It was as Spartan as I could have wished, clean and new and empty. It smelled of starch and fresh bread.
“If the President is awake and well enough, I need to talk with her now,” I said.
Lieh seemed troubled. She looked away and shook her head. Dandy stepped into the room, arms hanging loose. ‘There’s no good time for this, ma’am. Word just came a few minutes ago. We’ve found your husband.“
“He’s at Cyane Sulci?” I asked.
“He was evacuated and taken to a small station at Jovis Tholus. He got there safely, I understand, but the station was a new one. Its architecture was dynamic, thinker controlled.”
“Why not just leave him at the lab in Cyane?” I sat on the bed, expecting to hear of Ilya’s adventures with security, with a troubled station, a technical comedy to relieve my sense of oppression.-
“It wasn’t a good move,” Dandy admitted. He had difficulty keeping his composure. “There were main quarters blowouts at Jovis. They’ve been digging and identifying the last few days. Five hundred dead, three hundred injured.”
“He’s dead, Casseia,” Lieh said. “He’s been found and he’s dead. We weren’t going to tell you until we knew for sure.”
There was no appropriate response, and I had no energy for melodrama. I seemed to be a hole into which things would fall; not a positive force, but a negative.
“Would you like me to stay?” Lieh asked. I lay back on the bed, staring up at the flat ceiling, the utilitarian blue cabinets.
“Yes, please,” I said.
Lieh touched Dandy on the arm and he left, closing the door behind. She sat on the bed and rested her back against the rear wall. “My sister and her kids died at Newton ,” she said. “Ninety casualties.”
“I’m very sorry,” I said.
“I used to talk with her a lot before joining Point One,” she said. “Time gets away. This all seemed so important.”
“I know what you mean,” I said.
“I liked Ilya,” she said. “He seemed very kind and straight.”
“He was,” I said. The dreamlike nature of the conversation told me how many layers of insulation Lhad wrapped around my emotions, expecting just this news, but refusing to acknowledge the possibility — with the growing number of days, the certainty. “Tell me about your sister.”
“I don’t think I’m ready to talk about them yet, Cassie.”
“I understand,” I said.
“The Sulci lab came through fine,” she said. “Dandy thinks we killed him.”
“That’s stupid,” I said.
“He’s taking it hard.”
“I have to talk with Ti Sandra.”
“I think you should wait a few minutes,” Lieh said. “Really.”
“If I do anything but work, I’m going to go right over the edge,” I said. “There’s too much to do.”
Lieh pressed down the placket of her gray suit and held her hand over mine. “Please rest a while,” she said.
“No,” I said.
She stood up from the bed, reached out with her long arm and long, beautiful fingers, and opened the room’s optical port. I handed her my slate and she attached it. A few strokes and verbal instructions, a series of code and security checks, and she was through to Point One at Many Hills. They completed the connection.
I spoke to Ti Sandra ten minutes later. I did not tell her about Ilya.
We talked about the situation, about my discussion with Charles. Still wrapped in surgical nano, eyes heavy-lidded, her lips twitched as she spoke in a harsh whisper: “We agree, Stephen and you and I. But we’re not enough. There have to be consequences and we can’t just go anywhere. So what kind of an idea is this? We need more experts. We need to think seriously.”
“The Olympians can get us started,” I suggested. “We should gather everybody in the next week or so; take the risk.“
“The Point One people can give them everything they need. You’re still acting President, Casseia. How are you, honey?” Ti Sandra asked.
“Not very well,” I answered.
“We’re a mess, all of us. We need a change of scenery. Right?”
“Right,” I said.
“You bring the experts from around Mars. Everyone who can help. Keep in touch. I’ll try to stay awake, Casseia.”
I touched her face on the slate and said good-bye. Lieh waited expectantly, standing in the corner of the small room.
“Why are we going to do this?” she asked.
I lay back on the bed. “You tell me,” I said.
“Because if we don’t, a lot of people are going to get killed,” she said. “But how many people will be killed if we move?”
“We need to find out,” I said. Through the insulation, through the fog of growing reaction, my enhancement began working the problem of removing a mass the size of Mars abruptly from the vicinity of the sun, putting it elsewhere.
No distance. Thieves stealing from the galactic treasure house.
“Areologists, I think,” Lieh said.
“Right. Structural engineers for the stations. People we can trust, but we’ll have to lower our standards a little. People are going to know soon enough.”
“The meeting will have to be held in the flesh, incommunicado,” Lieh said. “Everybody involved will have to stay sequestered until we’ve moved.”
“Oh?” I asked, still listening to my enhancement.
“The greatest danger is a leak to Earth. They may take action at any hint we’re working on something so drastic.”
“Yes,” I said, letting her think for me, for the time being, letting her stretch to envelop the concept.
“This will take a lot of planning,” she said.
“Twenty experts, no more,” I said. “We’ll need a safe meeting place.”
“This is as safe a place as any,” Lieh said.
“All right.” I suddenly dreaded the thought of staying in this room where I had learned of Ilya’s death. “Ask the Olympians what they’ll need to build several large tweakers. Ask them how soon they can have them ready.”
“I’ll wake you in eight hours,” she said, and she left.
I closed my eyes.
When the grief came, I screwed up my eyes until they hurt, trying to keep back the tears, trying not to lose control. I could not accept I could not believe. Adult sophistication meant nothing against that need spread through to my child-self. I kept seeing my mother’s face, gone before this all began; lost to me, lost to my father. I would not wear my father’s grief, not lose my inner self. I could not recall Ilya’s face with much clarity, not as a picture. I picked up my slate and searched for a good picture and yes, there he was, smiling over a mother cyst at Cyane Sulci, and here on the day of our ceremony, uncomfortable in a formal suit.
It seemed to me that I had never told him enough about my love and need. I cursed myself, so spare with words and revealed emotions to those I loved.
I rubbed my eyes. My insides felt like shredded rubber. For a moment, I considered calling in a medical arbeiter and plucking out this overwhelming pain. I told myself I could not let my emotions get in the way of duty. But I had not done that for my mother, and I would not do it now.
I forced my body to relax. Then, without warning, I fell asleep, as if a small circuit breaker had tripped inside my head, and the eight hours passed instantly.
Part Six
Preamble
“I’m going to be in the goo for at least three more weeks,” Ti Sandra said, allowing herself to be seen only from the shoulders up. She appeared pale but more animated. She had just come out of intensive reconstruction, three more days unconscious and at the mercy of her doctors. I took her call in my small office at Kaibab, weary from days of conferences. Memory cubes piled high on my desk carried station designs and reports from manufacturers, shippers, and architects.
“I’ve convinced the doctors to move me to Many Hills. They’ll take me over this afternoon by shuttle. I can start seeing visitors and be rolled into committee meetings… I’ll be able to take over that part of the job.”