"Irene?"

"That's what it says."

Back at the Academy, Irene Gomez could have fallen over Hutch in the corridor without knowing who she was. But it would be something for them to do. "Give us a minute," she told Marcel. Then she put him on hold. "What do you think?" she asked her companions.

"This isn't brain surgery," said MacAllister. "We have one chance to come out of this alive: find the capacitors. Maybe my vote shouldn't count. I can't say I care much what's on top of Mt. Blue. I think we should be concentrating on getting out of here. I mean, hell, they want to send us on another chase. I think we've had enough."

"Randy?"

He considered it. "Maybe Mac's right. Maybe we should take a look at the tower area first. If it seems hopeless, then we could make for the mountain."

Kellie shook her head. "I hate to be negative, but I've been there, at the tower, and I don't think we have much chance of finding anything. Those were big waves. God knows where the capacitors are now. But, on the other hand, I do know we won't find them on a moun-taintop."

Hutch reopened Marcel's channel. "We're going back to look for the capacitors."

"Okay. I can understand that."

"Send Irene my regrets."

There was an awkward pause. Then Marcel reminded them there was more mail. "The commcenter," he said, "has been overwhelmed with good wishes for you. For everybody."

Hutch was impressed. Sending a hypercomm message was not inexpensive. "Overwhelmed?"

"Thousands of them. Probably be more than that if we had a wider reception capacity. They tell us they're backed up pretty heavy at Relay. Whole classrooms of kids, in some cases."

"I don't suppose you have any way of sorting out the personal stuff?"

"Not easily. Even by last name, I can't be sure. We have sixteen messages for you from people named Hutchins. Eighteen for Randy from assorted Nightingales. Ditto for everybody else."

"All right," said Hutch. "Keep mine for now. Why don't you put somebody on with each of these other folks? They may have specific names they'll be looking for." She thanked him and disconnected. Nightingale stared at her, and she could see the judgment forming. Nobody in your entire life you want to hear from at a time like this?

Of her immediate family, only Hutch's mother was still alive. Relations between the two had been strained for years over Hutch's failure to settle down and have a family. Like a normal young woman. Of course, Hutch wasn't that young anymore, a fact that seemed to have escaped her mother. Or added to her sense of panic. Even though she remained at the height of her physical capabilities, as people routinely did for their first century or so, she had long since discarded the happy innocence one might expect of a bride.

She'd been around long enough to know precisely what she wanted out of life. She believed weddings had to happen reasonably early if they were to have a chance of success. Mates had to grow together. She knew what she would expect of a man, and there simply was no such creature in captivity. So if she'd been stuck with being alone, and sometimes lonely, she had at least not been lonely in a marriage, which was the worst of all worlds. Anyhow, she liked her independence.

Mom had never understood. Had never wanted to understand.

Hutch sat looking at her notebook. And finally, with reluctance, opened it and tapped in a message:

Mom,

It looks as if we're down to a couple of days. Things haven't gone as well as we'd expected. But we're hopeful. You'll know how it turned out by the time you receive this.

She thought about it, wrote some more, apologized for not being the daughter her mother had wanted, explained that she'd enjoyed her life, and hoped her mother would understand that she, Priscilla, would not have had it any other way.

Having broken through the wall, she wrote to a few others, mostly people connected with the Academy. Doesn't look promising at the moment.

They were good times.

I was thinking about you last night…

MacAllister looked over her shoulder and smiled. "Be careful, Priscilla. Don't say anything you can be held to when you get home."

There was no one with whom she could claim a romantic relationship. There'd been some men over the years, of course. One was dead. The others were happily married in suburban New Jersey or points west.

She sat quietly, trying to think what to say to old friends, and found herself regretting things not done. People for whom she had not made sufficient time. The great love that had never quite shown up. The child not borne.

Now that she faced possible termination, her life seemed curiously incomplete. She'd heard somewhere that, when death was near, one's regrets were not for one's actions, the assorted small and petty acts, the occasional immoralities, even the periodic cruelties visited on others. But rather one regretted things not done, adventures not undertaken, experiences left untasted, whether through some false code of morality or, more likely, shyness or fear of failure.

She smiled to herself. MacAllister had said somewhere, through fear of getting caught.

XXVII

Few of the virtues are realty useful. Fidelity leads to lost opportunity, truth-telling to injured feeling, charity to additional solicitations. The least productive, and possibly the most overrated, is faith. The faithful deny reason, close their minds to the evidence of their senses, and remain unfailingly optimistic in the face of disaster. They inevitably get just what they deserve.

— Gregory MacAllister, "Along for the Ride," Reminiscences

Hours to breakup (est): 45

Janet Hazelhurst's people had been transported to their stations and were ready to go.

John Drummond reported that his team had worked out the details for the assembly. "They've got it all down?" demanded Marcel. "Every step?"

"Every step."

"What about the rest of it?"

Beekman took him through the entire plan. The shuttles were fueled and ready. Phil Zossimov was on schedule with his collar and dividers. They were working on this, getting that set up. There were problems, but that was unavoidable on a jury-rigged operation this big.

"Nothing insurmountable?"

"Not so far."

Marcel had slept a few hours, and felt better than he had in a week. But he watched Beekman suspiciously.

"What?" asked Beekman. "What's wrong?"

"I'm waiting for you to tell me."

"Marcel, nothing is wrong. We're doing pretty well. Better than we have a right to expect."

They were still twenty minutes from the tower when Marcel told them Wendy's search team had given up trying to find the capacitors.

"Up to us," said Mac. "Good thing we didn't go to Mt. Blue."

Hutch felt better in flight, with full fuel tanks and the ground far below. Her natural optimism came back when she could throttle up. Even in these circumstances she could not escape the sense that with the jets running, anything was possible. She wondered at the recovery of her spirits and mentioned it to Mac, who suggested she was wired to assume the world was a permanent place, a view which had surely been shaken by recent events. Here among the clouds, however, they could see forever, and life did indeed seem infinite.

The day had closed in almost as soon as they'd left the ground. Hutch had gotten away from a long line of storms, and they were flying through gray, overcast skies streaked with dust. "Volcanoes, probably," said Nightingale.

Kellie shook her head. "I think they'd tell us if volcanoes were going off in the neighborhood."

Hutch wondered if that were so. Marcel might be reluctant to introduce still more bad news. In fact this had to be a nightmare for the people on Wendy. They might almost be wishing it were over.