Pindar tried not to roll his eyes. He felt much the same way but could never have brought himself to say it.

"You ever been outside before?" she asked.

"No. Yesterday was the first time." The training exercise. Prior to that, the opportunity had risen only once. He'd had a chance to put on an e-suit and stand on the hull of a ship in flight during an adventure tour, but he'd passed it up for an evening of poker.

The assembly stretched across the overhead monitor, its relative motion reduced to zero. Bomar had matched course, speed, and aspect.

"Opening up," he said.

The hatch slid upward. Shira was wearing shorts and a white blouse with gold-rimmed breast pockets. She looked as if she were primed for a tennis outing.

She caught him staring. "You're laughing," she said.

He looked down at his own garments: tan slacks and a black pullover. He wished he'd thought to bring work clothes, something old that he wouldn't care about if he ruined. The Star had offered jumpsuits to the volunteers, but he hadn't been able to find one in which he felt comfortable. "I think we're a bit overdressed for the occasion," he said.

The assembly was almost close enough to touch.

Shira moved past him to the lip of the airlock and simply allowed her forward motion to carry her across, as she'd been taught. No jumping, no sudden exertion. She caught hold of the nearest shaft, smiled back at him, and brought her magnetic boots into contact with the next tube below.

Pindar followed, thinking how this was the first alien anything he'd ever touched, how he'd be telling his grandkids about this in another half century. It was a big moment, and he was enjoying himself thoroughly.

He reached Shira's shaft and let his boots connect. "Okay, Klaus," he told the pilot. "We're clear."

"Strange feeling," said Shira.

He looked back the way he had come and saw Morgan, a vast cobalt arc split in half by sunlight. Even though it was still at a substantial distance, he could feel its weight. Its mass, he recalled. Use the proper terminology.

Deepsix, floating directly ahead at the end of the assembly, was white and blue and vulnerable. Lunch, he thought. Not much more than a snack for the monster that was moving in on it.

Shira touched his arm. "Let's find our shaft."

The shuttle drifted alongside.

Using the spacecraft as a guide, they climbed up. Shira led the way. At the first two steps, she paused, looked down through the shafts, shook her head, and moved on. The third try was golden.

"Okay," she said. She backed away to get a better look. "This is it. No question."

Pindar joined her, saw four shafts line up with the one he was standing on. He produced his squirt gun and splashed yellow dye on the metal. "I dub you Alpha," he said.

"You guys sure now?" asked Bomar.

"Of course," Shira sounded annoyed.

Beekman was unable to make up his mind. He stood near Marcel, uncertain whether to demand that they forget this fool's errand and return to the mission they'd come there for, or inform him that there were some malcontents and not to worry, that Beekman would handle it, but that the captain should be prepared for complaints.

The hours were slipping away, and their magnificent opportunity was dwindling. Bentley and several others were watching, waiting to see whether he would act.

Lori's voice was providing periodic updates from the various teams. In addition, the conversation from the lander cabin had been put on the speaker. The AI reported that all stations on the target shaft, the one they'd designated Alpha, had been successfully marked.

Marcel looked up at him. "So far, so good."

"Yes." Beekman looked directly into his eyes. "It doesn't sound as if our ground team has much confidence in us, though."

"I think I prefer it that way," said Marcel, glancing around at the technicians. "Provides extra incentive. I think everybody here would like to prove them wrong."

Maybe not everybody, Beekman thought.

Marcel looked into his eyes and frowned. "What is it, Gunny?"

"Nothing," said the project director. "Nothing that won't wait."

Canyon recognized an emotional situation when he saw one. They were still sitting on their island as the day crept forward, waiting for the water to go down, waiting to launch an almost hopeless search for the whatzis that had been washed away.

But they didn't want to talk to him. No matter how gently he tried to frame his questions, How does it fee] to know so many people are rooting for you? and If you had all this to do again, is there anything you might have done differently?

"Nobody wants to be rude," Hutch told him, "but I just don't think this is a good time for an interview."

"Okay," he agreed. "I understand how you feel. But if you change your mind, if anyone does, please call me. Okay?"

He was sorry about their situation. And he would have helped if he could. Sitting quietly, staring at the displays of the approaching giant, of the vast sea that surrounded the tower, he understood their frustration. He almost wished he'd followed his father's advice and gone into engineering.

He decided he'd try again when they got closer to the end. His superiors at home were pressing him to acquire what they were referring to as an exit interview with MacAllister. "After all, he's the one everybody knows." But Canyon trusted his own instincts on this one. It was the two women who packed the emotional impact, who would bring tears to people's eyes around the world. Especially Hutchins. Slight of stature, quiet, almost elfin in appearance, there was much of the girl-next-door in her. And Canyon knew if he could get her to agree to talk during the final hours, as he was sure he could, he would give the public an emotional jolt like nothing anyone had ever seen before. If Hutch wouldn't cooperate, Kellie was another possibility.

As to the others, he didn't much like Nightingale, and he was afraid of MacAllister. You never quite knew what he might say.

Hutch made a premature effort to land them at the tower, but the water was too deep and the currents too swift. So she turned away and retreated to another hilltop, and they waited another forty-five minutes, watching the tide run back to the northeast.

The second effort succeeded. She got down, and they piled out into hip-deep water. First they made a careful inspection of the tower, assuring themselves that the capacitors weren't there somewhere, missed by Kellie and Hutch in the preliminary search.

Then they waded out toward the south. They'd divided the area into parcels and they tried to work within their assigned boundaries, tried to be methodical. We'll stay on this side of a line between the tower and that tree over there. It wasn't very efficient, but it worked to a degree. The real problem was that the search area was immense.

Nightingale and Mac brought with them a conviction that the units could nevertheless be found, probably because they thought this was their only decent chance at survival.

The land was not as flat as it had seemed. The depth of the water varied, up to their ankles in some places,over their heads in others. The current was strong and, in deeper areas, consistently threatened to knock them over. Hutch had arrived with no illusions about their chances. Left to herself, she'd have put all her money on the sky scoop, gone to Mt. Blue, and spent the remaining time surveying the hexagon. But she was tired, and she was not up to arguing with two males who probably already thought she'd made an inadequate effort when there had still been a chance.

She'd expected Nightingale and Mac to give up fairly quickly because of the amount of effort required to maintain the search. And the sheer size of the search area. But as the hours passed, their determination, or their desperation-it was difficult to know which- grew. They moved farther and farther south of the tower.