Not that she claimed too-much honor. Without Fireball at their side, the Moondwellers would have been a handful of flies, to be brushed aside when they buzzed.
Her man spoke it for her, quietly: “We have Anson Guthrie to thank.”
“Yes,” she whispered.
Jinann’s regard of the older three grew troubled. “What think you will happen now he is gone?” she asked. Lunarian soul or no, to her it must feel as if a great tree had fallen, leaving an emptiness in the sky.
It did not quite to Dagny. Maybe it would later. First she had her Uncans to mourn.
“Fireball will go on, have no fears,” Rydberg assured. “We are lucky he didn’t die before he agreed to be downloaded, but even without that, Fireball would keep his strength, his dream.”
“Dreams can die,” Jinann said, “and then the strength dies.”
What was Guthrie’s download, his ghost, like? Dagny dreaded the hour when she must meet it.
“We will see that they don’t,” Rydberg vowed. He turned toward Beynac and spoke with a briskness that Dagny knew guarded him against unleashing whatever grief was in him. “’Mond, earlier I promised you some interesting news.”
The geologist was likewise glad to change the subject. “Yes?”
“While the repair work went on, naturally we mounted an intensive sky survey. The comet’s new path would be different enough from what was origi2 nally planned that we must make sure there would be no serious meteoroid impact. When the computer analyzed the observations, it reported no such danger. However, I had idle time, and I remembered your ideas about asteroidal debris in far space. I programmed a search for indications that would otherwise have been ignored.”
Beynac leaned forward. “Yes? What did you find?”