Paul and Carmen were already there. They turned and looked at me without saying anything.

“Let me guess,” I said. “You just got a message that you’re not supposed to share.”

“From a person who died twenty- five years ago.” Paul tossed me a squeeze bottle with brown liquid. “I think we better do as he says.”

Scotch flavor, pretty harsh. “Yeah.” I coughed. “Almost a day to spare.”

“If the lander works, and Earth doesn’t screw things up.”

I wished there were some way to pour a drink over ice in zero gee. “What if they say they can’t be ready by that time?”

“Hm. I’ve landed these things on gravel beds on Mars and the lunar regolith, with no ground support. If it’s working, I can find someplace flat. But then we’d have to explain why we left early.”

“Life-support emergency,” Carmen said, “or a medical emergency. Hard to fake.”

Snowbird drifted over. “A Martian medical emergency. There is probably no one on Earth who could say I wasn’t sick.” Upside down, she bumped against the couch and righted herself. “In fact, I probably will be, with all the gravity and oxygen. California heat.”

At turnaround we’d suggested leaving her on Little Mars, and it was the closest we’d ever seen her come to losing her temper. She was going to be the first Martian to swim in an ocean, or die trying!

Dustin and Elza joined us, then Meryl.

“Maybe we should tell people,” Meryl said. “They’re obviously planning something dramatically destructive, in space.”

Carmen disagreed vigorously. “The last time we broke a promise of secrecy, the Others almost destroyed the planet in retribution. And we’ve seen what they did to their own Home, because it posed a threat.”

“Putting two and two together,” I said, “or one and one . . . I assume they’ve learned about the fleet, and are going to destroy it. Within Moonboy’s time frame.”

“We could save some of them,” Meryl said.

Paul pointed out that we had no idea of how many they were. “If they actually did build the fleet up to the planned thousand strong, and they’re in a defensive array between the Earth and the Moon . . .”

“If they all suddenly withdraw,” I said, “the Others will know we betrayed them. And strike immediately.” If the fleet are warriors, I did not say, warriors have to be ready to die.

Paul shook his head slowly. “The logistical problem. Landing a thousand ships would be impossible if you had a week. Twenty hours?”

“And I wonder how many people are in orbit who aren’t in fleet ships,” Carmen said. “Little Mars, Little Earth, the Hilton, all those new structures. Surely hundreds, at least.”

“Maybe they wouldn’t be in danger,” Meryl said. “Not being part of the fleet.”