Titan

16 April 2096: Late afternoon

If they’re alive,” said Yolanda Negroponte, looking up from the microscope’s display screen, ”they’re unlike any kind of organism anyone’s ever seen before.”

Wunderly, sitting beside her at the lab bench, said quietly, “Well, isn’t that what you would expect?”

The biology laboratory was empty except for the two women; the other lab benches were bare, silent. Dust motes drifted through the sunlight slanting in through the tall windows. The small, white anodized freezer containing the ice particles sat between them, flanked by a pair of remote manipulators and the gray tubing of a miniaturized electron microscope.

A puzzled frown creased Negroponte’s face. “They’re not dust flecks. They have an internal structure, I can see that, but nothing seems to be going on inside them. Living cells are dynamic: the organelles pulsate, the whole cell quivers and vibrates. These things just lie there like raisins in a pudding.”

“Maybe they’re dead?” Wunderly asked. “Maybe they were alive once and now they’re dead. We might have killed them by taking them out of their natural habitat.”

Negroponte shook her head, making a long strand of blonde hair fall across her face. Pushing it back, she said, “You’ve kept the temperature and pressure the same as in the ring. There’s no sign of contamination. If they’re alive in the ring they should be alive here.”

Wunderly got up from the little wheeled chair she’d been sitting in and headed for the coffee urn at the end of the bench.

“Maybe I’ve been wrong all along. Eberly will be glad to hear it.”

“Coffee’s a good idea,” said Negroponte, also rising from her chair. “Too bad they can’t make a decent espresso. It stimulates the brain.”

“Caffeine,” Wunderly murmured, as she filled a mug with the hot steaming brew, then handed it to Negroponte.

The two women sipped in silence for a few moments. Then Wunderly asked, “So Da‘ud really yelled at Urbain?”

“You should have seen him. Like a knight in armor facing down a dragon.”

“I didn’t think he had it in him.”

“He did it for me,” Negroponte said, still marveling at yesterday’s showdown. “I think my crying triggered something in him, something brave and strong.”

Wunderly brought her mug to her lips. “Maybe I should cry for him,” she muttered into the coffee.

“You’re still interested in him?” Negroponte arched a brow at her.

“Aren’t you?”

“More than before, Nadia.”

“Then he’s all yours,” Wunderly said, thinking, I’m not going to let Da’ud or any man get in the way of my work. I need her more than him.

Negroponte changed the subject back to biology. “What’s the temperature inside the cryo unit?”

“Minus two hundred, almost.”

Tapping a fingernail against her coffee mug, Negroponte said, “Biology depends on chemistry, and chemical reactions go slower as you drop the temperature.”

“Do you think … ?”

“They look like cells. They have an internal structure and they maintain their interiors within well-defined membranes. But they’re inert, seemingly.”

Wunderly’s eyes lit up with hope. “Maybe they’re not inert! Maybe they’re just slow!”

“Can you fit a minicam to the microscope?” Negroponte asked.

“Sure!”

Within half an hour they had a miniature video camera attached between the eyepiece of the microscope and the cable linking it to the display screen.

“Good,” said Negroponte once they had finished the rig and tested it.

Wunderly looked from the screen, which still showed the dark cellular object imbedded in the ice chip, to the biologist’s satisfied expression. “Now we wait for something to happen?”

“Now we go to dinner, linger over dessert, and then come back to see what’s been recorded.”

Wunderly nodded agreement. Dessert, she thought. I deserve a decent dessert.

Pancho had spent the day with Holly in her apartment. The two of them were desperately trying to find some way of trumping Eberly’s position on mining the rings. Pancho sat on the living room sofa, her long legs stretched out across its cushions.

“The IAA won’t allow it,” she said stubbornly, repeating it for at least the twentieth time.

Sitting at her desk, across the room from her sister, Holly shook her head. “Urbain’s given his okay. Even if the IAA does decide against mining, Malcolm could get our people to go ahead anyway.”

“And risk having Peacekeeper troops sent out here?”

“Panch, do you really think the IAA’s going to send troops all the way out here? Do you think Earth’s willing to go to war over mining the rings of Saturn?”

“It wouldn’t be a war, exactly,” Pancho said uncertainly. “Would it?”

“It would mean blood and killing,” Holly replied. “Jake’s right: spacecraft are really fragile. I don’t think the IAA would take the risk if our people put up a determined front.”

“They will if Nadia can prove the rings harbor life.”

“Not even then,” Holly said. “Malcolm’ll work out some weaselly deal that the IAA’ll agree to. Just wait and see.”

“A deal? Better’n war, I guess.”

The lights flickered once, twice, then steadied again. Both women looked ceilingward.

“Speakin’ of fragile spacecraft,” said Pancho. “This habitat isn’t the safest place in the solar system.”

“Timoshenko says he may have a bead on what’s causing the power failures.”

Swinging her legs down from the sofa, Pancho said, “Well, there’s an issue you can hammer on.”

“Panch, it’s not Malcolm’s fault that we have these outages.”

“It’s happening while he’s in charge. That makes it his responsibility. From what I hear, people are damned unhappy about losing power all the time. And it could get worse, couldn’t it?”

“I s’pose,” Holly said. “But I don’t think it’s enough of a problem to swing people to voting for me.”

“Elections aren’t won by the votes for a candidate,” Pancho said, stabbing her finger in Holly’s direction for emphasis. “They’re decided by the votes against.”

“So?”

“So you hang these power failures on Eberly. They’re his failures, and he’s not doing anything to fix the problem.”

“He’s trying.”

“You want to get elected or not?”

Holly stared at her sister for a long, silent moment. Then she shook her head stubbornly. “I just wish we had something to top him on the mining issue. That’s what’s gonna decide this election, Panch. Everything else is secondary.”

Pancho had to admit that she was right.