“An anguished dawn,” Gallian had called it. The beginning of a new world. New life would be given, and a new story would unfold. Keene thought about the story only now being uncovered of a past far more rich and complex than the simple tale that had once been told of an orderly progression from uncomplicated beginnings leading undeviatingly through the historical ages neatly labeled in generations of textbooks to the civilization that had ended in the twenty-first century. But now a different story was emerging. How many other sagas of human existence had been written and lost in folds of time now vanished between convulsions that had rent and reshaped the Earth—of entire peoples who had lived, loved, died, raised their children and their cities, they and all their works as lost and forgotten as yesterday’s footprints on the beach before a storm? How close had even the latest technological-industrial culture, with all its illusions of superlativeness and permanence, come to being just another of them?
“Well, what do you think?” Heeland’s voice asked.
“Impressive,” Keene replied. “Who ever would have thought that flying could be so easy?” The complete aerodynamic repertoire was controlled by a few set motions of the gloves.
“Some people say they feel the signal delay when they’ve gotten tuned to it. We’re talking about almost ten thousand miles each way just at the moment. Do you notice it?”
“I can’t say I do. I guess I’m still too new.”
“Do you want to carry on for a while longer?”
“No, that’s fine. You can bring me back. I just wanted to get a taste of how it works.”
The image in Keene’s helmet vanished and was replaced by blackness. Moments later, he felt the helmet being loosened and raised his head to help Heeland lift it clear. He was back in the Varuna’s Survey Control section, from where the probes sent down to view and map the surface were controlled, and the landing of instrumentation packages directed. The scene of northeast America that he had been viewing was still showing on a screen above the console, creeping by slowly as the probe continued flying on automatic program.
“Do the probes link directly to the satellites?” Keene asked curiously as he unfastened his seatbelt and nudged with his elbows to drift clear.
“We prefer not to, until we’ve established full synchsat cover,” Heeland answered. “It’s too easy to get stuck in a dead spot—especially when you’re putting a lander down. We keep a high-altitude airmobile circling as a relay over an area where we’re active—as we’re doing with the probe you were hooked into just now. The mobile that’s relaying from it is up at around sixty thousand feet. They can stay up for months if they have to. We also use them to ferry probes to remote operating areas.”
“Months?” Keene repeated.
“Plutonium-fueled, helium-cooled fission pack. Your kind of toy, Lan. Like to see one?”
“Sure.”
Heeland pushed off from a structural beam and navigated ahead from the instrumentation room, through a hatch into a side gallery. Keene followed him down to the Fitting Bay below, which was where the probes were equipped and maintained. It was a large space, with technicians working on various satellite packages as well as aerial pods and probes. Heeland indicated a peculiar-looking vehicle at the far end. It consisted of a large disk-shaped body maybe twenty feet in diameter, orange on top and white underneath, with three ducted fans in pivot housings around the periphery, and a pair of black fins above. Three semi-enclosed racks on the underside were obviously for carrying probes, although they were empty at present. They looked as if they hinged open to launch the probes downward, like bomb doors.
Heeland had started to head toward the airmobile, but checked himself and turned when he realized that Keene wasn’t following. Keene had stopped beside a sleek metallic gray shape eight feet or so long, secured in one of the berthing cradles. A technician in white coveralls was working on it, using tools arrayed on a magnetic rack at the end of a jointed arm clamped nearby. “Mind if I look? I think I was just flying one of these over New York,” Keene said.