Among the Kronians, Shayle, who had gone with Keene from the Tesla Center to SOE, was here as his fusion specialist. Vorse's deputy, Adreya Laelye, represented SOE. And Sariena was back too, with a mixed group of Kronian scientists aboard a relatively small, minimally configured conventional fusion-drive vessel called the Surya—a minor deity mentioned along with Varuna in Vedic mythology—that had accompanied the Varuna. As well as affording extra carrying capacity, the arrangement provided that in the event of an emergency either ship could act as lifeboat for the other.
They had been in orbit for six days now, along with a gaggle of unmanned freight haulers—little more than containment frames fitted with engines—sent on ahead at intervals before the Varuna and the Surya's departure. Teams had gone down to the surface several times to check candidate sites for the first base, but none had been selected so far. When a site was picked and preliminary constructions made ready, the Agni section of the ship would detach, leaving the Varuna with just an auxiliary power system for orbital corrections and essential services, and Keene would be shuttled down with his crew to integrate it into the base. Expansion of the base proper using materials delivered from orbit would then proceed.
Athena, after making another perihelion turn between the orbits of Mercury and Venus, was currently on the far side of the Sun and climbing outward again toward the Asteroid Belt. Since all of its potential interactions were highly nonlinear, meaning that tiny initial differences could result in hugely varying outcomes, there was no way of being sure of what the future might hold. Hence, reconnoitering and preparing evacuation centers on Earth in case Saturn had to be abandoned had taken on greater importance. Charlie had commented that he understood well now why so many cultures of old had watched Venus and Mars with such terror and built elaborate constructions to track their movements.
From Vicki's most recent messages from Dione, it seemed she would be coming out with the first follow-up mission from Saturn, aboard a new ship being fitted out there, called the Aztec. Emil Farzhin was sending a group to begin exploring Athena's biological consequences, and again native-born Terrans were the preferred choice. Keene was looking forward to seeing her again.
In any case, the change would be good for her, now that Robin had gone ahead and joined the Security Arm. He had completed basic training and space engineering school on Titan, and would be leaving shortly on an exploratory mission to survey the primary Jovian moons more thoroughly than had been attempted so far. The intention here was to prepare the ground for an alternative fallback location to be developed—possibly on Ganymede—in the event of Saturn having to be evacuated. The proposal had come from Valcroix's Pragmatist movement, who still argued that putting major investments of resources into the unknowns of Earth was premature, whereas existing Kronian technologies would assure habitable environments at Jupiter. And if the emergency never happened, a foothold would have been made at Jupiter for future expansion.
This concession on the part of the Kronian Congress to consider Jupiter at a time when many priorities were in conflict reflected the progress that the Pragmatists had been making in becoming a recognized political force. Nevertheless, Keene hadn't altered his opinion that in the long run not a lot would come of it, since they had nothing to offer that the majority of Kronians desired, or even comprehended. In any case, he'd seen it all before, wasted enough of his life fighting it, and he was glad to be away. Like Charlie, he was restless to get down to the surface and begin the work they had come here to do.
He was still staring out at the view below, searching for a hint of a coastal outline among the veils blanketing the surface, when a female voice spoke from behind him. "It must be a terrible thing to come home to, Lan." He turned to find Shayle holding on to a handbar in the access hatchway. She was dressed in orange flight coveralls, her red hair cut short now.
Keene grunted. "There isn't much down there that I think I'd call home anymore."
"It must be strange, all the same."
"I've had time enough to get used to it."
"What were you so wrapped up in thought over?" Shayle asked. "I was here, watching you, for a while."
Keene looked down again at the patterns of jet streams and vortexes painted in off-white streaks on the curtain of grays, lusterless yellows, and browns. It brought to mind the storm front that had moved in on the West Coast from the Pacific in the early days of the encounter, when Athena's approach was first being felt. That had been before there was any wide grasp of what would follow, and the world had been hectically mobilizing evacuation plans and emergency services, believing it could pull through.
"I was thinking about a time in the last days before Athena closed in," he answered distantly. "It was in California. We were at one of the airports, trying to get to the Air Force's launch place at Vandenberg. Some people were trying to take it over and grab a shuttle to get out."
"Vandenberg . . . Wasn't that where Gallian and his group shuttled up from to rejoin the Osiris?"
"Yes. Most people didn't know how bad it was going to get. They thought that if they got everyone away from the coasts and up to the highlands, the world could make it. . . . Earth was moving into Athena's tail . . . ash and dust falling everywhere. Huge storms were heading in from the west, piling the sea up into black, heaving hills of water. I'd never seen anything like it. Everyone was going frantic, trying to get the last planes out while anything could still fly. I remember the buses and ambulances coming in from the hospitals, and nurses bringing in lines of little kids holding dolls and toys, some of them in wheelchairs. . . . All for what?" He broke off abruptly and turned his head back. "Anyway, you didn't come here to be cheered up like this."
Shayle laid a hand on his shoulder and let it rest for a moment. "I just came to check how you were doing. Anyway, there's eggs and pancakes going with coffee in the crew mess." Pre-made pancakes, heated up. You couldn't make them in zero-g. "I didn't think you'd want to be left out."
Keene managed a grin. "Sure. Okay, come on, then. Let's have at 'em." He set himself gyrating and pushed off with a foot to follow after her.
"Heard anymore about the Colombian station?" Shayle asked over her shoulder as she moved across the compartment opening inboard from the observation bubble. A descent party had gone down to check over a possible base site in South America.
"Not yet. We can stop by Comms for an update on the way to Mess Deck," Keene answered.
They took a shaft that passed by the Communications Room, which formed an extension on the nearside of the ship's Control Center. The Executive Officer was inside when they looked in, conferring with several of the operators. He looked up as Keene and Shayle hovered in the doorway. "We wondered if there's any news from Colombia yet," Keene said. "Maybe some idea of when we might be going down?"
"It doesn't look good. Earthquake activity across the whole region." The EO was a Terran, reporting directly to Gallian. He nodded toward a screen showing figures in heavy-duty surface fatigues and hard helmets, standing amid cases, scientific instruments, and other equipment in front of a couple of inflatable tents. Part of a lander was visible against dark mists behind. "The officer in charge down there doesn't see much point in staying further. So I'm afraid you'll have to remain patient for a while longer."
"Well, we're ready to detach Agni any time you say," Keene told him. He turned and resumed following Shayle.
The Executive Officer watched them for a few seconds and then looked back at the screen. Kelm, the officer leading the descent party, was Dione-born, qualified for the Varuna mission by previous space and surface engineering experience with the Kronian Security Arm. The two of them worked closely together. The EO himself had had some involvement with Terran space operations too, before the calamity—or at least, with people who ran them. Some of those people were at Saturn now. In fact, they had worked quietly but effectively to bring about his appointment to the Varuna mission. But it was considered politic to keep that side of things in low profile—for
now.
In the previous world he had come from Europe. His name was Zeigler. Kurt Zeigler.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Almost two years had elapsed since the Security Arm's former training base on Rhea was obliterated by impacting bodies that got past the LORIN defenses. The base had provided an environment for weapons familiarization, field engineering instruction, and deployment exercises that typified airless surfaces to be found all over the Solar System; but since the disaster, SA had transferred the facility to the less representative but safer location of Titan. The sites being excavated for new industrial installations at Omsk had taken some damage too, Delmor Caton recalled. It had happened when he was on shift as Surface Operations supervisor.
He stared down over the ruin of the training base from the passenger cabin of the personnel bus making its descent after the two-hundred-mile hop from Omsk. In the seat facing him, Hector Norburn from Operations Management, also suited up for surface EVA, was sitting forward and taking in the view intently. Unlike Caton, he had never had reason to come out in this direction previously and had only seen the pictures.
What had been the area used for firing practice and tactical training, along with the landing pads and vehicle servicing shops, was buried under mounds of secondary debris from a three-mile-long furrow gouged into the surface by a grazing impact. Outlying surface installations such as antenna arrays and ground beacons had disappeared. The transporter used by the Security Arm people who had arrived at Omsk earlier was standing in front of the buckled remains of the main surface buildings protruding from an overburden of rubble and rock. Figures were standing around it, easily discerned in their brightly colored surface suits. Norburn had said the party consisted of a colonel, another officer, and three technical specialists.
Although Omsk was in production now, supplying forgings and pressed parts for the spacecraft construction program, Caton was still there with the Construction Directorate, looking after new excavations for an extension to the ore processing and rolling facility. Tanya, his former Terran assistant rescued from Mars, had completed her certification as a mining and drilling engineer despite her breakdown shortly after the tragedy, and had moved to Titan. She had joined a group at Essen who were developing methods of quarrying rocks and moving them based on the revolutionary artificial gravity technology that had emerged in the past year or so.
Artificial gravity!
Caton shook his head at the thought. Either he was going to have to go back to school, or his professional days might be numbered.
Being closest at hand at the time of the disaster, with vehicles and equipment from Omsk at his disposal, Caton had organized the first rescue teams to arrive on the scene. But after the immediate tasks of dealing with the casualties, searching the remains of what was left both above and belowground for more survivors, and clearing the worst of the wreckage were done, the later work of salvaging what could be used and evacuating the facility had been carried out by the Security Arm's own engineering crews from Titan.
So they had left the remains, deserted and unchanging, apart from the rain of dust and occasional fusillades of larger bodies as Saturn and its moons swept their path through the storm of debris that Athena had stirred up across the Solar System.
And then now, all of a sudden, the Security Arm was interested in the place again and had requested Omsk to provide local transportation and assistance for a team that would be coming from Titan to conduct some kind of reconnaissance out there. Some hours after the SA team departed from Omsk, administration had contacted Caton to ask if he would fly out to the site with Norburn to look at something the SA group had found there. Caton's name was on record as having been involved in the rescue and cleanup activities following the meteorite impacts, and apparently that was considered significant for some reason.
The bus settled a short distance from the transporter. As its engines died, the flurry of dust around it collapsed in the airless environment like a tenuous balloon deflating. From closer up, the remains of the domes and connecting buildings formed a wall of twisted and splayed metal bordering the rubble-strewn area where the vehicles had landed, sagging out from beneath the debris that had buried it like the spilled content of a gigantic rock sandwich. At one end, part of a flattened dome had been lifted aside—way back, in an operation that Caton himself had supervised—to open the way down to a section of the underground galleries that had escaped being totally pulverized. They'd had to tunnel under a bulkhead wall concertinaed between two levels of flooring that had been crushed together, he recalled. Fortunately, in the gravity of a body the size of Rhea, supporting the load above had not been as difficult as the sight suggested.
"This place certainly took a pasting," Norburn commented, as he sat back from the port and unsnapped his restraining harness.
"You have to see it for yourself to get a real idea of it," Caton agreed.
"Was there much left there below—where the opening goes down?"
"Just parts of a couple of levels. We got a bunch of survivors up from a compartment in the living quarters that had been sealed in. Most of them were just trainee kids. Too dazed to know which moon they were on. Nobody left in that dome up above, though. There was some nasty cleaning up to do in there."
They stood up and took down their helmets from the rack above. "Well, now maybe we get to learn what this is all about, Del," Norburn said. "Any bets?"
"I couldn't even begin to guess," Caton replied.
The pilot came back from the nose compartment and checked their suit readings before opening the lock. They bounced lightly down the extended steps and joined the group of three figures waiting in front of the tunnel, two wearing suits of Security Arm blue, the other's yellow, all of them carrying hand lamps. The other two making up the party were at the transporter, unloading equipment of some kind. The SA officer in the suit with colonel's insignia had Asian features and the name tag xelu on his chest pack. Caton judged him to be around thirty. He introduced himself, and then the others as Lieutenant Queele, SA, and Bor Ethan, a technical advisor.
"It was you who led the rescue team from Omsk, I understand, Mr. Caton," Xelu said. "The Service will always be in your debt."
"It was my privilege, Colonel," Caton replied. "Just glad that we were here. Only sorry we couldn't do more."
"You did as much as anyone could have," Norburn put in.
Colonel Xelu half turned, at the same time looking back toward the tunnel. "And you directed the digging under the debris there?"
"Right. We could tell from sonar scans that some of the underground levels were still intact farther down."
"Can we go and take a look?"
Caton and Norburn looked at each other. Caton shrugged inside his suit.
"Sure," Norburn said. The question seemed to have been more for form. It was what they had come out here for, after all. They followed Xelu into the opening, Queele and Ethan falling in to bring up the rear.
The beam from Xelu's lamp revealed a path of trodden-down rock fragments and dust descending among fallen floor beams and crumpled wall sections. A cleared shaft going up marked where Caton's team had cut their way through to check the upper parts. It didn't bring back the torrent of memories that he had been half expecting. Too much else had happened in the meantime since the day of those events.
"I suppose we owe it to you to say what brings us here," Xelu's voice said in Caton's helmet as they moved on and down. "The political situation in Kronia is getting complicated these days." It wasn't necessary for him to spell out that he meant on account of the agitation and demands of the Pragmatists. "What's worrisome is that this Terran-instigated movement is being led by individuals who consider coercion and violence to be a legitimate means of achieving social goals—or at least, of imposing the appearance of having done so." No Kronian would have considered results brought about by such means to have "achieved" anything.
The point didn't need elaborating. Even though Caton had been brought from Earth
as a child, he was considered a Kronian and he thought like one. It seemed patently obvious to him that if a society appointed leaders from among those who had demonstrated their greatest proficiencies to be in the application of brute force and deception, then that was how their affairs would be run. The nuisance being caused was certainly out of proportion to the numbers and not something that was needed at times like these, and some Kronians were for shutting the movement down forcibly if that was the Terran way. However, President Urzin and most of the Congress were adamant that suppression was not the Kronian way, and relied on the Kronian nature to prevail. If it wasn't robust enough to meet the challenge without turning into that which it sought to supersede, then it probably wasn't worth clinging to, they maintained.
Colonel Xelu went on, "As a precaution in case the need ever arises, the Security Arm is being trained in the capability for taking an expanded role in containing and countering the possible use of violence, sabotage, and suchlike to advance political aims. I trust I don't have to elaborate? I regret the necessity, but it seems that prudence leaves us no choice."
"Everyone regrets it, but it's only common sense," Norburn's voice said on the circuit. "When you think you're threatened, you prepare a defense. Look what happened right here. What kind of state would Kronia have been in by now without the LORIN stations?"
They had reached the bottom of a vertical section of wall. A doorway to one side opened into a large room that the flashlight beams showed to have fallen in at the far end beneath sloping floor sections pressed down from above under a mass of tangled metal. The space was somberly empty, covered everywhere in gray dust. "D-2 Level, Area 3," Xelu commented. "Dormitory and living quarters. This was where you found one of the biggest groups of survivors."
"Over twenty," Caton answered dryly. The memories were starting to come back now. How the place had kept enough air for the time it took to tent the entrance and get down here was something he would never understand. They didn't go through into the room now. Evidently what had brought the SA party here lay elsewhere. Xelu turned from the doorway and indicated a length of corridor leading in the opposite direction, partially blocked by the wall on one side having burst inward, and ending maybe ten yards farther on at a blockage of collapsed partitioning.
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