“What would you suggest?” asked George.

Art stared back at the young giant. “I don’t know,” he said wistfully. “I don’t know. But if I were Henry I’d find something.”

“Don’t get personally involved,” said Carson. “It’s a management problem.”

“I think we should find a good lawyer and sue the bastards,” Art continued. “They were negligent. At least. I don’t know about anybody else, but I think I hurt my back.” He grimaced in mock pain.

“It wouldn’t do any good,” Carson said. He and George were doing the bulk of the work. They’d tied the two vehicles together, but there was still a lot of bumping and rolling. George was in the sub, passing containers to Carson. It was a hit-and-miss proposition at best, and Hutch was surprised they lost only the one.

“Why not?” he asked. “It would show the world how Caseway and Truscott operate.”

“Nothing would come of it,” said Carson. “They’d just blame some pilot way down the chain of command, and throw him to the wolves. Nobody at the top would get hurt.”

“But we’ve been mugged,” said Hutch.

“That’s true,” said George, who was tying down a container. “And we know who did the mugging.”

“There should be a way to get at them,” said Art. He looked out of place in the role of avenger. He was tentative, self-effacing, cautious—completely unlike the energetic egos one usually found in these remote comers of known space. It was almost as if he’d got on a bus one day in downtown Chicago, and had ended at the Temple.

Hutch was thinking about the gang member Truscott had disarmed and killed in Newark. She wouldn’t sit idly by and accept this kind of treatment.

Other than the missing dome, the complex had suffered no major damage. Hutch knew that some leaks had sprung, that one of the smaller modules, housing the compartments used by Andi and Linda, had burst and filled with water. And she could see a couple of people dredging near the sub bay.

She’d begun to wonder whether the drop had been a direct result of her conversation with Truscott. It was hard to draw any other conclusion.

Damn.

Henry’s voice broke in on the common channel. “George? We need you at the site.”

George acknowledged. “Guess you guys will have to finish without me.”

Hutch felt a chill. “They aren’t going to start mining again?”

“Probably.”

“It’s getting a little late,” she said.

Art looked at his watch. “Forty-three hours, and change.”

They reloaded the sub and returned to the surface. This time, they went a little farther from shore, seeking smoother water. Hutch recalled Alpha from its mountaintop, and guided it in alongside.

Watching Eddie pass cargo across to Art was a funny scene. Neither was strong or adept, and there was a lot of whooping and finger-pointing and suggestions on how the other could improve his performance. Hutch had installed a Teflon deckplate from Wink in the shuttle hold, to ease the operation. Just put the container down inside the hatch, and slide it wherever you want. It worked well, and she was delighted.

They finished up and were on their way back to Seapoint for more when Henry broke in again. “As you’re aware,” he said, “we’ve been cutting the evacuation pretty close. Good sense suggests we clear out now.

“But most of you know we’ve found an object in the Lower Temple that appears to be a rotary printing press. It uses movable metal type, and the typeface are in place. Maggie was able to identify several Casumel C characters before the wave hit. Unfortunately, it is still in the Lower Temple. It won’t be easy to get back to it in the time we have. But, if we can recover it, we might have an entire page of C text. I need not tell you what that means.

“We are currently doing everything we can to reach the artifact. At the same time, I want to start moving people up.”

“Just a moment, Henry.” It was a woman’s voice. And she sounded unhappy. Hutch looked questioningly at Art.

“Sandy Gonzalez,” said Art. “She did most of the work for us on Oz.”

“What is it, Sandy?” Henry asked.

“Mining under these conditions is too dangerous. Let’s give it up and get out.”

“You won’t be involved in it, Sandy.”

Wrong response, Hutch thought. Henry was supposed to be smart. Maybe he wasn’t getting enough sleep. “I’m not just trying to save my own skin, Henry,” Sandy snapped. “What I’m saying is, enough is enough. Call it off before somebody gets killed.”

“Okay.” Henry showed no emotion. “Anybody else want to say something?”

Another woman spoke up. The voice was familiar, but Hutch couldn’t place it. “I wouldn’t want to spend the rest of my life wondering what the hell that city on the moon is about, and knowing I might have been close enough to find out, and didn’t try.”

“Linda Thomas,” said Art. “She’s very good. And very young. I wish I had her future.”

One by one, the others spoke. Even, finally, Frank Carson, from the shuttle. Hutch was surprised to hear him vote to cut their losses and leave. But the team was hopelessly divided, with some individuals arguing both sides of the question. Karl Pickens wanted to stay because he refused to be forced off, run out of town, but thought the Temple had been too severely weakened to go back in. “I wouldn’t want to go down there. And I don’t think we should allow anyone to. Even if anybody’s crazy enough to volunteer.”

That brought an irritated stir.

Janet, who had already voted to stay, said, “I hope our watchword isn’t safety first.”

“Richard?” said Henry. “What do you think?” Hutch wondered whether they could see each other.

“Not my call,” Richard said in his most objective monotone. “Whatever you and your people decide, I’ll support.”

No, goddammit, Hutch thought. Tell him to clear out. This down-to-the-wire approach leaves no room for error.

They did not ask her.

“Okay,” said Henry, “for now, we’ll play it by ear. George, take no chances.” Hutch didn’t like that very much. It was a non-decision, and they needed a little forceful leadership. “Meantime, we’ll start moving the others out. If we don’t make good progress in the chapel, we’ll break it off in plenty of time.” He was breathing heavily. “Eddie, how are we doing with the artifacts?”

Eddie’s voice was cold. “We’re going to lose most of them. Maybe we should concentrate on saving what we have, instead of running around—”

Since what they could save depended solely on the number of flights the two shuttles could make, and they were already operating at full capacity, Hutch failed to see how “concentrating” would help. If Henry understood that, he chose to say nothing. “We will save what we can,” he said smoothly. “Hutch, we’re going to start hauling people as well. How many can you carry? Other than yourself?”

“Four in Alpha. And you can put three passengers in the Temple shuttle.”

There were sixteen people, counting Richard and Hutch. “When’s your next flight?”

“In about two hours. As soon as we get loaded.”

“Okay. Take Maggie with you. And Phil.” Those were the philologists. They could work as easily on Winckelmann as in the dome. “And Karl and Janet. I’ll figure out the rest—”

“I object,” said Pickens. “I didn’t say I wouldn’t help. I just said it was crazy. That doesn’t mean I want to duck out.”

Janet also demurred, and the “meeting” dissolved in confusion.

Richard was waiting when they returned to the sub bay. He looked troubled, and drew Hutch aside. “We may have a problem,” he said.

“Tell me something I don’t know. These people are going to kill themselves. I thought you were a fanatic.”

“Hutch, it’s more than just the rush for this one last artifact. Henry and his people have built their careers around this place. And now, as they approach the payoff, someone wants to yank it away. You want the truth?”

“Of course.”

“Henry’s right. They should stay and get the printing press. Anything less is a betrayal.”

She was silent.

He smiled gently. “I need you to do something for me. Do you know David Emory?”

She knew of him. Had even met him once at a wedding. A rather prissy African with an Oxford accent. Emory’s specialty had something to do with extraterrestrial religions. He wrote books on the subject. “Yes,” she said. “I know him.”

“He’s on Nok. I’d like you to get a message to him.”

“Sure.”

“About the discontinuities. I’d like to know whether these are random events, or whether there’s a pattern of some sort. Maybe there’s a planetary or social mechanism. Something biological, possibly. Something that activates periodically.” He bit his lip, savoring his inability to get hold of the puzzle. “I’d like to know whether he’s seen any evidence of a similar type of event on Nok.”

“Why don’t you ask him yourself? Seapoint has an interstellar link.”

“No privacy. I’d rather keep it to ourselves for now.”

“Okay. I’ll get it out from Wink.”

“Thanks. And ask for a prompt response.”

Her voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. “Now I need to ask you something.”

“Sure.”

“Melanie Truscott.”

“What about her?”

“What happens to her when this is over?”

He got uncomfortable. “She gets promoted.” His eyes drifted away from her. “I know how you feel, Hutch. But we’ll lodge a protest. Kosmik will produce a report, send us a copy, apologize, and that’ll be the end of it.” He shrugged. “Maybe if someone had been killed—”

Janet Allegri was pleased that Henry’hadn’t given up on tunneling back into the Lower Temple, but annoyed at being among the first to be evacuated.

Nevertheless, she did not complain. She returned to her quarters to pack. She had brought few personal possessions with her three years ago, but she’d managed to accumulate several artifacts. That wasn’t legal, of course. Everything was supposed to be turned over to the Academy. But the Academy already had enough to fill a warehouse, and everybody else had taken a souvenir or two. It was more or less traditional.

One, her favorite, was a sun medallion, so-called because of the rising solar disk and the inscription, Live for the light. She liked it because it sounded so human. She also had an inscribed urn, from the Late Mesatic Period, whose symbols no one could read; and a coin with a Quraquat image on one side, and a Colin bush on the other. Years from now, these mementoes would be among her most prized possessions. Something to remind her of two lost worlds: the Quraquat, and her own youth.

She folded them carefully in her clothes, took her three bags out of the closet, and laid them inside.

The sheets would stay. And the towels.

She took framed photos from her walls, pictures of her brother, Joel, and his family in their living room at Christmas, of six members of the Temple team walking the beach, of the Zeta Fragment (which Janet had found, and which had provided Maggie’s first insights into the Casumel languages). She’d lived a substantial portion of her adult life here. Had established herself professionally. Had experienced several romances. It hurt to know that these spaces would soon be filled with mud and water.

She dragged her bags into the passageway, and bumped into Richard.

He gave her a startled look, and she understood his mind had been elsewhere. “May I help?” he asked, after a moment to collect himself.

She’d had little opportunity to speak with him since his arrival. His reputation rendered him a daunting figure, and she felt intimidated. “Thank you, yes. Please.”

He gazed at her thoughtfully. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine. Why do you ask?”

“You look pale.” He glanced at the bags. “It’s okay,” he said. “There’ll be other places.”

They carried the luggage through the community room, down to the lower level, and into the bay. Later, Janet would recall that they had talked during the short walk; she would not remember what he had said. Incidentals, no doubt, the sort of perfunctory remarks to which people freshly acquainted are inevitably limited. But she would always remember that he had seemed kind.

Maggie Tufu was the Academy’s ranking exophilologist. She had a high opinion of herself, but she might have been that good. She’d made her reputation on Nok, where she’d deciphered ancient and modern languages. Unlike most of the outstanding field performers, Maggie was also a gifted instructor. She was a legend at the University of Pennsylvania.

She’d succeeded at everything in her life that really mattered, with two exceptions: her marriage, and her inability to do anything with the few inscriptions that had survived on Pinnacle.

Now she faced a third potential failure. No one with the Jacobi team had grasped more quickly than she the importance of deciphering Linear C. Like Richard, she believed it might lead eventually to the Monument-Makers, and to the secret behind Oz. Maggie was one of the few who believed there was a secret. Her colleagues by and large shared Frank Carson’s view that the lunar artifact was simply alien, and that once one recognized that, there was not much else to say.

Consequently, when the numbing news arrived that the Academy was abandoning Quraqua, that its archeological treasures were being sacrificed to create a habitable world, she had thrown aside all other projects, and devoted herself exclusively to the Linear C problem.

They had recovered roughly five hundred writing samples of the target language, mostly from a dozen major sites. Generally, they consisted of only a few clusters of symbols. Context tended to be limited to the knowledge (or assertion) that the sample had been taken from a government building, or a library, or a statue of an animal.

The Lower Temple had major potential. Maggie possessed several tablets of varying degrees of completeness, transcribed in one or another of the Casumel family. These were probably inspirational tales, because they were accompanied by picto-graphs that translated to rainstorms, the sea, military valor, the moon. And so she could make a guess here, and take a stab there. She had reconstructed a primary alphabet, and several alternates, and had started a vocabulary. But she desperately needed more samples.

The printing press was the answer. That should give her two or three thousand characters of text. A magnificent find. If she could get her hands on it.

This morning, she was lingering over a tablet which had come in almost two years before from an excavation site several hundred kilometers inland. She had scanned and indexed it, but had not sent it back to the Academy with her regular annual shipment.

The piece was an oblong, as wide as her hand, about twenty centimeters long. It depicted the Quraquat hero Malinar as a child, with a dish in his hand, feeding a ferocious ursine animal with tusks and huge eyes, while an infant watched. She knew the myth: the animal was a horgon, a demon beast capable of seeing all things. The horgon was one of the classic monstrosities of local mythology, a creature suggestive of divinity gone wrong, not unlike Satan. No one could hide from it. No one could defeat it. But it traditionally spared children, because this child had fearlessly approached it with a plate of food to divert attention from his sister. The horgon rewarded Malinar’s valor, and never after was known to attack the young. The valor ideograph, which consisted of three arrows within a circle, appeared atop the engraving. And there were six lines of text. She believed she had identified several terms: the verbs to see and to offer, and the nouns Malinar and horgon.

In addition, the text supported some of her syntactical notions.

She had not sent the tablet on to D.C., because she had recognized the character group for horgon from somewhere else: it was part of the Oz inscription.

Andi was in the process of powering down nonessential electronics when Karl passed through Ops with his luggage. On the lower level, he saw Art Gibbs and Sandy Gonzalez tarping a digger. Other equipment, pumps, generators, jet-sleds, had been brought in, and were now being laid in storage. There was a tendency to behave as if Seapoint were simply being mothballed, as if someone would return and pick up where this expedition was leaving off.

The Academy would ordinarily have salvaged its equipment, the diggers, the sub, Seapoint itself. But the decision to evacuate had been made suddenly, without including Henry in the process. And consequently too little time had been allowed, and it had become necessary for the Temple team (and their managers back on the Second Floor in D.C.) to choose between bringing out expensive gear or rescuing artifacts of unknown value. The artifacts, of course, had taken precedence. Karl had been on duty when the Second Floor had directed Henry to leave personal luggage at Seapoint, to make extra room aboard the shuttles for storage. Henry had been around long enough to know better than to disagree. But he forgot to implement.

Karl entered the sub bay. It was empty. He strode along the walkway that bordered the docking pool and dropped his bags beside Janet’s, along the boarding ramp. “I’m ready,” he said to her. The place was filled with Eddie’s containers. There were more than a hundred. “Do we really have to haul all these up to the ship?”

“There are more coming.” Janet smiled wearily. “Karl, what are you going to do when you get home?”

“I have a position at the Institut von Archaologie.” He tried to make it sound casual. But they both knew it was a prestigious appointment.

“Congratulations.” She kissed him. “I have no idea what I’m going to do.” There had been a list of vacancy announcements around for about a month. The Academy would keep a few of the team on the payroll, and it would try to assist the others. Most, like Karl, would be going back to the classroom. “I want to stay in the field,” she said. “But the waiting list for Pinnacle and Nok are both long.”

“Two years, last I heard,” Karl said. Allegri was a damned good archeologist. With experience. But it would be like the Academy to waste her, to offer her a job teaching undergraduates. “Maybe they’ll make an exception for people here.” The approach lamps came on. “Get Henry to put in a word for you.”

The water began to churn. “Pity about all this,” she said. “Henry deserves better.”

“He may not be done yet,” said Karl. “He wants Linear C. And I’m not entirely sure he won’t get it.”

LIBRARY ENTRY

Like most mythic heroes, Malinar may have had a remote historical basis. If so, the reality is hopelessly entangled with fable. This hero appears in epochs thousands of years apart. This is no doubt due to the extreme length of Quraquat history, and to the lack of technological progress after the exhaustion of the world’s nonrenewable natural resources, resulting in a telescoping effect upon earlier eras, all of which come to resemble one another.

Although Malinar’s time predates the construction of the Knothic Towers by almost ten thousand years, he is nevertheless said to have visited the holy site to consult an aspect of the Deity. The Temple then stood on a rock shelf well above the sea. We possess a tablet thought to depict the event.

Unfortunately, most of the Malinar cycle is missing. We know neither the reason for the consultation, nor its result. We know only that the Quraquat could not bear the thought that their great hero had not at some point visited the imposing shrine on the north shore.

—Linda Thomas, At the Temple of the Winds Harvard University, 2211

11.

Seapoint. Wednesday; 1418 hours.

“I’m sorry we found the thing, Hutch.” George Hackett was weary, but he managed to look upbeat anyhow. “If I had my way, we’d call the whole business off. I’m ready to go home.”

“How long have you been here?”

“Four years.”

“Long time.”

“Seems like forever.” They were alone in the community room, enjoying coffee and toast. The sea moved against the view panels. “I don’t think I’ll do any more field trips.”

Hutch enjoyed being with him. She loved the glow of his eyes, and his gentleness. Old passions were reviving. When they were together, she had a tendency to babble. But she curbed it, and maintained a discrete distance, waiting for him to make a move. When he did, if he did, she would have to put him on hold until they got home. Anything else would be unprofessional. She knew from long experience that it was impossible to keep secrets on shipboard. “Why not, George?” she asked, in a detached tone. “Your career is in the field, isn’t it?”

He shook his head. “I’m not an archeologist. I’m an engineer. I only came out here because the opportunity surfaced, and 1 thought it was a chance to travel.” He laughed.

“Well,” she said, “you’ve certainly traveled.”

“Yeah. That I have.” He looked at her wistfully. “You know, Hutch,” he said, “you’re lovely. It’s been worth the trip just to meet you.”

She, in her turn, glowed. “That’s nice of you,” she said.

“I mean it.”

She could see that he did. “What will you do when you get home?” she asked.

He stared at her. “I’m going to find a place where there are green parks and lots of summer days. And where all the women look like you.” He reached out and stroked her cheek.

Eddie Juliana kept working, kept packing containers. “We’ll get everything up,” he said. “One way or another, we’ll save it all.” He urged Hutch to work harder. “These,” he said. “These go first. Just in case. Forget the stuff that’s down in the bay. In case Truscott decides to drop any more bombs on us.” He stared at the ceiling as if observing her attitude on the space station. “Yes,” he said, “load these.” He indicated a line of red-tags. “I’ll get the others.” He nodded to himself. “Most definitely.”

Hutch worried about him.

“By the door,” he said, as they entered his workshop, oblivious of her concern. He was indicating three containers. “These are weapons. From the lower level outpost.” He went after the first, signaling Hutch to bring over a cart. “Whatever else happens, we don’t want to lose them. They’re invaluable.” Ordinarily she would have grumbled or gone on strike. But she felt sorry for Eddie, and did what she could. “There’s another red-tag next door,” he said.

But the container wasn’t sealed. She looked in. “It needs a dash of poly-6,” she said.

“Take care of it.” He arrowed off toward the washroom.

She picked up the gun, aimed it into the container, and pulled the trigger. A thick white stream gushed over the plastene-wrapped artifacts, and the room filled with a faintly acrid aroma. She watched the foam rise, and shut it off. The poly-6 began to inflate, and Hutch hefted the gun and aimed it at an imaginary Melanie Truscott. Eddie reappeared and looked at her impatiently. She pointed the nozzle toward him, and her index finger tightened slightly on the trigger. “Pow,” she said.

Pow.

He was in no mood for games. He capped the container, and rolled it onto the cart.

And Hutch had the beginning of an idea. “Eddie, how much of this stuff do we have?”

“Poly-6? Plenty. Why do you ask?”

“How does it work?”

“I don’t know the chemistry,” he said. “You make it with two barrels.” They were in plain sight, labeled “A” and “B.”

“They’re separate compounds. The stuff is inert until it gets mixed. That’s what the gun does. When they combine, the urethane expands and hardens. It’s been around for centuries. And it’s ideal for safeguarding artifacts in shipment.”

“Do you have an extra dispenser? A gun?”

“Sure.” He frowned. “Why?”

She was calculating storage space on Alpha. “Listen, we may have to cut down the size of this next shipment a little.”

“What?”He sounded wounded. “Why?” he asked again.

“Because I’m going to take two barrels of poly-6 with me.”

Eddie was horrified. “There isn’t room.”

“We’ll make room.”

“What on earth for?”

“I’m going to use it to say hello to Melanie Truscott.”

An hour later, Alpha climbed toward orbit, carrying Hutch, Janet, Maggie, Karl, and Maggie’s number one analyst, Phil Marcotti. Also on board were twenty-nine containers filled with artifacts, and two barrels of poly-6 components.

Maggie Tufu turned out to be younger than Hutch had expected. She’d heard so much about the woman’s accomplishments, that she was startled to discover Maggie was probably still in her twenties. She was tall, taller in fact than either of the men. Her black hair was full and luxuriant, worn in a twist that was probably designed to make her look older. Her eyes were also black, and her features retained much of the Micronesian cast of her forebears. If she’d been able to loosen up, to smile occasionally, she would have been lovely.

She tended to set herself apart from the others. Hutch did not sense arrogance, but rather simply a preoccupation with work. Maggie found people, and maybe everything except mathematics and philological theory and practice, boring.

Her colleague, Phil Marcotti, was a beefy, easygoing extrovert. About forty, he enjoyed his work, and was among those who would have preferred to stay until they’d recovered what everyone was now referring to as “George’s printing press.” He confided to Hutch that, if he’d had his way, nothing short of armed force would have moved the Academy team. Curiously, this amiable, happy man was the most militant among Henry’s true believers.

Maggie took Hutch’s right-hand seat. During the ascent she tied into the auxiliary computer and busied herself with rows of alphanumerics. “In one way, we’re very lucky,” she told Hutch. “We don’t get as many Linear C samples as we’d like to. Of course, you never have enough samples of anything. The language is just too old. But a fair amount of what we do get comes with illustrations. We have the beginning of a vocabulary.”

“Really,” said Hutch, interested. “Can you show me some examples?”

“Sure. This”—a cluster of characters appeared on the screen—”is ‘sun.’ They were letters, not ideograms. And that”— another group—”is ‘moon.’ “ She smiled, not at Hutch, but at the display. “This is ‘hoe.’ “

“Hoe”said Hutch. “How did you arrive at that?”

“The group was used to illustrate an epigram about reaping what you plant. I think.”

Karl stared moodily out at the clouds. His eyes were distant, and Hutch wondered whether he was thinking about his future.

Janet fell asleep within minutes after their departure. She was still out when the shuttle nosed into its bay on Wink.

Hutch calibrated the B ring spin to point one gee. They unloaded the artifacts, now only a tenth of their planetary weight, and carried them through double doors into Main Cargo. Here, Hutch passed out footwear that would grip the Teflon deck. The storage area was wide and high, spacious enough to play basketball. They crossed to the far bulkhead, and secured the containers beside the two earlier shipments.

Main Cargo had been designed to stow heavy excavation equipment, large quantities of supplies, and whatever the Academy teams deemed worth bringing back. Except for the shuttle bay, it occupied the entire ring. It was compartmented into four sections, each equipped with outside loading doors.

When they’d finished, Hutch conducted a brief tour. She took her passengers to A Deck, pointed out their cabins, showed them the lounge and rec facilities, demonstrated how the food dispensers worked, and joined them for dinner. They drank to their new home. And they seemed to brighten somewhat.

After they’d finished, she took Janet aside. “Are you interested in a little payback?” she asked.

Janet looked at her curiously. “What are we talking about?” Then she smiled. “You mean Truscott?”

“I mean Truscott.”

She nodded. “I’m willing to listen.”

“There’ll be a risk.”

“Tell me what you have in mind. I’d love to see her get hers.”

“I think we can arrange it.”

She led the way back to B ring. Full ship’s gravity, which was a modicum over point five, had been restored. The outside loading doors were located in the deck. In each of the four cargo sections, they were of different dimensions. She’d picked the No. 2 hold, where they were biggest, large enough, in fact, to accommodate an object twice the diameter of the shuttle.

Hutch inspected the doors, satisfied herself they were adequate to the task, and explained her idea. Janet listened skeptically at first, and then with mounting enthusiasm. By the time Hutch had finished, she was grinning broadly. “I don’t think I’d want you mad at me,” she said.

“If we get caught at it, we’ll both wind up out on Massachusetts Avenue with tin cups.”

“Will they be able to figure out who did it?”

“Maybe. Listen, I owe you. And I wouldn’t want to be responsible for your getting into trouble. I’ll understand if you want to keep clear.”

“But you can’t do this alone.”

“No. I can’t.”

“I wouldn’t miss it. The only real problem I can see is that we won’t be able to brag about it afterward.”

Hutch was feeling pretty good. “It’s a small price to send Melanie Truscott a message from the downtrodden.”

“Can we really do it?”

“Let’s find out.”

She cut gravity, and they went to the shuttle and retrieved the two barrels of poly-6. They hauled them back to No. 2 hold and put them in the middle of the deck, which is to say, centered over the cargo doors. Next Hutch went back for the connector hose and gun.

Now that she was committed, Janet showed no hesitation, had no second thoughts. Good woman to have at your back, Hutch thought.

“We have to have something to start with,” Janet said.

Hutch had the ideal answer. “Sit tight,” she said. She went up to A ring, to the rec locker, and got one of the medicine balls.

Janet broke into a wide smile when she saw it. “The very thing,” she said. She had connected the hose to each of the barrels and to the gun.

Hutch put the ball down and stepped back. She eyed the dispenser. “Would you like to do the honors?”

“Delighted.” Janet pointed the instrument at the medicine ball. “Just what the doctor ordered,” she said wickedly, and pulled the trigger.

White foam spurted out, coating the deck and the ball. The ball rolled away. “This might take a while,” she said.

“Not once we get started.”

The ball lost its roundness quickly, and became an uneven, white chunk of hissing foam.

The object expanded as a natural result of mixing the polymer content in one barrel with a water-activated isocyanate in the other. It was designed, once it had set, to resist extreme temperature changes.

They took turns, and learned to back off occasionally to let the chemical dry.

It got bigger. Even when they weren’t drenching it with fresh spray, it grew.

It grew to the size of a small car. And then to the size of a garage. And they kept pouring it on.

It got so big they could not reach the top, and they brought over a container to stand on. The thing had gone lopsided, long and wide rather than high. Bloated at one end. “It looks like a dead whale,” said Janet.

Hutch fired again. “Born to the poly gun,” she said, laughing.

“The thing’s a monster!”

When the stream finally sputtered and faltered, pride illuminated their features. “It’s magnificent,” said Janet, ceremonially flinging the gun away.

“I wouldn’t want to have to deal with it.”

“Exactly what I was thinking.”

Hutch spoke softly: ”Never monkey with the Pimpernel.” They shook hands. “Okay. Phase two. You stay here. I’m going up to the bridge.”

Quraqua floated overhead, hazy in the sunlight. There was no moon.

Melanie Truscott and her space station were on the far side of their orbit. Hutch scanned for Kosmik’s two tugs. She found one. The other was probably down among the snowballs, where it would be hard to distinguish. It wouldn’t matter: even if it was in the neighborhood of the space station, things were going to happen too fast.

Truscott had no means of independent propulsion. No starship was docked.

Hutch fed the station’s orbital data into the navigation console, scanned the “torpedo”—how that word tripped across the tongue—computed its mass, and requested an intercept vector. The numbers came back. With a minor correction, the torpedo could be targeted to complete seven orbits and hit the station on its eighth. In twenty-one hours.

She sat back to consider potential consequences. Last chance for a no-go. Once the thing was launched, she would not be able to change her mind without giving away the show. How might things go wrong? Lawsuit? Heart failure on someone’s part?

She saw again the wave surging in, black and cold. And the last Tower. And Karl and Janet, trailing bags like refugees.

She opened the ship’s intercom. “Ladies and gentlemen, we’re going to be making a minor course correction in three minutes. You’ll want to strap down. Please acknowledge.”

“Karl here. Okay.”

She locked in the new course.

“I need a little time.” That was Marcotti.

“Phil, we’re going in three minutes, ready or not.” She checked her power levels.

“This is Maggie. Ready when you are.”

She opened a private channel to Janet. “All set?”

“Yes.” The word had a slight echo; Janet was inside her Flickinger field. “How fast will it be going when it hits them?”

“Seven thousand, relative to the station. Impact will occur at seventeen minutes past eight, Temple time, tomorrow evening.”

“Seven thousand klicks is pretty fast. Maybe even a chunk of foam will do some serious damage.”

“It’ll bend a few things,” she said, “and pop some rivets. But they’ll see it coming, and they’ll either get off the station or button up. They’ll be fine.”

“Okay. What next?”

“Course change.” She switched channels. “Phil?”

“Almost ready,” he said.

“Good. Please strap down.”

Moments later he was back. “Okay,” he said. “I’m all set.”

She activated the intercom. “Movement in one minute.” She engaged the “Execute” function, and watched the seconds drain away.

“Where are we going?” asked Maggie.

“Nowhere,” said Hutch uncomfortably. “It’s just a routine maneuver.” She was a poor liar.

Thrusters kicked in, and the Winckelmann rose to a higher orbit, and changed its heading by a few degrees. When it was over, Hutch issued the stand-down. Then she switched back to Janet’s channel. “Everything all right?”

“So far. It rolled a little, but it’s still over the doors.”

“Going to zero-gee on your deck.”

“Okay. I’ve begun to depressurize.”

The B ring slowed. And stopped.

Hutch watched the monitor. The torpedo rose.

“Good show,” she said. She already knew that she’d break their agreement to say nothing. She would tell Richard. This was just too good to keep to herself. He’d be angry, but eventually it would become a joke between them. And years from now it would be the bright shining moment in this period of general despair. If the Academy was being forced out, it would go down with all flags flying.

“It’s still over the doors. I’m going to open up now.”

“At your leisure.”

“Doors are opening.”

“Hutch?” A new voice. Karl’s.

“Yes, Karl?”

“Can I get access to a twelve-by?”

A wall-length monitor. “Yes. In Three A.” That was the auxiliary bridge. “But stay put for a couple of minutes. Okay? We’re doing routine maintenance.”

“Doors are open,” said Janet. She was inaudible to the others.

“Okay,” said Karl.

“I’ll tell you when.” Hutch broke away to Janet: “Clearance?”

“Looks good.”

“All right. Here we go.”

Because ring rotation simulated gravity, the decks were at right angles to the ship’s axis. The cargo doors, therefore, opened off the side of the ship. The torpedo’s exit would be to starboard. Inside Main Cargo, it was already on course. All they needed to do was remove the ship.

Hutch aimed the thrusters to take the Wink to port, and fired a light burst. And again. “Maneuver complete,” she told Janet.

“Doing fine. The torpedo has begun to descend.” From her point of view, it was leaving through the deck.

“Still have clearance?”

“Enough. It’ll be outside in about thirty seconds.”

“Make sure you don’t go out with it.”

“Hutch,” she said, “I believe we’ve just had a baby.”

Priscilla Hutchins, Journal

Tonight, for the first time in my career, I have omitted a significant item from a ship’s log. It is an offense that, if detected, would result in the loss of my license.

This whole business was probably a bit off the deep end. But I couldn’t resist lobbing something back at them. If in the end I am disgraced and run off, it will have been for a good cause.

Wednesday, June 9, 2202

Thursday. 0854 hours.

The descent into the Lower Temple was filled with silt and rock. George Hackett, whose specialty was submarine excavation, had examined scans of the area, and vetoed proposals to dig a parallel shaft. “Safer,” he’d admitted, “but too time-consuming.”

So they’d braced everything they could, sucked out the loose sand, and cut through the stone. They got down to the side tunnel in good order, but it too had collapsed. Richard Wald, doing his tour as operations officer, was watching when he got a call from Janet on board Wink.

“I have something for Henry,” she said.

“He’s in the Temple. You want me to patch you through?”

“Please. You should listen in.”

The mission director was a murky image wielding a particle beam projector. That was another aspect of this effort that scared the hell out of Richard: the experience level of the volunteer help. Sending Karl up to Wink with the first group had been a mistake. Karl, Richard had heard, was a master at tunneling.

Henry’s homely features appeared. “What is it, Janet?”

“The Field Report is in. Have you by any chance seen it?”

“No. Truth is, I’ve been a little busy.” He sounded annoyed.

“Okay. You’re going to want to take a look at the extraplanetary survey from Nok. Section four delta.”

The Field Report was issued monthly by the Academy. It was an update on current missions and future projects. Richard had found it and was bringing it up on his screen.

“Janet, please get to the point.”

“They’ve discovered four rock cubes. In orbit.”

Richard saw it. My God. “It’s all connected,” he blurted out. This was wonderful. Inakademeri—Nok—was itself a moon, circling the ringed gas giant Shola. The cubes were in the same orbital plain as Shola’s rings and the rest of the bodies orbiting the central world. Early analysis suggests they once occupied equidistant positions. They are of identical dimensions, each roughly 2.147 kilometers on a side. And the Noks, like the Quraquat, had never been in space. What in hell was going on?

“What do you think, Richard?” Henry asked. The sound of his name startled him.

What did he think? Right angles again. That’s what he thought.

Later, Maggie told him about the horgon. “Maybe,” he said, “we can get by without reading the inscription.”

“In what way?” Maggie was speaking from one of the terminals on Wink’s bridge.

“All those squares and rectangles. And two round towers.”

“With slanted roofs.”

“Yes. My point, exactly. Oz has to be a direction finder.”

“We’ve thought of that too.”

“How sure are you that horgon is actually in the inscription?”

“Reasonably sure, Richard. I wish I could give you more. But I just have no way to check it.”

“The round towers are unique. Their roofs are not flat, like every other roof in Oz. They incline, directly away from the center of the city. They’re aimed at the stars. What could their purpose be other than to serve as markers, to designate lines of sight? Draw a line across each of those rooftops, from the lowest point to the highest—which is to say, from the precise mathematical center of Oz—and extend them into space. At the angle of the roof’s inclination.”

“You’re thinking that there might have been a star associated with the horgon—”

“Like the Dog Star.”

“Yes. But if it’s true, I don’t know about it. And I don’t know who would.”

“Dave Emory might.”

“Maybe.” She still looked puzzled. “If it’s that simple, why build all the rest of it? Why not just make the towers?”

“I suppose,” said Richard, “you could argue they wanted to be sure the towers weren’t overlooked.”

“But you think there’s more—”

“Oh, yes. There’s more.” No doubt about that. Unfortunately.

Thursday, June 10, 2202

Dear Dick,

. .. The discovery of the cube moons has had an unsettling effect. Yesterday, we were of two minds about recovering George’s printing press. Today, with the link between Quraqua and Nok established beyond doubt, everybody wants to take whatever risk is necessary to get the damned thing. That kind of unanimity makes me uneasy. Even though I agree.

The refusal of the bureaucrats at Kosmik to budge on the matter of time is nothing less than criminal. I’ve been in touch with the commissioner, but he tells me nothing can be done. He points out, quite rightly, that no one, including me, has been able to get Caseway to listen to reason.

History will damn us all.. . .

Richard

—Richard Wald to his cousin Dick Received in Portland, Oregon June 30

12.

Quraqua. Thursday; 1950 hours.

Hutch took Andi, Tri, and Art and another load of artifacts to the ship; and Carson carried Linda Thomas and Tommy Loughery. It was Carson’s last delivery. On his return to the Temple, Henry preempted him for the tunneling effort. Eddie dissolved in apoplexy, but nothing mattered anymore except the printing press.

There was now a lot of help on Wink. Hutch could unload quickly, but the time saved was negated when she had to replace a fused pumpboard. A good engineer might have handled the problem in twenty minutes, but for Hutch it was a struggle. In-transit maintenance and repair was a skill pilots seldom needed, and it had never been her strength.

She started back down in Alpha as soon as she finished. But she’d lost her window by then, and faced a long flight. By the time she glided in over the Temple site, the torpedo was homing in for the last stage of its run against Kosmik Station.

The difficulty and danger of loading without the floatpier had by now forced them to find a harbor. Eddie had located a rock shelf, sheltered from the tide, but at a considerable distance from Seapoint. The water was deep enough for the sub, and the currents were relatively tranquil.

Hutch was watching a telescopic view of the space station relayed from Wink, and she was monitoring their communications. Traffic patterns showed nothing unusual. No sudden bursts to the tugs, no change in routine, no upgraded precedence. They had not seen it.

Below, Eddie and the sub were waiting. Eddie had no help because everyone else was either on the tunnel operation or on Wink. Several dozen containers were stacked on the shelf, and Hutch suspected Eddie had done it all. She blinked her lights at him. Poor bastard. In the crunch, they had left him alone.

How could Truscott’s people not yet have picked up the torpedo? Answer: they’re not looking. She detected no short-range sensor activity. They were ignoring the regulations. Damn. If the thing came in unnoticed, the whole point would be lost.

Janet, speaking from Wink, asked if everything was okay.

“Yes. Descending on Eddie’s harbor.” They carefully avoided discussing, on an open circuit, what was really on their minds. They’d debated making up a code, but discarded the idea as too dangerous.

Their eyes met, and Janet’s excitement threatened to bubble to the surface. “Everything quiet here,” she said. Translation: she saw no activity either.

Three minutes later, Alpha set down precisely as Janet, on their agreed-upon schedule, opened a channel to the orbiter, and patched Hutch through.

Harvey Sill’s beefy frown formed on the screen. “What is it, Winckelmann?”

“This is Hutchins. Sorry to bother you, but you might have a problem.”

He angled his head so he could look at her through half-open lids. “What sort of problem?”

“Are you scanning short range?”

“Of course we are.” He looked up, away from her. Did something to his console. Spoke to someone.

“One of your snowballs may have got loose. Check to the northeast, out at about twenty-five hundred kilometers.”

“Hang on, Winckelmann.” He sighed. There was a fair amount of pleasure in listening to his contempt change, through not so subtle variations, to concern, and then to dismay.

“I’m surprised you don’t maintain a search,” she said innocently. “It’s a violation.”

“Son of a bitch.” His voice went up an octave. “Where the hell’d that come from?”

She shrugged. But he wasn’t watching her any longer. He reached forward, past the screen. “Goddammit, Louise.” He punched keys, and jabbed an index finger at someone.”There” he said. “Over there.” He glanced at Hutch. “Thanks, lady—” The screen blanked.

“Let me know,” said Hutch, in the silence of her cockpit, “if I can help.”

Truscott made it to the operations center from her quarters in less than a minute. The alarms were still sounding, and voices filled the circuits. “No mistake?” She stared at the object, repeated across the bank of twelve situation screens.

Harvey Sill wiped his lips with the back of his fat hand. “No, it’s closing straight and true. A goddam bomb.”

“Where did it come from?”

Helplessly, Sill turned up his hands. “Somebody screwed up.”

“How much time do we have?”

“Seventeen minutes.”

“Where’s it going to hit?”

“It’s coming in from above. Eight-degree angle. It looks as if it’ll go right into Engineering.” That was the hub. “There’s a chance it might hit the rim. But it won’t make much difference. That thing will go through us like a hot knife.”

“Which part of the rim is exposed?”

“Blue.”

Someone shut the alarms off. “Get everyone out of there. Harvey, prepare to evacuate. Jeff, get off an SOS to the Winckelmann. Ask them to come running.” She opened a channel to Engineering. “Will?”

Pause. “I’m here, Melanie. What’s going on?”

“Collision coming. Big one. Button up and get out of there.”

“Collision? With what?”

“Runaway snowball. Don’t leave anybody behind.”

She heard him swear. “On our way. It’ll take a while to shut down.”

“Be here in five minutes. You need help?”

“Negative.” More profanity. “Listen, how big is this thing? We could lose life support and power all over the station.”

“No kidding,” growled Sill.

Three crewmen moved smartly into the operations center, took seats at the auxiliary boards, and plugged in. The CRT group: Command Response Team. They would coordinate communications and evacuation efforts throughout the emergency.

Jeff Christopher, the watch officer, looked up from his screen. “I make it about thirteen hundred tons.”

“We’re lucky,” said Sill. “A small one.”

“Coming at seven-kay klicks.” He tapped his earphone, listened, and nodded. “Melanie,” he said,”Winckelmann says they don’t have a pilot aboard. Nobody knows how to run the damned thing.”

Truscott stared out into the dark.

Sill exhaled and sank back in his chair. “We’re not going to be able to get everyone off.”

“I know. What have we got nearby?”

“Nothing close enough to help.”

“Okay.” She opened the common channel. “This is Truscott,” she said evenly. “We have a snowball bearing down on us. Collision in thirteen minutes. Abandon the station.”

“We’ve got two APVs and a shuttle,” said Sill. “We can get three passengers, plus the pilot, into each APV. That’s one more than they’re designed for, but we can do it. We can put twelve more in the shuttle.”

“Make it fourteen.”

“Goddammit, Melanie, it won’t accommodate fourteen.”

“Find little people. Do it. That leaves how many?”

“Four,” said Sill. “You and me. And two others.”

She thought of ordering him off, but paid him the compliment of saying nothing.

Voices rippled through the heavy air:

“I read A deck secured.”

“Terri, we haven’t heard from Dave. Check his quarters.”

“No, Harold. Don’t come up here. You’re scheduled on the boat. With Julie and Klaus—Yes, I’m serious. Now move.”

“Well, he’s got to be somewhere.”

Nine minutes. “Ask for two volunteers. Jeff, close out and go. We don’t need you anymore.” Before Christopher could comply, she added, “But first get me some cushions.”

“How many?”

“As many as you can. Make it quick.”

Sill was struggling with his assignment. “Why not ask your staff to stay on? The senior people?”

She looked at him, and felt a wave of affection. “They’re as scared as everybody else,” she said. “I won’t order anyone to stay. Harvey, we may die here. I want to have good company.” She was watching her technicians moving reluctantly toward the exits. They knew there wasn’t room for everyone, and their eyes glided over her. She read embarrassment. And fear. A couple of them approached, Max Sizemore, who touched her shoulder in an uncharacteristically personal gesture; and Tira Corday, who mouthed the word “thanks” and was gone.

Sill spoke to Ian Helm with the Antarctic group. He was trying to arrange a quick rescue for the people in the APVs, who would have only an eight-hour air supply. Danielle Lima, the station’s logistics manager, was bent over her commlink giving instructions to someone, but her dark eyes never moved from Truscott. Her features were immobile. She was a lean young brunette, bright, ambitious, a good worker, a woman at the beginning of her life. All the color had drained out of that lovely face. She signed off, but her eyes continued to cling to the director. “I’ll stay,” she said, and turned quickly away.

Truscott stared at her back. “Thanks,” she said. But Danielle appeared not to hear.

Blue section was 70 degrees around the arc from Operations, opposite the direction of rotation. Which meant they were probably as safe here as they could hope to be. They’d be well out of the way of the thing both coming and going. What the hell—maybe they had a chance at that.

Danielle spoke into her commlink: “Okay, Hans. Get over here as quickly as you can.” She smiled up at Truscott. “Stallworth will stay.”

Truscott was trying to think, do what she could to give them a chance. “Get back to him. Tell him to stop by Supply on his way and pick up four Flickingers.”

She surveyed her operating team: Marion Edwards, who had never worked for anyone else in Kosmik; Chuck White, a young climber who hoped to be an executive one day (and probably would); and Penny Kinowa, innocent, quiet, bookish. Penny read too much, and desperately needed to become more aggressive. But she was one hell of a systems coordinator. Edwards was removing the base crystal from the mainframe. “I’ll see that this gets off the ship safely,” he said uncomfortably. Unstated, of course, was his intention to carry it off personally. However this turned out, things would never be the same among this crew.

The crystal contained their records and logs. Wouldn’t do to lose that, even if they were all killed. That would be Norman Caseway’s first response to the disaster: did they save the data? Reassured on that point, he would want to know who was responsible for the catastrophe. It wasn’t enough that she would be dead; they would also destroy her reputation.

“Okay,” said Harvey. “CR team out. You three are on board the remaining APV. Go.”

Penny and Danielle traded glances. There was a world of meaning in that final exchange. The two were friends. That also might end, if they survived.

Sill was directing the final shutdown of the station. Truscott watched him. He would make a good manager, but he had a little too much integrity to survive in a top job. After a promising start, he’d made enemies and had wound up here. He’d go no higher, no matter how things turned out.

Edwards closed off his position. “All nonessential systems shut down,” he said. “Hatches are closed, and the station is as secure as we can make it.”

Chuck White was trying to look as if he were considering staying. “If you need me—”

Truscott wondered how he would respond if she accepted the offer. “Get moving. They’re waiting for you. And thanks.”

“Six minutes,” said Sill.

The snowball, gouged, lopsided, ominous, grew in the screens.

Christopher appeared with two crewmen. They had a pile of cushions and pillows, which they dumped on the deck.

“That’s good,” said Truscott. “Thanks.” She waved them out. They were now alone.

The shadows and the surface features didn’t seem to change. “It isn’t rotating,” said Sill.

She nodded. “We’ll think about it later, Harvey.”

“Everything rotates.” Sill stared. Maybe it was simply very slow.

Hans Stallworth came in, arms full of harnesses. He was tall, intense, formal. His specialty was electronics, and he always seemed uncomfortable in Truscott’s presence. She thought of him as being superficial, and had been surprised when he offered to stay. “Hello,” he said, with as much elan as he could muster.

Sill shook his hand. “Good to have you here, Hans.”

He set the harnesses down, and no one needed to be told to put one on. Truscott removed her belt. “Find something you can use to tie yourself down. We don’t want anyone flying around in here.”

“Pity we don’t have a serious set of deflectors on this thing,” said Danielle.

Sill laughed. “It would be like drawing the blinds. Look at that son of a bitch.”

It filled the screens.

“Harvey, let’s depressurize the station. All of it.”

Sill nodded.

“I wonder,”‘ said Stallworth, “whether we wouldn’t be better off outside.”

“No.” Truscott secured her harness and activated the field. “Let’s keep as much protection as we can get.”

Danielle and Stallworth, who had had little experience with the Flickingers, helped each other. Sill swung his harness lazily over his head and dropped it across his shoulders. “Other shuttle’s on the way,” he said.

“ETA?”

“About three hours. They should be in plenty of time to pick up survivors.” He inspected their harnesses, announced his approval. “Activate the homers,” he said, and demonstrated how. “If you’re thrown clear, and you’re unconscious, they’ll still get to you.” His fingers moved across the command console. “Commencing depressurization.”

Stallworth was looking out through a viewport, shading his eyes. “I see it,” he said.

Truscott followed his gaze but could see nothing. “Confirming original projection,” said Sill, not without a trace of pride. “It’ll hit Blue on the way in, and then impact directly with the hub.”

Danielle had posted herself at the comm console. “Both APVs are away. Shuttle’s about to launch.”

“They get everybody?”

“They’ve got twenty-two. We make twenty-six.” All accounted for.

“They may not get far enough away,” said Danielle. “We may be safer in here.”

“Two minutes,” said Sill.

“Shuttle?”

Danielle checked the board. “Negative.”

“What’s holding them up?”

The officer spoke into a side channel. “They thought somebody else was coming. Ginger says they have room for one more.”

“Doesn’t matter now,” Truscott said. “Tell her to clear out.” She looked toward Sill. “Seal it up. Close off everything. Power down. Except the lights. Let’s keep the lights on.”

Electronics died throughout the wheel. Computers went to maintenance modes, monitors blanked, food processors gurgled to a halt, water heaters died.

“Shuttle away,” said Danielle.

A star had appeared. Truscott watched it brighten and take shape. It developed ridges and chinks. No craters. Irregular, almost rectangular surface. Club-shaped, she thought.

Not spinning.

“Okay_r” she said. “Everybody down. The main shock will come through the deck. Lie flat. Use the pillows to protect all vulnerable parts. Tie yourself to something solid.”

They watched it come.

Forty seconds.

It sailed through the sky, bright and lovely in the sunlight. It moved across the viewport, corresponding to the rotation of the outer rim, and disappeared finally to the left.

Truscott reached deep inside for the old arrogance, her lifelong conviction that things always turn out well if you stay cool and do the things that need to be done. She hoped she looked arrogant. That was what they needed now. That and divine intervention. “Face away from the impact,” she said, pointing where she meant.

“They need to build these bastards with seat belts.” It was Stallworth. He sounded calm.

And in that moment, it hit.

The station shook.

Someone screamed. They were thrown against pillows and deck.

But there was no hammer blow. Klaxons did not scream, and the steel bulkheads did not rip. A few alarms sounded: minor damage. And that was all.

“What happened?” asked Danielle, still holding tight to her chair.

Sill said: “Damned if I know.”

“Everybody stay down.” Truscott was taking no chances.

And, in her earphones, there was a voice from one of the ships: “Where is the goddam thing?”

Truscott, dazed, was also puzzled by the sound of the strike.

Bonk.

13.

Seapoint. Thursday; 2005 hours.

“The space station is having a problem.” This was how Janet alerted the people on Wink and at the Temple site to the approach of the torpedo. She broadcast a running description of events and relayed the frantic plain-language calls among the orbiter, the ground stations, and the tugs. To Henry and Sandy Gonzalez, who were in the Seapoint operations center, she also transmitted telescopic views of the object closing on the orbiter. The station, its twin outer wheels rotating placidly, looked flimsy. It was a tense moment. One would have had to pay close attention to detect the overlay of satisfaction in Janet’s voice.

All work stopped. They watched with morbid fascination.

“No estimate on mass. But it is closing very fast.”

“Serves the bastards right,” said Henry.

And Carson: “Not very competent, are they? Plunked by one of their own rocks.”

Sandy stood at Henry’s side. “Maybe we’ve got our extension after all,” she said.

“Is everybody off?”

“Don’t know.”

“Can’t be. They’re still talking on the station.”

Despite their animosity for the terraformers, nobody wanted to see them dead.

“Is it actually going to hit?” Henry asked Janet.

“Yes,” she said. “No question.”

Henry’s next thought was that the Wink should be riding to the rescue. “Where’s Hutch?”

“With you. She’s on the surface.”

He noted, and then dismissed, an impression that her reaction was wrong. Not pleased. Not fearful. But righteous.

“Okay. Contact somebody over there. Explain our situation, and tell them we stand by to assist any way we can. I’ll turn Hutch around and send her back up if it’ll help.”

Janet hesitated. “Okay. But I doubt they’ll want any help from us.”

“Offer, anyway.”

She took a long breath. “I’ll get right on it.”

Moments later, he had audio contact with Hutch. “What can I do?” she asked innocently.

“Stand by. We might have a rescue mission for you.” And, to the tunnelers: “It’s closing fast. Just seconds now.”

Henry watched it race across those last few kilometers, a shining white bullet. It blasted into the space station, and both vanished in an eruption of white spray. “Impact,” he said.

Sandy let out her breath.

The picture slowly cleared, while excited voices asked for details. Incredibly, the orbiter was still intact. It had developed a wobble, but it was still turning at the same unhurried pace.

Ten minutes later, Janet reported back. “They said thanks. But they’re doing fine.”

Below the sea floor, George and Carson worked with a particle beam to extend their tunnel. They were beneath the outer wall of the military chapel, attempting to chart the best route to the printing press. George was nothing if not conservative, and no amount of urging by Henry or anyone else could persuade him to embrace unnecessary risks. Consequently, they installed braces and proceeded with all possible caution. “I’d like to get back down there as much as anybody,” he told Henry. “But common sense is the first priority.”

George knew the general direction of the printing press. He employed the particle beam with increasing impatience, and he was tired. Shortly they would go back, George to rest, and Carson to relieve Henry at the monitor. Sandy and Richard would take over the digging, and Henry would man the pumps. In fact, he could already see the flash of lights in the tunnel.

And something else. A reflection, on the silt. Carson picked it up. It was a piece of smooth rock, a tablet, about eight centimeters across, flat on both sides. “It’s got writing on it,” he said. He brushed it, examined it in the lamplight. “Something on the back. An image of some kind. A spear, maybe.”

He held it up for the camera, and they transmitted pictures back to Seapoint.

“Hell.” Henry got excited.”Look at it. It’s Linear C.”

“Bingo,” said George. “Jackpot.” He turned it over and squinted. “What is it?”

The reverse pictured what appeared to be a long, tapered rod, spade-shaped at one end, heavy and thick at the other. “It’s a sex organ,” said Sandy, with an oblique laugh. “Fully distended and ready for battle.”

Maggie’s voice came from the ship: “Funny how some things seem to be universals.”

“Damndest chapel decorations I’ve ever seen,” said Carson. Maybe there was a brothel in the area. “Did the Quraquat have brothels?”

“Yes,” said Sandy. “And the Noks as well. Seems to be a fixture of the advanced male, regardless of species.”

The important consideration was that they had another sample of Linear C. And there might be more. While Richard and Sandy took over the tunneling, Carson and George began a search. George had little enthusiasm for the hunt, but Carson seemed tireless. Within an hour, they had recovered a small trove of tablets, and other, mostly undefinable, objects.

Five of the tablets, including the original, were sexually explicit. Others contained arboreal and sea images, and one depicted a sailing vessel. Several lines of text were engraved on each. They were too worn to make out, but restoration might be possible. One by one, George displayed them to the camera.

He was about halfway through when Maggie’s voice came on-line. “These are superb, Henry.”

“Yes,” said Henry. “They are quite good.”

“Can we go back to that last one?” she asked. The tablet depicted a disembodied, fully erect male member protruding through a wreath. There was also a line of symbols curved around the perimeter. “We know some of these,” she said. “Marvelous.” Nobody made a joke of it.

George showed them another one. “Good,” breathed Maggie.

And another.

“Let’s see that again,” Maggie said. Another sexual theme, straightforward this time: a simple coupling. “We didn’t get a very good picture of the text. Both sides, George. Give us more light.”

There was a single term atop the amorous pair.

“What are these things?” asked Carson.

“Probably decorations,” said Maggie. “Doesn’t matter, for now.” Then she started. “Henry, can you see that? The title term?”

The word at the top of the tablet was from the inscription at Oz.

“Damn!” Henry was ecstatic. “Richard, are you there?”

“I’m a little tied up at the moment.” He was on the beam projector.

“George, show that one to Dr. Wald.”

“No question about it.” Maggie bubbled with excitement. “It’s not identical, though. The Oz inscription has an additional character, and the letters are differently formed. But that’s purely stylistic. I’ll be more certain when we can get it cleaned up. Six of the symbols match perfectly. If we don’t have the same word, we should have the same root.”

“You’re right,” said Richard. “It’s lovely.”

“I think,” said Sandy, “this building is distinct from the chapel. Frank’s probably right about the brothel. Sex may have been part of the rituals.”

“Okay.” Richard was speaking to Maggie, and examining the tablet. “What does the word mean?”

“Sex,” said Maggie. “Or ecstasy.”

“Where does that leave us?” asked Henry.”This way to a hot time? Is that what the Oz inscription says?”

Richard shook his head. “It need not have a sexual connotation,” he said.

“I agree,” said Sandy. “The word could mean love. Or fulfillment. Or release.”

“Or,” suggested George, “ships that pass in the night.”

Kosmik Station. Friday; 0030 hours.

Truscott looked up at the sound. “Come.”

Sill entered. His eyes were fierce, his lips drawn into a scowl.

She pushed back from her desk, and swung round to face him. “What have you got?”

“It wasn’t a snowball.”

“We already know that.”

“We’ve retrieved some of it. It was a polymer.”

She nodded. “It was manufactured,” she said.

“I don’t see what other conclusion we can draw. And since there’s no one here except the Academy people—”

Truscott laughed. Not her usual measured chuckle. Her heart was in this one. And, when he only looked on in surprise, she reproached him. “Come on, Sill,” she said, “where’s your sense of humor?”

He reddened. “I don’t see what’s funny, Melanie. They’ve created a lot of trouble. People could have been killed.”

“Yes.” Her eyes fell away from him. “They’ve paid us in our own coin, haven’t they?”

Temple of the Winds. Friday; 0200 hours.

The tunnel resisted their best efforts. The mud was tougher to deal with than the rock. However much they sucked out, it kept coming back in. Carson, on Richard’s private channel, confessed that it was useless.

Detonation was eight hours away.

Too close.

The base was quiet. Eddie was gone now, banished to Wink, ostensibly because his services were no longer needed, but really because he kept asking Henry to give it up, and to reassign Carson to help move artifacts. Hutch was off again and would rendezvous with the starship in another hour. When she returned, they were all to be waiting at the inlet, bags packed, ready to go. No matter what.

Richard sat in the operations center. The monitor was a montage of blurred light, slow-moving shadows, tunnel walls. Grunts and epithets and profanity rolled out of the commlink.

The room was damp and chilly. Technically, he was supposed to stay awake, but conditions had changed: the watch officer was no longer coordinating a wide range of operations. And you had to sleep sometime.

On impulse, he called Wink’s bridge, where he woke Tommy Loughery. “Is Maggie available?” he asked.

“She’s right here.”

He’d expected it. They’d sent up the new tablets—there were thirteen of them—on board Alpha. And she would be waiting for their arrival.

“Good morning, Richard,” she said. “When are we going to break through down there?”

“You mean to the press?”

“What else? It’s getting late.”

“It’s what I wanted to talk to you about. We may not make it.”

“That’s not what Henry thinks.”

“Henry is optimistic. He wants this one, Maggie.”

“So do I.”

“You already have a substantial number of samples. With more coming. You’ve seen the new set. What happens if we have to leave with nothing else? Will it be enough?”

“Maybe.” She looked drained. “The analysis will take time. I just don’t know.” Her dark eyes reflected worry. “It would be a lot easier with the printing press.”

“If that’s in fact what it is.”

“That’s what it is.”

Richard stared at her. “Can you estimate the odds?” And, when she looked puzzled, he explained. “Of being able to decipher the inscription? With no more samples.”

“We are pushy tonight, aren’t we?”

“I’m sorry. This may become, in the morning, life and death.”

Shadows worked in the corners of her eyes and in the hollows of her temples. “Richard, get the whatever-it-is. Okay? If you really want to help, get it out of there and bring it to me.”

0600 hours.

“It’s imminent now. We’re almost there.”

Richard was exasperated. “Call it off, Henry. Let’s clear out.”

“She won’t be back for two hours. What’s the point of standing around out on that rock? We’ve still got time. Let’s use it. Have faith.”

0711 hours.

Hutch, gliding through the morning light, was not happy. The commlink echoed with the low-powered hum of particle beams, the burble and banging of vacuum pumps. Voices leaked through the clatter:

This is where it was supposed to be.

But it isn’t. It’s not here.

Neither is the wall. The whole goddam chamber dropped. Or rose.

Why didn’t you take a picture?

We did. It was here two days ago.

We thought we could see it. It was the plank. We were looking at the damned plank!

Maybe we just missed it. Is that possible?

No.

And the words that stung her, enraged her, spoken by Henry: Get the scanner over here. Take another look. Let’s find out where it is.

She activated Richard’s private channel. “You’re out of time.”

“I know. Just give us a few minutes. Till we find out where the goddamned thing went.”

“Richard, the creek is about to rise.”

“Hutch, you have to understand. This isn’t my call. These people know the risk. This is just too important to turn around and walk out on. Come on, you can tough it out.”

“You’re beginning to sound as crazy as they do,” she snapped. And she broke the link without letting him reply. She switched to Carson, who was waiting in his shuttle at the inlet. “Frank, you got any control over this?”

“Not much.”

“Henry’s going to get them all killed.”

“No. He won’t do that. Whatever else happens, he’ll be out in time. You can trust him.”

Okay, I recognize this.

You sure, George?

Yeah. Yeah, no question about it.

All right, let’s go. Where the hell’s the goddam projector?

“Hutch,” said Carson. “Another hour here may be worth years of research at home. Be patient.”

“Another hourT’

“That’s my guess. But it still gets us out of here with time to spare.”

“Hutch.” George’s voice. “Do you have a winch on board?”

“Yes. I can activate a winch.”

“Okay. Plan is that after we free the printing press, we’ll lift it into the Upper Temple. We’ve got everything in place to do that. You drop the line. As soon as the press is clear of the shaft, we’ll connect it, and you can haul it in. The rest of us should be on board a few minutes after that.”

She shook her head. “This is crazy, George. You haven’t even found the press yet.”

“We’re working on it.”

Richard came back. “It’s okay,” he said soothingly. “We’ll make it. And we’ll have the printing press with us.”

She watched the shoreline unroll below. It was a brilliant, sun-washed day, white and cold, filled with icebergs and needle peaks and rocky islands. Long thick waves slid across snow-covered beaches. Beach monkeys walked and played at the edge of the surf.

The inlet came into view, and she started down. The Temple shuttle, resplendently blue and gold in the sunlight, waited on the shelf.

Hutch landed clumsily. As if her haste would change anything. Carson stood on the rock. He was too courteous, or too distracted, to comment on her technique.

0837 hours.

The particle beam cast an eerie blue-white glow through the chamber. Water bubbled and hissed. George was firing blind. He was cutting through that most dangerous of obstacles, loose rock and sand.

The digging strategy was to pick an area that looked stable, if you could find one, divide it into individual targets, and attack each separately. You sliced a hole, and stopped. If nothing happened, you enlarged the hole. Then you braced everything and moved on. “The problem,” he told Henry, “is that the tunnel will have to be widened further to get the printing press out.”

George was pleased with himself. In the field, engineers tend to exist in a somewhat lower social stratum than pure archeologists. Not that anyone mistreated him. The Temple team had always been a close-knit crew. But he was taken less seriously as a professional. His was a support role, and consequently he was something of a hanger-on. When celebrations broke out, they never drank to George.

But this time, he had made the discovery. George’s Printing Press. And he was leading the assault on the Lower Temple. It was a good feeling. A good way to wrap up his efforts here. It was a little scary, maybe. But he felt immortal, as young men invariably do, and he did not believe that Kosmik would actually pull the trigger if there were still people down here.

Moreover, the timing was perfect. He was entranced by Hutch, infected with her brilliant eyes and her vaguely distant smile. His own tides ran strong when she was nearby, and she was now watching him in action. How could he possibly fail to stay the course? And during those dark, claustrophobic moments when an appreciation of the risk seeped through, he drove it away by imagining the hero’s reward that waited.

Maggie’s voice cut in. “We have a preliminary reading from the ‘sex’ tablet.” She was referring to the character group that appeared atop the wedge, and in the Oz inscription. “We don’t think it’s a sexual term.”

“What is it?” asked Richard.

“We’ve located parts of the same cluster of symbols elsewhere. We’ve got the root, which suggests duration, maybe infinite duration.”

“You’re right,” said Sandy. “That does it for sex.”

“There’s a positive connotation. It’s linked with sunlight, for example. And ships in peaceful circumstances. I would be inclined to translate it along the lines of good fortune rather than pleasure.”

“You sure?” That sounded like Tri.

“Of course I’m not sure,” she snapped. “But there’s a fair degree of probability.”

“So,” said Richard, “we have good fortune and a mythical beast. What’s the connection?”

Ahead, George turned off the projector, and waited for the water to clear. “I think we’re through,” he said. “We have a tunnel.”

Henry and Sandy moved forward to insert the braces. George poked at the roof. Gravel and silt floated down. “No guarantees,” he said.

Henry shrugged and plunged ahead. “George,” he called back, “do what you can to widen it.”

“Not while you’re in there.”

“Do it,” said Henry. “My authority.”

Your authority’s not worth much if you’re dead. Suppose George started cutting and the roof fell in? He shouldn’t even allow Henry to proceed before he conducted a safety inspection. But things were happening too fast.

Obediently, he activated the particle beam, and chipped away at the sides of the tunnel.

The chamber had partially collapsed. Henry crawled between broken slabs and decayed timbers. His lamp blurred. “Up ahead somewhere,” he told his throat mike. The printing press should have been close enough to show on the sensors. But he was getting no reading.

He came to a wall.

He floated to a stop and laid his head against it. That’s it, he thought. He hated this place the way it was now: squeeze past rock, dig through mud, grope in the dark.

Richard moved up behind him, held his lamp up. “Over there,” he said. “It’s open to your right. Look.”

He pointed and Henry saw that it was so. But he knew it was getting desperately late and that he had a responsibility to get his people out. While he hesitated, Richard pushed past. His lamp moved in the dark.

“I think I can see it,” he said softly.

Sandy’s hand gripped his shoulder. “We ought to wait for George,” she said.

“Attaboy, Richard,” said Maggie. She was ecstatic.

Henry followed the light, turned a corner, and swam down into the small room that he remembered from his previous visit. “We’ve got it,” Richard was saying. He knelt two meters away, blurred in the smoky light.

The frame was half-buried. They scrounged around, digging with their fingers, trying to work it free. They found a rectangular chase. A gearbox lay beneath loose rock. “It’s the press bed,” said Maggie.

A second chase was wedged under a cut slab.

Sandy’s scanner revealed something in the floor. She dug it up. At one time, it had been a compartmented drawer or case.

Henry poked at the chases. “There is type set in these things,” he said.

“Good!” Maggie egged them on. “It’s enough. Let’s go. Get it out of there.”

The frame was stuck tight. “We need the pulser,” said Henry.

Richard touched his arm. “I don’t think we want a beam anywhere near it.”

It was large, almost two meters long, maybe half as wide. Sandy and Richard tried to pry it loose.

It did not give.

“This is not going to work,” Sandy said. “Even if we get it out, it’s too big to take back up the tunnel.” She looked at it in the lamplight. “How about just taking the chases?”

“Why the chases?”

Maggie’s voice crackled. “Because that’s where the type is set.”

Hutch broke in. “It’s about to get wet up here. If you’re planning on leaving, this would be a good time.”

Henry measured the chases with his hands. “We’ll still need to widen the exit,” he said.

“How about just taking a good set of holos?” George suggested.

“No help,” said Maggie. “We need the chases. And we need the type. We’re going to have to do a major restoration if we’re ever going to read those.”

Henry was playing his light around the room. “Should be some type trays around somewhere.”

“Forget it.” Richard tugged at the chases. “Sandy’s right. Let’s make do with what we’ve got.”

“If there’s more type down there,” said Maggie, “it would be nice to have it. The type in the chases will be pretty far gone.”

“Goddammit, Maggie,” Hutch exploded. “You want the type, go down and get it yourself.”

The common channel went silent.

“Okay, let’s do it,” said Henry. “Cut it. We’ve no time to be particular.” The particle beam ignited.

George cut with a will. He broke the press apart and dragged the chases free.

“Sandy,” said Henry, “get to the top of the shaft and be ready to haul when we’re clear of the tunnel. Richard, why don’t you go up and give Hutch a hand? No point in your hanging around.”

“You’ll need help with these things,” he said. “I’ll wait.”

Henry nodded. “Okay.” He checked the time. “We can manage it.”

“Hurry up,” said Maggie. Henry remembered an incident years before when a football had rolled onto an ice-covered lake and the older boys had sent him out to recover it. Hurry up and throw it in, they’d cried, before you fall through.

0935 hours.

The tide sucked at the Tower. There were a couple of icebergs on the horizon. The coastal peaks glittered in the sunlight.

Hutch, angry, close to tears, swung the winch out, hooked a ten-pound ring weight to the cable, and punched the button. The ring fell into the sea, followed by fifteen meters of line. The shuttles lay side by side in the water. Carson stood on Alpha’s wing, rocking gently with the motion of the waves. “This is crazy,” he said. “I can’t believe this is happening.”

It was a gorgeous day, clear and gold. The hour before the end of the world.

Four of Quraqua’s flying creatures, animals that resembled manta rays, flowed in formation through the sky, headed north.

“Maybe,” he said, “we should talk to Kosmik.”

Hutch stared at the cable.

Inside the military chapel, George, Richard, and Henry had completed their work and started down the tunnel at last.

Kosmik Station. 0945 hours.

Truscott stood behind Harvey Sill with her arms folded. Her face was dark with anger. “Any progress yet?” she demanded.

“Negative.” Harvey pressed his earphones tight. “They’re still on the surface.”

“Can you tell what’s happening?”

“They’re in the tunnels. That pilot, what’s-her-name, is pretty upset. She’s got something going for her, that one. But I don’t know what it’s about. It’s even possible this stuff is all prerecorded to drive us nuts.”

“You’ve gotten paranoid, Harvey. Have you asked them what their situation is?”

Sill shook his head. “No.”

“Why not?”

“Because I thought it would encourage them if they thought we were worried.”

Truscott was beginning to feel old. “Harvey, get them on the line.”

“Might not have to. Incoming from the Wink shuttle.” He put it on visual. “Go ahead, Alpha.”

The woman pilot looked down at him. “We’ve got an emergency, Kosmik. Please let me speak with Dr. Truscott.”

The director stepped forward. “I’m here. What’s the problem?”

“We still have people in the tunnels. They aren’t going to make it out before the deadline.”

“Why not?” Truscott bit off the words, like pieces of ice.

“They were trying to finish up. Sorry. I don’t have control over this. Can you delay the firing?”

Truscott let her hang a moment. “How long?”

“An hour,” Hutch said. She sounded desperate. “One hour.”

“You have any idea how much trouble this makes for us? What it costs?”

“Please,” said Hutch. Her eyes were wet and red. “If you go ahead, you’ll kill them.”

She let the pilot see her contempt. “One hour,” she said, finally. “And that’s it.”

Hutch nodded, and looked relieved. “Thanks.”

When the link had been broken, Sill said evenly, “That’s a mistake.”

“We’ll argue about it later. Get the word out. Tell everyone to stand down. One hour.”

Kosmik Ground Control South, Aloft. Friday; 0954 hours.

The first white lamp lit. The nuclear weapon at Delta Point had just armed. Ian Helm sat in the right-hand seat of his shuttle. No clouds obscured his view. The south polar ice sheet spread out below him, from the ridges along the Koranda Border, which masked the line of the northernmost volcanoes, to Dillman Harbor, where they’d set up the first base camp two years ago. He remembered standing in that great silence, cold even through the Flickinger field because his heating unit had malfunctioned, warmed rather by the exhilaration of the moment, by the knowledge that he would one day annihilate this ice continent, melt its mountains and its foothills, fill its valleys and rills with steam and rain. In a single glorious sequence, he would convert this wasteland into the stuff of regeneration. No one would ever really give him credit, of course. Caseway and Truscott would take all of that. And they deserved it; he didn’t begrudge them their due. He was satisfied that the design was his. And the finger on the detonator.

“Ian.” A green light flashed on the instrument panel. “Sill’s on the circuit. Wants to talk.”

The blue and white glare from icecap and ocean hurt his eyes. Helm looked at his pilot. “Jane,” he said, “do we have a disconnect?”

She frowned. “Just pull the plug.”

He yanked it out. “Let everybody know that we’re worried about the possibility of bogus instructions. Set up a code word. No one is to accept a transmission without it.”

“What code word?”

He thought briefly. “Fidelity.” Jane looked troubled. “I’ll put it in writing.”

“Truscott won’t be happy.”

“I’m saving her from herself,” he said.

Two more lamps blinked on. One at Little Kiska close to the pole, and the other at Slash Basil inside a volcano.

“Eventually, she’ll thank me.”

LIBRARY ENTRIES

The velocity of a tsunami equals the square root of gravitational acceleration times the depth of the water. Depths in the ocean surrounding the southern icecap on Quraqua are relatively modest; the velocity of the wave could be expected to diminish in the narrow confines of the Yakata. Calculation shows that a major tsunami, traveling at the unlikely average speed of 850 kilometers per hour, could not reach the Temple within four hours. At WOO hours, Jacobi was correct in believing he still had a substantial safety margin from waves originating at the ice pack.

However, in their concern about tsunamis, the Academy team overlooked a more immediate danger: shock waves triggered by the collapse of the ice pack would travel at 7.1 kilometers per second, arriving at the Temple area in about six minutes.

A major fault, running east to west across the Yakata, would react to the shock waves by triggering a seismic response. This secondary earthquake would almost certainly generate sea waves. It was these waves which struck the coastline approximately eleven minutes after the initial detonation.

—Barnhard Golding,

God on Quraqua: The Temple Mission

(2213) Eberhardt & Hickam, Chicago

Let your courage shine before you, fear nothing, take no thought for your well-being. Live by the law, and know that, in your darkest hour, I am at your side.

—Fragment from Knothic Hours (Translated by Margaret Tufu)*

*Original hard copy includes notation “Let us hope so” in translator’s handwriting, dated Friday, June 11, 2202.

14.

Temple of the Winds. Friday; 0943 hours.

The two chases constituted the essence of the find. Rescue these, with their text relatively intact, and they would have all they could reasonably hope for. Therefore, despite the urgency, Richard moved with caution. He and Henry took the time they needed to extricate the artifacts from their tomb and start them up the tunnel. George moved ahead of them, removing obstacles and where necessary widening the passage.

They reached the vertical shaft at four minutes to ten.

Henry shone a light upward. “What do you think? Wait it out here until after zero hour? If there’s a quake while we’re in the shaft, the chases could get damaged.”

Richard could not help but admire Henry’s singleminded-ness. A quake in the shaft would damage more than the chases. On the other hand, he couldn’t see that they were any safer staying put. “Let’s keep moving,” he said.

A line stretched up into the dark. George passed it to Henry, and they secured it around the first of the artifacts.

“Melanie, we have a problem.”

She had known there would be problems. There were always problems when you tried to shut down an operation this size. “What is it, Harvey?”

He looked unhappy. “Helm won’t answer up.”

They were inside two minutes. “Forget him. Call the control posts direct.”

“I tried. Signals are locked out. We need a password.”

“Hutch.” Truscott’s voice.

“Go ahead, Kosmik.”

The director’s face was red with anger. “I’ve been unable to get through to our stations. Detonation will proceed as scheduled.”

“But we’ve still got people down there,” Hutch protested.

“I’m sorry. We’ll assist any way we can. Keep us informed.”

Ten o’clock.

The southern sky brightened. A second sun might have ignited just below the horizon. Hutch looked away. “Richard.”

“Okay.”

“It’s started. I can see it from here.”

“All right. Keep cool. We’re coming. We’ve got time.”

The sea was calm.

“Ready here,” said George. He was at the top of the shaft.

“Look okay?” Henry asked Richard.

“Yes. Let’s do it.”

George took in the slack, and they lifted the chase into the shaft, and commenced to haul. Henry swam up with it, guiding it.

Richard stayed with the second unit. He brushed silt from it; ridges of individual characters passed under his fingertips. What a treasure it was.

But he was alone in the tunnel, and he felt the weight of the sea. The walls were bleak and claustrophobic. Tiny fish swam past his eyes.

The cable came back. He secured it quickly around the chase, creating a harness.

Above, George pulled the first one out of the shaft. They grappled with it for a few moments, casting shadows down the walls, and then it disappeared. George turned back. “All set,” he said.

“Go,” said Richard. “Haul away.”

At that moment, the water moved. Just the barest tremor, but a school of fish that had been watching darted away.

“Coming up,” said George. Richard pushed the chase into the shaft. It dropped a half meter, and then began to rise. He opened a channel to Hutch. “You’re not sitting on the surface, are you?”

“Of course I am. How else did you expect to get aboard?”

“Maybe not a good idea.” He floated up behind the artifact.

“We’re getting shock waves. Keep an eye open.”

“I will.”

Richard delivered some final cliché, some plastic reassurance that could not have helped her state of mind.

On Wink, Janet Allegri strode onto the bridge, walked up to Maggie Tufu, and, without saying a word, knocked her flat.

Melanie Truscott had watched with helpless fury as the white lamps blinked on. Seconds before detonation, she noted that one unit, at Point Theta, had not armed. Locking mechanism had failed. A ten-buck part.

“What do you want to do?” asked Sill.

Goddam Helm. Some of the Academy people would likely die. Worse, if they blew off one icecap and not the other, they might induce a wobble, and possibly cause a complete reorientation of planetary spin. Quraqua could be unstable for centuries. “Tell Harding to cancel the hold. Proceed as planned.”

Sill nodded.

“When you get Helm, I want to speak to him.”

The design did not call for simultaneous explosions of all devices. The patterns of ice faults, the geometry of the underlying land (where it existed), the presence of volcanoes, the distribution of mass: these and other factors determined the sequence and timing of individual events. It is sufficient to note that all but one of the fifty-eight southern weapons detonated within a period of four minutes, eleven seconds. Blasts ranged from two to thirty-five megatons.

At the icecap, approximately eight percent of the total mass was vaporized. Formations that had stood for tens of thousands of years were blown away. Enormous sheets, like the one at Kalaga, fractured and slid into the sea. Millions of tons of water, thrown out by the blasts, rushed back and turned to steam. Mountainous waves rolled out of the white fury and started a long journey across the circular sea.

During the third minute after the initial detonation, a volcano buried deep in the ice pack exploded. Ironically, it was not one of those whose throat had been laced with a bomb. But it was the first to go. The others erupted according to plan. Hot rain began to fall.

Shock waves rippled out at five to seven kilometers per second, triggering earthquakes in their wake.

Hutch stood in the hold while the cable came up. The spacecraft floated beside the Temple shuttle. Carson stayed in his cockpit, as a precaution against the unexpected. The jolt that Richard had felt moments earlier in his tunnel had been indiscernible on the surface, nothing more than a ripple and an air current. But a second, more severe shock wave now arrived. Hutch was pitched forward.

Alpha filled with voices from the Temple.

“That was a big one.”

“Everybody okay?”

“Damn, I think we lost part of it.”

“Let it go, Richard.”

“Only take a minute.”

“Hutch, you’ve got a package.” It was Henry. “Haul it in.”

She winched it up and the first chase broke the surface. An impossibly corroded box. But Hutch knew first-hand the miracles of enhancement. I hope it’s worth your lives.

She pulled it aboard. Water poured out of it. She disconnected, and heaved the line back over the side.

“Okay, Richard, let go.” That was George. “I’ve got it.”

The sea had turned rough. Water boiled and churned.

Sandy appeared to port. She swam swiftly to the shuttle, and Hutch pulled her in. “By God,” said Sandy, “we did it.”

“Not yet. Where is everybody?”

“Coming. A couple of minutes.”

“Okay. Listen, we’re going to get a little crowded here. Things’ll go quicker if you’re in the other shuttle.”

“Whatever you think,” Sandy said.

Carson tossed a line, and she dived back into the sea.

“Frank,” Hutch said, “I’ll pick up the rest of them.” She hesitated. “It might be a good idea if you got some altitude.” She cast a worried glance toward a troubled horizon. “Watch for waves.”

Most of the undersea lamps had gone out. Only the red trailmarkers still burned bravely within the murky recesses of the wrecked Temple.

They carried the second chase out into the clear water of what used to be the nave, where the cable from the shuttle was waiting. Richard’s hair was in his eyes, and he was exhausted. He felt the drag of the sea. Undertow. Odd that it would be so strong on the bottom.

“Negative, Hutch,” Frank told her. “Nothing yet.”

“Okay. What scares me is that I can see the top of the Temple.”

“What? That’s under five meters of water. At low tide.”

“Yeah? Well, I’m looking at it.” She switched channels. “Hey, guys, move it. We got another tidal wave coming.”

“How close?” Henry’s voice.

“Probably a couple of minutes.”

Richard broke in: “We’re coming as fast as we can.” He sounded exasperated. And maybe resigned.

“Hutchins?” It was Truscott. “What’s happening down there?”

“I’m a little busy right now.” There was a visual signal, but she did not put it on the display.

“I’ve ordered two of our CATs to assist. But they’re four hours away.”

In a less stressful moment, Hutch would have recognized the concern in Truscott’s voice. But not today. “That’ll be a little late, thanks.” She broke the link. Looked again through her scopes. Sea still calm.

“Hutch?” Carson again. “I see it.”

Cold chill. “Where?”

“Twenty-five kilometers out. Coming at, uh, five fifty. You’ve got three minutes.”

“You guys hear that?”

“Yes—” George’s voice.

“Forget the chase. Get up here.” She trained her scopes on the horizon. Still nothing. “Frank, how big is it? Can you tell?”

“Negative. Looks like the other one. Small. You wouldn’t notice it if you weren’t looking for it.”

“Okay.” She watched a stone wall break the surface. “Water’s still going down.”

George pulled in several meters of slack. The others held the chase while he secured it. Twice around. Loop crosswise. Reconnect with the cable. Don’t lose it now. When he finished, Henry pointed toward the surface. “Let’s go.”

“You can take it aboard, Hutch.” George let go the line and started up.

The currents dragged Richard along the sea bottom. Above, the shuttle hull was dark, and close, in sunlit water.

Henry was also drifting. “Heads up,” he said. “The tide’s a bitch.” His voice was shrill.

“Hang on, Henry,” said George. “I’ll get you.”

Hutch was frantic: “Let’s go!”

Richard got a hand on the cable. He was still on the bottom, and his arms were weary.

“George,” cried Hutch. “Come back. We’ll get him with the shuttle. Richard, where are you?”

“With the chase.”

“On the cable?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. We’re out of time. Hang onto the line. Got that? Don’t let go, no matter what.”

There was a loose end on one side of the artifact. He got it around his waist and knotted it. Then, wearily, he stopped struggling.

“There he is.” Hutch’s voice again. Richard wasn’t sure who she meant. He thought, She’s always been there when 1 need her. He felt strange. Disconnected.

“Relax, Henry,” said George. “We’ve got you.”

“Goddammit,” Hutch said, “the son of a bitch is on top of us.” Over the voices, he heard a murmur, like a wind stirring.

“You still there, Richard?”

“I’m still here.”

“Can you secure yourself to the cable?”

“I already have.”

“Okay. About thirty seconds and we’re going for a ride.”

“Don’t lose the chase, Hutch,” he said.

George: “Here, take him.” They must be talking about Henry.

And Carson: “Get out of there, Hutch.”

“Okay, I got him. Hang on, Richard—”

His line jerked and the sea brightened. He rose a meter, moved horizontally, and started to settle. There was a second tug, stronger this time.

The water rushed past him.

•      •      •

The wave was not like the others. This was a mountain of water, a liquid behemoth roaring toward her across the open sea, breathing, white-flecked, green, alive. It crested five kilometers out, and broke, and built again. And Hutch had waited until she could wait no longer. There would be no lone Tower standing after this one. George had finally got Henry on board. “Go,” he told her, and Carson was frantic. Eleven hundred meters high. You’re not going to get out, Hutch—

The last of the Knothic Towers awaited the onrush. The sea had withdrawn and its base was mired in muck. The angel-creature on its pinnacle knelt placidly.

The ruined Temple glittered in the sunlight. She saw no sign of the beach monkeys.

Henry’s voice came out of the hold, demanding to know what was being done for Richard. Little late to think about that. Hutch was ten meters off the surface now, watching the line, watching for some indication he was still there.

The chase came out of the sea first. Richard dangled beneath it. Reassured, she began to climb. “This’ll hurt,” she warned him. And she poured the juice to the magnets. He cried out. But she could hear his breathing. The shuttle rose, fleeing inland, fleeing toward the defile, running before the wall of water. This was not a wave, in the sense that the earlier tsunami had been a wave. The entire ocean was rushing inshore, hurling itself forward, mounting the sky, blocking off the sun. Bright daylight turned wet and furious, and the thing kept growing. White water boiled at its crest.

Hurricane-force winds ripped at the spacecraft, hammered it, drove it back toward the surface.

Too slow. She was moving too deliberately, trying to protect Richard, but in the shadow of the monster her instincts took over: she cut in her jets, quarter speed, the most she dared. The shuttle leaped forward, climbed, and the ancient river valley opened to receive her. Spray coated her wings and hull. The roar filled her ears; George, trying to be stoic, bit down on a whimper.

The tail was thrown violently to one side, and she almost lost the controls. Alpha pitched and yawed; her stabilizers blew.

Then they broke out, wobbled, and looked down on the crest. Hutch, for the moment, ignored the half-dozen bleeps and flashing lights on her board. “Richard,” she cried into the link, “you okay?”

No answer.

“Richard?”

She listened to his carrier wave.

DOWNLINK HOLO

“Hello, Richard. Greetings from Nok.” David Emory squares his shoulders. He is an intense man, with intense eyes, and quick birdlike gestures. His skin is very dark; his hair at this period has just begun to gray. He wears an open-necked short-sleeved brown shirt with huge pockets and flaps, of the style made popular by the dashing simmy adventurer, Jack Hancock.

He is seated on a small boulder, overlooking a river valley. Behind him, white and red sails are visible on the river. Docks, a winding road, and a pair of ferry stations line the banks. The countryside is cut into agricultural squares. The setting is quite terrestrial. Save for the enormous ringed planet which hangs like a Chinese lantern in the sky, one might think he was in Wisconsin.

This is Inakademeri. Nok. The only known world, other than Earth, which is currently home to a living civilization.

The colors are slanted toward purple, a bright but nonetheless gloomy twilight.

He waits, allowing time for his correspondent to take in the view. Then: “I’ve heard about your problems on Quraqua and I can’t say I’m surprised. Vision is in short supply. Here the natives are waging a global war, and we’ll be lucky if we don’t all get blown up. Bombs falling day and night. World War I without gasoline.

“To answer your question: we do have what you describe as a discontinuity. Aroundad. 400. Religious background, sinful world, vengeful deity. Sodom and Gomorrah on a global scale. According to the sacred texts, it happened in a single night. We don’t take that too seriously, but we cannot account for the general destruction. Bill Reed thinks some sort of virus might have got loose and done the damage. The truth is probably more mundane: major wars, combined with plague and famine.

“You asked about the age of civilization here. Common wisdom puts it at six thousand years, roughly the same as ours. Also like us, they have an Atlantis legend, a place called Orikon. Except that this one really existed, Richard. Don’t know how old it is, but it would go back a long way.”

He gestures toward the river valley. “Incidentally, you will be interested in knowing that tradition places Orikon in this area. Come see it, before they blow up the neighborhood.

Cheers.”

—David Emory, Response CKT144799/16 (Received on Winckelmann, June 16, 2202)

INTERLUDE

PASSAGE

The flight home lasted twenty-seven days, eleven hours. This brought the Winckelmann in approximately two days behind schedule, well within the inexactitudes imposed by transdimensional travel.

During the voyage, the members of the Academy team went through a period of mourning. Those who had argued to press their luck at the Temple found that their exhilaration over having recovered the foundations of a Linear C vocabulary was diluted by a shared portion of guilt. Henry, particularly, sank into dark moods. He spent time with his people, but they could see that the life had gone out of his eyes.

They responded to all this, for the most part, by losing themselves in examining their trove of artifacts and data, and beginning the decades-long process of analysis and interpretation. No such retreat was available to Hutch.

Almost none understood the ties between Richard Wald and his longtime pilot. They regarded his death as their own loss, and tended to reserve their sympathies for members of the Temple team. The ship’s captain was left to her navigation.

For Hutch, the moment when an emotional link with George might have developed came and went. George kept a discreet distance, she thought, while he awaited an encouraging signal from her. But the time was not right for even an implied promise of future possibility. Maybe it was her need to mourn, or the general gloom that weighed on her during this period. Or maybe even her fear that George might come to associate her with disaster. Whatever her motivation, she began a policy of treating him with polite neutrality, and found that it locked quickly into place.

When they docked finally at the Wheel, they held a farewell dinner in the Radisson Lounge. Everybody said a few words, and there were some tears. And the steaks were very good. In the morning, the first contingents rode shuttles to Atlanta, Berlin, and London.