"What did he say?" Gordon asked. "It is impossible after all?"

"Huh? No, as far as I know everything's fine. Last I heard they were talking details, but it didn't sound like anything was a showstopper."

"Then what is eating you?" Sherrine asked. "We're here! It's working!" Her expression didn't match her words. She looked almost as down as Alex did.

"It's--"

"Alex," Hudson called. "Your turn again."

"Yes, sir," Alex said. "Of course I can't tell without really inspecting the ship, but everything looks all right. Gary started the diesel compressor, and that works. We don't want to fire up the jet turbo expander until the hydrogen is flowing, but the unit's in place. I'd say it's just the way Hudson explained it, we make the fuel, steal an IMU, and go. About five days."

"All right," Hopkins said. "And meanwhile there's all that cargo." There was no video link but Alex could see Hopkins rubbing his hands together. "And the ship! The ship!--OK. Now for passengers. I'm told it seats four. I don't have to tell you that we don't really need more drones up here. Hudson's fine. Hudson's wonderful. Gordon's people will be very pleased to get him back. That's two. But then there's a problem."

"Problem, sir? I'm all right, I won't have to do any EVA on this--"

"You might, but that's not the difficulty." Commander Hopkins paused for a moment. "Major MacLeod, I'll come get you. But bring your own woman."

"Sir."

"We understand each other, MacLeod. Shall I get Mary in on this loop? I can, and I will if I have to."

"MacLeod, I wouldn't risk the fuel for you. You know that, I know that, Mary knows that. But you're bringing up treasure beyond price, and you'll have a new job up here, coordinating with our friends on the ground, because, although you don't seem to have noticed it, I have: that ship can land and take off again. We can send it back down for more supplies."

Son of a bitch, Alex thought. Of course it can. We were so concerned with getting up there--" Yes. I see that."

"So someone will coordinate with the ground people. You seem to understand them, and there's nothing else for you to do between flights, so it's you. Only I don't want you hanging around Mary while you do it. She's pregnant, you know."

"No. I didn't know."

"It may be yours. It's not mine."

"Shut up. I've been sterile since the Lunar reactor flared. I was impotent for a while, too. Now I'm still sterile, but I'm not impotent. And you will stay away from Mary. I want to be sure of that. Bring your own woman, MacLeod."

"So I'm in."

"Yes. Smile?"

Sherrine considered that. "I'll come, of course. But you get to tell Bob."

"Sherrine, there's room for five, or six, or whoever we have to take. It's a trade, passenger for cargo--"

"Sure."

"We'll get him aboard. But without you, I don't go. And I'm on record, I could live with that. Would you live with me on the ground? Marry me?"

"I'll come."

"Why aren't we smiling?"

Sherrine lunged. Alex thought the impact would knock him backward, but she caught her mass and his, too. What muscles she had! And she felt so good. Why hadn't they been doing this ever since Flagstaff? And she buried her face in his throat and said, "It's, I wanted, damn. Four seats. Would you have asked me anyway?"

"When I got up the nerve."

"Time was getting damn short, Alex! How long would you have waited?"

"Oh… just about thirty seconds too long, judging by past performance. But it's all right, right? Lonny Hopkins as Cupid." He pulled back to see her face. "It's not okay."

"It's okay," Sherrine said. "I'm tougher than you think."

CHAPTER NINETEEN

"Death Will Not Release You…"

Stakeout could be a peaceful, lazy, catch-up time. Arteria hadn't done stakeout in years. She played a box of cassettes from Books by Mail while she watched and waited.

Some science fiction was still approved. The box was labeled as "The Sheep Look Up" by John Brunner.

She had a perfect site, on a hill high above the old Rogers Dry Lake. Her binoculars and telescope camera lenses could see most of Thunder Ridge.

Vehicles came: vans and campers, six to ten passengers each. Numerous grocery bags went into the concrete buildings. Nothing heavy. The tanker trucks had vanished into a garage; they certainly hadn't come down the hill again. Vehicles came and went. Some stayed.

Lot of manpower there. What work would need all those hands? Most of it must be going on in the hangar. Meanwhile, a city of tents and campers was going up on the desert.

It had been like this in the days when the shuttle landed. Much larger crowds then, of course. Several square miles of Nature's own parking lot, with guides to set them in rows. Campers, tents, a line of huckster tent-booths selling food, drink, badges and patches, photos and paintings, commemorative mugs and T-shirts. At night, little coal fires, music, sometimes a whiff of marijuana; tiny parties and profound silences, while hundreds of thousands of people waited for dawn.

Everybody else always saw it first. Then there it was, nose pointed way down, the world's boxiest glider. You'd hear BooBoom, a double sonic boom from the nose and the awkward bulge at the tail.

Afterward the Air Force raked up their several square miles of garbage and ran a roller over the black spots where fires had been, and it was as if the crowds had never been.

Twenty to thirty of them, now; no more. No spacecraft would be landing tomorrow. Were they singing? Did they tell old stories? Lee Arteria the outsider, the watcher, watched and wondered what she was waiting for.

Wheep! Wheep! Wheep! Captain Lee Arteria tore off the fax sheet and spread it.

WE'RE HERE AT GEORGE AFB. TWO SQUADS AIR POLICE, TWO PILOTS, YOUR HELICOPTER AND ME. STANDING BY FOR ORDERS. COLONEL MURPHY WANTS TO KNOW WHERE THE HELL YOU ARE. I TOLD HIM YOU HAD A BIG CASE BUT I'D FIND OUT.

BILLINGS

Yeah. I'm going to have do something pretty quick or get off the pot. But when? By waiting she got license plates and photographs of conspirators: half a dozen cars and trucks with a dozen people--sensitive fannish faces on Thunder Ridge.

But what good was this doing? Especially now. One call, and the Air Police would surround the place. Her chopper would come. Imagine the consternation when she landed!

So far there were no decisions to make. The astronauts--she was quite certain that was who they were--had made no attempt to leave the base. Everyone else could be identified and tracked down.

So what are you waiting for, dear? Lee Arteria had always liked the chase better than the kill; but this was different, very different.

The motorcycle started, was coming down the hill now. Two people on it. The usual overweight bearded driver. No guitars. It was just dusk, not much light, and they were moving too fast for her to see the face of the rider, who was wearing a helmet anyway, but it clearly wasn't the thin older woman who usually rode back there.

There was a tool kit strapped to the luggage carrier. The motorcycle reached the bottom of the hill, but instead of turning north onto Rocket Site Road--on her new, map it was labeled Ecology Ruin Drive--the motorcycle turned west. That road led around Rogers Dry Lake and down to the south entrance of the base, into the area still guarded by the Air Force. What in the world would they be doing there? They'd need papers--

When the road turned southwest, the motorcycle continued due west. It passed just under Arteria's hill and continued out across the dry lake. Curiouser arid curiouser--