“—blew up! —”

“My God, pure annihilation…!”

“Itaka, get on alert channel! Tell the surface crews to take cover at once!” Carl’s voice commanded above the panicked ferment. “Get them below before the neutrons hit!”

Hands pulled at Saul’s shoulders, attempting to drag him back. He blinked through spots and saw Andy Carroll’s limp form being cut free of his webbing. Keoki Anuenue was fumbling at the back of Virginia’s lolling neck, tugging at her neural tap while others hurried up bearing stretchers.

“No!” Saul screamed. He grabbed Keoki’s wrist so hard that the big Hawaiian gasped in surprise.

Saul croaked, “Don’t let anyone touch her. Nobody!” He picked up the helmet he had just thrown off. “Leave her alone!” Trembling, he put it back on.

In an instant he was back down under the roiling, churning tide of electrons, the roar of an explosion large enough to break a small world.

Better prepared, this time, Saul rode the surges, seeking a rock, an eddy, anywhere to stand and gather threads.

A piece of JonVon’s personality-mimicry program hurtled by, murmuring something about refusing an “Academy Award”…whatever that was. He grabbed it and linked the fragment to sub-routine for searching library data bases, and another containing information on stock-raising on the Isle of Wight.

“Virginia,” he whispered. “Where are you?”

What instinct had told him, with deeper certainty than mere knowledge, that she was lost somewhere in this maelstrom… ? That to disconnect her would be to leave her— if not a vegetable— then with something basic lost forever to chaos? Saul cast about, gathering a ragged construct, a troop of bits and flotsam, and sent scouts out, searching.

A whisper of tropical air, over there!

A scent of chrysanthemum blossoms, here!

A secret memory from childhood… of embarrassment with a neighbor boy… bring it in.

Traces, all, precipitating out of a whirling jumble. One by one, it would have taken a thousand lifetimes to recognize and even stack them all, let alone sort them into what they had been. He didn’t try. All he could do was love them.

Fear and pain… a whispered curse.

“… those mad sons of b…”

It hurtled past. But Saul reached out after it.

I love you, Virginia, he called. Blemishes and all… Stupid and blind as I am. I love you, and I’ll love you forever…

… forever…

The word echoed.

… forever… ?

Yes. Down time until even the Hot fades and all ice comes alive… l will never leave you …

… never… ?

Oh… Saul…

Oh…

“Oooh,” her real-world voice sighed beside him. “Oh, Saul…” The webbing vibrated with movement and suddenly her hand was gripping his, so hard that the welcome pin added to the free flow of tears in his eyes.

Carl gritted his teeth in irritation, but didn’t let it show. Four hours had passed since the explosion. The searing heat from the nearby blast had flash vaporized a layer of ice off one face of Halley. There had been extensive damage to mechs and diagnostic instruments on the surface, and some casualties. Data was slow coming in, but that hadn’t stopped people from jabbering and theorizing.

Joao Quiverian was getting insufferable. He used the full impact of his height, towering over the others, his voice ringing with a hollow, magisterial command.

“We have erred in a way I find unfathomable. This mishap is a direct result of our meddling with what we do not understand, rather than placing our trust in our fellow human beings. Obviously the mech somehow ignited the fusion chamber of—”

“Perdeeyn!” Sergeov swore. “Arcist idiot.”

Quiverian bore on. “— the Care Package. and—”

“Okay, that’s enough,” Carl said sharply. “Shut up, everybody!”

The knot of people turned its attention to him. “Look at these numbers.” He gestured at one of the screens. “That was a full thermonuclear blast. Not a malfunction of the fusion drive.”

Quiverian gaped. “Not… But why would they send to us…”

Sergeov’s blue-tattooed skin creased with a bitter smile. “Not to us— for us.”

Carl nodded. “I think so.”

“A… bomb?” Lani Nguyen asked wonderingly, her almond eyes widening at the thought.

Carl said flatly, “JonVon estimates the yield at several hundred megatons. Plenty of neutrons, gammas— the works. No fusion chamber I ever heard of can go off with anything like that yield.”

Quiverian said slowly, “Then they intended…to…”

“Have us take that package into our ice and then blow it up. Shatter everything inside Halley. Melt away the top kilometer, cave in the shafts everywhere else.” Carl had to control his jittering nervous energy. Back home, in gravity, the muscles were always doing some work just to remain standing, burning away minute tensions. Here, inner demands for action found no expression. You had to focus it all into other avenues-voice, expression, gesture.

“I… find that difficult to believe,” Quiverian said, suddenly uncharacteristically quiet.

“Is typical,” Sergeov said. “Earthside has been same always. Destroyed Edmund, poof!. Now us.”

Jeffers said sourly, “Yeah, askin’ us for guidance, tellin’ us to lead the package right down Shaft Three. An’ we woulda done it, if it hadn’t been for curiosity, makin’ us send out a mech to see what Daddy’d brought us.” He snorted derisively.

Carl said, “Earthside kept up their story all this time— for three years— when all along they’ve plotted to destroy us entirely.”

“To preserve their holy biosphere,” Saul said mildly as he approached.

Carl raised an eyebrow— How is she?—and Saul nodded reassuringly. Virginia had been unconscious when the med-techs bore her away on a stretcher. Carl felt relief, but in Saul’s quietly pleased expression an unsettling confirmation: Somehow, he and Virginia were back together. The crisis had done that. His own chances— which he now saw he had allowed to build beyond prudent expectations— were zero again. Saul and Virginia seemed able to survive any buffeting that chance could deal them.

“— can expect a full explanation from Earth, I am sure,” Quiverian finished. Carl realized he had missed one of the man’s pontifical declarations.

“What?”

Quiverian’s face knotted with exasperation. “I expect we have been the victims of a political faction. Someone who, under cover of their allotted cargo, included a warhead. This does not mean all Earth is opposed to us. Once we inform high Earth authorities of how this humanitarian gesture has been aborted in a most foul way, I am sure the leadership will take measures to punish and silence this cabal of.”

“Bullshit,” Carl said vehemently.

Quiverian blinked, his lips pursed, but he said nothing. One of his lieutenants began, “Look, you can’t—” but Carl cut him off.

“Look.” Carl said. “they don’t know what’s happened yet, right?”

Jeffers calculated in his head. “Lessee… ’Bout two hours each way light travel time. We should be able to pick up what they were sayin’ when the thing blew.”

Carl nodded. “Let’s pipe into their transmission.”

Carl glanced toward a wall camera and nodded. JonVon was listening, as he suspected, and immediately the room filled with the hiss of solar static. Then a tinny voice said monotonously, “Cannot copy you here emm-dot, Halley.”

Jeffers said, “They’re still sendin’ telemetry for guidin’ it in.”

The voice oscillated slightly, dispersed by its journey of three billion miles. “By our estimates, the package is nearing final matching RPX. Advise you now send it laser marker designation for Shaft Three. Automatic homing will then take over.”