"John, you're turning into a regular Attila. Whatever happened to your principles? You want to have a revolution?"
Cornwell smiled to himself. "There are parallels. But, no, as far as fighting for our finds goes, I would as soon not risk killing anyone. There are other ways of using a weapon than killing. As far as my principles go—well, I don't feel nearly as much of the reverent fear for other people as I did. Maybe I'm beginning to grow up. People aren't fragile . . . maybe I was overemphasizing my own feelings, I don't know. Yet. Anyway, if I've changed, well, fuck it. That's the way it is." As the MPT performed a propelled hover forty meters over the Ocypetan surface, something rather peculiar was happening below. The ice seemed to be getting whiter, less dim anyway. The complex shadow which moved ever forward about halfway to the horizon now was hiding the small craters and surface irregularities which it engulfed. Though their eyes adapted well and disguised the slow change that was taking place, there could be no mistake for the infrared instrument they were watching.
"Hey," said Ariane, astonishment showing, "it's getting warmer!" John pulled himself around in his harness and stole a look at the eclipse. "Look at that thing! Why the fuck didn't somebody predict this? The atmosphere's acting like a huge lens— sunlight is being focused on Ocypete!"
Ariane formed a link with Shipnet through the Clarke and spent a few moments analyzing the preliminary results of Jana's depth probes of the Iridean atmosphere. "Jesus Christ!" she said. "This is just the beginning of the effect!"
And indeed the blotch-sun was very bright inside the almost washed-out blue planet. As the eclipse had progressed, and the light from the sun passed through denser and denser layers of the Iridean atmosphere, the combination of increasing indices of refraction and changing angles of incidence were producing an effect unheard of in asterology, though it was true that an occasional sun dog had been reported from Triton, light making an erratic course through the middle reaches of the Neptunian atmosphere and emerging through a hole in the splotchy upper atmosphere haze to produce a pearl of light in the otherwise Stygian eclipse. But nothing like this. The implications were not a little frightening. Ariane and John were spellbound by the scene: they slowed the MPT and stared at the skyward conjunction.
"What . . . what about the neon?" asked John finally, his thoughts tinged with apprehension. "It's close to its melting point right now. A few degrees and . . ."
"Exactly. In some places it's going to be pretty messy. There shouldn't be any problems near the center of the ocellus, though."
"Do you think Jana ..."
Abruptly the thought-voice of Demogorgon was with them. "Ariane. John. You've already figured out what's happening? We've got an emergency here. The 'net is reporting that some of the equipment, most especially the large superconductor array and the microwave transmitter, will not tolerate exposure to a much dirtier vacuum than we've got now. If the pressure even doubles we're going to have real trouble. Ariane, would you like to get back here to erect a static barrier, or shall I?" The woman cursed. "I hadn't thought of that. Tem can do it, can't he?"
"He's working with Brendan and they've cut all contact with Shipnet, locked themselves in. You're the only one left. Of course we're dealing with low odds here, but if something goes wrong, well, that would be it."
"All right, I'm coming back. God damn it. I don't have much experience with this stuff—Brendan could handle that section of Shipnet and have it done in a minute. I guess Jana will have to wait. . . ."
It wasn't cold anymore. The rays of the magnified sun were streaming in through the 60vet's windshield, and Jana felt that she was finally starting to warm up. Just like in the huge window of the old lamasery upon which the Tibetan Observatory had been grafted. After a night of observing through the archaic four-meter reflector, she would go down, frozen to the bone because of some stoic bureaucrats who had decreed that more work could be done in cold temperatures. The sun would eventually break through the mists across the Himalayas and she would bask there until breakfast period was over. She had worn black habitually during those years just to catch the radiation more effectively. It had been good, despite everything.
They should have been here by now, she thought. I'm way past the point where they'll be convinced. A minute passed; another. Somewhere in the pit of her stomach a panic grew. Unless they came very soon she would die. 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 .