Soloman squared his shoulders and walked forward toward the pair of Bynars. He had spent most of the night reflecting on his discussion with Dr. Lense. He was determined to find a way to make the situation work, and he would not allow himself to get the worse end of the bargain.

As the two Bynars stared at him through baleful eyes, he spoke. “Reflecting on the events of yesterday’s trial, it occurs to me that if we create a three-way datalink, we might be able to sift through the data more quickly and accurately.”

“You want us to—”

“—allow you to—”

“—link with us?” The looks on their faces had now switched from contempt to incredulity.

“We think that’s a great idea.” A voice from behind Soloman forced all three Bynars to look to the side. It was Fabian Stevens, with a pair of the regular Ishtar Station scientists. “Several of us discussed that option earlier, and we believe that Soloman may be on to something.”

“It is possible for the three of you to link, isn’t it?” asked a sallow-skinned female scientist.

“It is—”

“—theoretically possible—”

“—but hardly an—”

“—optimal situation.”

“What is optimal in our situation?” the woman asked with a smile. “Why don’t you guys try it for this simulation and see if it works?”

Soloman looked over at his fellow Bynars, and saw them opening and closing their mouths like fish stranded on a beach. Finally, 1011 said, “We will attempt it—”

“—this once, but we—”

“—do not expect it to—

“—be a success.”

Minutes later, the holodeck simulation began again, with most of the same scientists, technicians, and engineers in the same places they had occupied the previous day. Soloman and the two Bynars synchronized the signals to the interfaces on the sides of their heads and the data buffers they carried on their belts.

The high-speed multiplex language of the Bynars suddenly filled his senses in every fashion, jolting Soloman into a reality from which he had been removed for far too long. The code-language used by 1011 and 1110 began as a low-pitched whine, and Soloman began to speak back to them.

As they talked, numbers scrolled on viewscreens in front of them. Not only were they keeping track of the columns directly in their sight, but the linked-mind synchronization meant that a residual sense of the columns being studied by the other two Bynars maintained a palpable presence in the consciousness of each.

Soloman had not spoken like this—had not shared data in this fashion—since before 111 had died. The act had never seemed so intimate before, but perhaps that was because as an adult, he had never linked with anyone other than his bond-mate. Now, the linkage seemed not only intimate, but also euphoric. The information poured in a torrent from the computer screens to their eyes to their brains to each other to their mouths to their ears to their brains…

He had not noticed the higher pitch that 1011’s and 1110’s chatter had reached until he felt the connections being severed. One by one, faster and faster, he was being blocked. His mind raced to find an entrance, but like a dam constructed midstream in a river, the paired Bynars were now methodically—and quickly—obstructing him. The revulsion they felt at his presence in their link was so strong it almost appeared as a color; not a vibrant bright or dark, but a swirling, muddy, grayed tone.

Soloman spoke to them in their language, trying to impress upon them the need to cooperate, but it was too late. He felt his ejection from the link like a physical blow. Indeed, his body reacted as if it had been shoved, and Soloman fell backward, his arms pin-wheeling as he fell to the deck.

His mind still reeling from his expulsion, Soloman became aware that the holodeck simulation had been halted once again. And Dr. Saadya did not look happy as his gaze settled on all three Bynars.

*   *   *

Domenica Corsi was no happier about the da Vinci crew’s involvement in the terraforming project now than she had been when Captain Gold and his staff had first discussed it. She hadn’t expressed it out loud—though she and Stevens had discussed it late last night—but she didn’t feel that altering Venus to support terrestrial life was a priority that the Federation should be expending time and energy toward. As intriguing as Project Ishtar was, thousands of M-class planets already existed, as well as countless other N-and K-class worlds that could be terraformed with far greater ease than this one.

Stevens had countered her concerns by noting that the proximity of Venus to Earth was clearly a large part of the reason behind Saadya’s efforts. Fabian’s explanation accounted for why Mars hadn’t been completely terraformed before Venus, if only in an emotional way; Mars was the god of war, and that world had always been called “the angry red planet.” Stevens had argued that the romance of Venus—the goddess of love—probably played an unconscious role in all the decision making.

Of course, it was fairly common knowledge that it had been the discovery of native Martian microbes in the twenty-first century—and not romantic notions of gods and goddesses—that had jumped Venus to the head of the terraforming line. Even I know that, Corsi thought, smiling just a little. Fabe may have the tactical instincts of Garth of Izar and the soul of a poet, but what he doesn’t know about planetology could fill a library.

But whatever her personal feelings and misgivings, Corsi knew she had an assignment to fulfill. After the second test run had failed earlier today, she had decided to watch the next simulation from Ishtar Station’s holodeck, instead of just looking over the data after it was collected. She wasn’t the only da Vinci crew member here either; Fabian, Captain Gold, and Dr. Lense were also present, stationed throughout the room and observing discreetly over various shoulders.

Fabian approached Corsi and spoke in a low tone. “So, what do you think?”

“I think Saadya’s done the best he can with what he’s got,” Corsi admitted. “But I still have to question the need in the first place.” Under her breath, she quietly added, “To tell you the truth, I’m also pretty much at a loss to understand most of the theoretical science they’re using, too. Weapons I know, and I even get the force-field applications they’re using. But this kind of planetary science is way out of my specialty.” She offered a wry smile, and added, “I mean, what do I shoot if something goes wrong?”

Stevens chuckled. “You got me there. But somehow I don’t think weapons fire is going to help much if the atmosphere suddenly decides it doesn’t want to be repositioned.”

Corsi’s eyebrow rose, and she nodded slowly. Something had been nagging at the back of her mind, and it had finally crystallized. Looking across the room, she saw Dr. Saadya and waved him over.

“I have a concern, Doctor,” she said.

“Well, now’s the time to voice it,” he said, obviously feigning an air of conviviality. She could tell he was hiding a tremendous amount of stress. Or attempting to hide it.

“You’re using the linked force fields to push the atmosphere upward, but asymmetrically, correct?”

He nodded. “Yes. Pushing the gases into space on the night side of Venus will not allow them to dissipate. So, we are forcing them to flow toward the sunlit side, where the heat will help burn them off. The overall shape of the combined force fields will be similar to that of a pear.”

“So, the stress from the atmospheric pressure will be greatest on the sunlit side, under the apex of the wide part of the pear?”

Saadya smiled. “Exactly. The strain of the dataloads being carried by the dayside ground stations, atmospheric probes, and force-field relays will also be greatest.”

Corsi nodded slowly. “So, once you start the process, it’s all or nothing, right?”

“That’s what all these simulations are for. If it doesn’t go smoothly, we risk the destruction of some of the surface stations, almost as if the atmosphere were a tidal wave crashing down.” Saadya looked around the room, beaming. His gaze stopped for a moment on the Bynars. The pair was now working at one area, while Soloman was set up nearby at a similar station. Assisting, he had told her, with the Bynar pair’s dataloads in a “merely superhuman” capacity, rather than trying once again to engage in a three-way link with them.

“With luck,” Saadya said, “this will be the final simulation.”

“Have you planned a retreat?” Corsi asked.

“Excuse me?” Saadya looked momentarily bewildered.

“If there is a problem, do you have any way to reverse the procedure safely during the blow-off?”

Now Saadya blanched. “Reverse it? Not precisely, no.”

“Well, I think it would be a good idea to run some simulations for that possibility,” Corsi said, noting from the corner of her eye that Stevens was nodding.

Saadya regarded her for a moment, silently. Then, with a curt nod, he said, “Yes, well, thank you for that bit of advice, Security Chief Corsi. But I think I’ll take it up with the engineers if we can’t perfect our calculations on this run. In the meantime, I prefer to look at this project somewhat more positively than you do, rather than with a defeatist attitude.” He began to turn away. “If you’ll excuse me, Commander, I think we’re ready to begin.”

Corsi watched him walk away toward some of his technicians. She turned to Stevens, and in a low voice said, “That could be a big problem. If he hasn’t built in enough margin for error, he’d better hope there aren’t any more errors. Otherwise, we just might find ourselves trying to run from that tidal wave.”

*   *   *

Perfection, Saadya thought forty-five minutes later, as a cheer rang out across Ishtar Station’s holodeck. This time the simulation had not only gone without a hitch, it had also moved the bulk of the holographic Venusian atmosphere into space with minimal strain on either the force-field network or the ground station shielding. And it had done so with vast amounts of power to spare.

As his technicians cheered, hugged, and mobbed each other happily, Saadya scanned the room. Catching the eye of the dour security officer he had spoken with earlier, he gave her a large grin, and an exaggerated thumbs-up sign just as someone popped a champagne bottle.

Corsi smiled back politely as glasses clinked and the spontaneous cheers, applause, and embraces continued. After the demonstration he had just delivered, surely even the hard-nosed Lieutenant Commander Corsi had to be a believer now.

Tomorrow, his work here—the real, nonvirtual work—would prove just as successful as had today’s demonstration. And he would enter the history books as the man who tamed Venus.