“You seem to have found something that you fit right in with—Emil and his group,” Sariena commented.
“It’s the kind of work I wanted to do ever since I got involved with you and the others here, working with Lan, back on Earth,” Vicki replied. After a pause, she added, “It’s what Kronia makes possible—to work at being what you really are.”
“It sounds as if Robin’s doing well too.”
Vicki sighed. “He’s still not back to his old self. Maybe he never will be. He still has nightmares . . . and long, withdrawn moods. The troglodyte existence here doesn’t help. And this stress all the time . . . Maybe none of us will ever truly be our old selves again. Those selves were part of a world that’s gone.”
They emerged into the labyrinth of interconnecting spaces, shafts, and galleries beneath Kropotkin center. Vicki indicated the way down a terraced stairwell to one of the walkways.
“How about Lan?” Sariena asked. “Have you seen much of him lately?”
“He’s been busy on Titan. The artificial gravity project that they’re working on at the Tesla Center. Have you heard about it?”
“Oh yes. Jan Wernstecki has been working with us on recomputing orbital changes. The last I heard he was moving to join Lan’s group. Are they really onto something?”
“Oh, sure. They’ve got it working. It’s just a case of scaling things up now.”
“I hadn’t realized they were that far along.”
“He’ll be back here visiting next week. Leo and Alicia will be here too. It’s a pity you and Charlie couldn’t have made it for then. It would have been a great reunion.” Vicki meant Leo Cavan, Keene’s close friend and former political insider. Alicia was the Polish girlfriend that Cavan had brought with him from Washington when he joined Keene in California, as Athena was closing with Earth.
They touch-glided down the steps and carried on across one of the concourses. “How are . . . things?” Sariena asked after a long pause.
There was more in the question than mere curiosity. After the way Keene had risked impossible odds to find her and Robin in the final days on Earth and get them out, most people who knew them had expected him and Vicki to lead a closer life together afterward than had been the case. True, the present conditions on Kronia made demands on everyone, but even so, Keene lived something of a distant life, visiting when circumstances permitted, but spending most of the time immersed in his work on Titan. In a way, it was a reversion to the role he had adopted on Earth, filling a need in Vicki’s and Robin’s lives that went beyond being just guardian and benefactor, but stopping short of any binding emotional commitment. She still wasn’t sure if he was simply one of the kind whose personal feelings didn’t extend to such depths, or if other complexities of his personality acted to protect him from such involvements. But it was thanks to Keene that she and Robin were alive and as safe as it was possible to be anywhere. That was enough.
“Lan is one of those complicated people, Sariena,” she answered. “If he thinks something needs changing in the world—and something always does—he gets restless if he doesn’t feel he’s putting his share into doing something about it. You know yourself how many enemies he made among Earth’s scientific élite when he didn’t agree with them.”
“But look at the friends he made here,” Sariena answered.
“Yes, he came out ahead in the end. But then he always does. . . . Yet some of the things I hear from him worry me.”
“What kind of things?”
“Things that he says are happening among the Terrans. Not all of them are happy with the way things run here. . . . Ask yourself: What kinds of people would be the most likely to get themselves places on the last ships out when the old world was ending?”
Sariena nodded that there was no need to spell it out. “The kind who created the world that Lan ended up spending most of his time back there fighting.”