CHAPTER• 15
seeing out the angels
Six months had passed and all but one of the great boreholes had been finished. Today, eleven days ahead of schedule, the last of them would be ready for its final fitting-out.
The thirty-six great fusion rockets - vast machines that had been fashioned in the orbital factories and painstakingly put together in the vacuum of space - were already in stable orbit about their respective moons. From a distance their huge, bell-shaped exhausts made them look like giant silver cornets - the kind of instruments the gods might play before a feast. Tomorrow, the business of fitting them into place would begin. Deep in the well, Kim stood between Kano and Ikuro, their helmet-lights illuminating the smooth-cut wall of the borehole. "It looks good," Kim said over his suit mike. "Hmm," Kano responded, moving closer until his gloved fingers were brushing the wall. Kano, Kim knew, trusted nothing. Though the remote sensors had gone over these walls twice to check for surface cracks or signs of weakness, still Kano would check things for himself.
Kim smiled, pleased he had come to know these men. When it came to space excavations there was no one better in the system; no one who took more care or knew as much.
Kano turned and smiled at Kim. "We've done a good job here, neh, Mister Kim?"
"The best," Kim answered, reaching out to touch Kano's shoulder appreciatively, then turned to smile at Ikuro. "If you two want to be getting back ..." Ikuro laughed. "Okay."
The moment had become almost ritual between them. Stepping away from Kim, the two brothers fired up their back-packs and slowly rose, climbing the steep walls of the huge shaft until they were merely tiny points of light.
Kim watched, then, as the twin lights blinked off, he switched off his helmet light. The darkness was sudden and intense. Above him, in the perfect circle made by the shaft's rim, he could see the stars blazing down - the Pleiades, he realised with surprise, the six brightest stars of the great cluster like a choker of brilliant sapphire light in the sky.
He shivered, enjoying the moment, then activated his suit-mike again, speaking to Wen Ch'ang back in the control room far overhead. "Well, I think we've finished here."
There was a pause, then Wen Ch'ang's voice sounded in his head. "You want me to send a power-sled down for you?"
Kim smiled. Wen Ch'ang was always so thoughtful. "No. It's okay. I'll make my own way back. Tell Jelka I'll see her in a while, okay? I just want a moment or two alone down here."
"I'll tell her."
A click, then silence. Kim switched off his suit mike and walked slowly across the great floor of the borehole, counting each step, the darkness like an invisible curtain he strove to breach but could not, the sound of his heavy boots against the rock the only sound. At twenty he stopped. He was at the centre now. Above him his view of the sky had changed; only two of the brilliantly blue stars of the Pleiades could now be seen.
He let out a long breath, wondering how the voyage out would change them all. They'd be spending long years with nothing but the darkness and a view of stars. Why, the shortest of the four journeys - the 1.8 parsecs to Barnard's Star - would take near on twenty years to complete, whereas their own, to Eridani, would take close to twice that long.
Thirty-five years, he'd estimated, if nothing went wrong. Which was why they'd taken so much care to get things right.
And what if it doesn't work? he asked himself for the thousandth time.
What if the moons aren't accelerated out of their orbits, but merely break up under the pressure?
"Then I'll have been proved wrong," he said quietly, speaking for himself alone.
Yes, but they'll all die. And it'll be no one's fault but yours, Lagasek.
He stared into the darkness, answering his darker, "mirror" self: "Maybe, Gweder. But then, they could have died back on Chung Kuo. Like Mileja."
That still hurt. It would never stop hurting. But at least he could cope with it now. Hard work . . . sheer hard work had helped him deal with it.
But what if there's nothing there? What if there are no inhabitable planets?
"Then we'll build something. We'll make it habitable." And if you die? What then? Who'll carry on your work? And what of the other expeditions? How wHl they cope without you to guide them?
He took a long breath, then answered the voice of his own self-doubt. "If I die, Sampsa will take over. As for the others, they'll cope. They know what to do. There are good men among them - yes, and women, too. Intelligent, strong, imaginative. They'll cope. I know they will."
Silence. A long, clean silence, and then it spoke again, its final words.
You should fear the darkness, Lagasek, for the darkness will swallow you, like a pike devouring a minnow.
He put his hand up to his neck, meaning to switch his helmet light on, then stopped himself. No. The darkness was not to be feared. He understood that now. All his life he had made that mistake, but not now.
Moving his hand slightly, he clicked on the suit-mike again, then frowned, hearing only static. "Wen Ch'ang?"
"What's up?" Jelka asked, leaning across Wen Ch'ang and pressing the communication pad.
Wen Ch'ang shrugged then sat back. "I don't know. A suit fault, I'd guess. Nothing serious. His life-support readouts are fine. You want me to send someone down?"
Jelka made a face into the darkened screen, then shook her head. "No. He'll be up in a while."
He turned. "Why don't you go and greet him?"
She stared at him, surprised by his suggestion. But it was a good one. Kim would like that. "Okay," she said. "But if his mike comes back on, let me know. I want a word about the new processing plant."
"Okay," And Wen Ch'ang turned back, busying himself again, efficient as ever.
She looked at Wen Ch'ang's back a moment. Smiling, she laid her hand briefly on his shoulder then turned away.
Hurrying down the corridor toward the airlock, she almost bumped into Ikuro and Kano coming out of their quarters.
"Whaf s up?" Ikuro asked.
"If s Kim," she said. "His suit-mike's packed up. I was just going to meet him at the rim."
"His mike?" Ikuro looked to Kano. "And his other readings?"
"They're fine. There's no problem . . ."
But Kano held her arm, stopping her from going past him. "I don't like the sound of this. The back-ups in those new suits ought to make a communication failure impossible. The whole suit would have to stop functioning before that."
His words clearly alarmed her. "Then I'd better get there," she said. But Kano still wouldn't let her go.
"No," he said. "I'll go. If there's something wrong, I'm better fitted to do something about it, neh?"
She hesitated, then nodded, accepting the logic of what he'd said. After all, the Ishidas had more experience of vacuum conditions than any of them there.
"Come on, then," Kano said, turning and beginning to jog toward the airlock, leaving Jelka and Ikuro to hurry after him.
The darkness at the bottom of the borehole worried him. As he drifted down toward the floor, Kano craned his ears, listening for any sound that might help him quickly locate his friend. "Kim?" he shouted, his voice loud in his helmet. "Kim? Can you hear me?"
Twenty ch 'i up he slowed, moving his head, letting his helmet-light slowly search the floor of the well. At first he saw nothing but the smooth face of the rock, then the light glinted against something at its edge. He moved his head toward that something.
There! It was Kim! But he was lying face down. Something was wrong. Badly wrong!
Kano spoke into his mike. "Wen Ch'ang?"
Nothing. Not even static. As he drifted down and landed by the body, Kano thought about that, trying to work out what it meant.