Titan

8 January 2096: Evening

“Run for election?” Pancho said, her voice high with surprise.

“That’s what Professor Wilmot said I should do,” Holly answered.

Pancho grinned at her sister from across the coffee table in her living room. Holly was sitting on the sofa, her feet curled up under her, while Pancho lazed back in the recliner.

“Y’know, kid,” Pancho said, “the professor might be right. You’d make a terrific chief administrator.”

Holly wasn’t so certain. “Jeeps, Panch, I don’t know anything about making speeches and running for office. I wouldn’t know where to start.”

“You helped Eberly when he ran last time, didn’tcha?”

“Just with polls and statistical analyses, stuff like that. I didn’t do any of the campaigning. I was strictly back-office.”

“Well, I know a thing or two about glad-handing folks and getting ’em to vote for you. That’s how I got to be top kick at Astro for so many years.”

“Would you help me?” Holly’s eyes were wide with expectation.

“Help you with what?” asked Jake Wanamaker, coming through the bedroom door.

“Holly’s going to run for chief administrator.”

“Really?”

“I’m not sure …,”Holly said hesitantly.

“Yes, she is,” said Pancho. “She just doesn’t know it yet.”

Urbain picked miserably at the dinner Jeanmarie had prepared for him. She wasn’t terribly interested in cooking, but lately she had applied herself, with the aid of video tutorials, and found that preparing food bought at the habitat’s farm markets was more interesting and rewarding than heating precooked packaged meals. Their kitchen was small, barely big enough for the two of them to sit at the table, but it had a full range of appliances and storage cabinets.

Usually Eduoard seemed to enjoy her fledgling efforts. He always complimented her. But not this evening. His fork hardly touched the chicken Kiev she had so painstakingly prepared for him.

“Is it too bland?” she asked.

He looked up at her, startled out of his thoughts. “Eh?”

“The chicken,” Jeanmarie said. “Is it spiced to your liking?”

“Oh. It’s fine. Fine.” He put a forkful into his mouth and chewed, his eyes wandering off to some inner vision.

“What’s the matter, Eduoard? You seem upset.”

“Eberly,” he said, almost in a growl.

“What’s he done now?”

“It isn’t something he’s done. It’s what he hasn’t done.” Urbain laid his fork carefully on the table.

“He still will not release your satellites?”

“No, not until I promise to agree to his scheme for mining the rings.”

“Then why not agree? If it is important to finding your Alpha vehicle, why refuse him?”

“Because it is wrong!” Urbain snapped. “Besides, Nadia Wunderly would go berserk.”

“Poo! Let her go berserk,” said Jeanmarie. “She is an underling. Her work should not be allowed to stand in the way of yours.”

Urbain shook his head wearily. “My dear, you don’t understand. She believes she has discovered life-forms in Saturn’s rings. If I agree to Eberly’s scheme, it would be a clear signal to her—to the whole world—that I don’t believe her.”

“And so?”

“It would break her heart.”

Jeanmarie was surprised. Her husband had never before voiced such sensitivity about anyone working under him. It can’t be that he is attracted to her romantically, she thought. I know him well enough, and besides she isn’t an attractive woman. He actually cares about her work, her hopes, her standing with the rest of the scientists. Jeanmarie’s admiration for him rose a notch.

Still, she prodded gently, “Is her work more important than yours, Eduoard? Are her claims about creatures in the ring more important than your vehicle wandering across the surface of Titan?”

He looked at her for a long, silent moment, and she could see the pain of clashing emotions in his eyes.

“Jeanmarie, is physics more important than biology? Is one avenue of scientific investigation more important than another?”

“But if you can’t do both—”

Obviously struggling to control his temper, Urbain said, “I will not allow that … that politician to place Wunderly’s work in opposition to mine. I will not stand for an either-or situation. Both lines of investigation must proceed.”

“But neither of them will, if Eberly has his way.”

“Then I must find a way around him.”

Jeanmarie marveled at her husband’s newfound tenacity. A year ago he would have backed away from any confrontation. Now he has found his courage, and he is suffering for it.

“There must be a way around Eberly,” Urbain muttered.

Jeanmarie thought idly that there was always a way around any man. Suddenly she was shocked to realize that perhaps she could succeed with Eberly. The man has a huge ego, from all she had heard of him. Could I turn his head? she wondered. Do I dare even try? What would Eduoard do if he found out?

“Dr. Wunderly oughtta be in on this,” Raoul Tavalera said.

He was sitting at a table out on the grass of the Bistro, with Holly, Pancho and Jake Wanamaker. The restaurant was filling up, people taking all the outdoor tables and even a few of those inside the restaurant’s small building. Holly had just told him that she had decided to run against Eberly for the chief administrator’s job.

“Nadia?” Holly asked, surprised. “Why her?”

Tavalera leaned forward slightly in his chair and ticked off his fingers. “Eberly’s gonna bring up that business about mining the rings, right? When he does, you’re gonna have to show why we shouldn’t do it. So you’ll need Dr. Wunderly on your team to give you the technical facts you need.”

“Mining the rings?” Pancho asked. “For water ice?”

“What else?” Holly replied.

“Lord almighty,” said Wanamaker, “there must be gigatons of ice in the rings. You could make a fortune selling water, make this habitat as wealthy as Selene.”

“Wealthier,” Pancho said.

“But if there’s living creatures in the rings we’d be breaking the IAA’s regulations,” Holly pointed out.

“Besides, it’d be immoral,” said Pancho.

Wanamaker gave them a knowing look. “Morals and regulations won’t count for much if the people in this habitat know they can get rich.”

“The IAA’d send an enforcement team here,” Pancho said.

“And the people here would fight them off,” Wanamaker countered. “Wouldn’t take much.”

“You want to run for secretary of defense?” Pancho teased.

“I could,” Wanamaker said, entirely serious.

“Now wait a sec,” Holly interjected. “This is all guesswork. We don’t know for certain that the rings really have living critters in them.”

“That’s what Dr. Wunderly’s trying to find out, isn’t it?” Wanamaker asked.

“Maybe we oughtta help her,” Tavalera said. “Get the point nailed down, one way or the other.”

“Before the election.”

“That gives you a little less’n six months,” Pancho said.

Holly turned to Tavalera. “Raoul, would you fly the mission to the rings?”

He looked startled. “Me? I’m not an astronaut.”

“But you flew spacecraft when you were at the Jupiter station. I read that in your personnel file.”

“Yeah, a couple,” he replied warily. “But I’m not gonna fly Wunderly to the rings and pick her up again. That’s too risky for me.”

“But we need a pilot.”

“Get somebody else,” Tavalera said firmly.

Pancho said, “There must be lotsa qualified rocket jocks in this habitat.”

“Not as many as you’d think,” Holly replied. “I’ve scoured the personnel records.”

“Hell’s bells, I could fly it myself,” said Pancho. “If you can’t get anybody else.”

“Get somebody else,” Wanamaker said. “You’re too old to risk your neck out there.”

“Too old?” Pancho’s nostrils flared.

“Too out of practice,” Wanamaker quickly amended.

Pancho grumbled, “That’s better.”

“There’s something else,” Holly said, suddenly looking gloomy.

“What?”

“Zero pop,” she said.

“What’s that got to do with the ring creatures?” Pancho asked.

Holly explained, “If we want to allow the habitat’s population to expand, we’re going to need a source of funding to build new habitats to house the growing population.”

“Not for lotsa years,” Pancho said.

“Sooner or later,” Holly insisted. “And prob’ly sooner. Besides, it takes a lotta years to build one of these flying stovepipes. And a lot of funding.”

“Mining the rings could provide the money,” Wanamaker said.

Tavalera nodded knowingly. “Then we’d better help Dr. Wunderly bring in some samples from the rings.”

“And hope like hell she doesn’t find anything alive in them,” Pancho said.