Falling Free (23 page)

Emergency, emergency, this is not a drill, Graf repeated.

Yei too was staring bug-eyed at the map, looking more like a frog than ever. How can that be? The sealing system is supposed to isolate the problem area from the rest—

I bet I know, spat Van Atta. Graf's been messing with the Habitat's structure, preparatory to salvage—I

'll bet he, or his quaddies, just screwed something up royally. Unless it was that idiot Wyzakdid somethin g—come on!

Emergency, emergency, Graf's voice droned on, this is not a drill. All Habitat downsider staff should proceed at once—son-of-a- bitch!His head snapped around, winked out, leaving only the urgently pulsing map on the display.

Van Atta beat Yei, whose eye was still caught by the map, out the door to her office and through the airsealdoors at the end of the module that should have been sealed and weren't. The doors seemed to sag half-opened,controls dead, useless, as Van Atta and Yei joined a babbling stream of staffers speeding toward safety. Van Atta swallowed, cursing his sinuses, as one ear popped and the other, throbbing, failed to. Adrenalin-spurred anxiety shivered in his stomach.

Lecture Module C was already mobbed when they arrived, with downsiders in every state of dress and undress. One of the Nutrition staff had a case of frozen food clutched under her arm—Van Atta rejected the notion that she had inside information about the duration of the emergency and decided she must have simply had it in her hands when the alarm sounded and not thought to drop it before she fled.

Close the door! howled a chorus of voices as his and Yei's group entered. A distinct breeze sighed past them, rising to a whistle cut to silence as the doors sealed.

Chaos and babble ruled in the crowded lecture module.

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What's going on?

Ask Wyzak.

He's out there, surely,dealing with it.

If not, he'd better
get
the hell out there—

Is everybody here?

Where are the quaddies? What about the quaddies?

They have their own safe area, this isn't big enough.

Their gym, probably.

I didn't catch any directions for them on the holovid, to the gym or anywhere else—

Try the comm.

Half the channels are dead.

Can't you even raise Central Systems?

Lady, I
am
Central Systems—

Shouldn't we have a head-count? Does anybody know exactly how many there are up on rotation right now?

Two hundred seventy-two, but how can you know which are missing because they're trapped and which are missing because they're out there dealing with it—

Let me at that damned comm unit—

CLOSE THE DOOR! Van Atta himself joined the chorus this time, semi-involuntarily. The pressure differential was becoming more marked. He was glad he wasn't a latecomer. If this went on it would shortly become his duty to see the doors stayed closed at any cost, no matter who was pounding for admittance from the other side. He had a little list.. . Well, anybody who lacked the wit to respond quickly to emergency instructions shouldn't be on a space station. Survival of the fittest.

If they hadn't amassed the whole two hundred seventy-two by now, they were surely getting close. Van Atta pushed his way through the bobbing crowd toward the center of the module, stealing momentum from this or that person at the price oftheir own displacement. A few turned to object, saw who had nudged them, and bit short their complaints. Somebody had the cover off the communit and was peering into its guts in frustration, lacking delicate diagnostic tools doubtless dropped somewhere back in the Habitat.

Can't you at least raise the quaddies' gym? demanded a young woman. I've got to know if my class made it there.

Well, why didn't you go with' em, then? the would-be repairman snapped logically.

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One of the older quaddies took them. He told me to come here. I didn't think to argue with him, with that alarm howling in our ears—

No go. Grimacing, the man clicked the cover shut.

Well, I'm going back and find out, said the young woman decisively.

No, you're not, interrupted Van Atta. There's too many people breathing in here to open the door and lose air unnecessarily. Not till we find out what's going on, how extensive this is, and how long it's likely to last.

The man tapped the holovid cover. If this thing doesn't cut in, the only way we're going to find out anything is to send out somebody with a breath mask to go check.

We'll give it a few more minutes. Damn that overweening fool Graf. What had he done? And where was he? In a breath mask somewhere, Van Atta trusted, or better yet a pressure suit—although if Graf had indeed caused this unholy mess, Van Atta wasn't sure he wished him a pressure suit. Let him have a breath mask, and a nasty case of the bends for just punishment. Idiot Graf.

So much for Graf's famous safety record. Blessings
in
disguise, at least the engineer wouldn't be able to jam that down his throat any more. A little humility would be good for him.

And yet—the situation was so damned anomalous. It shouldn't be possible to depressurize the whole Habitat at once. There were back-ups on the backups, interlocks, separated bays—any accident so system-wide would take foresight and planning.

A little hiss escaped his teeth, and Van Atta locked into himself in a sudden bubble of furious concentration, eyes widening. A planned accident—could it be, could it possibly be . . . ?

GeniusGraf. An accident, an accident, a
perfect
accident, the very accident he'd most desired but had never dared wish for aloud. Was that it? That had to be it! Fatal disaster for the quaddies, now, at the last moment when they were all together and it could be accomplished at one stroke?

A dozen clues fell into place. Graf's insistence upon handling all the details of the salvage planning himself, his secretiveness, his anxiety for constant updates on the evacuation schedule—his withdrawal from social contacts that Yeihad observed with disfavor, obsessive work schedule, general air of a man with a secret agenda driven to exhaustion—it was all culminating in this.

Of course it was secret. Now that he had penetrated the plot himself, Van Atta could only concur. The gratitude of the GalacTech hierarchy to Graf for relieving them of the quaddie problem must appear indirectly, in better assignments, quicker promotions—he would have to think up some suitably oblique way of transmitting it.

On the other hand—why share? Van Atta's lips drew back in a vulpine grin. This was hardly a situation where Graf could demand credit where it was due, after all. Graf had been subtle—but not subtle enough. There would have to be a sacrifice, for the sake of form, after the accident. All he had to do was keep his mouth shut, and . . . Van Atta had to wrench his attention back to his present surroundings.

I've
got
to check on my quaddies!The young woman was growing wild-eyed. She gave up on theco mm unit and began to shove her way back toward the airsealdoors.

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Yes, another man joined her, and I've got to find Wyzak, he's still not here. He's bound to need help. I'll go with you—

No! cried Van Atta urgently, almost adding Y
ou'll spoil everything!
You're to wait for the all-clear. I won't have a panic. We'll all just sit tight and wait for instructions.

The woman subsided, but the man said skeptically,Instructions from whom?

Graf, said Van Atta. Yes, it was not too early to start making it clear to witnesses where the hands-on responsibility lay. He controlled his excitement-spurred rapid breathing, trying for an aura of steady calm.

Though not too calm—he must appear as surprised as any—no, more surprised than any—when the full extent of the disaster became apparent.

He settled down to wait. Minutes dragged past. One last panting group of refugees made it through the airseal doors; the Habitat-wide rate of depressurization must be slowing. One of the administrators from inventory control—old habits die hard—presented him with an unsolicited head-count of those present.

He silently cursed the census-taker's initiative, even as he accepted the results with thanks. The proof that all were not present might compel him to action he did not desire to take.

Only eleven downsider staff members had not made it. A
necessary price to pay,
Van Atta assured himself nervously. Some were doubtless holed up in other pressurized pockets, or so he could maintain he had believed, later. Their fatal mistakes could be pinned on Graf.

A group by the airsealdoors was making ready to bolt. Van Atta inhaled, and paused, momentarily uncertain how to stop them without giving away everything. But a cry of dismay went up from one woma n—All the air is out of the corridor now! We can't get through without pressure suits! Van Atta exhaled in relief.

He made his way to one of the module's viewports; it framed a dull vista of unwinking stars. The port on the other side gave an oblique view back toward the Habitat. Movement caught his eye, and he mashed his nose to the cold glass in an attempt to make out the details.

The silvery flash of worksuits, bobbing over the outside surface of the Habitat. Refugees? Or a repair party? Could his first hypothesis of a real accident be correct after all? Not good, but in any case it was still Graf s baby.

But there were quaddies out there, dammit, quaddie survivors. He could see the arms. Graf had not made his stroke complete. Just two quaddie survivors, if one was male and the other female, would be as bad as a thousand, from Apmad's point of view. Perhaps the work party was all-male.

There was Graf himself, among the flitting figures! They carried an assortment of equipment. The wavering distortion of his transverse view through the port prevented him from making out just what. He twisted his neck, craning painfully. Then the work party was eclipsed by a curve of the Habitat. A pusher slid into, and out of, his view, arcing smoothly over the lecture module. More escapees?Q uaddie or dow nsider?

Hey, an excited voice from within the lecture module disrupted his frantic observations. We're in luck, gang. This whole cupboard isf illed with breath masks. There must be three hundred of em.

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Van Atta swivelled his head to spot the cupboard in question. The last time he'd been in this module that storage had been filled with audiovisual equipment. Who the hell had made that switch, and why . . . ?

A bang reverberated through the module with a peculiar sharp resonance, like having one's head in a metal bucket when someone whacked it with a hammer. Hard. Shrieks and screams. The lights dimmed, then came up to about a quarter of their former brilliance. They were on the module's own emergency power. Power from the Habitat had been cut off.

Power wasn't all that had been cut off. Stunned, Van Atta saw the Habitat begin to turn slowly past his viewport. No, it wasn't the Habitat—it was the module that was moving. A generalized Aaah!went up from the mob within, as they began to drift toward one wall and pile up there against the gentle acceleration being imparted from without. Van Atta clung convulsively to the handholds by the viewport.

Realization washed over him almost physically, radiating hotly from his chest down his arms, his legs, pounding up through the top of his head as if to burst through his skull.

Betrayed! He was betrayed, betrayed completely and on every level. A space-suited figure with legs was waving a cheery farewell at the module from beside a gaping hole burned in the side of the Habitat.

Van Atta shook with chagrin.
I'll get you, Gra
f! I
'
tt
get you, you double-crossing son-of-
a
-
bi
tch!
You
and every one of those four-armed little creeps with you—

Calm down,man! Dr. Yei was saying, having somehow snagged up by his viewport. What is it?

He realized he'd been mumbling aloud. He wiped saliva from the corners of his mouth and glared at Yei.

You—you—you
missed
it. You were supposed to be keeping track of everything that's going on with those little monsters, and you totally
missed
it—He advanced on her, intending he knew not what, slipped from a handhold, swung and skidded down the wall. His blood beat so hard in his ears he was afraid he was having a coronary. He lay a moment with his eyes closed, gasping, temporarily overwhelmed by his emotions.
Control,
he told himself in a mortal fear of his imminent self-destruction.

Control, stay in contro
l—a
nd get Graf late
r.
Get him, get them all.
...

Leo unsuited to the wails of disturbed quaddies.

What do you mean, we didn't get them all? he asked, his elation draining away. He had so hoped that his troubles—or at least the downsider parts of them—would be over with the ignition of the jet cord cutting off Lecture Module C.

Four of the area supervisors are locked in the vegetable cooler with breath masks and won't come out, reported Sinda from Nutrition.

And the three crewmenfrom the shuttle that just docked tried to make it back to their ship, said a yellow-shirted quaddie from Docks Locks. We trapped them between two airsealdoors, but they've been working on the mechanism and we don't think we can hold them much longer.

Mr. Wyzak and two of the life-support systems supervisors are, um, tied up in Central Systems. To the wall hand grips, reported another quaddie in yellow, adding nervously, Mr. Wyzak sure is mad.

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Three of the creche mothers refused to leave their kids,said an older quaddie girl in pink. They're all still in the gym with the rest of the little ones. They're pretty upset. Nobody's told them what's going on yet, at least not when I'd left.

And,u m, there's one other person, added red-clad Bobbi from Leo's own welding and joining work gang in a faint tone. We're not quite sure what to do about him...

Immobilize him, to start, began Leo wearily. We'll just have to arrange a life pod to take the stragglers.

That may not be so easy, said Bobbi. You outnumber him, take ten—take twenty—you can be as careful as you like—is he armed?