Saturn

The tracker reached the hatch where Holly had entered the pipeline easily enough. The electronic sniffer in his hand followed the scent trail she had left quite easily. My faithful bloodhound, he thought, with a crooked smile.

Now he had a decision to make. Should I go into the pipe and follow her, or stay outside? He decided to remain outside. He could make better time walking, or even jogging, than he could crawling inside the dark pipe. She has to come out sooner or later, and when she does the sniffer will tell me which hatch she used.

But which direction did she go? She was heading away from the village, toward the endcap, he knew. I’ll follow that vector. The chances that she’d double back toward the village are pretty scarce. Still, he phoned Kananga to report the situation and advise him to have a few people standing by at the pipeline hatches near the village.

“I’ll do better than that,” Kananga said, gri

Tavalera bicycled out to the endcap along the path that meandered through the orchards and farmlands. He left the bike at the end of the path, then followed the walking trail that led through the woods at the endcap. It felt strange: He could see he was climbing a decent slope yet it felt as if he were going downhill; the gravity diminished noticeably with every step he took.

At last he reached the little spot in the woods where he and Holly had once picnicked. I can’t search the whole habitat for you, Holly, he said silently, so you’ll have to come to me.

Tavalera sat down and began to wait for her to show up. It was the best course of action he could think of.

Gaeta felt the same pulse of excitement that always hit him once he was sealed inside the suit, with all the systems turned on and working. Not merely excitement. What he felt was power. In the suit he had the strength of a demigod. The suit protected him against the worst that the universe could throw at him. He felt virtually invulnerable, invincible.

Keep thinking like that, pal, and you’ll end up dead, he warned himself. Take a deep breath and get to work. And remember that it’s damned dangerous out there.

Still, he felt like a superman.

“Approaching insertion point.” Timoshenko’s raspy voice came through the helmet earphones.

Gaeta nodded. “I’m sealed up. Open the cargo bay hatch.”

“Opening hatch.”

Gaeta had been through this many times. He always felt a thrill when the hatch slid open and he could look out at the universe of endless black void and countless brilliant stars.

But this time was different. As the hatch opened the cargo bay was flooded with light, overpoweringly brilliant light. Gaeta looked up at an endless field of gleaming, dazzling white, as far as his eyes could see, nothing but glittering sparkling light. It was like looking out at a titanic glacier or a field of glistening snow that extended forever.

No, he realized. It’s like looking out at a whole world made of diamonds: sparkling, glittering diamonds. They’re not just white, they gleam and glow like diamonds, hundreds of millions of billions of bright, beautiful gems spread out from one end of the universe to the other.

His breath caught in his throat. “Jesus Cristo,” he muttered.

“What was that?” Timoshenko asked.

“I’m going out,” Gaeta said.

“Your trajectory program is operative?”

Gaeta called up the trajectory program vocally. It splashed its colored curves on the inside of his faceplate.

“Operative.”

“Ready for insertion in eight seconds. Seven…”

Gaeta had to make a conscious effort to concentrate on the task ahead. His eyes kept wandering to the endless field of dazzling gems stretching out before him.

They’re just flakes of ice, he told himself. Nothing more than bits of dust with ice covering them.

Yeah, answered a voice in his mind. And diamonds are nothing more than carbon. And the Mona Lisa is nothing more than same dabs of paint on a chunk of canvas.

“… one … zero. Launch,” said Timoshenko.

The suit’s master computer ignited the thrusters in the backpack and Gaeta felt himself pushed gently out of the cargo bay. Now he was looking down on the endless field of gleaming gems and begi

How fucking beautiful, he thought. How incredibly fucking beautiful!

“Say something!” came Berkowitz’s voice, relayed from the habitat. “We need some words from you for posterity.”

Gaeta licked his lips. “This is the most incredibly beautiful sight I’ve ever seen. It’s … it’s … beyond description. Words just can’t capture it.”

For some minutes Gaeta just drifted along above the ring plane, allowing the computer to guide him automatically along the preset trajectory. He knew the cameras in his helmet were recording it all, so there wasn’t much for him to do at this point in the trajectory. He simply gaped, awed by the splendor that surrounded him.

“It’s like something out of a fairy tale,” he said, hardly realizing he was speaking aloud. “A field of diamonds. A whole world of diamonds spread out below me. I feel like Sinbad the Sailor and Marco Polo and Ali Baba, all rolled into one.”

“That’s great,” Berkowitz’s voice answered. “Great.”

“Have any particles hit you?” Fritz asked.

“No, nothing that the sensors have picked up,” Gaeta replied. “I’m still too high above the ring.” Good old Fritz, he thought. Trying to bring me back to reality.

Another gentle push of thrust at his back and Gaeta began to come closer to the ring. Within minutes he would be going through it. That would be the dangerous part of the stunt, barging in there among all those bits and chunks while they’re whipping around the planet in their orbits.

He could see now that the ring wasn’t a solid sheet. It was clearly made of separate, individual rings, braiding together and unwinding even while he watched. He could see stars through the ring, and the ponderous curve of Saturn with its colorful bands of clouds.

“Looks like a cyclonic storm down in the southern tropics,” he reported.

“Never mind that,” Fritz said. “Pay attention to the rings.”

“Yes, master.”

“What about the spokes?” Wunderly’s voice, trembling with exhilaration. “I can see them in your camera view. One of them is approaching you.”

Gaeta realized that there were darker regions in the ring, undulating like a wave made by fans at a sports arena.

“Yeah, heading my way,” he said.

Looking closer, he saw that it was almost like a cloud of darker bits of dust rising up from the ring plane and sweeping along the brighter stuff of the ring’s main body. And he was approaching it at a fairly rapid clip.

“I’m going to duck into it,” he said.

Fritz warned, “Wait. Let us examine it first.”

“It’ll pass me; I’ll miss it.”

“There will be others.”

Gaeta didn’t want to wait for another spoke to swing by. He pulled his right arm out of the suit sleeve and tapped in a maneuver command for the navigation program.

“Here we go,” he said as the suit tilted and dove into the approaching cloud.

Fritz muttered something in German.

“It’s dust,” Gaeta saw. “Sort of gray, like there’s no ice coating the particles.”

“Adjust your approach vector,” Fritz snapped. “Don’t go plunging headlong into the cloud.”

“I’ll just skim along it,” said Gaeta, enjoying himself now. “Doesn’t look thick enough to cause any problems. I can see right through it.”

Wunderly said, “See if you—” Her voice broke up into crackling static.

“Say again,” Gaeta called. “You’re breaking up.”

No answer except hissing electronic interference. Gaeta was barely touching the cloud as it swept along the ring. He called for a systems check and the displays on his faceplate showed everything in the green, including the radio.