Vidor is an emissary. Carl couldn’t get any useful help out of Malenkov. Of course he wouldn’t come right out and approach me. Not as angry as he is over Virginia.

Another wave of dizziness struck and Saul gripped the edge of the table, fighting to hide the symptoms.

Maybe Nicholas is right. Maybe this isn’t just another flu bug. Perhaps I’m already a goner. If so, isn’t Carl right too? What have I to offer Virginia, other than, maybe, a chance to get infected if I ever do get out of quarantine?

What right have I to stand in between Carl and her, if I’m doomed anyway?

Oddly, the idea that he might really be dying made Saul’s heart race. He had supposed himself free of any fear of death for at least ten years. But now the mere idea made his skin tense and his mouth go dry.

Incredible. Did you do this for me, Virginia? Did you give me back the ability to feel fear? Fear of losing you?

It was a wonder. Saul became aware again of Jim Vidor, eyes blinking down at him from above his mask, and smiled.

“Tell Carl I’ll make a deal with him. He gets me loose of this fershlugginner prison, so I can go out and see what’s happening in person. In return, I’ll do what I can to help keep gunk out of his pipes. Even if all I can do is swing a sponge with the rest of you.”

Vidor paused for a moment, then nodded. “I’ll tell ’im, Dr. Lintz. And thanks. Thanks a lot.”

The spacer spun about and whistled a quick code, so the door was open by the time he sailed through into the hallway. Saul watched the hatch close. Then he looked back up at the tangled bird’s nest of alien threads on the screen.

A part of him wondered if it was morally legitimate to go looking for ways to fight the indigenous lifeforms that were causing the spacers such grief. After all, Earthmen were the invaders here. They had arrived from a faraway world as much different from this one as Heaven supposedly was from Hell. Nobody had invited the humans. They had just come—as they always did.

As we have always meddled, eh, Simon?

Saul shrugged. The little moralist voice was easy to suppress, as was the fear that he was dying. He would fight, and he would live. Because for the first time in a decade he had someone to fight and live for.

That’s right, he thought ironically. Blame it on Virginia, you buck-passer.

He stopped to wipe his nose, then dropped the handkerchief into the sterilizer. Saul popped another cold pill into his mouth.

Smiling grimly, he reached forward and turned up the magnification.

“Okay, buster. You’ve got me curious. I want to find out all about you. If we’re going to have to fight, I want to know just what makes you tick.”

He put the Tokyo String Quartet on the vid wall, recorded by cameras and pickups only feet away from the famous chamber group. They played Bartok for him as he twisted dials, spoke into a recorder, smiled grimly, and occasionally sneezed.

See the mechs dance, see the mechs play, Virginia thought moodily, halfway through a reprogramming. God, I wish they’d go away.

It had been hours on hours now and the jobs were getting harder. She lay stretched out, physically comfortable but vexed and irritated by the unending demands. She tried out a new subroutine on a mech filling her center screen. It turned, approached a phosphor panel. Careful, careful, she thought—but she did not interfere. A mistake of a mere centimeter would send the mech’s arm poking through the phosphor paint, breaking the conductivity path in that thin film, dimming the panel. The virtue of phosphors lay in the ease of setup—just slap on a coat of the stuff, attach low-voltage leads at the corners. and you had a cheap source of cold light. The disadvantages were that they had little mechanical strength and tended to develop spotty dim patches where the current flowed unevenly. A mech could bang one up with a casual brush.

Which this one proceeded to do, as she watched. It tried to spot the growing green gunk and wipe it away with a suction sponge. Partway across the panel, though, the arm swiveled in its socket and dug into the phosphor with a crisp crunch. The radiance flickered, dimmed.

Damn. Virginia backed the mech away and froze it. Then she plunged back into the subroutine she had just written, trying to find the bug that made the mech arm screw up at that crucial step.

—Virginia ! I need five more in Shaft Four, pronto! —Carl’s voice broke in.

She grimaced. “Can’t have them! All full up.” She kept moving logic units around in a 3D array, not wanting to let the structure of the subprogram slip away. Just a touch here, a minor adjustment there, and—

—Hey, I need them now!—

“Shove off, Carl. I’m busy.”

—And I’m not? Come on, the gunk is eating us alive out here.—

“We’re overextended already.”

—I’ve got to have them. Now!—

It was hopeless. She punched in a last alteration and triggered the editing sequence. On a separate channel she sent, “JonVon, take a look at this. What’s the problem? I’m too dumb to see it.”

That was a little risky; JonVon was great at analysis, but had not had much experience working directly with mechs. What the hell, this is a crisis. “Sure.”

—Virginia ? Don’t duck out on me.—

“I’m here. I feel like a short-order cook, trying to switch these mechs around. Between you and Lani and Jim, there’s no time to reprogram these surface mechs for tunnel work.”

Carl’s voice muted slightly. —Well, sorry, but I’m facing a bad situation here. This stuff is spreading fast—must be more moisture in the air here. We may have to clean them out in vac. That’s tougher.—

“I know, I know” Carl always patiently explained why he needed help, as if she simply didn’t understand.

She switched to another channel, surveyed the situation near Lock 3, and issued a quick burst of override orders directly through her neural tap to stop an overheating valve from melting a hole in the vac-wall. Then back to Carl: “Look, I can’t do it right now.”

—How come?—Was that a petulant, irritated tone? Well, the hell with him.

“Because I’m up to my ass in alligators!” she shouted, and broke the connection.

It felt good.

It began with a high, thin whistling.

Carl was working at a pipe fitting—cursing the green gunk that made it slippery—when he heard the sound, at first just a distant, reedy whine. He was far out along Shaft 3, near the surface lock, and assumed that the single, persistent note came from somebody working further in, toward Central.

He was alone because they were so low on manpower. Carl had been working with one of Virginia ’s reprogrammed mechs, but avoided that if possible. It got in the way of the job when the machine spoke with her distinctive lilt.

The first awakenings were due to “thaw out” next Tuesday, and he hoped that would help with the chores. The gunk was slimy, foul, and persistent; he hated it.

And those damned threads that get caught in the air vents. Maybe Jim Vidor’s right, I should let Saul out of quarantine, have him study this stuff up close.

If he had been with a partner he might have been less meditative, and heard it sooner. The sound kept on while he tightened up the joint with his lug wrench, the rrrrrttttt rrrrrttttt rrrrrttttt sending vibrations up into his shoulders.

Carl lifted his head. He felt a breeze.

There was always circulation of air in space, driven by booster fans if temperature differences didn’t give enough convection. But not this far from Central, not a steady feather-light brush past his ears.