Cleo beamed at him. "Talent I didn't know I had," she said.
Marcel signaled Nichokon with an almost imperceptible gesture. Nicholson pushed the button. Lori's voice acknowledged: "Activating phase two."
The Alpha shaft, freed from the main body of the assembly, was reduced to about thirteen percetit of its former length. Lori, the controlling AI, awaited incoming results from a wide array of sensors.
When she was satisfied all was in order, and the proper moment in her internal countdown arrived, she fired maneuvering thrusters on Zwick and Wildside, orchestrated to draw Alpha clear of the assembly, to ensure that no tumble developed, and to begin the long rotation that would end with the net and plate moving toward the point out over the Misty Sea where it would, they all hoped, rendezvous in twenty hours with Hutch's lander.
She monitored progress, which was slight but satisfactory, and when conditions allowed, she fired the main engines on Wildside, and four minutes later, on Zwick. The shaft began perceptibly to rotate toward its vector.
Approximately sixteen minutes after the Wildside ignition, she shut off the vessel's engines, and several minutes later did the same with Zwick.
Now there was a quick-scramble in what everyone perceived as the tightest part of the operation save the actual dip into the atmosphere.
The Outsiders on Wildside and Zwick hurried back out and released the ships from the shaft. There wasn't time to bring them back in, so they tethered down on the hulls while everyone waited. When they reported themselves secure, Lori moved the vessels cautiously to new positions along the shaft, and realigned them, bringing their axes parallel to Alpha. When that had been done, the Outsiders reattached the ships.
Meantime, the other two vessels, the Evening Star and Wendy, snuggled up against the shaft in their assigned places. More of Janet's people poured out of airlocks and secured them to the shaft.
The problem she had been waiting for developed on Wendy. One of the volunteers, a researcher from the science team, got ill out on the hull and brought up her lunch. The force field had no provision to handle that kind of event. It was flexible and made room, but the unfortunate woman was quickly immersed in her own ejecta. Panicked, she lost contact with the hull and drifted away from the ship.
A backup quickly replaced her and a shuttle was dispatched to do a rescue.
The replacement joined the effort almost without missing a beat.
It was a difficult maneuver because everything had to be completed within a restrictive time frame, barely two hours, or they'd lose their window. As it turned out, no one need have worried. The job was completed, and everyone, including the woman with the lunch, was back inside with eleven minutes to spare. All four vessels had been aligned directly front to rear along the shaft axis.
At Lori's signal, the four superluminals engaged their main engines and gently drew the Alpha shaft forward, beginning their long run toward the Misty Sea.
There were a few places where the floor had buckled or where the ceiling had caved in. They found fragments of fibrous materials in some of the cubicles off the concourse. Clothing, apparently. Small stuff.
She took samples of everything, continued to record the locations, and made voluminous notes.
A call came in from Canyon. "Hutch," he said, "I'd love to do a program from inside the skyhook. If you'd be willing." They were already broadcasting the visuals, he hoped she didn't mind, but it was a huge story back home. And everyone would like to hear her reactions.
"Give me a break, August. I can't walk around here pointing my vest at everything."
"You don't have to. The spontaneous shots work fine. We'll use a delay, and we can reconstruct anything that we miss. You don't have to worry; we can edit out whatever might not be appropriate, whatever you want us to. It'll make a great story. And I'd be in your debt."
"You won't see much. It's foggy."
"I know. We like foggy. It's atmospheric." He laughed at his own joke.
The Academy would love it. The romance of edge-of-the-envelope archeology. She glanced at Nightingale, who nodded his okay. "I'll make a deal with you," she said. "I'll comment occasionally when I think there's something worthwhile to be said. If you can avoid asking me any questions. Just leave me alone to do my work, and I'll try to cooperate."
"Hutch, I'd really like to do the interview."
"I'm busy," she said.
"Well, of course. Sure. We can do what you want. I understand entirely."
"This is a long empty corridor," she said. "It's probably been like this for three thousand years."
"Three thousand years? You really think it's that old?" he asked.
"Augie," she said, "you're incurable."
"I'm sorry."
"It's okay. Must be frustrating for you to be up there out of the action."
Momentarily his tone changed. "You know," he said quietly, "I'd almost accept a chance to go down there with you. It's that big a story."
"Almost," she said.
"Yeah. Almost."
Curiously, she felt sorry for him.
Hutch paid particular attention to the inscriptions. The six languages were always in the same order.
In the areas behind the concourses, among the passageways and cubicles, in what they'd come to think of as back offices, they discovered a seventh alphabet. "I've seen this before," she said, looking at an inscription that hung at the end of a corridor, where it branched off at right angles. Two groups of characters were engraved over symbols that could only be arrows. "They have to be places. Washrooms. Souvenirs here and ice cream over there. Baggage to your left."
Nightingale tapped his lips with an index finger. "I'll tell you where we saw it. At the hovercraft memorial."
At that moment, somewhere ahead, they heard a click.
It was sharp and clear, and it hung in the air.
Hutch's heart stopped. Nightingale caught his breath.
"An animal," she said.
They waited, trying to see into the fog.
There were closed doors along both sides of the passageway. As she watched, one moved. The movement was barely discernible, but it opened a finger's width. And stopped.
They drew close together for mutual support. Hutch produced her cutter. Neither spoke.
When nothing more happened, Hutch walked over to the door.
It closed, and she jumped.
It opened again.
"Maybe we ought to get out of here," whispered Nightingale.
"Wait." She tiptoed closer and tried to look through the opening, but as far as she could see there was nothing inside. Empty room and that was all.
She took a deep breath and tugged on the door. It opened a little wider and she let go and it swung shut. Then it opened again.
"Sensors?" asked Nightingale.
"Apparently. Still working."
She recalled that the building seemed to be equipped with solar collectors.
The door was not quite three meters high, constructed of the same plastic material they'd seen elsewhere in the hexagon. It had no knob and no latch. But she saw a diagonal green strip that might have been the sensor. And another green strip with faded characters that might have indicated who occupied the office, or what function it had performed.
In spite of his assurances, Canyon reentered the conversation: "Hutch, that was a riveting moment. How did you feel when you first heard the sound?"
Her next words would eventually travel around the world. She regretted having agreed to let Augie and his two billion listeners eavesdrop. She would have liked to put on a blase exterior, to behave the way heroes are supposed to, but she couldn't recall whether she'd made frightened sounds. "Terrified," she said.
The door opened again.