Within this dome alone, fifty-plus people might have inferred that Clermont was headed for somewhere not Titan. Hundreds more constructing the three new “space habitats” and the scaled-up DEDs to propel them must have their suspicions. How many diggers were questioning the sudden massive “ice mining” projects? How many legislators had the governor taken into her confidence to get these mega-projects approved? How many people were involved in the urgent, long-range consultations with governments on Earth and elsewhere?
The nightmare-within-a-nightmare, the disclosure of the GRB secret, had been all but inevitable. And if, in a panic, people had decided to flee?
Dana said, “Lieutenant, you may need to defend this ship.”
A familiar voice came onto the command channel: Hawthorne. “That won’t be necessary, Captain McElwain. I’ll be at the dome within five minutes to explain.”
As she and Blake waited outside the ship, three stevedores toting crated microsats went up the aft ramp. In a sane universe, they would take aboard cargo after the final shakedown cruise. Still….
Another few days and we will be ready to go, Dana thought. Unless Hawthorne screws things up.
A convoy of cars and trucks braked to a halt outside the dome’s primary entrance. A sleek limo, its tinted windows concealing those inside, was the first vehicle to emerge from the air lock.
Dana and Blake strode after the car as it parked. From the corner of an eye she saw a truck pull close to the ship’s aft ramp. More cargo? Cargo she had not reviewed and approved? What the hell was going on?
“Change in plan, Captain,” Hawthorne said, getting out of his car.
“What do you mean?” Dana asked. “Who are the people going into my ship, and what are they doing?”
Hawthorne said, “The short answer to all your questions is that this ship leaves as soon as the new cargo is loaded.”
“Leaves for where?” Blake asked.
Dana said, “Specs, translucent mode, cycle among shipboard cameras only, two-second loiter per view.” The madness had only grown since she’d walked off her ship. And Tanaka, his forehead furrowed, had removed the back panel from a bridge console and was peering inside. “Hawthorne, the ship is still torn apart. Half the systems need to be checked out again.”
“Do checkout on your way,” Hawthorne said. “Use fusion drive at first, if you must.”
“Our way where?” Blake tried again.
Dana said, “At the moment, the bridge consoles aren’t even bolted to the deck. We’re still making room to cram lead shielding into the bow.”
“Put the consoles back where they were, if that gets you away faster,” Hawthorne said.
Two troops stomped down a ramp carrying out a cold-sleep pod. Wiring harnesses and cryogenic lines looked like they had been sheared off! Then another pod came out, and a third.
“Hawthorne!” Dana said. “Without cold-sleep pods, we don’t have a mission. We can’t carry enough food and water, or maintain life support long enough, to reach a safe distance from the GRB. If we could, it wouldn’t matter. Before we get anywhere near light speed, the interstellar muck turned to radiation will have killed us.”
“You’ll have pods in hold three for a crew of six,” Hawthorne said. “I need hold two for more important things.”
Blake said, “This is insane. Explain yourself.”
“Or what, Westford? Or you won’t go?” Hawthorne thumped the top of his car. “Everyone out.”
First Antonio appeared, then two people Dana didn’t recognize. All were ashen. And then—
“Rikki!” Blake said. “What’s going on?”
“Quiet!” Hawthorne gestured at a squad of troops. “Westford, you will go. If necessary, you’ll be carried aboard bound and gagged. If that’s how things play out, one of these marines takes your wife’s berth.”
Troops emerged from the ship carrying three additional cold-sleep pods.
Swallowing hard, Rikki said, “I go where Blake goes.”
Antonio shuffled toward Dana. “The ship leaves right…away…or…it’s the end.”
The longer superior officers put off the bad news, the iffier the mission would be. “So what’s the new mission, Neil?” Dana asked softly.
Hawthorne said, “Walk with me, Captain. Everyone else, get back to work.”
7
Two hours after tight-lipped soldiers had hustled Rikki from an astrobiology drill, she was buckling herself into one of the jump seats that folded down from the aft wall of Clermont’s crew quarters. To her left sat Antonio, already strapped in, wringing his hands. To her right, fumbling with their five-point harnesses, were the woman and man Rikki had met in Hawthorne’s limo.
They were dazed.
The end of the world. Rikki remembered when she’d first heard: the shock and pain. The days of denial. The survivors’ guilt at being included in the scouting mission. The crushing depression at the futility of it all.
Compared to Li and Carlos, learning of the apocalypse as the limo jolted and swayed, Rikki had had an easy time of it.
The cabin’s forward wall awakened, to display the scene off the ship’s bow. Jettisoned equipment, mostly cold-sleep pods, lay in a jumble to their right. (To starboard, she chided herself inanely, remembering one of her many lessons. Yeah, that’s important.) Outside the clear plastic dome, cars and trucks trailing clouds of dust sped away. Virtual ship’s instruments shone through the exterior view.
Rikki thought, I’m seeing what Blake is seeing. The thought calmed her.
“Attention, all hands,” Dana announced over the intercom. “This is the captain speaking. We are about to launch. Prepare for immediate acceleration.”
Not an hour earlier, Rikki had heard Dana declare this ship a shambles, unfit to fly. And now….
On-screen, a dazzling red light sprang from the bow. The laser beam swept up and aft, and as it did the fabric of the dome sagged. Knowing it was her imagination, Rikki heard pressure alarms keening through the hull.
“Comm laser,” Antonio muttered. “Faster than…deflating and removing…the dome.”
Dana came back on the intercom. “Launch in ten seconds. Nine. Eight…”
On zero, to the eerily silent workings of the DED, the bulkhead at Rikki’s back became the floor. Her weight surged. She’d only seen elephants in holos, but now the invisible, metaphorical kind dropped onto her. In the hold aft of the crew quarters, hastily
