"You're kidding."
"Afraid not. They found a couple in the station, packed up and everything."
"Good God. — Excuse me."
" So we've got no way back up again if somebody doesn't build a return vehicle. Between you and me, sir, in language you wouldn't tell my mother, who's not real happy with this— what risk am I running?"
"I'd sure want to know why those pods didn't get used."
"Mospheira says they were redundancies. There were three last ones. Because the last aboard the station were only six people. And if anything had gone wrong with one, they couldn't have built another. They had a rule about triple redundancy."
"That sounds reasonable. But I can't swear to it."
" So— if we have to build a ship that can get off the planet, how long is it going to take to get us back up again?"
"If we started today, if things went incredibly right, and that was our total objective in the program, we could maybe launch a manned capsule to low orbit inside a year, year and a half, on a rocket that's meant to launch communications satellites. No luxury accommodation, but we could get you up to low orbit and probably down again in one piece."
"But to reach high orbit?"
"Realistically, and I know this part of it, because I'm the technical translator, among my other jobs, if we want a meaningful high-orbit vehicle, we'd be wasting time building a small-scale chemical rocket. I'd much rather negotiate an orbit-and-return technology."
"And how long for that?"
"Depends on a lot of factors. Whether the materials meet design specs. How much cooperation you can get from the atevi. I'd say if you don't want to grow old down here, you'd better land on this side of the water and be damn nice to Tabini-aiji, who can single-handedly determine how fast the materials are going to meet design standard."
" That's— very persuasive, sir."
The whole business of haste — the rush to risk lives — bothered him. "A parachute two hundred years old? The glue on the heat shield —"
"We know. We propose to refit it. They say they can improve on it. Put us down pretty well on the mark. I don't personally like this parachute idea, but I guess it beats infalling without one."
"You've got more nerve than I'd have, Mr. Graham. I'll give you that. But our ancestors made it, or we wouldn't be here."
" I hate to ask, but what was the failure rate? Do you have any stats on that?"
"Percentage? Low. I know that one sank in the sea. One hard-landed. Fatally. One lost the heat shield and burned up. They mostly made it, that's all I know. But with all your technology — isn't there some way to take a little time, at least modify that thing into a guided system? Nothing you've got can possibly serve as a landing craft?"
A pause. Then: " Not for atmosphere. The moon— no problem. But that's a deep, deep well, sir."
"Gravity well."
"Yes, sir."
It wasn't just Mospheira versus atevi that had a language gap. He guessed the shortened expression. And out of the expertise the technological translator necessarily gained in his career, other, more critical problems immediately dawned on him.
"Mr. Graham, I hope to hell if they unpack that parachute to check it, they know how to put it back in its housing. There's an exact and certain way those things have to unfold. Otherwise they don't open."
"You're really making me very nervous, sir. But they've got specifications on the lander. That's in the station library, they tell me."
"When are they sending you down here?"
"About five, six days."
"God."
" I wish you'd be more confident."
"Five days is pushing real hard, Mr. Graham. Is there a particular reason to be in a hurry?"
"No reason not to— I mean, we've no problem with ablation surfaces. We can do better in no time. I'm less sure about the parachute, but I have to trust they can tell from records. That's all. I have to trust it. And they'll be done, they tell me, in four days. And they can shoot us out there on a real precise in/all, right down the path. I don't know what more they can do. They say it's no risk. That they've got all the results. When did they lose the three they lost? Early on?"
"I think — early on. They didn't lose any of the last ones." A slight gloss of the truth. But the truth didn't help a man about to fall that far.
" I'll tell you, I'm not looking forward to the experience. I keep telling myself I'm stark raving crazy. I don't know what Yolanda's thinking. But if we just get down—"
"The atevi would say, Trust the numbers. Get fortunate numbers out of the technicians."
" I certainly intend to. — What's that sound?"
"Sound — ?" He was suddenly aware of the outside, of the smell and feel of rain in the air. And anxiety in Graham's voice. "That was thunder. We're having a storm."
"Atmospheric disturbance."
"Rain."
"It must be loud."
"Thunder is. Can be. That was. It's right over us."
"It's not dangerous."
"Lightning is. Not a good idea to be on the phone much longer. But one thing I should mention before I sign off. We've never had much of a disease problem, there's not much we catch from atevi, and we were a pretty clean population when we landed. But on general principles the aiji will insist you undergo the process our ancestors did before they came down."
"We began it last watch. My stomach isn't happy, but that's the least of our worries."
"Sorry about that. I'll relay your assurance to the aiji and I assure you the aiji will be happy you've taken that precaution on your own initiative. You'll impress him as considerate, well-disposed people. I'll also inform him about your companion needing to get to a plane without delay, assuming that will be her wish. I'll fax up a map with the optimum sites marked, with text involving advantages and disadvantages. You can talk to your experts and make a choice, but it's just more convenient to the airports if you can come in on the public lands south of the capital."
"I'll pass that word along. I'd like to talk to you fairly frequently, if you can arrange it. I want to look over this material you're sending up. I'll probably have questions. "
"I'll fax up my meeting schedule. Tomorrow I'm going to be traveling out to an observatory in the mountains. I'll be back by evening. But if something comes up that needs information from me, wherever there are telephones, they can track me down. Even on the plane."
"To an observatory. Why?"
"To talk to a gentleman who may be able to answer some philosophical questions. Your arrival has — well, been pretty visible to anyone in the rural areas. And call it religious implications, as well as political ones. Say that concerned people have asked me questions."