She felt as if she must be crying. Stop! she thought. I've got to stop it. OK, don't lose control—there is still time. Oh no! Please fucking no! The door doesn't have a Shipnet link; I can't close it unless I can move, and I'm . . . I'm . . . and the controls on the suit have been wrecked. What an idiot I am.
If only they would come.
On the craggy highland ice of Ocypete's sub-Iris point something was happening. A methane clathrate boulder rolled in almost infinitely slow motion down a slope, leaving an irregular, crumbly rille in its wake. Elsewhere a humpback mountain began to slump. A dust was slowly accumulating in shallow declivities, as neon gas, percolating through the upper few centimeters of regolith, carried the very light particles of gases still frozen with it.
All across the vastness of the sub-Iridean zone tiny movements were occurring. An observer would probably miss most of them: perhaps he would catch something in his peripheral vision, maybe the occasional subsidence of a hill. Yet the rate of change was growing almost geometrically. Finally, in a deep crater, the first liquid neon appeared as a shiny clear droplet. Enough neon gas had accumulated there to allow the element to exist in its flowing state. In a dekaminute the landscape was covered with small yet growing pools of light. And yet the sun waxed brighter behind its infrastellar intermediary.
The eclipse was far from over.
Harmon Prynne was in a hurry. Making a final visual inspection of the fusion plant, noting the barely visible red glow of excited neon radiating from the bank of wheellikesuperconducting tori , he sighed. There was nothing else he could do. Through the Shipnet link he cut the function by ninety-nine percent. Another adjustment brought the generator directly in line with the circuits in the CM, and a second later he discharged the accumulator elements as a skyward microwave signal.
That done with, the man made a hasty retreat toward the nearby moor dome, scuttling across the ice like a strange skimming stone. Once through the static portal and into the lush holographic image, he began to remove the space suit, dropping the segments as he bounced. Finally he came through the door between the environment dome and the CM dome, his eyes slowly adapting to the dim eclipse light that was the only illumination, coming in through the transparent ceiling. Another leap took him into the Command Module, and hard against the receiving wall. He sealed the entry and let out another sigh, this one longer and more ragged.
Perhaps they had been making this whole thing too dramatic.
In the common room, Beth, Vana, Axie, and Demogorgon were sitting about in the midroom amphitheater, talking and watching the progress of the eclipse through the windows.
'Well, you made it,' said Demogorgon. 'Is everything shut down?'
'Yeah. All nominal so far.' He opened a com-channel and said, 'John, what's your arrival time?'
'Should be back in about fifteen minutes, Harmon. Did you see the mist at the horizon line? Opticals suggest it's primarily methane dust carried aloft by the neon—still very low pressure levels. Right now it's barely visible to the naked eye.'
Beth turned from the window. 'We can see nothing here, John. Though maybe the double barrier we're looking through is hiding it.'
'Let's get the satellite to bring visuals in from the highlands—should be some interesting stuff going on out there.' John and Ariane broke contact. Prynne puzzled over his new-found uncertainty. He had never been one to ascribe complex or hidden motivations to himself; but then again most of the time his behavior satisfied his concept of his normal self. Now, he was not particularly pleased with himself. Eventually, as he lay back amidst the compressible tiers of the crater, he knew that it was somehow linked to the way Brendan had distanced himself. Without the other man around, Harmon felt considerably more ill at ease about the whole situation. Especially now, in a semicrisis .
'Harmon, we're going to the Illimitor World now. Want to come?' The speaker was Vana. He felt a surge of annoyance grow, then fade suddenly. These people are my friends, he thought, and said, 'No. Go ahead. I think I'll concentrate on the situation here, in this world. Have fun.'
'Beth?'
The woman shook her head, staring out into the vivid moonscape.
'D'you want to go, Axie?' Vana said, executing a slow somersault across the room. 'You seemed to like it last time.'
Ockelsgave the other woman a quizzical look, and glanced at Harmon, then at Demogorgon, who was stretching out on the floor, preparatory to the experience. After a moment of tension she seemed to relax, and a little smile appeared, inflating her cheekbones and for a moment making her beautiful. 'Sure. Where'll we go this time?'
Demogorgon gestured confidently. 'Leave everything to your friendly demigod. Circlets arranged?
Everyone comfortable? One, two, three, and gone.'
Harmon watched as the three lapsed into a kind of narcolepsy and settled into various nonpremeditated
