Rob nodded. Things had been moving faster than he expected. On the trip from Earth he’d had time to look over the materials that Howard Anson had pulled together for him. They pointed to a bizarre conclusion, but to verify it he needed time. And opportunity. He had the right equipment with him, selected and loaded before he left Earth. But when would he find a chance to use it?
Regulo was watching him closely. “Problems, Rob?” The old eyes were keen.
“Just a lot on my mind. All the reports from the beanstalk are good, but I can’t stay away too long. Landing is scheduled six days from now.”
“Understood. But you don’t need to worry. I’ve been following the work from here. Merindo has everything ready to go at the ground end, and Hakluyt’s already up there with the powersat.”
“You’re more up-to-date than I am.” Rob frowned. “I missed that report from Merindo. It must have been sent as we were on final approach here. Did he reach target tether mass yet?”
“Past it. He has a twenty-percent margin.” Regulo was turning to leave the viewing room. “The beanstalk can’t be finished and operating soon enough for me. I just saw a forecast from Sycorax showing a near-term Earth shortage of titanium. There will be a shortfall of five million tons a month, and we’re the only ones with any chance of filling it. The assay of Lutetia shows billions of tons of the metal. If we can tap it out efficiently, and have a working beanstalk, we’ll be unbeatable.”
“Can you ship in time? Even if we can mine it, we’ll still have to live with the rules for cargo ship drives in the Inner System.”
“Right.” Regulo paused in the doorway, pale eyes hooded and inscrutable. “That’s a problem, no doubt about it. But let’s see how the tap goes before we worry.”
“When do you want to start?”
“The sooner, the better. Then you can be finished and out of here. Unless you have problems with the Spider, how about shooting for twenty-four hours from now? That will give you time to work, and time to rest as well.”
“I’ll be ready. I’ll go out to the Spider now and see what needs to be done.”
Regulo nodded and limped away, leaving Rob with the unpalatable arithmetic. Twenty-four hours would provide sixteen for work on the Spider, and the other eight for preparation, exploration and — if he were correct — action. Rest or sleep would have to go. But Rob always seemed to be squeezing such luxuries out of his crowded life.
A century of space experiments had only served to confirm the strength of the circadian rhythm. After attempts at twenty-, thirty- and forty-hour days, and almost every number in between, humankind had finally accepted the constraint. Every colony on the Moon and Mars, and every outpost of the USF through the Middle and Outer System, now worked from the same premise: a day was twenty-four hours; and in each place, one third of that period was accepted as a time of reduced activity.
Rob had finished his review of the Spider, which was functioning flawlessly. Now he waited quietly in his rooms at the edge of the living-sphere for the time when the rest of Atlantis slept. Then he could begin.
Anson’s Information Service had provided him with a number of important operating factors. Item: Joseph Morel was an insomniac, sleeping only a couple of hours a day. Implication: No time of the diurnal cycle was really safe for exploration of Atlantis.
Rob had noted the point, but it made no difference to the way he must proceed. Exploration would be done when most of the inhabitants of the living-sphere were asleep. Morel was simply an added and unavoidable risk.
Item: Only four appearances of Goblins had ever been recorded, and the geographical distribution of at least the most recent three was consistent with Atlantis as their point of origin.
Item: By every reasonable index, Caliban was intelligent. Further exploration of Atlantis via the aquasphere, unless Caliban could be eliminated from the picture, would be rash verging on insane.
Rob, remembering his earlier visit to the water-world, did not need Anson’s information to keep him clear of the aquasphere. His survival then, with Caliban patrolling, seemed more and more an accident of good luck. This time, Rob would work from within.
He went across to the window partition and stared out into the clear water. The lights had been dimmed, but he fancied he could see a faint new glow diffusing through the interior of Atlantis. As they moved closer to Lutetia, the white-hot asteroid served as a second sun. Rob looked for signs of Caliban but the great squid was busy elsewhere. He forced himself to sit quietly for another half hour, even though his instincts urged him to hurry.
At last he collected the small tools that he had brought with him from Earth, stowed them in a plastic bag that fitted in his shirt pocket, and set off through the darkened corridors of the inner sphere. At this hour, the living-sphere seemed deserted; but he was sure that each corridor contained its own cameras and viewing monitors. It was an unavoidable risk, one that he had not been able to plan around.
Soon he again reached the big room with its sealed metal door. Squatting down in front of it, he forced himself to wait another quarter hour. When nothing happened in that time, he stood up and drifted across to the heavy door.
The photo-cells were first, and easiest. They took less than five minutes. After they were de-activated he turned his attention to the door itself. The design was unfamiliar and expensive-looking, but it was clearly a magnetostriction lock. He had prepared for that, and for four other possibilities. In the silent gloom he took out delicate tools from their plastic cover and began to examine the seven locking seals.
His previous experiences on Atlantis had not been wasted. Although forcing an entrance to the room might have been easier, he wanted to leave no trace of his visit. The trick was subtlety, not violence.
It was work that called for analytical skill more than manual dexterity, otherwise Rob might not have succeeded. In the past few months he had badly neglected the exercises needed to keep his hands at maximum efficiency. His concentration on the complex lock design was broken only once, when his peripheral vision thought it caught the trace of a dark shadow sweeping across the window to his left. He went quickly across to the panel and looked out. There was nothing to be seen, and after a few seconds he went back to the door.
In thirty minutes he had worked out the probable schematic for the mechanism of the lock. Ten minutes more, and he was easing the tight-fitting door open.
He came into a room with no window to the aquasphere. Two doors stood at the far end, and from this distance they looked to have the same type of locks as the one that he had just opened. Rob recalled the geometry of the living-sphere. The door on the left would logically lead to the surgery and laboratory that he had seen on his earlier visit to the aquasphere; that on the right would lead to the room that he had previously glimpsed only through its open doorway.
Rob moved to the right-hand door and began work on its lock. It was a little more complex than the first one, but experience more than made up for that. In less than twenty minutes he was easing it back on its sliding fitting.
He glanced at his watch before he entered. Too slow. Almost three of the hours that he had allotted to exploration were gone. Hurrying, he returned his sensors and pick-locks to their case, slid the plastic cover into his pocket, and moved on into the next room.
Even before he could see anything in the gloom, he felt that he was in the presence of something alive. He paused. Within, all was dark and nearly silent, but when he stood absolutely still he could hear faint sounds of movement somewhere along the right-hand wall. More than that, the sweet, cloying smell of the air told his senses that he was not alone. To his left, as his eyes became accustomed to the darkness, he could see the faint outline of the door opening that led to the surgery. At the far end of the room was a second door, also open. A dim greenish light coming through that opening suggested that this room also possessed a window looking out onto the aquasphere.