Either way, the lift—one of four serving the Athinai Resort's slopes—was the focal point of several converging lines of skiers, each proceeding down its own crystoplast-roofed concourse. The lift cars settled atop the tower two at a time, then each pair slid down the guides to the tower's base, accepted their own loads of passengers, and lifted effortlessly into the sky once more to deliver them to the designated slopes. The drifting bubbles of alloy and crystoplast glittered and glistened like magic jewels as they caught the sun, and he wondered if that, too, was deliberate. It certainly turned them into eye-catching attractions, and their stately movement—like the measures of some huge, elaborate dance—probably helped distract people from how long they had to wait in line for them during peak demand periods.
He watched the most recent pair of cars lift away, following the invisible aerial pathways the ground-based counter-grav/presser plates within the lift tower laid down for them, and then tugged his cap back down. The first car of the next pair was scheduled for the beginner-level slopes, and he and Susan should make it aboard easily.
"You're sure you don't need me to tag along?"
He glanced over his shoulder, and Csilla Berczi smiled and quirked an eyebrow at him. The history teacher was a tallish, slender woman with short-cut auburn hair and gray eyes, and he'd never gotten used to how quietly she moved. Especially since he knew she was one of the people regen didn't work for and that one of her legs—the right, he thought, but he wasn't certain—had been replaced with a prosthetic after the accident that retired her from the Marines. It wasn't that she was sneaky or anything; she just moved like a hunting cat all the time. But that didn't keep him from liking her a lot, and he shook his head as he gave her an answering smile.
"Sooze and I'll be just fine, Ma'am," he assured her. "I promise we'll report in to the instructor as soon as we get up top."
"I wasn't thinking about you, young man," Ms. Berczi informed him with a twinkle. "Or not directly, at any rate. I was wondering whether or not Susan might like me to come along to help ride herd on you!"
"Oh, I think I can manage him," Susan said. "He's actually pretty easily led, once you figure out the right buttons to push."
"Oh, thank you!" Ranjit muttered, and she giggled.
"In that case, I think I really will leave the two of you to your own devices," Ms. Berczi said much more seriously. "Mr. Fleurieu drew the Krepson twins and Donny Tergesen in his group." She rolled her eyes. "Even with Monica to help out, he's going to need all the zoo-keepers he can get with that crowd. You two have fun—and be careful!"
She waved a finger at them with a sternness only slightly marred by the gleam in her eyes, then turned and marched away, and Ranjit and Susan exchanged eloquent looks. The Krepson twins all by themselves would have been enough to keep three adults fully occupied, and Donny Tergesen's classmates had voted him the boy most likely to validate Darwin by opening an airlock without checking his helmet seal. Ranjit didn't envy Mr. Fleurieu or Ms. Berczi one little bit, and he was moderately flattered by the implicit compliment Ms. Berczi had just paid him—and his sister—by deciding to trust them on their own.
Which, now that he thought about it, was actually a pretty sneaky way of making sure that they were trustworthy. It was much harder to disappoint someone who expected good things out of you than it was to confirm the expectations of someone who figured you'd screw up anyway.
He chuckled at the thought, and then stepped forward eagerly as the lift car settled and the doors slid open.
* * *
"Bravo Leader, this is Broadsword Control. You are cleared to begin insertion."
"Broadsword Control, Bravo Leader copies cleared for insertion. I am beginning my run now."
Honor listened to the crisp voices in her earbug and gave a mental nod of approval. Hedges was back aboard Broadsword, coordinating the shuttles from all three cruisers for the troop insertion while Novaya Tyumen watched over his shoulder. Officially, that was to free the baron from detail concerns while he watched and evaluated the exercise. Actually, she suspected, it was because Novaya Tyumen preferred not to get up off his lazy backside and exert himself when it could be avoided . . . not to mention the pleasure he undoubtedly took from looming ominously over Hedges' shoulder. On the other hand, she knew her intense dislike for the man could be affecting her judgment. Despite his irritating mannerisms and current foul temper, he did have a reputation as an officer who got things done, and there was a limit to how much the Service would allow even someone with his exalted connections to get away with depending on his subordinates to carry the load for him.
But whatever Novaya Tyumen was thinking, Hedges seemed to have things well in hand. He'd waited a few minutes longer than Honor would have to release the pinnaces for their runs, but that was a pure judgment call and, at the moment, he had access to much better tracking data on the other ships' pinnaces than she did. Now she watched her heads-up display, hands resting loosely on her chair arms but poised to go for the controls in an instant if Chief Zariello needed her. Lieutenant Freemantle, flying Bravo Leader for the exercise, led the ship's pinnaces, slashing down into atmosphere at the head of the drop force, and Honor looked up past her HUD as the Attica Mountains and the axe-sharp cleft of the Olympus Valley swelled rapidly through the cockpit canopy.
High on the southern face of the rift humans had named the Olympus Valley, a runnel of snowmelt, trickling down from the wet, heavy blanket of new snow as the sun probed at it, washed away a small lump of clay. In and of itself, it was a negligible lump, little more than a couple of centimeters across, which simply collapsed as its core of pebbles and tiny stones separated from one another. But that small lump was the keystone of an entire bed of pebbles and gravel which, in turn, helped shore up a field of loose stone . . . and that loose stone was under almost intolerable pressure as the massive weight of snow crushed down upon it. When the lump of clay disappeared, it allowed two of its neighbors to shift, and they, in turn, let still more bits and pieces of rock and mud wiggle and squirm.
By itself, it probably wouldn't have mattered very much. But it wasn't by itself, for the Athinai Resort lay on the flank of Mount Pericles, and an unsuspected branch of the Olympus Fault ran along the foot of the mountain. No one had ever realized it was there, and it was only a very minor fault. Yet it was enough. The tremor which ran through it that morning was scarcely enough to register, but the field of stone was already in slow, dreamy motion when the vibration hit. For just an instant, it seemed not to have had any effect at all . . . but then the first real boulder moved grindingly in its bed and nudged another rock aside. It was all quite invisible under the concealment of the innocent-looking white snowpack, and even if a single human in the Olympus Valley had had the slightest clue of what was happening, it was already far too late to do a thing about it.
Ranjit Hibson hid a smile as Susan unwrapped a second stick of gum and shoved it into her mouth. He didn't know where she'd picked up that particular habit—certainly their parents had done all they could to discourage it!—but it was a pretty reliable barometer of her mood. When she started shoving in extra sticks, she was apprehensive, excited, angry, or some combination of all three. At the moment, he figured it was probably ninety percent excitement and ten percent apprehension, for they were three-quarters of the way up to the beginners' slope landing.