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you can manage alone, Stairnon. I have the utmost confidence in you,”
Calla said quietly.
    “I
don’t think we have to tell either of you how important this is,” Koh added, “and
that we wouldn’t ask you, D’Omaha, if there were any other way. An elixir
garden with low yield won’t hold much attraction for our traitor. We’ve given
Calla absolute authority for stopping the traitor; she thinks you can help and
I agree with her. We’ve gone too far to refuse her now.”
    Macduhi
was looking at him expectantly, no doubt eager to have him out of her way at
last. He looked away from her, away from all of them to stare at the frozen falls.
Snowflakes were coming down again, melting on contact with the transparent
wall. Lives like Stairnon’s were so ephemeral. He’d be downtime, time dilation
favoring him in relation to her, and he’d be taking elixir, as well. He might
just as well be frozen in time while Stairnon . . .
    D’Omaha
shook his head. “I could be gone for years,” he said. He looked at Stairnon,
her expression stoic, though she must know it would be too many years for her.
He couldn’t bear the thought of never seeing her again. “I must . . .”
    “.
. . do it, of course,” Stairnon broke in. “And of course I must go with you.”
    “We’ve
been friends for too long for me to mince words with you,” Calla said to Stairnon.
“It’s an outback, downtime world that isn’t even a frontier world. Nothing but
a few hundred rangers. They live in caves, have to use stellerators to go
outside. It’s much too harsh for you.”
    “Nonsense.
If they’re a ranger station, they have a full clinic. I will go with D’Omaha.”
    “But
my dear Stairnon,” Bentham said. “What of the subterfuge here? We do need you.
We’re counting on that steel you hide under your mild demeanor.”
    Stairnon’s
voice became gentle. The effect was to still everyone and her words came across
with unmistakable clarity. “Please understand that I’m going with D’Omaha.
There’s no good reason for me not to go, at least, there won’t be once there is
no longer an Aquae Solis to draw attention.”
    The
decemviri were visibly shocked. Only Calla nodded thoughtfully. D’Omaha knew
all of them realized they couldn’t simply close down Aquae Solis. Stairnon knew
it, too. No one said what was really on their minds, but all of them looked at
Marmion, chief of the perfection engineers, to see if it could be done. Marmion
sighed and nodded.
    Only
Macduhi looked pleased. She wouldn’t miss Aquae Solis, nor D’Omaha and Stairnon.
“I’m curious about your plans for the rangers on Mutare,” she said to Calla. “Will
you take over the governorship?”
    Calla
shook her head. “I won’t have time to run the planet. There will be too much
else to do. I’ll leave the ranger governor in charge.”
    “There’s
a great deal of potential conflict in that,” Macduhi said. “A ranger-governor
is the supreme authority.”
    Calla
just smiled. “I outrank him.”
    “But
not . . .”
    “I
don’t mean to be rude, Decemvir Macduhi, but I’ve been given complete authority
to run the operation my way. I have my superiors’ absolute confidence.” She
gestured to the decemviri at the table. “They have given me their complete
cooperation in organizing the mission in a very short period of time. As much
as possible, I’ve briefed Koh. There isn’t time to go through another entire
briefing before I must leave.”
    “I
respect their confidence, but I’m not sure I share it. There’s the matter of
this downtime ranger-governor. Evaluations can’t be very current; he might be a
problem.”
    “Not
to me. I knew Anwar Jason D’Estelle quite well.”
    “Really?”
D’Omaha said. It was news to him.
    “Really,”
Calla said, her accompanying look cutting off further questions, at least for
now. D’Omaha instantly decided to read this Anwar Jason D’Estelle’s personnel
records thoroughly, and Calla’s, too.