“Each plane will have to carry an iron cow and a small plastics plant.”

“It’s still a hell of a lot to ask.”

“I’ll also guarantee that a rescue mission will set out as soon as I get back.”

“If you get back.”

A dark thought crossed Garamond’s mind. “How about you, Cliff? Are you coming with me?”

“I’m coming with you. All I’m trying to do is make you realize there’s more to this than finding the right engineering approach.”

“I realize that already, but right now I’ve got all the human problems I can handle.”

“Others have wives and families they want to get back to.”

“That’s the point — I haven’t.”

“But…” “How long do you think Aileen and Chris will survive after I’m presumed dead? A week? A day?” Garamond forced himself to speak steadily, despite the grief which kept up a steady thundering inside his head. “The only reason I’m going back is that I have to kill Liz Lindstrom.”

Although it had been equipped and powered to carry out one emergency landing on the surface of a planet, the Bissendorf was in a supremely unnatural condition when beached with its longitudinal axis at right angles to the pull of gravity. The interior layout was based on the assumption that, except during short spells of weightlessness, there would be acceleration or retardation which would enable the crew to regard the prow as pointing ‘upwards’ and to walk normally on all its levels. Now the multitudinous floors of the vessel had become vertical walls to which were attached, in surrealistic attitudes, clusters of consoles, pedestals, desks, chairs, lockers, beds, tables and several hundred machines of varying types and capabilities. Because design allowance had been made for periods of free-fall — most small items, including paperwork, were magnetically or physically clamped in position — very little material had fallen to the lowermost side of the hull, but many of the ship’s resources could not be tapped until key areas were properly orientated to the ground.

Teams of forcemasters using valency cutters and custom-built derricks began slicing the Bissendorf’s structure into manageable sections and rotating them to horizontal positions. The work was slowed down by the need to sever and reconnect power channels, but within a week the cylinder of the central hull had been largely converted into a cluster of low circular or wedge-shaped buildings. Each was roofed with a plastic diaphragm and linked by cable to power sources on the ground or within the butchered ship. The entire complex was surrounded by an umbra of tents and extemporized plastic sheds which gave it the appearance of an army encampment.

Garamond had placed maximum priority on the design and workshop facilities which were to create his aircraft, and the work was advancing with a speed which would have been impossible even a century earlier. The assembly line was already visible as nine sets of landing skids surmounted by the sketchy cruciforms of the basic airframes.

After weighing all considerations, the computers from the spaceship had decreed that the stressed-skin principle of aircraft construction, universal to aviation, should be abandoned in favour of the frame-and-fabric techniques employed in the Wright Brothers era. This permitted most of the high technology and engineering subtlety to be concentrated in a dozen pieces of alloy per ship, and the tape-controlled radiation millers hewed these from fresh billets in less than a day. The plastic skinning could then be carried out to the standards of a good quality furniture shop, and the engines — standard magnetic pulse prime movers — fitted straight from the shelf. It was the availability of engines, of which there were twenty-one in the Bissendorf’s inventory, which had been the main parameter in deciding upon a fleet of nine twin-engined ships which would set out upon the journey with three powerplants in reserve.

Garamond, sitting alone in the prismatic twilight at the entrance to his tent, was halfway through a bottle of whisky when he heard someone approaching. The nights never became truly dark under the striped canopy of Orbitsville’s sky, and he was able to recognize the compact figure of Denise Serra while she was still some distance away. His annoyance at being disturbed faded somewhat but he sat perfectly still, making no sign of welcome. The whisky was his guarantee of sleep and to bring about the desired effect it had to be taken in precise rhythmic doses, with no interruptions to the ritual. Denise reached the tent, stood without speaking for a moment while she assessed his mood, then sat in the grass at the opposite side of the entrance. Appreciating her silence, Garamond waited till his instincts prompted him to take another measure of the spirit’s cool fire. He raised the bottle to his lips.

“Drinking that can’t be good for you,” Denise said.

“On the contrary — it’s very good for me.”

“I never got to like whisky. Especially the stuff Burton makes.”

Garamond took his slightly delayed drink. “It’s all right if you know how to use it.”

“Use it? Aren’t you supposed to enjoy it?”

“It’s more important to me to know how to use it.”

She sighed. “I’m sorry. I’ve heard about your wife being…”

“What did you want, Denise?”

“A child, I think.”

Garamond knew himself to have been rendered emotionally sterile by despair for his family, but he still retained enough contact with the mainstream of humanity to feel obliged to cap his bottle and set it aside.

“It’s a bad time,” he said.

“I know, but that’s the way I feel. It must be this place. It must be the Orbitsville syndrome that Cliff keeps talking about. We’re here, and it’s all around us, for ever, and things I used to think important now seem trivial. And, for the first time in my life, I want a child.”

Garamond stared at the girl through the veils of soft blue air, and a part of his mind — despite the pounding chaos of the rest — was intensely aware of her. It was difficult to pick out a single special attribute of Denise Serra, but the overall effect was right. She was a neat, complete package of femininity, intelligence and warmth, and he felt ashamed of having nothing to offer her.

“It’s still a bad time,” he repeated.

“I know. We all know that, but some of the other women are drinking untreated water. It’s only a matter of time till they become pregnant.” Her eyes watched him steadily and he remembered how, in that previous existence, it had given him pleasure to look at her.

“Haven’t you already got a partner, Denise?”

“You know I haven’t.”

That’s it into the open, he thought. For me to know that Denise Serra, among all the other female crew members, had no liaisons I would have to have been taking a special interest in her.

“I guess I did know.” Garamond hesitated. “Denise, I feel…” “Honoured?”

“I think that’s the word I would have used.”

“Say no more, Vance. I know what it means when somebody starts off by feeling honoured. I’ve done it myself.” She stood up in one easy movement.

Garamond tried for something less abrupt, and knew he was being clumsy. “Perhaps in a year, a few months…”

“The special unrepeatable offer will be closed before then,” Denise said with an uncharacteristic harshness in her voice. “Have you thought about what you’re going to do if we can’t get a bearing on Beachhead City, if your flight never gets off the ground?”

“I’m counting on your getting that bearing.”

“Don’t!” She turned quickly, walked away for a few paces, then came back and knelt close to him. “I’m sorry, Vance.”

“You haven’t done anything to apologize for.”

“I think I have. You see, we’ve pretty well solved the problem. Dennis O’Hagan didn’t want to say anything to you till he’d made a check on the math.”