Resurgence

“Correct. Six in one location, the seventh in another. But through J’merlia, I commanded Archimedes, whose optical powers are amazing and perhaps even unparalleled, to seek movement on the cloud-free portions of Marglot. He reports numerous small moving objects, all on the frozen hemisphere, but has detected nothing that could be a substantial piece of airborne or ground transport equipment.”

“We’ve got our pinnace, At. We don’t need none of the Marglotta’s junk.”

“True. But Julian Graves and his cohorts need it. Without it, they are confined to a tiny portion of the planetary surface. All the rest—” Atvar H’sial waved an articulated limb toward the window. Marglot hung in the sky beyond it, although with the Cecropian’s echolocation vision she could only be inferring the looming presence of the planet from other sensors. “All the rest, Louis, is ours to explore and exploit.

“Consider the options. Are the Marglotta alive? Then we have responded to their call for help, and we are ready for their thanks and willing to begin negotiations—on our terms. Are the Marglotta dead? Then the whole of the planet, except for an insignificant area where the rest of our original party is located, is ours for the taking. We will of course rescue Julian Graves and the others and be prepared to receive their gratitude—eventually.”

* * *

There was no justice in the universe, and a man had no right to expect any. Louis had known that long before he was a man—before he was weaned, probably, though his memories didn’t go back that far.

Even so, it was never pleasant to have your nose rubbed in injustice one more time.

He was sitting in his own quarters, at his desk and working on the difficult question of the landing party, when Sinara walked in.

No, she didn’t walk in; she waltzed in. The laws of morning-after said that she should be feeling like hell and looking as green as Claudius. Instead she was rose pink and bright-eyed, with a spring in her step. The bottom of her mouth ought to feel as though bats without toilet-training had roosted all night on her upper palate. But when she said, “Good morning—and a great morning it is,” she leaned over and gave Louis a kiss on his unshaven cheek. Her breath was as sweet, fresh, and perfumed as the spring violets on Sentinel Gate.

A woman without a trace of conscience, who showed no signs of guilt for anything she had done? That was Sinara. The thought brought back memories of Glenna Omar. What was Glenna doing right this minute, back on the garden world of Sentinel Gate? Louis didn’t know, but he had his suspicions.

He gestured to the seat at the other side of his desk. “Sit down.”

“Over there? Not over here?” She was standing by him and breathing into his ear.

“Not now. We got work to do. We’re heading down to Marglot. Question is, who goes and who stays here?”

“Everyone should go. It maximizes our chances of survival.”

“What makes you think so?”

“In our survival training classes on Persephone, we were provided logical proofs, based on long-established game theory results, that the probability of survival in an unknown environment is proportional to the size of that party.”

“That’s fine, if you happen to regard survival as a game. In our case, I can see three or four things wrong with the idea that everybody should go. First, whoever we send may need backup. If the Have-It-All went down to the surface and somehow got smashed up, that would be it. There’s no sign of another ship anywhere in the Marglot system. That means we gotta send the pinnace down, and keep the Have-It-All up here and out of danger in case it’s needed for a rescue mission. It could make it down easy enough on autopilot, but I’d rather have somebody at the controls who can make the right decision if things get hairy.”

“So you have to leave Claudius here. He’s the best pilot. But I don’t think from the look of him this morning he’s in any condition to travel.”

“That’s his problem, not ours. Claudius is a navigator, an’ I don’t know how good he pilots when he’s not juiced up. Anyway, are you willin’ to put that much faith in a Chism Polypheme? I’m not. Give him half a chance and Claudius would be out of here an’ take the Have-It-All with him. He says this ship is no good, but you can see his eye roll when he looks at some of the fixtures. I don’t care how bad he’s feelin’, he has to go down ’cause I don’t trust him here.

“Which brings us to the second problem. You flew the pinnace down to Pompadour, so you know it don’t have that much space on it. In principle it has a three-person limit, though you can squeeze two in the back if you have to. Archimedes can’t go—he’d be bulging out of the hatch with no room for anyone else.”

“That gives you one definite stay-at-home on the Have-It-All.”