Forty Thousand in Gehenna by C. J. Cherryh Page B

front of him and looked at the transmitted image, trying to milk more detail from it than the vid was giving them yet. The second of six planets, a great deal blue and a great deal white, and otherwise brown with vast deserts, sparsely patched with green. Not quite as green as Cyteen. But similar. The image hazed in his eyes as he thought not of where he was going, but of places he had been…and of Jean, buried back home; and what she would say, when they had been like Beaumont and Davies, travelling together. Even the war had not stopped that. She had been there. With him. There existed that faint far thought in his mind that he had committed some kind of desertion, not a great one, but at least a small one, that he had hoped for happiness coming here, for something more to do. He left her there, and there was no one to tend her grave and no one who would care. That had seemed such a small thing—go on, she would say, with that characteristic wave of her hand when he hung his thoughts on trivialities. Go on, with that crisp decisiveness in her voice that had sometimes annoyed him and sometimes been so dear: Lord, Jamie, what’s a point in all of that?
    Something had gone out of him since Jean was gone: the edge that had been important when he was younger, perhaps; or the quickness that crackle in Jean’s voice had set into him; or the confidence—that she was there, to back him and to second guess him.
    Go on, he could hear her saying, when he pulled out of Cyteen; when he took the assignment; and now—go on, when it came down to permanency here.
    Go on—when it came to the most important assignment of his life, and no Jean to tell it to. It all meant very little against that measure. For the smallest evening with her face looking back at him—he would trade anything to have that back. But there were no takers. And more—he knew what lived down there, that it was not Cyteen, however homelike it looked from orbit.
    The light over the door flashed, someone seeking entry. He reached across to the console and pushed the button—“Ada,” he said curiously as she came in.
    “Ah, you’ve got it,” she murmured, indicating the screen. “I wanted to make sure you were awake.”
    “No chance I’d miss it. I’d guess the lounge has it too.”
    “You couldn’t fit another body in there. I’m going down to 30; the officers are at the screen down there.”
    “I’ll come down when the vid gets more detail.”
    “Right.”
    She went her way. Bob Davies would be down there. Jealousy touched him, slight and shameful. There would be Gallin and Sedgewick and Dean and Chiles; and the rest of the mission…
    One horizon, one site for years ahead. Blueskyed. Grounded forever. That was what it came to. And whatever private misgivings anyone had now, it was too late.
    Look at that, he could imagine Jean saying. And: Don’t take stupid chances, Jamie.
    Don’t you, he would say.
    He looked back at the image, at the bluegreen world that was not home at all. The whole thing was a stupid chance. An ambition which Jean had never shared.
    “Col. Conn,” the com said, Mary Engles’ voice. “Are you there, colonel?”
    He acknowledged, a flick of the key. “Captain.”
    “We’ve got a fix on the landing site coming up.”
    A shiver went over his skin. “What do you reckon in schedules?”
    “We’re going to ride here one more day and do mapping and data confirmation before we let you out down there. You’ll want that time to order your sequence of drop. I’ll be feeding you the shuttle passenger slots, and you fill them up at your own discretion. The equipment drop is all standard procedure with us, and we’ve got all that down as routine. You handle your own people according to your own preferences. You will need some of the construction personnel in your initial drop. I’d like to ask you to stay on board until the final load. In case of questions.”
    “Good enough. I’ll wait your printout.”
    “We have