Saturn

“Where is she? Why isn’t she in my hands?”

Trying to control the tension that was tightening inside him, Eberly said, “She’s in Wilmot’s apartment. She’s not going anywhere.”

“What’s going on? What are you up to?” Kananga loomed over Eberly like a dangerous thundercloud.

“Wait until the election returns are in,” Eberly said, jabbing a finger toward the rapidly-changing numbers. “Once I’m officially the head of this habitat I’ll be able to act with real authority.”

Kananga scowled suspiciously.

Hoping he had at least half-convinced the Rwandan, Eberly got up from his desk chair. “If you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to get some sleep.”

“Now? With the voting still going on?”

“There’s nothing I can do to affect the voting now. It’s all in the lap of the gods.”

Despite himself, Kananga smiled tightly. “Better not let Morgenthau hear you speaking like a pagan.”

Eberly forced himself to smile back. “I must sleep. It wouldn’t do for the newly-elected head of this habitat to have puffy eyes when he accepts the authority of office.”

SATURN ARRIVAL MINUS 1 DAY, 7 HOURS

Edouard Urbain watched the final few minutes of the voting in the privacy of his quarters with a strange mixture of disappointment and relief. Eberly had clearly won, that much was certain early in the afternoon. But Urbain waited until the voting ended, at 17:00 hours, before finally accepting the fact that he would not be the director of the habitat.

He almost smiled. Now I can get back to my real work, he told himself. I will no longer be distracted by these political monkeyshines.

Yet he felt close to tears. Rejected again. All my life I have been turned away from the top position. All my life I have been told that I am not good enough to be number one. Even Jeanmarie turned against me, in the end.

And more, he realized. Now I must face this crazy stuntman and his demand to go to the surface of Titan. Eberly will support his demand, of course. I will have to ask the IAA to inform Eberly that they will not permit it. I will have to show everyone back on Earth that I am not strong enough to keep a simple adventurer from contaminating a pristine new world.

Tears blurred his eyes as he commanded the phone to contact Eberly. I must congratulate him and concede my defeat, Urbain thought. Another defeat. With more to come.

Ilya Timoshenko had no difficulty making his concession message. Sitting at the bar in the Bistro surrounded by a gaggle of supporters — mostly engineers and technicians — he used his handheld to call Eberly.

“You’ve won and I’m glad,” he said to Eberly’s pleased image. “Now let’s get this bucket into its proper orbit around Saturn.”

Eberly laughed. “Yes, by all means. We’re all counting on you and the technical staff to bring us into Saturn orbit tomorrow.”

While Eberly’s supporters celebrated his victory with an impromptu picnic out by the lake, Holly was still in Wilmot’s apartment, using his computer to comb through the habitat’s perso

As she sent the list to Eberly at his quarters, she wondered how good her idea really was. Would the people she had selected actually agree to serve as a posse? It was so hard to pinpoint attributes such as loyalty and responsibility from a person’s dossier. Most of the people aboard the habitat were far from being “establishment” types. They weren’t misfits, as Pancho had called them, but they were definitely free thinkers, self-starters, unwilling to accept discipline imposed by others.

I hope this works, Holly thought. She realized that her very life depended on it.

The victory party was getting rowdy. Several of Eberly’s supporters had brought coolers of home-brewed beer to the lakeside picnic and now the celebrants were getting noisier and more obstreperous, laughing uproariously at almost anything, sloshing beer over one another’s heads, even wading into the lake fully dressed, giggling and staggering like college students.

Normally, Eberly would have basked in the adulation of his supporters. He didn’t drink, and no one dared to douse him with beer or anything else, but still Eberly would have enjoyed every millisecond of the hours-long picnic. Except that he knew what was coming after the party ended.

So despite the smile he wore, in the back of his mind he was thinking that he would have to deal with Kananga, and that was going to be far from pleasant. Dangerous, more likely.

Morgenthau seemed rather pleased, despite the drunken antics of the staggering, boisterous crowd. Even snaky little Vyborg chatted happily with a few of the glowing-eyed young women that clustered about him, Eberly noted. Power goes to some people’s heads; in other people, power goes straight to the groin.

Morgenthau shouldered her way through a throng of well-wishers crowding Eberly, a plastic cup in her chubby hand. Nonalcoholic, Eberly was certain. Probably lemonade. The crowd melted away. Are they being respectful, Eberly wondered, or do they realize that she views all this frivolity with infinite distaste?

Once the others had moved out of earshot, she quietly asked Eberly, “Enjoying your triumph?” A knowing smile dimpled her broad face.

He nodded soberly. He had been careful to drink nothing stronger than iced tea all through the picnic.

“Now our true work begins,” she said, in a lower voice. “Now we bring these people under control.”

Eberly nodded again, less enthusiastically. He knew that she meant that he too would be under control, as well. Her control. I’ve done all this work and she thinks she’s going to be the true power.

He wondered if Wilmot and Holly would turn out to be strong enough to help him.

The following morning, fifty puzzled men and women crowded into the largest conference room in the administration building. Holly, escorted by Gaeta and Cardenas, left Wilmot’s quarters to join them, after a detour to their own apartments for a shower and change of clothes. They could see Kananga’s security officers following them at some distance, hanging back but watching their every move as they spoke into their handhelds for instructions from Kananga. Holly thought of vids she had seen of hyenas tracking a herd of gazelles, waiting for a weak one to falter so they could pounce.

Eberly met them at the building’s front door and together they walked past the Human Resources offices, where Morgenthau should have been, to the conference room.

There weren’t enough chairs in the conference room for everyone, and the fifty people Holly had selected were mostly on their feet, making the packed room feel hot and sweaty with the press of too many bodies. And they were decidedly unhappy.

“What’s going on?” one of the men demanded as soon as Eberly stepped through the door.

“Yeah, why do you want us here?”

“We’re not go

Eberly made a placating gesture with both hands as he squeezed through the group and up to the head of the table. Holly, with Gaeta and Cardenas still flanking her, waited near the door.

“Hey, isn’t that the fugitive?” someone said, pointing at Holly.

“The security people want her.”

“She must’ve turned herself in.”

Holly said nothing, but it frightened her to be considered a fugitive, a criminal who has to be turned over to the authorities.

“What’s she doing here?”

“Maybe Eberly’s got her to give herself up.”

“Then why’re we here? What’s he want with us?”

Gradually, they all turned toward Eberly, who stood in silence behind the unoccupied chair at the head of the table, his hands gripping the chair back, waiting for their mutterings to cease.