Heads bobbed up and down the table.
Then Fritz cleared his throat again, noisily.
“Herr von Helmholtz?” Urbain said. “You have a question?”
“A comment,” said Fritz. “A suggestion, actually. I believe this mission would benefit from another few weeks of training and simulation runs.”
“Another few weeks?”
“We have had less than ten days to prepare for this mission. It is a complicated mission, involving a high degree of risk for our man.”
“That’s what I get paid for, Fritz,” Gaeta said.
Ignoring him, Fritz went on, “In addition, our man will be on the surface for only one hour. The mission objectives must be completed in one hour. That is … quite difficult.”
“I can do it,” Gaeta replied. “An hour’s plenty of time.”
Von Helmholtz arched a brow at Gaeta, then continued, “Failure of this mission would mean that your lander remains dead on Titan’s surface.”
“Asleep,” Urbain growled. “Not dead.”
Spreading his hands in a what’s the difference gesture, Fritz pointed out, “If this mission fails, your lander will remain silent and useless, with no possibility of reactivating it. It will be totally written off, will it not?”
Urbain’s mind was racing as he stared at von Helmholtz’s icy, hard-eyed face. We cannot postpone the mission, he said to himself. Wunderly has already reached Earth, she is already being honored for finding the creatures in the rings. We must rescue Alpha now, before Wunderly steals all the glory, before she meets with the Nobel committee.
He saw that all eyes were turned to him. Slowly, as if it took an effort to make the decision, Urbain replied, “It is vital that we reestablish communication with Alpha before the master program begins to dump the data that her sensors have accumulated. That is our most important task. Alpha carries a treasure of data about the conditions on Titan’s surface and the organisms that live there. We cannot risk losing that data by postponing this mission.”
“Even at the risk of a man’s life?” von Helmholtz insisted.
“That’s not a fair question, Fritz,” Gaeta said. “I’m the guy who’s taking the risk. We’ve worked out the mission plan. I’ll be okay.”
“You are willing to go without more training?” Urbain felt a flood of relief gushing through him.
“Yeah. Why the hell not?”
Gaeta grinned, coolly confident. Fritz scowled at him. Cardenas looked as if she wanted to clout somebody.
28 May 2096: Departure
Kris Cardenas woke from a troubled sleep to find Gaeta already up and dressing. She watched him for a sleep-fogged moment, then realized that this was the morning he would leave her for Titan.
She sat up, letting the bedsheet fall to her waist. Gaeta looked at her and grinned.
“Don’t try to get me back into bed, Kris,” he bantered. “I can’t take advantage of your luscious body ’til I get back.”
“You’re really going,” she murmured, knowing it sounded stupid as the words left her lips.
His grin faded. “I’m really going.”
“You don’t have to.”
“Hey, I got Fritz to round up a top crew and fly all the way out here. We got a contract with PanGlobal. I gotta go through with it.”
“Even if I ask you not to?”
He sat on the bed beside her and began to tug on his soft-boots. “Don’t make this into a competition, Kris.”
“Do it tomorrow,” she blurted. “Put it off for twenty-four hours.”
He shook his head slowly. “It’ll be the same deal tomorrow, kid. And you’ll be just as clanked up about it.”
She looked into his deep brown eyes and knew that if she put it on an either/or basis he would choose to do the mission and leave her waiting for him to return. And she knew she would wait. She would wait and worry and fear that he’d get killed but she would never leave him, even though he’d chosen danger and risk over her.
“I’ll be back tomorrow,” he said lightly. “In time for dinner, probably. Pick which restaurant you want to celebrate in.”
“I don’t want to lose you!”
He leaned over, grasping her by her bare shoulders, kissed her soundly. “You won’t lose me, kid. You can’t ever lose me. I’ll come back to you.”
She flung her arms around his neck and tried to hold back the tears that threatened to engulf her.
Gently, Gaeta disengaged from her and got to his feet. “I’ll be back, querida. Wait for me in bed.”
He turned and headed for the door. He slid it open, blew her a kiss, and then left her sitting in bed. Cardenas wanted to cry, but she couldn’t. He was gone. He had left her. The fear that she would never see him again was too terrifying for mere tears.
Gaeta’s cheerful grin disappeared once he left the apartment. He knew better than Cardenas the risks he was facing. He had tried to appear optimistic for her, but now, as he straddled one of the electrobikes racked in front of the white-walled apartment building and began pedaling through the bright morning sunshine, he started reviewing the details of the mission he faced.
Paragliding through the smoggy air of Titan onto the back of Urbain’s sleeping machine. Gaeta shook his head as he engaged the bike’s little electrical motor. Well, he thought, it’ll make a good experience for the VR audience. Not an easy assignment, though. Not easy at all.
By the time he reached the steel-walled chamber that fronted the airlock down at the habitat’s endcap, Pancho, Wanamaker, Fritz and his crew were already there. So was the news guy, Berkowitz.
“Our star performer is only fifteen minutes late,” said Fritz stiffly.
Gaeta sauntered past him and up to the excursion suit, towering like a monument to past glories over the team of technicians.
“C’mon, Fritz,” Gaeta said, “I know you. You built at least a half hour of slop into the schedule.”
Berkowitz had two minicams trundling along beside him on wheeled monopods, balancing like unicycles. He held a third camera in his hands.
“Any words for posterity before you climb into your suit?” he asked Gaeta.
Pancho called from across the chamber, “What’s posterity ever done for us?”
“I’ll have to edit that out,” Berkowitz said, his usual smile dimming a bit.
Gaeta said to the newsman, “This mission is a lot more than a stunt. My job is to try to revive Dr. Urbain’s probe down on the surface of Titan. I’m working for the scientists now.”
Berkowitz nodded and said, “Good enough. We can embellish it later.”
Fritz tapped Gaeta on the shoulder. “If you’re finished with your publicity, would it be too much to ask that you get into the suit?”
Gaeta made a mock bow. “I’d be happy to, old pal.”
Pancho and Wanamaker were already at the airlock hatch. “We’re going aboard the transfer craft,” Pancho said, as much to Berkowitz as to Fritz. “Gotta check out the bird and make sure it’s ready to go.”
Fritz nodded curtly.
Urbain had gone to his office before dawn. Too nervous to sit at his desk, though, he paced along the corridor that led to the mission control center. The technicians were filing in, one by one, and taking their places at their consoles.
“This will be the most important day of our lives,” Urbain told them.
They nodded half-heartedly and muttered agreement as they started to power up their consoles.
Urbain watched them, thinking, Wunderly has reached Earth and made her presentation to the ICU governing board. In another few days she will meet with the Nobel committee. I must have some solid results to show from Alpha by then. I can’t have her stealing the spotlight after all the work I’ve put into Alpha. My creature must begin to send us data from Titan. It must!