Lifeline

“Besides bruising my leg, all I got was a bump on the head. Dr. Berenger gave me her blessing. This’ll be just like riding an elevator—a heck of a lot safer than riding in a six-pack with you.”

“Knowing you, you’ll find a way to get in trouble.”

Tomkins cleared his throat to interrupt their private discussion. “Dr. Clancy?”

“Dr. Tomkins?” Clancy swung around and shook Tomkins’s gloved hand. He moved with a slight limp, but seemed no worse than before the accident.

“I can’t think of two better people to make the first trip on your yo-yo. Good luck, Clifford. I’d like to stay, but I need to get out to Clavius-C if I’m going to watch your ascent.”

“That’s all right,” Clancy said. “Duncan and I need to be ready for the weavewire when it arrives. We should move out the same time as you do.”

Shen interrupted. “Orbitech 1 plans to start reeling in the weavewire less than an hour after it arrives—whether you’re hooked up or not. That doesn’t give you much time.”

Tomkins smiled. “Very well. Have a good trip and all that. Best of luck, and I expect to see you back in one piece. The radio telescope project will certainly need your guidance when you return.”

Clancy nodded to Shen beside him. “Wiay can manage the crew while I’m gone. In fact, she might kick a few more butts than I do. Now that they’ve got this fire lit under them for the project, you’d better take advantage of their willingness to work.” He grinned and looked at his crew jostling around in the prep room. “If I get back—”

“When you get back,” Shen chided.

“Okay, when I get back, and if this yo-yo method of getting to the Lagrange colonies turns out to be feasible, the whole crew is going to be antsy to get off here. They want to work in space, you know—not with rocks between their toes.”

Tomkins nodded. “You’re right, of course.” He turned to Shen and bowed, bending down to her height. “And my apologies if I doubted your competence, Ms. Shen.”

“You couldn’t offend me if you tried.”

“That’s what I was hoping you’d say.” Tomkins rubbed his big brown hands together. “Would you like to accompany me to Clavius-C, Ms. Shen? We’ll have the best live view you can get of the ascent. Or would you rather see the official broadcast that goes out to all the colonies?”

“I can watch the recording any time I feel like it. I’d rather have a front-row seat.”

McLaris stepped up to join them. “Clifford?”

“Let’s do it.”

Tomkins stood back as the two started for the airlock. McLaris turned for one more wave, then pulled his helmet over his head, sealing it down around his collar.

Clancy grinned at his crew as Shen held his helmet for him. She reached over with one hand, pulled his head down to hers, and kissed him. He blinked and put on his polarized helmet quickly, as if to cover up a blush. Two other people from Clancy’s crew followed them into the airlock, ready to escort them out to the yo-yo capsule, which they had dubbed the Phoenix, where they would help attach the harness falling down from the American colony.

The big airlock door swung shut and began its cycle. Shen stood watching it with a fixed expression.

“Ready?” Tomkins asked. “Uh? Oh, yeah. Just a minute.” Shen blew her nose.

“The six-packs over in area two should be ready to go.”

“After you, then.” They waited for the airlock to cycle.

Shen insisted on driving the six-pack and seemed to make a point of not using the inertial guidance system. Tomkins sat in silence, occasionally acknowledging Shen’s conversation, other times just listening to the hollow echo of his own breathing. They rode out, leaving tracks in the lunar surface, swinging past the Phoenix.

Spotters were staggered across the plain of Clavius, some up on the rise of the crater wall. Nearly every holo-transmitter on Clavius Base scanned the sky overhead, searching for the harness preceding the weavewire. On the open channel, one of the other base scientists, bored with his regular duties, took a turn giving the commentary for the event. Tomkins decided he would listen to it all later.

Out here, on the sterile lunar surface, he pictured the vast radio telescope, the shining accomplishment that showed how human beings could still construct their own wonders, even when everything else had been taken away from them. Arecibo II. He knew it was pretentious to include it among the grand monuments of mankind—the pyramids, the great bridges, the tall buildings, the giant dams—but perhaps Arecibo II would last longer than all of those. The project would show how people continued to strive, even when they had lost so much. The Earth might have fallen silent, but the universe would not be able to hide its secrets much longer.

Their six-pack rolled over the lunar dust. Tomkins craned his neck to look up into the starry blackness, but only ended up straining it inside the helmet.