A bleak thrill passed through him. She knows Lunarians better than anybody does nowadays on Earth or Luna, he thought. She can put herself in their minds.
"But what if the crew isn't Centaurian at all?" she went on.
He groped for understanding. "Sophotects? The Centaurians may not have the Proserpinan fear of them."
Once more Kinna shook her head. "Maybe not. But I don't think they'd trust them that much, either. No." Her voice deepened. "I've looked at the stars, year after year, especially since I met you and your wishes. I've picked out those where people are—Terrans—and I've decided they must surely know something about us by now. Enough to see how little it is they know, and how vital the truth is. Wouldn't they send someone to try and learn more?"
"But that ship came from Centauri," he protested. "That's established. Isn't it?"
"Did the travelers aboard? Or did they simply come by way of Centauri? That'd make sense."
"No, wait, the distances to their suns, even the nearest—They'd still be barely started."
"Not if they went first to Centauri in a c-ship."
"But that'd kill them. I've seen the calculations. No screen could fend off. enough of what you encounter at that speed. Gamma cyclotron radiation alone would be lethal."
"Not to downloads tucked away in thick lead boxes."
He sat hammersmitten. "In death's name—" he whispered.
"The Terrans would've been in touch with the Centaurians ever since they left Demeter to found their new colonies. I think a few of them went back there to talk face-to-face, without years of time lag, and lay joint plans; and they persuaded the Centaurians to give them a bigger ship, slower but better equipped. Doesn't that fit the data, what few data we have?"
His mind surged. "They?" he coughed forth. "Or he?"
It was her turn to be taken aback. "He?"
"Anson Guthrie—" Common sense intervened. "But this is the wildest speculation."
"We live in a wild universe," Kinna said. "Oh, yes, quite maybe I'm wrong. But if I'm not, then that strange ship won't stay too much longer out at Proserpina. Would you? Those are downloads of Terrans. Or a download of a Terran. Old Earth is calling."
"You've set my head awhirl."
She grinned. "That was the general idea."
"I—I'd like to sleep on this. If I can sleep. And talk further with you tomorrow."
"You name the hour; I'll cut the class," she said gladly. "Not that I'd be paying any particular attention anyway."
Astonished, he discovered that the darkness had been shaken out of him. Or else her vision had hit him like the strongest euphoric, but left his brain as clear as space. The words rushed from him. "Right now, though—We weren't going to be serious this evening, were we? We've kept drifting that way, but thunder, we don't have to!"
"Yes, yes," she said, "let's keep our vow from here on."
And they sprang up and ran out onto the path, laughing like children. They rode the whooparound and the Dragon Express and a real carousel and the boat that went on Alph the Sacred River; they danced the saturn on one floor, and on another she taught him to dance the volai; they drank beer and consumed improbable confections and got into conversation with a masquerier, they climbed the observation tower ramp and gazed out over twinkling homes and frosty fields and took the option of skating back down, and the gardens were closing when they left.
At that hour, no one else was going through Lyra Passage. They stood at her door, holding both hands, looking eyes into eyes, with nothing to trouble their silence but a rustle of ventilation. Once a maintainor rolled past. They barely noticed.
"Have a good night," he said at last. "Or, rather, a good morning."
"You too," she breathed. "Thank you for—for everything."
Then she was kissing him and he was kissing her and in the ceiling sky display the morning stars sang together.
"What a, a grand surprise," was all he could finally find to mumble.
"If you knew how long I've wanted to do that—how long I've wanted," she half sobbed.
"And I—but—"
"Come on inside." She signaled the door to retract and drew him along after her. It closed behind them.
He had been here twice before, briefly. This room gave on cubicles for bed, cuisinator, and sanitor. The floor was hard, though a gray-furred biocarpet relieved it. The furniture was sparse. But shelves held a glorious, gleaming collection of rocks, superb scenic views decorated the walls, and he knew what books, music, drama, and art she called up on her multi. It welcomed her home with a burst of ancient melody to which she had once introduced him—Eine kleine Nachtmusik, he recalled was the name.
Again they stood and looked.
"It is time to get serious," she told him. "I love you. I've been in love with you since we first met."
"And I..." he faltered. For him, it had gone more slowly. He had denied it, fought it, resigned himself to the futility of it. "I've felt that way about you—for a long while—more and more."
"I hoped. Oh, but I hoped."
"I didn't know."
"You do now," she said between laughter and tears.
How strange the universe felt. Not the same place any more, not in the least. Yet he was still Fenn. He couldn't change that, however much he might wish to. He was the one who ended this kiss and stepped back.
"We have to think," he growled. "It's a bad time for us. For everybody."
"You'll make it better."
"No, wait. I'm no hero or savior or any such fool thing."
Her voice calmed. "Maybe not. But you are a tough, smart, overly brave man, and I expect our sons will be absolute hellions."
"You're getting too far ahead of today, makamaka." The Lahui endearment, impulsively uttered, unleashed memories. He felt worthless, rammed the feeling down, but said more starkly than he had intended: "Don't invest in me. Not yet."
Immediately grave, she regarded him through several pulsebeats before she said, "You have something dangerous to do soon, don't you?"
His usual decisiveness failed him. "Well—"
"What is it?"
"I can't tell you."
"You jolly well can and will." She paused. "Not right away. Tomorrow, later today, is soon enough. We have this hour for our own."
"We aren't casual about our relationships," David Ronay had warned. "In fact, we're seldom impulsive about them. My daughter can roam freely with anyone she wants to because everybody who knows her knows she's our kind of person."
The father had been right, Fenn learned, and it was right to respect that code, because it was Kinna's too. It didn't seem easy for her either. But when he left, the false sky above the passage ruddy with sunrise, and the last thing she whispered to him in the doorway was, “On top of everything else, you're honorable," he had never been more victorious.
They met in the afternoon as agreed, each wholly awake though neither had slept. Skinsuited, they left the city and hiked up to the crater rim and thence along it, mostly mute, mostly glancing at one another. They, had the trail to themselves. Crommelin was busy and, in spite of the low latitude, winter vacationers were few. From the heights they looked down on human work and across to distant, abiding desolation: dunes, boulders, pockmarks, a scud of yellow dust and the sun blurred by a salmon haze. Audio amplifiers brought them the thin wind-skirl. Louder was the scrunch of grit beneath their boots.
"This is my kind of country," she said once, most softly. "And nevertheless, I'd like to live, alongside you, to see it growing green and blue, a lake down in the bowl and an ocean yonder, your kind of country, Fenn."
Thirty or forty minutes' march brought them to a shelter, a little dome with basic life-support. They cycled through the airlock, took off their helmets, and drew together. The smell of her hair brought summer meadows on Earth back to him.
After a while they let go. He wondered bemusedly what to call her eyes:—pearl-gray, smoke-gray, the gray of northern seas?—till she spoke in her straightforward fa
shion and hauled him back to facts.
"You said you're not coming to Sananton." Be careful! he thought. "Not at once. Later, sure."
"You're not sure." She can tell, he thought. She's too flapping observant. "Why not? You know you're always as welcome as the flowers in spring," the man-created flowers at the end of the long, long Martian winter. "And you know how I'd love to come." That didn't fend her off. "Then why not? You've explained you're here on a special survey mission. I can't imagine a better place to start than Sananton. Dad and Mother know just about everybody on the planet who counts."
"That's not what I'm after," he must admit. "Not at first, anyway."
"So what are you after?"
"I'm sorry. I can't tell you that... darling."
Her lips tightened, "Do I have to keep saying, 'Why not?' "
"It's confidential. I've promised."
"Have you? Truly?"
"Yes—"
"As a liar, you're no doubt an excellent spaceman." Kinna sighed and clicked her tongue. "Fenn, Fenn, did you suppose I haven't thought about you, studied you, played every scenario that I could imagine with you in my head—in my whole body? I know full well you're lying to me, and about something that concerns me where I live. Don't."
"Slag and slaughter!" he roared. Urgently: "Listen, you mustn't know. It wouldn't be safe for you to. Later, later."
"If there is a later," she said.
"There will be."
"You're not one hundred percent convinced of that."
"In death's name, woman, be reasonable! Every time we take a breath, we take a risk."
"Fenn," she said, unrelenting, "I love you and I understand you're trying to protect me, but you are not going to squirm free of this. You understand—will you?—I'm no Earthside softling. We can't make a life together if one underrates the other. Give me the trust you owe me."
Overrun, he thought in turmoil that she could indeed provide the kind of advice he needed, and so far he hadn't sniffed out where else he might reliably get it, and—
"Well, you win," he said. "But it has to be a zero-kelvin secret. No word, no hint to your parents, to anybody, no, not to Taffimai Metallumai or the wind."
She made a curious gesture, right forefinger flitting from left to right shoulder, then from brow to breast. "None. You scare me, but—" Her smile broke forth. "You make me sunburst-happy too. An odd mix." The smile died. She shivered.
Almost relieved, almost liberated, he plunged ahead. "It's about the secrecy of the cybercosm. I don't say Synesis; I say cybercosm. You've heard me aplenty on the subject. No sense in fuming about it now. But that thing the solar lenses have found out, whatever it is— the data they've got archived on Pavonis Mons, where the Inrai died—why won't they tell us? It has to be something huge. Doesn't it? Something cosmic. My interview with Chuan yesterday clinched this for me."
Great cosmos! Only yesterday?
"We, the Lahui Kuikawa, we can't lay any more plans, we can't go any further, before we know," he went on. "And if we don't start soon, we'll never be able to. Is that one reason the cybercosm's withholding the information?”
"It's larger than that," she whispered. "I've seen the sorrow in Chuan."
"Well, yes, me too. If he isn't just a fine actor." Fenn's tone turned ferocious. "Look, though, if you're worthy of hearing what I mean to do, why aren't we both worthy of knowing what this is all about?''
She stared at him. It was as if she shrank back from him. "I was becoming ... afraid of this. You want to break in and steal the secret."
"No," he stated. "Claim it. Then we'll exercise our right to decide what to do with it."
"Impossible!" she cried. "Dement! The dead Inrai can tell you!"
He took her hands. They had gone cold. Abruptly gentle, he said, "I know. But it won't be like that. Listen."
She straightened before him. "I will."
He let her go and paced back and forth in the narrow chamber as he spoke.
"One other man and I—lokepa Hakawau, I've told you about him—we talked it over, and over and over before I left Earth. We dared not bring anyone else in. Nor would that have been fair, as explosive as the business may be. The trouble around the Threedom and the ship from Centauri, those were the official reasons for sending me to Mars, and they're valid enough. But the more we considered the matter, the more it seemed that the lens mystery was not just older, it was basic. Any of a number of people could look into the social, political, et cetera situation on Mars as well as I could, or better. But I was the only one we knew of who might be able to do something about the lens data, if I decided that something really had to be done.
"After listening to Chuan, I decided that something does have to be done. And I'd come prepared.
"It's been carefully planned, I tell you. We knew I can't land an aircraft at the station on the mountain. The robot in charge would ask why, and it's probably programmed to notify the constables of even a routine arrival. However, I can land well away, out of its sight, and proceed on foot. I have my maps and supplies and field equipment. I know how security systems like that work, including their limitations, and there's no reason to suppose this one has been upgraded. I can make my final approach camouflaged so as to fool it, then use a device I've brought along. I learned how when I was in the police in Luna. Civilians aren't supposed to have one, but the Lahui are widespread on Earth, they have their connections, and lokepa got it for me under the counter. The sensors, the robot, shouldn't ever register that I've decoded the lock and gone in. Once there, I don't expect any alarms either—or, at worst, not till I'm downloading the database. And that will be too late."
The two of them stood confronted for a minute or more. Without their helmets, they could not hear the Martian wind, and the dust devils afar spun in silence.
"You're not dement." Her voice wavered.
"No," he declared. "Repeat, lokepa and I gave this a great deal of study and hard thought."
"That's the dreadfulest part of it."
"Look," he pleaded with her, "the machinery shouldn't get violent, as long as I'm not actively threatening it like the Inrai. I'm figuring it'll never know. If it does find out and calls the police before I can escape, they'll arrest me. In that case, the publicity should soon spring me free. Citizens' right to information, remember?" He gathered his strength. "Yes, it is taking a long string of chances, but it's what I'm going to do."
"Inrai bands are still prowling out there." Her hands lifted in appeal. "I know how revengeful they must feel. And some of them are completely reckless."
The anger always deep within him congealed in a solid block. "I'll risk that, and shoot my way clear if I must."
He saw her see the implacability. Her head drooped. "I don't believe I can change this."
"No," he said heavily, "not even you can." His spirit quickened. “But you can help, Kinna. You can improve my chances no end."
"Yes—"
"We'll go over the plan step by step. You'll tell me what needs fixing. You'll have some good ideas of your own. I am glad you made me bring you in, pa'aka— partner."
Her glance rose to meet his. "Trailmate," she said.
"What?" The knowledge broke over him. "No!"
"Yes," she said quietly. "You're going. I can't stop that. But neither can I let you run unnecessary risks, let you die."
"N-nobody is going to shoot at me. Nothing is."
"You just said you may have to shoot back."
Thereupon she amazed him with a laugh. "Actually, this time you're right," she allowed. "I was trying to argue you out of your scheme, but I wasn't entirely honest. What are the odds we'll encounter one of those few, underequipped, fugitively scuttering little bands? Think. It's much likelier we'll get hit by a meteorite."
Her gaze went out the viewport to the desert before returning to him. "What I have in mind is Mars itself. Beautiful, merciless Mars. You can't do this alone, Fenn. Not those wilderness kilometers at that terrible altitude. You've got to have an e
xperienced outbacker to guide you."
"Well, uh, well, yes, I was figuring on that. Maybe your friend Elverir—"
A small, tender smile flitted across her lips. "I like him and I love you, but the pair of you—or you with any Lunarian—could hardly make it. If nothing else, you'd be too doubtful of each other, on a venture that needs absolute, blood-sworn trust. And as for another Terran, I can't think of a one who'd be willing to try this, and at the same time is competent, except me. And ... searching around for a guide, how long would it take you, and how likely would you be to alert the authorities? Here I am. We can set off unnoticed in two or three days." She grinned. "You're stuck with me, Fenn. Now and always."
He smote the wall, a thud through the air, a jolt through his bones. "No! I won't take you. That's that."
"But you'll go anyway, alone if need be?"
"Yes."
"No," she said. "Because if you try, I'll tell on you. I will." She blinked and blinked. "I know I'd lose you. But that's better than finding your mummy on the mountain."
He could only gape.
She threw her head back, her arms wide, and laughed. "With me along, it isn't such a crazy gamble. No, an adventure!"
Did she mean that, or was it for his sake?
22
BESTRIDING THE EQUATOR, second greatest mountain of the Solar System, Pavonis Mons rises eighteen kilometers above the Tharsis plateau, twenty-seven kilometers above the mean datum of Mars—the "ground level." So broad is its base, eight degrees of longitude, six of latitude, that it scarcely seems the extinct shield volcano it is. Rather, you see tawny dunes, scattered rocks and craters, gradually give way to dark basaltic masses, while the land rises, seldom abruptly, and rises and rises. To Fenn, the flight stretched on as endlessly.
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