One horizon, one site for years ahead. Blueskyed. Grounded forever. That was what it came to. And whatever private misgivings anyone had now, it was too late.

Look at that, he could imagine Jean saying. And: Don’t take stupid chances, Jamie.

Don’t you, he would say.

He looked back at the image, at the bluegreen world that was not home at all. The whole thing was a stupid chance. An ambition which Jean had never shared.

“Col. Conn,” the com said, Mary Engles’ voice. “Are you there, colonel?”

He acknowledged, a flick of the key. “Captain.”

“We’ve got a fix on the landing site coming up.”

A shiver went over his skin. “What do you reckon in schedules?”

“We’re going to ride here one more day and do mapping and data confirmation before we let you out down there. You’ll want that time to order your sequence of drop. I’ll be feeding you the shuttle passenger slots, and you fill them up at your own discretion. The equipment drop is all standard procedure with us, and we’ve got all that down as routine. You handle your own people according to your own preferences. You will need some of the construction personnel in your initial drop. I’d like to ask you to stay on board until the final load. In case of questions.”

“Good enough. I’ll wait your printout.”

“We have suggestions, based on experience. I’ll pass them to you, by your leave.”

“No umbrage, captain. Experience is appreciated.”

“A professional attitude, colonel, and appreciated in turn. Printout follows.”

He opened the desk cabinet, took out a bottle and a glass and poured himself a drink, soothed his nerves while the printout started spilling onto his desk.

Everything would have to be packed. Mostly there were the microfax books and the study tapes, that were precious. Uniforms–there were no more uniforms where they were going. They became citizens down there. Colonists. No more amenities either, in spite of the cases of soap. He meant to have a shower morning and evening during the unloading. It was that kind of thing one missed most under the conditions he was going to face. Soap. Hot water. Pure water. And a glass of whiskey in the evenings.

The printout grew. On the screen, the tighter focus came in. It agreed with the photos in the mission documents.

Patterns showed up under tight focus…the same patterns which the probe had abundantly reported, curious mounds near seacoasts and rivers, vast maze designs which interrupted the sparse green with tracings of brown lines, loops and rays stretching over kilometers of river‑bank and coastline.

That was where they were going.

xi

T43 days MAT

Communication: mission command

“…First drop scheduled 1042 hours 25 minutes mission apparent time. Capt. Ada Beaumont commanding. Selected for first drop: M/Sgt. Ilya V. Burdette with five seats; M/Sgt. Pavlos D. M. Bilas, with five seats; M/Sgt. Dinah L. Sigury, two seats; Cpl. Nina N. Ferry, one seat; Sgt. Jan Vandermeer, one seat; Capt. Bethan M. Dean, one seat; Dr. Frelan D. Wilson, one seat; Dr. Marco X. Gutierrez, one seat; Dr. Park Young, one seat; Dr. Hayden L. Savin, one seat; workers A 187‑6788 through A 208‑0985, thirty seats.”

xii

T43 days MAT

Venture loading bay one

“He’s not coming,” Ada Beaumont said quietly, rested her hand on her husband’s back, kept her eyes front, on the movement of machinery, the loading of cannisters onto the lift, an intermittent clank and crash.

Bob Davies said nothing. Nothing was really called for, and Bob was careful with protocols. Ada stayed still a moment–looked aside where some of the ship’s crew were rigging the ropes to channel boarding personnel to the lift–but the bay up on the frame was empty yet, the shuttle on its way up from Venture’s belly, close to match‑up with the personnel dock. The lift yonder would take them by groups of ten, synch them out of Venture’s comfortable rotation, to let them board the null G shuttle. The azi were to go first, taking the upright berths in the hold and to the rear of the cabin, and then the citizen complements would follow, in very short sequence.

But Conn stayed in his quarters. He had rarely come out of them since their arrival in the system. The ship was crowded; departments were busy with their plans: possibly no one noticed. He played cards and drank with the two of them–he had done that, at the end of watches, regularly. But he never came out among the staff.

“I think,” Ada Beaumont said more quietly still, when the crew was furthest from them and only Bob could possibly hear. “I think Jim shouldn’t have taken this one. I wish he’d take the out he still has and go back to Cyteen. Claim health reasons.”

And then, in further silence, Bob venturing no comment: “What he actually said was–‘You handle things. You’ll be doing that, mostly. The old man just wants to ride it out easy.’”

“He wasn’t that way,” Bob said finally.

“It’s leaving Cyteen. It’s Jean, I think. He never showed how bad that hurt.”

Bob Davies ducked his head. There was noise in the corridor to the left. Some of the azi were coming up. The clock ran closer and closer to their inevitable departure. He reached and took his wife’s hand–himself in the khaki that was the uniform of the day for everyone headed planetward, civ or military. “So maybe that’s why he can sit up here; because he can lean on you. Because he knows you’ll do it. You can handle it. And there’s Pete Gallin. He’s all right.”

“It’s no way to start out.”

“Hang, he can’t make every launch down here.”

“ I’dbe here,” Beaumont said. She shook her head. The azi line entered the bay, brighteyed, in soiled white coveralls; weeks with no bathing, some of them with gall sores from the bunks. There were already difficulties. Some of the details regarding the azi were not at all pretty, not the comfortable view of things the science people or even the troops had had of the voyage. At least Conn had been down seeing to the azi, she gave him that. He had been down in the holds during the voyage, maybe too often.

Now Conn handed it to her. She knew the silent language. Had served with Conn before. Knew his limits.

He had been drinking–a lot. That was the truth she did not tell even Bob.

xiii

T43 days MAT

Venture communications log

“ Ventureshuttle one: unloading now complete; will lift at ready and return to dock. Weather onworld good and general conditions excellent. Landing area is now marked with the locator signal…”

“ Ventureshuttle two now leaving orbit and heading for landing site…”

xiv

T45 days MAT

Venture hold, azi section

“Passage 14,” the silk‑smooth voice intoned, “will be J 429‑687 through J 891‑5567; passage 15…”

Jin smiled inwardly, not with the face, which was unaccustomed to emotion. Emotion was between himself and the tape, between himself and the voice which caressed, promised, praised, since his childhood. He had no need to show others what he felt, or that he felt, unless someone spoke directly to him and entered the bubble which was his private world.

When the time came, he listened to the voice and gathered himself up along with the rest of them in his aisle, stood patiently as everyone lined up, coming down the ladder to join them. And then the word was given and the file moved, out the door they had not passed since they had entered the ship, and through the corridors of the ship to the cold room which admitted them to the lift chamber. The lift jolted and slid one way and the other, and opened again where there was no gravity at all, so that they drifted–“Hold the lines,” a born‑man told them, and Jin seized the cord along with the rest, beside a silver clip on the line. “Hold to the clips with one hand and pull yourselves along gently,” the born‑man said, and he did so, flew easily upward along the line in the company of others, until they had come to the hatch of the ship which would take them to the World.