The navigation display warned her that the ship would leave orbit in thirty-six minutes.
Hutch finished her dinner, and swept the leavings into the vacuum tube. Then she switched on a comedy and pushed back to watch. But by the time the boosters fired, and the ship began to move, she was asleep.
She woke to a chime. Incoming transmission.
The lights were dim. She'd slept seven hours.
Richard appeared on the monitor. "Hello," he said. "How are we doing?"
"Okay."
He looked troubled, in the way that he did when he was about to tell her something he knew she wouldn't like. "Listen, Hutch, they're in a bad way here. There are several sites beneath the Temple. The one we're all interested in is down deep, and they're just now getting into it. We need to use all the time we have available. The shuttle that they've got here will accommodate three people plus the pilot. Figure out a schedule to get everyone out. But leave us the maximum working time."
Hutch let her exasperation show. "Richard, that's crazy."
"Probably. But they could be very close. They're almost into the Lower Temple. Hutch, it dates from 9000 B.C., the same era as the construction on the moon. We need to get a look at it. We can't just leave it here to be destroyed."
Hutch disagreed. "I think our first priority is to get out before the water rises."
"We will, Hutch. But meantime we have to make every day count."
"God damn it."
Richard smiled patiently. "Hutch, we won't take any chances. You have my word. But I need you to help me. Okay?"
And she thought: / should be grateful he's not refusing to leave the surface, and daring Kosmik to drown him. His inherent belief in the decency of other people had led him astray before. "I'll see what I can do," she said. "Richard,
who's running the Kosmik operation here? Do you know?" "The director's name is Melanie Truscott. I don't know anything about her. She's not very popular with Henry." "I don't suppose she would be. Where's her headquarters?" "Just a minute." He turned aside, spoke to someone.
"They've got an orbiter. It answers to Kosmik Station."
Suspicion filled his eyes. "Why do you ask?" "Curiosity. I'll be down in a few hours." "Hutch," he said, "don't get involved in this. Okay?" "I am involved, Richard."
A wispy ring circled Quraqua. It was visible only when sunlight struck it at a given angle. Then it glowed with the transient beauty of a rainbow. The ring was in fact composed primarily of ice, and it was not a natural feature. Its components had been brought in—were still gliding in—from the rings of the gas giant Bellatrix V. Several Kosmik tugs had gone out there, extracted chunks of ice, and launched them toward Quraqua. These were "snowballs." They were intercepted, herded by other tugs, and placed in orbit, where they would be used to provide additional water for the planet. At zero hour, Kosmik would melt the caps, and slice the snowballs into confetti, and start them down. Estimates indicated it would rain on Quraqua for six years. Terrestrial forms would be seeded, and if all went well, a new ecology would take hold. Within five decades the first human set-tiers could claim a world that would be, if not a garden, at least manageable. Wink's sensors counted more than a thousand of the icy bodies already in orbit, and two more approaching.
Hutch had been around bureaucracies enough to know that the fifty-year figure was optimistic. She suspected there'd be no one here for a century. And she thought of a remark attributed to Caseway: "It is now a race between our greenhouse on Earth and the greenhouse on Quraqua."
Wink had entered orbit.
The world looked gray and unpromising.
Who would have believed that the second Earth would be so hard to find? That in all those light-years there would be so little? Pinnacle's gravity was too extreme, Nok was already home to an intelligent race from whom humans kept their existence a closely guarded secret. And one other habitable world she'd heard about circled an unstable star. Other than those, there had been nothing.
The search would go on. Meanwhile, this cold, bitter place was all they had.
Kosmik Station was a bright star in the southern skies. It was a scaled-down version of IMAC, the terrestrial space station, twin wheels rotating in opposite directions, joined by a network of struts, the whole connected to a thick hub.
Its lights were pale in the planetary glow. A utility vehicle drifted toward it.
She ran Melanie Truscott's name through the computer.
b. Dayton, Ohio. December 11, 2161
Married Hart Brinker, then account executive with banking firm Caswell & Simms, 2183. Marriage not renewed, 2188. No issue.
B.S., Astronomy, Wesleyan, 2182; M.S. and Ph.D., Plan-etary Engineering, University of Virginia, 2184 and 2186 respectively.
Instructor, UV, 2185-88
Lobbyist for various environmental causes, 2188-92
Northwestern Regional Commissioner, Dept. of the Interior, North American Union, 2192-93
Nuclear Power Liaison to UW, 2193-95
2195-97: Gained reputation as chief planner for the {partially] successful North African and Amazon basin reclamation projects.
Consultant to numerous environmental causes, and to Kosmik, 2197-99.
Has written extensively on greenhouse, and changing climatic conditions in the oceans. Longtime advocate of population reduction by government decree.
Arrested on four occasions for protesting wetland and endangered species policies.
The remarks section revealed that Truscott was a member of numerous professional organizations. Still active with the International Forest Reclamation Project, the Earth Foundation, and Interworld.
Once intervened in an attack by a gang of toughs on an elderly man in Newark. Was knifed in the process. Took a gun from one gang member and shot him dead.
During the Denver earthquake of 88, she'd directed traffic out of a collapsing theater.
No shy flower here.
Hutch brought up Truscott's image: she was tall, with a high forehead, and laser eyes. Dark brown hair and lush complexion. She might still be described as attractive, but she had somewhere acquired a hard edge. Accustomed to command. Nevertheless she looked like a woman who knew how to have a good time. More significant, Hutch could see no give in her.
She sighed and opened a channel to the orbiter. The screen cleared to the Kosmik emblem, the torch of knowledge within a planetary ring. Then a beefy, bearded man gazed at her. "Kosmik Station," he said. "What do you want, WinckelmannT'
He was big-bellied, gruff. The sleeves of a loud green shirt were rolled to his forearms. His eyes were small and hard, and they locked on her. He radiated boredom.
"I thought you might like to know I'm in the area." She kept her voice level. "If you have ships operating nearby, I'd appreciate a schedule."
He appraised her with cool disdain. "I'll see to it."
"I have commencement of blasting Friday, ten hundred hours Temple time." She used the word «blasting» sweetly, suspecting it would irritate the beefy man, for whom the correct terminology was surgery. "Confirm, please."
"That is correct, Winckelmann. There has been no change." He glanced aside, and nodded. "The director wants to speak with you. I'm going to patch you through."
Hutch mustered her most amicable smile. "Nice talking to you."
His expression hardened. The man lived very close to the surface. No deep contemplative waters.
His image gave way to a Melanie Truscott who looked somewhat older than the pictures Hutchins had seen. This Truscott was not so well-pressed, not quite so imperial. "Glad you're here, Winckelmann." She smiled pleasantly, but it was a smile that came down from a considerable height. "You're—?"
"— Priscilla Hutchins. Ship's captain."
"Good to meet you, Priscilla." The older woman's tone was casual. "Do you have any objection if I record the conversation?"