then snapped back toward Tavalera and fired off another set of pulses that hit the leg of his suit.

He screamed in sudden pain as the fuel tank jerked loose of its connection with Graham and began drifting out into space.

“It’s heading away from us!” the habitat’s crew chief roared.

“I can’t stop it,” the skipper yelled back.

Tavalera didn’t care. The pain searing through his leg was enough to make him giddy, almost delirious. He knew he was going to die, the only question in his mind was whether it would be from loss of blood or from asphyxiation as the air leaked out of his suit.

RESCUE

With nothing else to do but stand in the airlock and wait for Fritz to tell him the test was finished, Gaeta tapped at the keypad on the wrist of his suit to listen in on the chatter from the crew that was attaching the fuel pods to the habitat. Something was obviously wrong with the third tank, it was still out by the ferry ship and somebody was using a welding laser on it. More likely the laser was cutting, not welding, Gaeta thought.

“…stupid piece of crap,” he heard a woman’s sharp-edged voice, “how the hell did you puncture your suit?”

“I need help!” came another voice, scared. “I’m bleeding.”

Bleeding? Gaeta wondered. Punctured suit?

Then a third voice, male, angry and aggravated, “The tank’s off course! We can’t reach it!”

“There’s nothing I can do,” the woman whined. “He knocked it out of line.”

“Help me.” The bleeder’s voice.

“We can’t fucking reach you!” the angry male bellowed. “You’re going off in the wrong direction and you’re already too far for us to get to you.”

“I’m dying…”

“It’s your own stupid fault,” the woman screeched.

Switching back to his intercom frequency, Gaeta said into his helmet microphone, “Turn on all the cameras, Fritz.”

“What? What do you mean?”

“Turn on all the cameras, dammit!” Gaeta snapped, launching himself out of the airlock. To himself he added silently, This looks like a job for Superman.

The suit’s propulsion jets ignited smoothly and Gaeta felt himself hurtling toward the errant fuel pod in the utter silence of empty space. But his earphones were far from silent.

“Come back!” Fritz yelled. “You can’t—”

Gaeta simply turned off the intercom frequency and tapped into the others’ frantic chatter.

“… not a damned frigging thing we can do,” the crew chief was yammering.

“He’ll die out there!” the woman pleaded.

Nothing from the guy who was hurt.

“Hang on,” Gaeta said into his mike. “I’ll get him.”

“Who the hell is that?”

“Manuel Gaeta,” he told them. “I’m on my way to the injured man. Can you see me?”

“Yes!” said the crew chief and the woman simultaneously.

The fuel pod was getting bigger. Jesoo, Gaeta realized, it’s huge! Despite everything, he laughed. Huevos tremendos.

“What’s his name?” Gaeta asked as he rocketed toward the fuel tank.

“What?”

“Who said that?”

“His name, the guy who’s hurt. What’s his name?”

“Tavalera,” the woman replied. “Raoul Tavalera.”

A chicano, Gaeta thought. He called, “Hey Raoul, habla español?”

No answer.

“Raoul!” Gaeta shouted. “Raoul Tavalera! You there? You okay?”

“I’m… here.” His voice sounded very weak. “Not for long, though.”

“Hang in there, man,” Gaeta said. The fuel tank was blotting out most of his vision now, a tremendous curving world of metal rushing up to meet him. “Your suit’s prob’ly sealed itself, maybe cut off the bleeding, too.”

Nothing.

“Where you hurt, man?” Gaeta asked as he slowed his approach and got ready to touch down on the massive sphere.

“Leg…”

“Ah, that’s not so bad. You’ll be okay.”

“Hey, Gay-etta or whatever your name is,” the crew chief interrupted. “I’m bringing my gang in to replenish their air and break out a couple more flitters so we can capture that tank.”

“What about Tavalera?” the woman snapped.

Gaeta was drifting around the tank’s curving surface now, looking for the injured man. “I see him!” he shouted. “I’ll take care of him.”

Tavalera was floating a few meters off the surface of the tank, held by his tether. Gaeta could see that his left leg was dotted by three little burn holes. The hard-shell suit appeared otherwise undamaged; the emergency cuff must have sealed off the leg the way it was designed to do.

Gaeta unhooked Tavalera’s tether and clicked it to his own armored suit. Then he started back for the habitat’s airlock with the injured astronaut in his arms.

“You awake, man?” he asked Tavalera, rapping on his fishbowl helmet.

Tavalera opened his eyes. Groggily, he asked, “Who the hell are you?”

Gaeta grinned. “Your guardian angel, man. I’m your frickin’ guardian angel.”

Holly watched the whole thing on Fritz’s portable display monitor. Standing with the other technicians, she saw Gaeta sail back into the airlock, carrying the limp astronaut in the powerful arms of his armored suit.

He saved him, Holly thought, her heart racing. He’s saved that man’s life.

While the technicians cycled the airlock Holly rushed to the wall phone by the inner hatch and called for emergency medical services. Surprise showed clearly on the medic’s face, even in the palm-sized screen of the wall phone, but he promised to have a team at the airlock in less than five minutes.

The inner hatch sighed open and Gaeta clumped through, still holding the injured, spacesuited man.

“Did you get it all down?” Gaeta asked, his voice booming through the suit’s amplifier. “Cameras all on?”

“Yes, yes,” said Fritz, sounding annoyed. “You will be on all the news nets, never fear.”

Three medics in white coveralls came pounding down the corridor to the airlock, trailed by a powered gurney and a crash wagon. They quickly got the injured man’s helmet off, slapped an oxygen mask over his face, pulled the suit torso off him and jabbed a hypo into his arm. Then they whisked him off toward the infirmary in the village.

Holly turned back to Gaeta, still in his massive suit.

“You saved his life,” she said, looking up at him. She could barely make out his face through the heavily tinted visor.

“He generated good publicity,” said Fritz, a little sharply.

Holly countered, “He risked his own life to save a man in danger.”

With an almost exasperated sigh, Fritz said, “He risked his life, yes. He also risked the suit, which is worth several hundred millions.” Glancing up at Gaeta he added, “We can always find another daredevil; replacing the suit would not be so easy. Or cheap.”

Gaeta laughed; it sounded like thunder echoing off the corridor’s metal walls. “C’mon, Fritz, let’s get back to the shop so I can get out of this tin can.”

Holly walked beside Gaeta, still clutching her container of chili in one hand. It was ice cold now, she knew. Gaeta plodded down the corridor like a ponderous robot in a bad vid, with Fritz on his other side. The technicians trailed along behind.

At last they reached the workshop and the technicians unsealed the hatch at the suit’s rear. Gaeta crawled out, stood up, and stretched his arms over his head languidly. Holly heard vertebrae pop.

“Damn, that feels good,” he said, smiling.

She stepped closer to him and saw that his clothes were drenched with perspiration. He smelled like old sweat socks.

Gaeta caught her hesitant expression. “Guess I oughtta shower, huh?”

Fritz was still unhappy with him. “An extravehicular excursion was not planned. You shouldn’t have done it. What if the propulsion unit had failed? It hasn’t been properly tested for flight activity.”

Gaeta grinned at him. “Fritz, everything worked fine. Don’t be such a gloomy fregado. Besides, I couldn’t leave the guy out there, he might have died.”

“Still, you had no right to—”

“Can it, Fritz. It’s over and no damage was done to the precious suit.” To Holly he said, “Wait there just a couple mins, kid. I gotta get outta these clothes and hit the shower.”

He ambled to the lavatory off at the workshop’s rear, whistling tunelessly. Holly watched the techs clambering over the suit, checking all its systems and shutting them down, one by one.

Gaeta came back, his hair glistening and slicked back, wearing a fresh set of coveralls.

“Now, where do we eat?” he asked. “I’m starving.”

Fritz glanced at his wristwatch. “The restaurants are all closed by now. We’ll have to eat in our quarters.”

Holly held up her plastic container. “I’ve got some chili, but it’s got to be reheated.”

“Chili! Great!” said Gaeta.

Glancing at Fritz and the other techs, Holly said, “There isn’t enough for all of us.”

Gaeta took her by the arm and started for the lab’s door. “There’s enough for us two, right? These other clowns can get their own suppers.”

Holly let him lead her out into the corridor without a glance back at the others. But in her mind she was saying, Malcolm’ll have to notice this!

Charles Nicholas was a chubby, chinless little man who had learned to wear clothes so that he somehow managed to look dapper even in a plain sports shirt and comfortable slacks. As the senior man on duty at the Communications office that evening, he had watched Gaeta’s heroics in fascination.

His assistant, Elinor, happened to be his wife. She was slightly taller than he, much slimmer, and wore clothes even better than he did. They always tried to have their working shifts together. They spent every waking moment together and, of course, slept in the same bed. Yet while Charles was openly admiring of Gaeta’s feat in rescuing the injured astronaut, Elinor was somewhat dubious.

“They might have staged the whole thing,” she said to her husband in her squeaky, strangely sexy voice.

Charles was rerunning the vid. “Staged it? How could they stage it? It was an accident. That kid could’ve died.”

“They could have set it up weeks in advance. For the publicity.”

“Nobody was watching except us and the EVA crew.”

“But they got it all on a chip, didn’t they? They’ll want to beam it to the nets, back Earthside.”

Charles shook his head. “They’ll have to get permission for that. They’ll have to ask Vyborg, he’s in charge of news releases.”

“He’ll okay it,” said Elinor. “All they have to do is ask him. He likes publicity.”

“Professor Wilmot doesn’t.”

“So they won’t ask Wilmot. They’ll ask Vyborg and he’ll okay it without bucking it upstairs.”

“You think so?”

“Bet you five credits,” Elinor replied.

Charles said nothing, thinking that Elinor was probably right. She usually was. Sure enough, a call came through from somebody named Von Helmholtz, who identified himself as Gaeta’s chief technician, asking permission to beam their vid of the rescue to the news nets on Earth and Selene. Charles routed the request to Vyborg’s private line. In less than ten minutes Vyborg called back, gladly granting permission.

“You owe me five,” Elinor said, grinning evily at Charles.

“I never bet,” he said.

“Makes no difference,” she said loftily. “It’s a moral victory for me.”

He tried to change the subject. “Have you made up your mind about what we should call our village?”

“Something better than Village C,” she said.

“I think we should name it after some great figure from literature. Cervantes, maybe. Or Shakespeare.”

“You know they both died the same year?”

“No.”

“Yes; 1616. You can look it up.”

“I don’t believe it.”

“Bet five?”

“That I will bet on,” Charles said, sticking out his hand.

They shook on it, Elinor thinking, We’re married more than ten years and he still doesn’t realize that I only bet on sure things. She smiled kindly at her husband. It’s one of things that I love about him.

Holly and Gaeta were walking slowly along the gently climbing path that led toward her apartment building. It was well past midnight; the habitat was in its nighttime mode. The solar windows were closed and everything was dark except for the small lights set atop slim poles along the edges of the path, and the windows of some of the living quarters up ahead.

“Look up at the stars,” Gaeta said, stopping in the middle of the path.

“They’re not stars,” said Holly, “they’re lights from the land up there.”

“Those over there look like the petals of a flower to me,” he said, pointing overhead. “I think I’ll call it the Flower constellation.”

She giggled. “They’re just lights, Manny. See, those meandering ones over there?” She pointed too. “Those are the bike paths between the food factory and Village C. And the village itself—”

“Looks like a giant squid, doesn’t it? See, there’s the body and there’s the tentacles stretching out.”

She was standing so close to him in the darkness that she could feel the heat of his body.

“And what’s that one?” she asked, pointing up at the neat rows of lights marking one of the orchards.

“Let’s see now,” he muttered. “How about the Tic-Tac-Toe constellation?”

They laughed together and then she was in his arms and he kissed her. Jeeps, Holly thought, what am I getting into?

“He brought the man here?” Eberly asked.

Eberly was standing at his kitchen sink, a bowl of breakfast cereal in his hands. Kananga had barged in without warning, simply one sharp rap on the apartment’s door and he entered without being invited. Eberly was certain he had locked the door before retiring for the night. How did Kananga get it open? The man had been a police official back on Earth, Eberly remembered. He must be quite accustomed to getting past locked doors and entering someone’s home without asking.

Kananga nodded somberly. “He’s in the hospital. Apparently the wounds on his leg were not too serious. The laser cauterized as it penetrated the flesh, so there was very little bleeding. He suffered mostly from shock.”

“How long must he remain in hospital?” Eberly asked, absently pouring flakes into a plastic bowl. “We ought to send him back to the Jupiter station as soon as possible.”

“It’s already too late for that,” said Kananga, standing on the other side of the counter that served as a partition between the kitchen and sitting room. “We’ve moved too far from Jupiter for them to send a spacecraft to pick him up. It would take a special torch-ship flight, and the station staff are unwilling to send for one to fetch him.”

“You mean we’re stuck with this man?”

Kananga nodded again. “The medical people have him under quarantine until they can establish that he’s not carrying anything harmful in his bloodstream.”

“But he can’t stay here! This habitat isn’t a shelter for the homeless!”

“Do you want me to push him out an airlock?”

Eberly stared at the colonel. His question was obviously meant to be humorous, but there was no trace of a smile on his dark, utterly serious face.

“Don’t be funny,” Eberly said.

“Then he’s here to stay. He doesn’t know it yet, by the way. Someone will have to break the news to him. He probably won’t like it.”

Eberly put his cereal bowl down on the kitchen counter and came around to the sitting room.

“I’ll get Holly to tell him. Or perhaps Morgenthau — she’s the acting head of the Human Resources Department. They’ll have to make room for him somewhere in the habitat’s population.”

“He won’t like it,” Kananga repeated. “He was due to return to Earth in a few weeks.”

“He’s here to stay, unless he can afford a torch ship to pick him up.”

“He’ll expect us to do that.”

With a shake of his head, Eberly said, “There’s no provision in our budget for that. Wilmot wouldn’t spend the money. He couldn’t. There isn’t any money to spend.”

“Perhaps one of the news services,” Kananga suggested. “The rescue made quite a sensation on the nets this morning.”

“Perhaps. I’ll ask Vyborg to look into that possibility.” Eberly hesitated, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. “On the other hand, perhaps we can use all this to our advantage.”

“How?”

“I don’t know … yet. But there should be some way to turn this to our advantage. After all, we have a genuine hero in our midst, this stuntman Gaeta.”

“He’s an outsider. He’ll be returning to Earth after he’s performed his exploit.”

“Returning to Earth? Someone will send a ship for him?”

Kananga looked surprised at the idea. “I hadn’t thought about it. Perhaps he can take the refugee back with him.”

“Perhaps. But in the meantime, we should work out a way to use him. Use them both, perhaps.”

Kananga asked again, “How?”

“Heroes are always valuable,” Eberly replied, “if they can be manipulated. I’ll have to think of a way to bring Gaeta into our camp.”

Kananga shrugged. “At least we have one consolation.”

Eberly looked at him sharply. “What’s that?”

“It won’t happen again. We won’t take any more refugees aboard. The Jupiter station was the last human outpost. There’s no one out this far except us.”

With that, he turned and left the apartment. Eberly realized he was right. The habitat was sailing now farther than any humans had ever gone before. Beyond the frontier, into the unknown.

Frowning, Eberly tried his front door. It was securely locked. Yet Kananga had entered and left as if it had been wide open.

DEPARTURE PLUS 425 DAYS

Holly awoke slowly, remembering what seemed to be a dream. But it really happened, she knew. It really happened.

Manny was gone, of course. He had left her after they had made love, right here in her bed, left her drowsy and languid and warm with the touch of his hands, his lips, his body pressed against hers.

She smiled up at the ceiling. Then she giggled. I’ll have to tell Don Diego what terrific chili he made. A love potion.

A glance at the digital clock on her night table told her that she ought to get up, shower and dress and get to the office. Yet she lay back on the rumpled, sweaty sheets, remembering.

But a sudden thought snapped her out of her reverie. Malcolm! What if he finds out? I just wanted to make him jealous, make him notice me. This’ll make him hate me!

The phone buzzed.

“No video,” Holly said sharply. “Answer.”

Malcolm’s face appeared floating above the foot of her bed. He knows! she screamed silently. He’s found out! Holly jerked up to a sitting position, clutching the sheet to her despite knowing that Eberly could not see her, waves of guilt washing over her, drowning every other emotion.

“Holly, are you there?” Eberly asked, squinting slightly, as if that would make her image appear in his apartment.

“Yes, Malcolm,” she said, straining to keep her voice level. “I — I’m running a little late this morning.”

“About this man that Gaeta brought aboard the habitat last evening,” Eberly said, ignoring the tremble in her voice. “He’s going to stay aboard the habitat unless someone wants to send a ship out to fetch him.”

He doesn’t know! she thought, so relieved that she nearly sagged back on the pillows. To Eberly’s image she managed to utter:

“Yes?”

“I want you to interview him as soon as the medics lift his quarantine. We need a complete dossier on him.”

He doesn’t know, she repeated to herself. It’s all right. He doesn’t know. “I see. Of course.”

“Good. Get on it right away.”

Holly’s mind began working again. “Have you told Morgenthau about this?” Holly asked.

His brows knit slightly. “I’m telling you.”

She nodded. “Kay. Right. I’ll inform her. She wants to be kept informed, y’know.”

“You take care of it,” he said, almost crossly.

“Kay. I’ll do it.”

At last he seemed to catch the reluctance in her voice. “Holly, would you rather I speak to Morgenthau?”

Her heart fluttered. “Oh, Malcolm, I don’t want to bother you with that.” But silently she was rejoicing, He cares! He really cares about me!

“I’ll call her right now,” he said, smiling at her. “By the time you get to the office, she’ll know all about this.”

“Thank you, Malcolm!”

“It’s nothing,” he said. Then he cut the connection and his image vanished.

Leaving Holly sitting in her bed, suddenly wretched that she had made love with another man, and terrified that Malcolm might find out.

When Ruth Morgenthau arrived at her office that morning, she found Sammi Vyborg already sitting in front of her desk, waiting for her.

“I thought you’d be watching the Jupiter flyby,” she said, sweeping around her desk and settling heavily in its padded chair.

Vyborg hunched forward in his chair. “That stuntman’s heroics have made the flyby seem tame, by comparison. Every network is carrying the video.”

“So?” Morgenthau asked. “Then why are you here? If it’s about the refugee,” she said airily, “I’ve already spoken with Eberly about it. He wants Holly to—”

“It’s not about the refugee,” Vyborg snapped.

She looked at him carefully. His narrow death’s head of a face was even grimmer than usual, tense with repressed anger.

“What is it, then?”

“Eberly promised to make me head of the Communications Department. But he’s done nothing to make that happen.”

Morgenthau temporized, “That sort of thing takes time, Sammi. You know that. You must be patient.”

“He hasn’t lifted a finger,” Vyborg insisted.

“Patience, Sammi. Patience.”

Strangely, Vyborg smiled. To Morgenthau it looked like the smile of a rattlesnake gliding toward its victim.

“I once saw a cartoon,” he said slowly, “that showed two vultures sitting in the branches of a dead tree. One of them was saying to the other, ‘Patience, my ass! I’m going to kill somebody.’ ”

Morgenthau felt her cheeks flush at Vyborg’s crude language. “And just who do you intend to kill?”

“The two people who stand between me and the top of the Communications Department, of course.”

“I wouldn’t advise—”

“Neither one of them is a Believer. The department head is a Jew, not that he observes his own religion. The other one is a superannuated old Mexican who spends more time gardening than he does at his desk. He should be easy to dispose of.”

“You mustn’t do anything without getting Eberly’s approval first.”

“Don’t play games with me. We both know that Eberly is nothing more than a figurehead. You’re the real authority here.”

“Don’t underestimate Eberly. He can win over people. He can mesmerize crowds. I don’t want you to act precipitously.”

“Yes, yes. But I believe the old adage that the Lord helps those who help themselves. I’m finished waiting. The time for action has come.”

Morgenthau pursed her lips disapprovingly. But she said nothing.

Showered, combed and dressed, Holly phoned Morgenthau before leaving her apartment.

“Dr. Eberly wants me to interview the newcomer,” she said to Morgenthau’s fleshy image. “I’ve checked with the medical department and they’re lifting his quarantine this morning, so I’m planning to go straight there instead of to the office.”

Holly spoke the words as a declaration, not a question, not a request for permission. Eberly’s name was all the permission she needed.

Morgenthau seemed to feel the same way. “Eberly called me earlier and told me about it. But thanks for informing me, Holly. I’ll see you in the office when you return from the hospital.”

Raoul Tavalera was sitting in the hospital’s tiny solarium, a glassed-in bubble on the hospital’s roof. Even though it was midmorning and sunlight streamed through the habitat’s solar windows, to Holly it looked like a slightly overcast day; the sunlight seemed weak, as though filtered through a layer of thin clouds. We’re more than five times farther from the Sun than the Earth is, she realized. Naturally the sunlight is weaker.

Tavalera was dressed in ill-fitting gray coveralls, his long, horsy face looking glum, almost sullen. He did not get up from his chair when Holly walked over to him and introduced herself. She wore a crisply tailored dusky rose blouse over dark gray slacks: office garb.

“I’m from the Human Resources Department,” Holly explained, once she had pulled up a chair to sit next to Tavalera. He did not move a muscle to help her. She made a smile for him and went on, “I’m here to get your complete life story.”

He did not smile back. “Is it true? I’m stuck here for a friggin’ year or more?”

“Unless someone sends a ship to pick you up, yes, I’m afraid you’re going to be with us all the way out to Saturn.”

“Who the fuck would send a ship out for me?” he muttered. “I’m just a turd engineer, friggin’ slave labor, that’s all I am.”

Holly took a breath. “Mr. Tavalera, I’m no saint, but I’d appreciate it if you notched up your language a little.”

He gave her a sidelong glance. “A Believer?”

“Not really. I’m not a churchgoer.”

“The frig — uh, I mean, it was the New Morality that sent me out here in the first place. I hadda do two years of public service. No choice.”

“I see.”

“Do ya? I only had a couple more weeks to go and they would’ve brought me back home. Now I’m goin’ out to fri — to Saturn for chrissakes.”

Gesturing toward the rooftop view of the village and the habitat’s lovely green landscape, Holly said, “There are worse places, y’know. You might actually like it here.”

“I got family on Earth. Friends. I was gonna get my life back together…” His voice trailed off. Holly could see that he was struggling to keep from flying off into a rage.

“You can send them messages. We can find useful work for you to do. You’ll enjoy living here, betcha.”

Tavalera glowered at her.

“I know it must seem like a bugging disaster to you,” said Holly as reasonably as she could, “but you’re here and you should try to make the best of it.”

“Easy for you to say,” Tavalera muttered.

“We’ll do everything we can to help you while you’re here.”

“We?”

“The people here in the habitat. The Human Resources Department.”

“Does that include you?”

Nodding, Holly replied, “I’m with the Human Resources Department, yes.”

Tavelra seemed to brigthten a little. But only a little.

Eberly paced leisurely along the path that wound around the perimeter of the lake, Morgenthau at his side.

“It’s good to be out in the open air,” he was saying. “Away from prying eyes and snooping ears.”

“They’re spying on you?” Morgenthau asked. She knew how simple it was to spray molecule-thin microphones on a wall or ceiling. Cameras no bigger than a teardrop could be inserted almost anywhere.

“Probably not. Wilmot’s too naïve even to understand what we’re doing. But it’s best to be prepared against all possibilities, don’t you think?”

“We have a problem with Vyborg,” she said, as if making an announcement.

“He’s impatient, I know.”

Morgenthau said, “He’s more than impatient. He’s going to do something violent.”

“Violent?” Eberly felt a pang of alarm in his guts. “What do you mean?”

Morgenthau replied calmly, “He’s not willing to wait for you to remove the two men above him in the Communications Department. He’s ready to strike against them.”

Fighting against the fear rising within him, Eberly snarled, “The little snake! He’ll ruin everything.” Inwardly he asked himself, How can I stop him? How can I prevent him without seeming weak, indecisive? I want their loyalty, but if I try to thwart them, prevent them from acting, they’ll go ahead without me. And then where will I be? When we get to Saturn they’ll send me back to Earth. Back to prison!

“He’s going to resort to violence, I tell you,” Morgenthau insisted.

It took an effort of will for Eberly to keep from wringing his hands. “What can I do? How can I stop him?”

Morgenthau smiled knowingly. “Don’t stop him.”

“What?”

“Let him take action. Just make certain that whatever he does can’t be traced back to us.”

Eberly stared at her, trying to understand what she was saying.

Still walking along as if on a casual stroll, Morgenthau explained, “We want Vyborg to take command of the Communications Department. If he’s ready to take a step in that direction, why stop him?”

“What if he commits a crime? What if he’s discovered, caught, arrested?”

“That’s why we must have no connection with him, not until after he’s succeeded.”

“But if he fails…”

“If he succeeds, he’s one step closer to our goal. If he fails, we can honestly say we had nothing to do with it.”

“Suppose he fails,” Eberly questioned, “and he’s caught, and he blames me?”

“You can show clean hands and a pure heart,” Morgenthau replied sweetly. “With your powers of persuasion, I’m sure you can make Wilmot and the whole population believe that you’ve been falsely accused. Because that will be the truth.”

Eberly walked on in silence, with Morgenthau keeping pace beside him. She wants Vyborg to act. Even if he commits murder, she’s in favor of his acting. Why? he asked himself. And the answer came immediately: Because that will give her a stronger hold on Vyborg. And a stronger hold on me. She’s allowing me to be the public figurehead because I can organize people and sway them to our side. But she’s the power behind the throne. She’s the real power here.

INTERFAITH CHAPEL

With ten thousand souls in the habitat and only one small chapel for them to worship in, you would think this house of God would be filled to overflowing every hour of the day and night, thought Ruth Morgenthau as she sank to her knees in the first pew. But no, it’s empty except for me.

Cold anger filled her. Ten thousand people and not one of them loves God enough to kneel here in prayer. Only me. I’m the only one here.

Not so, came a stern voice from within her. God is here. Bow your head in prayer. Acknowledge your sins and beg your Maker for forgiveness.

Morgenthau prayed.

She had found God — or, rather, God had found her — when she had been a skinny fourteen-year-old prostitute in the filth-littered back streets of Nuremberg, speeding toward an early death from malnutrition, disease, and drug abuse. The Holy Disciples rescued her, healed her body and cleansed her soul.

Yet the hunger remained. She realized, in time, that the hunger was the devil’s work, the insidious, inescapable hunger that would pull her down to eternal damnation unless she dedicated her every waking moment to the service of God. She prayed for relief, for the strength to overcome its constant searing need. Often she prayed for death, for she thought that only death would end the torture of her soul. She denied herself the companionship of women, slept alone in a bare monk’s cell, to keep from temptation, to stave off the yearning hunger.

And then she found the substitute, the permissible passion that sublimated her forbidden hunger. Power. By working with men, by spending virtually every waking moment surrounded by the men she loathed and feared, eventually she learned to play their games of power. She deliberately allowed her body to bloat, to become unattractive physically. But she honed her mind and her instincts. She rose in the councils of the Holy Disciples. No one suspected her suppressed yearning. Women and men alike respected her growing power.

When she was asked to go on the mission to Saturn she agreed gladly.

“We have selected a man to organize a God-fearing government in the space habitat,” her superior told her, “but he is not the most reliable of souls. He claims to be a Believer, but his past record of chicanery makes me doubt his faith.”

Morgenthau nodded. “I understand,” she said. And she did. This was an opportunity for real power, control of ten thousand men and women. A great opportunity. And a terrible temptation.

So she knelt alone in the habitat’s little chapel and prayed fervently for guidance. And power. Power was good, power in the service of God was an absolute blessing. It kept the hunger at bay. It calmed the devils that burned within her.

Morgenthau prayed for inner peace, for humility, for understanding the path that God wished her to take. But most of all, she prayed for power.

SATURN ARRIVAL MINUS 335 DAYS

Holly felt awkward when she saw Gaeta again, two days later. She found a good business reason to call him, yet instead of asking him to come to her office, she invited him to lunch. He easily agreed, on the condition that it was at the Bistro, not the cafeteria. When Holly hesitated, wondering if he considered that more romantic, he said:

“Don’t worry, it’ll be my treat.”

Despite herself, Holly laughed and agreed to meet him at the Bistro.

Yet she grew more nervous as noon approached. We spent a night together and he hasn’t made a move to see me since then. I call him to talk business, but he wants to have lunch in the Bistro because it’s quieter and the food’s better and maybe he thinks we can go back to my place or maybe his afterward and go to bed together. Which wouldn’t be altogether a terrible thing, she thought, grinning despite her pangs of guilt. But I can’t get involved with him or anybody else because Malcolm’s the man I really want.

A faint voice in her head asked, Is that really true? Malcolm hasn’t even held your hand. Are you really in love with him?

Yes, she replied so swiftly that she did not allow herself any doubt. The faint voice said nothing more.

Gaeta was already at their table when Holly arrived at the Bistro. He shot to his feet, a bright smile on his rugged face.

The Bistro was so small that most of the tables were outside, on the grass. There was never any rain to worry about in the habitat, and the only winds were the gentle breezes that were stirred by the massive air circulation pumps set into the endcaps. Underground hoses watered the lawns and the crops, as needed, without spraying water through the air. Sensors in the ground kept track of soil moisture and nutrient levels.

There were no flies or other buzzing pests in the habitat, although Holly knew that the ground was honeycombed by ants and worms and the microscopic creatures that turned inert, dead dirt from the Moon’s regolith into living, productive soil.

“Sorry I’m late,” Holly said, slipping into the chair that Gaeta held for her.

“Only five minutes,” he said, sitting down again.

“Sometimes it’s almost impossible to get out of the office. There’s always something more to do.”

The flat-topped robot waiter trundled to their table, the menu and wine list illuminated on its touchscreen. They made their choices and the robot threaded its way through the tables and back inside the restaurant.

“We’re making a nice little bundle on the rescue footage,” Gaeta said. “It got a big play on the news nets. Outscored our flyby of Jupiter in the ratings.”

“That’s great.”

The robot rolled back to their table, bearing their drinks. As Gaeta handed Holly her frosted mug of cola he asked, “So what did you want to see me about?” He seemed guarded, Holly thought, almost wary.

“I need to talk to you about Tavalera, the guy you rescued,” she said.

“What? He wants a percentage?”

Holly was surprised at that. “No. Prob’ly he hasn’t even thought about that. He just wants to go home.”

“Back Earthside?”

“Right.”

Gaeta made a small, careless shrug. “He can hitch a ride with us when we leave, I guess.”

“That’s what I was going to ask you.”

“Sure. No prob. Fritz’ll grumble, but the guy’s an engineer, isn’t he? So we can carry him as a backup techie. That’ll keep Fritz happy.”

Suddenly there was nothing left to talk about, Holly realized. Except everything.

Sammi Vyborg skipped lunch. He stayed in his office and followed Diego Romero on the surveillance cameras spotted throughout the habitat. Kananga had given him the Security Department’s code for accessing the cameras.

The old man had spent the morning in his office, as usual, going through the motions of being second-in-command of the Communications Department. Then he’d left and gone to his own apartment. From the cameras atop the administration building’s roof Vyborg watched Romero amble along the path to the apartment building, walking slowly, as if he hadn’t a care in the world. A few minutes afterward he emerged again, dressed now in tattered, frayed work clothes, and strolled off into the woods out beyond the village, also as usual.

Morgenthau had refused to give him access to the cameras inside Romero’s apartment.

“That’s very sensitive,” she had said flatly. “Only myself and a very small cadre of sworn Believers are allowed to review those records. Besides,” she added, with a dimpled smile, “we wouldn’t want to invade someone’s privacy, would we?”

Simmering with frustration, Vyborg watched the views from the outdoor cameras.

Impatiently, he switched from one camera to another, keeping Romero in view on his holographic display until the old man disappeared down the slope of the culvert for the irrigation canal. There were no cameras down there. He’s alone out there, Vyborg saw, except now and then that young woman from Morgenthau’s department comes out to help him. I can get Morgenthau to keep her busy on the day when I strike. That should be easy. But how to eliminate the old man? It must look like an accident.

Vyborg cleared his display and closed his eyes to ponder the problem. Kananga, he thought. Kananga will know how to do it. He’d probably enjoy the task.

Eberly gazed at the document hovering above his desktop the way ah art lover would admire a Rembrandt.

It’s perfect, he thought, leaning back in his desk chair. A constitution that no one could possibly vote against. Every high-flown phrase from history that spoke of human freedom and dignity was in the document. And so was that tiny clause, buried deeply in all the other verbiage, that allowed the government to cancel all individual rights for the length of an emergency.

It’s time to bring this before the people. Let them debate its fine points, let them argue it out, clause by clause, phrase by phrase. He laughed, alone in his apartment. Let them spend the next few months dissecting the document and then putting it back together again. Let them babble and quack at each other. In the end they will accept something very close to this document. And I will see to it that the emergency clause is untouched.

He clasped his hands together prayerfully and held them to his lips. This will make Morgenthau happy. I’ll have the complete backing of the New Morality and Holy Disciples and all the other Believers scattered in among the population. They’ll vote for this constitution. They’ll make an effective bloc of votes that I can count on. If anything, they’ll want to make it more restrictive than it is now. I can just see Wilmot and Urbain and the rest of the scientists debating against the Believers! What a show that will make! Entertainment for weeks to come.

Once the constitution is enacted, the time will come to elect the habitat’s new leaders. No, not leaders, plural. There can be only one leader here and that will be me.

And once I am elected, it will be the time to clean house, the time to settle old scores, the time to make Morgenthau and those New Morality prigs grovel at my feet.

As she walked back to her office, Holly didn’t know whether she should feel disappointed or relieved. Actually, she felt some of both. And puzzled.

Lunch with Manny had been pleasant, even fun. He didn’t try to come on to me. Why? she asked herself. He was warm and friendly, but it was like a couple of nights ago never happened. Like he has amnesia or something. Just erased from his memory bank.

Are guys all like that? Didn’t it mean anything to him? She realized that it meant much more to her. And then there was Malcolm. Maybe it’s better that Manny isn’t really interested in me. He just had a fling with me, that’s all. I shouldn’t take it seriously. But he was so…

She realized she was close to tears.

Maybe I should talk to Don Diego about it, she thought. Then she shook her head. How could I tell him about it? I’d sound like a stupid dimdumb, or worse. But I’ve got to tell somebody. I need a friend and he’s the only real friend I have.

Kananga listened to Vyborg without saying a word, without nodding or gesturing or even blinking his eyes, it seemed. He walked alongside Vyborg in the dimmed light of evening, the lamps along their path making his shaved scalp gleam darkly, and listened so intently that Vyborg wondered if the man had gone mute.

At last Vyborg asked, “So what do you think can be done about it?”

“Why do you come to me with this problem of yours?” Kananga asked quietly.

Vyborg glowered at him. “Because you are a man of action. Because you wouldn’t be aboard this habitat if it weren’t for me. I convinced the Peacekeepers to allow you to emigrate. They wanted to put you on trial for genocide.”

Kananga’s dark face remained impassive, but the old fury welled up inside him once again. Genocide! The Hutu slaughtered us by the thousands and no one lifted a finger. Yet when we seized power, when we repayed the Hutu in blood just as they had done to us, the Peacekeepers come in with their satellite cameras and their laser weapons. They arrest us and put us on trial in the World Court.

Misunderstanding the rage in Kananga’s eyes, Vyborg said in a more conciliatory tone, “I need your help. No one else can do this for me. I need your strength and skill. Help me to get rid of this old man. Please.”

The tall, lanky Rwandan took a deep, calming breath. Pointing a lean finger at one of the light poles at the side of the path they were walking along, he said softly, “That is a problem.”

Vyborg understood immediately. “The cameras.”

Kananga nodded solemnly. “Morgenthau has even installed cameras in the apartments.”

“Yes, I know.”

“Of course, if we do something in his apartment, I’m sure that we could get Morgenthau to suppress the video.”

“So we could take care of him in his apartment and no one would know,” Vyborg said hopefully.

“But what would we do with the body?” Kananga put the slightest of emphasis on the word “we,” but Vyborg heard it and understood.

“Make it look like an accident. A natural death. He’s an old man.”

“In excellent health. I checked his medical records.”

“People die,” Vyborg snapped.

With a low chuckle, Kananga said, “Yes, especially when they have help.”

Feeling exasperation growing within him, Vyborg demanded, “Well, can you help me or not?”

Kananga was silent for so long that Vyborg thought the man was going to refuse. But at last he said, “There are no surveillance cameras down in the culverts where he spends so much of his time, are there?”

Vyborg realized he was right.

SATURN ARRIVAL MINUS 328 DAYS

All the department heads were seated around the oval conference table. Wilmot sat on one side, in the middle, flanked by Urbain and round-faced, dark-haired Andrea Maronella, head of the agro group. Eberly, sitting exactly across the table from Wilmot, still thought of the woman as a glorified farmer.

One by one, the department heads gave summaries of their weekly reports. Eberly felt utterly bored. Why doesn’t Wilmot record one of these meetings and simply play it back each week? he wondered. It would save us all an hour or two and the results would be just about the same.

“Well, that seems to be it,” Wilmot said, once the last speaker had finished. “Any new business?”

Eberly said, “Raoul Tavalera has accepted a position in the Maintenance Department. He’s now working on repair and refurbishment assignments, so I’m told.”

Tamiko O’Malley, the stubby Japanese head of maintenance, nodded vigorously. “He’s not a half bad technician, actually. Although he really wants to get back to Earth as soon as possible.”

Wilmot turned his gaze back to Eberly. “What about that, Dr. Eberly?”

“We’re making arrangements for him to leave with the video team, once they’ve finished their excursion to Titan.”

Urbain slapped his palm on the table top. “They will not be allowed to land on Titan! Never!”

Eberly said mildly, “Their team leader is under the impression that he will be allowed—”

“Never!” Urbain repeated, louder.

Wilmot placed a soothing hand on the scientist’s arm. “I thought Dr. Cardenas was helping him solve the contamination problem.”

“With nanomachines?” Urbain snapped. “I will believe that when I see it demonstrated, not before.”

Eberly said, “It’s going to be difficult to refuse him permission. I mean, this man Gaeta is a media hero. He rescued that injured astronaut. Everyone in the habitat respects him for that.”

Before Urbain could reply, Wilmot said, “We must set up a demonstration of Dr. Cardenas’s nanomachines. A demonstration that is done in complete safety. I don’t want to take the slightest chance that nanobugs might run rampant in this habitat.”

Urbain nodded and smiled thinly. “Zero risk,” he murmured, and his smile told Eberly that he knew zero risk was an impossibility.

“Very well,” said Wilmot. “Are we finished, then?”

Several department heads started to push their chairs away from the table. But Eberly cleared his throat loudly and announced, “There is one more item, if you please.”

Wilmot, halfway out of his chair, thumped down in it again, looking anything but pleased. “What is it?” he asked peevishly.

“My committee has drawn up a draft constitution. I’ve reviewed it and now I think it’s time for the people at large to see it and vote on adopting it.”

A flash of something like suspicion flickered in Wilmot’s eyes.

One of the department heads complained, “You’ve already got everyone arguing about naming things. Now you’re going to start another debate?”

But Wilmot brushed his moustache with one finger and said, “Let me see your draft document first. Then we’ll have all the department heads review it. After that, we can show it to the people at large.”

“Fine,” said Eberly, with a gracious smile. It was exactly what he had expected Wilmot to do.

Several days later, Holly got up from her desk and walked to Morgenthau’s door. She no longer thought of the office as Eberly’s; she hadn’t seen Eberly for many weeks, except for brief encounters and then always with other people present. He doesn’t care about me, she told herself, desperately hoping it wasn’t true, wondering how she could make him care for her as much as she cared for him.

She tapped at the door, and Morgenthau called, “Enter.”

Holly slid the door back halfway and said, “I’ll be out of the office for the rest of the day. I’m going out to—”

Morgenthau looked apprehensive, almost startled. “Holly, I was going to tell you earlier but it slipped my mind until this very moment. I need you to bring Dr. Cardenas’s dossier up to date.”

“Up to date? I thought we had a complete file on her.”

Morgenthau tapped at the handheld resting on her desk. Cardenas’s file and photo appeared above it. Morgenthau scrolled down rapidly, the words blurring before Holly’s eyes. It made no difference; Holly remembered the complete file, word for word, from her first reading of it.

“There. There is a break in her record. She ran the nanolab at Selene for several years, and then abruptly quit. A few months later she went to Ceres, but she did not engage in nanotechnology research there, as far as the record shows. I want you to clear this up with her.”

Holly said, “It doesn’t seem that cosmic, does it?”

With a hardening expression, Morgenthau said, “My dear Holly, everything about nanotechnology is important. Something happened to abruptly change Cardenas’s career. She quit nanotech work for several years, and now she wants to resume her research here, among us. Why? What is she up to?”

“Kay,” Holly said. “I’ll call her.”

“Invite her out to lunch. If she refuses, go to her lab and don’t leave until she’s explained herself to you.”

“You make it sound like a police investigation.”

“Perhaps it should be.”

Wondering why Morgenthau was so worked up, Holly said, “Kay, I’ll give her a call before I go out.”

Raising a chubby finger, Morgenthau said sternly, “Now, Holly. I want this done now. Have lunch with her now, today. I want your report about this in Cardenas’s dossier first thing tomorrow morning.”

Holly’s first inclination was to tell Morgenthau to jump out an airlock without a suit. But then she realized that the woman had never been so flaming insistent on anything before. She’s really notched up about this, Holly realized. Maybe this nanotech stuff is scarier than I thought.

Don Diego straightened up slowly, painfully. The back is a weak spot, he told himself, trying to rub the stiffness away. If we ever get to the point where we can truly redesign the human body, much attention will have to be paid to improving the back.

He walked slowly, carefully, along the sloping embankment of the canal. The ache was in the small of his back, where his hands could not easily reach. He sighed. At least this stretch of the canal is nearly finished, he said to himself. He stopped and admired the haphazard growth of flowering bushes. Perhaps some cactus along the next stretch of the canal, he thought. I wonder if there is any cactus available in the habitat?

He had expected Holly to join him; she had said she’d be out this afternoon. He wanted her to see how well this little bit of wilderness was shaping up.

Someone stepped out from behind a tree, up at the edge of the culvert, and walked slowly down the dirt slope toward him. A tall, gangling black man with a shaved scalp and a thin beard tracing his jaw-line. His polished boots will be tarnished by the soil, Don Diego thought.

“Good afternoon to you,” he called to the stranger in English. “What brings you to this quiet place?”

The stranger smiled brightly. “You are Diego Romero, of the Communications Department?”

“I am he,” said Don Diego, thinking that this man must be from the office. Someone must be complaining about his long absences. Or…

“Might you be from the Maintenance Department?” he asked, almost timidly.

The black man stepped closer, still smiling. “No. You have nothing to fear on that score.”

As ordered, Holly was having lunch with Kris Cardenas in the Bistro. But it wasn’t going well.

“I know it’s sort of prying,” she said apologetically. “But my boss is clanked up about nanotech and there’s this kind of gap in your dossier…”

Cardenas put her fork down and took a sip of lemonade. Then she looked out across the tables scattered over the grass, most of them empty, and finally returned her gaze to Holly. Her brilliant blue eyes looked sad, not angry; they seemed to be looking beyond Holly, peering into a painful past.

“I don’t want it on the record,” she said. “I’ll tell you about it, but only if you promise to keep it out of my dossier.”

Holly was about to agree when she realized, “I’ll have to tell my boss about it.”

Cardenas shook her head. “Then forget it. I’ll tell you about it, Holly, but I don’t want it to go any farther. If you tell your boss, they won’t let me do any nanotech work here.”

“Why not?”

“Because I helped to kill a man,” Cardenas said, flat and hard and cold.

Holly felt her jaw drop open.

“I didn’t do it on purpose,” Cardenas explained. “But what I did was bad enough.”

As if an emotional dam had burst, Cardenas told Holly her entire story. How she’d been exiled at Selene, unable to return to Earth because of the nanobugs swarming inside her body. How her husband had refused to come up to the Moon, how her children turned against her, how she had never seen her grandchildren. Her anger. Her pain and tears and the bitter, searing rage against the fools and self-satisfied know-nothings who used the people’s fear of nanotechnology to destroy her life.

She told Holly of Martin Humphries’s offer. “He said he’d get me back to Earth if I helped him sabotage a rival’s spacecraft. God knows he was rich enough to buy anything. I thought he’d help me. I didn’t think damaging a spacecraft would cause a man’s death. So I let Humphries buy me and his biggest rival died when the spacecraft malfunctioned.”

“Did you ever get back to Earth? See your family?” Holly asked, her voice low, hollow.

“Never,” Cardenas said. “When I heard that Dan Randolph had died because of what I’d done, I told Selene’s leaders everything. I even tried to commit suicide, but I flubbed that. My punishment was to be locked out of Selene’s nanotech lab. So I went out to Ceres, to the frontier, and worked with the rock rats for years. No nanotech work. I swore I’d never do any nanotech research again.”

“But you’re doing it now. Here.”

Cardenas nodded, still dry-eyed but looking as if the weight of the world was crushing her. “I decided I’d done enough penance. I can help you people here. I want to start my life over again.”

Holly murmured, “Sort of like me.”

“We’re two of a kind, in a way.”

“I guess.”

Cardenas fixed her with those bright blue eyes of hers. “So what are you going to tell your boss?”

Holly didn’t have to think for even a millisecond. “Nothing,” she said. “I’ll just say that you decided of your own free will to go to Ceres and work with the rock rats. Which isn’t really a lie, is it?”

For the first time, Cardenas smiled. “No, it’s not a lie. It’s not the truth, not the whole truth, at least. But it’s not a lie.”

Still smiling, Kananga stepped to within arm’s reach of Don Diego. “No, I’m not from the Maintenance Department,” he repeated.

“I plan to inform the Maintenance Department of my work here,” Don Diego said, “but I haven’t—”

With the swiftness of a pouncing leopard, Kananga punched the old man squarely in his solar plexus. Don Diego collapsed with barely a sound.

Kananga caught the old man in his arms and lifted him easily. No drag marks, he thought. No evidence of foul play.

He carried the gasping, dazed Don Diego down the dirt embankment to the concrete edge of the canal. The old man coughed and moaned, his legs moved feebly, his eyes fluttered open.

Kananga knelt and pushed him face down into the canal, holding the back of his head carefully, almost tenderly, to keep him in the water. Don Diego sputtered a bit, flailed weakly, then went limp. The water bubbled a little, then became still. Kananga continued to hold him, counting slowly to a hundred, before he let go.

Satisfied that Diego Romero was dead, Kananga got to his feet. Not bad, he thought, looking around. No gouges in the dirt, no scuff marks on the concrete, no signs of a struggle.

No one will ever know.

SATURN ARRIVAL MINUS 323 DAYS

Holly discovered the body. She left Cardenas at the Bistro and headed out to the canal where Don Diego had been working. At first she saw no sign of him. Then she spotted his body sprawled down at the bottom of the embankment, half underwater.

She did not scream. She did not even cry until hours later, in the privacy of her own quarters, long after she had dragged the old man’s body out of the canal and the emergency medical team had pronounced him dead.

She dreamed that night of the father she could not remember. Sometimes, in her dream, he was Don Diego; sometimes he was a shadowy, faceless figure of a man, huge and almost menacing. At one point the faceless male had his back to her and she was a little child, barely able to walk. Pancho was somewhere in the dream with her but what Holly wanted more than anything was to have her father turn around so that she could at last see his face. She tried to call to him but no sound would come from her throat. She reached out for the man and when he finally did turn to face her, she saw that it was Malcolm Eberly staring coldly down at her.

Holly sprang up in her bed, suddenly awake, the disturbing dream slowly dissolving like a cloud on a summer day. She showered and dressed quickly, skipped breakfast, and went straight to the habitat’s small hospital to see the doctor who had examined Don Diego’s body. She knew she should call Morgenthau and inform her that she’d be late for work, but she didn’t bother.

The hospital was quiet, calm, unhurried. The habitat’s personnel were mainly in good physical condition, youthful physically despite their calendar ages. The main medical problems were accidents and psychological ailments. And the sudden death of a ninety-eight-year-old man, Holly added mentally.

Dr. Yañez’s normal happy smile disappeared once Holly explained that she wanted to know about Don Diego.

“Very unfortunate,” he said. “Very sad. He was a wonderful man. We had many long talks together.”

He grasped Holly gently by the elbow and led her to the doors that opened onto the hospital’s inner courtyard garden.

Holly said, “I don’t want to take you away from your work.”

“There is not that much to see today, anyway,” he said. “Our people are disgustingly healthy.”

He walked Holly outside the two-story hospital building and around the courtyard’s carefully planted flower garden. Holly thought of how Don Diego would have made the gardens look wilder, more natural.

Pushing his hands into the pockets of his white jacket, Yañez said, “Don Diego’s death puzzles me. He must have tripped and fallen into the water and drowned.”

“Why didn’t he just get up?” Holly asked.

He shrugged. “He might have hit his head. He might have fainted — low blood pressure, a minor stroke. He was a pretty old man.”

“Were there any signs of a stroke?”

“No, but a minor stroke doesn’t leave a lot of damage to be seen. We’d have to look specifically for it, and even then we might not catch it. This isn’t New York or Tokyo, you know. We don’t have expert pathologists on the staff.”

“I guess.”

“It’s a great tragedy. A great loss.”

“You’re certain it was an accident?” Holly asked.

Yañez looked startled momentarily. “Yes. Of course. What else could it be?”

“I don’t know.”

The physician looked up at Holly. “He was my friend. If there had been foul play I would have found it, I assure you. It was an accident. Unfortunate. Regrettable. But just an accident, nothing more.”

The more the doctor talked, the more Holly wondered if it really had been an accident. But that’s crazy, she said to herself. How could it be anything except an accident? Who would want to kill Don Diego?

Yet she heard herself ask, “Can I see the record of your examination?”

Yañez said, “It’s a lot of medical jargon. Plus photos of the body.”

“I don’t have any pictures of Don Diego,” Holly realized aloud. “No mementoes at all.”

“The images of a dead man are rather grisly.”

“I don’t care. I’d like to see them.”

The doctor sighed heavily. “Very well. I’ll give you the access code and you can call up the complete record at your convenience.”

“Thank you,” said Holly.

“De nada,”replied Yañez automatically.

Eberly could barely control his fury. He stood behind the desk in his apartment, red-faced, almost snarling at Vyborg and Kananga.

“Murder!” Eberly raged. “You couldn’t wait for me to remove the old man, so you went ahead and murdered him.”

“No one knows about it,” Vyborg said, whispered actually. “He’s been buried and forgotten.”

“Iknow about it!” Eberly snapped. “It’s my duty to report this crime to Wilmot. What will you do if I try to do so? Murder me, too?”

Kananga said, “No, never.”

“Murderers. My closest friends and supporters are a pair of murderers.”

“He wasn’t a Believer,” Vyborg said. “Just a lapsed Catholic.”

“And that excuses murder?”

Kananga said, “I thought it was your desire to get rid of the old man. That’s what Sammi told me.”

“You agreed that he was to be removed,” Vyborg pleaded. “I thought that—”

“You thought! You decided to act on your own, without consulting me. Without asking how your actions might impact on my master plan. I don’t want you to think! I want you to follow my orders! To obey!”

“Yes, we understand,” said Vyborg, “but—”

“No buts!” Eberly shouted. “Either you are part of my team or you are not. There is no third possibility. Either you follow my orders explicitly or you leave me once and for all.”

Kananga glanced down at Vyborg as Eberly thought, I don’t have to tell them that if they leave me I will immediately report them to Wilmot. They understand that well enough.

“Well?” he demanded. “Make your choice.”

“I will stay with you, of course,” Vyborg said. “I’m sorry that I acted so… precipitously.”

“And you, Colonel?”

It was obviously harder for Kananga to kowtow, but he visibly swallowed once, then said quietly, “I am at your service, sir, now and forever.”

Eberly allowed himself a small smile. “Very well then. The incident is forgotten. Vyborg, I want you to be patient enough to allow me to remove Berkowitz in my own way.”

“I will.”

“Once that is accomplished, you will take over total control of the Communications Department.” Turning to Kananga, he said, “And you, my dear Colonel, will be my chief of security once we form the new government.”

Kananga began to reply, but Eberly added, “Providing, of course, that you follow my orders and don’t go striking off on your own.”

Kananga bit back a reply and nodded dumbly.

Eberly dismissed them and they walked glumly to the door and left his apartment. Then he sank back into his chair, his mind — and his insides — churning. It’s not so bad, he thought. Everyone accepts the old man’s death as an accident. And I have something to hold over Vyborg and Kananga, something to tie them more tightly to me. Total loyalty, based on fear. He rubbed at the ache in his stomach. And Morgenthau has me the same way. I’m riding on a tiger, on a team of tigers, and the only way to keep from being eaten alive is to get them what they want.

He leaned back in the desk chair and tried to will the pain in his innards to go away. How to get rid of Berkowitz? he asked himself. Without another murder, preferably.

Who can I talk to? Holly asked herself, over and over. And the answer always came back: Malcolm. Talk to Malcolm about this.

But I can’t see Malcolm without Morgenthau getting in the way. She guards my access to him like a bulldog. Holly had sent several phone messages to Eberly, asking for a private chat, only to have Morgenthau inform her that Eberly was too busy to talk to her at the moment.

“Anything you want to discuss with Eberly you can tell to me,” Morgenthau said.

“It’s… uh, personal,” Holly temporized.

A flash of displeasure glinted in Morgenthau’s eyes, quickly replaced by a sly look, almost a leer. “My dear, he’s much too busy for personal entanglements. And much too important to allow himself to be distracted.”

“But I’m not—”

“Perhaps after the new government is set up, perhaps then he’ll have some time for a personal life. But not until then.”

Holly said numbly, “Kay. I click.”

“Now then,” Morgenthau said briskly, “how are the contests coming along? When do we move to phase two?”

Surprised that Morgenthau hadn’t asked about Cardenas’s dossier, pleased that her brief and incomplete addition to Cardenas’s file apparently satisfied her boss, Holly began to explain the progress she’d made on the contests for naming the habitat’s features.

Professor Wilmot studied the graphs hovering before his eyes.

“Astounding,” he muttered. “Absolutely astounding.”

Despite all the efforts he and his staff had put in to keep the habitat under the protocol that had been designed before they left Earth, the people were breaking away from it more and more. The changes were minor, he saw, most of them merely cosmetic. Some of the women had taken to adorning their clothes with homemade patches and press-on insignias, many of them of a blatantly sexual nature; it was a fad that seemed to be growing in popularity, despite Eberly’s suggested dress code. A few of the men were following suit. Wilmot grunted: Youth will be served, even if some of the “youths” are the calendar age of grandparents.

Then there was this contest business, naming every building and bush in the habitat. Incredible how much time and energy everyone seemed to be spending on it. There were reports of scuffles and even actual fistfights in the cafeteria over the naming contests. Perhaps I should cut off their liquor supplies, Wilmot mused. Then he shook his head. They’d simply cook up their own in the labs, one way or another.

At least the use of narcotics seems to be low, unless the hospital staff isn’t reporting drug abuse. Perhaps they’re the worst offenders. He sighed. As long as it doesn’t interfere with their work there’s no sense trying to sniff out every recreational drug these people cook up.

There were personnel changes, Wilmot observed. People shifted from one job to another, even moved from one department to another. This Eberly chap in human resources is approving far too many changes, Wilmot thought. But he decided against interfering. Let the experiment play itself out. Don’t meddle with it. The lab rats are performing some interesting tricks. I wonder what they’ll do once we reach Saturn.

Then a new question formed in his mind. I wonder what they think in Atlanta about all this. Should I even report these details to them? He nodded to himself. I’ll have to. I’m certain they’re getting reports from other sources. For the kind of money they’ve invested, the New Morality must have seeded this habitat with plenty of snoops.