During the course of the maneuver, word came down that the Outsiders had released the Star.

On board Zwick, Scolari and the other volunteers returned to the hull and began the cumbersome process of reattaching the shaft. Now the vessel was pointed in the opposite direction, away from Deepsix. Almost immediately, one of the shuttle pilots warned them of an approaching cloud.

"Cloud?" asked Scolari.

"Meteors and dust. Get back inside."

Scolari and Cleo needed no prompting. They made for the airlock, and warned Chop and Jack not to dawdle.

A few large rocks bounced off the metal. Minutes later, when they thought it was over, one penetrated the hull, knocked out the broadcasting studio and the library, and would have killed Canyon except that he'd left moments earlier to go to the washroom.

The warning had come from Klaus Bomar, who had taken Pindar and Sharon to mark the Alpha shaft. He was, as Pindar had observed, Canadian. A Toronto native, he'd been a commercial hauler, carrying supplies to the terraformers on Quraqua; and later he'd served as a longtime instructor at the Conciliar Spaceflight Academy near Winnipeg. He'd resigned his position there two months earlier, anxious to join the superluminals that were moving out to the new frontiers.

Klaus's wife was dead, his kids were grown and gone, so he'd barely hesitated once he decided he'd had enough of classrooms. He'd signed on with TransGalactic because they paid well and the big luxury liners were visiting the places he wanted to see, black holes and star cradles and giant suns and cosmic lighthouses.

This was his first flight with TransGalactic.

He was dazzled by the ingenuity of Clairveau and Beekman, and amused at Nicholson's ability to look as if he were commanding the operation.

He'd transmitted the warning to Zwik and another shuttle in the path of the debris field, then turned away in an effort to get clear.

Much of the debris orbiting Morgan consisted of nothing more that dust particles too small to be tracked by sensors. As Klaus completed his turn he veered directly into a high-velocity swarm that ripped the shuttle apart before he even knew he was in trouble.

XXXIV

There is a gem we all have that, when crisis comes, inevitably selects the wrong turn. It is why things run amiss, dreams remain unfulfilled, ambitions fail to materialize. Life, for most of us, is simply a series of blown opportunities. -Gregory MacAllister, Deepsix Diary

Hours to breakup (est): 12

Hutch could have used a trank. The ones that Mac had in his pack weren't supposed to affect the user after whatever period they were set for, so theoretically they should have been safe. But she'd always tended to react badly to the damned things. And she dared not risk impairing her judgment for the final flight.

The final flight. Up or down.

She tried to push her emotions away, out to some distant boundary. She thought about what lay ahead, tried to visualize this giant net that would be dropping out of the sky.

Precision, Marcel had been saying. Everything had to be done precisely right. One chance. The net would come down and it would go up. She'd have, at best, a minute or so to find the collar and navigate into it.

The mood in the cabin was subdued. MacAllister tried to lighten things a bit by proclaiming that if they came out of it alive he was going to seek out the bishop of New Jersey and submit to religious instruction.

They all laughed, but it had a hollow ring.

Periodically, without success, Hutch tried to regain contact with Marcel.

"I'll be glad," Nightingale said, "to get it over with. One way or the other."

Hutch nodded as if she agreed, but she didn't. Life was sweet, and she wanted to hang on to it as long as she could. But yes, she would be happy to end the suspense, to fly into Marcel's celestial sack and get hauled up to safety. It was just hard to visualize something like that actually happening.

Mac broke out some fruit and nuts, but she had no appetite.

"Do you good," MacAllister persisted.

"I doubt it." Nevertheless, it seemed like something she should do. She selected a dark red globule that resembled and tasted like a pomegranate. Nightingale picked a few nuts and settled back to enjoy them..Mac made coffee and filled all the cups.

"We going to have any trouble getting aloft in this?" he asked, indicating the storm.

"We'll be okay." She'd powered up to the extent possible. There was more than enough fuel in the tanks to take them out to the rendezvous. Even enough to get back, if need be. If it would matter. "We'll do fine. As long as it doesn't get too much worse."

They sat for a time, tasting the fruit, watching the rain.

"You guys all right?" she asked.

Nightingale nodded. "I'm sorry about the elevator," he said. "I-"

"It's okay. Don't worry about it."

Mac took a long sip of coffee. "Confession time, I guess."

"What've you got to confess, Mac?" asked Kellie.

"I…" He thought about it."… haven't always been reasonable."

"We know that," said Nightingale. "The whole world knows it."

"I just thought I wanted to say something. I've done some damage."

"Forget it. I'm sure nobody holds it against you."

"That's not quite so, but it isn't the point."

"Mac, you once said something about people who waste energy feeling sorry for themselves."

He frowned. "Not that I can recall. What exactly did I say?"

"'Best way to deal with a conscience is to beat it into submission so it knows who's in charge. "

"I said that?"

Nightingale had been looking out at the rain during the whole of this exchange. Now he turned and fixed his eyes on MacAllister. "Not really. But it's the best I can do on short notice. Let it go, Mac. It's-past."

The lander shook as another wave rippled through the ground. MacAllister snatched his plate before it could slide off onto the deck. "The whole world's coming apart," he said.

Kellie adjusted her harness. "How much longer?"

"Soon," said Hutch.

In fact, the winds seemed to be lessening. The rain slacked off, although it never really stopped. Hutch tried the radio again.

Suddenly the sky was filled with birds. They were all of one species, black with white wing tips, big, graceful, wings spread to catch the wind. Their flight was erratic, disorganized. To a degree, they were being blown across the sky. But they fought to maintain formation. The wind died, they regrouped, and then, like a single animal, they turned north. They know, she thought. They all know.

When the bombardment had stopped, Scolari and the other Outsiders went back onto the hull and finished the welding assignment. They laid the shaft directly down the length of the ship, as they had before. The same procedure was being followed by the Evening Star team. On the other two vessels, the crews were reattaching the shaft at twenty-seven- and thirty-one-degree angles. That would allow Wendy and Wildside, who'd be up front during extraction, to begin the process of inserting the shaft into orbit.

Shortly after they'd begun they heard about the death of the shuttle pilot who had warned them.

Scolari and his team finished in two and a half hours and came back into the airlock. All four vessels were again locked onto Alpha, except that they now faced the opposite direction.

Although he was new to TransGalactic, Klaus Bomar had been the oldest member of the Star's crew, save for the captain himself. Because he was a contemporary, Nicholson had occasionally invited him to his cabin for a drink, and had ended by becoming quite fond of him. Marcel had been wrong about Nicholson: He did have an onboard friend.

The news hit Nicholson hard.

One of Wendy's three shuttles pulled alongside Drummond's vehicle. The airlock opened, and Drummond took on a physician: Embry Desjardain.