Falling Free (24 page)

Not exactly,admitted Bobbi, seeming to find her lower fingernails objects of new fascination. The quaddie equivalent of foot-shuffling, Leo realized.

Graf!boomed an authoritative voice, as the airseals at the end of the worksuit locker room slid open. Dr.

Minchenko launched himself across the module to thump to a halt beside Leo, and gave the locker an extra bang with his fist for emphasis. One could not, after all, stomp in free fall. The unused breath mask trailing from his hand bounced and quivered. What the hell is going on here? There's no bleeding pressurization emergency—He inhaled vigorously, as if to prove his point.

The quaddie girl Kara in the white T-shirt and shorts of Medical trailed him, looking mortified. Sorry, Leo, she apologized. I couldn't get him to go.

Am I to run off to some closet while all my quaddies asphyxiate? Minchenko demanded indignantly of her. What do you take me for, girl?

Most everybody else did, she offered hesitantly.

Cowards—scoundrels—
i diots,
he sputtered.

They followed their computerized emergency instructions, said Leo. Why didn't you?

Minchenko glared at him. Because the whole thing stank. A Habitat-wide pressurization loss should be almost impossible. A whole chain of interlocking accidents would have to occur.

Such chains do occur, though, said Leo, speaking from wide experience. They're practically my speciality.

Just so, purred Minchenko, lidding his eyes. And that vermin Van Atta billed you as his pet engineer when he brought you in. Frankly, I thought—ahem! he looked only mildly embarrassed, that you might be his triggerman. The accident seemed so suspiciously convenient just now, from his point of view.

Knowing Van Atta, that was practically the first thing I thought of.

Thanks, snarled Leo.

I knew Van Atta—Ididn't know you.Minchenko paused, and added more mildly, I still don't. What do you think you're doing?

Isn't it obvious?

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Not entirely, no. Oh, certainly, you can hold out in the Habitat for a few months, cut offfrom Rodeo—perhaps years, barring counterattacks, if you were conservative and clever enough—but what then?

There is no public opinion to come to your rescue here, no audience to grandstand for. It's half-baked, Graf. You've made no provisions for reaching help—

We're not asking for help. The quaddies are going to rescue themselves.

How? Minchenko's tone scoffed,though his eyes were alight.

Jump the Habitat. Then keep going.

Even Minchenko was silenced momentarily. Oh...

Leo finished struggling into his red coveralls, and found the tool he wanted. He pointed thel aser-solderer firmly at Minchenko'sm idsection. It did not appear to be a task he could safely delegate to the quaddies.

And you,he said stiffly, can go to the Transfer Station in the life pod with the rest of the downsiders. Let's go.

Minchenko barely glanced at the solderer. His lips curled with contempt for the weapon and, Leo felt, its wielder. Don't be more of an idiot than you can help, Graf. I know they foxed that cretin Curry, so there are still at least fifteen pregnant quaddie girls out there. Not counting the results of unauthorized experiments, which judging from the way the level is dropping in that box of condoms in the unlocked drawer in my office, are becoming significant.

Kara started in guilty dismay, and Minchenko added aside to her, Why do you think I pointed them out to you, dear? Be that as it may, Graf, he fixed Leo with a stern eye, if you throw me off what do you plan to do if one of them presents at labor with placenta praevia? Or a post-partumprolapsed uterus? Or any other medical emergency that requires more than a band-aid?

Well . , . but... Leo was taken aback. He wasn't quite sure what placenta praevia was, but somehow he didn't think it was medical gobbledy-gook for a hangnail. Nor that a precise explanation of the term would do anything to ease the ominous anxiety it engendered in him.Was it something likely to occur, given the alterations of quaddie anatomy? There is no choice. To stay here is death for every quaddie. To go is a chance—not a guarantee—of life.

But you need me, argued Minchenko.

You have to—what? Leo's tongue stumbled.

You need me. You can't throw me off. Minchenko's eyes flicked infinitesimally to the solderer.

Well, huh, Leo choked, I can't kidnap you, either.

Who's asking you to?

You are, evidently... he cleared his throat. Look, I don't think you understand. I'm taking this Habitat out, and we're not coming back, not ever. We're going out as far as we can go, beyond every inhabited world. It's a one-way ticket.

I'm relieved. At first I thought you were going to try something stupid.

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Leo found his emotions churning, a mixture of suspicion, jealousy?—and a sharp rising anticipation—what a
relief
it would be,not to have to carry it all alone. . . . You sure?

They're
my
quaddies... Minchenko's hands clenched,opened. Daryl's and mine. I don't think you half understand what a job we did. What a
good
job, developing these people. They're finely adapted to their environment. Superior in every way. Thirty-five years' work—am I to let some total stranger drag them off across the galaxy to who-knows-what fate? Besides, GalacTech was going to retire me next year.

You'll lose your pension, Leo pointed out. Maybe your freedom—possibly your life.

Minchenko snorted. Not much of that left.

Not true, Leo thought. The bioscientist possessed enormous life, over three-quarters of a century of accumulation. When this man died, a universe of specialized knowledge would be extinguished. Angels would weep for the loss. Unless—Could you train quaddie doctors?

It's a forgone conclusion
you
couldn't.Minchenko ran his hands through his clipped white hair in a gesture part exasperation, part pleading.

Leo glanced around at the anxiously hovering quaddies, listening in—listening in while men with legs decided their fate, again. Not right . . . the words popped out of his mouth before reasoned caution could stop them. What do you kids think?

A ragged but immediate chorus of assent for Minchenko—relief in their eyes, too. Minchenko's familiar authority would clearly be an immense comfort to them, as they travelled farther into the unknown. Leo was suddenly put in mind of the waythe universe had changed to a stranger place the day his father had died.
Just because we're adults doesn't automatically mean we can save you . . .
But this was a discovery each quaddie would have to make in their own time. He took a deep breath. All right...How could one suddenly feel a hundred kilos lighter when already weightless? Placenta praevia, God.

Minchenko did not react with immediate pleasure. There's just one thing, he began, arranging his features in a humble smile quite horribly out of place on his face.

What's he sweating for now?Leo wondered, suspicions renewed. What?

Madame Minchenko.

Who?

My wife. I have to get her.

I didn't—realize you were married. Where is she?

Downside. On Rodeo.

Hell...Leo suppressed an urge to start tearing out the remains of his hair.

Pramod, listening, reminded, Tony's down there too.

I know, I know—and I promised Claire—Idon't know how we're going to work this...

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Minchenko was waiting, his expression intense—not a man used to begging. Only his eyes pleaded. Leo was moved. We'll try. We'll try. That's all I can promise.

Minchenko nodded, dignified. How's Madame Minchenko going to feel about all this, anyway?

She's loathed Rodeo for twenty-five years,Minchenko promised—somewhat airily, Leo thought. She'll be delighted to get away.M inchenko didn't add
I hope
aloud, but Leo heard it anyway.

All right. Well, we've still got to round up these stragglers and get rid of them.... Leo wondered wistfully if it was possible to drop dead painlessly from an anxiety attack. He led his little troop from the locker room.

Claire flew from hand-grip to hand-grip along the branching corridors, done with patience at last. Her heart sang with anticipation. The airseal doors to the raucous gym were crowded with quaddies, and she had to restrain herself from forcibly elbowing them out of her way. One of her old dormitory mates, in the pink T-shirt and shorts of creche duty, recognized her with a grin and reached out with a lower hand to pull her through the mob.

The littlest ones are by Door C,said her dorm mate. I've been expecting you... After a quick visual check to be sure her flight plan didn't violently intersect anyone else's taking a similar shortcut, her dorm mate helped her launch herself in that direction by the most direct route, across the diameter of the big chamber.

The buxom figure in pink coveralls Claire sought was practically buried in a swarm of excited, frightened, chattering, crying five-year-olds. Claire felt a twinge of real guilt, that it had been judged too dangerous to their secrecy to warn the younger quaddies in advance of the great changes about to sweep over them.

The little ones didn't get a vote, either,
she thought.

Andy was tethered to Mama Nilla, weeping miserably. Mama Nilla was desperately trying to pacify him with a squeeze bottle of formula with one hand while holding a reddening gauze pad to the forehead of a crying five-year-old with the other. Two or three more clung for comfort to her legs as she tried to verbally direct the efforts of a sixth to help a seventh who had torn open a package of protein chips too wide and accidently allowed the contents to spill into the air. Through it all her calm familiar drawl was only slightly more compressed than usual, until she saw Claire approaching. Oh, dear, she said in a weak voice.

Andy! Claire cried.

His head swivelled toward her, and he launched himself away from Mama Nilla with frantic swimming motions, only to fetch up at the end of his tether and rebound back to the creche mother's side. At this point he began screaming in true earnest. As if by resonance, the bleeding boy started crying harder too.

Claire braked by the wall and closed in on them. Claire, honey, I'm sorry,said Mama Nilla, twitching her hips around to eclipse Andy, but I can't let you have him. Mr. Van Atta said he'd fire me on the spot, twenty years or no twenty years—and God knows who they'd get then—there's so few I can really trust to have their heads screwed on right—Andy interrupted her by launching himself again; he batted the proffered bottle violently out of her hand and it spun away, a few drops of formula adding tangentially to the general environmental degradation. Claire's hands reached for him.

—Ican't, I really can't—oh, hell,
take
him! It was the first time Claire had ever heard Mamma Nilla swear. She unhooked the tether and her freed left side was instantly set upon by the waiting
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five-year-olds.

Andy's screams faded at once to a muffled weeping, as his little hands clamped her fiercely. Claire folded him to her with all four arms no less fiercely. He rooted in her shirt—uselessly, she realized. Just holding him might be enough for her, but the reverse was not necessarily true. She nuzzled in his scant hair, delighting in the clean baby smell of him, tender sculptured ears, translucent skin, fine eyelashes, every part of his wriggling body. She wiped his nose happily with the edge of her blue shirt.

It's Claire, she overheard one of the five-year-olds explaining knowlegeably to another. She's a real mommy. She glanced up to catch them gravely inspecting her; they giggled. She grinned back. A seven-year-old from an adjoining group had retrieved the bottle, and hung about watching Andy with interest.

The cut on the little quaddie's forehead having clotted enough, Mama Nilla was at last able to carry on a conversation. You don't happen to know where Mr. Van Atta is, do you? she asked Claire worriedly.

Gone, said Claire joyously, gone forever!
We're
taking over.

Mama Nilla blinked. Claire, they won't let you...

We have help. She nodded across the gym, where Leo in his red coveralls caught her eye—he must have just arrived. With him was another legged figure in white coveralls. What was Dr. Minchenko still doing here? A sudden fear twinged through her. Had they failed to clear the Habitat of downsiders after all? For the first time it occurred to her to question Mama Nilla's presence. Why didn't you go to your safe zone? Claire asked her.

Don't be silly, dear. Oh, Dr. Minchenko! Mama Nilla waved to him. Over here!

The two downsider men, lacking the free-flying confidence of the quaddies, crossed the chamber via a rope net hung across a farther arc, and made their way toward Mama Nilla's group.

I've got one here who needs some biotic glue, Mama Nilla, hugging the cut quaddie, said to Dr.

Minchenko as soon as he drew near enough to hear. What's going on? Is it safe to take them back to the creche modules yet?

It's safe, replied Leo, but you're going to have to come with me, Ms. Villanova.

I don't leave my kids till my relief arrives, said Mama Nilla tartly, and nine-tenths of the department seems to have evaporated, including my department head.

Leo frowned. Have you had your briefing from Dr. Yei yet?

No...

They were saving the best for last, said Dr. Minchenko grimly, for obvious reasons. He turned to the creche mother. GalacTech has just terminated the Cay Project, Liz. Without even consulting me! Bluntly, he outlined the termination scenario for her. I was writing up protests, but Grafhere beat me to it. Rather more effectively, I suspect. The inmates are taking over the asylum. He thinks he can convert the Habitat into a colony ship. I think... I choose to believe he can.

You mean you're responsible for this mess? Mama Nilla glared at Leo, and looked around, clearly
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stunned. I thought Claire was babbling . . .The other two downsider creche mothers had come over during the explanation, and hung in the air looking equally nonplussed. GalacTech's not
giving
you the Habitat.. . are they? Mama Nilla asked Leo faintly.