The knowledge that if the rocket were to turn bomb he would die instantaneously without realizing the fact had further reduced the awfulness of the seeming threat.
The shuttle in which Captain Milyukov intended to send him down to the surface of the new world was an entirely different proposition. It did not look solid, it had no wings and its shape was like no real or imaginary aircraft or spacecraft that Matthew had ever seen depicted. The teardrop-shaped chamber in which Milyukov proposed to stow Matthew and Solari— stowseeming the operative word, given the amount of cargo that was to be crammed in with them—was equipped with a conical shield at the base, made from some kind of organic material, but it was alarmingly thin. A long, slender and supple rod extended from the top of the chamber to a limp structure that looked more like a folded spiderweb than a parachute.
A sideways glance at Vince Solari told Matthew that the policeman was as dismayed as he was.
“It’s perfectly safe,” the captain assured him. “We haven’t lost a single life or sustained a serious injury during any of the drops. It’s disposable, of course—the only reason the shuttles you were used to looked so very different is that they were designed to go up and come back rather than simply going down. You’re a biologist, Professor Fleury—think of it as an extremely tough and extremely smart dandelion seed. It’ll float you down so gently you probably won’t even feel the bump. The method’s accurate to within a few hundred meters—it’ll put you down right on the doorstep of Base Three’s main bubble.”
It occurred to Matthew as he continued to stare at the vehicle that if all the would-be colonists and all their equipment had been landed by analogous means, the task of bringing them up again—were any such necessity ever to arise—would pose an entirely different technological challenge. Shen Chin Che must have made contingency plans for a planetary rescue, but it was not obvious that any such plan could be implemented unless the battle for control of Hope’s systems were won without inflicting any substantial damage. In any case, neither Konstantin Milyukov nor Shen Chin Che would have the slightest desire to implement such a plan in anything less than a disaster situation.
“I can’t see the TV cameras I asked for,” Matthew said, his brow still furrowed by uncertainty.
“We couldn’t fit them in,” Milyukov told him, blandly. “Oddly enough, Professor Delgado had made a similar request, so they would have been included in the cargo had the necessity not arisen of accommodating you and Inspector Solari. We had to make some difficult decisions as to what to hold over. Dr. Gwyer and Dr. Gherardesca were extremely insistent that materials for the boat they and Delgado were building had to be given priority. Your cameras will be included in the next consignment, I can assure you.”
“That might be too late,” Matthew objected. “If this boat that they’re building is going downriver to investigate the so-called grasslands I’ll be on board.”
“That’s your decision, of course,” Milyukov said. “Or theirs, of course.” His voice was silky, but he was making no effort whatsoever to conceal his hostility. Matthew knew that he was being punished, but he resented the childishness of Milyukov’s petty obstructions. He was distracted from his ire by Nita Brownell, who gave him the bag containing the last of the personal possessions that had been frozen down with him. His beltphone and notepad had already been returned to him, having been carefully checked out and upgraded by the crew’s engineers. The bag contained less utilitarian items of the kind that were precious precisely because they were superfluous. He had pictures of Alice and Michelle stored in his notepad, ready for display in any of a dozen different forms, but the solid images he had in the private pack were fragile, unique, and talismanic.
He could have clipped the bag to his belt, but he preferred to keep hold of it. It gave him something to do with his hands.
“We’ll need the cameras downriver,” Matthew told the captain. “Getting pictures through the canopy is a straightforward power problem, so they won’t be subject to the same restrictions as the flying eyes. If there are humanoids living there, however primitive their circumstances, it’ll be the most significant discovery ever made off Earth. Everybody will want to know about it. You have to let me have the cameras.”
“Perhaps we can arrange another drop before you go,” Milyukov said, making it perfectly obvious that his pretended cooperativeness was only pretended. “In the event of an emergency, of course, we could even deliver them directly to the grasslands—our targeting really is verygood. Perhaps we should find our wild geese beforewe attempt to take pictures of them.”
He doesn’t want me broadcasting, Matthew realized. He doesn’t want anyone broadcasting other than himself, but now that I’ve seen Shen I’m public enemy number two in his eyes—and he’s seen my old tapes. I bet he stalled Bernal’s requests too. But that’s proof of his own desperation. If his authority were secure, he wouldn’t be so fearful.
“Good luck,” the captain said—but he was looking at Vince Solari, and it was to the policeman that he extended his hand.
“Thanks,” Solari said, shaking it.
Matthew deliberately turned away, returning his attention to the narrow space into which he was being invited to climb. “What if I turn out to be claustrophobic?” he said to the doctor.
Nita Brownell peered through the airlock into the narrow crevice that was his allotted berth. “If your adrenaline level shoots up your IT will put you to sleep,” she informed him, unsympathetically. “You’ll be able to breathe normally, and quite easily.”
Matthew sighed. The cavity was, he supposed, loosely describable as a couch, but the loose festoons of silky material that almost filled the available space seemed ominous. The captain’s briefing had referred to the flight-preparation process as “cocooning,” but Matthew couldn’t help thinking about what happened to flies entangled and entrapped in spiderwebs.
“Reminds me of a body bag,” Solari murmured. He obviously came equipped with his own repertoire of disturbing analogies.
“There are more than a thousand people on the surface,” Milyukov put in. “They all went through this. Admittedly, you’re the first two to travel as a pair rather than a foursome, but that should make it even safer. The cargo’s perfectly secure.”
There was no reason to doubt the last assurance. Before it had been packed the cargo must have been an awkward jumble of irregular shapes, but now that it was in place it had all the compactness of an ingenious three-dimensional jigsaw. Everything that the people at Base Three needed to put the finishing touches to their riverboat was in there somewhere, along with scientific equipment, foodstuffs, biocontainment apparatus, specialized sursuits, and numerous unlabeled parcels whose content Matthew could not guess.
“Well,” Matthew muttered, in a voice so low that no one but Solari could hear him, “if Bernal was killed because someone has it in for ecological genomicists, I hope the killer didn’t have an opportunity to sabotage this thing.”
“Me too,” Solari echoed, presumably hoping that no one had it in for detectives either.
Matthew put procrastination aside and climbed in. Solari waited for him to wriggle into his slot and make himself comfortable before following. Matthew placed the personal possessions that he had brought with him across the gulf of time on his chest, but he made no effort to position them upon his beating heart. There was such a thing as taking symbolism too far.
As soon as Matthew had wedged himself into the crevice and stretched himself out at an angle of thirty degrees the smart spidersilk got to work, weaving itself into an elastic chrysalis. Matthew knew that he ought to be grateful for the protection, which was intended to keep him safe from impact effects even if the dandelion seed did come down a little too precipitately, but it was difficult. It was like being embraced by an amorous blanket of intelligent cotton wool.