"Okay."
"I'll be with you the whole way. Even if I'm not, you'll be fine."
"Glad to hear it. I was starting to worry. Why might you not be?"
"There's a good probability we'll lose communications with you as the weather deteriorates. But you've got the details, and whatever else happens, you'll still be able to see the net coming in. Okay?"
"Yeah. That's good."
They listened while Beekman and his team hammered out the method of converting the metal webbing in which the asteroid was encased into the sack that would be used to pick up the lander. In night. And they heard a recording of the meeting at which the volunteers voted to call themselves the Outsiders. Marcel apparently thought the enthusiasm of their rescuers would help morale on the ground. It did.
Marcel explained that most of the volunteers were passengers from the cruise ship. A few were Kellie's colleagues from Wendy. Hutch's passenger Tom Scolari was among them. ("Are you serious?" she replied.) Almost none had ever been outside before.
Hutch was surprised to see Kellie surreptitiously wipe away a tear. "They're really trying," she commented.
Some of the Outsiders working along the assembly heard that the lander was on the circuit and could hear them. "We're coming,"they said. "Hang on." And "Don't worry. We'll get you out."
"Whatever it takes."
Outside, the wind continued to howl, and the snow piled up. Even with the transmissions, rescue seemed impossibly far away.
They woke in late morning to clearing skies. The blizzard had blown itself out, and a heavy blanket of snow sparkled under a bright sun. They broke out the last of their stocked fruit, which consisted of almost tasteless pulp protected inside a hard shell. They talked about how good it would be to have a real breakfast again, and agreed it was time to take a look at Mt. Blue. One way or the other, this would be their last full day on Deepsix.
"What's the top of the mountain look like?" Hutch asked Marcel. "What do we know about it?"
"Okay. You know it's been sheared off. The peak's gone. It's absolutely flat up there. Looks as if somebody took a scythe to it. But you can't see it because it's always wrapped in clouds."
"The building's on the summit?"
"Right. It's a ruin. Several stories high. With dishes. Probably solar collectors, although God knows how it would get any energy through all those clouds."
"Maybe they didn't used to be there," said Nightingale.
"Probably. Anyhow it's a big place. The building is a hexagon, roughly two hundred meters on a side. And I should add that everybody here's convinced it was the base of the skyhook."
"Why?" asked MacAllister.
"It's directly on the equator. And the sea to the west is full of debris."
"The elevator," said Hutch.
"Yes. It looks as if the elevator either broke apart or was deliberately cut. Our best guess is that it was severed at about eleven thousand meters. The upper section was dragged into space; the lower broke off the base and fell into the ocean.
"Is there a place for us to land?"
"Oh sure. No problem about that."
Well, it was nice to have something that didn't come with a problem. "All right," Hutch said. "We'll do it, Marcel. We have to stop first to pick up some food. And it would probably be a good idea to top off the tanks. Visibility up there is…?"
"Zero."
"Of course. Keep in mind we have no sensors. How am I supposed to land if I can't see?"
"I'll guide you in."
"I can't believe I've agreed to this," said MacAllister, as she took her bearing from the superluminal and turned onto her new course.
Nightingale cleared his throat. "It's why we're here," he said. "If we don't get some answers, we'll never hear the end of it." He looked directly at Mac.
Kellie laughed, and the momentary tension fell apart.
When Beekman's people named the various continents, seas, and other physical features across Deepsix, they'd called the range along Transitoria's western coastline the Mournful Mountains. It contained several of the highest peaks on Deepsix, soaring to seven thousand meters above sea level. At sixty-six hundred, Mt. Blue was not quite the tallest, but it was one of the more picturesque. A bundle of white clouds enclosed the upper levels. Granite walls fell away at sharp angles for thousands of meters, before mutating into gradual slopes that descended into foothills and forest.
Marcel had assigned Mira Amelia to provide weather updates and tracking information to the lander. She also kept them updated on the rescue effort. Mira maintained an optimistic front without becoming annoying. Kellie commented that Mira was a good analyst and that she wouldn't sound that way unless the program was very likely to work. It was an interpretation that they all needed to hear. Even MacAllister, who was visibly shaken at the notion of flying into a midair net, seemed to take heart.
They'd been aloft an hour and a half when Mira reported that the river they were now approaching eventually passed close to Mt. Blue. "There's some open country nearby. This would be the place to refuel. And maybe stock up."
Hutch went down through heavy weather ("It's worse everywhere else," said Mira) and landed in a driving rain on the south bank. The trees were loaded with fruit. They picked some pumpkin-sized de-lectables that they'd had before. The edible part was quite good, rather like a large dried raisin encased within a tough husk. They hurried back into the lander with them, out of the downpour. And ate up.
The simple pleasures of being alive.
They stored a hefty supply in cargo. Optimistically, Mac pointed out. Then they ran out the hose and refilled the tanks. When the job was finished they lifted off again.
Mt. Blue was on the coast. To the west, offshore, the sea had withdrawn and left a vast expanse of muddy bog.
"The water's on the other side of the world," Mira explained. She provided a course correction and instructed Hutch to go to sixty-eight hundred meters. She also relayed pictures of the mountain, taken from satellite.
"Here's something odd," she said. The north side was sheer precipice, from summit to ground level. A ninety-degree drop.
Nightingale stared at it. "That almost looks artificial."
"That's what we thought," said Mira. "Here's something else." She zeroed in.
Hutch saw vertical and horizontal lines along the face of the cliff. A framework of some sort. It ran from the summit all the way to the base, at ground level.
"What is it?" asked Kellie.
"We have no idea. If you get a chance, take a look."
Then she showed them what the scanners had seen at the moun-taintop: The summit was perfectly flat. And there, in the middle, was the hexagon.
Mira enhanced the image. The structure was enormous, occupying perhaps sixty percent of the total available ground space atop the mountain. It was half-submerged in a tangle of vegetation. But they could make out windows and doorways. Hutch noted an almost classical symmetry, unlike the overblown and overdecorated styles currently favored by her own civilization. The corners were flared. Otherwise, the structure was unadorned.
The top was jagged, as if upper levels had been broken off. On average it was about six stories high, less in some places, more in others. The top-one couldn't really call it a roof since it appeared the upper level was exposed to the sky-was covered with snow.
"Here's what it looks like under the snow," said Mira. She removed it, and they were looking down on chambers and passageways and staircases. All in a general state of collapse.
Mira sent them a reconstruction, revealing its probable appearance in its early years. The computer replaced the bushes and weeds with sculpted walkways and gravel courts, and installed gleaming windows and carved doors. The roof became an oval gridwork that rose into the clouds. It was magnificent.