Kellie's face hardened. "Let their own take care of them."

NEWSLINE WITH AUGUST CANYON

"Tonight we have bad news. An hour ago, the landing party was attacked-»

Beekman was looking out from a virtual cliff top over a turbulent ocean when Marcel arrived. Snow whipped across the crest and fell into the night, but it was a ground blizzard stirred up by fierce winds, and had nothing to do with the skies, which were clear. Morgan was high overhead.

The tides on Maleiva III were, as a matter of course, gentle. There was no moon, so the only visible effects were generated by the distant sun. But tonight, with the gas giant approaching, the sea was monstrous. Huge waves pounded the cliffs on Transitoria's north coast.

"Tomorrow night," he said, without turning toward Marcel.

Marcel sank against a bulkhead. "My God, Gunny. That's still another day they've lost."

"There are weaknesses in the range. Fault lines, Harry tells me. Worse than we thought. They're going to give way tomorrow night."

"You're sure?"

"Yeah. We're sure." He turned sad eyes toward Marcel. "There was no way we could know-"

"It's okay. Not anybody's fault." A cold hand gripped his spine. "They're still thirty klicks away."

Beekman nodded. "I'd say they better get moving."

Tides are like politics. They come andgo with a great deal of fuss and noise, but inevitably they leave the beach just as they found it. On those few occasions when major change does occur, it is rarefy good news. -Attributed to Gregory MacAllister by Henry Kilbum, Gregory MacAllister: Life and Times

Hours to breakup (est): 78

In fact, Canyon had belatedly realized there was still another big story developing: the reaction of the people on board the other ships to the plight of the ground team.

He'd become uncomfortable interviewing Hutchins and her other trapped rabbits. It was too much like talking to dead people. So he'd switched over and done human-interest stories on the other superluminals. He'd found a young woman who'd been the traveling companion of the reporter who'd died in the Evening Star lander. She'd wept and struggled to hold back a case of galloping hysteria, and on the whole it had just made for a marvelous show. There were several people who'd been personally skewered or whose fondest beliefs had been shredded by MacAllister. How did they feel now that MacAllister was in danger of his life? For the record, they delivered pieties, expressing their fondest hope that he could be brought safely out. Even when the interview had formally ended, most said they wished him well, that nobody deserved what was happening to him, but something in their voices belied the sentiments. Only one, a retired politician who'd run a campaign on the need for moral reform, damned him outright. "Nothing against the man personally," he'd said, "but I think it's a judgment. We'll be better off without him."

Everyone on the Wendy jay had been hit by Chiang's death. There was, he reflected, nothing like losing one of-your own to bring home reality. Now they were worried about Kellie, and several of the younger males seemed stricken at the possibility of losing her, too. Her boss, Marcel Clairveau, regretted that he'd allowed her to go down to the surface. Occasionally, when he spoke of her, his voice trembled. That also made good copy.

He'd interviewed the physician left on Wildside about Nightingale. She expressed sorrow, of course, but it was a perfunctory response. He was quiet, she said, very reserved. Never got to know him. Canyon had done his homework and knew Nightingale's background. There was a dark irony, he thought, that every time Nightingale touched down on this world, people died.

Canyon hadn't said anything like that, at least not for public consumption. But the observation would show up in his broadcast after the situation had sorted itself out. He was putting a great deal of time into writing the spontaneous observations that he would make in the wake of the event.

Canyon knew the right questions to ask, and he was able to work most of his subjects up to a state of near hysteria. If Hutchins and her friends came out of this, he thought, they'd be heroes of the first order.

His own career prospects looked brighter than ever. What had begun as routine coverage of a planetary collision that was of interest primarily because the event was so rare and people liked fireworks, was instead turning into one of the human-interest stories of the decade. And it was all his.

"Marcel, you need to get some rest." Worry lined Beekman's eyes.

"I'm all right," Marcel said. Too many things were happening just then.

"There's no point exhausting yourself. Do that and you won't be there when we need you." Marcel had slept only intermittently during the past few days, and it had always been a jumpy kind of rest. "There's nothing more for you to do at the moment. Why don't you get off the bridge for a while? Go lie down."

Marcel thought about it. The various elements of the extraction were going forward, and maybe he'd become little more than a kibitzer anyhow. "Yeah," he said, "I think I will." He propped his chin on his hands. "Gunny, what have we overlooked?"

"We're in good shape. For the moment, there's nothing more to be done." He folded his arms and stood waiting for Marcel to retire.

Embry was sitting up front in the pilot's seat, listening to the occasional crackle of conversation between the ground, Marcel, and Augie Canyon, who was interviewing Randy Nightingale. They sounded, she thought, in surprisingly good spirits, and she wondered how that could be.

Wildside had completed its movement, with the other three vessels, to a rendezvous near the assembly. Sitting in an empty ship while it fired thrusters and changed course had underscored her solitude. AIs were AIs and God knew she worked with them on a regular basis, as any practicing physician did. But somehow the voices that diagnosed a spinal problem or suggested a rejuvenation procedure were fundamentally different from an intelligent superluminal that made all its own decisions and on which she was the only passenger.

The message light blinked and an unfamiliar female face appeared on one of her screens. "Embry?" She was wearing an Academy arm patch.

"Yes. What can I do for you?"

"Embry, my name's Katie Robinson." Her diction was precise, and Embry wondered if she'd had theatrical experience. "We're about to leave Wendy. We're coming over and will be there in a few minutes. I'd like you to pack a bag. Get all your belongings. We're going to bring you back with us."

"May I ask why?" said Embry.

"Because we're going to remove your life support."

They arrived within thirty minutes and went directly to work. There were eight of them. They went down into the storage bay and stripped most of the metal from the bins, containers, cabinets, storage units, and dividers. Then they came topside and went through the compartments and the common room, doing much the same sort of thing.

Katie helped her clear out her own quarters. When she was finished they repeated the process, taking most of the metal: the bed panels, the lamps, a foldout table, a built-in cabinet. They thanked her, apologized for the inconvenience, loaded everything into their shuttle, including her, and left.

The trank hadn't worked. Kellie listened to the sound of distant tides-they had finally camped near Bad News Bay-and watched Jerry Morgan, a vast swollen moon, sink toward the hills. The eastern sky had already begun to lighten. Hutch was their sentry, and her slim form leaned against a tree, just beyond the fire's glow.

She gave up finally, pulled herself into a sitting position, and wrapped her arms around her knees.

"Did you love him, Kellie?" The voice startled her. It was MacAllister. He was lying with his back to her, but he rolled over now. His face was in shadow, and she couldn't make out his expression.