“And you can apply the nanos to the suit after the man gets inside it and seals it up?” asked the other biologist, a pert, freckle-faced redhead.
“Yes, that’s the plan.”
“So there will be no contaminants on the suit’s exterior when he goes to Titan’s surface,” said Negroponte.
“That’s right,” Cardenas said tightly.
Urbain hiked his brows, lowered them, brushed his moustache with a fingertip, shrugged his shoulders. Finally he said, “Then we can proceed to decontaminate the suit just before he leaves on the mission.”
“The plan,” Cardenas said, “is to do the decontamination procedure in the transfer ship’s airlock, just before he goes down to Titan’s surface.”
Urbain nodded and said, “Very well. Thank you, Dr. Cardenas.”
Cardenas picked up her palmcomp and left Urbain’s office with nothing more than a terse farewell. As she walked out of the building and headed back through the morning sunlight toward her own lab, she thought, Manny’s going through with this. No matter what I’ve said, no matter how I’ve pleaded with him, he’s going through with it. Like a kid with a new toy. Like a man hooked on a narcotic drug. He’s obsessed with the idea of doing this mission. I’m playing second fiddle to this … this stunt he wants to do.
No, she told herself. It’s not just that he wants to do it. He needs to do it. There’s no way in heaven or hell that I can stop him. He’s going to go through with this even if it kills him.
I’ve got a rival, she realized. Until he gets past this mission, I’m not the most important thing in his life. What will he be like once he’s finished the stunt? Will he come back to me?
What if the stunt kills him? What will I do then?
“You heard the man,” Timoshenko said sourly, “we’re supposed to have this problem solved before election day.”
Habib looked up from his computer display. “Eberly? He said that?”
“At the last debate. He promised.”
Habib muttered, “A politician’s promise.”
Timoshenko had come to the computer center to witness the crucial test of Habib’s prediction scheme. If the man’s work was right, there should be a surge from Saturn’s magnetic field some time this morning. For his part, Timoshenko had increased the shielding on the superconducting wires that spanned the habitat’s outer shell and put in place a set of electronic backups that automatically shunted power when a surge caused dangerous voltage hikes in the habitat’s electrical circuitry.
“Well,” said Habib softly, “there’s nothing to do now except wait.”
Timoshenko did not enjoy waiting. He paced impatiently among the dozen men and women at their workstations, all of them bent over the work on their own screens and trying to ignore the Russian’s impatient footsteps clicking along the tiled floor. Hands clasped behind his back, face squinched into a dark scowl, Timoshenko paced and fidgeted, glanced at the wall clock, paced and fidgeted some more.
“Try to relax,” Habib said, looking up as Timoshenko reached his workstation. “You can’t force it to happen.”
“I know. I know.”
The minutes dragged by. Timoshenko thought of Eberly as he marched to and fro across the computer center. Eberly. The man had never spoken with Katrina. Never. Eberly’s whole story about Katrina joining him here had been nothing but a lie, a damned lie, a trick to get him to accept the job as chief of maintenance. Katrina would never come out here. Never. Why should she? Why would anyone leave Earth to come to join me in exile? She doesn’t want to be with me.
I’ll kill him, Timoshenko told himself. Sooner or later, I’ll kill Eberly and myself and everyone in this tin can of a Siberia. I’ll put an end to this misery once and for all.
“Try to relax,” Habib repeated.
You try, Timoshenko answered silently. But he stopped pacing and pulled up a little wheeled chair to sit next to Habib. Half a minute later he sprang to his feet and began pacing again.
“Shouldn’t you be in touch with your staff people?” Habib suggested mildly.
“No,” the Russian snapped. “Either the shielding works or it doesn’t. Either the automatic relays do their job properly or they don’t. My people have done their jobs. Now we wait for the real test.”
“You’re going to give yourself a heart attack,” Habib warned.
“My heart wouldn’t dare attack me.”
“But if you don’t—” The curve on Habib’s screen that displayed the intensity of Saturn’s magnetosphere began to kink visibly. “Wait. I think it’s coming.”
Timosheko raced back to the chair and plopped on it.
“Yes,” said Habib, pointing with a trembling finger. “It’s spiking rapidly.”
Timoshenko stared at the ragged curve. It rose, writhing like a thing alive, jagged peaks and small dips between them climbing, climbing.
“It’s a big one,” Habib murmured.
The intensity continued to climb for several minutes while the two men stared at the screen, hardly breathing. Then it began to go down again.
Habib blinked, then looked around. All the others were still bent over the screens as if nothing had happened.
“Nothing happened,” Timoshenko said.
Breaking into a huge grin, Habib said, “Yes! Exactly! We’ve just experienced a monster spike and nothing happened. No power outages. The lights didn’t even blink!”
Timoshenko yanked his palmcomp out of his pocket. “I’ll check with my staff. I need a full report—every circuit.”
As he pecked out the numbers on his handheld he realized that if there had been an outage anywhere his phone would be ringing. It worked, he told himself. We’ve learned how to prevent the outages.
And he knew that the same knowledge could be used to totally shut down all the electrical systems in the habitat, when he wanted to end it all.
Holly was surprised that Douglas Stavenger himself answered her call to Selene. She had heard earlier from George Ambrose, the chief administrator of the asteroidal miners’ headquarters at Ceres, who had confirmed that he’d communicated with Eberly.
“We’ll buy water ice from you blokes soon’s you can ship it to us,” Ambrose had said in response to Holly’s call. Since there was nearly an hour’s lag time in communications between Saturn and the Asteroid Belt, even at the speed of light, conversations were impossible. Holly called in the morning, Ambrose replied several hours later.
“You asked about the price your chief administrator quoted,” Ambrose had said, his shaggy, red-maned face filling Holly’s phone screen. “He was kinda vague about it, but I got the impression it’d be less’n half what it costs us now for squeezin’ water outta the carbonaceous rocks here in the Belt.”
Ambrose had rattled on for more than a quarter hour, then bid Holly farewell with a cheery, “You got any more questions, just zip ’em to me. I’ll be happy to deal with you blokes.”
Douglas Stavenger was completely different. Holly had sent her message to the chairman of Selene’s governing council. All day she had waited for a reply. She was getting ready for sleep when his return call came in.
Now she sat cross-legged on her bed while Stavenger spoke He looked much younger than Holly had expected, and his face seemed to be about the same skin tone as her own. He’s been the power-behind-the-throne at Selene for ages, Holly though How can he look so young? And handsome.
“I’m answering your query because the council doesn’t want to make a formal declaration as yet. Your Mr. Eberly made it clear that his inquiry was … well, not secret, exactly, but sensitive.”