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By Root 1619 0

away. Santa Maria bore a close resemblance to a boy’s kite, though a kite that measured more than a kilometer on a side. Beyond Santa Maria was the Russian Cosmo-dyne Corporation’s Lebedev, looking like a Maltese cross; the theory, Natasha knew, was that the sails that formed its four fat arms could be used for steering purposes. In contrast, the Australian Woomera was a simple old-fashioned round parachute, though one that was five kilometers in circumference. General Spacecraft’s Arachne, as its name suggested, looked like a spider’s web—and had been built on the same principles, by robot shuttles spiraling out from a central point. Eurospace’s Gossamer was an identical design, though slightly smaller. And the People’s Republic of China’s Sunbeam was a flat ring, with a kilometer-wide hole in the center, spinning slowly so that it was stiffened by centrifugal force. That was an old idea, Natasha knew, but no one had ever made it work well. She was fairly sure the Asian vessel would have trouble when Sunbeam started to turn.

That, of course, would not be for another six hours, after all seven of the solar yachts had moved through the first quarter of their twenty-four-hour geosynchronous orbit. Here, at the beginning of the race, they were all headed directly away from the sun—running, as it were, before the solar wind. Each of them had to make the most of that first lap, before the laws of orbital motion swung them around Earth. When that point was reached, they would suddenly be heading directly back toward the sun. That was when expert pilotage would really count.

Not now, though. Now Natasha had no navigational worries. With the periscope she made a careful examination of her sail, checking each attachment point for the rigging. The shroud lines, narrow bands of unsilvered plastic film, would have been quite invisible had they not been coated with fluorescent dye. Now, in Natasha’s periscope, they were taut lines of colored light, dwindling away for hundreds of meters toward the gigantic span of the sail. Each line had its own little electric windlass, not much bigger than the reel on a fly fisherman’s rod. The windlasses, computer-controlled, were constantly turning, playing lines in or out as the autopilot kept the sail trimmed to the correct angle to the sun.

To Natasha, the play of sunlight on her great mirrored sail was beautiful to watch. The sail undulated in stately oscillations, sending multiple images of the sun marching across it until they faded at the edges. Those oscillations, of course, were not a problem. Such leisurely vibrations were inevitable in so vast and flimsy a structure, and usually quite harmless. Nevertheless, Natasha watched them carefully, alert for signs that they might ultimately build up to the catastrophic waves that were known as “wriggles.” Those could tear a sail to pieces, but her computer reassured her that the present pattern posed no danger.

When she was satisfied that everything was shipshape—and not before!—she allowed herself to access her personal screen. Since everything passed through the command craft before it got to her, and they were careful to pass on only messages from an approved list, she was spared the endless flood of good luck wishes and begging pleas for some favor or other. There was one message from her family, one from Gamini, and one from Joris Vorhulst. No more. She was glad to get them. None required any answer.

Natasha thought for a moment of going to sleep. Of course, the race had just started, but sleeping was something she needed to ration adequately to herself. All the other yachts had two-person crews. They could take turns asleep, but Natasha Subramanian had no one to relieve her.

That had been her own decision, of course—remembering that other solitary sailer, Joshua Slocum, who long ago had single-handedly taken his tiny sailboat, Spray, around the world. If Slocum could do it, she maintained, she could. There was a good reason to try it, too. The performance of a sun yacht depended inversely on the mass it had to move. A second person,