Runways described a geometric pattern around the foot of the tower, buzzing with arriving traffic. Some of the aircraft landed the old-fashioned way, rolling to a stop. Newer types landed vertically, touching down like dragonflies in a whirl of delicate wings.
Listening to the earphone of his headset, Ev frowned. “Control wants us to hold off while they figure out where to let us land. I’d really like to ask for a close-in vector around the Tower, instead of the regular hold, so I can get an eyeful of the thing.”
“Go ahead. I don’t have any lunch left to lose.”
Receiving the vector he wanted, Ev banked the jet around Star Tower. “Reminds me of flying around Titan station, but this is a bigger machine—much, much bigger—in a deeper gravity well. In fact, it shows you just how deep Earth’s gravity well really is.”
Ev tipped the jet’s starboard wing down. Mark looked into the ravines of the tower’s vast buttresses.
With a flip of the wing, Mark’s stricken gaze traveled up—and up—and up. Star Tower lifted past some cumulus clouds toward the edge of the atmosphere.
Swinging away from Star Tower, the jet soared out over the Gulf of California. Green salt water extended far to the south. Shallow, with pale sand underneath, crinkled with waves, the water resembled a celadon glaze. Mark longed to be down there. To glide across the warm shallow sea under his own paddle power, wavelets lapping the prow of his kayak in quick succession. The long dark shadow of Star Tower lay across the water.
Near the edge of the Gulf, some small ships and barges were conspicuous, dark spots on the bright sea. They clustered around the mouth of a narrow channel cut into the desert in the direction of Star Field. With shiny, curly wakes, some of the ships seemed to be circling aimlessly “Now, what’s all that?” Wary, Ev did not take the jet down to look more closely. He snapped on the jet’s Netnode, quickly asking it for a search of HEADLINE NEWS RE TRAVEL, INTERNATIONAL, INTERPLANETARY, INTERSTELLAR.
Ev paged through the headlines. “ ‘Supreme court rules against removing plants, animals’—that we knew about,” he murmured. “ ‘Genesis Foundation to Appeal.’ Sure. In absentia.” Then Ev said, “Damn!”
US PRESIDENT DENOUNCES GENESIS FOUNDATION Through clenched teeth, Ev muttered, “He hates us. He’s an old, powerful politician. He wants to keep the world and the future in his control.” Ev quickly paged on.
The news-node in San Diego, California, reported enormous traffic jams at the U.S.-Mexican border. Mexican customs had initiated vehicle and cargo inspections on an unprecedented scale.
Ev said, “I see. The president leaned sufficiently hard on Mexico to ensure its cooperation in hindering us. That must be the Mexican coast guard down there, having words with ships trying to reach the Star Field canal. Trying to delay them.”
The opposite shore of the Gulf was clearly visible, low brown ridges of dry land. Before they went that far, Ev sent the jet into a high, wide turn to head back toward Star Field.
The Netnode beeped shrilly. BREAKING NEWS: SPACE LAUNCHER MISFIRES.
The La Jolla Launcher had misfired today. The Earth-to-orbit payload launched by the long electromagnetic gun streaked into space on the wrong trajectory, accidentally aimed too low and too for south. The errant payload crossed the restricted space above Star Tower, missing the starship by some seven kilometers.
“That was no accident,” Ev growled. “More like a warning shot across our bow” He turned off the news and increased the Merlin’s airspeed.
Now the Sun was setting in their eyes, again. The Tower loomed, dark and endlessly high, against the red sea of sky. Strobe lights raced up the Tower’s beveled flank toward its heights to warn aircraft against collision.
Ev said, “Damn it, they still can’t give me clearance to land on the field. Too much traffic in line ahead of me. But I’m running out of fuel. The afterburner ate a lot.” Ev fumed. “I could declare an emergency and beg for a slot, but I don’t want to ”
“So land on the desert,” Mark replied.
“Too much loose sand. Landing on it would sandblast the jet and Dad would kill me.”
Mark scanned the terrain. Roads and railways spidered away into the dim dusty distance of the peninsula. There were empty spaces in the interstices between roads and rails. “See that high spot by that dry wash? It’s the closest flat ground that isn’t a storage yard or a runway.”
“And Dad isn’t going to have the chance to kill me, is he?” Ev murmured. He conferred with approach control, speaking into the mouthpiece of his headset. Then he said, “They agree. Here goes ”
The Merlin hovered down toward the landing place. Mark noticed a jagged outcrop and urgently pointed it out to Ev. Ev made the jet skate to one side to avoid the rocks then lowered the jet toward the ground. The jet wobbled unsettlingly in the air. “Lot of convection currents,” Ev said, his words terse. Sand sprayed up past the canopy.
Ev cursed vehemently just as the Merlin settled down with a thump.
“What happened?” Mark demanded. “Did we almost crash?”
Ev snatched off his headset and glared at it. “I was just informed that there’s a one-week customs embargo for plants and animals being taken into Star Tower! My mice are OK. They’re patented. Your stuff—I don’t know. They’ll probably take your seeds away.”
Maik sat still. After the flight, the silence seemed sudden and extreme.
Mark thought, No. The new world should have a chance. The bluestem and Helianthus would help that chance. Opening up the mouse box, Mark poured the seeds into the feeder. The mice squeaked uneasily. “I can tell the seeds apart later,” said Mark.
“Even if they’ve passed through the mice?”
“Mice never digest all the seeds they eat.”
“Good idea.” As an afterthought, Ev said, “They haven’t ever eaten anything but mouse chow. Typically, invented organisms aren’t adventurous enough to try anything new.”
Mark stuffed the labeled vials under his seat. Ev hopped out to inspect the Merlin’s sandblasted underside.
The hot desert air smelled sharp, sandy with fine particles raised by the jet’s landing. They had landed a good two miles away from the Tower: it stood on the other side of a wide dry wash and a storage yard full of cargo containers. According to the Tower control, a Land Rover would come to get them. As soon as one could be spared.
Mark felt better, less queasy and more decisive. “We’ve got to hurry,” he said. “It’s not that long until the deadline. We can walk.”
“And leave the Merlin?”
“We were going to anyway,” Mark pointed out.
Mark’s legs wavered under him. He made them work, aiming himself toward the distant tower. Cacti and stringy succulents studded the barren ground. The sky overhead was not the greenhouse overcast it had been over Uptown Houston. Orange and red flooded the western half of this desert’s sky. To the east, several stars punctured the cloudless purple. Mark imagined a star world with even less ozone than the Earth had now, a climate with more severe extremes, a desert qualitatively different from this one: newer and nowhere softened by life.
The dry wash lay across their route to Star Tower. “That looks rough,” Ev said, sounding reluctant.
“It is.” Mark picked out a trail to the bottom, down a bank sharp with stones. Ev exclaimed in dismay as the stony ground shredded the edges of his expensive shoes. Mark’s light hiking boots, his chosen everyday footwear, fared better. The last few yards were an uncontrolled scramble.
Mark gathered himself up from the sandy floor of the wash. Ev slapped sand from his suit.