Titan

New Year’s Eve

About the party tonight,” Cardenas said to Gaeta. They were both in the compact kitchen of the apartment they shared.

“Yeah?”

“Be sure to compliment Nadia on her figure. She’s been working hard to lose weight.”

Gaeta gave her a sidelong glance as he set dishes on the foldout table. “You been helping her?”

“She thinks so. She asked for nanos to take the fat off. I gave her an appetite suppressant, a diuretic, and a pep talk about exercise and diet.”

Gaeta laughed. “So she thinks it’s nanomagic when it’s really her own effort.”

“And the pills.” Cardenas rummaged through the silverware drawer and came out with two sets of forks and knives. In the same tone of voice, she added, “And she wants to fly through the rings herself, using your suit.”

“What?” Gaeta snapped.

“She’s decided she’ll fly through the rings herself. With your help.”

Gaeta laughed bitterly. “They all think it’s easy,” he said, shaking his head slightly. “Just seal yourself inside the suit and that makes you Superman.”

It was Cardenas’s turn to make dinner. She stood in front of the open freezer in the kitchen, trying to decide which package to shove into the microwave. Manny enjoyed cooking and was good at it; Cardenas’s idea of home cooking was to spend as little time as possible in the kitchen. Something light, she thought; we’ll be eating and drinking at the party later.

“She knows it’s dangerous,” she said as she pulled out a pair of precooked fish fillet dinners. “It’s just that she’s so crazy to get some samples from the rings that she’s willing to risk her own life.”

Gaeta was at the counter by the sink, opening a bottle of wine. “No, she’s not,” he said. “She’s just trying to shame me into going for her.”

“No! Nadia’s not that devious. She’s not devious at all. She’s just a scientist who’s desperate to get her research done.”

The plastic stopper came out of the wine bottle with a pop.

“Look, chiquita,” Gaeta said, tapping his forehead lightly, “Nadia might not realize it up in the top of her head, but what she’s really doing is trying her damnedest to get me to say, ‘No, it’s too dangerous for you, kid. I’ll do it.’”

Cardenas gave him a crooked grin as she read the heating instructions on the packages. “That’s machismo bullshit, Manny.”

“You think so? I’m supposed to sit here and let her fly in my old suit and most likely get herself killed out there?”

“She wants to do it.”

“Why can’t they rig a robot probe to take samples from the rings? That ought to be easy enough.”

“She’d need Urbain’s okay for that and he’s so wrapped up with his missing probe that he won’t even give her the time of day.”

“She could just appropriate one, then. While Urbain’s not looking.”

“It’s not that simple,” Cardenas argued. “There’s only a dozen or so of the generic probes in storage and Urbain’s keeping them under lock and key. Besides, Nadia would need some of Urbain’s engineering people to modify the probe so it can collect samples.”

Shaking his head like a man surrounded by conspirators, Gaeta poured a dash of wine into one of the tumblers he’d pulled from the cabinet. He sipped.

“Not bad,” he said with some surprise. “Local vintage. Straight from the vineyards down by the endcap.”

“That’s why there’s no label,” Cardenas said.

“Not yet. I just got one of their first bottles from a guy who works at the winepress.”

He poured a glass for Cardenas and she sampled it. With a frown that furrowed her brow, she said, “Fizzy.”

“Give it some time to breathe.”

“I didn’t know you were a wine expert,” she teased.

“Hey, there’s still some things you don’t know about me.”

Cardenas slid the two packaged meals into the microwave and then set the timer. Turning back to Gaeta, she said, utterly serious, “Nadia’s really desperate.”

Gaeta looked into her bright blue eyes for a long moment. “You want me to go back to the rings for her?”

“No!” Cardenas snapped. “But if she’s willing to do it, I think you ought to help her.”

“She really can’t snitch a robot probe? You said there’s a dozen of’ em.”

“Urbain’s hoarding them. He wants to send them into low orbits around Titan to search for his missing machine.”

Gaeta made a sigh that was close to being a snort. “Damn scientists. They’re all crazy.”

“Hey, watch it, Mr. Macho. I’m a scientist, remember?”

“But you’re not crazy.”

“Yes I am,” Cardenas said. “I’m crazy about you.”

He wrapped his arms around her waist and she slid hers around his neck. The microwave oven chimed but neither of them paid the slightest attention.

Eduoard Urbain stared disappointedly at the inventory of robotic spacecraft displayed on his office wall.

“That is all?” he asked. “Only a dozen?”

“That’s the entire inventory, sir.” His aide looked distinctly uncomfortable. It was New Year’s Eve and the big party down by the lake would be starting up soon.

Urbain had no interest in the party. “There should be more,” he insisted.

“We had to cannibalize several of them to build Titan Alpha. Don’t you remember, sir?”

Leaning back in his swivel chair Urbain ran a hand over his weary eyes. “We could build more, I suppose.”

“That would take time, sir. And we’d have to get approval from the logistics department to utilize the materials. We’d also need a team of technicians; the human resources department would have to approve their reassignment.”

“Eberly,” murmured Urbain.

“He’s the chief administrator. I’m sure he’d approve our requests.”

Urbain gave his aide a withering look. The young man was a junior scientist who seemed just as anxious as Urbain himself to find the errant Titan Alpha and bring it back under human control. But the aide knew nothing about that politician Eberly. This stripling pays no attention to politics, Urbain said to himself, as he eyed the younger man. His only interest is in his own scientific research, his own career.

At last he said, “I will speak to the chief administrator. In the meantime, I want all of those spacecraft modified for orbital reconnaissance. We must be prepared to launch them as soon as humanly possible.”

“All twelve of them, sir?”

“All of them! That’s what I said, wasn’t it?”

The aide swallowed visibly. “But, sir, that will leave us without any backups whatever.”

“We will build new ones!” Urbain snapped. Then he added, “As soon as I get the chief administrator to grant us the necessary materials and personnel.”

“Yes, sir,” said the aide in a low voice.

“I want the probes placed in polar orbits, low enough to scan the complete surface of Titan continuously.”

“I’ll get the orbital mechanics people working on it first thing tomorrow, sir.” The aide started backing toward the door, thinking, Everbody’ll be hung over tomorrow. It’s a holiday, anyway. Nobody’s going to be working. Except for the boss.

“Good. And I will contact the chief administrator.”

“Yes, sir.” Practically bowing, the aide scuttled through the door, leaving Urbain alone in his modest little office.

He stared distastefully at the list still displayed on the smart wall, then his eyes turned to the phone console on his desk.

Eberly, he thought. I will have to go groveling to that swine, that … that politician. Urbain hated the idea of it. More, he feared having to ask Malcolm Eberly for help. He knew that a snake of Eberly’s sort would never do a favor for anyone without extracting something in return.

What will he ask of me? Urbain wondered. What am I prepared to offer him?

The pavilion by the lake swarmed with partygoers. The maintenance department had even spread a thin honeycomb sheeting in front of the band shell to serve as a dance floor. People trooped in on foot or electrobike from the other villages, eager to welcome the new year with revelry. As the crowd swelled and the music grew louder and wilder, couples picnicked, drank, sang, and laughed together. Pancho and Wanamaker danced nonstop while Cardenas and Gaeta did an impromptu tango on the grass and Holly even got Tavalera to loosen up enough to dance with her. Wunderly arrived with her date; the two of them sat quietly together on the grass. Despite her rigid dieting of the past two weeks she was still a blocky, thickset figure. Her date, Habib, looked elegant in a black tunic and slacks.

The party grew louder and wilder. People splashed fully clothed into the lake. Others followed, after stripping. Finally, when midnight was announced by electronic chimes, everyone kissed everyone within reach: friends, lovers, strangers—it didn’t matter. A new year was beginning. A new opportunity. A fresh start.

Alone in his apartment, Malcolm Eberly watched the party on television, thinking, Bread and circuses, that’s what they want. Keep them amused and distracted, just like a stage magician does to keep the audience from seeing how he does his tricks.

Eduoard Urbain worked in his apartment until midnight, when Jeanmarie burst in from the kitchen with a bottle of actual champagne and a tray of caviar. Placing them on the coffee table, she sat herself squarely on Urbain’s lap and kissed him soundly.

“Bon année, mon cher,” she said.

Urbain was briefly irritated that she interrupted his work, but he quickly decided that this was one occasion when the work could wait.

“Bon année, ma précieux,” he whispered happily, hoping desperately that it truly would be a good year.

Kris Cardenas could not get drunk. No matter how much she drank, the nanomachines inside her quickly broke down the alcohol into harmless molecules, mainly carbon dioxide and water. She burped a lot and made several trips to the row of portable toilets that had been set up behind the lakeside bandstand. She met Wunderly there each time.

“How’s it going?” she asked Nadia brightly, as they headed yet again toward the toilets.

“Goin’ a lot,” Wunderly slurred. Then she giggled.

Cardenas nodded happily to herself: the diuretics she had given the physicist were working. Nadia looked pretty good; not svelte, it was too soon for that, but she had slimmed down noticeably. Best of all, she seemed happy with herself. She had a nice-looking guy for the party and she was having a good time.

Manny Gaeta, on the other hand, could get drunk but didn’t. Even on New Year’s Eve, Cardenas noted, Manny was careful about his drinking. By one A.M. they left the party—which was now roaring louder than ever—and headed home. As they walked hand in hand from the lake, the blare of the live band dwindling to an insistent thumping bass beat, Cardenas asked:

“Have a good time?”

He shrugged his strong shoulders. “Yeah, sure. You?”

“It was awfully noisy.”

“Hey, it’s New Year’s. People let off steam, what the hell.”

“You didn’t. You’re as sober as I am.”

With a weak, almost apologetic smile, Gaeta said, “Habits are hard to break, guapa. All those years I was doing stunts, couldn’t drink and drive, you know what I mean.”

“But you’re retired now.”

“Yeah, but still …”

They walked along the curving pathway for some moments. Then Cardenas asked, “You’re not thinking of going back to the rings, are you?”

He looked away from her.

“Well, are you?”

“I’m not going to do it,” he said firmly.

“Good,” she replied with equal resolution.

But hours later, as they lay together in bed, sticky and musky from making love, Gaeta said into the darkness, “You learn to live with it.”

“It?” she asked in a whisper.

“The fear. It’s always there, but you learn to live with it. You find ways to deal with it.”

Of course, Cardenas said to herself. Of course he’d feel fear. How could he not? His whole life was built around those terrifying stunts.

“Fritz helped a lot,” Gaeta went on, almost as if talking to himself. “I knew he wouldn’t let me get into anything unless he was satisfied we could get through it okay.”

“And now he’s gone,” Cardenas said.

“Yeah. But you know what he told me before he left? He said I was smart to quit the business. He said I was a fugitive from the law of averages: sooner or later I’d do a stunt that would kill me. He was actually glad I quit.”

“I am, too.”

“I really can’t do it anymore, Kris. You put your butt on the line just so many times, and then your number comes up. You’ve gotta quit while you’re ahead, while you’re still alive. Don’t push your luck.”

Cardenas heard the guilt and conflict in his voice and felt the heat of anger surge through her. Damn Nadia! Why did she have to make him feel like this?