Deepsix

"No. Leave Chiang. But do what you can for MacAllister and the woman. And Kellie…"

"Yes?"

"Try to salvage the lander. I don't need to tell you how helpful that would be." She switched back to Chiang. "Where are you?"

"I'm in the far passageway, near the armory."

"No sign of Toni?"

"Not yet."

She felt cold.

"I'll start digging," he said.

"Be careful. It probably wouldn't take much to bring more of this place down."

"Okay."

"I'll start from this end."

"It's going to take a while," he said.

"At your leisure, Chiang. I'm not going anywhere."

She heard his laser ignite. Hutch put her lamp down and got to work.

MacAllister had no idea what to do. He shut off Casey's suit and tried to revive her, but she didn't respond. Thirty meters away, the lander lay in the snow, scorched, crumpled, burning, and leaking black smoke.

He surveyed the place where they'd come down: flat barren hills, a few trees, some brush. He felt terribly alone. Where was that idiot woman who wanted to run everything? Now that he could use her, she was nowhere to be seen.

He contemplated the odds against a quake hitting just as he was doing the interview, and considered not for the first time whether the universe was indeed malicious.

They had crossed a — line of hills, so he could no longer see the tower. He sat helplessly, cradling Casey's body, feeling responsible, wondering how he could ever have been so stupid as to leave the safety of his stateroom on the Star.

He was immensely relieved to see two figures come out of a defile. One was the woman they called Kellie. The other was Nightingale. They paused and looked his way. He waved. They waved back and started toward him, trying to hurry through deep snow.

"Mr. MacAllister." Kellie's voice in his earphones. "Are you all right?"

"Casey's not breathing," he said.

They struggled up to his side and Kellie sank into the snow beside him. She felt for a heartbeat, then for a pulse.

"Anything?" MacAllister asked.

Kellie shook her head. "I don't think so." They worked on her for a while, taking turns.

"Looks as if we wrecked your lander," MacAllister said.

"What happened?" asked Nightingale. "Don't you know how to fly it?"

"I wasn't the pilot," he said. "Casey was. I don't have any experience with these things."

"What went wrong?"

"She wasn't used to it. It was too big. Or something." He looked down at her limp, broken form. "She was out here on a birthday gift. From her parents."

After a while they gave up. Kellie sighed and laid Casey's head gently in the snow and walked silently over to the wrecked spacecraft.

She circled it a couple of times, and they heard her banging on something on the far side.

"What do you think?" asked Nightingale nervously.

She reappeared from behind the tail. "It's scrap. We'll want to see what we can salvage."

MacAllister tried to read her eyes, to see whether she was worried. But her expression was masked. "We'd better inform whoever's in charge," he said.

"It's been done."

He was weary, exhausted, frightened. He'd brought two people with him, and both were dead.

MacAllister had trained himself over the years to avoid indulging in guilt. You have to beat your conscience into submission, he'd once written, because the conscience isn't really a part of you. It's programming introduced at an early age by a church or a government or a social group with its own agenda. Avoid sex. Respect authority. Accept responsibility for things that go wrong even when events are out of your control.

Well, earthquakes are goddam well outside my control.

Bill's bearded features reflected the general concern. "Yes, Marcel?" he asked. "What can I do?"

"Inform the Star, personal for the captain, that there's been an earthquake at the site. Ask him to call me."

7 will get right on it."

"Tell him also that his lander was wrecked. Ask him if he has another on board."

"Marcel, our data banks indicate the Star carries only a single lander."

"Ask him anyhow. Maybe there's been a mistake somewhere. Meantime, do a survey. I.need to know who's within six days' travel time. The closer the better. Anybody with a lander." Most vessels did not carry landers. There was usually no need, because ports were all equipped to provide transportation to and from orbit. Routinely, only research flights to frontier areas in which a landing was contemplated, or cruise ships, which occasionally scheduled sight-seeing tours in remote locations, made room for one.

Beekman came in. "I heard," he said. Several others entered behind him. "Are Kellie and Chiang okay?"

"As far as we know. But we're going to bring them home. The ground mission is over."

"I concur," Beekman said.

Marcel was angry, frustrated, weary. "How much time do we have to get them off?"

Beekman glanced at the calendar. "They should be reasonably safe until the end of the week. After that, it's anybody's guess."

Marcel tried to call Hutch on the private cha

"Is she still in the tower?" asked Beekman.

"Yes. Last I heard."

"Marcel." It was the AI. "I'm sorry to break in, but your message to the Star has been delivered. And I can find only one ship with a lander within the required range. The Athena Boardman. It's owned by-"

"I know who owns it," said Marcel. The Boardman was part of the Kosmik fleet, a vessel he had piloted himself on occasion when he worked for the government-subsidized terraformer during the early years of his career. "How far are they?"

"They can be here in four days. And we have an incoming from the Star. Captain Nicholson wants to speak with you on the cobalt cha

Encrypted. "Set it up, Bill."

"Who died?" asked Beekman. "Do we have any names?"

"Two that we know of. The pilot of the Star's lander. And a young woman passenger. Maybe more. I don't know yet." Marcel had been scribbling in his notebook. "Bill."

"Yes, Marcel."

"Send a four-bell message to the Boardman: 'Wendy jay is declaring an emergency. We have people stranded on Deepsix vulnerable to impending Morgan event. Require your lander and your assistance to perform rescue. Time presses. Request you proceed immediately. Clairveau. Standard closing. Give them our coordinates."

"Okay, Marcel. And I have Captain Nicholson on the circuit."

Marcel asked those who'd accompanied Beekman to withdraw, and closed the door. Then he told the AI to proceed. Nicholson's image appeared on-screen. He looked scared. "Captain Clairveau," he said. "How bad is it?"

"It's bad," said Marcel.

Nicholson spotted Beekman and hesitated,

"Professor Beekman," said Marcel, "is the director of the Morgan Project, and he is the soul of discretion. One of his people is down there, too. As are several others."

Nicholson nodded. Muscles worked in his cheeks. "What exactly happened?"

Marcel told him.

He lost all of his color, and his eyes slid shut. "God help us," he said. For a long moment he was silent. Then: "Forgive me, but did you say both landers have been destroyed?"

"Yes. That's why I asked whether you might have an extra one available."

It was hard to believe he could have gone even whiter, but he did. "You mean you don't have a backup vehicle?"

"We didn't have a lander at all, Captain. Hutchins used the one from Wildside."

"I see." He nodded and seemed to be having trouble breathing. Marcel thought for a moment that a stroke might be imminent. "Okay," he said finally. "We don't have one either, so we're going to have to get help."

"We've already done that. The Boardman's only a few days away."

"Thank God." He was trembling. "You will let me know when you hear more?"