Wasteland of flint

panels. 'Mags, I think we need to jimmy up some kind of specialized clamp to back these dead connectors out…'

Gretchen sat quietly, thinking, while the Hesht and the pilot worked in the tight space under the deck, cursing and sweating. After almost an hour, she leaned forward and keyed up the Midge fuel- loading model Parker had put together. Her eyes were oddly flat and expressionless as she tapped in a new scenario.

A sleepbag muffled the sound of snoring, but Gretchen's work goggles were dialed up into light-amp mode and she pushed away from the door frame of Parker's cabin without a pause. She caught the far wall and bumped softly to a halt. With her free hand, she ran the sharp edge of her thumbnail down the sealer strip and a flap fell away, revealing the pilot's sleeping face.

'Breakfast time,' she whispered, pinching his earlobe. Parker's eyes flickered open and he blinked in the darkness. Straining against her own exhaustion, Gretchen laid a finger across his lips before he made too much noise. 'Quietly, Parker-tzin, quietly. Get dressed and bring your tools.'

The pilot swallowed a curse, fumbled for his work shades, then hissed in disbelief at the hour. 'Where -'

'I'll show you,' Gretchen said, closing her eyes for a moment. I am so tired.

Parker eeled out of his bag with admirable skill, then started to gather up his work vest, toolbelt and clothing. The fingertips of Gretchen's left hand crept to the medband on her right wrist, and then a blessedly cool sensation began to prick up her arm. Ahhh…nothing like a jolt of eightgoodhours.

Fifteen minutes later, Parker had a very sour look on his face as they followed a guideline into the rear cargo deck of the number one shuttle. The docking bay was dark, lit only by the faint glow of lights around the airlock. Gretchen drew herself to a halt at the loading master's station, one foot hooked into a step-up to hold her steady. The hold was filled from side to side by the inelegant shape of a cargo pallet squatting atop the shuttle's deployment rack.

'Stand clear,' Gretchen said, keying the loading master's panel awake. Frowning, Parker stood aside, keeping feet, hands and head behind a wedge of crosshatched yellow lines on the deck. Anderssen ran her forefinger down a control ribbon, her thumb plastered against an override.

A deep hum filled the air and Parker jerked back from the cargo rails. The enormous pallet slid forward smoothly, tiny winking lights marking the outline of the pod. As the pilot watched in growing alarm, the pallet rumbled past him, then out of the back of the shuttle.

'Wha…' Parker turned to Gretchen, but she was watching the pod with a grim, fixed expression. 'Please say Maggie has subverted the surveillance cam -'

'She has,' Gretchen muttered, her fingers dancing on the panel. 'And Bandao is watching outside, just in case.'

Parker felt the air tremble and looked back. A cargo lading arm descended from the roof of the bay, entirely ominous in the darkness, only a suggestion of movement, of long reaching steel claws. Two massive lading braces appeared out of the gloom and slid into matching grooves on either side of the cargo pod. The pilot inched back – he'd seen more than one spaceport worker crushed between a pod and the side of a shuttle or the maneuvering arms. The pallet clanked away from the shuttle deck, then swung away into darkness.

'Here we go,' Gretchen said in a strained, tight voice. 'Better get behind me.'

Parker slid past her, then flinched as a second pod – just as large as the first – emerged from the darkness. His hand tightened on a hold-on bar. 'That's not -'

'- on the loading track?' Gretchen's busy fingers had slowed. Now they drifted gently across the control panel. 'No. No, it's not.'

The new pallet was held by a second pair of loading arms, and Parker knew – as he felt a cold curl of sweat slithering down the back of his neck – the new pod was approaching at a strange angle. He dialed up his work goggles and saw the lading arms from the adjoining number two shuttle cradle were holding the new pallet. 'Sister! Boss…there's too much stress on that armature.'

'It'll be fine,' Gretchen whispered, featherlight fingertips inching the arms towards the bay doors. 'Just fine. There's just enough…'

Metal squealed against metal, and the entire shuttle trembled. Parker bit back a shout of fear. Gretchen hissed, then stabbed a forefinger at a 'backup' glyph. The pod shivered, there was another grinding sound and the huge rectangular bulk popped back. Parker was immediately into the gap, catching the upper edge of the shuttle cargo door.

'There's no clearance,' he said in a strangled voice. 'You've torn a sixty centimeter strip right off the edge of the seal.' The pilot's upper half was invisible above the four-ton cargo door. 'I don't know if it'll close properly now.'

Gretchen blinked, then called up a schematic of the shuttle bay on the panel. When she looked up, she was startled to see Parker staring at her. For a moment, she'd forgotten he was there. 'We have to get that second pod into this shuttle in no more than…' Gretchen's eyes slid sideways to her chrono, then back to fix on the pilot, '…two hours.'

'What happens in two hours?'

'Hummingbird and his Marines will be down here,' Anderssen said in a flat voice. 'And they'll strap him into the Midge in that first pod.' She tried to grin, failed, and went on. 'You'll be with them, of course, as pilot. And you are going to adjust for carrying two pods rather than one in the shuttle cargo bay.'

'What's in the new pod?' Parker asked in a suspicious tone.

'Me.' Gretchen's face twisted into a tight simulacra of a smile. 'And Russovsky's Gagarin.'

'Oh, boss, now wait a minute! That's -'

'What we're going to do.' A sharp hand movement cut him off. 'Right now. Maggie's not going to be able to fool the surveillance system for much longer, not without leaving tracks all over the onboard environmental system logs.'

Parker swallowed, wished he had a tabac, then wiped his mouth. 'Okay. Okay. We've got to load up differently – having the number two arm reach across is all crazy. These shuttles are designed to load straight on, right from the back. So…' He stared at the schematic, then shook his head, long thin fingers stabbing tentatively at the display, '…we're gonna hope the Palenque doesn't suffer an inertial event in the next twenty-six minutes.'

In the darkness of the bay, the number two arm shifted, servomotors whining, and rose up. At the same time, the number one arm slid aside, stabilized and detached from the pod. While Parker sweated below, both sets of arms retracted with a rattling scrape. Both cargo pallets hung suspended in z-g, unsupported and unsecured. The massive lading assemblies swung up and away, changing places in an ill-seen dance, then gently drifted forward to switch pods.

The pilot was sweating rivers, hoping he didn't bump one of the two-ton pods and send it careening across the shuttle bay. With infinite delicacy, the number one arm approached Hummingbird's pallet. The steel tongues caressed the locking grooves, and Parker held his breath, feeling each second drag endlessly as the lading arm's attractor field locked with the magnetic striping along the groove.

Gretchen leaned up against the wall, eyes closed, both arms wrapped around a hold-on. Her mind was whirling with frantic, useless details. Parker's constant stream of muttered commentary seemed to echo in a vast distance, supplemented by soft clangs and squeaks.

The number two cargo pod – gripped securely in the shuttle one lading arm – advanced into the black mouth of the shuttle hold. The rectangular shape clanked to the deck and a series of telltales lit, indicating an acceptable lock with the cargo deck. Shuttle-side motors kicked in with a whine and the pod slid smoothly to the back of the bay.

Fifteen minutes later, the number one pod completed the same maneuver and Parker shut down the cargo lading system with a heartfelt sigh. His watch said forty-five minutes remained before Hummingbird's wake-up. Very close. Sister – maybe I'll get to sleep when both of them are off-ship!

Gretchen looked up from the shockchair of the Midge, a tangle of blond hair framing her face. A cocoon of straps covered her, and the tiny cabin of the ultralight was crowded with supplies and packets of gear. The retracted wings of the aircraft were folded around and behind her in a hexacarbon cloak. Above her,