"Where in hell is that?" demanded Mac.

"The Misty Sea? Off the west coast. The rendezvous won't be far from here, really."

"Bottom line," pressed MacAllister. "Will it work?"

Surely Beekman's physicists knew what they were talking about. "Yes," Hutch said. "I'd guess it'll be tricky. But I think we'll get clear."

"Tricky?"

"The timing."

"When you say you think," said MacAllister, "it doesn't give me confidence."

"It's a long shot," said Kellie.

MacAllister was working hard to control his voice. "Okay," he said. "Now we're talking about being here a couple more days. What about this deterioration we keep hearing about? I mean, it's already a little weathery out there. How bad's it going to get? What's actually going to happen?"

"You really want the details?" asked Hutch.

"Of course." And then Mac's voice softened. "Please."

Everyone turned to look at her. "There've already been major quakes. Apparently none in this area yet. But there will be. And they'll get worse. Off the scale. We can look for chunks of land to be shoved as much as fifteen or twenty kilometers into the sky. There are going to be more volcanoes. Bigger and better. And giant storms." She paused momentarily and let them listen to the wind. "Higher tides than last night. Much higher. We'll have to find high ground somewhere. In three days, more or less, the atmosphere will get ripped away. We should be well away by then."

"That seems like a good idea."

"The oceans will go a few hours later.

"The outer crust will melt. That's tidal effects and volcanic activity, as I understand it. At that point the planet will seriously begin to come apart. They're figuring midnight Thursday or maybe a little later ship time, which is coincidentally about the same time here. Approximately forty hours later, the pieces will fall into Jerry and go splash."

"My God," said MacAllister. "There must be some way we can get off this goddam place. If the scoop doesn't work. Maybe we could get aloft, get swept off when the atmosphere goes, and then get picked up."

"Not possible," said Hutch.

"It's a chance." His eyes flashed angrily. "You sit here and keep telling us what won't work. What will?"

"It's not a chance," said Kellie. "Even if we did get tossed free without getting boiled, which wouldn't be very likely, there won't be anybody to pick us up."

MacAllister's breathing was becoming labored. "Why not?"

"Because the collision's going to put out a lot of energy. The neighborhood's going to explode like a small sun when things begin to happen. They're going to have to get the ships well clear before then."

"Speaking of which," added Hutch, "we ought to head for safer ground." She didn't like the way the area constantly bobbed and weaved.

MacAllister sighed. The endless supply of glib comments seemed finally exhausted. "You said Wendy's still looking for the capacitors. That means there's still a chance to find them, right?"

"There's a chance," Hutch said.

"Maybe we should go back and look ourselves," said Mac. "It's not as if we have any other pressing business." He sounded betrayed.

"We don't have working sensors," said Hutch.

"Which means," observed Nightingale, "that all we could do would be to spend our last hours mucking around hip-deep in the water. You really want to do that?" He gazed at MacAllister for a long moment, and then turned back to Hutch. "How the hell did we get into this, anyhow?"

They were casting about for someone to blame. Kellie hadn't revealed the details of their abortive attempt to retrieve the capacitors, Hutch was sure. But they felt resentful and frustrated, and they were scared. They'd certainly been listening during the salvage effort. They could not have missed Kellie's pleas. Hutch knew what that must have sounded like. Cowardly pilot blinks at the critical moment.

And she herself could not avoid thinking how easily things could have turned out differently. It had been only a matter of minutes. How many minutes had they squandered during the nine days of the march? If they'd left a little earlier one morning… Walked a bit later one night… Not stopped to poke into the chapel… If they'd left Nightingale and Mac sooner rather than later…

MacAllister turned a beaten gaze out the window. A wide stream gurgled past, tall green trees like nothing ever seen on Earth sparkled in the early-morning light, and a bright golden bird with red-streaked wings was walking around on the fuselage. The scene was idyllic. "Are we sure we can't ride this thing out of here? It doesn't seem as if it would hurt to try."

"We're sure. Essentially, what we've got is a rocket-assisted jet aircraft. The rockets are for maneuvering in zero gee, but they don't pack nearly enough punch to get us into orbit. We can use the spike to negate our weight, but only for a little while. A few minutes or so."

"So if we tried it…?"

"We'd probably get up to twelve, thirteen thousand meters, maybe a little higher. We'd have a couple of minutes to wave, and then we'd fall back. And incidentally, if we exhausted our lift capability in the effort, we'd have no way to land."

"I don't suppose," Mac persisted, "that one of the ships could come down to twelve thousand meters and pick us up?"

"No," said Kellie. "The superluminals can't navigate in the atmosphere."

"Nor the shuttles?"

"Nor the shuttles."

"So all we've got is the scoop."

"No." Kellie stared out at the rain. "Hutch is right: There's not much chance of finding the capacitors. But I don't think it would hurt to look. Maybe we'll get a break."

Hutch agreed, seeing no more useful way to spend the time, and Nightingale reversed his position and decided it was the only reasonable thing to do. Hutch engaged the spike and took off.

They sat quietly during the early minutes of the flight, as if by refusing to talk they could halt the passage of time and cling to these last hours. Nobody laughed anymore.

They were leaving the area of the bay when Hutch's commlink vibrated, Marcel calling. She put him on the allcom. "How are you folks holding up?" He sounded artificially cheerful. Marcel was a good guy and a competent captain, but she was discovering he was the world's worst actor.

MacAllister grumbled something she couldn't make out.

"We're okay," she said.

"I've a message for you."

"For me?" asked Hutch.

"For all of you. In fact, we have a lot of messages, thousands of them. The whole world is following this. And wishing you well."

"Nice to be at the center of attention," said MacAllister.

"Of course," he continued, "they're all at least two days old. The people sending them don't know about…"-he paused, trying to find a diplomatic way to phrase it-"… about losing the capacitors."

"You said there was one message specifically?"

"Two, actually."

"You want to read them?"

"First one's from the General Commissioner of the World Council. She says: We admire your bold effort to expand the limits of human knowledge and your willingness to embrace the hazards that inevitably accompany such undertakings. Be assured that all humankind joins me in praying for your safe return. Signed Sanjean Romanovska."

"Good," said MacAllister. "We'll all get monuments. Maybe even streets in Alexandria named after us."

"What else have you got?" asked Hutch.

"One from Gomez. It's for you."

"Read it," she said.

" 'Priscilla, I need not tell you that we here at the Academy are delighted that there will apparently be a happy ending to this unfortunate incident. You had us worried for a while. "

"Those of us down here," said MacAllister, "have been worried, too."

"What's the rest of it, Marcel?"

"It says, 'Now that you're out of danger, I want to ask you to take a look at the area designated Mt. Blue, where the base of the skyhook is reported to be located. It's essential that we know what happened on Deepsix. Where the advanced technology came from. I know it's asking a lot after what you've been through, but I know I can count on you. It's signed Irene."