THE

WIND FROM

A

BURNING WOMAN

By Greg Bear

Five years later the glass bubbles were intact, the wires and pipes were taut, and the city—strung across Psyche’s surface like a dewy spider’s web wrapped around a thrown rock—was still breathtaking. It was also empty. Hexamon investigators had swept out the final dried husks and bones. The asteroid was clean again. The plague was over.

Giani Turco turned her eyes away from the port and looked at the displays. Satisfied by the approach, she ordered a meal and put her work schedule through the processor for tightening and trimming. She had six tanks of air, enough to last her three days. There was no time to spare. The robot guards in orbit around Psyche hadn’t been operating for at least a year and wouldn’t offer any resistance, but four small pursuit bugs had been planted in the bubbles. They turned themselves off whenever possible, but her presence would activate them. Time spent in avoiding and finally destroying them: one hour forty minutes, the processor said. The final schedule was projected in front of her by a pen hooked around her ear. She happened to be staring at Psyche when the readout began; the effect—red numerals and letters over grey rock and black space—was pleasingly graphic, like a film in training.

Turco had dropped out of training six weeks early. She had no need for a final certificate, approval from the Hexamon, or any other nicety. Her craft was stolen from Earth orbit, her papers and cards forged, and her intentions entirely opposed to those of the sixteen corporeal desks. On Earth, some hours hence, she would be hated and reviled.

The impulse to sneer was strong—pure theatrics, since she was alone—but she didn’t allow it to break her concentration. (Worse than sheep, the seekers-after-security, the cowardly citizens who tacitly supported the forces that had driven her father to suicide and murdered her grandfather; the seekers-after-security who lived by technology but believed in the just influences: Star, Logos, Fate, and Pneuma...)

To calm her nerves, she sang a short song while she selected her landing site.

The ship, a small orbital tug, touched the asteroid like a mote settling on a boulder and made itself fast. She stuck her arms and legs into the suit receptacles, and the limb covers automatically hooked themselves to the thorax. The cabin was too cramped to get into a suit any other way. She reached up and brought down the helmet, pushed until all the semifluid seals seized and beeped, and began the evacuation of the cabin’s atmosphere. Then the cabin parted down the middle, and she floated slowly, fell more slowly still, to Psyche’s surface.

She turned once to watch the cabin clamp together and to see if the propulsion rods behind the tanks had been damaged by the unusually long journey. They’d held up well.

She took hold of a guide wire after a flight of twenty or twenty-five meters and pulled for the nearest glass bubble. Five years before, the milky spheres had been filled with the families of workers setting the charges that would form Psyche’s seven internal chambers. Holes had been bored from the Vlasseg and Janacki poles, on the narrow ends of the huge rock, through the center. After the formation of the chambers, materials necessary for atmosphere would have been pumped into Psyche through the boreholes while motors increased her natural spin to create artificial gravity inside.

In twenty years, Psyche’s seven chambers would have been green and beautiful, filled with hope—and passengers. But now the control-bubble hatches had been sealed by the last of the investigators. Since Psyche was not easily accessible, even in its lunar orbit, the seals hadn’t been applied carefully. Nevertheless, it took her an hour to break in. The glass ball towered above her, a hundred feet in diameter, translucent walls mottled by the shadows of rooms and equipment. Psyche rotated once every three hours, and light from the sun was beginning to flush the tops of the bubbles in the local cluster. Moonlight illuminated the shadows. She pushed the rubbery cement seals away, watching them float lazily to the pocked ground. Then she examined the airlock to see if it was still functioning. She wanted to keep the atmosphere inside the bubble, to check it for psychotropic chemicals; she would not leave her suit at any rate.

The locked door opened with a few jerks and closed behind her. She brushed crystals of frost off her faceplate and the inner lock door’s port. Then she pushed the button for the inner door, but nothing happened. The external doors were on a different power supply, which was no longer functioning—or, she hoped, had only been turned off.

From her backpack she removed a half-meter pry bar. The break-in took another fifteen minutes. She was now five minutes ahead of schedule.

* * * *

Across the valley, the fusion power plants that supplied power to the Geshel populations of Tijuana and Chula Vista sat like squat mountains of concrete. By Naderite law, all nuclear facilities were enclosed by multiple domes and pyramids, whether they posed any danger or not. The symbolism was two-fold—it showed the distaste of the ruling Naderites for energy sources that were not nature-kinetic, and it carried on the separation of Naderites-Geshels. Fanner Kollert, advisor to the North American Hexamon and ecumentalist to the California corporeal desk, watched the sun set behind the false peak and wondered vaguely if there was any symbolism in the act. Was not fusion the source of power for the sun? He smiled. Such things seldom occurred to him; perhaps it would amuse a Geshel technician.

His team of five Geshel scientists would tour the plants two days from now and make their report to him. He would then pass on his report to the desk, acting as interface for the invariably clumsy, elitist language the Geshel scientist used. In this way, through the medium of advisors across the globe, the Naderites oversaw the production of Geshel power. By their grants and control of capital, his people had once plucked the world from technological overkill, and the battle was ongoing still—a war against some of mankind’s darker tendencies.

He finished his evening juice and took a package of writing utensils from the drawer in the veranda desk. The reports from last month’s energy consumption balancing needed to be edited and revised, based on new estimates—and he enjoyed doing the work himself, rather than giving it to the library computer personna. It relaxed him to do things by hand. He wrote on a positive feedback slate, his scrawly letters adjusting automatically into script, with his tongue between his lips and a pleased frown creasing his brow.

“Excuse me, Farmer.” His ur-wife, Gestina, stood in the French doors leading to the veranda. She was as slender as when he had married her, despite fifteen years and two children.

“Yes, cara, what is it?” He withdrew his tongue and told the slate to store what he’d written.

“Josef Krupkin.”

Kollert stood up quickly, knocking the metal chair over. He hurried past his wife into the dining room, dropped his bulk into a chair, and drew up the crystalline cube on the alabaster tabletop. The cube adjusted its picture to meet the angle of his eyes, and Krupkin appeared.

“Josef! This is unexpected.”

“Very,” Krupkin said. He was a small man with narrow eyes and curly black hair. Compared to Kollert’s bulk, he was dapper—but thirty years behind a desk had given him the usual physique of a Hexamon backroomer. “Have you ever heard of Giani Turco?”

Kollert thought for a moment. “No, I haven’t. Wait—Turco. Related to Kimon Turco?”

“Daughter. California should keep better track of its radical Geshels, shouldn’t it?”

“Kimon Turco lived on the Moon.”

“His daughter lived in your district.”

“Yes, fine. What about her?” Kollert was beginning to be perturbed. Krupkin enjoyed roundabouts even in important situations—and to call him at this address, at such a time, something important had happened.

“She’s calling for you. She’ll only talk to you, none of the rest. She won’t even accept President Praetbri.”

“Yes. Who is she? What has she done?”

“She’s managed to start up Psyche. There was enough reaction mass left in the Beckmann motors to alter it into an Earth-intersect orbit.” The left side of the cube was flashing bright red, indicating the call was being scrambled.

Kollert sat very still for a few seconds. There was no need acting incredulous. Krupkin was in no position to joke. But the enormity of what he said—and the impulse to disbelieve, despite the bearer of the news—froze Kollert for an unusually long time. He ran his hand through lank blond hair.

“Kollert,” Krupkin said. “You look like you’ve been—”

“Is she telling the truth?”

Krupkin shook his head. “No, Kollert, you don’t understand. She hasn’t claimed these accomplishments. She hasn’t said anything about them yet. She just wants to speak to you. But our tracking stations say there’s no doubt. I’ve spoken with the officer who commanded the last inspection. He says there was enough mass left in the Beckmann drive positioning motors to push—”

“This is incredible! No precautions were taken? The mass wasn’t drained, or something?”

“I’m no Geshel, Farmer. My technicians tell me the mass was left on Psyche because it would have cost several hundred million—”

“That’s behind us now. Let the journalists worry about that, if they ever hear of it.” He looked up and saw Gestina still standing in the French doors. He held up his hand to tell her to stay where she was. She was going to have to keep to the house, incommunicado, for as long as it took to straighten this out.

“You’re coming?”

“Which center?”

“Does it matter? She’s not being discreet. Her message is hitting an entire hemisphere, and there are hundreds of listening stations to pick it up. Several aren’t under our control. Once anyone pinpoints the source, the story is going to be clear. For your convenience, go to Baja Station. Mexico is signatory to all the necessary pacts.”

“I’m leaving now,” Kollert said. Krupkin nodded, and the cube went blank.

“What was he talking about?” Gestina asked. “What’s Psyche?”

“A chunk of rock, dear,” he said. Her talents lay in other directions—she wasn’t stupid. Even for a Naderite, however, she was unknowledgeable about things beyond the Earth.

He started to plan the rules for her movements, then thought better of it and said nothing. If Krupkin was correct—and he would be—there was no need. The political considerations, if everything turned out right, would be enormous. He could run as Governor of the Desk, even President of the Hexamon...

And if everything didn’t turn out right, it wouldn’t matter where anybody was.

* * * *

Turco sat in the middle of her grandfather’s control center and cried. She was tired and sick at heart. Things were moving rapidly now, and she wondered just how sane she was. In a few hours she would be the worst menace the Earth had ever known, and for what cause? Truth, justice? They had murdered her grandfather, discredited her father and driven him to suicide—but all seven billion of them, Geshels and Naderites alike?

She didn’t know whether she was bluffing or not. Psyche’s fall was still controllable, and she was bargaining it would never hit the Earth. Even if she lost and everything was hopeless, she might divert it, causing a few tidal disruptions, minor earthquakes perhaps, but still passing over four thousand kilometers from the Earth’s surface. There was enough reaction mass in the positioning motors to allow a broad margin of safety.

Resting lightly on the table in front of her was a chart that showed the basic plan of the asteroid. The positioning motors surrounded a crater at one end of the egg-shaped chunk of nickel-iron and rock. Catapults loaded with huge barrels of reaction mass had just a few hours earlier launched a salvo to rendezvous above the crater’s center. Beckmann drive beams had then surrounded the mass with a halo of energy, releasing its atoms from the bonds of nature’s weak force. The blast had bounced off the crater floor, directed by the geometric patterns of heat-resistant slag. At the opposite end, a smaller guidance engine was in position, but it was no longer functional and didn’t figure in her plans. The two tunnels that reached from the poles to the center of Psyche opened into seven blast chambers, each containing a fusion charge. She hadn’t checked to see if me charges were still armed. There were so many things to do.

She sat with her head bowed, still suited up. Though the bubbles contained enough atmosphere to support her, she had no intention of unsuiting. In one gloved hand she clutched a small ampoule with a nozzle for attachment to air and water systems piping. The Hexamon Nexus’s trumped-up excuse of madness caused by near-weightless conditions was now a shattered, horrible lie. Turco didn’t know why, but the Psyche project had been deliberately sabotaged, and the psychotropic drugs still lingered.

Her grandfather hadn’t gone mad contemplating the stars. The asteroid crew hadn’t mutinied out of misguided Geshel zeal and space sickness.

Her anger rose again, and the tears stopped. “You deserve whoever governs you,” she said quietly. “Everyone is responsible for the actions of their leaders.”

The computer display cross-haired the point of impact. It was ironic—the buildings of the Hexamon Nexus were only sixty kilometers from the zero point. She had no control over such niceties, but nature and fate seemed to be as angry as she was.

* * * *

“Moving an asteroid is like carving a diamond,” the Geshel advisor said. Kollert nodded his head, not very interested. “The charges for initial orbit change—moving it out of the asteroid belt—have to be placed very carefully or the mass will break up and be useless. When the asteroid is close enough to the Earth-Moon system to meet the major crew vessels, the work has only begun. Positioning motors have to be built—”

“Madness,” Kollert’s secretary said, not pausing from his monitoring of communications between associate committees.

“And charge tunnels drilled. All of this was completed on the asteroid ten years ago.”

“Are the charges still in place?” Kollert asked.

“So far as I know,” the Geshel said.

“Can they be set off now?”

“I don’t know. Whoever oversaw dismantling should have disarmed to protect his crew—but then, the reaction mass should have been jettisoned, too. So who can say? The report hasn’t cleared top secrecy yet.”

And not likely to, either, Kollert thought. “If they haven’t been disarmed, can they be set off now? What would happen if they were?”

“Each charge has a complex communications system. They were designed to be set off by coded signals and could probably be set off now, yes, if we had the codes. Of course, those are top secret, too.”

“What would happen?’ Kollert was becoming impatient with the Geshel.

“I don’t think the charges were ever given a final adjustment. It all depends on how well the initial alignment was performed. If they’re out of tune, or the final geological studies weren’t taken into account, they could blow Psyche to pieces. If they are true, they’ll do what they were intended to do—form chambers inside the rock. Each chamber would be about fifteen kilometers long, ten kilometers in diameter—”

“If the asteroid were blown apart, how would that affect our situation?”

“Instead of having one mass hit, we’d have a cloud, with debris twenty to thirty kilometers across and smaller.”

“Would that be any better?” Kollert asked.

“Sir?”

“Would it be better to be hit by such a cloud than one chunk?”

“I don’t think so. The difference is pretty moot—either way, the surface of the Earth would be radically altered, and few life forms would survive.”

Kollert turned to his secretary. “Tell them to put a transmission through to Giani Turco.”

The communications were arranged. In the meantime Kollert tried to make some sense out of the Geshel advisor’s figures. He was very good at mathematics, but in the past sixty years many physics and chemistry symbols had diverged from those used in biology and psychology. To Kollert, the Geshel mathematics was irritatingly dense and obtuse.

He put the paper aside when Turco appeared on the cube in front of him. A few background beeps and noise were eliminated, and her image cleared. “Ser Turco,” he said.

“Ser Fanner Kollert,” she replied several seconds later. A beep signaled the end of one side’s transmission. She sounded tired.

“You’re doing a very foolish thing.”

“I have a list of demands,” she said.

Kollert laughed. “You sound like the Good Man himself, Ser Turco. The tactic of direct confrontation. Well, it didn’t work all the time, even for him.”

“I want the public—Geshels and Naderites both—to know why the Psyche project was sabotaged.”

“It was not sabotaged,” Kollert said calmly. “It was unfortunate proof that humans cannot live in conditions so far removed from the Earth.”

“Ask those on the Moon!” Turco said bitterly.

“The Moon has a much stronger gravitational pull than Psyche. But I’m not briefed to discuss all the reasons why the Psyche project failed.”

“I have found psychotropic drugs—traces of drugs and containers—in the air and water the crew breathed and drank. That’s why I’m maintaining my suit integrity.”

“No such traces were found by our investigating teams. But, Ser Turco, neither of us is here to discuss something long past. Speak your demands—your price—and we’ll begin negotiations.” Kollert knew he was walking a loose rope. Several Hexamon terrorist team officers were listening to everything he said, waiting to splice in a timely splash of static. Conversely, there was no way to stop Turco’s words from reaching open stations on the Moon—the bastards there would probably be sympathetic to her. They could pick up his messages and relay them back to the Earth. A drop of perspiration trickled from armpit to sleeve, and he shivered involuntarily.

“That’s my only demand,” Turco said. “No money, not even amnesty. I want nothing for myself. I simply want the people to know the truth.”

“Ser Turco, you have an ideal platform to tell them all you want them to hear.”

“The Hexamons control most major reception centers. Everything else—except for a few ham and radio-astronomy amateurs—is cabled and controlled. To reach the most people, the Hexamon Nexus will have to reveal its part in the matter.”

Before speaking to her again, Kollert asked if there was any way she could be fooled into believing her requests were being carried out. The answer was ambiguous—a few hundred people were thinking it over.

“I’ve conferred with my staff, Ser Turco, and I can assure you, so far as the most privy of us can tell, nothing so villainous was ever done to the Psyche project.” At a later time, his script suggested, he might indicate that some tests had been overlooked, and that a junior officer had found evidence for lunar sabotage on Psyche. That might shift the heat. But for the moment, any admission that drugs existed in the asteroid’s human environments could backfire.

“I’m not arguing,” she said. “There’s no question that the Hexamon Nexus had somebody sabotage Psyche.”

Kollert held his tongue between his lips and punched key words into his script processor. The desired statements formed over Turco’s image. He looked at the camera earnestly. “If we had done anything so heinous, surely we would have protected ourselves against an eventuality like this—drained the reaction mass in the positioning motors—” One of the terrorist team officers was waving at him frantically and scowling. The screen’s words showed red where they were being covered by static. There was to be no mention of how Turco had gained control of Psyche. The issue was too sensitive, and blame hadn’t been placed yet. Besides, there was still the option of informing the public that Turco had never gained control of Psyche at all. If everything worked out, the issue could be solved without costly admissions.

“Excuse me,” Turco said a few seconds later. The time lag between communications was wearing on her nerves, if Kollert was any judge. “Something was lost there.”

“Ser Turco, your grandfather’s death on Psyche was accidental, and your actions now are ridiculous. Destroying the Hexamon Nexus”—much better than saying Earth--”won’t mean a thing.” He leaned back in the seat, chewing on the edge of his index finger. The gesture had been approved an hour before the talks began, but it was nearly genuine. His usual elegance of speech seemed to be wearing thin in this encounter. He’d already made several embarrassing misjudgments.

“I’m not doing this for logical reasons,” Turco finally said. “I’m doing it out of hatred for you and all the people who support you. What happened on Psyche was purely evil— useless, motivated by the worst intentions, resulting in the death of a beautiful dream, not to mention people I loved. No talk can change my mind about those things.”

“Then why talk to me at all? I’m hardly the highest official in the Nexus.”

“No, but you’re in an ideal position to know who the higher officials involved were. You’re a respected politician. And I suspect you had a great deal to do with suggesting the plot. I just want the truth. I’m tired. I’m going to rest for a few hours now.”

“Wait a moment,” Kollert said sharply. “We haven’t discussed the most important things yet.”

“I’m signing off. Until later.”

The team leader made a cutting motion across his throat that almost made Kollert choke. The young bastard’s indiscreet symbol was positively obscene in the current situation. Kollert shook his head and held his fingertips to his temples. “We didn’t even have time to begin,” he said.

The team leader stood and stretched his arms.

“You’re doing quite well so far, Ser Kollert,” he said. “It’s best to ease into these things.”

“I’m Advisor Kollert to you, and I don’t see how we have much time to take it easy.”

“Yes, sir. Sorry.”

* * * *

She needed the rest, but there was far too much to do. She pushed off from the seat and floated gently for a few moments before drifting down. The relaxation of weightlessness would have been welcome, and Psyche’s pull was very weak, but just enough to remind her there was no time for rest.

One of the things she had hoped she could do—checking the charges deep inside the asteroid to see if they were armed— was impossible. The main computer and the systems board indicated the transport system through the boreholes was no longer operative. It would take her days to crawl or float the distance down the shafts, and she wasn’t about to take the small tug through a tunnel barely fifty meters wide. She wasn’t that well-trained a pilot.

So she had a weak spot. The bombs couldn’t be disarmed from where she was. They could be set off by a ship positioned along the axis of the tunnels, but so far none had shown up. That would take another twelve hours or so, and by then time would be running out. She hoped that all negotiations would be completed.

The woman desperately wanted out of the suit. The catheters and cups were itching fiercely; she felt like a ball of tacky glue wrapped in wool. Her eyes were stinging from strain and sweat buildup on the lids. If she had a moment of irritation when something crucial was happening, she could be in trouble. One way or another, she had to clean up a bit—and there was no way to do that unless she risked exposure to the residue of drugs. She stood unsteadily for several minutes, vacillating, and finally groaned, slapping her thigh with a gloved palm. “I’m tired,” she said. “Not thinking straight.”

She looked at the computer. There was a solution, but she couldn’t see clearly. “Come on, girl. So simple. But what?”

The drug would probably have a limited life, in case the Nexus wanted to do something with Psyche later. But how limited? Ten years? She chuckled grimly. She had the ampoule and its cryptic chemical label. Would a Physician’s Desk Reference be programmed into the computers?

She hooked herself into the console again. “PDR,” she said. The screen was blank for a few seconds. Then it said, “Ready.”

“Iropentaphonate,” she said. “Two-seven diboltene.”

The screen printed out the relevant data. She searched through the technical maze for a full minute before finding what she wanted. “Effective shelf life, four months two days from date of manufacture.”

She tested the air again—it was stale but breathable—and unhooked her helmet. It was worth any risk. A bare knuckle against her eye felt so good.

* * * *

The small lounge in the Baja Station was well-furnished and comfortable, but suited more for Geshels than Naderites— bright rather than natural colors, abstract paintings of a mechanistic tendency, modernist furniture. To Kollert it was faintly oppressive. The man sitting across from him had been silent for the past five minutes, reading through a sheaf of papers.

“Who authorized this?” the man asked.

“Hexamon Nexus, Mr. President.”

“But who proposed it?”

Kollert hesitated. “The advisory committee.”

“Who proposed it to the committee?”

“I did.”

“Under what authority?”

“It was strictly legal,” Kollert said defensively. “Such activities have been covered under the emergency code, classified section fourteen.”

The president nodded. “She came to the right man when she asked for you, then. I wonder where she got her information. None of this can be broadcast—why was it done?”

“There were a number of reasons, among them financial—”

“The project was mostly financed by lunar agencies. Earth had perhaps a five percent share, so no controlling interest— and there was no connection with radical Geshel groups, therefore no need to invoke section fourteen on revolutionary deterrence. I read the codes, too, Farmer.”

“Yes, sir.”

“What were you afraid of? Some irrational desire to pin the butterflies down? Jesus God, Parmer, the Naderite beliefs don’t allow anything like this. But you and your committee took it upon yourselves to covertly destroy the biggest project in the history of mankind. You think this follows in the tracks of the Good Man?”

“You’re aware of lunar plans to build particle guidance guns. They’re canceled now because Psyche is dead. They were to be used to push asteroids like Psyche into deep space, so advanced Beckmann drives could be used.”

“I’m not technically minded, Farmer.”

“Nor am I. But such particle guns could have been used as weapons—considering lunar sympathies, probably would have been used. They could cook whole cities on Earth. The development of potential weapons is a matter of concern for Naderites, sir. And there are many studies showing that human behavior changes in space. It becomes less Earth-centered, less communal. Man can’t live in space and remain human. We were trying to preserve humanity’s right to a secure future. Even now the Moon is a potent political force, and war has been suggested by our strategists... it’s a dire possibility. All this because of the separation of a group of humans from the parent body, from wise government and safe creed.”

The president shook his head and looked away. “I am ashamed such a thing could happen in my government. Very well, Kollert, this remains your ball game until she asks to speak to someone else. But my advisors are going to go over everything you say. I doubt you’ll have the chance to botch anything. We’re already acting with the Moon to stop this before it gets any worse. And you can thank God—for your life, not your career, which is already dead—that our Geshels have come up with a way out.”

Kollert was outwardly submissive, but inside he was fuming. Not even the President of the Hexamon had the right to treat him like a child or, worse, a criminal. He was an independent advisor, of a separate desk, elected by Naderites of high standing. The ecumentalist creed was apparently much tighter than the president’s. “I acted in the best interests of my constituency,” he said.

“You no longer have a constituency, you no longer have a career. Nor do any of the people who planned this operation with you, or those who carried it out. Up and down the line. A purge.”

* * * *

Turco woke up before the blinking light and moved her lips in a silent curse. How long had she been asleep? She panicked briefly—a dozen hours would be crucial—but then saw the digital clock. Two hours. The light was directing her attention to an incoming radio signal.

There was no video image. Kollert’s voice returned, less certain, almost cowed. “I’m here,” she said, switching off her camera as well. The delay was a fraction shorter than when they’d first started talking.

“Have you made any decisions?” Kollert asked.

“I should be asking that question. My course is fixed. When are you and your people going to admit to sabotage?”

“We’d—I’d almost be willing to admit, just to—” He stopped. She was about to speak when he continued. “We could do that, you know. Broadcast a worldwide admission of guilt. A cheap price to pay for saving all life on Earth. Do you really understand what you’re up to? What satisfaction, what revenge, could you possibly get out of this? My God, Turco, you—” There was a burst of static. It sounded suspiciously like the burst she had heard some time ago.

“You’re editing him,” she said. Her voice was level and calm. “I don’t want anyone editing anything between us, whoever you are. Is that understood? One more burst of static like that, and I’ll...” She had already threatened the ultimate. “I’ll be less tractable. Remember—I’m already a fanatic. Want me to be a hardened fanatic? Repeat what you were saying, Ser Kollert.”

The digital readout indicated one-way delay time of 1.496 seconds. She would soon be closer to the Earth than the Moon was.

“I was saying,” Kollert repeated, something like triumph in his tone, “that you are a very young woman, with very young ideas—like a child leveling a loaded pistol at her parents. You may not be a fanatic. But you aren’t seeing things clearly. We have no evidence here on Earth that you’ve found anything, and we won’t have evidence—nothing will be solved—if the asteroid collides with us. That’s obvious. But if it veers aside, goes into an Earth orbit perhaps, then an—”

“That’s not one of my options,” Turco said.

“—investigating team could reexamine the crew quarters,” Kollert continued, not to be interrupted for a few seconds, “do a more detailed search. Your charges could be verified.”

“I can’t go into Earth orbit without turning around, and this is a one-way rock, remember that. My only other option is to swing around the Earth, be deflected a couple of degrees, and go into a solar orbit. By the time any investigating team reached me, I’d be on the other side of the sun, and dead. I’m the daughter of a Geshel, Ser Kollert—don’t forget that. I have a good technical education, and my training under Hexamon auspices makes me a competent pilot and spacefarer. Too bad there’s so little long-range work for my type—just Earth-Moon runs. But don’t try to fool me or kid me. I’m far more expert than you are. Though I’m sure you have Geshel people on your staff.” She paused. “Geshels! I can’t call you traitors—you in the background—because you might be thinking I’m crazy, out to destroy all of you. But do you understand what these men have done to our hopes and dreams? I’ve never seen a finished asteroid starship, of course—Psyche was to have been the first. But I’ve seen good simulations. It would have been like seven Shangrilas inside, hollowed out of solid rock and metal, seven valleys separated by walls four kilometers high, each self-contained, connected with the others by tube trains. The valley floors reach up to the sky, like magic, everything wonderfully topsy-turvy. And quiet—so much insulation none of the engine sounds reach inside.” She was crying again.

“Psyche would consume herself on the way to the stars. By the time she arrived, there’d be little left besides a cylinder thirty kilometers wide, and two hundred ninety long. Like the core of an apple, and the passengers would be luxurious worms— star travelers. Now ask why, why did these men sabotage such a marvelous thing? Because they are blind unto pure evil— blind, ugly-minded, weak men who hate big ideas...” She paused. “I don’t know what you think of all this, but remember, they took something away from you. I know. I’ve seen the evidence here. Sabotage and murder.” She pressed the button and waited wearily for a reply.

“Ser Turco,” Kollert said, “you have ten hours to make an effective course correction. We estimate you have enough reaction mass left to extend your orbit and miss the Earth by about four thousand kilometers. There is nothing we can do here but try to convince you—”

She stopped listening, trying to figure out what was happening behind the scenes. Earth wouldn’t take such a threat without exploring a large number of alternatives. Kollert’s voice droned on as she tired to think of the most likely action, and the most effective.

She picked up her helmet and placed a short message, paying no attention to the transmission from Earth. “I’m going outside for a few minutes.”

* * * *

The acceleration had been steady for two hours, but now the weightlessness was just as oppressive. The large cargo hauler was fully loaded with extra fuel and a bulk William Porter was reluctant to think about. With the ship turned around for course correction, he could see the Moon glowing with Earthshine, and a bright crescent so thin it was almost a hair.

He had about half an hour to relax before the real work began, and he was using it to read an excerpt from a novel by Anthony Burgess. He’d been a heavy reader all his memorable life, and now he allowed himself a possible last taste of pleasure.

Like most inhabitants of the Moon, Porter was a Geshel, with a physicist father and a geneticist mother. He’d chosen a career as a pilot rather than a researcher out of romantic predilections established long before he was ten years old. There was something immediately effective and satisfying about piloting, and he’d turned out to be well suited to the work. He’d never expected to take on a mission like this. But then, he’d never paid much attention to politics, either. Even if he had, the disputes between Geshels and Naderites would have been hard to spot—they’d been settled, most experts believed, fifty years before, with the Naderites emerging as a ruling class. Outside of grumbling at restrictions, few Geshels complained. Responsibility had been lifted from their shoulders. Most of the population of both Earth and Moon was now involved in technical and scientific work, yet the mistakes they made would be blamed on Naderite policies—and the disasters would likewise be absorbed by the leadership. It wasn’t a hard situation to get used to.

William Porter wasn’t so sure, now, that it was the ideal. He had two options to save Earth, and one of them meant he would die.

He’d listened to the Psyche-Earth transmissions during acceleration, trying to make sense out of Turco’s position, to form an opinion of her character and sanity, but he was more confused than ever. If she was right—and not a raving lunatic, which didn’t seem to fit the facts—then the Hexamon Nexus had a lot of explaining to do and probably wouldn’t do it under the gun. The size of Turco’s gun was far too imposing to be rational—the destruction of the human race, the wiping of a planet’s surface.

He played back the computer diagram of what would happen if Psyche hit the Earth. At the angle it would strike, it would speed the rotation of the Earth’s crust and mantle by an appreciable fraction. The asteroid would cut a gouge from Maine to England, several thousand kilometers long and at least a hundred kilometers deep. The impact would vault hundreds of millions of tons of surface material into space, and that would partially counteract the speedup of rotation. The effect would be a monumental jerk, with the energy finally being released as heat. The continents would fracture in several directions, forming new faults, even new plate orientations, which would generate earthquakes on a scale never before seen. The impact basin would be a hell of molten crust and mantle, with water on the perimeter bursting violently into steam, altering weather patterns around the world. It would take decades to cool and achieve some sort of stability.

Turco may not have been raving, but she was coldly suggesting a cataclysm to swat what amounted to a historical fly. That made her a lunatic in anyone’s book, Geshel or Naderite. And his life was well worth the effort to thwart her.

That didn’t stop him from being angry, though.

* * * *

Kollert impatiently let the physician check him over and administer a few injections. He talked to his wife briefly, which left him more nervous than before, then listened to the team leader’s theories on how Turco’s behavior would change in the next few hours. He nodded at only one statement: “She’s going to see she’ll be dead, too, and that’s a major shock for even the most dedicated terrorist.”

Then Turco was back on the air, and he was on stage again.

“I’ve seen your ship,” she said. “I went outside and looked around in the direction where I thought it would be. There it was—treachery all around. Goddamned hypocrites! Talk friendly to the little girl, but shiv her in the back! Public face cool, private face snarl! Well, just remember, before he can kill me, I can destroy all controls to the positioning engines. It would take a week to rewire them. You don’t have the time!” The beep followed.

“Giani, we have only one option left, and that’s to do as you say. We’ll admit we played a part in the sabotage of Psyche. It’s confession under pressure, but we’ll do it.” Kollert pressed his button and waited, holding his full chin with one hand.

“No way it’s so simple, Kollert. No public admission and then public denial after the danger is over—you’d all come across as heroes. No. There has to be some records-keeping, payrolls if nothing else. I want full disclosure of all records, and I want them transmitted around the world—facsimile, authenticated. I want uninvolved government officials to see them and sign that they’ve seen them. And I want the actual documents put on display where anyone can look at them—memos, plans, letters, whatever. All of it that’s still available.”

“That would take weeks,” Kollert said, “if they existed.”

“Not in this age of electronic wizardry. I want you to take a lie-detector test, authenticated by half a dozen experts with their careers on the line—and while you’re at it, have the other officials take tests, too.”

“That’s not only impractical, it won’t hold up in a court of law.”

“I’m not interested in formal courts. I’m not a vengeful person, no matter what I may seem now. I just want the truth. And if I still see that goddamn ship up there in an hour, I’m going to stop negotiations right now and blow myself to pieces.”

Kollert looked at the team leader, but the man’s face was blank.

* * * *

“Let me talk to her, then,” Porter suggested. “Direct person-to-person. Let me explain the plans. She really can’t change them any, can she? She has no way of making them worse. If she fires her engines or does any positive action, she simply stops the threat. So I’m the one who holds the key to the situation.”

“We’re not sure that’s advisable, Bill,” Lunar Guidance said.

“I can transmit to her without permission, you know,” he said testily.

“Against direct orders, that’s not like you.”

“Like me, hell,” he said, chuckling. “Listen, just get me permission. Nobody else seems to be doing anything effective.” There was a few minutes’ silence, then Lunar Guidance returned.

“Okay, Bill. You have permission. But be very careful what you say. Terrorist team officers on Earth think she’s close to the pit.”

With that obstacle cleared away, he wondered how wise the idea was in the first place. Still, they were both Geshels—they had something in common compared to the elite Naderites running things on Earth.

Far away, Earth concurred and transmissions were cleared. They couldn’t censor his direct signal, so Baja Station was unwillingly cut from the circuit.

“Who’s talking to me now?” Turco asked when the link was made.

“This is Lieutenant William Porter, from the Moon. I’m a pilot—not a defense pilot usually, either. I understand you’ve had pilot’s training.

“Just enough to get by.” The lag was less than a hundredth of a second, not noticeable.

“You know I’m up here to stop you, one way or another. I’ve got two options. The one I think more highly of is to get in line-of-sight of your boreholes and relay the proper coded signals to the charges in your interior.”

“Killing me won’t do you any good.”

“That’s not the plan. The fore end of your rock is bored with a smaller hole by thirty meters. It’ll release the blast wastes more slowly than the aft end. The total explosive force should give the rock enough added velocity to get it clear of the Earth by at least sixty kilometers. The damage would be negligible. Spectacular view from Greenland, too, I understand. But if we’ve miscalculated, or if one or more charges doesn’t go, then I’ll have to impact with your aft crater and release the charge in my cargo hold. I’m one floating megaboom now, enough to boost the rock up and out by a few additional kilometers. But that means I’ll be dead, and not enough left of me to memorialize or pin a medal on. Not too good, hm?”

“None of my sweat.”

“No, I suppose not. But listen, sister—”

“No sister to a lackey.”

Porter started to snap a retort, but stopped himself. “Listen, they tell me to be soft on you, but I’m under pressure, too, so please reciprocate. I don’t see the sense in all of it. If you get your way, you’ve set back your cause by God knows how many decades—because once you’re out of range and blown your trump, they’ll deny it all, say it was manufactured evidence and testimony under pressure—all that sort of thing. And if they decide to hard-line it, force me to do my dirty work, or God forbid let you do yours—we’ve lost our homeworld. You’ve lost Psyche, which can still be salvaged and finished. Everything will be lost, just because a few men may or may not have done a very wicked thing. Come on, honey. That isn’t the Geshel creed, and you know it.”

“What is our creed? To let men rule our lives who aren’t competent to read a thermometer? Under the Naderites, most of the leaders on Earth haven’t got the technical expertise to... to... I don’t know what. To tie their goddamn shoes! They’re blind, dedicated to some half-wit belief that progress is the most dangerous thing conceived by man. And when they won’t touch our filthy nuclear energy, we get stuck with it— because otherwise we all have to go back four hundred years, and sacrifice half the population. Is that good planning, sound policy? And if they do what I say, Psyche won’t be damaged. All they’ll have to do is fetch it back from orbit around the sun.”

“I’m not going to argue on their behalf, sister. I’m a Geshel, too, and a Moonman besides. I never have paid attention to Earth politics because it never made much sense to me. But now I’m talking to you one-to-one, and you’re telling me that taking revenge against someone’s irrational system is worth wiping away a planet?”

“I’m willing to take that risk.”

“I don’t think you are. I hope you aren’t. I hope it’s all bluff, and I won’t have to smear myself against your backside.”

“I hope you won’t, either. I hope they’ve got enough sense down there to do what I want.”

“I don’t think they have, sister. I don’t put much faith in them, myself. They probably don’t even know what would happen if you hit the Earth with your rock. Think about that. You’re talking about scientific innocents—flat-Earthers almost, naive. Words fail me. But think on it. They may not even know what’s going on.”

“They know. And remind them that if they set off the charges, it’ll probably break up Psyche and give them a thousand rocks to contend with instead of one. That plan may backfire on them.”

“What if they—we—don’t have any choice?”

“I don’t give a damn what choice you have,” Turco said. “I’m not talking for a while. I’ve got more work to do.”

Porter listened to the final click with a sinking feeling. She was a tough one. How would he outwit her? He smiled grimly at his chutzpah for even thinking he could. She’d committed herself all the way—and now, perhaps, she was feeling the power of her position. One lonely woman, holding the key to a world’s existence. He wondered how it felt.

Then he shivered, and the sweat in his suit felt very, very cold. If he would have a grave for someone to walk over...

* * * *

For the first time, she realized they wouldn’t accede to her demands. They were more traitorous than even she could have imagined. Or—the thought was too horrible to accept—she’d misinterpreted the evidence, and they weren’t at fault. Perhaps a madman in the Psyche crew had sought revenge and caused the whole mess. But that didn’t fit the facts. It would have taken at least a dozen people to set all the psychotropic vials and release them at once—a concerted preplanned effort. She shook her head. Besides, she had the confidential reports a friend had accidentally plugged into while troubleshooting a Hexamon computer plex. There was no doubt about who was responsible, just uncertainty about the exact procedure. Her evidence for Fanner Kollert’s guilt was circumstantial but not baseless.

She sealed her suit and helmet and went outside the bubble again, just to watch the stars for a few minutes. The lead-grey rock under her feet was pitted by eons of micrometeoroids. Rills several kilometers across attested to the rolling impacts of other asteroids, any one of which would have caused a major disaster on Earth. Earth had been hit before, not often by pieces as big as Psyche, but several times at least, and had survived. Earth would survive Psyche’s impact, and life would start anew. Those plants and animals—even humans—that survived would eventually build back to the present level, and perhaps it would be a better world, more daunted by the power of past evil. She might be a force for positive regeneration.

The string of bubbles across Psyche’s surface was serenely lovely in the starlight. The illumination brightened slowly as Earth rose above the Vlasseg pole, larger now than the Moon. She had a few more hours to make the optimum correction. Just above the Earth was a tiny moving point of light—Porter in his cargo vessel. He was lining up with the smaller borehole to send signals, if he had to.

Again she wanted to cry. She felt like a little child, full of hatred and frustration, but caught now in something so immense and inexorable that all passion was dwarfed. She couldn’t believe she was the controlling factor, that she held so much power. Surely something was behind her, some impersonal, objective force. Alone she was nothing, and her crime would be unbelievable—just as Porter had said. But with a cosmic justification, the agreeing nod of some vast all-seeing God, she was just a tool, bereft of responsibility.

She grasped the guide wires strung between the bubbles and pulled herself back to the airlock hatch. With one gloved hand she pressed the button. Under her palm she felt the metal vibrate for a second, then stop. The hatch was still closed. She pressed again and nothing happened.

Porter listened carefully for a full minute, trying to pick up the weak signal. It had cut off abruptly a few minutes before, during his final lineup with the borehole through the Vlasseg pole. He called his director and asked if any signals had been received from Turco. Since he was out of line-of-sight now, the Moon had to act as a relay.

“Nothing,” Lunar Guidance said. “She’s been silent for an hour.”

“That’s not right. We’ve only got an hour and a half left. She should be playing the situation for all it’s worth. Listen, LG, I received a weak signal from Psyche several minutes ago. It could have been a freak, but I don’t think so. I’m going to move back to where I picked it up.”

“Negative, Porter. You’ll need all your reaction mass in case Plan A doesn’t go off properly.”

“I’ve got plenty to spare, LG. I have a bad feeling about this. Something’s gone wrong on Psyche.” It was clear to him the instant he said it. “Jesus Christ, LG, the signal must have come from Turco’s area on Psyche! I lost it just when I passed out of line-of-sight from her bubble.”

Lunar Guidance was silent for a long moment. “Okay, Porter, we’ve got clearance for you to regain that signal.”

“Thank you, LG.” He pushed the ship out of its rough alignment and coasted slowly away from Psyche until he could see the equatorial ring of domes and bubbles. Abruptly his receiver again picked up the weak signal. He locked his tracking antenna to it, boosted it, and cut in the communications processor to interpolate through the hash.

“This is Turco. William Porter, listen to me! This is Turco. I’m locked out. Something has malfunctioned in the control bubble. I’m locked out...”

“I’m getting you, Turco,” he said. “Look at my spot above the Vlasseg pole. I’m in line-of-sight again.” If her suit was a standard model, her transmissions would strengthen in the direction she was facing.

“God bless you, Porter. I see you. Everything’s gone wrong down here. I can’t get back in.”

“Try again, Turco. Do you have any tools with you?”

“That’s what started all this, breaking in with a chisel and a pry bar. It must have weakened something, and now the whole mechanism is frozen. No, I left the bar inside. No tools. Jesus, this is awful.”

“Calm down. Keep trying to get in. I’m relaying your signal to Lunar Guidance and Earth.” That settled it. There was no time to waste now. If she didn’t turn on the positioning motors soon, any miss would be too close for comfort. He had to set off the internal charges within an hour and a half for the best effect.

“She’s outside?” Lunar Guidance asked when the transmissions were relayed. “Can’t get back in?”

“That’s it,” Porter said.

“That cocks it, Porter. Ignore her and get back into position. Don’t bother lining up with the Vlasseg pole, however. Circle around to the Janacki pole borehole and line up for code broadcast there. You’ll have a better chance of getting the code through, and you can prepare for any further action.”

“I’ll be cooked, LG.”

“Negative—you’re to relay code from an additional thousand kilometers and boost yourself out of the path just before detonation. That will occur—let’s see—about four point three seconds after the charges receive the code. Program your computer for sequencing; you’ll be too busy.”

“I’m moving, LG.” He returned to Turco’s wavelength. “It’s out of your hands now,” he said. “We’re blowing the charges. They may not be enough, so I’m preparing to detonate myself against the Janacki pole crater. Congratulations, Turco.”

“I still can’t get back in, Porter.”

“I said congratulations. You’ve killed both of us and ruined Psyche for any future projects. You know that she’ll go to pieces when she drops below Roche’s limit? Even if she misses, she’ll be too close to survive. You know, they might have gotten it all straightened out in a few administrations. Politicos die, or get booted out of office—even Naderites. I say you’ve cocked it good. Be happy, Turco.” He flipped the switch viciously and concentrated on his approach program display.

* * * *

Farmer Kollert was slumped in his chair, eyes closed but still awake, half-listening to the murmurs in the control room. Someone tapped him on the shoulder, and he jerked up in his seat.

“I had to be with you, Farmer.” Gestina stood over him, a nervous smile making her dimples obvious. “They brought me here to be with you.”

“Why?” he asked.

Her voice shook. “Because our house was destroyed. I got out just in time. What’s happening, Farmer? Why do they want to kill me? What did I do?”

The team officer standing beside her held out a piece of paper, and Kollert took it. Violence had broken out in half a dozen Hexamon centers, and numerous officials had had to be evacuated. Geshels weren’t the only ones involved—Naderites of all classes seemed to share indignation and rage at what was happening. The outbreaks weren’t organized—and that was even more disturbing. Wherever transmissions had reached the unofficial grapevines, people were reacting.

Gestina’s large eyes regarded him without comprehension, much less sympathy. “I had to be with you, Farmer,” she repeated. “They wouldn’t let me stay.”

“Quiet, please,” another officer said. “More transmissions coming in.”

“Yes,” Kollert said softly. “Quiet. That’s what we wanted. Quiet and peace and sanity. Safety for our children to come.”

“I think something big is happening,” Gestina said. “What is it?”

* * * *

Porter checked the alignment again, put up his visual shields, and instructed the processor to broadcast the coded signal. With no distinguishable pause, the ship’s engines started to move him out of the path of the particle blast.

Meanwhile Giani Turco worked at the hatch with a bit of metal bracing she had broken off her suitpack. The sharp edge just barely fit into the crevice, and by gouging and prying she had managed to force the door up half a centimeter. The evacuation mechanism hadn’t been activated, so frosted air hissed from the crack, making the work doubly difficult. The Moon was rising above the Janacki pole.

Deep below her, seven prebalanced charges, mounted on massive fittings in their chambers, began to whir. Four processors checked the timings, concurred, and released safety shields.

Six of the charges went off at once. The seventh was late by ten thousandths of a second, its blast muted as the casing melted prematurely. The particle shock waves streamed out through the boreholes, now pressure release valves, and formed a long neck and tail of flame and ionized particles that grew steadily for a thousand kilometers, then faded. The tail from the Vlasseg pole was thinner and shorter, but no less spectacular. The asteroid shuddered, vibrations rising from deep inside to pull the ground away from Turco’s boots, then swing it back to kick her away from the bubble and hatch. She floated in space, disoriented, ripped free of the guide wires, her back to the asteroid, faceplate aimed at peaceful stars, turning slowly as she reached the top of her arc.

Her leisurely descent gave her plenty of time to see the secondary plume of purple and white and red forming around the Janacki pole. The stars were blanked out by its brilliance. She closed her eyes. When she opened them again, she was nearer the ground, and her faceplate had polarized against the sudden brightness. She saw the bubble still intact, and the hatch wide open now. It had been jarred free. Everything was vibrating ... and with shock she realized the asteroid was slowly moving out from beneath her. Her fall became a drawn-out curve, taking her away from the bubble toward a ridge of lead-grey rock, without guide wires, where she would bounce and continue on unchecked. To her left, one dome ruptured and sent a feathery wisp of debris into space. Pieces of rock and dust floated past her, shaken from Psyche’s weak surface grip. Then her hand was only a few meters from a guide wire torn free and swinging outward. It came closer like a dancing snake, hesitated, rippled again, and came within reach. She grabbed it and pulled herself down.

* * * *

“Porter, this is Lunar Guidance. Earth says the charges weren’t enough. Something went wrong.”

“She held together, LG,” Porter said in disbelief. “She didn’t break up. I’ve got a fireworks show like you’ve never seen before.”

“Porter, listen. She isn’t moving fast enough. She’ll still impact.”

“I heard you, LG,” Porter shouted. “I heard! Leave me alone to get things done.” Nothing more was said between them.

* * * *

Turco reached the hatch and crawled into the airlock, exhausted. She closed the outer door and waited for equalization before opening the inner. Her helmet was off and floated behind as she walked and bounced and guided herself into the control room. If the motors were still functional, she’d fire them. She had no second thoughts now. Something had gone wrong, and the situation was completely different.

In the middle of the kilometers-wide crater at the Janacki pole, the borehole was still spewing debris and ionized particles. But around the perimeter, other forces were at work. Canisters of reaction mass were flying to a point three kilometers above the crater floor. The Beckmann drive engines rotated on their mountings, aiming their nodes at the canisters’ rendezvous point.

Porter’s ship was following the tail of debris down to the crater floor. He could make out geometric patterns of insulating material. His computers told him something was approaching a few hundred meters below. There wasn’t time for any second guessing. He primed his main cargo and sat back in the seat, lips moving, not in prayer, but repeating some stray, elegant line from the Burgess novel, a final piece of pleasure.

One of the canisters struck the side of the cargo ship just as the blast began. A brilliant flare spread out above the crater, merging with and twisting the tail of the internal charges. Four canisters were knocked from their course and sent plummeting into space. The remaining six met at the assigned point and were hit by beams from the Beckmann drive nodes. Their matter was stripped down to pure energy.

All of this, in its lopsided incomplete way, bounced against the crater floor and drove the asteroid slightly faster.

When the shaking subsided, Turco let go of a grip bar and asked the computers questions. No answers came back. Everything except minimum life support was out of commission. She thought briefly of returning to her tug, if it was still in position, but there was nowhere to go. So she walked and crawled and floated to a broad view-window in the bubble’s dining room. Earth was rising over the Vlasseg pole again, filling half her view, knots of storm and streaks of brown continent twisting slowly before her. She wondered if it had been enough—it hadn’t felt right. There was no way of knowing for sure, but the Earth looked much too close.

* * * *

“It’s too close to judge,” the president said, deliberately standing with his back to Kollert. “She’ll pass over Greenland, maybe just hit the upper atmosphere.”

The terrorist team officers were packing their valises and talking to each other in subdued whispers. Three of the president’s security men looked at the screen with dazed expressions. The screen was blank except for a display of seconds until accession of picture. Gestina was asleep in the chair next to Kollert, her face peaceful, hands wrapped together in her lap.

“We’ll have relay pictures from Iceland in a few minutes,” the president said. “Should be quite a sight.” Kollert frowned. The man was almost cocky, knowing he would come through it untouched. Even with survival uncertain, his government would be preparing explanations. Kollert could predict the story: a band of lunar terrorists, loosely tied with Giani Turco’s father and his rabid spacefarers, was responsible for the whole thing. It would mean a few months of ill-feeling on the Moon, but at least the Nexus would have found its scapegoats.

A communicator beeped in the room, and Kollert looked around for its source. One of the security men reached into a pocket and pulled out a small earplug, which he inserted. He listened for a few seconds, frowned, then nodded. The other two gathered close, and they whispered.

Then, quietly, they left the room. The president didn’t notice they were gone, but to Kollert their absence spoke volumes.

Six Nexus police entered a minute later. One stood by Kollert’s chair, not looking at him. Four waited by the door. Another approached the president and tapped him on the shoulder. The president turned.

“Sir, fourteen desks have requested your impeachment. We’re instructed to put you under custody, for your own safety.”

Kollert started to rise, but the officer beside him put a hand on his shoulder.

“May we stay to watch?” the president asked. No one objected.

Before the screen was switched on, Kollert asked, “Is anyone going to get Turco, if it misses?”

The terrorist team leader shrugged when no one else answered. “She may not even be alive.”

Then, like a crowd of children looking at a horror movie, the men and women in the communications center grouped around the large screen and watched the dark shadow of Psyche blotting out stars.

* * * *

From the bubble window, Turco saw the sudden aurorae, the spray of ionized gases from the Earth’s atmosphere, the awesomely rapid passage of the ocean below, and the blur of white as Greenland flashed past. The structure rocked and jerked as the Earth exerted enormous tidal strains on Psyche.

Sitting in the plastic chair, numb, tightly gripping the arms, Giani looked up—down—at the bright stars, feeling Psyche die beneath her.

Inside, the still-molten hollows formed by the charges began to collapse. Cracks shot outward to the surface, where they became gaping chasms. Sparks and rays of smoke jumped from the chasms. In minutes the passage was over. Looking closely, she saw roiling storms forming over Earth’s seas and the spreading shock waves of the asteroid’s sudden atmospheric compression. Big winds were blowing, but they’d survive.

It shouldn’t have gone this far. They should have listened reasonably, admitted their guilt—

Absolved, girl, she wanted her father to say. She felt very near. You’ve destroyed everything we worked for—a fine architect of Pyrrhic victories. And now he was at a great distance, receding.

The room was cold, and her skin tingled.

One huge chunk rose to block out the sun. The cabin screamed, and the bubble was filled with sudden flakes of air.