And the last strong image she would carry away from the valley was of Galloway, turned over now, pointing her crystal cane at the wheel, already far away on the horizon. A line of red laser light came out of the end of the cane and stretched away into infinity.
"Wow!" said Charlotte Isolde Hill Perkins-Smith. "Wow, Tik-Tok, that was great! Let's do it again."
Hovering in the dead center of the hub, Charlie had watched all of the encounter. It had been a lot like she imagined a roller-coaster would be when she watched the films in Tik-Tok's memory. If it had a fault—and she wasn't complaining, far from it—it was that the experience had been too short.
For almost an hour she had watched the moon get bigger, until it no longer seemed round and the landscape was rolling by beneath her. But she'd seen that much before. This time it just got larger and larger, and faster and faster, until she was scooting along at about a zillion miles an hour. Then there was a lot of flashing lights... and gradually, the ground got farther away again. It was still back there, dwindling, no longer very interesting.
"I'm glad you liked it," Tik-Tok said.
"Only one thing. How come I had to put on my pressure suit?"
"Just a precaution."
She shrugged, and made her way to the elevator.
When she got out at the rim, she frowned. There were alarms sounding, far around the rim on the wheel.
"We got a problem?" she asked.
"Minor," Tik-Tok said.
"What happened?"
"We got hit by some rocks."
"We must of passed real close!"
"Charlie, if you'd been down here when we passed, you could have reached out and written your name on a rock."
She giggled at that idea, then hurried off to see to the dogs.
It was about two hours later that Anna-Louise called. Charlie was inclined to ignore it, she had so much to do, but in the end, she sat down in front of the camera. Anna-Louise was there, and sitting beside her was another woman.
"Are you okay, Charlie?" Anna wanted to know.
"Why shouldn't I be?" Damn, she thought. She wasn't supposed to answer a question with another question. But then, what right did Anna have to ask her to do that?
"I was wondering if you were watching a little while ago, when you passed so close to the moon."
"I sure was. It was great."
There was a short pause. The two women looked at each other, then Anna-Louise sighed, and faced Charlie again.
"Charlie, there are a few things I have to tell you."
As in most disasters involving depressurization, there was not a great demand for first aid. Most of the bad injuries were fatal.
Galloway was not hearing too well and Bach still had spots before her eyes; Hoeffer hadn't even bumped his head.
The body-count was not complete, but it was going to be high.
For a perilous hour after the passage, there was talk of shooting Tango Charlie out of the sky.
Much of the advisory team had already gathered in the meeting room by the time Bach and Hoeffer arrived—with Galloway following closely behind. A hot debate was in progress. People recognized Galloway, and a few seemed inclined to question her presence here, but Hoeffer shut them up quickly. A deal had been struck in the PTP, on the way back from the disaster. The fix was in, and Megan Galloway was getting an exclusive on the story. Galloway had proved to Hoeffer that Joy and Jay had kept tapes of his security lapse.
The eventual explanation for the unprovoked and insane attack was simple. The Charlie Station Computer had been instructed to fire upon any object approaching within five kilometers. It had done so, faithfully, for thirty years, not that it ever had much to shoot at. The close approach of Luna must have been an interesting problem. Tik-Tok was no fool. Certainly he would know the consequences of his actions. But a computer did not think at all like a human, no matter how much it might sound like one. There were rigid hierarchies in a brain like Tik-Tok. One part of him might realize something was foolish, but be helpless to over-ride a priority order.
Analysis of the pattern of laser strikes helped to confirm this. The hits were totally random.
Vehicles, domes, and people had not been targeted; however, if they were in the way, they were hit.
The one exception to the randomness concerned the black line Bach had seen. Tik-Tok had found a way to avoid shooting directly ahead of himself without violating his priority order. Thus, he avoided stirring up debris that Charlie Station would be flying through in another few seconds.
The decision was made to take no reprisals on Tango Charlie. Nobody was happy about it, but no one could suggest anything short of total destruction.
But action had to be taken now. Very soon the public was going to wonder why this dangerous object had not been destroyed before the approach. The senior police present and the representatives of the Mayor's office all agreed that the press would have to be let in. They asked Galloway if they could have her cooperation in the management of this phase.
And Bach watched as, with surprising speed, Megan Galloway took over the meeting.
"You need time right now," she said, at one point. "The best way to get it is to play the little-girl angle, and play it hard. You were not so heartless as to endanger the little girl—and you had no reason to believe the station was any kind of threat. What you have to do now is tell the truth about what we know, and what's been done."
"How about the immortality angle?" someone asked.
"What about it? It's going to leak someday. Might as well get it out in front of us."
"But it will prejudice the public in favor of..." Wilhelm looked around her, and decided not to finish her objection.
"It's a price we have to pay," Galloway said, smoothly. "You folks will do what you think is right.
I'm sure of that. You wouldn't let public opinion influence your decision."
Nobody had anything to say to that. Bach managed not to laugh.
"The big thing is to answer the questions before they get asked. I suggest you get started on your statements, then call in the press. In the meantime, Corporal Bach has invited me to listen in on her next conversation with Charlie Perkins-Smith, so I'll leave you now."
Bach led Galloway down the corridor toward the operations room, shaking her head in admiration.
She looked over her shoulder.
"I got to admit it. You're very smooth."
"It's my profession. You're pretty smooth, yourself."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean I owe you. I'm afraid I owe you more than I'll be able to repay."
Bach stopped, honestly bewildered.
"You saved my life," Galloway shouted. "Thank you!"
"So what if I did? You don't owe me anything. It's not the custom."
"What's not the custom?"
"You can be grateful, sure. I'd be, if somebody pressurized me. But it would be an insult to try to pay me back for it. Like on the desert, you know, you have to give water to somebody dying of thirst."
"Not in the deserts I've been to," Galloway said. They were alone in the hallway. Galloway seemed distressed, and Bach felt awkward. "We seem to be at a cultural impasse. I feel I owe you a lot, and you say it's nothing."
"No problem," Bach pointed out. "You were going to help me get promoted out of this stinking place. Do that, and we'll call it even."
Galloway was shaking her head.
"I don't think I'll be able to, now. You know that fat man you stuffed into a helmet, before you got to me? He asked me about you. He's the Mayor of Clavius. He'll be talking to the Mayor of New Dresden, and you'll get the promotion and a couple of medals and maybe a reward, too."
They regarded each other uneasily. Bach knew that gratitude could equal resentment. She thought she could see some of that in Galloway's eyes. But there was determination, too. Megan Galloway paid her debts. She had been paying one to Q.M. Cooper for ten years.