Falling Free (20 page)

The quaddie cargo handlers looked quite reproachful, as the direction of their work was reversed for the second time. But they limited their implied criticism to a plaintive,Are you sure now, sir?

Yes, sighed Leo. But find some place to store this stuffin a detached module, you can't leave it in here.

Yes, sir.

Leo turned again to the pusher crew supervisor. I've still got to have those fuel rods.

Well, you'll just have to wait. I won't do it. Van Atta's going to have enough of my blood for this already.

You can charge it to my special project.I 'll sign for it.

The super raised his eyebrows, slightly consoled. Well... I'll try, all right, I'll try. But what about your
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blood?

Already sold,thought Leo. That's my look-out, isn't it?

The super shrugged. I guess.He exited, muttering. One of the pusher crew quaddies, trailing him, gave Leo a significant look; Leo returned a severe shake of his head, emphasized by a throat-cutting gesture with his index finger, indicating, Silence I

He turned and nearly rammed Pramod, waiting patiently at his shoulder. Don't sneak up on me like that!

he yelped, then got better control of his fraying nerves. Sorry, you startled me. What is it?

We've run into a problem, Leo.

But of course. Who ever tracks me down to impart good news? Never mind. What is it?

Clamps.

Clamps?

'There's a lot of clamped connections Outside. We were going over the flow chart for the Habitat disassembly, for, um, tomorrow, you know—

I know, don't say it.

We thought a little practice might speed things up—

Yes, good...

Hardly any of the clamps will unclamp. Even with power tools.

Uh... Leo paused, taken aback, then realized what the problem was. Metal clamps?

Mostly.

Worse on the sun side?

Much worse. We couldn't get any of those to come at all. Some of them are visibly fused. Some idiot must have welded them.

Welded, yes. But not by some idiot. By the sun.

Leo, it doesn't get
that
hot—

Not directly. What you're seeing is spontaneous vacuum diffusion welding. Metal molecules are evaporating off the surfaces of the pieces in the vacuum. Slowly, to be sure, but it's a measurable phenomenon. On the clamped areas they migrate into their neighboring surfaces and eventually achieve quite a nice bond. A little faster for the hot pieces on the sun side, a little slower for the cold pieces in the shade—but I'll bet some of those clamps have been in place for twenty years.

Oh. But what do we do about them?

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They'll have to be cut.

Pramod's lips pursed in worry. That will slow things down.

Yeah. And we'll have to have a way set up to re-clamp each connection in the new configuration, too . .

. gonna need more clamps, or something that can be made to work as clamps.... Go round up all your off-shift work gang. We're going to have to have a little emergency scrounging session.

Leo stopped wondering if he was going to survive the Great Takeover, and started wondering if he was going to survive
until
the Great Takeover. He prayed devoutly that Silver was having an easier time of it than himself.

Silver hoped earnestly that Leo was having an easier time of it than herself.

She hitched herself around in the acceleration couch, increasingly uncomfortable after their first eight hours of flight, and rested her chin on the padding to regard her crew, crammed in the pusher's cabin.

The other quaddies were drooped and draped as she was; only Ti seemed comfortable, feet propped up and leaning back in his seat in the steady gee-forces.

I saw this great holovid,Siggywaved some hands enthusiastically, that had a boarding battle. The marines used magnetic mines to blow holes like bubble cheese in the side of the mothership and just poured through.He added a weird ululating cry for sound effects. The aliens were running every which way, stuff flying everywhere as the air blew out—

I saw that one, said Ti.
Nest of Doom,
right?

You got it for us,reminded Silver. Did you know it had a sequel? said Ti aside to Siggy.
The Nest's
Revenge.

No, really? Do you suppose—

First of all, said Silver, nobody has found any intelligent aliens yet, hostile or not, secondly, we don't have any magnetic mines,
thanks be,
and thirdly, I don't think Ti wants a lot of unsightly holes blown in the side of his ship.

Well, no, conceded Ti.

We will go in through the airlock, said Silver firmly, which was designed for just that purpose. I think the jumpship crew will be surprised enough when we put them in their escape pod and launch it, without, um, frightening them into doing who-knows-what with a lot of premature whooping. Even if Colonel Wayne in
Nest of Doom
led his troops into battle with his rebel yell over their comm links, I don't think real marines would do that. It would be bound to interfere with their communications.She frowned Siggyinto submission.

We'll just do it Leo's way, Silver went on, and point thel aser-solderers at them. They don't know us, they wouldn't know whether we'd fire or not. How, after all, could strangers know what she didn't know herself? Speaking of which, how do we know which Superjumper to, she groped for terminology, cut out of the herd? It ought to be easier to get permission to come aboard if the crew's someone Ti knows well.

On the other hand, it might be harder to . . .she trailed off, disliking the thought. Especially if they tried to fight back.

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Jon could wrestle them into submission, offered Ti. That's what he's here for, after all.

Husky Jon gave him a woeful look. I thought I was here as the pusher back-up pilot. You wrestle them if you want, they're your friends. I'll hold a solderer.

Ti cleared his throat. Anyway, I'd like to get D771, if it's there. We aren't going to have much choice, though. There's only likely to be a couple of Superjumpers working this side of the wormhole at any one time anyway. Basically, we go for whatever ship that's just jumped over from Orient IV and dumped its empty pod bundles, and hasn't started to load on new ones yet. That'll give us the quickest getaway.

There's not that much to plan, we just go
do
it.

The real trouble will start, said Silver, when they've figured out what we're really up to and start trying to take the ship back.

A glum silence fell. For the moment, even Siggy had no suggestions.

Leo found Van Atta in the downsiders' gym, tramping determinedly on the treadmill. The treadmill was a medical torture device like a rack in reverse. Spring-loaded straps pulled the walker toward the tread surface,against which his or her feet pushed, for an hour or more a day by prescription, an exercise designed to slow, if not stop, the lower body deconditioning and long bone demineralization of free fell dwellers.

By the expression on Van Atta's face he was stamping out the measured treads today with considerable personal animosity. Cultivated irritation was indeed one way to muster the energy to tackle the boring but necessary task. After a moment's thoughtful study Leo decided upon a casual and oblique approach. He slipped out of his coveralls and velcroed them to the wall-strip, retaining his red T-shirt and shorts, and floated over and hooked himself into the belt and straps of the unoccupied machine next to Van Atta's.

Have they been lubricating these things with glue?he puffed, grasping the hand holds and straining to start the treads moving against his feet.

Van Atta turned his head and grinned sardonically. What's the matter, Leo? Did Minchenko the medical mini-dictator order a little physiological revenge on you?

Yeah, something like that . .. h e got it started at last, his legs flexing in an even rhythm. He
had
skipped too many sessions lately. Have you talked to him since he came up?

Yeah. Van Atta's legs drove against his machine, and angry whirring spurted from its gears.

Have you told him what's going to be happening to the Project yet?

Unfortunately, I had to. I'd hoped to put him off to the last, with the rest. Minchenko is probably the most arrogant of Cay's Old Guard—he's never made it a secret that he thought he should have succeeded Cay as Head of Project, instead of bringing in an outsider,namely me. If he hadn't been slated for retirement in a year, I'd damn well have taken steps to get rid of him before this.

Did he, ah—voice objections?

You mean, did he yowl like a stuck pig? You bet he did. Carried on like
I
was personally responsible for inventing the damned artificial gravity. I don't need this shit. Van Atta's treadmill moaned in counterpoint to his words.

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If he's been with the Project from the beginning, I guess the quaddies are practically his life's work, allowed Leo reasonably.

Mm.Van Atta marched. It doesn't give him the right to go on strike in a snit, though. Even you had more sense, in the end. If he doesn't show signs of a more cooperative attitude when he's had a chance to calm down and think through how useless it is, it may be easier to extend Curry's rotation and just send Minchenko back downside.

Ah. Leo cleared his throat. This didn't exactly smell like the good opening he'd been hoping for. But there was so little time. Did he talk to you about Tony?

Tony! Van Atta's treadmill buzzed like a hornet for a moment. If I never see that little geek again in my lif e it will be too soon. He's been nothing but trouble, trouble and expense.

I was rather hoping to get some more use out of him, myself, said Leo carefully. Even if he's not medically ready to go back on regular Outside work shifts, I've got a lot of computer console work and supervisory tasks I could delegate to him, if he was here. If we could bring him up.

Nonsense, snapped Van Atta. You could much more easily tap one of your other quaddie work gang leaders—Pramod, say—or pull any quaddie in the place. I don't care who, that's what I gave you the authorization for. We're going to start moving the little freaks
down
in just two weeks. It makes no sense to bring up one Minchenko wouldn't let out of the infirmary till then. And so I told him. He glared at Leo.

I don't want to hear one more word about Tony.

Ah, said Leo. Damn. Clearly, he should have taken Minchenko aside before he'd muddied the waters with Van Atta, Too late now. It wasn't just the exercise that was making Van Atta red in the face. Leo wondered what all Minchenko had really said—doubtless pretty choice, it would have been a pleasure to hear. Too expensive a pleasure for the quaddies,though. Leo schooled his features to what he hoped would be read through his puffing and blowing as sympathy for Van Atta.

How's the salvage planning going?asked Van Atta after a while.

Almost complete.

Oh, really? Van Atta brightened. Well, that's something, at least.

You'll be amazed at how totally the Habitat can be recycled, Leo promised with perfect truth. So will the company brass.

And fast?

Just as soon as we get the go-ahead. I've got it laid out like a war game.He closed his teeth on further double entendres. You still planning the Grand Announcement to the rest of the staff at 1300 tomorrow?

Leo inquired casually. In the main lecture module? I really want to be in on that, I have a few visual aids to present when you're done.

Naw,said Van Atta.

What? Leo gulped. He missed a step, and the springs slammed him painfully down on one knee on the treadmill, padded against just such clumsiness. He struggled back to his feet.

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Did you hurt yourself? said Van Atta. You look funny....

I'll be all right in a minute, He stood, leg muscles straining against the elastic pull, regaining his breath and equilibrium in the face of pain and panic. I thought—that was how you were going to drop the shoe. Get everybody together, just go over the facts once.

After Minchenko, I'm tired of arguing about it,said Van Atta. I've told Yei to do it. She can call them into her office in small groups, and hand out the individual and department evacuation schedules at the same time. Much more efficient.

And so Leo and Silver's beautiful scheme for peacefully detaching the downsiders, hammered out through four secret planning sessions, was blown away on a breath. Wasted was the flattery, the oblique suggestion, that had gone into convincing Van Atta that it was his idea to gather, unusually, the entire Habitat downsider staff at once and make his announcement in a speech persuading them all they were being commended, not condemned. . . .

The shaped charges to cut the lecture module away from the Habitat at the touch of a button were all in place. The emergency breath masks to supply the nearly three hundred bodies with oxygen for the few hours necessary to push the module around the planet to the Transfer Station were carefully hidden within. The two pusher crews were drilled, their pushers fueled and ready.

Fool he had been, to lay plans that depended on Van Atta following through on anything. . . . Leo felt suddenly sick.

It was going to have to be the second-choice plan, then, the emergency one they'd discussed and discarded as too risky, too potentially uncontrolled in its results. Numbly, he detached his springs and harness and hooked them back in their slots on the treadmill frame.

That wasn't an hour, said Van Atta.

I think I did something to my knee, lied Leo.

I'm not surprised. Think I didn't know you've been skipping exercise sessions? Just don't try to sue Gal acTech,' cause we can prove personal neglect. Van Atta grinned and marched on virtuously.

Leo paused. By the way, did you know that Rodeo Warehousing just misshipped the Habitat a hundred tons of gasoline? And they're charging it to us.

What?

As Leo turned away he had the small vindictive satisfaction of hearing Van Atta's treadmill stop and the snap of a too-hastily-detached harness rebounding to slap its wearer. Ow!Van Atta cried.