Saturn

“I know the organization chart!” Eberly snapped. “I drafted it myself. I had no choice but to accept those two secularists above you, but you are the one I have chosen to run the department. Can you do it?”

“Of course,” Vyborg answered without hesitation. “But what will become of my superiors?”

“You can’t ship them home, once we get started,” Morgenthau pointed out, a smile dimpling her cheeks.

“I will take care of them,” Eberly said firmly, “when the proper moment comes. For now, I want to know that I can rely on you.”

“You can,” said Vyborg.

“Completely and utterly. I want total loyalty.”

“You will have it,” Vyborg said firmly. Then he smiled again and added, “If you can make me head of communications.”

“I will.”

Morgenthau smiled, satisfied that these two men could work together and further the cause that she had given her life to serve.

Holly was getting frantic. She had searched everywhere for Malcolm, from his austere little office to the other cubbyholes in the human resources section, then down the corridors in the other sections of the administration building. No sign of him anywhere.

He’ll miss the breakout! she kept telling herself. She had it all pla

But Malcolm was nowhere to be found. Where could he be? What’s he doing? He’ll miss everything! People were streaming along the paths toward the assembly areas where the big screens had been set up, couples and larger groups, chatting, smiling, nodding hello to her. Holly ignored them all, searching for Eberly.

And then she saw him, striding along the path from the woods with that overweight Morgenthau woman beside him. Holly frowned. He’s spending a lot of time with her, she thought. But a smile broke across her face as she watched them: Morgenthau was puffing hard, trying to keep up with Malcolm’s longer strides. Serves her right, Holly thought, as she started down the path to intercept them and bring Malcolm over to the shore of the lake. She wanted him standing beside her as the habitat started its long flight to Saturn. Nobody else, she told herself. He’s got to stand with me.

Sitting up in bed, Pancho Lane stared unhappily at the hologram image of Goddard hanging in space. It appeared as if one half of her bedroom had disappeared, to be replaced by the darkness of space with a miniature habitat floating in the middle of the scene, revolving slowly. The Moon edged into view, pockmarked and glowing brightly. Pancho could see the laser beacon that marked the top of Mt. Yeager, just above Selene, not all that far from her own bedroom.

She’s really doing it, Pancho grumbled to herself. Sis is really going off in that danged tin can, getting as far away from me as she can get. I saved her life, I broke my butt paying her medical expenses and the cryonics and all that, I nursed her and taught her and wiped her shitty ass, and now she goes traipsing off into the wild black yonder. That’s gratitude. That’s a sister’s love.

Yet she couldn’t work up real anger. She knew that Susie needed to break away, needed to start her own life. Independently. Every kid’s got to go out on her own, sooner or later. Hell, I did myself when Susie was just a preteen.

Not Susie, she remembered. She calls herself Holly now. Got to remember that when I call her. Holly.

Well, if things don’t work out for her I’ll send a torch ship out to bring her home. All she’s got to do is ask. I’ll fly out to her myself, by damn.

The holographic view of Goddard winked out, replaced by a life-sized image of Professor Wilmot. To Pancho, watching from her bed, it seemed as if the man’s head and shoulders hovered in midair across her bedroom.

“Today we embark on an unprecedented voyage of discovery and exploration,” Wilmot began, in a slow, sonorous voice.

“Blah, blah, blah,” Pancho muttered. She muted the sound with a voice command and then ordered her phone to get her security chief. I just hope Wendell got somebody really good to keep an eye on Sis. If he hasn’t I’ll toss him out on his butt, no matter how good he is in bed.

“Vyborg makes a good addition to our cadre,” Morgenthau said as she walked beside Eberly, heading back to the lakeside village.

Eberly brushed at a brilliant monarch butterfly that fluttered too close to his face. “He’s ambitious, that’s clear enough.”

“There’s nothing wrong with ambition,” said Morgenthau.

“As long as he can follow orders.”

“He will, I’m sure.”

Inwardly, Eberly had his doubts. But I’ve got to work with the material at hand, he told himself. Morgenthau has practically no ambition, no drive for self-aggrandizement. That makes her a perfect underling. Vyborg is something else. I’ll have to watch him closely. And my back, as well.

To Morgenthau he said, “Information is the key to power. With Vyborg in communications we’ll have access to all the surveillance cameras in the habitat.”

“And he could help us to tap into the phones, as well,” Morgenthau added.

“I want more than that. I want every apartment bugged with surveillance cameras. Secretly, of course.”

“Every apartment? That’s… it’s a tremendous task.”

“Find a way to do it,” Eberly snapped.

Holly tried not to run, she didn’t want to appear that anxious, but the closer she got to Eberly and Morgenthau, the faster she trotted. As she approached, she wondered why Malcolm had chosen to be with Morgenthau. She’s not much to look at, Holly giggled to herself. Really, she’s too much to look at. And all decked out like she’s going to some wild-ass party. She’d be pretty if she dropped twenty or thirty kilos.

Eberly looked up and recognized her.

“Malcolm!” Holly called, slowing to a walk. “Come on! The ceremonies’ve started already. You’re go

“Then I’ll miss it,” Eberly said severely. “I have work to do. I can’t waste my time on ceremonies.”

He walked right past her, with the Morgenthau woman slogging along beside him. Holly stood there with her mouth hanging open, fighting desperately to keep from crying.

BREAKOUT

Hardly anyone aboard Goddard knew about the “bridge.” Actually, the massive habitat’s navigation and control center was in a compact pod mounted on the outside skin of the huge cylinder like a blister on a slowly-rotating log.

Captain Nicholson’s title was an honorific. She had skippered spacecraft out to the Asteroid Belt and had once even commanded a trio of ships on a resupply mission for the scientific bases on Mars.

Of the four-person crew that ran the navigation and control center, Nicholson, her first mate, and her navigator intended to return to Earth as soon as they had established Goddard in orbit at Saturn. Only the systems engineer, Ilya Timoshenko, had signed on for the mission’s full duration. In fact, Timoshenko never expected to see Earth again.

Samantha Nicholson did not look like a veteran spacecraft commander. She was a petite woman who had allowed her hair to go silvery white. The descendent of a long line of shipping magnates, she was the first of her family to heed the call of space, rather than the sea. Her father disowned her for her stubborn, independent choice; her mother cried bitterly the first time she left Earth. Nicholson consoled her mother and told her father she neither needed nor wanted the family fortune. She never returned to Earth, but made Selene her home instead.