Turning to Urbain, Eberly said, “Would you care to join this discussion, Dr. Urbain?”

The Quebecois got up from his chair and approached the platform, while Timoshenko sat unmoving, his arms still folded across his chest, his face still scowling.

“The rings are fragile,” Wunderly said earnestly. “If you start stealing tons of particles from them you might break them up.”

Eberly asked, “Dr. Urbain, is that true?”

Urbain’s face clouded momentarily. Then, with a little tug at his beard, he replied, “Yes, of course, if you continue to remove particles from the rings, at some point you will destabilize them. That is obvious.”

“How many tons of ice particles can we remove without destabilizing the rings?”

Urbain looked at Wunderly, then gave a Gallic shrug. “That is unknown.”

“I could calculate it,” Wunderly said.

“How many tons of ice are there in the rings?” Eberly probed.

Before Urbain could answer, Wunderly said, “A little over five times ten to the seventeenth metric tons.”

“Five times…” Eberly made a puzzled face. “That sounds like a lot, to me.”

Urbain said, “It is five with seventeen zeroes after it.”

“Five hundred thousand million million tons,” said Wunderly.

Eberly pretended to be amazed. “And you’re worried about our snitching a few hundred tons per year?”

A few snickering laughs rose from the crowd.

“But we don’t know what effect that would have on the ring dynamics,” Wunderly said, almost pleading.

Urbain added more forcefully, “You say a few hundred tons per year, but that number will grow.”

“Yes, but there’s five hundred thousand million million tons available,” said Eberly.

Nostrils flaring, Urbain said, “And once all of Canada was covered with trees. Where are they now? Once the oceans of Earth were filled with fish. Now even the plankton are dying. Once the jungles of Africa were home to the great apes. Today the only chimpanzees or gorillas in existence live in zoos.”

Turning to the audience, Eberly said in his strongest, most authoritative voice, “You can see why scientists must not be allowed to run this habitat. They care more for apes than they do for people. They want to keep five hundred thousand million million tons of water ice out of our hands, when just a tiny amount of that water could make all of us wealthy.”

Wunderly burst, “But we don’t know enough about the rings! At some point you could upset the ring dynamics so badly that they’ll all go crashing down into the planet!”

“And what would happen to any organisms living beneath the clouds?” Urbain added. “It would be an environmental catastrophe beyond imagining. Planetary genocide!”

Eberly shook his head. “By taking a hundred tons or so, out of five hundred thousand million million?”

“Yes,” Urbain snapped. “I will not allow it. The International Astronautical Authority will not allow it.”

“And how will they stop us?” Eberly snapped back. “We’re an independent entity. We don’t have to follow the dictates of the IAA or any other Earthbound authority.”

Turning again to the audience, he said, “I will establish our government as independent of all Earthbound restrictions. Just like Selene. Just like the mining communities in the Asteroid Belt. We will be our own masters! I promise you!”

The audience roared its approval. Urbain shook his head in bafflement. Tears sprang to Wunderly’s eyes.

PROFESSOR WILMOT’S QUARTERS

Instead of his usual evening’s entertainment, Wilmot watched the final rally. Eberly’s a rabble-rouser, nothing less, he thought. Mining the rings and making everyone rich. What an extraordinary idea. Ecologically unwise, perhaps, but the short-term gains will wipe out any fears of long-term problems.

The scientists are unhappy, of course. But what can they do? Eberly’s got this election sewed up. Timoshenko’s people will vote their pocketbooks and go for Eberly. So will a good many of the scientists, I wager.

He leaned back in his comfortable upholstered chair and watched the crowd boil up onto the platform and carry Eberly off on their shoulders, leaving Urbain, Timoshenko, and that pathetic little red-haired woman standing there like forlorn children.

Holly knew there was no exit from the utilities tunnel that opened directly into the apartment building where Professor Wilmot lived. Since she’d gone into hiding she’d been able to sneak into office buildings in the dead of night and use their lavatory facilities. She had even gone clothes shopping in the main warehouse without being detected. But now she would have to risk coming up into the village and scurrying along the streets of Athens in full view of the surveillance cameras atop the light poles.

How can I do that without being seen? she asked herself as she made her way along the tunnel. I need a disguise.

Or a diversion, she realized. She stopped and sat on the floor, thinking hard.

Tavalera walked for kilometers along the main utility tunnel running from Athens out under the orchards and farms and all the way to the endcap. No sign of Holly.

He passed a sturdy little maintenance robot swiveling back and forth across a small patch of the metal flooring, its vacuum cleaner buzzing angrily.

Tavalera stopped and watched the squat, square-shaped robot. From his weeks spent with the Maintenance Department, Tavalera knew that the robots patrolled these tunnels, programmed to clean any dust or leaks they found, or to call for human help if they came across something beyond their limited means of handling. There was some kind of crud at this one spot, Tavalera reasoned. He couldn’t see any dirt or an oil smear. Could it have been crumbs? Could Holly have been eating here?

He looked up and down the tunnel. The robot, satisfied that the area was now clean, trundled off toward the endcap, deftly maneuvering around Tavalera, its sensors alert for anything amiss.

“Holly!” Tavalera yelled, hoping she was close enough to hear him. No answer except the echo of his own voice bouncing down the tunnel.

Sitting side by side, Cardenas and Gaeta watched the rally, too, from the enforced confinement of her apartment.

“Mine the rings?” Cardenas gasped at the idea. “Nadia’s going to have a stroke over that.”

Gaeta made a grudging grunt. “I dunno. Maybe he’s onto something. Ten to the seventeenth is a big number.”

“But still…” Cardenas murmured.

“You know what the going price is for a ton of water?”

“I know it’s more precious than gold,” said Cardenas, “but that’s because the price of gold has collapsed since the rock rats started mining the asteroids.”

“Mining the rings.” Gaeta scratched at his jaw. “Might be a workable idea.”

“What are we going to do about Holly?” Cardenas asked, her voice suddenly sharp.

Gaeta said, “There’s not much we can do, is there? We’re stuck here.”

“For the time being.”

“So?”

“There’s the phone,” Cardenas said.

“Who do you want to call?”

“Who can help us? And help Holly?”

“Quien sabe?”

“What about Professor Wilmot?”

“He wasn’t at the rally,” said Gaeta.

“So he’s probably at home.”

Cardenas told the phone to call the professor. No image formed, but Wilmot’s cultured voice said, “I cannot speak with you at the moment. Please leave a message.”

Before Gaeta could say anything, Cardenas said, “Professor, this is Kris Cardenas. I’m concerned about Holly Lane. I’ve taken the liberty of accessing her dossier from the Earthside files, and it doesn’t match the dossier that Eberly claims is hers. There’s no record of mental illness or emotional instability. Something is definitely wrong here, and I’d like to discuss it with you as soon as possible.”

Once the phone light winked out, Gaeta said, “That’s assuming Eberly lets us out of here.”