"Absolutely."

"How could that happen?"

"Don't know. They're not putting out details yet. But we've got a great story falling into our laps." She pressed her lips against his cheek. "I've already been in touch with them. With Clairveau. And there's no competition within light-years." She clapped her hands and literally trembled with joy.

Canyon was still trying to grasp what she was telling him. "They're going to get them off okay, right?"

"Hell, I don't know, Augie. Right now it's touch and go. But if we're lucky, things will stay tense for a while. At least until we get there."

"We might have a problem," said Beekman.

The ocean and the northern coastline were on-screen. The area looked cold and gray, and the tide was very far out. Marcel wasn't sure he wanted to hear what Beekman was about to tell him.

"It's like what happens," said Beekman, "when a tsunami is coming."

Marcel waited impatiently. It was hard to feel any serious alarm. The coast was a long wall of high mountains. He'd been prepared to hear that there might be disturbances at sea, but the shoreline looked pretty well protected. "Is a tsunami coming?" he asked.

"Not exactly." They were seated in armchairs, in Beekman's office. The project director wore a short-sleeved shirt printed with frolicking dragons that he'd bought in Hong Kong. "It's just going to be another very high tide. The problem is that, as Morgan approaches, it's going to keep getting higher. Every day. The water's getting distorted by Morgan's gravitational pull. Mounting up. It's the first stage."

"What's the final stage?"

"The ocean gets ripped out of its bed."

"Gunny," Marcel said, "that's not going to happen tomorrow."

Beekman nodded. "No."

"If it's a problem, why didn't we talk about it before?"

"Because it didn't look as if it would become a factor. Because the coastal range has the ocean effectively blocked off until you get so far east it doesn't matter anymore."

"What's changed?"

"There are sections of the range that might not hold. That might collapse."

"Where?"

Beekman showed him.

"When?" he asked.

"Don't know. They could stand up until the water has to come over the top. If that happens, there's nothing to worry about. Or they could give way."

"Okay. What's the earliest it could break down?"

"We don't know that either. We don't have enough detailed information to be sure."

"Make a guess."

"Midnight, Tuesday. Our time."

Marcel checked his calendars. "That gives them eight days. Local days."

"Yes."

"They've lost a couple of days."

"That shouldn't be a major problem for them. They still have adequate time. But keep in mind, Marcel. It's only a guess."

Marcel nodded. "I'll alert Hutch." He felt the bulkheads closing in on him. "Do we have any ideas for a backup plan?" he asked.

"You mean if Tess won't work?"

"That's right."

He shook his head. "Short of hoping for divine intervention, no. If Tess won't fly, they're dead. It's as simple as that."

One timer fully appreciates civilization until the lights go out.

— Gregory MacAllister, "Patriots in the Woodshed," The Incomplete MacAllister

Hours to breakup (est): 210

There's got to be a way."

Beekman's eyes were bloodshot "If there is," he said, "I'd be grateful to know how."

"Okay." Marcel got up and looked down at him. "You've been talking about the tensile strength of the stuff we cut off the assembly. How about if we removed a piece of that?"

"To do what?"

"To reach them. To give them a way off the surface."

"Marcel, it would have to be three hundred kilometers long."

"Gunny, we've got four superluminals up here to work with."

"That's fine. You could have forty. So you've also got a very long shaft. What are you going to do with it?"

"Ram it down through the atmosphere. It wouldn't collapse under its own weight, would it?"

"No," said Beekman. "It wouldn't. But we'd have no control over it. Atmospheric forces would drive it along the ground at supersonic speed." He smiled sadly. "No, you wouldn't want to try to hitch a ride on something like that"

Marcel was just tired of all the defeatism. "Okay," he said, "I'll tell you what I want to happen. You've got a brain trust of major proportions scattered around this ship. Get them together, do it now, put everything else aside And find a way."

"Marcel, with any luck less will be enough to get them off." "There are too many things that can go wrong. And if we wait until they do, there'll be no time to come up with an alternative." He leaned over and seized Beekmarfs arm. "Consider it an intellectual challenge, if you want. But find a way."

Chiang was still awake when Morgan appeared in the east. Surrounding stars faded in its glow, which' seemed to have acquired a bluish tint. It was starkly brighter than it had been the previous evening. He could almost make out a disk.

He stood his watch under its baleful light. After Nightingale relieved him, he lay a long time watching it move through the trees. It seemed to him that he'd barely fallen asleep when Kellie roused him. "Time to get rolling, big fella," she said.

While they sat wearily around the campfire, breakfasting on the leftover creature meat, Hutch announced that more news had come down from Wendy.

"Not good, I take it," said MacAllister.

"Not good. We've lost a day or two," said Hutch. "The tides are rising along the north coast. Because of Morgan. There are mountains up there, but there's a possibility the water will break through onto the plain."

"A couple of days?" said Kellie.

"We've still got plenty of time."

"They think if it breaks through, it'll go all the way to the tower?" asked Nightingale.

"That's what they're saying."

"We need to hustle up," said Chiang.

The short days were beginning to work on them and they debated whether they should try to switch back to a twenty-four-hour clock and simply ignore the rising and setting of the sun.

Embry advised it would not be a good idea, that their metabolisms would try to adjust to local conditions. "Anyway," she added, "I doubt you want to be walking around down there in the dark."

They had only about seven hours of sunlight left when they finally got moving.

"You'll come out of the snow line later today," Marcel told them. "Looks like relatively easy going from that point on."

"Okay," said Hutch.

"Oh, and you've got another river to cross. A wide one this time. You'll get to it toward the end of the day." "Any bridges?" "Ho, ho."

"Seriously, can you guide us to the easiest crossing point?" "You like wide and slow or narrow and fast?" "We need a place where we can wade." "Can't tell from up here." "Make it wide and slow."

Chiang didn't care for MacAllister. He treated Kellie and Hutch as if they were lackeys and gofers, persons whose sole purpose was to make the world comfortable for people like himself. He ignored Nightingale altogether. He behaved well enough toward Chiang, although there was a degree of condescension that probably was not personal but rather reflected the editor's attitude toward everyone.

Even the gas giant became a target for him. While the others thought of the approaching juggernaut with a degree of awe, MacAllister took to referring to the world by the full name of its discoverer. It became Jerry Morgan at first, and eventually just plain Jerry.

"Well, I noticed Jerry was pretty bright last night."

And, "I do believe Jerry's become a crescent."

Chiang understood that the great man was frightened, maybe more so than the rest of them because he had a reputation to protect, and he was probably not sure how he'd hold up if things got worse instead of better.