Deepsix

Kellie, who was teamed with Nightingale, seemed to have become resigned. She stayed close to her partner, worked hard, plunging her hands beneath the surface constantly to examine one suspect rock or another. But Hutch could see that she had no real hope of success, could see it in the way she paused occasionally while they rested to look out over the vast expanse of ru

Once they thought they had one of them, but it turned out to be something much like a turtle shell.

When it got dark, they quit. They were exhausted, a

The water was starting to rise again anyhow. Hutch took them up.

"Can I make a suggestion?" said Marcel.

"Go ahead."

"First, am I correct in assuming you've given up looking for the capacitors?"

Hutch glanced around. They all nodded.

"All right. I want to move you to high ground for the night." "Okay."

"For the moment, there's nothing more you can do. Tomorrow, I'd like to persuade you to go to even higher ground." "Mt. Blue," she said.

XXIX

We are all afflicted with a Lone Ranger syndrome, a belief in the masked stranger who arrives well armed at dawn and settles problems in a straightforward simplistic ma

— Gregory MacAllister, Introduction to The Last Mythology by Eve Shiu-Chao

Hours to breakup (Est): 42

They locked down for the night atop a ridge in a howling blizzard not far from Bad News Bay. The ground shook constandy. Hutch slept off and on. She and Kellie both spent time listening hopefully to operational reports from the small armada overhead.

They heard Janet Hazelhurst issuing crisp directions to the Outsiders, who were getting ready to remove what they called the Alpha shaft from the assembly; they heard John Drummond's team working out the details of getting everything pointed in the right direction, and Abel Kinder debating the location of the pickup site with Drum-raond: "It's easier to get here, but the weather looks doubtful, so we need to go farther north."

They heard Miles Chastain and the shuttle pilots pla

"We've moved it slightly," he said. "But not by much." Rendezvous would occur in precisely twenty-five hours and eleven minutes, mark. Three hours after sunrise day after tomorrow. "At 10,276 meters."

"Ten thousand two-seventy six?" said Hutch. "What happens if we come in at seventy-five?"

He laughed. "You'll be fine, but I'm serious about the precision of this. At its lowest point, we expect the center of the scoop will be at seventy-six. The mouth will be fifty-three meters in diameter. The lander, at its widest, is about fifteen meters. That means you have nineteen meters leeway on either side."

"All right. We should be able to do that. How much time are we going to have?"

"Pinpoint. A couple of seconds. We'll have everything timed so it arrives exactly where it's supposed to, when it's supposed to. But it's just going to be passing through. You get one shot at it. It conies in, it goes down, it starts back up. After that it's gone."

"Okay."

"I'll be with you the whole way. Even if I'm not, you'll be fine."

"Glad to hear it. I was starting to worry. Why might you not be?"

"There's a good probability we'll lose communications with you as the weather deteriorates. But you've got the details, and whatever else happens, you'll still be able to see the net coming in. Okay?"

"Yeah. That's good."

They listened while Beekman and his team hammered out the method of converting the metal webbing in which the asteroid was encased into the sack that would be used to pick up the lander. In night. And they heard a recording of the meeting at which the volunteers voted to call themselves the Outsiders. Marcel apparently thought the enthusiasm of their rescuers would help morale on the ground. It did.

Marcel explained that most of the volunteers were passengers from the cruise ship. A few were Kellie's colleagues from Wendy. Hutch's passenger Tom Scolari was among them. ("Are you serious?" she replied.) Almost none had ever been outside before.

Hutch was surprised to see Kellie surreptitiously wipe away a tear. "They're really trying," she commented.

Some of the Outsiders working along the assembly heard that the lander was on the circuit and could hear them. "We're coming,"they said. "Hang on." And "Don't worry. We'll get you out."

"Whatever it takes."

Outside, the wind continued to howl, and the snow piled up. Even with the transmissions, rescue seemed impossibly far away.

They woke in late morning to clearing skies. The blizzard had blown itself out, and a heavy blanket of snow sparkled under a bright sun. They broke out the last of their stocked fruit, which consisted of almost tasteless pulp protected inside a hard shell. They talked about how good it would be to have a real breakfast again, and agreed it was time to take a look at Mt. Blue. One way or the other, this would be their last full day on Deepsix.

"What's the top of the mountain look like?" Hutch asked Marcel. "What do we know about it?"

"Okay. You know it's been sheared off. The peak's gone. It's absolutely flat up there. Looks as if somebody took a scythe to it. But you can't see it because it's always wrapped in clouds."

"The building's on the summit?"

"Right. It's a ruin. Several stories high. With dishes. Probably solar collectors, although God knows how it would get any energy through all those clouds."

"Maybe they didn't used to be there," said Nightingale.

"Probably. Anyhow it's a big place. The building is a hexagon, roughly two hundred meters on a side. And I should add that everybody here's convinced it was the base of the skyhook."

"Why?" asked MacAllister.

"It's directly on the equator. And the sea to the west is full of debris."

"The elevator," said Hutch.

"Yes. It looks as if the elevator either broke apart or was deliberately cut. Our best guess is that it was severed at about eleven thousand meters. The upper section was dragged into space; the lower broke off the base and fell into the ocean.

"Is there a place for us to land?"

"Oh sure. No problem about that."

Well, it was nice to have something that didn't come with a problem. "All right," Hutch said. "We'll do it, Marcel. We have to stop first to pick up some food. And it would probably be a good idea to top off the tanks. Visibility up there is…?"

"Zero."

"Of course. Keep in mind we have no sensors. How am I supposed to land if I can't see?"

"I'll guide you in."

"I can't believe I've agreed to this," said MacAllister, as she took her bearing from the superluminal and turned onto her new course.