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"Hutch!" Mac tapped his commlink and spoke into it. "Priscilla. Answer up."
It was close to dawn, five hours to rendezvous with Marcel's scoop. But there
was as yet no break in the darkness. Nightingale was sitting despondently,
listening to the wind. MacAllister was bunched up behind him, his teeth
clenched against every lightning strike.
MacAllister had never been comfortable with the sobriquet Hutch. It was a
warehouse worker's name, utterly inappropriate for a gallant, if foolhardy,
young woman. He wondered if all these people had tin ears.
He'd begun composing a tribute to her. It would appear in The Adventurers'
Quarterly, the publication he'd edited for six years, and which still featured
his occasional contributions.
"Anything?" he asked Kellie, who'd been trying the commlink again.
She shook her head. Just the heavy crackle of interference.
"It must be time," said Nightingale.
"Not yet," she said.
MacAllister went back to his project. Priscilla was from a small town in Ohio.
Where was she from? He'd have to look that up. It didn't make any difference,
of course, whether it was
Ohio or Scotland. Or even whether it was a small town.
Priscilla was from the lower Bronx.
It played just as well.
She worked for the Academy of Science and Technology, a pilot collecting
standard pay, making the wearying runs between Earth and the dig site at
Pinnacle or the black hole at Mamara.
Twenty years ago she was part of the expedition that discovered the Omega
clouds, those curious constructs that erupt in waves from galactic center to
attack swimming pools and twenty-story buildings.
While everyone else on that mission wrote a set of memoirs, Priscilla Hutching
simply went back to piloting.
We forgot about her. And we might never have noticed who she really was.
Except that eventually they sent her to Deepsix.
He made a noise in the back of his throat and scratched out galactic center.
It sounded too much like a park.
Nightingale got up and made for the coffee dispenser. Kellie had been trying
off and on to read, but he could see she was making no progress.
Mac had almost finished when she straightened up. "Okay," she said. "The
wind's down a bit.
Everybody belt in." It was, he thought, brighter outside, but not by much.
He heard the whine of the engines and drew his harness down over his head.
Panel lights blinked on.
"Hang on," she said, and MacAllister felt the vehicle lift into the storm. In
the same instant Kellie flicked on the running lights. They rose past walls
and driving rain and writhing trees.
The lander fought its way into the sky while Nightingale tried again to raise
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Hutch.
Mac gazed hopefully out at the precipice. Occasionally, when the angle was
right, he could see the gridwork. "Do we know where to look?" he asked.
"She was on the far left," said Kellie. "At sixty-three hundred meters."
Mac took to watching the altimeter.
In front of him, Nightingale was barely breathing.
"Elevator's gone," Kellie said. That was no surprise.
Nightingale swept the gridwork with binoculars.
"Any sign of her?" asked Mac.
"I'll tell you if I see something," he snapped.
Kellie stabbed at her link. "Hutch, you out there?"
The static broke momentarily, and they heard her voice!
" Here "
They all tried to talk to her at once. Kellie got them quiet. "Where are you?"
she asked.
"Where you left me." The transmission broke up. " see your lights."
"Okay, hang on. We'll be right there."
"Good. I'd be grateful."
"Hutch, what's your situation?"
"Say again?"
"What's your situation?"
"I'm okay."
"I see her," said Nightingale.
"Where?" Kellie asked.
"There." He jabbed his finger.
She was dangling from one of the crosspieces. Mac took only a moment to look,
then reached behind him for the cable. He looped one end around the seat
anchor and pulled it tight. Nightingale opened the inner airlock.
"Don't forget yourself," said Kellie.
He hadn't. Not after last time. He retrieved his own tether and tied himself
firmly to the same base.
Kellie reminded them also to activate their e-suits. She matched air pressure.
"Ready to go," she said.
A gust of wind hammered the lander, and Mac crashed to the floor. Nightingale
helped him up.
Kellie opened the outer hatch. Wind and rain spilled into the airlock. And Mac
saw why Hutchins was still alive. She'd converted her rope into a sling,
looped under thighs and armpits, and lowered herself off the girder. Away from
the metal.
"Hang on, Priscilla," he told her, though he knew she could not hear him over
the roar of the storm.
"Are we close enough?" asked Kellie. The lander rose and fell.
"No," he cried. "We're going to have to do better than this."
"I don't know if we can."
The cable was general-purpose lightweight stuff. Something to be used for
securing cargo or possibly
marking off a dig site. In this wind he wanted something more like Hutchins's
heavy vine.
He missed a couple times, and then shut off his e-suit long enough to remove a
shoe. He tied the cable to it and waited for the right circumstances: a drop
in the wind and the lander in close. When it happened he threw the shoe and
the cable. The shoe sailed over the crossbar. Hutch swung back, swung forward,
grabbed the line. She hauled it down and looped it around her middle and
secured it under her arms.
Mac took up the cable and got ready.
"Hurry," Kellie pleaded, while she fought the storm and the down-drafts.
The laser appeared in Hutch's right hand. She showed the laser to them,
signifying what she was about to do.
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Mac glanced at the seat anchor, and tightened his grip. Nightingale, standing
in the hatch, was not tethered. Mac pushed him back, out of harm's way.
Priscilla cut the vine and dropped down out of sight. The cable jerked tight.
Mac held on, felt
Nightingale move in behind him, and they hauled her in.
When she was safely on board, a wave of laughter engulfed them. Priscilla
hugged Mac and kissed
Nightingale. Kellie accelerated and shut down the spike to preserve its power
supply. Then Hutch embraced her, too. They were happy, exhausted, tearful. She
thanked them, wriggled out of the rope and cable, expressed her unbounded joy
at being back in the lander, and hugged everybody again. She untied
Mac's shoe and returned it ceremonially.
"Welcome home," said Kellie.
Mac eased himself into his seat. "Nice to have you back, Priscilla," he said.
She collapsed beside him, rubbed her thighs where the vine had supported her,
and closed her eyes.
"You wouldn't believe how good it is," she said, "to be here."
Kellie had been climbing steadily. Suddenly they emerged above the clouds. The
air was less turbulent, but Nightingale caught his breath. He was looking up.
Mac followed his gaze. They could see the vast arc of the onrushing planet.
The entire southwestern sky quailed beneath that purple monster. They could
see into it, into its depths. Mac felt chilled. "What now?"
he asked. "Do we make our rendezvous?" "Not yet," said Hutch. "It's too early.
We've got more than four hours left."
He grimaced and looked down at the boiling clouds. "Do we really have to go
back down there?"
Bill and Lori surprised the staff by showing up in tandem onscreen on the Star
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