“But the rings are—”

“Of secondary importance,” said Urbain.

“I was going to say, unique,” Wunderly finished.

“So are the life-forms on Titan.”

Wondering how to convince him, she said, “I wouldn’t need much time on the ’scope. An hour or so each day to compare—”

“An hour?” Urbain looked shocked. His trim little dark beard bristled. “Impossible.”

“But we should use this time as we approach the planet to do long-term studies of the ring dynamics. It’d be criminal not to.”

Nervously running a hand over his slicked-back hair, Urbain said, “Dr. Wunderly, this habitat will be in orbit around Saturn for many, many years. Indefinitely, in fact. You will have ample opportunity to study the dynamics of your rings.”

He almost sneered at those last words. Wunderly knew that behind her back the other scientists called her “the Lord of the Rings,” despite the gender inaccuracy.

She pulled out her trump card. “I thought that if we could study the rings during the months of our approach, do a synoptic study, a thorough one, then we could publish our findings before we established orbit around Saturn, before the university teams fly out to take over our research work. With your name as the lead investigator, of course.”

Instead of snatching at the bait she offered, Urbain stiffened even more at the mention of the university teams that would supercede him.

Visibly trembling, his face ashen, he said in a low, hard voice, “Every resource I have at my disposal will be used to study Titan. All my other staff personnel are working overtime, working nights as well as days, to complete the rover vehicle that we will send to Titan’s surface. That moon bears life! Unique forms of life. You are the only member of my staff who is not working on Titan, you and your precious rings! I leave you undisturbed to study them. Be grateful for that and don’t bother me again with demands that I cannot meet.”

The threat was hardly veiled, Wunderly realized. Leave him alone or he’ll put me to work on Titan, along with everybody else.

She pushed herself to her feet, feeling defeated, empty, helpless. And angry. The man’s fixated on almighty Titan, she grumbled to herself as she left Urbain’s office. He’s so doggone narrow-minded he could look through a keyhole with both eyes.

Precisely at 17:00 hours, Gaeta rapped once on the frame of Holly’s open door and stepped into her office.

“Quitting time,” he announced. “Come on, I’ve got something to show you.”

Despite her inner turmoil, Holly laughed and told her computer she was leaving for the day. The holographic image blinked once and winked off.

“What’s this all about?” Holly asked as she let him lead her out of the building.

“I thought you’d enjoy a good long look at where we’re going,” Gaeta said.

“Saturn?”

“Yeah. You can see it pretty easy now with the naked eye.”

“Really?”

He chuckled. “Just like I thought. You haven’t taken a peek at it, have you?”

“Not for a while,” Holly admitted.

He had a pair of electrobikes waiting outside the office building. Holly followed him, pedaling along the winding bike path across the park, through the orchard and farmlands, out toward the endcap. They left the bikes in racks that stood at the path’s terminus and headed up a narrow footpath, through flowering shrubbery and a few young trees.

“I’ll never get used to this,” Gaeta muttered.

“What?”

“The way gravity works in here. We’re walking uphill but it feels like we’re going downhill.”

Holly put on a superior air. “ ‘The habitat’s spin-induced gravity,’ ” she quoted from the orientation manual, “ ‘decreases as one approaches the habitat’s centerline.’ Which is what we’re doing now.”

“Yeah,” he said, sounding unconvinced.

At last they came to a small building with a single door marked TOENDCAP OBSERVATION UNIT. Inside, a flight of dimly lit metal stairs led downward. As their softboots padded quietly on the steel treads, Holly realized that it felt as if they were climbing up, not down.

“We’re not in Oz anymore,” Gaeta muttered as they made their way along the shadowy stairwell. His voice echoed slightly off the metal walls.

“Oz?” Holly asked.

“It’s an old story. I’ll get the vid beamed up from Earthside for you.”

Holly really didn’t understand what he was talking about. The stairs ended and they walked along a narrow passageway, a tunnel lined with pipes and conduits overhead and along both walls. Although the tunnel looked straight and level, it felt as if they were trudging up an incline. At last they reached a hatch markedendcap observation unit: use caution in entering. Gaeta tapped on the entry pad and the hatch sighed open.

An automated voice said, “Caution, please. You are about to enter a rotating enclosure. Please proceed with care.”

An open cubicle stood on the other side of the hatch. Its walls, floor, and ceiling were softly cushioned.

Gaeta laughed as they stepped in. “Great. They finally got me into a padded cell.”

“Rotation beginning,” announced the computerized voice.

Holly suddenly felt light-headed, almost woozy.

“It’s like an amusement park ride,” Gaeta said, grasping Holly around the waist.

The computer voice announced, “Ten seconds to hatch opening. Use caution, please.”

The padded wall they were facing slid open and Gaeta, still holding Holly by the waist, pulled her through. Holly gasped and forgot the slightly wobbly feeling in her legs. A million stars were spread across her view, hard unblinking pinpoints of light, the eyes of heaven staring back at her.

“Cosmic,” she breathed.

“That’s a good word for it,” Gaeta said in a hushed voice.

Then Holly realized that someone was already there in the dimly lit blister, her back to them, staring out at the stars. She looked short and stocky; in the muted light the color of her spiky hair was difficult to determine; Holly thought it might have been red.

The woman stirred as if coming out of a trance, turned slightly and whispered, “Hi.”

“Hello,” Holly whispered back. It was like being in a cathedral; nobody raised her voice.

Gaeta said softly, “This whole compartment counter-rotates against the habitat’s spin, so you can see everything without having it revolve all around you.”

Holly knew that from the orientation vids, but it didn’t matter. The sight of the universe spread out before her blotted everything else from her awareness. So many stars! she thought. Millions and zillions of them. Red stars, blue stars, big bright ones, smaller dimmer ones.

Gaeta leaned over her shoulder and pointed. “That blue one, there. That’s Earth.”

“And that bright yellow one?”

“Jupiter.”

“So where’s Saturn?” she asked.

The other woman pointed down toward the lower edge of the big curving window. “There.”

Holly stared at a bright pinkish star. No, not a star; she could see that it was a disk, flattened at the poles.

Then it hit her. “Where’s the rings? There’s no rings!”