Suddenly Habib realized the enormity of what he was doing. Yet the anger was still simmering inside him.
“Let her work with Wunderly,” he said, more reasonably. “If they find living organisms in the ring particles it will be to your credit. It will take some of the sting out of Alpha’s failure.”
“Failure?” Urbain’s eyes flashed. “Alpha is not a failure! I am not a failure!”
“No one has said that you are. But it’s nonproductive to keep your biologists twiddling their thumbs until you make contact with the machine again.”
“I will decide what is productive and what is not,” Urbain said sharply.
Habib took a breath. The blazing anger he had felt when he’d seen Negroponte close to tears had abated. But now that he had taken a stand he could not back down.
“Dr. Urbain,” he said slowly, “if you do not allow Dr. Negroponte to work temporarily with Dr. Wunderly, I will get the entire scientific staff to stop work.”
He heard Yolanda’s sudden gasp of surprise, but he didn’t take his eyes off Urbain.
The chief scientist sputtered, “A work stoppage? A strike? You can’t … it would be illegal … unjustified …”
“Most of your staff is doing nothing of importance now, anyway. They’ll refuse to work for you if you continue acting like a dictator instead of a colleague.”
“Dictator? Me?”
“Allow her to work with Wunderly,” Habib said, almost placatingly. “It will be to your credit, I assure you.”
Urbain opened his mouth, closed it again. His eyes moved from Habib to Negroponte.
“I really have nothing to do,” she said softly, almost whispering, “as long as Alpha is silent.”
“Go,” Urbain snapped. “Go work with Wunderly.”
“Thank you, sir!” she said.
“Keep me informed of your progress. I want daily reports.”
“Yes, of course.”
She reached out and took Habib’s hand. Together they walked back to the still-open door, leaving Urbain sitting at his desk looking shocked, bewildered.
Habib stopped at the door and turned back toward Urbain. “Oh, I should tell you, the chief of maintenance needs me to help him on the problem of the electrical outages we’ve been suffering.”
Urbain said nothing. He simply stared as the two of them left his office hand in hand.
Sinking his head to the desktop, Urbain wanted to weep. It’s all falling apart, he thought miserably. They are leaving me, leaving Alpha to remain mute and inert on Titan. I’ve lost control of my creation and now I’m starting to lose control of my staff.
What can I do? What can I do?
14 April 2096: Morning
Kris Cardenas smiled at Gaeta, who was sleeping soundly beside her. He’s all right, she repeated silently for the thousandth time. He got through the rings and he’s not hurt. He’s finished with these wild stunts; he’s never going to risk his life again, never going to leave me again.
She slipped out of bed and padded to the lavatory, still smiling.
The smell of freshly brewed coffee woke Holly. She’d set the coffee machine for seven A.M. It was better than an alarm clock for her. It wasn’t real coffee, she knew; the habitat’s climate wasn’t right for growing coffee, even at the endcaps. The biotechnicians had produced an ersatz coffee by genetically engineering one of the bean crops the farms could grow. They’d even come up with a completely caffeine-free variation, although Holly preferred the “high octane” version.
Slipping out of bed, she wondered what Raoul was doing at this moment. We’re drifting apart, she realized. He’d been wholly involved with Manny’s mission to the rings while Holly herself was completely tied up in the election campaign.
Wish I’d never decided to run for office, Holly said to herself, as she brushed her teeth. She stared at her image in the mirror above the sink. But Malcolm’s just plain wrong. We can’t mine the rings if there’re living creatures in them. And we’ve got to figure out some way to allow population growth before women start getting themselves pregnant. Our whole society could fall apart once the women decide to ignore the ZPG protocol. Break one law and what’s to hold you to obeying all the others?
Wearily she trudged to the kitchen and poured herself a cup of the strong black coffee. Sitting at the little table, Holly asked herself, How can I counter Malcolm’s idea of using the profits we make from mining the rings to support population growth?
She spent the morning tussling with that problem.
Still in bed, Wanamaker said to Pancho, “You know, you’re a helluva pilot. I didn’t realize that until yesterday.”
She grinned at him. “And you’re a helluva lover, Jake. But I knew that all along.”
They laughed together. Pancho started to get out of bed, but he reached for her lean, long-limbed body.
“We’ve got nothing on the calendar,” he said, pulling her close. “Let’s spend the day in bed.”
“Maybe you got nothin’ to do,” Pancho said, pushing gently away from him, “but I gotta go over to Holly and help her figure out her next move.”
Frowning, Wanamaker grumbled, “What is this? You’re not her campaign manager, are you?”
“Sorta. Leastways, I can give her the benefit of my experience dealing with slimeballs like Eberly.”
“When did you ever—”
“Corporate politics, remember? Remember Martin Humphries?”
“He wasn’t a slimeball,” Wanamaker said. “A megalomaniac, maybe, but not a slimeball.”
As she got out of the bed, Pancho said, “Yeah, well, anyway, politics is politics and Holly needs all the help I can give her.”
Wanamaker sighed deeply. “Okay, you go play politics with your sister. If you want me, you know where I’ll be.”
Pancho laughed. “My hero.”
Nadia Wunderly had forced herself to get a good night’s rest. She had even managed to sleep, despite her eagerness to start working with Negroponte on the ice samples. Her sleep had been troubled by dreams, although she couldn’t remember anything specific from them once she’d awakened. Just a disturbing feeling that something was wrong.
Eberly, she realized, as she dressed. The news broadcasts were filled with Eberly’s proposal for mining the rings. I can’t let him do that, Wunderly told herself. He’ll ruin everything. Everything!
She stopped off at the cafeteria for a take-out breakfast of yogurt and honey, then hurried toward her laboratory. Ordinarily she’d have spent an hour at the gym, but not today, not with the samples waiting to be analyzed and Negroponte coming to work with her.
As she hurried through the morning sunlight toward her lab building, the thought of Eberly rose in her mind again. She had watched, horrified, the televised news reports of his debate with Holly. She saw his smug, smiling face as the stupid crowd cheered his proposal for mining the rings.
He can’t do that! Wunderly told herself. I won’t let him. I’ll kill him with my bare hands if I have to, but he’s not going to touch the rings!
Eduoard Urbain sat morosely at the breakfast table while his wife placed a dish of smoked salmon and thin slices of toast before him.
He had told Jeanmarie about Habib’s mad outburst of the day before. She had not been as sympathetic as he’d expected.
No one is on my side, he thought morosely, as Jeanmarie sat across the little table from him. She was smiling. Smiling! My staff is in rebellion, my Alpha is alone and silent on Titan, and my wife finds something to smile about.
“You seem cheerful this morning,” he said thinly.
“I have a meeting with my committee at ten,” Jeanmarie replied.