This time, however, Valcroix was criticizing the decision to send the lithoforming technology to Earth. ” . . . as we saw in the demonstration given at Foundation this morning. But where are the shelters for the people who are here, at Kronia? I ask you all, does it make sense to be sending this capability for cutting and constructing huge works in rock all the way to Earth, where we have just two ships? They tell us, ‘Yes, but Kronia may become uninhabitable. We have to be prepared.’ I say they have everything backward. Our population, our homes, our industries, and our future—for as far as it’s possible to see it at the present time—are here! Not on the ruins of a distant cosmic battlefield that for all we know contains no other human life and will not be able to for a long time to come . . .”
“House, off,” Vicki told the domestic manager wearily. She sat back in her chair and stared up at the cream-painted metal ceiling, the lamp, the extractor-fan grille. Just the thought of getting away from all of it . . .
In her mind, she was soaring out and away, back to a sphere of clouds, earth, and water, close to the warmth and light of the Sun. Even if the clouds were thick and murky, the earth shuddering, and the water thrown into convulsions, it meant being able to breathe without helmets or containment; to see a wind-sculpted sky, and life, however crude, clawing its way up out of the soil. To live from day to day only for her work, leaving politics and jealousies far behind. She thought about Lan, Sariena, Charlie Hu, and Gallian—all of them out there already, and the others who would be going with her on the Aztec. . . .
Strange though the word seemed in the circumstances, yes, it would be good to go home.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Midway through the morning two days after the probe’s first discovery of the survivors, the Scout lurched its way along the descending line of the ridge, which provided a relatively unobstructed route down from the plateau. With Agni online and behaving, Keene had been free of any pressing duty commitment at the time, and Gallian, up in the Varuna, had named him as his first choice for inclusion in the party that would make contact when Zeigler reported the situation and requested instructions.
Because of the difficulty Kronians had acclimatizing so early in the mission, the five others in the Scout were also all Terran-born. Ivor, an SA vehicle mechanic and electrical technician was driving. Sitting up front beside him was Jorff, also from the SA, a lieutenant standing in for Kelm. Keene was behind, next to a control panel for various instruments, communications systems, and outside cameras, with Naarmegen sitting opposite, his back to the cabin wall. The two females of the group were in the rear seat: Maria Sanchez, a medic, and Beth, Serengeti base’s current nearest thing to a resident psychologist, since she had once majored in psychiatric disorders at the University of California, Irvine. There were no further pictures of the survivors coming in from the probe at the moment to occupy them. Its presence had apparently caused consternation at the settlement, and Gallian had ordered it to be pulled back. Just at the moment, it was hovering a short distance ahead of the Scout, reconnoitering the way. So Naarmegen and Keene were back on the subject of where the genetic codes that directed the formation and function of all living things had come from.
“I talked a lot with Sariena too on the voyage out,” Naarmegen said above the growl of the Scout’s diesel—it used an independent electric motor on each wheel but was dual-equipped, being able to run them from either a pure electrical storage system or a motor-generator. One of the plans for Serengeti was to set up a fractionation tower to process fuel, oils, and other products from the readily accessible hydrocarbons that Athena had deposited over wide areas. “I was skeptical when I first moved out there. But I think the Kronians have convinced me.” It was interesting, Keene noted, that now back on Earth, Naarmegen was already referring to Kronians in the third person.