She hadn't changed either, and this time he was glad of it. She was
still slim and young, her hair a reddish gold, her eyes gray-green. She
was dressed with typical casualness: comfortable boots, dark slacks and
sweater that outlined her trim figure, and a light green scarf for a
touch of color. Outwardly, at least, she seemed cheerful.
"Come on," she said, "I've got a buggy in the parking area. I wanted to
get a few more of the old gang to come out and meet you, but there's
not many of them left, and they're all pretty busy...." Her voice
trailed off.
"I didn't expect a brass band and a key to the city," Lee said. Then he
added, "You're pretty gay for a female scientist," he said.
"I'm always gay when I meet old friends again."
He said nothing.
"I wish you'd cheer up," Elaine coaxed.
"I will; give me time."
* * * * *
They entered the parking building and got into a bubble-top car. Elaine
gunned it to life, and they slid out of the near-empty parking area,
through the pressure doors, and into Titan's unbreathable atmosphere.
"Have you been here straight through since I left?" he asked.
"No. I spent about eighteen months on Venus, slushing through the
swamps in search of ruins that couldn't possibly have survived a
century in that climate."
"And?"
"That's it," she said, shrugging. "Something ventured but nothing
found. So I asked to be returned here."
"It's got you, too, hasn't it?"
Her face became serious for the first time. "Certainly it's got me.
It's got all of us. Do you think we'd stay out here otherwise?"
"Anything new turned up?"
Elaine shook her head. "Nothing you haven't seen in the reports. Which
means nothing, really."
He lapsed into silence and watched the frozen landscape slide by as
the car raced along Titan's only highway. They crossed a bleak, frozen
plain, bluish-white in the dim twilight from the distant Sun. The stars
twinkling in the dark sky overhead made the barren scene look even
colder. The road climbed across a row of hills, and as they made a turn
around the highest bluff, Saturn came into view.
No matter how many times Lee had seen the planet, it had always
thrilled him. Now, five years later, it was still an experience.
Three times larger than the full moon as seen from Earth, daubed
with brilliant yellow, red and orange stripes, and circled about its
middle by the impossible-looking rings, Saturn hung fat and low on the
horizon, casting shadows stronger than the Sun's.
"It's a compensation, isn't it?" Elaine said.
Soon they were down on the plain again, but now it was a shattered,
broken expanse of jagged rock and ice. A greenish methane cloud drifted
over the face of Saturn, and Lee finally turned his eyes away.
"You can see the towers from here," Elaine reminded him.
"I know," he said. He could not make out any detail, but there they
were, just as they had been for--how long? Ten thousand years? A
hundred thousand? Five towers jutting straight up from the bleak plain,
clustered around a central, taller tower.
"Is the machinery still running?" he asked, pointlessly.
"Of course."
"There was some talk a year or so back about trying to stop it."