But Lori reported, well into the maneuver, that they were still on target. To Nicholson the entire operation seemed hopelessly complicated. But he had as yet no reason to believe that the plan would not work. Other than his own instincts.
The engines went neutral. Power was being applied elsewhere, by one or more of the other ships. They couldn't calibrate power levels up and down, so the computers adjusted by firing the engines of the various ships in whatever combination was necessary to achieve the desired result. It was a symphony.
One of the auxiliary screens carried a generated image of the Evening Star. It was in the center of a group of constellations, warm and luminous against the void. The shaft was represented by a fingernail-thin line, which extended to the edges of the display. Arrows pointed, 44 km forward to Zwick, and to the rear, 62 km to Wildside.
He refilled his coffee cup, and he saw Marcel talking earnestly with Beekman. The schedule they'd worked out told him there'd be another few hours of maneuvering. Of correcting the long rotation and nudging Alpha into its precise trajectory.
Marcel finished his conversation, looked around, and caught Nicholson's eye. "How about some breakfast, Erik?" he suggested.
Nicholson glanced at Beekman. "I wonder whether we shouldn't stay here. In case something happens."
"Something's already happening," he said. "You know Hutch is stranded."
"Yes. I'd heard."
It was after 4:00 a.m. "I don't think there's much we can do for the next few hours. Lori has all the data she needs. The Outsiders are ready to go as soon as conditions permit."
"Suppose there's a problem?"
"If it's a little one, we can deal with it."
"And if there's a big one?"
"It'll be over," said Beekman matter-of-factly. "We are past the point where we can make major adjustments."
Maybe it was just as well to sit down with Clairveau and Beekman. If the operation succeeded, people would remember the image of the two captains and the head of the science team, putting the rescue together.
The electrical intensity of the storm showed no sign of diminishing. Rain pounded down on her, and the wind howled.
The immediate danger rose from the possibility one of the bolts would hit the grid. The e-suit would protect her from a low-level discharge, but she'd never survive a lightning strike. Fortunately, the elevator frame did not jut up into the air. It disappeared into the ruins atop the mountain. Nevertheless there was a lot of exposed metal. A bolt was inevitable.
She could see no way off the iron. The rock wall was smooth. The few bushes clinging to it would never support her. There was a tree above and not far to one side. It looked old and scrabbly, and she thought it had all it could do to hang on itself. Furthermore, it would have been a long jump, one she was pretty sure she couldn't make.
Kellie was constantly on the circuit, between bursts of interference checking on her, asking whether she was okay.
The rain battered her. The suit kept her dry, but it was hard to see.
"You're sure there's no way you can get off the iron?" Kellie asked.
Hutch shook her head wearily. They'd been over it and over it.
"That settles it."
"No. Don't come up. Wait it out."
"But-"
"I'll find a way to get clear. My best chance is for you to stay put."
Another bolt exploded overhead. She jumped and would have fallen off her perch had she not been secured. She'd almost gotten used to the constant fear, which left her feeling numb and exhausted. The tree sagged in the heavy rain.
The gridwork trembled. Quake or thunder, it no longer seemed to matter. She looked off to the east. Jerry would be rising soon, although the sky would be too heavy to allow her to see it. Thank God for small favors.
When the lander began to drop, Kellie had accelerated, gained altitude, and returned to the mountaintop, hoping that they might be able to find a way to effect a rescue from above. But the peak was still blanketed with fog, despite the heavy winds. The electrical activity had knocked out communication with Wendy, so there was no one to guide them in. When MacAllister urged her to try anyhow, she'd prudently pointed out that getting them all killed would do nothing whatever for Priscilla Hutchins.
Instead, she'd opted for a shelf halfway down the mountain. They could hear the ocean coming in, so she wanted to stay high.
MacAllister stared morosely out the window into the flickering darkness while rain hammered at them.
They growled at one another and complained about sitting and doing nothing. Late in the evening Mac finally fell asleep. Nightingale, having no one left to argue with, sat morosely in his chair until Kellie wondered whether he was awake. At about midnight, she lost communication altogether with Hutch.
The lightning continued through the night. She slept fitfully, and woke once to overhear a whispered conversation between her passengers. Nightingale was confessing to having delayed the rescue, was taking responsibility for Hutch's situation on his own shoulders. She could imagine what he was thinking: Priscilla had stayed behind so he could get off. Once again, a woman had rescued him at the cost of her own life. To her surprise Mac told him it could have happened to anybody.
He was hard to figure, that one. Mac characteristically turned a cynical face to the world. Yet he had urged her to try for the rescue,
even when she told him it couldn't be done, not in the dark, not in this wind, that they'd only be throwing their lives away.
He'd said very little since Hutch and Nightingale had left that morning to explore the hexagon. It must be hard on him, she thought. He's used to center stage. Everybody takes him seriously, hangs on his every word. He stays at the best hotels, enjoys media attention everywhere he goes. Now suddenly he's reduced to survival mode, hang on to your tether, life and death in the balance. And nobody gives a damn who he is. The only issue for the past twelve days has been: What can he do? And the reality is, he'd been able to do more than she would have thought.
When they got home, she decided, if they got home, she was going to ask Marcel to give Mac a commendation. That would be something worth seeing, Gregory MacAllister showing up at the Academy to receive an award. He'd never complained, other than to yell at inanimate objects, like Jerry. He'd done everything possible within his physical limitations, and he'd not turned out to be the general pain in the rear she'd expected when they began.
"My God," he said. The cabin brightened and darkened. Thunder ripped through the night.
"That one hit the elevators," Nightingale said.
"Hutch!" Mac tapped his commlink and spoke into it. "Priscilla. Answer up."
It was close to dawn, five hours to rendezvous with Marcel's scoop. But there was as yet no break in the darkness. Nightingale was sitting despondently, listening to the wind. MacAllister was bunched up behind him, his teeth clenched against every lightning strike.
MacAllister had never been comfortable with the sobriquet Hutch. It was a warehouse worker's name, utterly inappropriate for a gallant, if foolhardy, young woman. He wondered if all these people had tin ears.
He'd begun composing a tribute to her. It would appear in The Adventurers' Quarterly, the publication he'd edited for six years, and which still featured his occasional contributions.
"Anything?" he asked Kellie, who'd been trying the commlink again.
She shook her head. Just the heavy crackle of interference.
"It must be time," said Nightingale.
"Not yet," she said.
MacAllister went back to his project. Priscilla was from a small town in Ohio.