Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle - Footfall

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Prologue xiii

PART ONE: THE ROGUES 1

1 Discovery 3

2 Announcements 15

3 Flintridge 30

4 Blind Mice 45

5 See How They Run 61

6 Preparations 73

7 Great Expectations 85

8 Launch 97

9 Anticipations 112

PART TWO: ARRIVAL 127

10 The Arrival 129

11 Lights in the Sky 144

12 Message Bearer 157

13 The Morning After 171

14 The Dam 183

15 The Wheat Fields 195

16 Submission 207

17 Farmhouses 219

18 The Jayhawk War 232

19 The Scholars 243

20 Schemes 260

21 War Plans 274

22 Something in the Air 287

PART THREE: FOOTFALL 297

23 Cleanup 299

24 Meetings 310

25 The Garden 320

26 Confrontation 331

27 The Phony War 342

28 The Prisoners 355

29 Footfall 370

PART FOUR; THE CLIMBING FITHP 385

30 Footprints 387

31 Maximum Security 397

32 Mudhath 408

33 Archangel 415

34 The Minstrels 428

35 The Washing of the Spears 445

36 Treason 458

37 The Iron Crab 473

38 Prayers 485

39 The Silver-Tongued Devils 498

40 Thy Dastardly Doings Are Past 510

41 Breakout 523

42 The Men in the Walls 535

43 Steam 544

44 Impact 561

45 Terms of Surrender 571

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

THE DISCOVERERS

Linda Crichton Gillespie, a Washington debutante

Jeanette Crichton, her sister

Dr. Richard Owen, astronomer

Dr. Mary Alie Mouton, astronomer

Major General Edmund Gillespie, USAF astronaut

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WASHINGTON

David Coffey, President of the United States

Mrs. Jeanne Coffey, First Lady

The Honorable Wesley T. Dawson, a Congressman from California

Mrs. Carlotta Trujillo Dawson, his wife

Roger Brooks, Special Assignments Reporter, Washington Post

James Frantza, White House Chief of Staff

Henry Morton, Vice President

Dr. Arthur Hart, Secretary of State

Hap Aylesworth, Special Assistant to the President for Political Affairs

Ted Griffin, Secretary of Defense

Admiral Thorwald Carrell, National Security Advisor

Peter McCleve, Attorney General

Tim Rosenthal, Secretary of the Treasury

Connie Fuller, Secretary of Commerce

Arnold Riggs, Secretary of Agriculture

Jack Clybourne, Presidential Protection Unit, Secret Service

THE SOVIETS

Academician Pavel Aleksandrovich Bondarev, Director, Lenin Institute

Lorena Polinova, his secretary and mistress

Marina Nikolayevna Bondarev, his wife

Boris Ogarkov, Party Secretary at the Institute

Andrei Pyatigorskiy, Assistant Director, Lenin Institute

General Nikolai Nikolayevich Narovchatov, Party Third Secretary, later

Party First Secretary

Chairman Anatoliy Vladimirovich Petrovskiy, Chairman of the Supreme

Soviet

Ilya Trusova, Chairman of the KGB

Dmitri Parfenovich Grushin, KGB officer

Marshal Leonid Edmundovich Shavyrin, Marshal of the Long Range Strategic

Rocket Forces

SURVIVORS AND OTHERS

Harry Reddington, unemployed minstrel

Jeri Wilson, Senior Editor, Harris Wickes Press

Melissa Wilson, her daughter

William Adolphos Shakes

Kevin Shakes

Miranda Shakes

Isadore and Clara Leiber

George and Vicki Tate-Evans

Jack and Harriet McCauley

Martin Carnell, Show-dog breeder

Ken Dutton, Bookstore manager

Cora Donaldson

Sarge Harris, friends of Ken Dutton

Patsy Clevenger

Anthony Graves

Maximilian Rohrs, general contractor, Bellingham

Evelyn Rohrs, former Washington socialite

Ben Lafferty, Sheriff Whatcom County, Washington

Leigh Young, Deputy Sheriff

Whitey Lowenthal, welder

Carol North, citizens of Lauren, Kansas

Rosalee Neill

KOSMOGRAD

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Colonel Arvid Pavlovich Rogachev, Commander of Kosmograd

Nikolai, onetime Sergeant, Red Air Force

Allana Aleksandrovna Tutsikova, Deputy Commander

Dr. Giselle Beaumont, French scientist

The Honorable Giorge N'Bruhna, Nigerian politician

Captain John Greeley, USAFU astronaut

THE FITHP

Herdmaster Pastempeh-keph

Advisor Fathisteh-tulk

K'turfookeph, the Herdmaster's mate

Chowpeentulk, Advisor's mate

Fookerteh, the Herdmaster's son

Attackmaster Koothfektil-rnsp

Defensemaster Tantarent-fid

Breaker-Two Takpusseh (later Takpusseh-yamp)

Breaker-One Raztupisp-minz

Fistareth-thuktun, priest and historian

Koolpooleh, male assistant to Fistarteh-thuktun

Paykurtank, female assistant to Fistarteh-thuktun

Octuple leader Pretheeteh-damh

Tashayamp, female assistant to Takpusseh (later his mate)

Octuple Leader Chintithpit-mang, sleeper

Shreshleemang, Chintithpit-mang's mate

Eight-cubed Leader Harpanet

Eight-cubed Leader Siplistepth

Rashinggith, warrior (Year Zero Fithp)

Birithart-yamp, warrior in Africa

Pheegorun, warrior in Africa, died by spear

Thiparteth-fuft, guard officer

COLORADO SPRINGS

Sergeant Ben Mailey, U.S. Army

Sherry Atkinson

Robert and Virginia Anson

the Threat Team

Wade and Jane Curtis

Bob Burnham

Lieutenant General Harvey Toland, U.S. Army

The Honorable Joe Dayton, Speaker of the House

Senator Alexander Haswell, President Pro Temps of the Senate

Senator Raymond Carr, Senator from Kansas

WARRIORS AND PRISONERS

Nat Reynolds

Joe Ransom

John Woodward

Carrie Woodward, prisoners

Alice MeLennon

Gary Capehart

Ensign Jeff Franklin

Hamilton Gamble

Dr. Arthur Grace

"Tiny" Pelz, crewman

Michael Jason Daniels

Samuel Cohen

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Roy Cuber, shuttle pilots

Jay Hadley

Commander Anton Villars, Captain, USNS Ethan Allen

Colonel Julius Carter, U.S. Special Forces

Lieutenant Jack Carruthers, U.S. Special Forces

Lieutenant Ivan Semeyusov, Soviet Expeditionary Force

Brant Chisholm, South African farmer

Katje Chisholm, his wife

Mvubi, Zulu warrior

Niklaus Van Der Stel, Afrikaner Commando

Juana Trujillo Morgan, wife of Major Morgan

Lieutenant Colonel Joe Halverson

Major David Morgan, Kansas National Guard

Captain Evan

Corporal Jimmy Lewis

Captain George Mason

PROLOGUE

Where are they?

-Enrico Fermi

The Fifth Part of the Year Three

Within its broad array of nested rings, the planet was a seething storm. It had always

been so. Patterns chased themselves across its brown-on-brown face in bands and curlicues. The

space around it churned with activity: billions of icy particles in a broad array of nested rings;

eights of moons; streamers of dust whipped by powerful magnetic fields; all whirling around at

terrific velocities, at several makasrupkithp per breath. Message Bearer maneuvered within that

storm.

The Herdmaster's Advisor, gazing raptly through the thick double window, seemed to notice

only the beauty of the scene.

The Herdmaster found that irritating. His own domain included collisions, industrial

operations, internal quarrels, and the peaceful integration of sleepers with spaceborn. He had

quite enough problems without . . . that.

Message Bearer's main telescope was the equal of any astronomical installation on the

world they had left behind. The alien probe was close now, by astronomical standards, and the

screen showed it in fine detail.

A circular antenna. A pod at the tip of a long boom radiated infrared warmth. That would

be the power supply. Two more booms thrust instruments outward. Clasp digits with me, that I may

know your herd! One extension held what had to be cameras, the other some kind of electronic

sensing device.

Sixty-four sleepers, the Breaker's team, were working now to infer what they could about

the creatures who had built that machine. They hadn't told the Herdmaster anything useful. When

the camera platform began to turn, the Herdmaster's digits flexed restlessly.

"You made your decision half a year ago," Advisor Fathistehtulk said placidly. "You did

not destroy it then. How can you destroy it now?"

"Here is where their fragile spy probe must pass through endless orbiting debris, It must

survive collisions, radiation, orbital fluctuations, and any unreal danger the prey may imagine.

Here is where some mischance is most likely to smash it!"

"We agreed that the probe will find no trace of us. Message Bearer is tiny on this scale.

Surely the probe is not seeking us: it was launched long before we arrived. But if there were

something to see, yonder camera might have seen it by now. Some evidence of our presence, vivid in

their receivers ... and now comes a flash of light, then silence from the probe, ever after. Would

that tickle your suspicions?"

"If you were Herdmaster, would you continue to worry?"

That was cruel. At the beginning of things, Fathisteh-tulk had been Herdmaster. He had

entered his death-sleep expecting to be Herdmaster again. In his present subservient position the

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concerns of a Herdmaster seemed not to bother him at all. Sometimes Herdmaster Pastempeh-keph

wondered if he was being mocked.

"Were I Herdmaster," the Advisor said placidly, "I would do as you have done. Rest quiet

while the probe passes through. Make no attempt to move the ship, send no message to our work

force on the Foot. Let the probe pass. When the second probe comes, we will be established on the

Foot. Let them try to distinguish us against an unknown background."

And he turned from the telescope screen, perhaps pointedly, to gaze on the great brown-

patterned world and its vast rings.

The Herdmaster said, "I worry. For much of their history the prey must have studied this

... great gaudy ornament in their sky. They would know what to expect better than we do after less

than a year. What have we missed?"

Outside the broad main ring system, a narrower ring still roiled from the wake of Message

Bearer's drive.

November 1980

As she closed the gate and automatically picked up a scrap of paper that had blown into

the yard, Linda Gillespie realized that she was beginning to think of this house -- a typical

California development split-level -- as home. That would mike the second home since she was

married. There had been three other places they hadn't stayed in long enough to think about as

homelike at all. Five moves in four years. The Air Force was a mobile service, especially for hot

fighter pilots. The best place had been in Texas, when Edmund had been with the astronaut office,

and they'd lived in El Lago.

But this couldn't really be home. It was just a rented house, a place to stay during

Edmund's tour at the Space and Missiles Systems Organization in Los

Angeles. Now that he'd been assigned as a shuttle pilot, they'd move again. Back to Houston! That

would be nice. Houston treated astronauts and their families very well indeed.

It was a gloomy Los Angeles November morning, chilly even through her cashmere sweater,

with low clouds and fog. The air smelled damp, with a trace of the odor of smog. There was no

sunshine, although by noon there would be. It wasn't pleasant outside.

Inside was better. She poured coffee and sat at the kitchen table. Too early for Ed to

call. He wouldn't anyway. He never did when he was out of town. It's all very well to be married

to an astronaut hero, but it would be nice to have a husband at home once in a while. The Los

Angeles Times lay on the table, and she thumbed through it.

She didn't like to be alone at home, but she didn't want to go anywhere, either. Ed could

assure her she was perfectly safe, much safer than in

Washington, where she'd grown up, and she could believe him -- but she knew

Washington, and Los Angeles was a mystery. One San Francisco columnist kept teasing Los Angeles

about being invisible.

There was also the Hollywood Strangler, and a man alleged to be the Freeway Killer was on

trial for the torture sex murders of a dozen young boys. Great place to raise children. She folded

the paper. Time to wax the kitchen floor, she decided. Ed didn't care much, but his colonel would

come to dinner next week, and Colonel McReady's wife was inclined to snoop. Besides, it wasn't

that hard to do floors.

Ed wouldn't approve. Not now. She grinned and looked down at her stomach. Didn't show a

bit. She wasn't sick, either, and if it hadn't been for the missed periods and medical reports

there'd be no reason to suspect she was pregnant. Even so, Ed treated her like she was made of

Dresden china. He carried out the garbage, did all the lifting, and worried about hurting her

during sex.

That thought made her frown. Ed went all gooey over her pregnancy, but it turned him off!

Maybe I'll lose interest in a month or so. I sure hope so, the way he acts.

Linda poured more coffee. The telephone rang, startling her so that she dropped the cup.

It was Corningware and didn't break, but it clattered loudly on the floor, spilling coffee

everywhere.

"Hello?"

"Linda?"

"Yes?"

"By golly, it is you! It's Roger."

"Oh. How are you, Roger?"

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"Great. Glad you haven't forgotten me."

"No, I haven't forgotten." You don't forget your first, she thought. First love, first sex

experience, first--a lot of firsts with Roger, back in high school and just after. And what should

I say? That he hasn't called in a long time, but that's all right because I didn't want him to?

"Roger, how did you get our number?"

"We reporters have our ways. Hey, I'd like to see you. What about a really unusual

experience?"

She giggled. "Roger, I'm a married woman."

"Sure. Happily?"

"Yes, of course!"

"Good. Good for you and Edmund, anyway. What I have in mind is in Edmund's line. JPL. The

Saturn encounter. Voyager is out there getting pictures nobody understands, and we can see them

firsthand." He paused a moment. "It's this way. I'm here in Los Angeles covering the Saturn story.

Not exactly Pulitzer Prize material, but I took the assignment to get away from Washington for a

while. So I'm out at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory where the pictures come in. We get briefings

from the scientists, and there's science-fiction writers, and it's a hell of a show. Let me pick

you up on my way out, you're almost on the way. I'll have you home by dinnertime, and I won't try

to seduce you."

And Ed was gone for a week. "It's tempting. It really is, but I can't."

"Sure you can."

"Roger, my sister is staying here!"

"So what? I'll have you home before dinner."

Linda thought about that. Jenny was off somewhere for the day. Saturn pictures. Reporters.

It might be fun. "You said science fiction writers. Is Nat Reynolds there?"

"Yeah, I think so. Just a second, there's a list -- yeah, he's there. Know him?"

"No, but Edmund likes his books. I bought one for his birthday. Think I could get it

autographed?"

"An astronaut's wife? Hell, those sci-fi types will turn flips to meet you."

Nat Reynolds was hung over, and it was far too early to be up. It was a miracle he'd made

it up the arroyo to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory parking lot and got the Porsche into the tiny

slot the JPL guard had showed him.

There were cars parked for half a mile along the road leading to where JPL nestled in what

had once been a lonely arroyo. The sweet immediately outside the press center was nearly blocked

by TV vans, and a thick web of cables spanned the sidewalk to vanish through open loading doors.

The press corps had turned out in force, bringing almost as many cameras and crews as they'd send

to the site of a bank robbery in progress.

The von Karman Auditorium was a madhouse. Nearly every square foot of floor space was

covered by someone: scientist, public relations, press corps, most holding coffee cups or carrying

bulky objects.

The press corps was divided. There were the working press and there were the science-

fiction writers, and no doubt about who was who. The press was there to work. Some had fun, but

all had deadlines. The SF types were there to gawk, and be part of the scene, and absorb the

atmosphere, and maybe someday it would get into a story and maybe not. Their world was being

created and they were here to see it happen.

This is Saturn!

Huge TV screens showed pictures as they came in from the Voyager. Every few minutes a

picture changed. A close view of the planet, black-and-white streamlines and whorls. Rings,

hundreds of them, like a close-up of a phonograph record. Saturn again, in color, with his rings

in wide angle. Sections of the rings in closeup. Shots of moons. All just as it came in, so that

the press saw it as soon as the scientists.

At the Jupiter passings the pictures had come in faster, in vivid swirls and endless

storms, God making merry with an airbrush, and four moons that turned out to be worlds in their

own right. But to balance that they'd soon see Titan, which was known to have an atmosphere. Sagan

and the other scientists weren't saying they hoped to find life on Titan -- but they were

certainly interested in the giant moon, which had so far been disappointingly featureless.

The screens shifted, and the babble in the room fell off for a moment. A moon like a giant

eyeball: one tremendous crater of the proportions of an iris, with a central peak for the pupil.

Anything bigger, Nat thought, would have shattered the whole moon. He heard a female voice say,

"Well, we've located the Death Star," and he grinned without turning around. What do the

newspeople think of us? He could picture himself: the idiot grin, mouth slightly open, drifting

down the line of screens without looking where he was going, tripping over cables.

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Nat couldn't make himself care. A screen changed to show something like a dry riverbed or

three twined plumes of smoke or ... F-ring, the printout said. Nat said, "What the hell ..."

"You'd know if you'd been here last night."

"I've got to get some sleep." Nat didn't need to look around. He'd written two books with

Wade Curtis; he expected to recognize that voice in Hell, when they planned their escape. Wade

Curtis talked like he had an amplifier in his throat, turned high. Partly that was his military

training, partly the deafness he'd earned as an artillery officer.

He also had a tendency to lecture. "F-ring," he said. "You know, like A, B, C, rings, only

they're named in order of discovery, not distance from the planet, so the system's all screwed up.

The F-ring is the one just outside the big body of rings. It's thin. Nobody ever saw it until the

space probes went out there, and Pioneer didn't get much of a picture even then."

Nat held up his hand. I know, I know, the gesture said. Curtis shrugged and was quiet.

But the F-ring didn't look normal at all. It showed as three knotted streamers of gas or

dust or God knows what all braided together. "Braided," Nat said. "What does that?"

"None of the astronomers wanted to say."

"Okay, I can see why. Catch me in a mistake, I shrug it off. A scientist, he's betting his

career."

"Yeah. Well, I know of no law of physics that would permit that!"

Nat didn't either. He said, "What's the matter, haven't you ever seen three earthworms in

love?" and accepted Wade's appreciative chuckle as his due. "I'd be afraid to write about it.

Someone would have it explained before I could get the story into print."

The press conference was ready to start. The JPL camera crew unlimbered its gear to

broadcast the press conference all over the laboratory grounds, and one of the public relations

ladies went around turning off the screens in the conference mom.

"Hmm. Interesting stuff still coming in," Curtis said. "And there aren't any seats. I had

a couple but I gave them to the Washington Post. Front-row seats, too."

"Too bad," Nat said. "What the hell, let's watch the conference from the reception area.

Jilly's out there already."

On the morning of November 12. 1980, the pressroom at Jet Propulsion Laboratories was a

tangled maze of video equipment and moving elbows. Roger and Linda had come early, but not early

enough to get seats. A science-fiction writer in a bush jacket gave up his, two right in the front

row.

"Sure it's all right?" Roger asked.

The sci-fi man shrugged. "You need 'em more than I do. Tell Congress the space program's

important, that's all I ask."

Roger thanked the man and sat down. Linda Gillespie was trapped near the life-size

spacecraft model, fending off still another reporter who was trying to interview her: what had it

been like, marooned on Earth while her husband was aboard Skylab?

She looked great. He hadn't seen her since -- since when? Only twice since she'd married

Edmund. And of course he'd been at her wedding. Linda's mother had cried. Damn near cried myself,

Roger thought. How did I let her get out of circulation? But I wasn't ready to marry her myself.

Maybe I should have...

The trouble was, he wasn't getting any story he could understand. People were excited, but

they didn't say why. The regular science press people weren't telling. They all knew each other,

and they resented outsiders at big events like this.

Roger doodled, looking up when anyone called a greeting, hoping nobody would want his

attention. He hadn't asked for this assignment.

He heard, "Haven't you ever seen three earthworms in love?" and looked. A clump of science-

fiction writers stood beneath a screen that showed.. . yeah, three earthworms in love, or a bad

photo of spaghetti left on a plate, orjust noise. He wrote, "F ring: Three earthworms in love,"

and tapped Linda's shoulder. "Linda? Save my seat?"

"Where're you going?"

"Maybe I can get something from the science-fiction writers." Nobody else was trying that;

it might get him a new slant. At least they'd talk English. "It looks like things are starting."

Frank Bristow, the JPL newsroom manager, had taken his place at the podium. Roger had met

him briefly when signing in. The regular press corps all seemed to know him as well as each other.

Roger didn't know anyone.

Bristow was about to make his opening statement. The Voyager project manager and four

astrophysicists were taking their seats at a raised table. Brooks sat down again. He wished he

were somewhere else.Roger Brooks was approaching thirty, and he didn't like it. There were

temptations in his job: too much free food and booze. He took care to maintain the muscle tone

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when his lifestyle didn't. His straight blond hair was beginning to thin, and that worried him a

little, but his jaw was still square, with none of the, softening he saw in his friends. He had

given up smoking three years ago, flatly, and suffered through horrid withdrawal symptoms. His

teeth were white again, but the scars between the index and middle fingers of his right hand would

never go away. He'd been taken drunk one night in Vietnam, and a cigarette had burned out there.

Roger Brooks had been just old enough to cover some of the frantic last days in Vietnam,

but he had been too late to get anything juicy. He had missed Watergate: his suspicions were

right, but he was too junior to follow them up. Other reporters got Pulitzer prizes.

Something had changed in him after that. It was as if there were a secret somewhere,

calling to him. Little assignments couldn't hold his interest.

"He missed one chance to be played by Robert Redford," one of his ladies had been heard to

say. "He isn't about to miss another."

This was a little assignment. He wondered if he should have taken it, even for the chance

to get to California, even though half the Washington newsroom staff would have sold fingers and

toes for the chance. But nobody was keeping secrets here. Whatever Voyager One told them, they

would shout it to the world, to the Moon if they could. The trick was to understand them.

No big story, maybe, but the trip was worth it. He glanced at Linda and thought:

definitely worth it. - He twisted uncomfortably as old memories came back. They'd been so

inexperienced! But they'd learned, and no sex had ever been as good as his memory of Linda that

last time. Maybe he'd edited that memory. Maybe not. I've got to stop thinking about that! It'll

show ... What in hell am I going to write about?

Another group was clumped beneath the full-size model of the Voyager spacecraft. They had

to be scientists, because most of them were men and they all wore suits. A couple of the

sciencefiction writers stood with them, more like colleagues than press. No reporters did that.

Would that make an interesting angle? The sci-fi people didn't pretend to be neutral. They were

enthusiasts and didn't care who knew it, while the reporters tried to put on this smug air of

impartiality.

The briefing began. The Program Director talked about the spacecraft. Mission details,

spacecraft performing well. Some data lost because it was raining in Spain where the high-gain

antennae were located -- was that a joke? No, nobody was laughing.

"Three billion miles away, and they're getting pictures," somebody said on his right. A

pretty girl, long legs, slim ankles, short bobbed hair. Badge said Jeri Wilson, some geological

magazine. Wedding ring, but that didn't always mean anything. Maybe she'd be here the rest of the

week. She seemed to be alone.

The mission planning people left the podium and the scientists, Brad Smith and Ed Stone

and Carl Sagan, came up to tell what they thought they were learning. Roger listened, and tried to

think of an interesting question. In a situation like this, the important thing was get yourself

noticed, for future reference, then try for an exclusive. He jotted useful phrases:

"New moons are going to get dull pretty soon."

"Not dozens of rings. Hundreds. We're still counting." Long pause. "Some of them are

eccentric."

"What does that mean?" someone whispered.

The sci-fi man in the khaki bush jacket answered in what he probably thought was a

whisper. "The rings are supposed to be perfect circles with Saturn at the center. All the theory

says they have to be. Now they've found some that aren't circles, they're ellipses."

Other scientists spoke:

"May be the largest crater in the solar system in relation to the body it's on ..."

"There isn't any Janus. There are two moons where we thought Janus was. They share the

same orbit, and they change places every time they pass. Oh, yes, we've known for some time those

orbits were possible. It's a textbook exam question in celestial mechanics. It's just that we

never found anything like it in the real universe."

Brooks jotted down details on that one; it was definitely worth a mention. Janus was the

moon named for the two-faced god of beginnings--

He whispered that to Linda, and got an appreciative nod. The Wilson girl wrote something

too.

"The radial spokes in the rings seem to be caused by very tiny particles, around the size

of a wavelength of light. Also the process seems to be going on above the ring, not in it."

Radial spokes in the rings! They ought to disappear as the rings turned, because the inner

rings were moving faster than the outer rings. They didn't disappear. Weird news from everywhere

in Saturn system. Some of Brooks' colleagues would understand the explanations, when they came...

Yet the press conference offered more than Brooks had expected. He had interviewed

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scientists before. It was the lack of answers that was interesting here.

"We don't know what that means."

"We wouldn't like to say yet."

"The more we learn from Voyager, the less we know about rings."

"If we fiddle with the numbers a little we can pretty well explain why Cassini's Divide is

so much bigger than it ought to be." Dramatic pause. "Of course that doesn't explain why there are

five faint rings inside it!"

"If I'd had to make a long list of things we wouldn't see, eccentric rings would have been

the first item."

"Brad, what about braided rings?"

"That would have been off the top of the paper."

Everyone up there looked happy, Brooks noted. Fun things were going on here. If Brooks

didn't have the background to appreciate them, who did?

A newsperson asked, "Have you got any more on the radial spokes? I'd have thought that

violated the laws of physics."

David Morrison from Hawaii answered, "I'm sure the rings are doing everything right. We

just don't understand it yet." Brooks jotted it down. "Where I want to be," Roger said, "is in a

motel room with you." They were walking the grounds of JPL: lawn, fountains, vaguely oriental rock

gardens, a bridge, all very nice.

"That was years ago," Linda said. "And it's all over."

"Sure?"

"Yes, Roger, I'm sure. Now be good. You promised you would. Don't make me sorry I came

with you."

"No, of course I won't," Roger said. "It really is good to see you again. And I'm glad

you're happy with Edmund."

Are you? Linda wondered. And am I? Of course I am. I'm very happy with Edmund. It's when

he goes off and leaves me to take care of everything and I'm alone all the time and I see these

goddam romantic perfume ads and things like that that I get unhappy about Major Edmund Gillespie.

I wonder if the feminists did us any favors, letting us admit we get horny just like men!

She grinned broadly.

"Yeah?" Roger demanded.

"Nothing." Nothing I'd tell you. But it's nice to see I could have some company if I

wanted.

Lunch was in the JPL cafeteria. Roger and Linda were made welcome at the science-fiction

writers' table, but the writers didn't know any more than Roger did. They were having fun with not

knowing.

Someone passed a cartoon down the table. It showed hanging off to one side, either the

Star Wars Death Star or Saturn's moon Mimas, Saturn huge across the background. In the foreground

a spacecraft used mechanical arms to twist the F-ring into a braid. The caption: "You've a wicked

sense of humor, Darth Vader!"

Another writer looked up and yawned. "Oh. It's just another goddam spectacular picture of

Saturn." That earned him appreciative laughter.

But no one knew, which made it a frustrating lunch. Saturn had secrets, maybe, but he

wasn't telling them, and the writers didn't have any logical guesses about the strange pictures.

Halfway through the lunch Linda called to someone. "Wes. We didn't expect to see you

here!"

He was a trim athletic man in a faded baseball cap. Linda introduced him around the table.

"Wes married Carlotta," she told Roger. "You remember Carlotta. She was my best friend in school."

"Sure," Roger said. "How are you?"

One of the writers looked thoughtful. "Wes Dawson . . . You're running for Craig Hosmer's

old seat."

"Right."

"Wes has always been for the space program," Linda said. "Maybe you fellows will vote for

him?"

"Not our district," Wade Curtis said. "We live north of there. But maybe we can help.

We're always interested in people who'll promote space."

It was late afternoon when they got back to the house. Roger pulled into the driveway.

"You might as well come in and meet Jenny," Linda said. "Remember her?"

"Sure I remember The Brat. I had to bribe her to leave us alone!"

"Well, she's grown a bit now." Linda led the way to the house and unlocked the door. It

was strangely silent inside. She went to the kitchen and found a note held to the refrigerator by

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a tomato-shaped magnet. Roger was standing behind her, scanning over her shoulder, as she read it.

515: Had to run down to San Diego. Beach party. Charlene's with me. Back tomorrow. Jenny

"She's a freshman at Long Beach State. Anthropology. But she took up scuba diving in a big

way. Her curient boyfriend is at Scripps." Linda shook her head in dismay. "Mother will kill me if

she finds out I let her go to an all-night party."

Roger shook his head. "The Brat's in college? Jeez, Linda, she can't be more than, what,

fifteen?"

"Seventeen."

Roger sighed. "I guess it's been longer than I thought."

"Yes, it has been. Want some coffee?"

"Sure."

She got out the filters and put water on. Roger hadn't said anything, hadn't done

anything, but she could feel the vibes. Had Jenny planned this? But no, she didn't know Roger was

in/town, and she wouldn't if she had. She'd always liked Roger, but she liked Edmund more. No,

Jenny wouldn't have deliberately ananged to leave her alone with a lover from the past.

It had been a long time, but she remembered every detail. Pampered Georgetown University

freshman dating the reporter from the Washington Post. They'd planned it, a weekend together in

her parents' Appalachian cabin. It had been summer, and no one was using the place. The weather in

the mountains had been perfect. There'd been a delicious thrill of anticipation as they drove up

the twisting highway. She hadn't had that feeling since.

Edmund was different. Edmund was older too, and more glamorous. Fighter pilot. Astronaut.

Everything a hero should be. Everything but a great lover. . . That's not fair, not fair at all.

There'd been anticipation when she met Edmund. It lasted all during their courtship -- and

died on their wedding night.

I'd forgotten all this, but I feel it now. Just as I did then. But -- the coffee machine

was set up and there wasn't any reason to watch it any longer. She turned. Roger was standing very

close to her. She didn't have to move very far to be in his arms.

PART ONE: THE ROGUES

1 DISCOVERY

"When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the

truth."

-- SHERLOCK HOLMES in The Sign of the Four

COUNTDOWN: H MINUS SIX WEEKS

The lush tropical growth of the Kona Coast ended abruptly. Suddenly the passionflower

vines and palm trees were gone, and Jenny was driving through barren lava fields. "It looks like

the back side of the Moon," she said.

Her companion nodded and pointed toward the slopes off to their right. "Mauna Loa. They

say it's terrible luck to take any of the lava home."

"Who says?"

"The Old Hawaiians, of course. But a surprising number of tourists, too. They take the

stuff home, and later they mail it back." He shrugged. "Bad luck or no, so far as anyone knows,

she -- Mauna Loa is always she to the Old Ones -- she's never taken a life."

Captain Jeanette Crichton expertly downshifted the borrowed TR-7 as the road began another

steep ascent. The terrain was deceptive. From the beach the mountains looked like gentle slopes

until you tried climbing them. Then you realized just how big the twin volcanoes were. Mauna Kea

rose nearly 14,000 feet above the sea -- and plunged 20,000 feet downward to the sea bottom,

making it a bigger mountain than Everest.

"You'll turn left at the next actual road," Richard Owen said. "It'll be a way. Mind if I

doze off? I had a late night."

"All right by me," she said. She drove on.

Not very flattering, she thought. Picks me up in Kona, gets me to drive him up the side of

a volcano, and goes to sleep. Romantic.

She ran her fingers along her shoulder-length hair. It was dark brown with a trace of red,

and at the moment it couldn't be very attractive since it was still damp from her morning swim.

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Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle - Footfall

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