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“Take the place over from the scientists?”
    “No; we’ve made a deal with them. They’ll share their supplies with us until a rescue mission can be staged. That probably wouldn’t be until Deucalion comes in. Butwe could make it. Then they’d come back with us.”
    “Five years,” O’Hara said.
    “They say the penguins are fascinating,” Berrigan said. “Never get tired of watching them.” She turned off the cube. “That’s it. Any questions?”
    “This is all happening so fast,” O’Hara said. “Nobody’s explained why we have to go down there in the first place. I’m no engineer, but it seems to me there must be a dozen ways we could stop them from up here—I mean, that bomb has to be in actual contact with New New, doesn’t it?”
    “That’s right. If we could make it detonate even a kilometer or two away, it would just be so much extra sunshine.”
    Goodman scratched his head. “So why don’t we just shoot the goddamn thing with a laser?”
    “That would work if they came in slowly enough. A mining laser would at least scramble their electronics, maybe detonate the bomb prematurely, or defuse it. But they’ll be coming in at as much as thirty kilometers per second; we can’t get enough energy flux on target. That’ll be tried, of course, if we fail in Africa. We can also put a wall of dust and rock in their way, using a mass driver, which would be even more effective, if they’re stupid enough not to make evasive maneuvers. But even if we fill the ship with holes, kill them all, the bomb might still make it through. And it’s not just the bomb; when it goes off it’ll ignite all the deuterium and tritium in the ship’s fuel tanks. That’s enough to blow New New into gravel.
    And melt the gravel.”
    Nothing eventful happened during the five days it took them to spiral in to low Earth orbit. They did a lot of calisthenics, enjoyed unusually good food, read theMercedes manual with some interest. Twice they took jolts of amphetamine, so they would be ready for the drug’s effects when they landed.
    O’Hara got fairly close to Coordinator Berrigan, not just because they were the only women. Berrigan had also been given a year on Earth, to study, twenty years before, and like O’Hara she had chosen NYU in New York City. They hadn’t had any academic work in common, since O’Hara was in American Studies and Berrigan pursued systems analysis. But they’d both had the City—fabulous, sinister, challenging.
    They got into their spacesuits just before the ship started biting air, to brake for its final approach. O’Hara was vaguely annoyed to see that Berrigan’s spacesuit was the catheter type.
    4
    It was a bumpy ride, screaming in over the African jungle, and there was a bad moment when they came down onto the concrete strip, perhaps a shade too fast, the strip still wet from the morning rain. The shuttle started to fishtail, and Berrigan slapped a button that released an emergency parachute. It probably saved them from slithering off the runway, but they were all slammed painfully forward into their restraining straps. Michaels hit the inside of his helmet hard enough to knock himself out for a few moments; O’Hara felt like one blue bruise from shoulders to hips.
    Then they were rolling calmly along, engines throbbing a high-pitched whine. About a kilometer from the end of the runway, the Mercedes shimmered in the hot damp air.
    “Well, it hasn’t left yet,” Berrigan said, over the helmet intercom. Before they entered the atmosphere, New New had told them that it was still on the pad. They didn’t know how close the Germans were, though; the telescopehad lost track of them soon after they got to North Africa.
    “Might as well unbuckle. You four with guns get ready to jump out as soon as we stop.” The engines quit and they rolled silently to a halt. “Go!”
    The inner door of the airlock was open. Goodman spun the wheel on the outer one and a crack of bright sunlight