Within a few minutes Ivy had matched orbits, maneuvered the Flivver into the right attitude, and driven it straight onto the capsule’s docking port.
“Got a positive mate,” Dinah remarked. She activated a valve that flooded the little space between the Flivver’s hatch and the capsule’s with air. “Here goes nothing.”
She opened the Flivver’s hatch. She was now looking at the outside of the capsule’s hatch, which, until a few seconds earlier, had been exposed to space.
A strange detail: taped to the aluminum hatch was an ordinary sheet of 8? x 11 inch North American printer paper. On this had been printed a color image: a yellow ring encircling a blue disk lined with stars. Spread-eagled on its center, an eagle with a red-and-white-striped shield. The printer that had spat this thing out had been low on cyan ink and so the image was strangely banded and discolored. Exposure to space hadn’t done it any favors either.
Even though the United States had only ceased to exist a few minutes earlier—declared extinct by Markus under the authority granted him by the Cloud Ark Constitution—this image already seemed as old and quaint to Dinah as a pilgrim or a musketeer.
She heard a mechanism activating on the other side of it.
“It’s aliiiive!” she called. Then, in spite of this effort at jocularity, she held her breath.
The hatch swung open to reveal a haggard, space-bloated, sickly green face, hair floating around it in disarray. But the eyes in that face were as cold and hard as ever, and they were fixed on Dinah.
“Dinah,” the woman said. It was her voice, more than her face, that Dinah recognized. “Even in these tragic circumstances, what a relief to see a familiar face.”
“Madam Pres—” Dinah began. Then she caught herself. “Julia.”
Julia Bliss Flaherty looked as if she didn’t appreciate one bit being addressed that way.
Ivy was using the thrusters quite a bit. Now that the Flivver, the capsule, and the X-37 were all joined together mechanically into a single object, it was possible—though awkward—to maneuver them into sync with the Cloud Ark and clean up all of that Parambulator red. There was some lurching. Julia was getting knocked around a little, learning she had to keep a grip on those handles. Random stuff, including some filled barf bags and a large number of what looked like red marbles, were careering around inside her tiny capsule. Looking through it during a moment when Julia had been flung to one side, Dinah saw a man floating in the far end of the capsule. He was bloody, and he was kind of floppy too. He was dressed in the remains of a navy-blue suit. He was not the ex–First Gentleman.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” Dinah said.
“Who the hell is that?” Ivy was shouting. “Markus wants to know if we have survivors.”
“My loss?” Julia asked.
“Your husband,” Dinah said.
“He took the pill,” Julia announced, “in the limo.”
“Oh my god.”
“I’ll need your help getting Mr. Starling squared away. He’s too big for me to move.”
“No, he isn’t,” Dinah said.
“I beg your pardon?” Julia said sharply.
“You’re in zero gee,” Dinah pointed out. “So he’s not too big for you to move. But I can still help you if you want.”
“If you would be so kind,” Julia said. She got a hand over the rim of the hatch while reaching out with the other for a shoulder bag, and looked expectantly at Dinah, who was still blocking her path.
Dinah looked at the back of Ivy’s head. “Julia Bliss Flaherty requests permission to come aboard.”
Julia let out a hiss of exasperation.
“Granted,” Ivy said.
“One casualty on the way too,” Dinah said, and cleared out of Julia’s way.
Julia launched herself through the hatch too hard, flew across the Flivver, and slammed into the far side of it elbow and shoulder first. “Augh!” she cried. But Dinah didn’t think she was hurt, and so she pushed through into the capsule. One of those red marbles was drifting toward her face and she reached out with a hand to brush it away before realizing that it was blood.
Pete Starling was suffering from a number of lacerations, as if he’d been in a stick fight or a car crash. He was groggy, and gagging on blood—probably from a broken nose—which he would cough out explosively when it got in the way of his breathing. Dinah grasped the lapel of his jacket, trying to find a usable handhold. When she pulled on it, the front of the coat came away from Starling’s chest for a moment, revealing an empty shoulder holster.