Departures

Not all of that was on Jablonski’s personal data sheet. Be

“He’s a strong-looking brute,” Cavendish said. Ra

A tight telephoto showed the expression of almost religious awe that Jablonski was wearing as he sailed high over the frozen surface of Mimas. “With a shot like that, you don’t need words,” Cavendish murmured.

The monitor split into thirds, simultaneously tracking Marge Olbert hurtling down toward her landing, Jablonski nearing apogee, and the next contestant on the runway, a Siberian woman who crossed herself before she began her descent.

Dream-smooth, the girl from the Anzac Federation touched down, steadying herself with her ski poles. “Here’s her distance, now,” Cavendish said. “It’s 10,290 meters-a splendid opening jump.” As Marge Olbert killed her momentum on the reverse slope beyond the landing zone, a crawler came out to pick her up and take her back to the Olympic village. Her raised fist said she knew what she had done.

Then Jozef Jablonski was landing, not as gracefully as his predecessor but safe enough. Red numbers superimposed on his image gave the length of his jump: 11,149 meters. “Astonishing that only a four-kilometer-an-hour difference in takeoff velocity will produce so much extra distance,” Ra

“It’s enough to send Jablonski over two hundred meters higher than Marge Olbert, and keep him over the ice twenty seconds longer,” Be

One after another, the jumpers flew through their parabolas. With sixty-eight competitors in all, the first round was scheduled to last nearly six hours. As Cavendish had guessed, Marge Olbert’s distance kept holding up, though the girl from the United States, making her first jump off Earth, startled everyone by coming within seventeen meters of it. On the men’s side, Jozef Jablonski stayed in solid contention, if not among the very leaders.

They were down to the last half dozen competitors when Be

“Nothing but luck, so far,” Cavendish said. “If we’re as well off after all three days of jumping are done, then we’ll have something to brag about.”

The dismissal irritated Be

“He was a favorite, aye,” Cavendish said, “but who would’ve thought he’d have a takeoff velocity of 103.81 kilometers an hour? That comes to a jump of over 11,580 meters, enough to put him in front by more than 40 meters. Watching his form, I own I didn’t think he’d be off so strong.”

Back at the top of the runway, a Muscovite in red and gold waited for the starting light. Ra

“I suspect he’s been through worse,” Be

“I wonder,” Angus Cavendish said with a grin.”Then it was only the eye of his sergeant on him, not the whole of Earth and Luna.”

Shepilov’s speed down the ramp was slower than al-Kuwatly’s at every checkpoint, but still respectable. He launched himself at just over a hundred kilometers an hour, a jump that projected out close to an even eleven kilometers.

Coverage of the next athlete, a man from United Europe, was brief; attention switched away to al-Kuwatly, who was heading down toward his landing. “I don’t look for any trouble from him,” Cavendish said. “He’s still half a kilometer up, almost two minutes away from putting his skis to the ice, but already he’s in good position, as he should be. Nothing’ll go wrong here.”

The slow-motion shots of what happened next would be replayed endlessly. Seeing everything live, Be

Everyone in the studio stared in consternation at the sudden misty globe around al-Kuwady’s head, the rime forming on his faceplate and the sides of his helmet. “His suit’s failed!” Ra

They could do nothing but watch. Had it been he up there, Be

As a veteran spacer, Cavendish was the first to recognize what that meant. “Murder!” he shouted. “That’s a killed man up there, else he’d be making shift to save himself.” He might have been reading Be

Al-Kuwady’s flight path did not, could not change. Trailing vapor, he plunged toward the landing slope. He hit the ice like a thrown cloth doll, then bounced and tumbled bonelessly. If he had not been dead already, the impact would have killed him.

Sickened, Be

No one had paid any attention to Louis-Philippe Guizot, the jumper who came after the Muscovite. Perhaps because he was from United Europe, Be

Be

“This is madness!” Be

The director spoke in his ear. His voice went hard as he relayed the news to his distant audience: “We have just received a radio transmission claiming responsibility for the atrocity that has taken place here today. Here is a recording of that transmission.”

The tape was scratchy; the transmitter must have been a tiny one, and Saturn’s radio emission chopped up the signal. But it was perfectly understandable. “As it is the Olympic language this year, I shall speak French,” a man’s voice said. It had a faint guttural accent and was full of irony and a good humor that chilled Be