“Good!” Eberly shot to his feet and extended his hand across the desk. Timoshenko took it in his thick-fingered hand, careful not to grasp too tightly.
“I’ll tell Aaronson about it,” Eberly said, smiling broadly. “He’ll be relieved.”
Another drone, Timoshenko thought, as he left Eberly’s office.
As his office door closed behind the engineer, Eberly thought happily, That ought to keep him out of my hair. He’ll be too busy with exterior maintenance to bother me, and the job’s not so big or glamorous that it will draw attention to him. Aaronson can concentrate on these niggling little complaints so things will be running smoother as we come up to the election. Good!
As he left the administration building and stepped into the morning sunlight, Timoshenko thought, Maybe he wants to get rid of me. Maybe he thinks I’ll get myself killed outside. It could happen.
Holly heard light footsteps padding down the corridor around the corner. Must be Manny, she thought. But then they stopped.
Stepping into the main corridor, she saw Gaeta peering at a wall screen map, tracing a finger across its screen.
“Manny, here we are,” she called.
Gaeta trotted to the two women. “I got lost,” he admitted sheepishly.
“I would have, too,” said Wunderly, “if it weren’t for Holly’s photographic memory.”
“At least I remember the combination,” Gaeta said, tapping on the keyboard lock.
The door popped slightly ajar and Gaeta swung it all the way back. The overhead lights came on automatically in the bare little room. Before them stood the excursion suit that Gaeta had used for many of his daredevil stunts. It loomed over the three humans like Frankenstein’s monster, like an inert robot, massive and intimidating.
“Hey amigo,” Gaeta said softly as he stepped up to it and slid a hand along one of its dimpled cermet forearms. “We’ve been through a lot, this suit and me,” he murmured. “A helluva lot.”
“Climbed Olympus Mons on Mars,” Wunderly said.
“And skiboarded down the reverse slope,” added Holly. “And surfed Jupiter’s cloud deck. And skydived through Venus’s clouds.”
“What was the toughest stunt you did?” Wunderly asked, her eyes glowing.
Gaeta didn’t hesitate an instant. “The solo trek across Mare Imbrium. For a while there I didn’t think I was going to make it.”
“And then you sailed through Saturn’s B ring,” said Wunderly.
“And then I retired,” Gaeta said firmly.
“As a stuntman.”
“But you kept the suit,” Holly pointed out. “Why? I mean if you’ve really retired, why not sell the suit to the highest bidder? Or give it to the Royal Museum or the Smithsonian or someplace?”
Gaeta pursed his lips before replying. “I don’t know. Sentimentalismo, I guess. Like I said, this suit and I have been through a lot.”
“Would you consider going through the rings again?” Wunderly asked, all in a rush, as if afraid that if she hesitated the words wouldn’t come out.
Gaeta stared at her. “Is that what this is all about? You want me to dive through those fregado rings again?”
“Would you?”
He shook his head. “That stunt’s been done. The second time isn’t news anymore.”
“Not as a stunt,” Wunderly said. “As part of a scientific investigation this time.”
Gaeta took a deep breath and let it out slowly. He had slept with both these women and they both knew it.
At last he answered, “Couldn’t do it even if I wanted to, Nadia. You’d need more than me and the suit. Fritz and the rest of my tech team are back on Earth looking for a new guy to be their stunt gorilla.”
“We have technicians here,” Holly said. “Engineers, too. We could put together a team for you.”
Gaeta shook his head. “You can’t cobble together a group of people just like that. It took years for Fritz and me to work out everything. You’ve got be able to trust your techies when you put your life on the line.”
“But it’s for science,” Wunderly pleaded. “We can train a team for you. You can pick whoever you want.”
“Nope. I’m retired. I’ve found the life I want, with the woman I want. I’m not gonna risk that.”
Nadia’s face flushed and Gaeta realized he’d made a mistake, mentioning Kris. I’m gonna hear more about this, he knew. A lot more.
28 December 2095: Urbain’s office
It was a small office, barely large enough for the stylish teak desk with its built-in computer and phone console. Urbain had locked himself in and cranked the reclinable chair back almost as far as it could go. He needed a few hours of quiet, with no disturbances. He needed time to clear his mind and think.
The situation was maddening. All the telemetry data shows that Titan Alpha is performing normally, except for the sensor data uplink. Is something wrong with the uplink antenna? No, that couldn’t be; the telemetry data show the antenna is undamaged. Habib and his computer people believe there might be a bug in the software. Or could it be something else, something we haven’t thought of yet?
He leaned back in the softly yielding chair and stared at the ceiling. The ceiling stared back, smooth and blank. No help there, Urbain thought. His entire staff of engineers was running through every possible permutation in Alpha’s programming, with the scientists leaning over their shoulders and making fifty suggestions per minute. At this rate, he thought, one of the engineers is going to attack one of the scientists and I’ll have a brawl on my hands. How Eberly will enjoy that! I’ll be humiliated all over again.
Urbain snapped forward in his chair and told the computer to display the satellite’s view of Alpha’s landing site. The opposite wall of the office seemed to disappear, replaced by a real-time view of Titan’s murky, orange-tinted clouds.
“Infrared view,” he commanded.
The clouds vanished and he could see the rugged, broken surface of Titan and the lopsided shape of the Lazy H Sea.
“Locate Alpha.”
A pinpoint of red light began to blink on the shore of the frozen sea.
“Maximum magnification.”
The view zoomed in, but stopped well short of allowing him to see the lander. The cameras’ resolution is fifty meters at the altitude of the synchronous satellite, Urbain recited to himself. We need satellites in lower orbits. He knew it would take a fleet of at least six satellites to keep the landing site under constant observation. This one bird in synchronous orbit was too far away to be of real value. Besides, it was eating up fuel to remain on station; the perturbations jostling it out of position were severe.
Everything works except the sensor uplink, he repeated to himself. Why? Why?
Then he thought, If everything else works, why not try to use that? Perhaps we can correct the defect by putting Alpha to work. Wake her from her slumber.
A sudden burst of hope shot through Urbain. He practically jumped to his feet and strode out of his office, heading for the control center, straightening his ascot and buttoning his jacket as he walked.
The center had the dreary feel of a mortuary. All the consoles were manned, as they should have been, although he did not recognize many of the faces. Volunteers, donating their free time to keep the consoles manned twenty-four hours a day. Volunteer or regular staff, they were all sitting morosely at their places, staring idly at their display screens or clicking listlessly through routines they had already performed a hundred times before. The ceiling lights were on; the room looked bright enough. Yet there was no spark of vitality in the chamber, no animation among the men and women, no chatter back and forth. The only sounds he heard were the background hum of electrical equipment and the soft hiss of air from the grills set high in the walls. No one spoke. No one even looked up as he entered the control center. They were depressed, frustrated, merely going through the motions of working.