Yet it was there.

The eyes, maybe. But Sara's were green, Casey's blue. Nonetheless, he recognized the steady gaze, and maybe something in her expression, in the way her smile played at the corners of her mouth or the way her voice softened when she thought she could work her will no other way.

Or maybe his imagination had simply run wild, because he was on a flight that was going to become memorable, and he would have liked very much to share it with Sara.

After spending twenty years relentlessly attacking marriage as an institution for the mentally deficient of both sexes, an evolutionary trap, he had met her one evening during a presentation to a group of young journalists. She'd invited him to dinner because she was working on an assignment and it required an interview with him. He was at the time perhaps America's best-known misogynist. The grand passion always wears out, he'd maintained. He'd set its maximum limit at one year, three months, eleven days.

With Sara, he never got a chance to test his figures. Eight months after he'd met her, three weeks after the wedding, she'd died in a freak boating accident. He hadn't been there, had been in his office working on Premier when it happened.

It was a long time ago now. Yet no day ever passed that he did not think of her.

Sara had lived in many moods, somber and delighted, pensive and

full of laughter. Her last name had been Dingle, and she used to tell people that the only reason she'd consented to marry him was to effect the name change. It had, she said, always been an embarrassment.

He couldn't have said why, but that was the Sara whose spirit occupied his stateroom at the moment. Stupid. He was getting old.

He collected a strawberry clipper from the autobar and called up the library catalog. There was a new novel by Ramsey Taggart that he'd been wanting to look at. Taggart was one of his discoveries, but he'd begun coasting. MacAllister had spoken with him, shown him where he was going wrong. Nevertheless the last book, a dreary adultery-in-the-mountains melodrama, had shown no improvement. If the trend continued in this latest book, MacAllister would have no choice but to take him to task more formally. In public.

He thought through the conversation with Casey, because it seemed to him he was missing something. He was not one to put him-self to trouble on behalf of others, and yet he'd volunteered to do an on-site interview that would seriously inconvenience him. Why had he done that?

Gradually, it occurred to him that he wanted to go down to the surface of Maleiva III. To walk among its ruins and let its great age surround him. To soak the sense of oncoming disaster into his blood, What would it be like to stand on the surface of that doomed world and watch the giant rushing down?

To manage things, he would have to win over the assistance of Erik Nicholson.

Nicholson was the captain of the Evening Star, a small man, both in physical stature and in spirit. He was, for example, quite proud of his position, and strutted about like a turkey. He spoke in a manner that was simultaneously distant and weak, as if he were delivering di-vine instructions from the mountaintop and hoping you'd believe

MacAllister was scheduled to join the captain for dinner next evening. That would serve as an opportunity to draw him into a pri-vate conversation and get the ball rolling. The trick would be to find a reason strong enough to persuade him it would be in his interest to send the ship's lander to the surface. With MacAllister in it.

The book came up and he started on it. Once or twice, though, he glanced around the room to reassure himself he was really alone.

All the important thing? that ever happened to me occurred while I was going someplace else. -Gregory MacAllister, Notes from Babylon

Wendys shuttle delivered two passengers, the additions to the ground survey team, to Wildside. Hutch met them in the bay, where they traded introductions.

Kellie Collier was a head taller than Hutch and wore a standard blue-trimmed white Wendy Jay jumpsuit She shook Hutch's hand warmly and said how pleased she was to be included.

Chiang Harmon's Asian ancestors revealed themselves in the shape of his eyes but nowhere else that she could see. His hair was brown, he was big-boned and broad-shouldered, and he seemed a trifle clumsy. Hutch decided on the spot she liked him'. She also recognized that he had more than a professional interest in Kellie.

"Either of you ever been down on a frontier world before?" she asked.

Kellie had. Although she confessed she'd never traveled anywhere beyond the bases and outposts. "No place where there might have been trouble," she admitted.

On the other hand, she knew how to use a stinger.

"We don't have any stingers on board," said Hutch.

Her eyebrows rose. "You're going down onto a potentially lethal world without weapons?"

Hutch showed her a cutter.

"What is it?" she asked.

Hutch turned it on. A blade of white light appeared. "Laser," she said. "Cut through anything."

"I don't think I'd want to let the local gators get that close."

"Sorry," said Hutch. "They're all we have. We have to make do."

They had half a dozen on board. They were probably a notch or two more efficient than the cutter Biney Coldfield had used to fight off the cardinals. They were a basic tool for archeologists, but in the right hands they also made an effective weapon. But Hutch was unsure whether her volunteers were people to whom she was willing to entrust the weapons. If they weren't, she decided, she shouldn't take them along.

She'd given long consideration to the wildlife hazards on Deepsix. There'd be no repetition of the earlier mistakes. She'd put together a set of operational requirements that everyone would adhere to without exception. She gave each of them a copy, and insisted they read and sign it before the discussion went any farther. Any deviation, she explained, would result in the offender's being shipped back into orbit. Posthaste.

Did everyone understand?

Everyone did.

She showed them around Wildside. They found Scolari and Embry in the common room, where Chiang asked whether they were going down to the surface, too. When they replied that they weren't, both looking uncomfortable and a shade indignant, Kellie glanced at Hutch, and it was impossible to miss the judgment she'd just made.

"Why not?" Kellie asked innocently. "It's the chance of a lifetime."

"I'm not an archeologist," said Scolari defensively. "And to be honest, I think it's a damn-fool thing to do. That place down there is full of wild animals, and it's going to start breaking up at any time. I don't plan to be there when it happens. Not for the sake of a few pots."

Embry smiled coolly and let it go.

Hutch would have preferred more young males in the group, because she hoped they would be cutting engraved stones out of walls and hauling them back to the lander. Gravity on Deepsix was.92 Earth normal, and.89 Pinnacle, which was the level to which Toni was accustomed. It would help somewhat, but they might still have use for some muscle.

Nightingale joined them, and they did another round of introductions, and then took time for a training session. Hutch explained the importance of getting pictures of whatever they might find, and of taking measurements and mapping where everything was. "We do all that," she said, "before we touch anything."

She described the hazards, not only from predators, but simply from moving around in an ancient building. "Be careful. Floors will give way; overheads will cave in. Sharp objects won't penetrate your suit, but they can still punch holes in you." She invited Nightingale to speak about his experience. He was understandably reticent, but he advised them not to underestimate anything. "The predators on Deepsix have had an extra couple of billion years to evolve. They have very sharp teeth and some of them look innocuous. Trust nothing."