"Why not?" Fang demanded.
"They won't come down the Well."
Everyone spoke at once. "Gravity well, Earth is deep in it." "Niven's Belters called planets 'holes."' "Come off it, they'll come, these are ANGELS'!' "I knew we needed contingency plans--"
Bruce made a whistle of his fingers. Into the silence that followed he asked, "What do you mean? The Angels won't come to get you?"
Alex looked around the circle of faces. Angels. A sulky adolescent stilyagin and a construction worker who can't go Out anymore. Maybe I should have said to hell with it, work EVA until my brains pour out through my nose. Why not?
"It's impossible," he said.
Sherrine nodded again, a tiny movement. "I thought so. Jesus, I'm sorry."
"But you're space pilots," Crazy Eddie said. "They need you--"
Gordon laughed. Everyone looked at him. "What's funny?" Fang demanded.
"Alex is hero. They would come for him, but there is no way."
"They don't need me," Alex said. "And it doesn't matter anyway. There is no way for them to come get us."
"Coming down is no problem," Mike said. His voice lost the bantering tone. "Going back up--"
"Exactly," Alex said. "Going back up. We don't have any ships that will land and take off again. We never did."
Sherrine was looking at him strangely. "You knew it all along."
"There here never was a time to tell you."
"Why is Alex a hero?" Edward Two Bats demanded.
"Eddie--"
"I'm a novelist, damn it! I'm not sure I ever met a hero before. Gordon?"
"Flare time," Gordon said. "Solar flares expand atmosphere. Mir became unstable. Major MacLeod brought a crew from Freedom…" He sensed incomprehension in the background murmur and the twisted frowns. "I start over.
"Flare on the sun. Too much energy floods day side of Earth. Top of air becomes hot. Atmosphere inflates like vast balloon, reaches far into space, wraps ghostly tendrils around Mir. Mir Space Station, made to fall free through vacuum, begins to slow and drift closer to Earth.
"Major MacLeod brought a crew from Freedom. They attached booster rockets to lift Mir to higher orbit without disruption. With Mir safe, he had to return to bolt rockets onto Freedom, because Freedom was dangered, too. His suit blew out. Had to patch it and use it again. Pressure suit, it must fit more closely than wife. Cannot borrow someone else's." Alex choked back a laugh. Gordon never noticed. "Once, twice, five times his suit spewed air. One can live through that, but not many times.
"Now he cannot go outside again. Alex MacLeod cannot live in vacuum, even short time will kill him."
"But you flew the scoopship!"
"Dipping takes a good pilot," Alex said. "I'm that. Paint stripes on a brick, I can fly it." He liked the look that Sherrine gave him. But-- "Dipping wants an expendable pilot. I'm that, too. Look, everyone knew we might not come back."
"So you're here for the duration," Bruce said.
"Looks that way."
Everyone was quiet. Alex looked from face to face. It was beginning to sink in: This wasn't just a short jaunt. These… fans hadn't signed on for a long haul. Pretty soon the novelty would wear off. Some already had second thoughts. And I can't blame them.
Sherrine put her hand on his arm. "So you volunteered knowing it might be one way."
He shook his head. "No, this is the first time like this. Usually nothing happens to dippers."
"Except sometimes they don't come back," Mike said. "Yeah, I can see it."
Sherrine hugged them, first Alex, then Gordon. "Orphans of creation," she said. "At least you're stuck among friends." Steve put a hand on each of their shoulders and squeezed gently but didn't say anything. Alex could feel the impression of Sherrine's ribs an cheekbones where she had pressed against him. Careful, he cautioned himself. Sherri is Bob's girl, like Mary was Lonny's. Like borrowing another man's space suit. Look where it got you.
Bruce looked thoughtful. "This changes things."
"Sure does," Crazy Eddie said.
"Look, I don't blame you," Alex started to say.
Bruce cut him off. "We'll have to find you both a niche here on Earth. Not going to be easy on you. We all read Heinlein's story."
" 'It's Great to Be Back,' " Sherrine said. "Yes. It must be that way. Living among the stars and then stranded on Earth."
Mike said, "First thing you need is Social Security and driver's license."
Gordon looked puzzled. "Driver license? For what, mass driver? Disk drive?"
Mike sighed. "Never mind."
"Identity papers," Alex said.
"Why do we need identity papers?" Gordon asked. "We are all droogs here, no?"
How they knew that "droog" meant "friend," Alex couldn't guess; but Mike actually, smiled. "Sure, we're all droogs," he said. "Illegal droogs."
"You need an ID," said Thor, "because 'the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave' has become 'the Land of the Fee and the Home of the Slave.' "
"Do you have ID?" Alex asked him.
He smiled. "Sure. Three or four."
"Phony?"
"Free enterprise. They're the best kind."
"Sherrine?" Bruce asked.
"Risky. It was easier when I set things up for Thor. Now they have programs to watch for hackers."
"You probably wrote them," Steve said.
"Well, Ted Marshall and I worked on the Bytehound program, and we left a backdoor in, so I can probably manage it--Sure. We can do it, maybe, but it's going to take some time at my terminal and I have to get hold of Ted."
"He's not coming," Bruce said. "Thinks he's being watched."
"It's important we don't give him away," Crazy Eddie said.
"So we make do until then," Fang said.
"Tricky, though," Thor said.
"What is this Eye Dee?" Gordon asked. "May I see?"
Fang took out a driver's license and handed it to him. Gordon looked at it carefully, turning it over and over in his hands. He read the form on the back. "It says here consent to have organs recycled. You can refuse, then? Very rich place." He held the card up to the light. "Does not look difficult if you have photograph. You do not have scanner and laser printer?"
"No, we have those," Mike said. "Just making a card isn't the problem. Everything's cross-linked now. If we make a bogus drivers license for Alex or Gordon, the IRS computer looks into the DMV computer and wonders why they never paid taxes before." He looked at Alex.
"But it can be done," Bruce said. "Just not easy anymore."
Alex frowned. "Computers are high technology. I thought everyone down here--except you--I thought most Downers hated technology."
Thor laughed. "They hate it all right. Computers, too. But they still use them."
"For themselves," Steve said. "They don't like others having them."
"Is illegal to own computer?" Gordon frowned.
"How do--how can people read what you write? Like poetry? Stories?"
"It's illegal to own an unlicensed computer," Sherrine said. "But there are a lot of licensed ones, and--well, the licensing laws are hard to enforce. So there are networks, and some private boards "
"There are still publishers," Bruce said. "A few good books get out. And like Sherrine says, there are private boards--"
"Boards?"
"Computer bulletin boards," Thor said.
"People exchange files. Not so common as they used to be, now that the phone system keeps crashing. But FAPA is still going," Sherrine said.
"I was in line for full membership in the Cult until I had to drop for missing deadlines," Fang said. "But Bruce is--"
And disks are harder to get," Mike said. "But I still manage to publish File 880… "