Falling Free (14 page)

So long a time, sighed Claire.

No, no, delay is our friend. The little ones grow older every day. By the time the legal case goes through, you'll all be ready. Go as a group—hire out—find work—even GalacTech wouldn't be so bad as an employer, if you were citizens and regular employees, with all the legal protections. Maybe even the Spacer's Union would take you in, though that might constrain—well, I'm not sure. If they don't perceive you as a threat . . . anyway, something can be worked out. But you've got to hang on! Promise me?

Silver breathed again when Claire nodded slowly. She drew Claire away to the first aid kit on the wall, to apply antisepts and plastic bandages to her torn fingernails, and wipe the blood from her bruised face.

There. There. Better...

Leo meanwhile restored the airlock control to its original working order, then drifted over to them. All right now? He turned his face to Silver.I s she going to be all right?

Silver could not help glowering. As all right as any of us . . . it's not fair! she burst out. This is my home, but it's beginning to feel like an overpressurized oxy bottle. Everybody's upset, all the quaddies, about Tony and Claire. There hasn't been anything like this since Jamie was killed in that awful pusher accident.

But this—this was
on purpose.
If they'd do that to Tony, who was so good, what about—about me?

Any of us? What's going to happen next?

I don't know. Leo shook his head grimly. But I'm pretty sure the idyll is over. This is only the beginning.

But what will we do? What can we do?

Well—don't panic. And don't despair. Especially don't despair—

The airsealdoors at the end of the module slid open, and the downsider hydroponics supervisor's voice
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lilted in. Girls? We got the seed delivery on the shuttle after all—is that grow-tube ready yet?

Leo twitched, but turned back one last time before hastening away,to grasp a hand of each quaddie with determined pressure. It's just an old saying, but I know it's true from personal experience. Chance favors the prepared mind. So stay strong—111 get back to you . .. h e escaped past the hydroponics supervisor with an elaborately casual yawn, as if he'd merely stopped in toki bbitz a moment upon the work in progress.

Silver's stomach churned as she watched Claire fearfully. Claire sniffled, and turned hurriedly away to busy herself with the grow tube,hiding her face from their supervisor. Silver shivered with relief. All right for now.

The churning in Silver's stomach was slowly replaced by something hot and unfamiliar, filling it, crowding out the fear.
How dare they do this to he
r—t
o m
e—t
o us? They have no right, no right, no right. . .

.

Rage made her head pound, but it was better than the knotting fear. There was almost an exultation in it.

The expression Silver bent her head to conceal from the supervisor was a small, fierce frown.

The nutrition assistant, a quaddie girl of perhaps thirteen, handed Leo's lunch tray to him through the serving window without her usual bright smile. When Leo smiled and said Thank you, the responding upward twitch of her mouth was mechanical, and fell away instantly. Leo wondered in what scrambled form the story of Claire's and Tony's downside disaster of the previous week had reached her ears. Not that the correct facts weren't distressing enough. The whole Habitat seemed plunged into an atmosphere of wary dismay.

Leo felt a flash of horrible weariness of the quaddies and their everlasting troubles. He shied away from a collection of his students eating their lunches near the serving window, though they waved to him with assorted hands, and instead floated down the module until he saw a vacant space to velcrohis tray next to somebody with legs. By the time Leo realized the legged person was the supply shuttle captain, Durrance

,it was too late to retreat.

But Durrance's greeting grunt was without animosity. Evidently he did not, unlike some others Leo could name, hold the engineer obscurely responsible for his student Tony's spectacular fiasco. Leo hooked his feet into the straps to free his hands to attack his meal, returned the grunt, and sucked hot coffee from his squeeze bulb. There wasn't enough coffee in the universe to dissolve his dilemmas.

Durrance, it appeared, was even in the mood for polite conversation. You going to be taking your downside leave soon?

Soon... In about a week, Leo realized with a start. Time was getting away from him, like everything else around here. What's Rodeo like?

Dull. Durrance spooned some sort of vegetable pudding into his mouth.

Ah. Leo glanced around. Is Ti with you?

Durrance snorted. Not likely. He's downside, on ice. He's appealing.A twisted grimace and raised eyebrows pointed up the double meaning. Not, you understand, from my point of view. I got a reprimand on my record because of that damn tadpole. If it had been his first screw-up, he might have been able to duck getting fired, but now I don't think he has a chance.Your Van Atta wants his pelt riveted to the
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airlock doors.

He's not
my
Van Atta,Leo denied strenously. If he was, I'd trade him for a dog—

—and shoot the dog, finished Durrance. A grin twitched his mouth. Van Atta. That's all right. If the rumor I heard is true, he may not have so long to strut either.

Ah? Leo's ears pricked hopefully.

I was talking yesterday to the Jump pilot from the weekly personnel ship from Orient IV—he'd just finished his month's gravity leave there—listen up to
this
one. He swears the Betanembassy there is demonstrating an artificial gravity device.

What! How—?

Piping it in from wormhole space for all I know. You bet Beta Colony is sitting on the math of it, till they make their initial killing in the marketplace and recoup their R D costs. It's apparently been kept under wraps by their military for a couple of years already, till they got their head start, damn' em. GalacTech and everybody else will be on the scramble to catch up. Every other R D project in the company is going to have to kiss their budget goodbye for a couple of years, you watch.

My God. Leo glanced up the length of the cafeteria module, crowded with quaddies.
My God . . .

Durrance scratched his chin reflectively. If it's true, do you have any idea what it's going to do to the space transport industry? The Jump pilot claims the Betans got the damned thing there in two months—f rom Beta Colony!—boosting at fifteen gees and insulating the crew from the acceleration using it. There'll be no limit to acceleration now but fuel costs. It probably won't affect bulkc argos much for that very reason, but the passenger trade'll be revolutionized. The speed news travels, which'll affect the rate of exchange between planetary currencies—military transport, where they don't care what they spend on fuel—and you can bet
that'll
affect interplanetary politics—it's a whole new game all around.

Durrance finished scraping the last globs of food out of the pockets of his lunch tray. Damn the colonials.

Good old conservative Earth-based GalacTech left in the lurch again. You know, I'm really tempted to emigrate out to the farther end of thew ormhole nexus sometimes. The wife's got family on Earth, though, so I don't suppose we ever will . . .Leo hung stunned in his straps as Durrance droned on. After a moment he swallowed the bite of squash still in his mouth, there being no more practical way to dispose of it. Do you realize, he choked, what this will do to the quaddies?

Durrance blinked. Not much,surely. There's still going to be plenty of jobs to do in free fall.

It will destroy their edge in profitability versus ordinary workers, that's what. It was the downside medical leaves that were boosting the personnel costs. Eliminate them, and there's nothing to choose between—can this thing provide artificial gravity on a space station?

If they could mount it on a ship, they can put it on a station, opined Durrance. It's not some kind of perpetual motion, though, he cautioned. It sucks power like crazy, the Jump pilot said. That'll cost something.

Not as much—and surely they'll find more design efficiencies as they go along—oh, God.

This chance wasn't going to favor the quaddies. This chance favored no one. Damn, damn, damn the
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timing! Ten years from now, even one year from now, it could have been their salvation. Here, now, might it be—adeath sentence? Leo flipped his feet out of the straps and coiled to launch himself toward the module doors.

You just leaving this tray here? asked Durrance. Can I have your dessert . . . ?

Leo waved a hand in impatient assent as he sprang away.

One look at Bruce Van Atta's glum and hostile face, as Leo swung into his Habitat office, confirmed Du rrance's story. Have you heard this artificial gravity rumor? Leo demanded anyway, one last lurch of hop e—let Van Atta deny it, name it fraud. . . .

Van Atta glared at him in profound irritation. How the hell did you find out about it?

It's none of your business where I found out about it. Is it true?

Oh, yes it is my business. I want to keep this under wraps for as long as possible.

It was true, then. Leo's heart shrank. Why? How long have you known about it?

Van Atta's hand flipped the edges of a pile of plastic flimsies, computer printouts and communiques, magnetized to his desk. Three days.

It's official, then.

Oh, quite official. Van Atta's mouth twisted in disgust. I got the word from GalacTech district headquarters on Orient IV. Apmad apparently met the news on her way home, and made one of her famous field decisions.

He rattled the flimsies again, and frowned. There's no way around it. Do you know what came in yesterday on the heels of this thing? Kline Station has cancelled its construction contract with GalacTech, the first one we were going to send the quaddies out on. Paid the penalty without a murmur. Kline Station's out toward Beta Colony, they must have found out about this weeks ago—months. They've switched to a Betancontractor who, we may presume,is undercutting us. The Cay Project is cooked.

Nothing left to do but wrap it up and get the hell out of here, the sooner the better. Damn! So now I'm associated with a loser project. I'll come out reeking with odor of loss.

Wrap, wrap how? What do you mean, wrap? That bitch Apmad's most favored scenario. I'll bet she was purring when she cut these orders—the quaddies gave her nervous palpitations, y'know. They're to be sterilized and stashed downside. Any pregnancies in progress to be aborted—shit, and we just started fifteen of' em! What a fiasco. A year of my career down the tubes.

My God, Bruce,you're not going to carry out those orders, are you?

Oh no? Just watch me. Van Atta stared at him, chewing his lip. Leo could feel himself tensing, pale with his suppressed fury. Van Atta sniffed. What d'you want, Leo? Apmad could have ordered them exterminated. They're getting off lightly. It could have been worse.

And if it had been—if she had ordered the quaddies killed—would you have carried it out? inquired Leo, deceptively calm.

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She didn't.C 'mon, Leo. I'm not inhuman. Sure, I'm sorry for the little suckers. I was doing my damndest to make' em profitable. But there's no way I can fight this. All I can do is make the wrap as quick and clean and painless as possible, and cut the losses as much as I can. Maybe
somebody
in the company hierarchy will appreciate it.

Painless to whom?

To everybody. Van Atta grew more intent, and leaned toward Leo with a scowl. That means I don't need a lot of panic and wild rumors floating around, you hear? I want business as usual right up to the last minute. You and all the other instructors will go on teaching your classes just as if the quaddies really were going out on a work project, until the downside facility is ready and we can start shuttling' em.

Maybe take the little ones first—the salvageable parts of the

Habitat are supposed to be moved around the orbit to the Transfer Station, we might cut some costs by using quaddies for that last job.

To imprison them downside—

Oh, come off the dramatics. They're being placed in a perfectly ordinary drilling workers' dormitory, only abandoned six months ago when the field ran dry.Van Atta brightened slightly in self-congratulation.

I found it myself, looking over the possible sites to place' em. It'll cost next to nothing to refurbish it, compared to building new.

Leo could just picture it. He shuddered. And what happens in fourteen years, when and if Orient IV

expropriates Rodeo?

Van Atta ruffled his hair with both hands in exasperation. How the hell should I know? At that point, it becomes OrientIV 's problem. There's only so much one human being can do, Leo.

Leo smiled slowly, in grim numbness. I'm not sure . . . what one human being can do. I've never pushed myself to the limit. I thought I had, but I realize now I hadn't. My self-tests were always carefully non-destructive.

This test was a higher order of magnitude altogether. This Tester, perhaps, scorned the merely humanly possible. Leo tried to remember how long it had been since he'd prayed, or even believed. Never, he decided, like this. He'd never
needed
like this before. . . .

Van Atta frowned at him suspiciously. You're weird, Leo. He straightened his spine, as if seeking a posture of command. Just in case you missed my message, let me repeat it loud and clear. You are to mention this artificial gravity business to no one, that means especially no quaddies. Likewise, keep their downside destination secret. I'll let Yei figure out how to make them swallow it without kicking, it's time she earned her overinflated salary. No rumors, no panics, no goddamn workers' riots—and if there are, I'll know just whose hide to nail to the wall. Got it?

Leo's smile was canine, concealing—everything. Got it. He withdrew without turning his back, or speaking another word.

Dr. Yei was not usually easy to track down, it being her habit to circulate often among the quaddies, observing behavior, taking notes, making suggestions. But this time Leo found her at once, in her office, with plastic flimsies stuck to every available surface and her desk console lit like a Christmas tree. Did they have Christmas at the Cay Habitat? Leo wondered. Somehow, he thought not.