Titan

12 April 2096: Return

Kris Cardenas literally bumped into Wunderly as the two women ran down the passageway that opened onto the airlock area at the habitat’s endcap. Tavalera and Timoshenko were sprinting up ahead of them, almost at the airlock hatch. Timoshenko was pushing a small dolly.

“They’re okay, Kris,” Wunderly puffed. “I monitored their transmissions in my office. Manny’s okay.”

Cardenas nodded. “It was rough, though.”

“But they’re okay.” Wunderly smiled weakly as they slowed to a halt. “Nobody got hurt.” It was an apology, Cardenas understood.

But she was in no mood to accept an apology. “I hope your samples are what you wanted,” she said without even trying to keep the bitterness out of her voice.

Rolling the dolly he’d been pushing up to the much bigger flatbed cart for the excursion suit, which they’d left at the airlock, Timoshenko plugged a comm set into the bulkhead socket next to the heavy steel hatch, then held one hand over the earplug. “Okay,” he said into the pin mike at his lips. “Confirm docking.”

Tavalera turned to the two women. “They’re docked,” he said, unsmiling.

Cardenas waited for what seemed like hours, watching the airlock hatch, waiting for it to swing open, waiting for Manny to return to her. She couldn’t help glancing at Wunderly; Nadia seemed just as eager, just as impatient. Her precious samples, Cardenas grumbled to herself. Manny and Pancho and Jake damn near got killed so she could get her ice flakes.

But beneath her seething emotions, Cardenas knew she could not stay angry at her friend. They got back all right, nobody got killed, all’s well that ends well, she told herself. I can’t be mad at you, Nadia, I understand you too well.

“Gaeta’s in the airlock,” Timoshenko announced, his hand still pressed against the comm plug in his ear. “He’s opening the inner hatch.”

Watching Wunderly’s expectant face, eyes wide, lips apart in anticipation, the last remnants of Cardenas’s anger melted. She slid an arm around Wunderly’s shoulders and said softly, “I really hope they’ve brought the proof you need, Nadia.”

Wunderly’s eyes misted over. “Thanks, Kris. Thanks for everything. I know you didn’t want Manny to go. I know you—”

The inner hatch clicked and swung slowly outward like the massive door of a bank vault. Gaeta clumped over the sill in the bulky excursion suit. Tavalera and Timoshenko immediately went to his sides, instinctively offering to help him.

“I can walk by myself,” Gaeta’s voice boomed from the suit’s speakers.

Cardenas thought he sounded tired, spent.

While the airlock door swung shut again, Tavalera went behind Gaeta’s suit and began unsealing its hatch. Cardenas went back with him.

“The samples?” Wunderly asked, her voice pitched high.

“In the cryo unit,” Gaeta said. “Pancho and Jake are bringin’ it out.”

As if on cue, the airlock hatch swung open again; Pancho and Wanamaker stepped carefully through, carrying the freezer unit like a miniature coffin. Cardenas paid no attention to them. She went around to the back of the big suit and watched as Manny ducked through the hatch and, a little wobbly, set his softbooted feet on the deck.

“You’re bleeding!” Cardenas blurted.

“I am?”

“Your nose.” She rushed to him, put her arms around him. “Are you all right?”

“I am now.” He smiled and touched his nose gingerly with a fingertip. It came away bloody. “Must’ve bumped it. It was a little rough for a while.”

“But you’re all right?” Cardenas repeated.

The smaller dolly was for the cryo unit, Cardenas realized. The instant Pancho and Wanamaker loaded it onto the little cart Wunderly grabbed the control bar and started pushing it up the passageway at a trot.

Pancho chuckled. “Somebody oughtta tell her that rig has an electric motor on it. She can ride it back to her lab.”

“Let her push,” Cardenas said, also smiling. “The exercise will do her good.”