The sketch had disappeared into JonVon’s stochastic well of memory. Perhaps she would call it up again to work on it, if she had time, or remembered. Meanwhile, her pet machine would echo with her musings. Unlike the prim processors of Earth—or the stolid mission mainframe the techs had begun crating to move down from the Edmund to Central—JonVon did not simply file things away. He…it…was programmed to “remember” from time to time, untriggered and unpredictably, and to “ponder” new correlations.

She herself had no time to devote to the protect with which she had planned to while away the years. But JonVon would always have at least a small corner of memory devoted to it, gathering and organizing data for when, at last, she could turn her attention back to the question of intelligence itself.

I must remember to ask him what he has learned, now and then.

And here we are, she thought on coming to a double hatch with a burning amber light overhead. The entrance to Central Control… command post for the invading hordes from Earth.

Before entering, she had to submit to another damned cleaning. A bulky mech towered beside the hatchway.

“Please present all surfaces for ultrasonic exposure,” it directed, holding forth a flat, humming plate and a vacuum hose.

She sighed and stepped forward, turning before the double-tubed, jury-rigged machine. Harmonics from high-frequency sound waves stroked her skin in multiple octaves, all the way down to a low, grumbling growl that made her teeth grate.

She knew all the override codes, of course. But it would be better to submit to these measures, as half-ass and useless as they had to be. Somebody was bound to find out if she got into the habit of bypassing regs for her own convenience.

The low tingling told of bits of debris being shaken loose from her clothing and skin, to be sucked away into the vacuum inlet. Of course, this wouldn’t really stop people from tracking around cometary germs. Saul had said that the only long-term effect of the procedure would be to destroy all their clothes and eventually wreck everybody’s hearing.

The tingling stopped and the vacuum hose shut off. Virginia imagined a puff of air, cotton fibers, and skin cells-all sighing out into space far above, where the stars shone unblinking on a stark icescape.

“Prepare eye protection, please.”

She grimaced and drew the goggles from her waistband.

“Lay on, MacDuff,” she muttered, and scrunched her eyes shut as the hallway seemed to fill with actinic brilliance.

This was sheer idiocy, she knew. The UV lamps were their best weapon against the Halleyforms, but there were only about two dozen left, and they were burning out at a rate of one or more a day! There were already numerous cases of sunburn and skin rash.

The uncomfortable glare cut off and she breathed in relief.

“You may pass,” the mech pronounced.

“Thanks,” she answered sarcastically s the softly hissing door opened, letting her into a bustle of activity.

Voices tinged with anxiety…human torsos that disappeared into hooded data-speech shells… hands working switches or mech-waldo controls. Yes, there’s quite a difference that three weeks can make.

But the undercurrent of dark fear was still with them. If anything, it had grown.

Over in a far corner, a half-dozen forms clustered in low-G crouches around a holo map. Virginia recognized Dr. Oakes and her chief aides. Another damn strategy meeting.

Olakou na alii… They are the chiefs, heaven help us.

I wish Saul didn’t have to go down to the inner chambers to test his new machine today. I miss him so, already.

Virginia stepped up behind Walter Schultz, the man now operating mech-control 1. She was still early, but the fellow clearly needed to be relieved. His shoulders were hunched under the isolation hood, and his hands clenched whitely on the waldo-teleoperator controls.

She knew what he was going through. Mech operators had it almost as bad as the men in the corridors. They weren’t in direct physical danger, of course, but the hours were worse, and the intense mental effort just as draining. From the displays she saw that Walter was handling four big ’bots all by himself. He needed a break.

It wouldn’t be a good idea to pull him back too abruptly, though. Two days ago she had tapped Walter’s shoulder while he was linked. The man had whirled on her, pupils dilated, roundly cursing her as a “meddling Percell bitch.”

He had apologized later, but the phrase stuck in her mind.

I’ll tell him I’m here over an open comm line. But her hand hesitated just over the panel microphone. From under the isolation hood she heard Schultz sniffling. It was hard to tell if the man had a cold or if he was crying.

These days, it could be either.

“Virginia!” a high voice called out behind her. “Virginia. Would you come over here please, dear?”

Other than Saul, only one person spoke to her that way. She turned and nodded to the brown-haired, matronly woman motioning to her from the other side of the room.

“Yes, of course. Dr. Oakes.” She glide-walked quickly toward the big holo tank where the acting section leaders stood staring gloomily at the big display.

The current chief of Cometary Science Section, Masao Okudo, moved pointedly away from her end of the table, as did Major Lopez, the senior awakened military man. Virginia ignored the slight. It was part of the general undercurrent of resentment against her, as well as Carl and Saul and Lani. As if the First Watch had somehow been criminally incompetent in letting all this come about.

She had always found humans to be irrational creatures, deep down—herself included, of course. Many resented the choices that had been made, of who should be unslotted as part of the Crisis Management Team. “Why me?” was a refrain she had heard repeatedly, muttered in anger or wailed out loud as one after another of the wakers was injured fighting the crud in the halls, or fell ill to some unknown bug.

Carl had to make those hard choices, after Captain Cruz died. The wakers blamed him. And it didn’t help at all that he was a Percell.

I suppose the only thing keeping him and Saul and me from being completely ostracized is the fact that we’re indispensable.

Bethany Oakes, at least, seemed immune to any such feelings. She smiled as kindly as ever as she shook Virginia ’s hand.

“Thank you for coming over, dear. We are having a bit of a disagreement over a technical matter, and I was wondering if perhaps you could help us with the expertise you picked up during those frightful weeks you and the others faced this emergency all alone.”

Virginia nodded. “I’ll help any way I can.”

Dr. Oakes smiled back with moist, small lips. Virginia couldn’t help noticing that her face was puffy, and she wore makeup that seemed skewed, somehow.

Oh fates, you are mean bitches. You had to take Captain Cruz—our Columbus, our Drake—right at the very start, didn’t you? He made an expedition out of a spill of exiles and misfits, and now he’s gone. This nice woman is simply no substitute.

Dr. Oakes turned to Lefty d’Amaria, the head of Virginia ’s own department, Computations and Mechanicals. Lefty, at least, gave Virginia a quick smile, which she returned gratefully. Alas, the man gripped the table-edge uncertainly, and his brow was speckled with perspiration.

“There’re two problems we… we wanted to consult you about, Ginnie. The first has to do with how to fight the stuff out in the halls.”