The Ascension Factor

Zentz was on the radio to his command center at the Preserve, chewing out some major. If this was a coup from the security side, he didn't believe Zentz was in on it.

Nevi kept his attention on the screen, where the kelp configuration didn't seem to change.

Would it be worth it, going in after them?

He thought it probably would. The different factions of Pandora only needed a symbol to bring them together, and Nevi knew Crista Galli was ready-made for the job. Better his hands on her than Shadowbox. Besides, he'd maneuvered around troublesome kelp in the past and never had problems that he couldn't handle. And if a coup did come down, Nevi could be seen as rescuing Crista Galli, along with the very popular Ozette. That would get the media on his side.

Either way; that LaPush has to go, he thought. That one's been too much trouble for too damned long.

Nevi didn't want to be the one to rule Pandora, if that was what all of this came to. He was happy being the shadow, being the arranger of possibilities. His distaste for Flattery and his style grew more unbearable by the year, but he had no desire for the hot seat himself.

Code Brutus, he thought. A coup attempt from within.

Nevi didn't think that Zentz was capable of carrying off a coup, though he had to admit that he was in the middle of the perfect alibi — at sea with the Director's highest-ranking assistant, a known and effective assassin.

Zentz was finished chewing out the major in charge of the power plant and the configuration of the kelp on the monitor hadn't changed a bit. Nevi checked his fuel reserves: all four tanks full. He pressurized the fuel, retracted the hydrofoils and extended the airfoil.

"We're going back?" Zentz asked. His voice sounded eager, but not greedy.

"No," Nevi said, and smiled. "We're going to pinpoint them from the air, then go in. We have enough fuel for almost an hour."

After an hour they'd be forced to set down on the water to extract more hydrogen, but Nevi planned to have everything that he needed aboard by then.

* * *

The highest function of love is that it makes the loved one a unique and irreplaceable being.

— T. Robbins, from A Literary Encyclopedia of the Atomic Age

Beatriz was hustled through the passageway and locked inside the Orbiter's makeshift Holovision studio with three techs from Brood's crew. None of the three had been at the launch site killings, but none of them had much to say to her, either. A large portable screen behind her hid the wet lights and mirrors that cluttered all six studio bulkheads. The same Holovision logo she wore at the left breast of her jacket emblazoned the screen: it was an eye, bidimensional, but the pupil was a holo stage.

Beatriz loved weather and had never liked the claustrophobic world inside the studios. That was why she and Ben had worked so well together and, in spite of offers, spent so many years in the field. Her recent promotion carried a lot of studio work, and her contract guaranteed a room with a view — on paper. She missed the sense of drifting she'd had, growing up an Islander.

Aboard the Orbiter she was assigned a cubby rimside, more than a kilometer from the studio near the axis. From her cubby she watched Pandora wake and sleep above her bed. Her father, a fisherman, would be taking his midafternoon break right now. Inside the studio there was no time of day, no night.

Her instructions from Brood were simple and cold: "Relax, we'll do the work. You just read what's in front of you when the red light goes on."

A small security camera mounted high on the bulkhead kept track of her every move. It was a toy, a trinket compared to the personalized cameras and triangulators that her team used at the launch site. Holovision's equipment got worse every year. She missed her own gear.

They were the best, she thought. And maybe that last tape is still inside.

She wondered whether Brood's men had picked them up.

Rico made those sets, she thought, and those triangulators, too. Nobody who knew cameras could pass those up.

She felt her first rush of real hope. The cameras weren't down at the launch site at all.

They're here, she thought, or at least they're in orbit with us.

She didn't want to think about the tapes. For now, she wanted only to focus on the cameras.

She couldn't help wondering what they'd do with the tapes.

Keep them, as backup. Record over them when their other tapes are full.

She doubted that whatever this team planned would involve a whole lot of tape. But the techs had brought them along, her logic assured her of that.

They might still be on the shuttle.

She didn't want to go back to that hatchway, where Brood's men had shot those guards down.

Beatriz glanced up at the surveillance camera.

Is it a person behind that thing, she wondered, or tape?

She didn't think they'd waste the tape. The techs ignored her altogether. They worked quickly at several editing and sound stations, coordinating something among themselves. She suspected it had something to do with her.