He could see the return pod clearly now. The rain was washing that black snow off it.
“So I lied … to the computer … . Told it … what it wanted … to hear.”
Gaeta’s legs felt like lengths of lumber. He reached the return pod, half collapsed against it.
“Works … every time,” he panted. “Dumb computer … thinks I’m honest.”
A sledgehammer blow to his shoulder knocked him off his feet. “Gesoo!” Gaeta yelped. “That damned laser’s shooting at me!”
Timoshenko realized he’d been out in the space suit for nearly an hour. Doing what? he asked himself. What have you accomplished out here?
“I’ve been thinking,” he murmured. “Thinking. It’s good for a man to think. Think before you act.”
There is only one life you have the right to take, he decided. Your own.
He tossed away the remote controller that he’d been holding in his gloved hand. It went spinning off into the infinity of space. I’m not a mass murderer. I’m not a murderer at all. But suicide, that’s a different matter. That’s between nobody but me and myself.
He touched the safety catch that sealed his helmet to the torso of the hard suit. Open the catch, let out the air, and you’ll decompress in seconds. A bloody mess, but you’ll be dead. No more worries, no more regrets. Nothing but peace.
He fingered the catch. No more anything, he thought. Are you ready for that? Are you ready for death?
He was surprised to realize that he wasn’t. Despite everything, despite losing Katrina and his life on Earth, he was not ready to die. Damn Eberly! he snarled inwardly. He’s right! This habitat may be a prison but it’s a soft one. Life here can be good if you’ll just open your heart to it.
Life or death.
Can you build a life for yourself without Katrina? he asked himself. And answered, What have you been doing for the past two and a half years?
He looked out at the stars again, his back to Saturn and the habitat’s dark bulk. The stars stared back at him, unblinking, uncompromising. You can look Death in the face, he said to himself, but that’s close enough. Close enough. Life is too precious to throw away.
With a sigh he turned and began to pull himself along the buckyball tether back to the airlock.
The answer is life, Timoshenko realized. Choose life. You can always kill yourself if things get really intolerable. In the meantime, maybe I can make something of myself here. Maybe life can be worth living, after all.
Negroponte knocked softly on Urbain’s office door. When no one answered she rapped harder.
So much to tell him, she thought. But he’s so wrapped up with his Titan Alpha that nothing else matters to him.
Still no response.
“Dr. Urbain,” she called. “It’s Dr. Negroponte. I must speak to you. We’ve made an enormous discovery.”
Silence. She felt resentment simmering inside her. The pompous fool, she said to herself. So focused on that precious probe of his he doesn’t care if hell freezes over.
Angrily she slid the door open and strode into Urbain’s office. He sat slumped over his desk, his head in his arms, quite dead.
28 May 2096: Rebirth
Gaeta sank to his knees as another beam of intense green light flashed past him.
“The chingado laser’s shooting at me!” he repeated. Goddam plug must’ve worked loose out of the mounting, he added silently. He realized his left arm was flaming with pain. The life-support displays were going crazy. The suit had been penetrated and the automatic safety system had sealed off the whole arm.
Down on all fours in the soupy black muck, he found that he couldn’t put any weight on his left arm. Must’ve broke my friggin’ arm, he groaned to himself. He dragged himself behind the return pod’s bulk. Maybe the laser can’t see me back here, he hoped. But I gotta climb up into the rig before I can light off. The whole arm was numb now. He could feel the pressure cuff squeezing tightly on his shoulder but below that, the arm was frozen.
“What is your situation?” Fritz sounded testy, alarmed.
“Climbing into the return pod.”
It took a painful effort, with only one working arm. Even in the relatively light gravity of Titan, and with the servomotors amplifying his muscular strength, the suit was desperately heavy. Sweat popped out on Gaeta’s brow, stinging his eyes. He could feel cold perspiration soaking his coveralls.
“Habib has turned off the laser,” Fritz said. “The lander is accepting commands from the control center now.”
“Glad … to hear it.” Gaeta puffed, as he climbed into the pod and slid his boots into the slots on its flooring. It was like standing in an open coffin, narrow, confined. Through the spattering rain Gaeta could see Alpha, a squat blocky shape sitting on the mushy ground. It looked alien, completely out of place.
“Ready for launch,” Gaeta said, his shoulder flaming with agony, his breath rasping. Without waiting for Fritz to confirm it, he reached for the toggle switch that would ignite the rocket engine. “Initiating launch sequence,” he said, grateful that the switch was on the side of his good arm.
Pancho looked across the cramped bridge of the transfer vessel at Wanamaker. “We’re gonna have company in half an hour,” she said.
“Less,” Wanamaker replied. “Timeline calls for rendezvous twenty-three minutes after he lifts off.”
“Hairsplitter,” Pancho sniffed. “I know—”
“Ms. Lane,” von Helmholtz’s voice crackled from the comm speaker. “This is an emergency situation.”
“Don’t I know it,” Pancho snapped. Then she had to wait nearly twelve seconds, fidgeting nervously and staring at Wanamaker.
“Gaeta’s air tank is leaking badly,” von Helmholtz replied at last. “Down on Titan’s surface, under the heavy pressure of the atmosphere, the leak is bad enough. Once he launches and gets into the vacuum of space the tank will degas in seconds.”
“So he’ll be breathin’ the air inside his suit,” Pancho said. “How much time’s he got?”
Again the agonizing time lag.
“No more than fifteen minutes,” von Helmholtz answered at last. “Closer to ten.”
“We’ll hafta pick him up soon’s he pops up above the atmosphere,” Pancho said.
Wanamaker nodded once, then ducked out into the passageway that connected with the cargo bay. And the suit lockers, Pancho realized. Sure enough, Jake came back with a nanosuit in his arms and began unfolding it.
“Yes,” von Helmholtz said. “It is imperative that you capture him at the earliest possible moment—without endangering the rendezvous itself, of course.”
“Sure,” Pancho said cheerily. “Grab him quick but make sure we don’t miss him. No sweat.”
Wanamaker was pulling on the nanosuit. Pancho grinned at him and said, “Hurry up and take your time, that’s what that peckerwood wants.”
“Just like the Navy,” said Wanamaker. But the expression on his face was dead serious.
Standing in the coffinlike return pod, Gaeta thought that Berkowitz would want him to say something. But he had to conserve his air. Let ’em hear my heavy breathing, he decided. Zeke can fill in with all the commentary he wants.
The launch sequence for the pod was only thirty seconds long, yet it seemed like hours as Gaeta stood there, his arm as dead as a chunk of marble, chest heaving. Maybe the air tank’s already empty, he thought. He remembered that he’d switched off the computer’s voice. The computer control keypad was on the left side of the suit. I’m not gonna even try to move that arm, he told himself. Yet he tried to wiggle his fingers. A lance of pain shot up the arm.
Arm’s not completely dead yet, he told himself. That’s something. Now if the air holds out long enough … Why haven’t we lifted off? Maybe the launch sequencer’s malfunctioned, he thought. Or the rocket’s no-go. It’s more than thirty seconds now. Got to be. Maybe—