The Ice Limit

'Destabilize,' McFarlane repeated. 'You mean, as in tilt?'

Glinn's eyes glided toward him, then returned to the computer screen. 'Suggestions, Mr. Rochefort?' he asked coolly.

The engineer leaned back, licked the tip of his left index finger, and placed it against his right thumb. 'Here's what I think. We leave the jacks as is. Keep them in position. Then we release the fluid from the emergency hydraulic valves on the sector six jacks. Unfreeze them.'

'How?' Glinn asked.

After a moment, Rochefort replied, 'Manually.'

Glinn held up his radio. 'Garza?'

'Roger.'

'You follow this?'

'Roger that.'

'Your opinion?'

'I agree with Gene. We must've seriously underestimated the weight of this baby.'

Glinn swiveled his gray eyes back to Rochefort. 'And who do you suggest should drain the jacks?'

'I wouldn't ask anyone to do it but myself. Then we'll let the meteorite settle back down to a stable resting place, set additional jacks, and try again.'

'You're going to need a second person,' came Garza's voice over the radio. 'That would be me.'

'I'm not going to send both my chief engineer and my construction manager underneath that rock,' said Glinn. 'Mr. Rochefort, analyze the risk.'

Rochefort did some calculations on a pocket calculator. 'The jacks are rated to stand maximum pressure for sixteen hours.'

'What about higher-than-maximum? Assume one hundred percent above maximum.'

'The time-failure rate gets shorter.' Rochefort made another series of calculations. 'However, the chance of failure in the next thirty minutes is less than one percent.'

'That's acceptable,' said Glinn. 'Mr. Rochefort, take a crew member of your choice along.' He glanced at his pocket watch. 'You have thirty minutes from this moment, not one second more. Good luck.'

Rochefort stood up and looked at them, his face pale. 'Remember, sir, we don't believe in luck,' he said. 'But thank you all the same.'

Isla Desolacion,

10:24 A.M.

ROCHEFORT OPENED the door to the decrepit hut and moved the nail kegs aside, exposing the access tube and its halo of bright fluorescent light. He gripped the rungs of the ladder and began to descend, palmtop computer and radio jiggling on his belt. Evans followed behind, humming an off-key variant of 'Muskrat Ramble.'

The main emotion Rochefort felt was embarrassment. Brief as it was, the walk from the communications hut had taken an eternity. Although the staging area was deserted, he had nevertheless sensed dozens of eyes trained directly — and no doubt reproachfully — on his back.

He had set fifty percent more jacks than deemed necessary. It was within EES operating guidelines, and it had seemed like a safe margin. But he had miscalculated. He should have invoked double overage, set two hundred jacks. But the time pressure had always been there, hovering over everything, flowing from Lloyd to Glinn and infecting everything they did. So Rochefort had suggested a hundred and fifty, and Glinn had not questioned his decision. The fact was, nobody had said anything to him about the mistake — or even hinted one was made. But that did not negate the fact that he had been wrong. And Rochefort could not bear to be wrong. He felt saturated by bitterness. Reaching the bottom, he moved quickly along the tunnel, ducking his head instinctively below the lines of fluorescent lights. Chains of ice crystals, formed from the condensed breath of the workers, stuck like feathers to the spars and trusses. Evans, coming up behind, dragged a finger through them as he whistled.

Rochefort was humiliated, not worried. He knew that even if the jacks in sector six failed — a minuscule possibility — it was unlikely the meteorite would do anything except settle back down into place. It had sat there for untold millennia, and the forces of mass and inertia dictated it would probably stay that way. The worst-case scenario meant they'd be back where they started from.

Back where they started from ... His mouth set in a hard line. It meant setting more jacks, perhaps even digging a few more tunnels. He had strongly recommended to Glinn that all Lloyd Museum personnel be left behind; that it should be strictly an EES expedition; that Lloyd's only personal involvement should be to take final possession of the meteorite and pay the bill. For some unknown reason of his own, Glinn had allowed Lloyd to get daily updates. This was the sort of thing that resulted.

The tunnel reached sector one, then veered left at a ninety-degree angle. Rochefort followed the main tunnel another forty feet, then took one of the side branches that curved around toward the far side of the meteorite. The radio burbled and he pulled it from his belt. 'Approaching sector six,' he said.

'Diagnostics indicate that all jacks in that sector, with the exception of four and six, need to be unlocked,' said Glinn. 'We estimate you can complete the task in sixteen minutes.'

Twelve, thought Rochefort, but he responded, 'Affirmative.'

The side tunnel angled around the front of the meteorite and split into three access tubes. Rochefort chose the center tube. Ahead, he could see the jacks of sector six, yellow against the bloodred meteorite. They ran ahead in a long line from the end of the access tube. Walking forward, he examined all fifteen in turn. They looked perfectly secure, their claw feet firmly anchored to the base of the wall struts, servo cables running away in rivers of wire and cable. The jacks did not appear to have moved in the slightest. It was hard to believe they were each frozen under a hundred tons of strain.

With a sigh of irritation, he crouched by the first jack. The belly of the meteorite curved above him, ribbed as smoothly and as regularly as if worked by a machine. Evans came forward with a small cami-tool for unlocking the hydraulic valves. 'Looks like a great big bowling ball, doesn't it?' he said cheerfully.

Rochefort grunted and pointed toward the valve stem of the first jack. Evans knelt beside it, gripped the stem with his cami, and began to turn it gingerly.

'Don't worry, it's not going to break,' Rochefort snapped. 'Let's move. We've got another twelve waiting.'

'More rapidly, Evans spun the stem through a ninety-degree twist. With a small hammer, Rochefort adroitly tapped out the manual slide on the rear of the jack, exposing the safety plate. A red light went on, indicating the valve was unlocked and ready to open.

After the first jack, Evans grew less hesitant, and they began to work quickly in tandem, moving down the line, skipping the jacks numbered four and six. At the last jack, number fifteen, they stopped. Rochefort looked at his watch. It had taken only eight minutes. All that was left was to go back down the line, punching the release buttons on each valve. Although the fluid was under intense pressure, an internal regulator would ensure even drainage, slowly easing the load off the jack. Meanwhile, the controlling computer back in the communications hut would be lowering in tandem the hydraulic pressure on all the other jacks. The situation would return to normal, and then all they needed to do was set more jacks and try again. He'd do Glinn one better, set three hundred jacks. But they would need at least a day to ferry them over from the ship, get them in place, wire the servos, run diagnostics. They would need more tunnels, too... He shook his head. He should have started with three hundred the first time.

'Feels hot in here,' said Evans, tugging back his hood.

Rochefort didn't answer. Heat and cold were one and the same to him. The two men turned and began walking down the line of jacks, stopping at each to raise the safety plate and push the emergency fluid release button.

Halfway down the line, a faint, mouselike sound brought Rochefort to a halt.

Although it was important to begin releasing fluid from all the jacks together, the sound was so unusual that Rochefort glanced down the row of jacks, trying to determine its source. It seemed to have come from the front of the row of jacks. As he looked in that direction, the sound came again: a kind of whispered, agonized creak. He narrowed his eyes. Jack number one didn't look right; it seemed oddly crooked.

He didn't need time to think. 'Get out!' he shouted. 'Now!'