"Well, this makes a change." John sat down on the sofa and stretched his legs out, taking a long swallow of his drink. Grandma's homemade lemonade, from the look of it. He handed a second glass to me. "There you go, Scott. Did I miss anything?"

He might have been watching the football, rather than the return to Earth orbit of Odyssey, the rescued Venus orbiter. Not one of our rescues, just for once. NASA had unveiled their 'fast rescue shuttle' with great alacrity when Odyssey had experienced a massive electrical failure and been unable to correct course as it approached Earth. I'd wondered, briefly and unworthily, whether it had all been a setup.

I had to admit, though, their new craft was a better one for this particular task than Thunderbird Three. Much smaller; much more manoeuvrable. A whole lot less momentum to change when they'd had to reverse course to match velocity with the inbound hurtling Odyssey. They'd docked with it without a hitch.

Even so, what they were attempting now was no picnic. With no way to fire Odyssey's manoeuvring thrusters, the uninspiringly named Rescuer One would be doing all the adjustments required to put Odyssey into a safe orbit. Preferably within spacewalk distance of the space station which now acted as a terminal for all lunar and interplanetary NASA missions.

"I don't see why they don't just take the astronauts off and fire the thing into deep space," Gordon said.

"They'd lose all their samples." John waved vaguely at the screen. "Sealed tanks of Venusian atmosphere. The rover's in a contaminant-free chamber, so they can be sure any microbes they find on it aren't from Earth or the crew."

"You've really checked this one out," Gordon commented.

John looked sideways at him. "If things had gone to plan, I'd be on Odyssey right now, as her science specialist."

"Oh."

He smiled ruefully. "I'm over it. I have a space station of my own now. But I'd sure like to get my hands on some of their raw data."

"You could ask?" I suggested.

This time there was a snort. "After I told them I had no interest in coming back and sitting in mission control? They thought they were being nice to me, Scott. I wanted a desk job about as much as you did. But there wasn't a good way to say no."

"We'll just have Brains hack into it," said Gordon cheerfully. "Hey, what…?"

The picture fizzed and swayed, and for the first time the shot from Rescuer's nose camera varied.

"They're separating," John said. "That isn't supposed to happen." Mild words, but their meaning was serious, and that was all that mattered. John, consummate professional, would have announced the ending of the world in the same tone of voice.

We watched in concerned, frustrated silence as Rescuer and Odyssey pulled further and further apart. There was no way to see what was going on, with no camera shots being broadcast except that one in the nose which showed very little of use. The commentators were apparently clueless that what was going on was horribly wrong, and John rescued the remote and muted them just as Alan's portrait flashed.

"Go ahead, Alan," said Jeff from his desk. He'd claimed to be working, but I was pretty sure he'd been watching Odyssey almost as closely as we had – and doing nothing else since things started to go wrong.

"Odyssey has a problem, Dad."

Gordon rolled his eyes. Jeff, unable to see his face, just said, "We can see that. Have they asked for our help?"

"No. But unless they do something soon, they're going to hit the space station."

"How long?"

"Seven minutes."

John had stood up and headed towards the seat which would take him down to Thunderbird Three. Now he stopped and returned, his face white. I knew what he was thinking. We couldn't get up there in seven minutes. Not even close. There was nothing we could do except watch and wait. And watching didn't do much, because we couldn't see anything except wheeling stars and the plates on Odyssey's hull getting gradually further from the camera lens.

"Alan, how long until you can get a visual?" Jeff asked quietly after three or four minutes of torture.

"Sorry, Father. It's all below the horizon from here. I've been trying to piggyback a video signal off some of their other satellites, but it's all buttoned up tighter than a…a tightly buttoned up thing."

Nobody laughed.

Three minutes later, the whirling stars included glimpses of a cobweb of girders and living pods. John swore, and nobody even commented. I felt too sick to even contemplate what was about to happen. How many people lived up there now? Forty? Fifty? Would they even have had time to suit up? If so, we could get up there and pick at least some of them up. Probably not many, not if they'd scattered in all directions. Regardless of what you see in TV shows, you can't just flit around in space changing direction as you like. It uses an impossible amount of fuel.

Maybe we should have launched anyway. Those seven minutes we'd just wasted could have been life or death for someone.

And then the picture lurched massively. Flames licked at the edges of the screen. The whole station swam into view as Odyssey's side plates disappeared altogether. And finally, someone found a different camera shot to broadcast, and switched to a view from the station just in time to show Rescuer and Odyssey, separated now, peel off to either side of the shot and out of view altogether. The picture remained, steady and clear, showing nothing but stars above and the blue curve of the Earth below.

"Alan?" said Jeff.

"Station's still there, still broadcasting on all standard frequencies. I think they missed it. One moment."

His portrait went blank, and then fizzed into a picture of Odyssey, rolling end over end as it tumbled away.

"They took down some of the security measures when they gave the TV folks access to the camera on the other side of the station," said Alan with obvious pride.

John ignored it. "They'll never stop that tumble. Alan, zoom in. Looks like damage to the engine cowling. That whole side's a mess."

It did indeed look a mess. Black scarring, whole pieces of the edges of two of the three giant cones missing. I could guess what had happened now. Rescuer must have fired her own engines, tearing the two ships apart. Where was the shuttle now?

"We need to launch." John was on his feet again.

"Sit down, son." There was sympathy in Jeff's tone, but also implacable command. "There's nothing we can do."

"I won't leave them there."

I put a hand on John's shoulder. He must know everyone on Odyssey, and not just as casual acquaintances either. They'd trained together for years. But Dad was right.

"They have to ask, John. You know that."

"What if they can't ask?"

"Alan?" Jeff said.

"Stand by."

We waited in silence for what felt like forever.

"Rescuer reports they are unable to assist Odyssey," Alan said, his voice flat. "They're damaged too, but in a stable orbit. They say 'someone else will have to get the guys out of there'."

"That's close enough to 'want help' for me." John turned, challenge in his eyes, and Jeff nodded.

"Go. Take Scott. Assume scenario four."

"You'll have to come get me," Alan said.

"No time."

"Hold on," I said. "What's scenario four?"

John sat down on the transport sofa. "I'll brief you on the way," he said.

I had the feeling I wasn't going to be in charge on this one.

"Scenario four is a NASA training exercise," John said as we sat side by side on our way to Thunderbird Three. "It's associated with a manned craft tumbling out of control into the atmosphere. What you need to do is fire one of the main engines in bursts. Firing just one, it's off-axis thrust, so you can change the angular momentum as well as the speed. The problem is figuring the timing. The atmospheric density is critical, and you can't measure it properly when you're spinning."

I frowned, trying to see what he was getting at. "Aren't there known values for the density?"

"Not to the accuracy we need. So we're going to get up there, sit a couple of hundred yards in front of them, and tell them when to fire the engine. And hopefully it'll slow the spin enough before the ignition systems burn out that they can eject the rescue pod without it getting baseball batted by the tail coming round."

"The calculations can't be much fun?" I asked, as we began the ascent into Three. The engine wasn't off axis by much, and Odyssey's attitude control jets had been out of action ever since its initial problems days earlier.

"Non-trivial. I'll need you to do the flying."

So that was why Alan had suggested picking him up. I resisted the urge to gulp. Sure, I could fly Three perfectly competently. I made a point of practicing on the simulators regularly.

I'd just never done it with three men's lives at stake.

We didn't talk beyond the basic routine interchanges as we prepped for launch. John was in a frantic hurry, or as much of one as John ever did. He'd always been unflappable. This was as worried as I'd ever seen him. I decided not to ask for more details on scenario four. How often people survived it in simulation, for instance. How often John himself had had people survive it, in his practice runs. I knew it had never happened for real. It would have been headline news. Even in my worst periods of denial after NASA had rejected me, I couldn't have missed something like that.

We launched. Acceleration forced me back into my seat, as the engines screamed behind us. I shut my eyes and tried to relax. This sort of acceleration I didn't much like. Fast turns were fine – more than that, they were my life. I did sometimes wonder if I'd have learned to love the inexorable force of orbital boost, had things been different.

I didn't think I'd be loving what Odyssey's crew were going through right now. They were tumbling in all three dimensions, had been for the best part of fifteen minutes now. It would be thirty or more by the time we got up to them. I only hoped they'd be fit to follow John's instructions.

That, I thought, should be a safe question.

"John? How well's the Odyssey crew going to function in that sort of motion?"

He glanced sideways, head still pushed back against the seat. "Nobody's good at it. But they've trained for it. The crew being rescued do scenario four training in a gimbal chair. Sometimes it's dark, or the oxygen level's down a bit, or they wake you up at three in the morning to do it. Everyone hates it. Nobody goes on a mission unless they can get it right consistently."

Well, that was something. I hoped he genuinely believed it, and wasn't just saying it to make me feel better.

The engine note slackened off somewhat, and the acceleration eased. I sat forward, flexing stiff shoulders, and John did the same. Outside, the sky had darkened to almost black.

"I need you to take over now," he said. "Check your board."

I nodded, forcing a relaxation I didn't feel, and tried to persuade myself it was just another simulation. The board was exactly the same, at least. The screen, showing multiple lines, all different colours. Optimum trajectory, projected trajectory, go-below-this-and-die trajectory. John had pre-programmed everything he could, it seemed. From what I could see, I wouldn't have to do a thing until the final jockeying into position just ahead of Odyssey.

"My ship," I said, hands on the controls in the approved manner.

"Your ship." John stopped watching me, and switched his screen to sensor mode.

I deliberately stopped watching him, too. I needed to focus absolutely on this. All sorts of drama would be going on, and my job would be to do the equivalent of flying straight and level. Not to watch and advise.

I made one minor course correction during the next fifteen minutes. John said nothing except to grunt when I announced it. I knew just about enough about the calculations he'd be having to do to be glad that it wasn't me doing them. Even with the computer to assist, it would be tricky.

John had left the last part entirely up to me. Seat-of-the-pants flying, to drop in just ahead of Odyssey while matching speed. That couldn't be programmed in advance, and it was just the sort of flying I liked.

"Prepare for manoeuvring," I announced.

John just nodded, lips moving silently as he checked something in the mass of numbers scrolling up his screen. And I took a deep breath, disengaged the course program, and took control myself.

Three wasn't much like a plane – or even much like One, even though both were rockets. She was far bigger. More like a supertanker than a hydrofoil. I needed to ease her gently into position, not shoot in. Up here, braking was far from trivial. I'd creep past Odyssey at almost the same speed and take the last fraction off as I manoeuvred in front of her. Easy to say. Less easy to do, with just three attitude jets to do the job. Flaps wouldn't have been a whole lot of use in vacuum, and all my instincts were tuned to use them.

John had specified a couple of hundred yards. I failed on that. We were nearer four hundred in front by the time I'd matched speed and trajectory well enough to call it matched. It still wasn't brilliant, but then with Odyssey spinning like a badly thrown boomerang and about to be firing her main engines erratically, it wasn't like I'd finished adjusting our course.

"In position," I told John.

He cleared his throat, and flicked on the radio. "Odyssey, this is International Rescue, do you copy?"

He didn't even sound like my brother. The accent was just subtly different, the phrasing slightly off. I hadn't considered until this moment that the men on that ship would once have known John's voice almost as well their own. They wouldn't recognise this one.

"IR, this is Odyssey. Not sure there's much you can do for us. Don't get too close."

"This is scenario four. Repeat, scenario four. Engine two. Stand by for burn."

"What the…?" Brief pause. "Confirm scenario four. Ready for burn on engine two." He didn't have John's professional detachment – or possibly it had been spun out of him in the previous thirty minutes. Either way, he had to be beyond startled. Even living with three former NASA astronauts, I'd never heard of scenario four. There would be speculation based on International Rescue knowing about it, and using what I presumed was a standard NASA protocol.

I'd worry about that later. Now, I had a job to do.

"Three…two…one…fire!" said John, a sharp snap in his voice. "Two…one…cut! Stand by."

I desperately wanted to look at the screen showing Odyssey behind us. The engine must have fired. It must have cut off again. Had it made any discernable difference to the spin? And how many more times would it fire? The main ignition system would be multiply redundant, of course – but no system could be designed to fire engines that size over and over again. We replaced Three's every time she landed.

We were getting too far ahead, I decided. Creeping up to closer to five hundred yards than four hundred.

"Firing retros," I said quietly, having glanced at John to make sure he wasn't on the verge of speaking. Just a touch on the nose jets, a deceleration of a metre per second or so. Hardly enough to feel, but I didn't want to distract him at a crucial moment.

"Three…two…one…fire!"

The sixth time, "fire!" was followed with, "Odyssey, come in."

"No response from engine two," came over the radio. "She's dead. IR, what's our angular velocity? No, scratch that. We don't have an option. Going for the escape pod. Thanks for trying. Odyssey, over and out."

John clicked the radio mike off and sat back, holding it as if he couldn't bear to put it down and breathing raggedly.

"Will they make it?" Scott asked softly.

"Maybe." He glanced at the numbers on his screen again and then turned that off too. "Three minutes to get to the capsule," he said, apparently to himself. "Another one to run checks. Won't be long now."

"Five to Three," came over the radio in a sudden loud crackle, and we both jumped.

John thumbed the mike he was still clutching. "Go ahead, Alan."

"Rescuer's on its way. Whatever their problem was, they've fixed it. They're requesting we leave it to them."

"Tell them to stay the hell out of the way. Capsule will fire any minute now."

"We'll leave them to pick up the capsule, though," I said. "Save Odyssey's crew from recognising you."

John's face was set. "You know what they'll say, though. The ignition circuits burned out because I made a mistake, and Rescuer saved the day."

"Do we care, when you, I and Odyssey's crew all know that isn't true? And what if we had waited and left it to them? There's significant atmosphere here. Another half an hour of frictional heating? They'd have been in trouble. If Rescuer could even manoeuvre well enough to take up position."

John smiled, just slightly, the corners of his mouth twitching upwards. "Preaching to the choir there, Scott. You're right. And we should get out of here. Our hull temperature's rising. This isn't a good orbit."

But he made no move to set up a new course, and I didn't either. A couple of minutes could make no difference to us. And I did want to see what happened to Odyssey's crew, good or bad, not read a sanitised version in the newspaper tomorrow.

I almost missed the flare round the big square hatch half way down the rocket. I didn't miss the impact with the heavy rocket boosters, twisted metal spinning away into space.

"Oh, no," I heard myself groan.

"It's fine." John's voice shook. "That was the hatch. They're clear. Look."

He manipulated the screen controls, and there was a cylindrical steel box floating away, orange lights flashing top and bottom. I breathed again.

"Rescuer says 'job well done, IR, and we'll take it from here'," Alan reported.

"Possibly they even said it in that order," John muttered, then sighed. "They're safe. That's what matters. Let's go home."

We were most of the way through debrief when Alan's portrait flashed.

"We have a problem," he said without even waiting for the normal pleasantries. "Odyssey isn't breaking up as expected. It's going to hit more or less in one piece."

"Where, Alan?" Jeff asked.

"Best guess is an island in the South Pacific."

"You have to be kidding me!" That was Gordon.

"What? No, not Tracy Island. Somewhere in the southern Cook Islands. Doesn't much matter if it hits land or water, not something that size. It's plenty big enough to cause a tsunami."

"How can it not have burned up?" I asked. Spacecraft had re-entered from a slowly decaying orbit before. Nothing much larger than a football had made it to the surface. Atmospheric friction was a ruthless destroyer of matter.

"Because it was designed not to," John said slowly. "It spent several months dipping in and out of the Venusian atmosphere…which is a whole lot thicker than Earth's. Damn. Damn! How did I not think of that?"

"None of us did, son," said Jeff calmly. "Apparently nobody at NASA did either. Suggestions?"

"Scott shoots it out of the sky," Alan said. "You need to launch now."

I headed for the access to Thunderbird One. We could figure out specifics while I was on the way. Alan, youngest of five brothers, just about never gave orders. When he did, I'd learned to pay attention.

There was no radio chatter as I launched. I hadn't expected it. Being distracted now couldn't speed anything up, and could be disastrous. The radio pinged almost before I'd cleared the pool deck, though.

"Heading two-five-nine," Alan said. "Top speed."

"What's the plan?" I asked, following his instructions. The acceleration wasn't quite up to orbital launch standards, but it wasn't far off. I was going to be stiff tomorrow. Twice in one day was seriously hard work.

"Dad and John are working on it now. I always said we should fit One with a missile launcher, not that popgun. But Two's just not fast enough to get there in time."

"Alan, there's no time for this now," Jeff's voice cut in. "Scott, we think that putting enough holes in Odyssey's thermoresistant skin should start her breaking up. I'm sending you details of possible weak points now."

"Will breaking her up help?"

"Provided you can do it quickly enough. The trajectory of a rocket's very different to the trajectory of a bunch of steel plates."

"Does anyone else know about this? Has anyone else sent planes out?" Am I going to get shot at by someone who can't tell the difference between an interplanetary rocket and a high speed rescue plane?

Alan snorted. "The military's having hysterics. They don't have anything that can get close and everyone's blaming everyone else. It's you or nobody."

No pressure, then. Still, I was happier with this than I had been earlier in the day. One was my baby. One did what I thought – I wasn't at all sure my hands, or the controls, were always involved.

I glanced at the information as it flashed up on my secondary screen. John's best guess for weak points appeared to involve putting as many holes into Odyssey's fuel tanks as possible. It seemed reasonable. There might be vapour in there to ignite, though it was generally something that was designed out as much as possible. Other suggestions were the points where the rocket's profile changed. There would be extra friction there.

I only hoped I had enough ammunition to make a difference. One wasn't a fighter jet, and lead was heavy. I didn't carry much of it, and it was small calibre.

I saw the glow from Odyssey's spinning descent long before I could make out the rocket itself. She was travelling at very nearly One's top speed, trailing black smoke. That must be one heck of a good thermoresistant coating.

And I mustn't get too far behind her, or I'd never catch up. Eyes glued on Odyssey's trajectory, I swung One round as sharply as I could at that speed and dropped in behind her. I had to look for the gunsight control on the right hand side of the console, so rarely did I use it. Then all I could do was calm myself, wait for Odyssey to spin into shot, and fire.

Three of my first five struck home somewhere near the area of the fuel tanks. Not good enough. Steady on that trigger and don't fire unless it's a guaranteed hit. Standard target practice stuff – easy in theory, near-impossible in practice.

Four of the next five, as Odyssey spun back into my sights. Better. No obvious effect, but every hole had to be weakening the structure, just a little.

I tried to ignore our frighteningly quick rate of descent. Already the surface looked just that bit closer, and I'd fired a whole ten shots. I had to force myself to wait; remind myself that shots fired into thin air wouldn't help in the slightest. Five more shots, a little higher up the body of the rocket…

One was in a vertical climb before I'd started to process what I'd seen, engines screaming past maximum and my vision starting to fade from the edges. Something had broken loose and flown off towards me. I'd missed it somehow, fighter pilot reflexes kicking in faster than thought. That could have been very bad indeed.

"Odyssey's starting to break up," I said over the radio as calmly as I could manage. And getting away from me, though I didn't say that. I turned One's nose down and dove after her. Father was going to have my ears when he saw the safety profile on this flight.

This was a better angle than I'd had before. The middle of Odyssey held steady in my sights, and I could see no point in holding back. I pulled the trigger and held it down until the magazine counter flashed red for empty.

Nothing, for a long moment. Then Odyssey simply crumpled, splitting in two around the point I'd been firing at. Debris scattered from the two holes, and then both sides opened like flowers, metal plates glowing red hot now they were unprotected from the friction of their fall, peeling off and falling away, to be followed by the next.

"She's gone," I said into the radio, watching the remnants of the Venus expedition burn to slag. Little or nothing would make it down to the surface, and what did would fall well short of land. I'd done it.

But it sure felt like failure.

"So where's Gordon?" I asked when I came late into breakfast, stiff from too much pulling g despite a hot soak last night and another one this morning. I'd expected to meet him here to discuss extra simulator training. I was reasonably sure he wouldn't have been able to do what I had in Three yesterday, and with Virgil away he was next on the depth chart after me.

"He said he had tape to watch," said John, helping himself to toast.

"Tape? Gordon?"

John shrugged. "That's what he said. I didn't ask."

"Ask what?" The man himself came into the kitchen, and John put a protective hand over his plate.

"Make your own toast, Gordon. Humanity just lost ten years of work and I'm not in the mood. Ask you what tape you wanted to watch."

"Oh, just an old rescue," he said vaguely. "Say, Scott, would you mind if I took Four out today? Simulators tomorrow, I promise."

"Something wrong?"

"No, not wrong. I just need to finish testing some sensor modifications."

Our own specialities came before the depth chart, always had. I nodded. "Just check with Father."

I didn't think anything of it. Not even when he wasn't back at lunch. Gordon was nothing if not thorough – he'd be testing every last possible combination and variation of whatever these sensor modifications were.

But at ten past three I wandered out to the pool deck, sipping lemonade – it was stupidly hot today, even for Tracy Island – and Gordon wasn't in the pool. He was always in the pool then. Three o'clock, for twenty minutes against the endless current. The computer charted his effective distance. It was increasing, gradually but steadily.

Virgil had asked him last week where it would put him in the world standings, and Gordon had shaken his head.

"Haven't looked; don't plan to. One Olympic gold's enough."

But he still competed against himself every day without fail. So where was he today? Not back yet? Really? Seven hours was a long time for a sensor test.

I was about to go and check when he'd last called in when I heard footsteps from behind. I turned to see Gordon, looking inordinately pleased with himself, just reaching the top of the steps up to the pool deck.

"Is John around?" he asked as he reached me.

"Inside, I think."

"Can you fetch him? I have something to show you both."

Well, it didn't sound like a prank. If Gordon wanted to play mysterious, I'd indulge him. I was pretty sure Gordon had more sense than to tease John today, with the loss of everything Odyssey had brought back from Venus clearly weighing on his mind.

John put down his magazine with a sigh. "I guess I could use a walk. Sensor problem? That's more Virgil's area than mine."

"He didn't say."

He continued not saying as we followed him down the steps to the runway. Four wasn't sitting on the runway, which reassured me that any malfunction couldn't be too dire. Satellite photos were always a worry.

Four was sitting just inside the hangar, with no obvious sign of problems. Gordon went straight to the hatch, reached inside, and pulled out a battered, scorched metal tin.

"Please tell me this isn't leftover powdered soup."

He handed it to John, who took it with disbelief written all over his face.

"No, it's an Odyssey sample container. And it looks like the seal's intact. Gordon, where did you get this?"

"I found it. While I was testing the sensors over near the Cook Islands. Want to see the others?"

"Others?" John was through the hatch almost before I saw him move, and there was a whoop of joy from inside.

"You should have told us what you were doing," I said softly to Gordon.

"I did tell you what I was doing. If everything was contaminated, John didn't need to know where I'd gone. He was beating himself up over it enough already."

"And wasn't the crash site crawling with NASA investigators?"

"Sure it was, on the surface and in the shallows. Ships, subs, helicopters, all broadcasting in no uncertain terms that sightseers aren't welcome. I never went anywhere near them. Look closely at your tape, and you'll see something falling when Odyssey first started to split. That's what I went after. This lot were in deep water, and a long way from the main wreckage. They'd never have found them. Like I said, a good test of the new sensors."

He locked eyes with me, daring me to tell him it had been an unnecessary risk, and I didn't have the heart to do so. Gordon wasn't reckless. If he'd thought he might be caught, he simply wouldn't have gone.

"True." I raised my voice as John appeared in the hatch, arms full of canisters in various states of crumple. "That looks good. Well done, Gordo."

"How are we going to explain these?" John asked.

"Explain them?" I asked.

"We can't exactly take them to NASA and tell them how we came to find them."

"I thought they could all wash up on the beach in a few days," Gordon said. "I mean, we get all sorts of junk washed up here. Confluence of currents. It's the reason the island hasn't washed away."

"They'd never have drifted this far." John had lined his prizes up and was considering them like a child with his Christmas chocolate.

"I couldn't be expected to know that. Surfed here on a bit of rocket or something. They were wrapped up in some old net and a bit of plastic which might have caught the wind and kept it airborne. Of course, I'm a dumb submarine jockey who'd never think to keep anything like that."

"You're a genius." John gave the canisters a last regretful pat. "Put them somewhere before I run out of self-control and open one."

"You're not the only person tempted," I said. I'd never been the pure scientist John was…but samples from Venus? That would have been special.

"Maybe not. I guess they'll publish the results some day. Maybe I can even go see them in a museum."

He headed for the hangar door, and I let him go. John sounded a whole lot happier than he had done since Odyssey had first got into difficulties. It was always difficult when your old and new lives collided. We all knew that.

"I'll tuck them in Four for a few days," Gordon said. "Then I can find them on the beach. I'd leave it longer than that, but we don't want some NASA supergenius figuring out they haven't been in the water nearly as long as we say they have, and they're trashed bad enough that I don't dare actually leave them in the water. And then there's one more thing I want to show you."

"John's gone."

"No, just you, until next week."

I frowned, and Gordon grinned, even more delighted than before. "I found six canisters, not five. But the sixth one's split. Contaminated as hell and no use to NASA, but I thought John might like a little piece of Venus for his birthday."

"You're kidding!"

"Nope." He opened a side panel on Four and extracted a canister so mangled that if I hadn't seen the others I'd never have guessed what it was. A bulging split ran from top to bottom right through what was left of the NASA symbol, and through it I could see corners of yellow-stained greyish rock.

Part of Venus, right here.

"Yes, I think John might like that," I said simply.

"Good." Gordon pulled a bag from his pocket, dropped the canister in it, and added a handful of empty rationpacks on the top. "Aren't you going to chew me out?"

"I guess I should. Next time you decide to test near the Cook Islands, tell me first, okay?"

Gordon laughed. "You're getting soft."

"Don't count on it lasting." I sighed, looking at that tiny sample of rock. "The astronauts are fine, some of their work was saved, and Odyssey didn't land on anyone. We should be happy with that."

We headed back up to the house, and I started to feel better. Just a few samples instead of a whole rocketload…but it was something. There might be no Tracys in NASA any more, but we'd made more of a contribution to the Odyssey expedition than they'd ever know.