She lifted her hand, admiring the ring. Across from her, as if by involuntary reflex, Helen held up her own hand, which had an identical one on the ring finger. Except that no Fairy Dust ring would ever be identical, the way the motes shimmered and shifted their colors.
"I'm even getting a husband out of the deal." Sighing softly, happily, she leaned against Joe sitting next to her and nestled her head into his shoulder. His arm came around to hug her close.
"Well, you've got guts, lady," A.J. said. "Of course, I've known that for a long time. But I have to admit I never expected you to go against the grain like that."
Madeline raised her head a little and gave A.J. a serene smile. "What? You think I did it because I've gotten converted to your libertarian viewpoint? 'Information wanna be fwee' and all that twaddle. Ha! Dream on, Mr. Baker. I did it for the same reason I do everything professionally. I'm a security officer and I saw a major threat to national security. I grant you, that required me to meddle with issues of policy that I wouldn't normally stick my nose in. But . . . the situation was unusual. The threat involved was potentially the worst our nation has ever faced."
"National security? Worst threat?" It was obvious from the expression on A.J.'s face that he had no idea what she was talking about.
Madeline lifted herself up from the comfortable embrace. "Tell you what. How about we forego the usual word games after dinner—and the lousy jokes—and go outside a bit early? There's something I'd like to show you all out there, that I think would make what I did more sensible to you. Well, maybe. But we'd be putting on the damn suits anyway, before too long, to go to bed."
"Suits me," said Helen. "I'm getting sick of playing Ghost and Botticelli anyway. Whatever possessed us not to tell Jackie to include a deck of cards in Care Package?"
"Well, I thought of it," insisted Madeline. She gave Joe and A.J. the saccharine smile they so detested. "But I knew our engineers would get offended if I suggested they couldn't just make something that simple."
Joe chuckled. "Hey, look. No wood, no paper. No paper, no cardboard. There are limits to ingenuity, when you run up against Grandpa and his stubborn ways. But Jackie says she'll include a deck in the next package."
Rich Skibow had been unusually silent since the meal began. Now, he cleared his throat. "Uh . . . actually, I was going to ask all of you if you'd be willing to leave early, anyway. I, uh, have a personal communication I need to make."
Everyone stared at him. The elderly linguist seemed to flush a little. "If you don't mind."
"No, of course we don't," said Helen, using her boss-of-the-dig tone. "Everybody, up. Let's go outside and see whatever Madeline wants to show us, and give Rich some privacy."
A few minutes later—putting on even those state-of-the-art spacesuits was never a quick affair—all five of them came out of the rover and took a few steps to get out onto open ground. Above them, with only the horizon blocked off by the dark mass of the cliffs of Valles Marineris, the Martian starblaze was its usual glory.
"D'you think . . ." mused A.J.
"Oh, I'd say so," Helen chuckled. "As you've pointed out yourself any number of times, they bicker like an old married couple anyway. So why not get all the benefits, too?" More briskly, in the boss-of-the-dig tone: "But it's none of our business, until and unless Rich wants to talk about it. So. What did you want to show us, Madeline?"
"That." Madeline pointed up, to the stars. "I'd like each of you to tell me what you see there."
That took another few minutes, once she got them going. The phrases used were sometimes prosaic, sometime poetical. The words "wonder" and "awe" came and went like people passing through the revolving door of a busy office.
When they were done, Madeline nodded. "That's about what I thought. Not one of you—not once—used any of the words I'd use. Words like 'fear' and 'terror.'"
She gazed up, silent for a moment. "You want to know what I see—and have seen, every time I've looked at the stars, since we arrived at Phobos and first learned the truth? I see a cold, frightening, hostile universe. A universe that once sent an alien species into our solar system, who, for whatever reasons—which we still don't know and may never—fought a war that almost destroyed our planet and did destroy most of its advanced life-forms."
"Jeez, Madeline," A.J. started to protest, "that was—"
"Sixty-five million years ago. Yes, I know—and don't think I haven't taken great comfort in the knowledge. Because what it means to me is that I think we've still got plenty of time to prepare, if we use the time wisely. But ask yourself, A.J.—or Helen, rather, since she's the expert—how long is sixty-five million years? Really? Measured on a geological scale, or a galactic one?"