BOUNDARY(43)

A.J. paused. "By the way, I wasn't using the very top-level encryption on this stuff. It's possible someone will decode it eventually. I'd warn whoever's in charge of this circus that eventually—and that's a sooner rather than later 'eventually'—there will be a leak. From someone who received and decoded the transmissions, if not from someone inside."



Hathaway nodded. "I'm sure they know that already. It's a constant concern in security—you can't keep any secret forever, so the question is whether you can keep it long enough to matter."



"Okay. Anyway, I'm going to go to sleep first. I haven't had any rest since I started this whole thing . . . damn, forty-three hours ago."



"Yeah, you'd better go get some shut-eye. You'll have a long day ahead of you whenever you get up."



A.J. nodded and walked out, his gait already showing some of the flatness of the truly exhausted.





Jackie Secord tapped her foot as the system hesitated in opening the door. The guards nearby were unfamiliar.



Guards? Why two of them? Never had any need for them anyway, the system's automatic.



One of them was studying a screen in front of him. His partner was watching Jackie. The gaze didn't look hostile, but it wasn't friendly either; a neutral look that unnerved her more than a glare. Only when the guard at the screen nodded did the door to the operations area slide aside.



Jackie thought of commenting on the situation, but decided it wasn't worth it. Someone upstairs had probably gotten a bug up their ass about security, so now they needed some new tin soldiers and procedures. At least no one was asking for a strip search.



Reaching the main mission control area, Jackie glanced around. The golden mop of hair she was looking for was immediately visible, just slightly to the right of center.



"A.J.!"



A.J.'s face lit up as though someone had shone a searchlight on it. "Jackie? Jackie!" The slender, wiry arms hugged her close and then swung her around before setting her down. It was always a little startling to realize just how strong A.J. was.



"Whew! Nice to know I'm wanted around here, but you're getting a little overexcited, aren't you? I mean, it's not like I don't work for NASA. You could expect I'd drop by operations, once in a while."



A.J. grinned, but there was an edge to that grin. It looked almost like a sneer in some ways. "So you don't know yet? Damn, they're good."



"Don't know what? Who's good?"



Jackie looked around. It was odd, now that she thought about it. Things seemed a little restrained here—aside from A.J., for whom the word "restraint" would only apply when used in conjunction with the word "heavy."



Even the displays weren't showing the usual multiplicity of views. Most of them seemed to show some kind of movie set in an underground cavern.



"Where is everyone, anyway?"



"Briefing, I think. There's been a lot of . . . stuff going on here lately."



"You're being evasive, A.J., and that's about as unlike you as I can imagine. And what the hell is wrong with the publicity machine, anyway? I'd have thought by now pics from the Faeries would be on every space site in the country. But instead, aside from a few external shots that don't tell anyone anything, there hasn't been a peep out of you guys for two days."



She suddenly looked concerned. "A.J., the Faeries didn't, like, crash or something? They didn't die on you?" She knew that a disaster at that level would have left a hush for a while, and certainly put a sour look on A.J.'s face for weeks. But . . .



"Go ahead and tell her, A.J."



Jackie turned and saw that Colonel Hathaway was standing in the doorway that led to the central offices. "She's going to be up to her neck in it anyway," he added.



Jackie thought A.J. seemed to relax slightly. So there was something he wasn't allowed to talk about? That explains his tension. Telling A.J. he can't talk is like telling Santa Claus he can't go "Ho, Ho, Ho."



"Well . . . I guess it all starts right there." A.J. pointed to the screens with the slowly moving cave scenery.



"What does that have to do . . . with . . ."



She trailed off as she realized the symbols in the corner of the image denoted material being received from Phobos. From ISM-4, what A.J. called "Faerie Princess Rane."



Rane was traveling down a tunnel inside Phobos. Ariel was apparently sitting somewhere else inside the fast-orbiting Arean moon, serving as a relay for Rane.



"The cavern looks awfully smooth on that side," she began uncertainly, "but I . . ."



Her mouth fell open. "Oh . . . my . . . God."



Looming up on one side of Rane's field of view was a door. There was no other possible word for it. It was half-open, showing clearly the track or groove into which it was meant to fit. Shreds of some unknown material—probably a door seal—were still clinging to one edge.