Still…

“Thirty seconds to orbital insertion,” said the computer’s synthesized voice.

I know that, Nicholson replied silently. I can read the countdown clock as well as you, you pile of chips.

“Abrasion level rising,” Timoshenko called.

It was still within acceptable limits, the captain saw. Yet it was worrisome, despite her assurances.

“Ten seconds,” said the computer. “Nine … eight…”

Nicholson glanced up from her screens. The three men looked just as tense as she felt, all of them hunched over their consoles.

What if something breaks down? she asked herself. What could I do about it? What could anyone do?

“Three … two … one. Orbital insertion.”

The navigator looked up from his console, his worried frown replaced by a wide grin. “That’s it. We’re in orbit. On the nose, to five nines.”

Timoshenko called out, “The abrasion rate is decreasing rapidly.”

Nicholson allowed herself a tight grin. “Congratulations, gentlemen. We are now the forty-first moon of Saturn.”

Then she got up from her chair, noticing the perspiration that made her blouse stick to her back, flung her arms over her head and bellowed a wild, ear-splitting, “Yahoo!”

Like most of the other residents of the habitat, Manuel Gaeta watched the final orbital maneuver on his video. With Kris Cardenas beside him.

“It’s really gorgeous, isn’t it?” she murmured, staring at the image of Saturn with its bands of many hues swirling across the planet’s disc, and its rings hanging suspended above the equator, shining brilliantly in the light from the distant Sun, casting a deep shadow across the planet’s face.

The rings were tilting as they watched, almost as if they were coming up to meet the approaching habitat, becoming narrower and foreshortened with each passing second until they were nothing more than a knife edge slashing across Saturn’s bulging middle.stable orbit achieved: the words flashed out over the planet’s image. “That’s it,” Gaeta said. He turned and gave Cardenas a peck on the lips.

“We should do something to celebrate,” Cardenas said, without much enthusiasm.

“They’re going to have a big blowout right after Eberly’s installed in office,” Gaeta said, equally glum.

“I don’t feel like going out.”

“I know. Having those security mugs tracking us is a pain. Gimme a couple of beers and I’ll knock them both on their asses.”

“No you won’t,” Cardenas said firmly. “No alcohol for you. Tomorrow you’re going out to the rings.”

“Yeah. Tomorrow.”

Neither one of them mentioned it, but they both knew that after Gaeta’s stunt in Saturn’s ring system, he would be leaving the habitat and heading back to Earth.

INAUGURATION

“She’s got to be eliminated,” Morgenthau said firmly. “And the Cardenas woman, too.”

Eberly walked beside her at the head of the procession that wound along the central footpath of Athens down to the lakeside, where the inauguration ceremony would be held. Behind them, at a respectful few paces, strode the tall, long-limbed Kananga and Vyborg, looking like a hunchbacked gnome beside the Rwandan. Behind them marched several hundred of their supporters. Even though every member of the Security, Communications, and Human Resources Departments had been told to attend the inauguration, hardly half of their staffs had bothered to show up.

“Eliminated?” Eberly snapped, trying to hide the fear that was making his inside flutter. “You can’t eliminate someone of Cardenas’s stature. You’ll have investigators from Earth flying out here in torch ships to see what happened.”

Morgenthau cast him a sidelong glance. “Neutralized, then. I don’t want her working on those damnable nanomachines here.”

Without breaking stride, Eberly said, “You don’t want? Since when are you giving the orders here?”

“Since the very beginning. And don’t you forget it.”

“I’m the one being inaugurated,” Eberly said, with a bravado he did not truly feel. “I’m going to be installed as the leader of this community.”

“And you will do as I tell you,” Morgenthau countered, her voice flat and hard. “We know you tried to sell us out. You and your posse.” She broke into a low chuckle.

“That was a necessary tactical maneuver. I never had any intention—”

“Don’t add another lie to your sins. I could have you removed from this habitat and sent back to your prison cell in Vienna with just a single call back to Amsterdam.”

Eberly bit back the reply he wanted to make. They had reached the lakeside recreation area, where hundreds of chairs had been set in neat rows facing the band shell stage. A few dozen people were already seated there. Professor Wilmot sat alone up on the stage, looking somewhere between weary and bored. The band musicians that were lounging off at one side of the stage picked up their instruments and arranged themselves into a ragged semblance of order.

Eberly stopped at the edge of the last row of mostly empty chairs. Everything was as he had planned it. This was the moment he had worked for ever since that meeting in Schönbrunn Prison. He had planned out every detail of this inauguration ceremony. The only thing he could not control was the yawning indifference of the habitat’s people. That, and Morgenthau’s hardening attitude toward him. All the details are perfect, Eberly said to himself, but the day is an utter failure.

Turning to Morgenthau, he said, “You’ll have to walk three paces behind me.”

“Of course,” she said, with a knowing smile. “I know how to play the role of the subservient woman.”

Eberly took a deep breath. It’s going to be like this forever, he realized. She’s going to make my life a hell on wheels.

Outwardly, though, he appeared to smile and pull himself up to his full height. He hesitated at the last row of chairs until he caught the bandleader’s eye. With a nod, Eberly started marching down the central aisle between the empty chairs. Halfway between his second and third steps the band broke into a halfhearted rendition of “Hail to the Chief.”

Holly watched the inaugural ceremony from her own apartment, deeply uncertain about what her future had in store. Malcolm tried to go against Kananga and got nowehere. What will he do once he’s officially installed in office?

What will Kananga do?

Holly decided she couldn’t wait for them to make up their minds. She grabbed a few clothes, stuffed them into a tote bag, and headed for the door of her apartment. I’d better be where they can’t find me, she told herself, until I know what they’re really going to do.

Her phone buzzed. She put the bag down and pulled out the handheld.

Raoul Tavalera’s face appeared on the tiny screen. He looked bone-weary, disheveled.

“Holly? You okay?”

“I’m fine, Raoul,” she replied, nodding. “But I can’t really talk with you now.”

“I’m worried about you.”

“Oh, for…” Holly didn’t know what to say. She felt genuinely touched. “Raoul, you don’t have to worry about me. I can take of myself.”

“Against that Kananga guy and his goons?”

She hesitated. “You shouldn’t get yourself involved in this, Raoul. You could get into deep trouble.”

Even in the minuscule screen she could see the stubborn set of his jaw. “If you’re in trouble, I want to help.”

How to get rid of him without hurting his feelings? Holly blurted, “Raoul, you’re really a special guy. But I’ve got to run now. See you later.”

She clicked the phone off, tucked it back into her tote, picked up the bag and left her apartment. I don’t want to hurt him, she told herself. He’s too nifty to get himself tangled up in this mess.

There were only two security people following her as she walked down the empty path: a chunky-looking guy and a slim woman who was either Hispanic or Asian — it was hard for Holly to tell which, at the distance from which they followed her. Both wore black tunics and slacks, which made them stand out against the village’s white buildings like ink blots on a field of snow.