He saw abruptly that the fear of losing Alexandria had become part of him now. He had never recovered. With age, the fear of change seeped into him and blended with the losing of her. Nikka had now been with him longer than Alexandria had, and a mere hint of danger to her—

Nigel shook his head, letting the old, still-sharp images fade.

“Back with us?” Carlotta asked.

“I expect so,” he said unevenly.

Nikka studied him, understanding slowly coming into her face.

He said, “These things take a bit of time.”

Carlotta said, “I just won’t let you push her around.” She put her arms protectively around Nikka.

“Why does this conversation keep reminding me of the United Nations?”

“Well, it’s true.”

Nikka said to Carlotta, “Still, we each have some power over the other.”

“Not that kind.”

“All kinds,” Nigel said. “Thighs part before me like the Red Sea. Point is, what are the limits?”

“If I don’t stand up to you, you’ll just run right over her,” Carlotta said.

Nikka said mildly, “That depends on the circumstances.”

Nigel smiled. “I’m not the ambivalent type. ‘Do you always try to look on both sides of an issue, Mr. Walmsley?’ ‘Well, yes and no.’ Not my kind of thing.”

“Well, you’d better make it—”

“Oh, come on, you two. The crisis is past,” Nikka said.

“Indeed. Let’s eat. Get back to basics.”

Nikka said, “Some Red Sea later?”

“We’ll negotiate over dessert.”

Nine

The mission team deployed carefully around Satellite A. One-third stayed forty klicks away, with the heavy gear and comm packs. A third scouted the surface. They found nothing special, verified Fraser’s dating and cratering count, and reconned the entrance holes. The last third set up the recon machines, tested the dark openings for sensors and trip lines, and finally decided all was well. No murmur of electromagnetic life came from the holes; nothing responded to their elementary probings.

The machines went in, tentatively and quietly. They were blocked by a sealed passageway thirty-three meters inside the rocky crust. The robots were cramped in the passage as it narrowed down and could not find anything to free the seal. Two women went in to eyeball the situation. They attached monitors to the black ceramic seal and listened for acoustic signatures which might reveal a lock.

The crew standing near the edge of the entrance hole was listening to the two women discuss matters. They felt a slight percussion. At the same instant the two women stopped speaking, forever. Something blue and ice-white came out of the dark hole. A millisecond-stepped scan of the video readback showed only this blue-white fog, and then—next frame—the beginnings of an orange explosion among the three human figures standing nearest the hole. In two more frames the boiling orange had reached the video lens itself and transmission stopped.

The orange moved like a liquid, licking the surface of the satellite clean in seven milliseconds. A tongue of it leaped off the surface, at the point closest to the orbiting mission team. It projected eighteen klicks toward them and then lapped, straining in long fibers, for twenty-two milliseconds. The mission crew had by this time registered only a blur of motion on their monitors. Two-thirds of the crew—all that were on the satellite—were dead.

The orange fibers twisted, coiled, and all but one retracted, fading. One grew, stretched, and struck the mission craft a weakened blow. High-temperature plasma blinded sensors and pitted steel skins. A gigawatt of snapping, snarling death burst over the spider-limbed ships. More died.

The orange thing withdrew, withering and darkening and collapsing down in forty-two milliseconds to a guttering white glow at the entrance hole. The rock of the satellite was now a burnished brown. Within a further fraction of a second, all electromagnetic activity from the satellite ceased. There was no residual radioactivity. The twelve remaining crew members had not yet had time to turn their heads, to see the thing that had come and gone.

Jesus Christ did you

is overloaded I can’t see anything but ejecta

they’re just gone I said no sign anywhere

no there’s that debris, I’m picking it up now in IR but

god-awful, they’re all smashed up, all the modules in orbit, like squashed peas

the camp’s smeared all over the surface like something crushed it dammit launch the two now we’ll get a booster on and follow

the people in orbit, I can’t see much but ferget the others, only survivors are gonna be in the modules an’ not too blessed many a ’em either I’ll bet

Sylvano, I’m getting nothing on insuit for A14 to A36 inclusive, you overlay on that?

are we safe? safe? damn I dunno we’re two hunnert thousan’ klicks out maybe that’s enough distance but what else has that satellite got, answer me that an’ I’ll say

I never guaranteed pressure seals against whatever that orange was hell Stein measured a three kilo Torr jump in a couple millisec on an interior bulkhead, then all the instrumentation crapped out probably crushed ’em I’m sending the curves over now what you make of that

no, all their antennas are stripped, I can see that much, that’s why we can’t get

A14, A36 please respond

shit can’t pick up anything this range no dish

they’re tumbling anyway can’t aim the inboard rifle antenna at us even if look Nigel I tell you there’s no way I can find that out so get off my band and let me

lookit at here in the IR the whole side of module A burned away looks like see right there as it comes aroun’ into the light kind of brown and

Alex here, look I checked those insuit wavelengths and yeah I can tune the big dish for that we’re operational in that band if we pull in the lobes a little but you sure the ordinary link is out I mean you know I’m standing by on emergency so

of course it’s out cretin their antennas are gone if there’s any electronics active in their suits they’ll be broadcasting a Mayday with just sodding suit wiring and the only way to pick it up Alex at this range is through you

yeah Reynolds is moving as fast as he can I’d say ETA is four hours plus easy so

yes I well look I know and well fuck off Ted I bloody

look I got hey hold off a minute Nigel one minute I got from Nichols the suit ID and I’m online, reading now you can knock it off look there’s we’re getting it 2.16 gigahertz right, yeah, hope this right yeah there’s lines here, three, four, I count eight, sharpening them a little now, I can read off the IDs maybe straight from the scope face here just a sec

Nikka’s A27, Alex, that’s 2.39 gigahertz

you say 2.39 yeah Nigel got that one and 2.41

next to it they’re straight Maydays only 2.43 is out

and 2.45 too

how long do you think

Ted we’re under boost awready an’ ’at was damn fine for the conditions seems to me considerin’

I want to be sure you don’t walk into whatever happened to them, so you’ll have to take a slow approach, nothing too

okay putting us there in 2.68 hours, I make it a trajectory with Ra at our backs that’ll maybe be some help

reduce our visibility but we’ll have to maneuver y’know to reach all that debris it’s spreading out fast

Alex says that’s not necessary anymore. There are six no eight suits responding to our relayed medical interrogation and they’re in two capsules

Jesus eight out of how many was it thirty-six?

Yes, that’s why I want extreme caution, though God knows with that response time the crews couldn’t have done anything even if they had been armed, with no warning they