Embry had already been on the circuit with them. "Be especially careful with Hutchins," she said. "I think she's got a problem."

"Okay, Doc," said Frank. "We'll be careful."

They closed on the net.

"Get Hutchins first. Just pull up alongside her. I'll bring her in."

"You need help?" asked Frank.

"It wouldn't hurt."

The situation demanded a human pilot, so Frank looked around for a volunteer. He'd gotten the impression, from bits and pieces of things said, and from nonverbal clues, that Drummond didn't like the idea of going outside. Janet Hazelhurst caught his eyes and eased out of her chair. "Just tell me what to do," she said.

Drummond tried to look as if he'd been about to offer, but had been too late.

Hutch watched the lights coming. It was okay to relax. She closed her eyes and floated. The shuttle came alongside, and she could hear voices on the circuit. Somebody was cutting through the tether, taking her off the net.

The pain in her shoulder got worse. Now that she was safe.

Hatches closed somewhere. More lights appeared. Bright and then dim. Lowered voices. Pressure on the injured shoulder. Restraints. A sense of well-being flooding through her.

Somebody was telling her it was over, she was okay, nothing to worry about.

"Good," she said, not sure to whom she was speaking.

"You look all right, Skipper."

Skipper? She opened her eyes and tried to pierce the haze.

Embry.

"Hello, Embry. Nice to see you again." Randy was still there, off to the side, staying close. Then he became indistinct, as did Embry, the restraints, the voices, and the lights.

From Nicholson's bridge, Marcel directed the fleet of shuttles. They deployed near the Star and Zwick and cut them free of the shaft. At Beekman's suggestion, they salvaged six samples, each four meters long. Five were intended for research, and one would go on display at the Academy. At Nicholson's request a smaller piece was picked up and earmarked for exhibition on the Star.

Another shuttle approached the connecting plate and separated it from the net and from the stump of the Alpha shaft. It hovered momentarily while its occupants inspected the symbols engraved across its face. Then they cut it neatly into two pieces of equal size. Shortly thereafter, Wendy approached and took both pieces into her cargo hold.

The remaining fragments of Alpha, and the net, floated away into the dark.

Because time was pressing, no immediate attempt was made to return the captains to their respective ships. Miles, in fact, was retained as acting captain on Wendy. Hutch, of course, was in no condition to be sent back to Wildside. Guided from the bridge of the Star, the shuttles were taken into whichever bays were convenient, and, with little more than a day remaining before the collision, the fleet began to withdraw.

By then conditions on the planetary surface had become so turbulent that the orbiting vehicles were themselves at hazard. Marcel guessed that much of the data coming in from the probes had been lost after Wendy's communications went down. This assumption was confirmed by Miles. "They are not a happy group over here," he said.

Beekman sympathized. "You can't really blame them. Some of them have been preparing twenty years for this mission, and they lost a substantial piece of it." He gazed steadily at the banks of screens, which displayed views of the impending collision, taken from an array of satellites.

Marcel really didn't give a damn. He'd been through too much over the two weeks. He was tired and irritable, but they'd gotten Kel-lie and the others back, and that was all he cared about. Chiang Har-mon had died down there. One of Hutch's people had died, one of Nicholson's passengers, and one of his crew. One of Nicholson's pilots had died during the rescue. In the face of that, it was hard to work up too much regret that they had lost some details on the formation of high-pressure fronts during a planetary traffic accident. "We'll do better next time."

Beekman pursed his lips and looked thoughtful. "There'll be no next time. Probably not in the life span of the species."

Too bad, thought Marcel. But he didn't say anything.

It seemed as if the entire atmosphere of Deepsix had become one massive electrical storm. Blizzards swept the equatorial area, and giant hurricanes roared across the Coraggio and the Nirvana. A mountainous tide soared thousands of meters above nominal sea level. The range along the northern coast of Transitoria, which had held back the tides so long, vanished beneath the waters.

The worlds moved inexorably toward each other. But it was a mismatch, thought Hutch, a pebble falling into a pond.

She watched from her bed in the Star's dispensary. She'd required minor surgery for a torn muscle and a broken rib, and they didn't want her moving around for a bit. With his hands wrapped Randy sat off to one side, wearing a shoulder brace. Mac was off somewhere giving an interview; and Kellie was down getting some goodies at the snack bar.

Hutch's link chimed. Canyon's voice: "Hutch, I'll be down to see you later. Meantime, I thought you'd like to know we're a big hit back home. They're a couple days behind, of course. Last we heard, the whole world was listening while the tide broke through and got the whatchamacallits. They think you don't have a chance now. Wait till they see the finish. You guys will be celebrities when you get back."

"Nice to hear," grumbled Nightingale.

"Anyhow, our numbers are through the roof."

"Sounds as if you'll do pretty well yourself, Augie," said Hutch.

"Well, I can't see that it'll hurt my career any." His eyes literally Hashed. "Wait until they get to the lander!"

"Yeah," said Nightingale. "That sure was a hoot."

Canyon kept going: "Incidentally, you folks have acquired a sobriquet back home."

"I'm not sure I want to hear what it is," Hutch said.

"The Maleiva Four."

"By God," said Nightingale, "who thought that up? Magnificent, August. My compliments to the cliche unit."

When he was gone, she looked at Nightingale severely. "You were awfully hard on him. He means well."

"Yep. But he'd have been happier if we'd fallen off the goddam thing."

"Why do you think that?"

"Better story."

Mac came into the room, carrying flowers, which had been grown in the Star nurseries. He beamed down at Hutch and held them out to her. "You look good enough to have for lunch," he said.

She accepted a kiss and smelled the bouquet. They were yellow roses. "Gorgeous. Thanks, Mac."

"For the Golden Girl." He gazed at her. "What are they saying? The medical people?"

"They'll let me up tomorrow." She turned her attention back to Nightingale. "You," she said, "should ease up. Let people do their jobs and don't be such a.crank."

"I enjoy being a crank."

Roiling clouds of immense proportions billowed out of Maleiva Ill's atmosphere. Fireballs erupted and fell back. And erupted again. The entire black atmosphere seemed to be expanding, fountaining into the sky, a burning river beginning to flow toward the placid disk of the gas giant.

"Here it comes," said Mac.

Nightingale nodded. "Everything that's loose anywhere on Deep-six is being ripped out now and sent elsewhere." His voice was quiet. Resigned.

Mac shifted in his chair. "There's no point getting sentimental over a piece of real estate," he said.

Nightingale stared straight ahead. "I was thinking about the lights."

"The lights?" Hutch's brow furrowed.

"I don't think we told you. Forgot in all the rushing around. At Bad News Bay. We saw something out in the water. Signaled back and forth."

"A boat?"

"Don't know what it was."

Steam was pouring off Deepsix. Fire and lightning swirled across the vast expanse of its clouds.