waiting at the inlet, bags packed, ready to go. No matter what.
Richard sat in the operations center. The monitor was a montage of blurred light, slow-moving shadows, tunnel walls. Grunts and epithets and profanity rolled out of the commlink.
The room was damp and chilly. Technically, he was supposed to stay awake, but conditions had changed: the watch officer was no longer coordinating a wide range of operations. And you had to sleep sometime.
On impulse, he called Wink's bridge, where he woke Tommy Loughery. 'Is Maggie available?' he asked.
'She's right here.'
He'd expected it. They'd sent up the new tablets—there were thirteen of them—on board Alpha. And she would be waiting for their arrival.
'Good morning, Richard,' she said. 'When are we going to break through down there?'
'You mean to the press?'
'What else? It's getting late.'
'It's what I wanted to talk to you about. We may not make it.'
'That's not what Henry thinks.'
'Henry is optimistic. He wants this one, Maggie.'
'So do I.'
'You already have a substantial number of samples. With more coming. You've seen the new set. What happens if we have to leave with nothing else? Will it be enough?'
'Maybe.' She looked drained. 'The analysis will take time. I just don't know.' Her dark eyes reflected worry. 'It would be a lot easier with the printing press.'
'If that's in fact what it is.'
'That's what it is.'
Richard stared at her. 'Can you estimate the odds?' And, when she looked puzzled, he explained. 'Of being able to decipher the inscription? With no more samples.'
'We are pushy tonight, aren't we?'
'I'm sorry. This may become, in the morning, life and death.'
Shadows worked in the corners of her eyes and in the hollows of her temples. 'Richard, get the whatever-it- is. Okay? If you really want to help, get it out of there and bring it to me.'
0600 hours.
'It's imminent now. We're almost there.'
Richard was exasperated. 'Call it off, Henry. Let's clear out.'
'She won't be back for two hours. What's the point of standing around out on that rock? We've still got time. Let's use it. Have faith.'
0711 hours.
Hutch, gliding through the morning light, was not happy. The commlink echoed with the low-powered hum of particle beams, the burble and banging of vacuum pumps. Voices leaked through the clatter:
This is where it was supposed to be.
But it isn't. It's not here.
Neither is the wall. The whole goddam chamber dropped. Or rose.
Why didn't you take a picture?
We did. It was here two days ago.
We thought we could see it. It was the plank. We were looking at the damned plank!
Maybe we just missed it. Is that possible?
No'.
And the words that stung her, enraged her, spoken by Henry: Get the scanner over here. Take another look. Let's find out where it is.
She activated Richard's private channel. 'You're out of time.'
'I know. Just give us a few minutes. Till we find out where the goddamned thing went.'
'Richard, the creek is about to rise.'
'Hutch, you have to understand. This isn't my call. These people know the risk. This is just too important to turn around and walk out on. Come on, you can tough it out.'
'You're beginning to sound as crazy as they do,' she snapped. And she broke the link without letting him reply. She switched to Carson, who was waiting in his shuttle at the inlet. 'Frank, you got any control over this?'
'Not much.'
'Henry's going to get them all killed.'
'No. He won't do that. Whatever else happens, he'll be out in time. You can trust him.'
Okay, I recognize this.
You sure, George?
Yeah. Yeah, no question about it.
All right, let's go. Where the hell's the goddam projector?
'Hutch,' said Carson. 'Another hour here may be worth years of research at home. Be patient.'
'Another hourT'
'That's my guess. But it still gets us out of here with time to spare.'
'Hutch.' George's voice. 'Do you have a winch on board?'
'Yes. I can activate a winch.'
'Okay. Plan is that after we free the printing press, we'll lift it into the Upper Temple. We've got everything in place to do that. You drop the line. As soon as the press is clear of the shaft, we'll connect it, and you can haul it in. The rest of us should be on board a few minutes after that.'
She shook her head. 'This is crazy, George. You haven't even found the press yet.'
'We're working on it.'
Richard came back. 'It's okay,' he said soothingly. 'We'll make it. And we'll have the printing press with us.'
She watched the shoreline unroll below. It was a brilliant, sun-washed day, white and cold, filled with icebergs and needle peaks and rocky islands. Long thick waves slid across snow-covered beaches. Beach monkeys walked and played at the edge of the surf.
The inlet came into view, and she started down. The Temple shuttle, resplendently blue and gold in the sunlight, waited on the shelf.
Hutch landed clumsily. As if her haste would change anything. Carson stood on the rock. He was too courteous, or too distracted, to comment on her technique.
0837 hours.
The particle beam cast an eerie blue-white glow through the chamber. Water bubbled and hissed. George was firing blind. He was cutting through that most dangerous of obstacles, loose rock and sand.
The digging strategy was to pick an area that looked stable, if you could find one, divide it into individual targets, and attack each separately. You sliced a hole, and stopped. If nothing happened, you enlarged the hole. Then you braced everything and moved on. 'The problem,' he told Henry, 'is that the tunnel will have to be widened further to get the printing press out.'
George was pleased with himself. In the field, engineers tend to exist in a somewhat lower social stratum than pure archeologists. Not that anyone mistreated him. The Temple team had always been a close-knit crew. But he was taken less seriously as a professional. His was a support role, and consequently he was something of a hanger-on. When celebrations broke out, they never drank to George.
But this time, he had made the discovery. George's Printing Press. And he was leading the assault on the Lower Temple. It was a good feeling. A good way to wrap up his efforts here. It was a little scary, maybe. But he felt immortal, as young men invariably do, and he did not believe that Kosmik would actually pull the trigger if there were still people down here.
Moreover, the timing was perfect. He was entranced by Hutch, infected with her brilliant eyes and her vaguely distant smile. His own tides ran strong when she was nearby, and she was now watching him in action. How could he possibly fail to stay the course? And during those dark, claustrophobic moments when an appreciation of the risk seeped through, he drove it away by imagining the hero's reward that waited.
