Miller lowered his eyes. "It was an accident." The BuReloc man leaned up on one elbow to look at Owens, and Connolly wondered for the hundredth time if Miller had a gun in that bag with him. "Whether you believe it or not doesn't change the fact."
"Right, then. Frank, that's enough, yes?" Connolly said from his own bag in the wall hammock. "Get some sleep; the shuttle's due in eight hours. I'll come and wake you then."
Owens stood up and pulled several blankets from a locker.
"What are you doing?" Connolly asked.
"I'm sick of the company I've been keeping." The Navigator headed aft. "I'm going back to the ground car bay to sleep."
"Frank, don't be an idiot, there's no heat back there!"
"Yeah, but there's a lock on the door." Owens stopped before Connolly, pointedly ignoring Miller almost at his feet. "Look, there's fresh batteries in the sleeping bags; you come out to get me in six hours. Check me out sooner if you get bored." He turned at the hatch, looking down at Miller. "On second thought, considering your company; don't get bored."
To Potter's surprise, the crew member who seemed most affected by Ike's death was not his brother Mike, but Farrow. The Fast Eddie's master had taken to wandering about the ship with an apparent intensity of grief that was a little frightening in a man who couldn't reasonably be kept away from air locks and orbital attitude controls.
Farrow would often look out the viewports, staring down at the moon, and speaking softly under his breath. Rarely, Mike would come up behind the master and place a hand on his shoulder in a gesture of compassion. Seeing as it was from the man whose brother had died to his employer, and that the former appeared less affected than the latter, Potter found these occasional tableaux faintly distasteful, though he couldn't be exactly sure why.
As long as it keeps Farrow out of the way 'til we can get our living back aboard, Potter told himself. How Mike dealt with his brother's death was his own affair.
"Captain Potter, we're ready." Liu had finished the preliminary systems check on the second shuttle that morning, ship time, and had spent the rest of the day loading the gear they'd need to get Shuttle One flying again.
"Fine. Well, I guess it's pretty clear who's got to go."
Liu nodded. I'll need Mike for the repair work; Owens and Connolly can keep busy, but this is drydock work, and command crew won't be much use."
Potter looked over his shoulder to be sure Farrow wasn't about. "Bill, this is going to be tricky; you need a pilot to get down there in one piece."
Liu nodded. "There's nothing for it. But we've got to take Farrow down with us; we can't leave him alone up here on the Fast Eddie. Hell, in his state he could walk out an airlock."
Potter ground a knuckle against his temple. "Yeah. Well, let's hope he doesn't wander off while we're down there. You recheck your repair estimates?"
Liu nodded. "Everybody working like coolies, worst case: three days. Most likely only two. We're up and off and back aboard Fast Eddie, headed home. The survey's scrubbed, of course; no bonus potential for a screw-up like this."
"Yeah, break my heart, why don't you." Potter looked over Liu's shoulder and out the port. "I've learned as much about this place as I care to already, Bill."
And I suspect, Potter finished to himself, that our Mister Miller has, too.
Shuttle Two drifted downward, and Potter found himself suddenly wishing there was an overhead hatch, so he could take one last look at the Fast Eddie above them. Involuntarily, he shuddered.
What a gruesome thought; unlucky, too. He began the minute adjustments that, magnified by their thirty-mile descent, would bring them into the general area of the first shuttle's landing zone. Liu was strapped in next to him, his eyes closed.
Can't say as I blame you, old friend. This is the sort of joyride that would have the Engineering and Machinists' Union howling for my blood if they knew about it. Behind them, Farrow had strapped himself in with a firm confidence that belied his earlier distress. Nevertheless, Mike continued a solicitous, if detached, attention toward his boss. Good, Potter thought. Somebody else can hold his hand for a while.
"Coming up on final, gentlemen," Potter tried to loosen his tightened throat with speech; it didn't work.
Air resistance increased around the shuttle, and the noise level from outside increased with it. In seconds the shuttle was a rock-filled washing machine of rattling pressure plates and popping seams. A giant of the air was slapping a pillow against the nose and belly, but the pillow weighed tons.
Potter saw Liu in his peripheral vision. The Chief Engineer had forced his eyes open to check his status panel. "How long, Emmett?" The vibrations made Liu's voice sound like a jackhammer was digging into his chest.
"Three minutes more."
"Have to be on the ground sooner; she's losing it."
"I meant three minutes to the landing zone. Another five to circle and land."
Liu rolled his eyes heavenward, and Potter hoped he wasn't looking for a good spot for harp playing.
When the shaking stopped, it was sudden enough to make Potter shout for a structural integrity check.
"Fine, it's fine," Liu was grinning as he checked his board. "She'll hold for that five minutes, but don't go longer than ten." Liu mumbled to himself in satisfaction, "Heyah, all gods bear witness, I can fix a rainy day!"
Potter passed over the western mountain range that sheltered the valley, their snowcapped peaks seeming barely below him despite his altitude. Shuttle Two's flat glide was taking it from one hundred thousand feet to a fifth of that in the course of their three-thousand mile flight path, and the view became spectacular.
The sun had broken through the thin cloud cover, lighting the valley from behind him, while Cat's Eye illuminated it before. And in that moment, as he looked across what would one day become known as the Shangr?-La, he suddenly felt a great peace.
It's pure, he thought. It's harsh in that purity, but it's a beautiful kind of harsh. People will come here, and they will live, and die, as Owens said they would. They'll settle it and cultivate it, fly over it and bury their dead in it, but they'll never change it, not really. In the end, like every pure place, it will change them. It will make them what it wants them to be, and they'll love it for that. The rest of this moon is cruel and ugly, but this valley is cruel and beautiful. Men will go to the other lands, and some will stay there, too. But those lands will never know the kind of devotion people will come to feel for this sheltered valley, this safe haven in a hard world.
The moment passed; the landing zone was beneath them, a cleared circle of dead gray wintergrass in an unrelenting sea of shifting white, the crooked shadow of the crippled shuttle nearby. Potter was getting the feel of Liu's bastard child as he flew her, and the landing would be tricky.
Tricky it was, but perfect nonetheless.
One figure stood on the snow beyond the cleared circle; it ran toward the shuttle in a kind of loping shuffle; long step, double-drag the other leg, long step. Potter cracked the hatch and pushed it open, freeing the debarkation ladder as he did so.
"Oh, my sweet Christ!" The blast of frigid air hit him in the face like a flamethrower; he actually recoiled a step, frantically gathering his parka closed as he fought to keep his balance. On the ground below, the figure that had come to meet them was struggling up the ladder. It stumbled into the shuttle and fell against the wall, sliding down to the floor plates.