"What happened?"

"Don't know, Marcel. It must have been hit."

He willed the image away.

"Must have been a strike directly on the collar," said Drummond. "Or the supports. Everything collapsed."

"Thirteen minutes,"said the voice.

The AI warned Scolari and the others that Zwick was about to fire its engines. The process of slowing and eventually reversing Alpha's descent phase had begun.

It also informed them that communications with the other vessels had been reestablished.

XXXV

Survival in a crisis is often a matter of sheer good fortune. The good fortune may consist of the timely arrival of a platoon of Peacekeepers, of having a power source unexpectedly kick in, of sitting in the correct part of the aircraft. Most frequently, it is being with the right people.

— Gregory MacAllister, Spiritual Guidance forTentmakers

Hours to breakup (est): 10

"… not an unbeatable problem…" Marcel's image seemed to lose definition on-screen. He was still talking, but Hutch was no longer hearing him.

"… can still maybe ease your way in…"

She stared straight ahead, through the windscreen, into the ashen sky that went on forever. Off to her right, a huge pall of smoke trailed upward. A volcano, they were telling her. Behind her, somebody moved. But no one spoke.

"… bad luck, but we'll just have to work around it…"

She clung to the yoke as though it could save her. Move it forward, drop the flaps, the lander angled down. Nice, dependable physics.

"… still manage…"

She killed the sound, left him mouthing the words, staring at her with empty eyes. Curiously, she felt sorry for him. He had gone far beyond what anybody could have expected, and it had simply blown up at the last second.

A meteor strike. How could they have been so unlucky?

"What now?" asked MacAllister.

She could barely hear him.

"My God," breathed Nightingale.

"How about nosing our way in?" said Kellie. "We know there's an opening. All we have to do is find it."

"Yeah." Nightingale reached forward and squeezed her shoulder. "It doesn't sound all that hard."

She brought Marcel back. "You said the collar's collapsed. But it had lights. Can you still light it up?"

"Negative," he said. "There's no response from it."

"If we can find the collar, what's to stop us from just pushing our way in?"

"Not a thing. It's not exactly what we'd planned, but you might be able to do it. If it's not too badly tangled. It's hard to tell what the precise conditions are."

Might. If.

"Hell, Marcel, the plans are by the board." She stared at her instruments. "I hate to put it to you in these terms, but we don't have any place to land."

"I know."

"Am I still on course?"

"Yes, Hutch. Dead on."

Unhappy choice of phrase. She saw him cringe, realizing what he'd said, wishing he could recall it.

"There it is," said Kellie.

It was a long filmy garment descending out of the sky. She watched it come down, saw the winds sucking at it, twisting it, pushing it first one way and then another. That surprised her, at this altitude, and she grasped finally how light the construction material really was.

But the whole thing had collapsed. It wasn't just the ring. The support rails, which actually separated back from front and the sides from each other and consequently made the sack, were down, too. She could see them caught up in the linkage. One fell away as she watched. She tracked it down into the clouds below.

There was no sack to ease into.

"What are we going to do?" asked Nightingale, unable to keep the terror out of his voice. "What in God's name are we going to do?"

She would at that moment have taken pleasure in throwing him out of the spacecraft.

"You're coming in too fast," said Marcel. "Cut back ten klicks. No, twelve. Cut back twelve."

She eased off. And tried simultaneously to slow her heartbeat.

"Six minutes," Marcel told her. "It'll still be in the descent phase. At the very end. Just before it starts up again. You'll have not quite ninety seconds to get on board. Then the net will start back up."

"Can you give us a little more time?"

"Unfortunately not. If we try to do that, we'll lose control of the shaft. Won't be able to pull it out at all." He looked as if he felt additional justification was necessary. "Hutch, if we don't retract it on schedule, it'll go into the ocean."

She studied the sequence Marcel had given her. At the moment, two of the four superluminals were using their main engines to brake the descent. Over the next few minutes, that application of power would slow Alpha, bringing it briefly to a halt. Then it would start up.

She knew approximately where the opening should be, but she couldn't see it, could see only a jumbled mass of chain linkage. "Anybody see the collar? Marcel, is it facing us? Is it still on the east?"

"I can't tell, Hutch. Your picture is better than ours. The atmosphere's been raising hell with the scopes."

"I can't see anything," said Kellie. "It's a tangle."

"What do you think?" asked Marcel. "Can you do it?"

"It isn't going to work," said Kellie. "It's too screwed up. You won't be able to push into that."

"I agree," said Hutch.

"Hutch." Mac's voice went high. "We don't have anything else."

"Maybe we have." She took a deep breath. "Okay. Everybody relax. And here's what we're going to do."

Kellie's dark eyes met hers, and a message passed between them, a question. Hutch nodded.

Kellie opened the storage cabinets and started pulling out air tanks. She handed one to Nightingale.

"What's this for?" he asked, looking genuinely puzzled.

"Everybody into your e-suit," said Hutch.

"Why?" demanded Mac.

Hutch's voice was level. "We're going to abandon ship."

"Hutch," said Marcel, "slow down. Cut back six klicks."

Hutch complied. Her adrenaline was pumping, and she was trying to rush things. "How many tethers do we have?" she asked Kellie.

Kellie rummaged around in the cabinets. Hutch heard one of the e-suits "activate. Nightingale's.

"Two," said Kellie. She gave them to Mac and Nightingale, and showed them how to use the clips. "Just hook it on the web, and it'll lock."

"Hutch," said Nightingale. "Are you telling me we're going outside? We're going to jump?"

She nodded. "I can put you right next to the net, Randy. You can walk over."

"My God," he said.

Hutch turned back to Marcel. "How thick are the links in the net?"

"Narrow. Think of your index finger. Why do you ask?"

"I wanted to be sure our tethering clips would work. We're going to bail out."

"What? You can't do that, Hutch."

"Why not? Listen, it's our best chance, and I don't have time to argue."

Kellie cut two more pieces of cable and handed one to Hutch. Hutch pulled on her air tanks and activated her e-suit.

"Yours and Hutch's don't have clips," said Mac.

"We'll do fine," Hutch told him. "Now listen: When we get there, I'm going to lay this thing directly alongside. We're going to match its rate of descent, so the only thing you're going to have to do is lean out and grab hold. And climb on."

Nightingale had gone chalk white.

"It'll work, Randy. No reason it won't. Once you're across, clip yourself on. Okay? It'll look scary, but you'll be safe. When you're there, and tethered, you can relax and enjoy the ride."

She wanted to tell Nightingale they were going to be cutting things close, that there'd be no time to freeze in the airlock. But she restrained herself, knowing she might only cause the logjam she feared.

Kellie looked steadily at her. "Why don't you let me take the controls?"

Hutch shook her head. "Thanks," she said. "I got it."