She opened her hands. “Dr. Matsudo and Dr. Lintz have been studying the gunk. I’ve had less experience with it than any of the other survivors of the First Watch.”

D’Amaria nodded. “Yes, in person. But you’ve fought it through mechs, helping Osborn and his crews. What we want to know is if you think it might be possible to retrofit the surface mechs for work in the shafts.”

“Well, we’ve already reworked some of them—ship-utility robots, mostly.”

“No.” D’Amaria shook his head. “We’re thinking about the big ones. The real surface mechs.”

Virginia blinked. Were things already so desperate? Surface mechs had never been meant to work in tunnels. The thought of those great-limbed behemoths and spidery cranes cramming their way down here, under the ice, was enough to make her cringe.

“I… I don’t know for sure. We’d have to unlimber some of the factory gear…”

“A couple of factory-team crew are being warmed now,” Lopez told her. “Jeffers and Yeomans and Johanson are already awake.”

Virginia nodded. “But even with the factory running, it’d be a mess. In order to fit lifters or pushers into the shafts, we’d have to do more than just remove their legs and rollers. I’d have to burn new patterns into read-only memory. With the facilities at hand, it’d be a patch job, and I’m not sure it could be reversed.”

Okudo nodded. “Fine, fine. Then you are saying it can be done.”

Virginia blinked. “But it’s crazy! We’d never he able to set up the Nudge Launchers at aphelion without surface mechanicals. And without the Nudge. Halley’s orbit can’t he shifted. We’ll never be able to go—”

“Will you shut your stupid Percell mouth?” Major Lopez hissed quickly, baring his teeth. The Space Corps officer’s eyes seemed to burn, and he pulled back only slowly when Dr. Oakes cleared her throat pointedly. He glanced at the acting mission commander, and then back at Virginia. “Excuse me. I mean will you keep your voice down? Please?” His sarcasm was evident.

Virginia ignored him.

—We’ll never be able to go home, she thought, finishing her agonized complaint in her own mind.

Dr Oakes spoke to the military man. “Now, Fidel. I’m sure Miss Herbert realizes how essential it is to be discreet about some of the implications of our upcoming actions. Morale is bad enough as it is.”

“I’ll say,” Okudo stuttered. “I hear some crew are even feigning illness, trying every malingering trick in order to get back into the slots.”

I didn’t know. Virginia ’s stomach felt queasy.

Captain Cruz would have been more forthright with us. And nobody would have even considered letting him down by trying to run away into time.

Bethany Oakes contemplated the holo tank moodily, giving Virginia her first real chance to look for herself at the big display.

The region penetrated by tunnels was no larger than it had been a month ago, still taking up less than five percent of the volume of Halley Core, in a warren clustered around the north polar region. A few large chambers stood out, including three where the sleep slots lay buried. And this one, Central, amid a cluster of rooms barely a kilometer straight down from the tethered Edmund Halley.

Thank heavens most of the hydroponics are still aboard the Edmund, Virginia thought. Safe from the native lifeforms we’ve inadvertently wakened down here. If the gunk or the bugs ever got into the main gardens, we’d likely starve in short order. As it is, we’ll probably be going hungry soon anyway, if we have to keep this many awake much longer.

Nearly all the depicted tunnels and shafts were stained, the colors standing for different types of infestation. Only the four main chambers still shone antiseptic, uninvaded white—along with one path to the polar storage yards. And it had taken every UV lamp and half an eighty-year supply of disinfectants to keep just those areas clear.

Most passages glimmered in some shade of green where the only known invader was some variety of the lichenlike growths popularly called gunk. Those routes still held air and heat. For all anyone could tell, they might even be perfectly safe. At least Saul thought they were. He had gone off more than once, heedless of supposed danger, in search of more samples to study.

Maybe that’s one of the things that attracts me to him. Saul wasn’t brave in the flashy way, but in a manner that seemed to say “living day from day has always been a calculated risk.”

Perhaps her love was analytically simple. For Saul did remind her of her father. Anson Herbert had possessed the same sad, gentle wisdom, had shown her more in his quiet strength than other men with all their flamboyant posturing.

Virginia shook her head. Anson had been dead for two years, but she could almost hear him, telling her to quit daydreaming and get to work. There was problems to be solved, and always idiots trying to use hammers to fix clocks.

Lopez was gesturing at the tunnels that had the worst infestations, especially along the ducts where heat flowed from the power plant. Purple, yellow, and red stains showed where more active Halleyforms had erupted, tearing tunnel seals, wreaking havoc on vital machines, and, occasionally, even reaching out with a poisonous grasp after a passing Earthman.

“…Bigger surface mechs could patrol an expanded hallway, here, scraping and remelting the ice at intervals, sealing crevices and removing infested layers for disposal at the surface…”

Virginia couldn’t believe she was hearing this. The plan was lunacy. It was a cumbersome scheme that ignored the seven decades ahead.

“There are still other options to try,” she suggested. “Saul is working on a possible way—”

Lopez sniffed loudly. “Lintz’s death ray, right?”

Bethany Oakes nodded without turning her gaze from the map. “We can hope somebody comes up with something new, of course. But every conventional approach has failed. One thing is certain: If the infestation reaches the sleep slots, we are quite finished.”

She looked at Virginia. “That is why we asked you to join us over here, not only to help convert surface mechs for the struggle below. You…”

The older woman paused, blinking, as if trying to keep her train of thought. Virginia realized with shock that she must be on some sort of drug.

“…You are the only real expert we have on that old subject…artificial intelligence. I am familiar with the traditional proofs, of course, that the real thing is impossible. But a very good, flexible simulant might be enough.” She sighed. “Anyway, we must grasp at any straw. Saul Lintz’s invention, and even robots capable of acting on their own.

“We must come up with a way to make as many mechs as autonomous as possible… and soon. You see… we are losing men and women faster than we are unslotting them.”

Virginia stared. She found she could say nothing at all.

“This is a military secret, Herbert,” Major Lopez growled. “You tell anyone about this and I’ll have your Percell ass.”

Virginia only shook her head, and let him take it to mean anything he wanted.

A little later, by the refreshment center, she nursed a bulb of weak tea and wondered how she might even approach the nearly impossible tasks she had been assigned. It was ironic. I never thought anyone would ask me to work on machine intelligence.

Under these circumstances, it seemed so very wrong to her.

That was when the man she wanted least to encounter floated up next to her with a soft push of nubby legs.

“Well, sweet machine lady.” Otis Sergeov grinned. “I suppose you have heard latest interesting developments, Earthside? Have you not?”

“Go away, Otis,” she said levelly. “I don’t want to hear any more bad news right now, especially from you. What are you doing here, anyway? You’re hall crew.”