This victory had encouraged them, but elsewhere the results were not so good; it appeared from some scattered survivors’ calls that a Red attack on the occupied physical plant in Lasswitz had destroyed it, and massively broached the tent, so that those who had not managed to get into secure buildings, or out into cars, had died. “What are they doing?” Nadia cried. But no one answered her. These groups were not returning her calls. And neither was Ann.
“I wish they would at least discuss their plans with the rest of us,” Nadia said fearfully. “We can’t let things spiral out of control, it’s too dangerous …”
Sax was pursing his lips, looking uneasy. They went to the commons to get some breakfast, and then some rest. Nadia had to force herself to eat. It was exactly a week since Sax’s first call, and she couldn’t recall anything she had eaten in that week. Indeed, on reflection she found she was ravenous. She began to shovel down scrambled eggs.
When they were almost done eating Sax leaned over and said, “You mentioned discussing plans.”
“What,” Nadia said, her fork stalled halfway to her face.
“Well, this incoming shuttle, with the security task force on board?”
“What about it?” After the flight over Kasei Vallis, she did not trust Sax to be rational; the fork in her hand began to tremble visibly.
He said, “Well, I have a plan. My group in Da Vinci thought of it, actually.”
Nadia tried to steady the fork. “Tell me.”
* * *
The rest of that day was a blur to Nadia, as she abandoned any attempt to rest, and tried to reach Red groups, and worked with Art drafting messages to Earth, and told Maya and Nirgal and the rest in Burroughs about Sax’s latest. It seemed that the pace of events, already accelerated, had caught gears with something spinning madly, and had now accelerated out of anyone’s control, leaving no time to eat or sleep or go to the bathroom. But all those things had to be done, and so she staggered down to the women’s room and took a long shower, then ate a spartan lunch of bread and cheese, and then stretched out on a couch and caught some sleep; but it was the kind of restless shallow sleep in which her mind continued to tick over, thinking fuzzy distorted thoughts about the events of the day, incorporating the voices there in the room with her. Nirgal and Jackie were not getting along; was this a problem for the rest of them?
Then she was up again, as exhausted as before. The people in the room were still talking about Jackie and Nirgal. Nadia went off to the bathroom, and then hunted for coffee.
Zeyk and Nazik and a large Arab contingent had arrived at Du Martheray while she was sleeping, and now Zeyk stuck his head into the kitchen: “Sax says the shuttle is about to arrive.”
Du Martheray was only six degrees north of the equator, and so they were well situated to see this particular aerobrakmg, which was going to happen just after sunset. The weather cooperated, and the sky was cloudless and very clear. The sun dropped, the eastern sky darkened, and the arch of colors above Syrtis to the west was a spectrum array, shading through yellow, orange, a narrow pale streak of green, teal blue, and indigo. Then the sun disappeared over the black hills, and the sky colors deepened and turned transparent, as if the dome of the sky had suddenly grown a hundred times larger.
And in the midst of this color, between the two evening stars, a third white star burst into being and shot up the sky, leaving a short straight contrail. This was the usual dramatic appearance that aerobraking continuous shuttles made as they burned into the upper atmosphere, almost as visible by day as by night. It on\y took about a minute for them to cross the sky from one horizon to the other, slow brilliant shooting stars.
But this time, when it was still high in the west, it got fainter and fainter, until it was no more than a faint star. And was gone.
Du Martheray’s observation room was crowded, and many exclaimed at this unprecedented sight, even though they had been warned. When it was completely gone Zeyk asked Sax to explain it for those of them who had not heard the full story. The orbital insertion window for aerobraking shuttles was narrow, Sax told them, just as it had been for the Arcs back in the beginning. There was very little room for error. So Sax’s technical group in Da Vinci Crater had equipped a rocket with a payload of metal bits — like a keg of scrap iron, he said — and they had shot it off a few hours before. The payload had exploded in the approaching shuttle’s MOI path just a few minutes before its arrival, casting the metal fragments in a band that was wide horizontally but harrow vertically. Orbital insertions were completely computer-controlled, of course, and so when the shuttle’s radar had identified the patch of debris, the AI navigating the shuttle had had very few options. Diving below the debris would have put the shuttle through thicker atmosphere, very likely burning it up; going through the debris would risk holing the heat shield, likewise burning it up. Shikata go. nai, then; given the risk levels programmed into it, the AI had had to abort the aerobraking run by flying above the debris, thus skipping back out of the atmosphere. Which meant the shuttle was still moving outward in the solar system at very near its top speed of 40,000 kilometers per hour.
“Do they have any way to slow down except aerobraking?” Zeyk asked Sax.
“Not really. That’s why they aerobrake.”
“So the shuttle is doomed?”
“Not necessarily. They can use another planet as a gravity handle to swing around, and come back here, or go back to Earth.”
“So they’re on their way to Jupiter?”
“Well, Jupiter is on the other side of the solar system right now.”
Zeyk was grinning. “They’re on their way to Saturn?”
“They may be able to pass very close to several asteroids sequentially,” Sax was saying, “and redirect their crash — their course.”
Zeyk laughed, and though Sax went on about course correction strategies, too many other people were talking for anyone to be able to hear him.
So they no longer had to worry about security reinforcements from Earth, at least not immediately. But Nadia thought that this fact might make the UNTA police in Burroughs feel trapped, and thus more dangerous to them. And at the same time, the Reds were continuing to move north of the city, which no doubt added to security’s trapped feeling. On the same night as the shuttle’s flyby, groups of Reds in armored cars completed their takeover of the dike. That meant they were fairly close to the Burroughs spaceport, which was located just ten kilometers northwest of the city.
Maya appeared on-screen, looking no different than she had before her great speech. “If the Reds take the spaceport,” she said to Nadia, “security will be trapped in Burroughs.”
“I know. That’s just what we don’t want. Especially now.”
“I know. Can’t you keep those people under control?”
“They’re not consulting me anymore.”
“I thought you were the great leader here.”
“I thought it was you,” Nadia snapped back.
Maya laughed, harsh and humorless.
Another report came in from Praxis, a package of Terran news programs that had been relayed off Vesta. Most of it was the latest information on the flood, and the disasters in Indonesia and in many other coastal areas, but there was some political news as well, including some instances of nationalization of metanat holdings by the militaries of some client countries in the Southern Club, which the Praxis analysts thought might indicate the beginnings of a revolt by governments against metanats. As for the mass demonstration in Burroughs, it had made the news in many countries, and was certainly a topic in government offices and boardrooms around the world. Switzerland had confirmed that it was establishing diplomatic relations with a Martian government “to be designated later,” as Art said with a grin. Praxis had done the same. The World Court had announced that it would consider the suit brought by the Dorsa Brevia Peaceful Neutral Coalition against UNTA — a suit dubbed “Mars vs. Terra” by the Terran media — as soon as possible. And the continuous shuttle had reported its missed insertion; apparently it planned to turn around in the asteroids. But Nadia found it extremely encouraging that none of these events were being treated as first-headline news on Earth, where the chaos caused by the flooding was still paramount in everyone’s attention. There were millions of refugees everywhere, and many of them in immediate need…