So our suits would do nothing to keep Muta pristine — that was already a lost cause. The suits wouldn’t help us much either… not if they got EMP’d. One good pulse, and the suits’ electrical circuits would stop working. Would anything stay operational? Yes. The air tanks were purely mechanical, working with simple valves rather than sophisticated gadgetry; they’d be good for six hours, EMP or no EMP. All other systems depended on electronic controls. We might find ways to jury-rig workarounds, but that wasn’t something to count on. We had to expect a completely unpowered mission.

Then again, if losing our electronics was the only thing that went wrong, we’d be getting off lucky.

Pistachio had only two robing chambers. Therefore, Festina and I got suited up first. When we emerged, Tut had stripped down to his underwear and was attempting to dress a chair in his uniform. He asked, "Do either of you carry matches?"

As a matter of fact I did — I’d stuffed my belt pouches with every emergency supply I could think of. But I just said, "Get suited up, Tut."

"Yes’m, Mom." He slid off his shorts, laid them carefully on the seat of the chair, and walked naked into the robing chamber.

Festina watched him go. After he disappeared, she murmured, "It’s gold."

"Yes," I said. "I noticed in Zoonau."

"I made a point of not looking." Festina took a breath. "Gold is an excellent electrical conductor."

"True."

"If he goes down to Muta and gets hit with a big electromagnetic pulse… do you think…"

"Ooo. That’s a thought I didn’t need inside my head." For some reason I added, "I’m a virgin. I don’t think about such things."

"Oh. Sorry." Festina’s life force colored like a blush — the first time I’d seen anything in her aura except strength and composure. "Well, no point standing around. Let’s get ready."

She left the room almost at a run.

Usually, sperm-tail landings start in a ship’s rear transport bay. This time, however, Festina escorted me to the shuttle bay, where Li’s shuttlecraft had been rolled into takeoff position. A crew member was putting away a power cord she must have used to top up the shuttle’s batteries. "We’re going down in this?" I asked Festina.

"That’s the plan," she said.

"What happens if the shuttle gets EMP’d?"

"You mean when the shuttle gets EMP’d." She smiled. "Fortunately, Technocracy shuttles are flightworthy even without power — one of those safety features required by the League of Peoples. So no matter what our altitude when we get pulsed, we can glide the rest of the way. I’ve already plotted a course that takes us to Camp Esteem."

"Gliding is one thing," I said. "Landing is another. Without power, a shuttle can’t VTOL. We’ll need a landing strip — long, straight, and flat."

"Or else we’ll need parachutes." Festina grinned. "We’ll jump when we’re over the camp. The shuttle will keep going at least another ten kilometers before it crashes." She patted the craft’s hull affectionately. "It’ll make one hell of an impact, but we don’t have to worry about explosions. These things just crash without burning — another nice safety feature."

"Have you told Ambassador Li you’re going to sacrifice his pride and joy?"

"I’ve informed him that pursuant to regulations covering Class One missions, I can commandeer any resources I consider essential for the mission’s success… including civilian shuttlecraft."

"When he heard that, Li must have hemorrhaged."

"Actually, he took it pretty well. He just gaped for a second, then said, ‘Very well, if you think it’s necessary.’ " Festina rolled her eyes. "When we get home, the greedy bastard will bill the navy twice what the shuttle’s worth. Then the navy will charge the Unity three times more. Rescue missions for alien governments are big moneymakers for the fleet."

"I don’t suppose we Explorers see any of that money."

Festina laid her hand on my arm. "Glad you’re keeping your sense of humor. Let’s go inside."

The shuttle’s interior was still large and luxurious, with seating for twelve and what I assumed was a gourmet galley at the back (though the door to that area was closed). Each of the twelve seats now held a shimmering mirror-sphere the size of a soccer ball. I recognized the spheres as stasis fields: pocket universes like the Sperm-field surrounding the ship, except that the mirror-sphere universes only had three macrodimensions instead of four. Time didn’t exist in a stasis field. The outer universe might age a billion years, but anything in stasis would remain as it was, caught in an instant that never advanced so much as a nanosecond.

Stasis fields couldn’t take much physical damage; a strong sharp blow from the outside would pop them like a soap bubble. But they were immune to EMPs, which simply washed past the surface of the field without affecting the contents. Stasis was perfect for protecting equipment we didn’t want to get zapped during our descent to Muta.

I picked up the mirror-sphere closest to me. If I’d done that with bare hands, I’d be risking serious frostbite — the outside of a stasis field is dangerously cold, though not as cold as the Absolute Zero inside — but with my tightsuit gloves, I was perfectly safe. Ice had begun to condense from the air near the sphere’s reflective surface. If not kept clear, the surface would develop a solid frozen crust… which wasn’t a bad thing, since the hardening frost would provide protection against accidental bumping.

"What’s inside?" I asked Festina. "Sperm-tail anchors?"

She nodded. "An anchor in each. We’ll have twelve chances to establish a Sperm-link… and I don’t think an automated defense system will EMP us that often. EMPs take a lot of energy, especially when fired at range. An automated system isn’t likely to keep pulsing targets it’s already shot. So it EMPs us once, maybe twice; but we’ll have plenty of reserve anchors left. Once we’ve anchored Pistachio’s tail, we don’t have to worry anymore."

Her aura showed she wasn’t as confident as she pretended — she knew there were never any guarantees. But with a supply of twelve anchors, each one protected from EMPs until we needed it, we really did have the odds on our side. "Anything else we should put in the spheres?" I asked. "Maybe a handheld comm or two?"

"Already done," Festina said. "Each stasis sphere has an anchor, a comm, a stunner, and a Bumbler. An extremely tight fit, but just barely possible."

"I didn’t think Pistachio carried twelve Bumblers."

"It didn’t. Last night I ordered the ship-soul to fabricate a bunch. You can never have too many Bumblers."

I agreed. Explorers could go through Bumblers as fast as eating peanuts. In Zoonau, we’d lost two on a mission that lasted only fifteen minutes. Usually, though, we didn’t have the luxury of whipping up a dozen in advance. The navy labeled surplus production as "extravagant waste" rather than "sensible precaution." Apparently an admiral on a Class One mission could disregard standard fleet policies… and I got the impression Lieutenant Admiral Festina Ramos thumbed her nose at regulations whenever she had the chance.

Festina began familiarizing herself with the shuttle’s controls. I was about to take an idle-curiosity tour of the craft when three ensigns arrived with our parachutes. Naturally, I had to make sure the chutes had been packed properly and were set for manual operation. (By default, parachutes were usually set for automatic deployment at an altitude considered optimal by the Engineering Corps… which was all very well if the chutes’ laser altimeters were functional, but not so good if you expected every wire to be drips of molten copper.)

Tut arrived just as I was finishing with the chutes. We’d decided in advance we should wear our standard colors — Tut yellow and me orange, while Festina said she liked white — but when Tut appeared, he’d programmed his suit’s skin to a lustrous metallic gold with all the markings of King Tutankhamen’s ceremonial casket. Horizontal stripes of black and gold ran along the sides of his helmet and down the front of his chest; bits of lapis lazuli blue were layered down his front in a sort of striped bib that ended at a broad U-shaped collar halfway down his chest. Below that, the gold/black/blue stripes resumed and extended all the way to his boots. He looked like a bumblebee with a few sky-blue inlays.