Falling Free (27 page)

Had it been human—or quaddie—error, or a mechanical defect that had caused the accident? Well, he would be able to tell quickly enough once the pusher was retrieved. I
f the pusher was retrieved
... He squelched that thought. Instead he jetted over to the Necklin rod nacelle.

The nacelle housing was deeply dented where the pusher had collided with it. Leo tried to reassure himself. I
t's only a housing.
I
t's put there just to protect the guts from accidents like this, right?

Hissing in dismay, he pulled himself around to shine his worksuit light into the man-high dark aperture at one end of the housing.

Oh, God.

The vortex mirror was cracked. Over three meters wide at its elliptical lip, mathematically shaped and polished to angstrom-unit precision, it was an integral control surface of the Jump system, reflecting, bleeding or amplifying the Necklin field generatedby the main rods at the will of the pilot. Not just cracke d—shattered in a starry burst, cold titanium deformed past its limits. Leo moaned.

A second light shone in past him. Leo glanced around to find Pramod at his shoulder.

Is that as bad as it looks? Pramod's voice choked over the suitco mm. Yes, sighed Leo.

You can't—do a welded repair on those, can you? Pramod's voice was rising. What are we going to do?

Fatigue and fear, the worst possible combination—Leo kept his own tired voice flat. My suit supply-level readout says we're going to go Inside and take a break right now. After that we'll see.

To Leo's immense relief, by the time he had unsuited Vatelhad retrieved the errant pusher and brought it back to dock at its Habitat module. They unloaded a frightened, bruised quaddie pilot.

It locked on, I couldn't get it off, she wept. What did I hit? Did I hit somebody? I didn't
want
to dump the fuel, it was the only way I could think of to kill the jet. I'm sorry I wasted it. I couldn't shut it off. . .

She was, Leo guessed, all of fourteen years old. How long have you been on work shift? he demanded.

Since we started, she sniffed. She was shaking, all four of her hands trembling, as she hung in air
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sideways to him. He resisted an urge to straighten her up.

Good God, child, that's over 26 hours straight. Go take a break. Eat something and go sleep.

She looked at him in bewilderment. But the dorm units are all cut off and bundled with the creches. I can't get there from here.

Is that why . . . ? Look, three-fourths of the Habitat is inaccessible right now. Stake out a corner of the suit locker room or anywhere you can find. He gazed at her tears in bafflement a moment,then added, It's
allowed.
She clearly wanted her own familiar sleep sack,which Leo was in no position to supply.

All by myself? she said in a very small voice.

She'd probably never slept with less than seven other kids in the room in her life, Leo reflected. He took a deep, controlling breath—he would
not
start screaming at her, no matter how wonderfully it would relieve his own feelings—how had he gotten sucked into this children's crusade, anyway? He could not at the moment recall.

Come along.He took her by the hand offto the locker room, found a laundry bag to hook to the wall, and helped stuffher into it along with a packaged sandwich. Her face peered from the opening,making him feel for a weird moment like a man in process of drowning a sack of kittens.

There.He forced a smile. All better, huh?

Thank you, Leo, she sniffed. I'm sorry about the pusher. And the fuel.

We'll take care of it.He winked heroically. Get some sleep, huh? There'll still be plenty of work to do when you wake up, you're not going to miss anything.U h . . . nighty-night.

'Night...

In the corridor he rubbed his hands over his face.
Nng . . .

Three-fourths of the Habitat inaccessible? It was more like nine-tenths by now. And all the module bundles were running on emergency power, waiting to be reattached to the main power supply as they were loaded into the Superjumper. It was vital to the safety and comfort of those trapped aboard various sub-units that the Habitat be fully reconfigured and made operational as swiftly as possible.

Not to mention everyone's having to start to learn their way around a new maze. Multiple compromises had driven the design—creche units, for example, could go in an interior bundle; docks and locks had to be positioned facing out into space; some garbage vents were unavoidably cut off, power mods had to be positioned just so, the nutrition units, now serving some three thousand meals a day, required certain lands of access to storage. . . . Getting everyone's routines readjusted was going to be an unholy mess for a while, even assuming all the module bundles were loaded in right-side-up and attached head-end-round when Leo wasn't personally supervising—or even when he
was
watching, Leo admitted to himself. His face was numb.

And now the kicker-question—should they continue loading at all onto a Superjumper that was, just possibly, fatally disabled? The vortex mirror, God. Why couldn't she have rammed one of the normal
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space thruster arms? Why couldn't she have run over Leo himself?

Leo! called a familiar male voice.

Floating down the corridor, his arms crossed angrily, came the jump pilot, Ti Gulik. Silver starfished from hand-grip to hand-grip behind him, trailed by Pramod. Gulik grabbed a grip and swung to a halt beside Leo. Leo's gaze crossed Silver's in afru stratingly brief and silent
Hello!
before the jump pilot pinned him to the wall.

What have your damned quaddies done to my Necklin rods? sputtered Ti. We go to all this trouble to catch this ship, bring it here, and practically the first thing you do is start smashing it up—Ibarely got it parked! His voice faded Please—tell me that little mutant, he waved at Pramod, got it wrong . . . ?

Leo cleared his throat. One of the pusher attitude jets apparently got stuck in an' on'position, throwing the pusher into an uncontrollable spin. The term 'unpreventable accident'is not in my vocabulary, but it certainly wasn't the quaddie's fault.

Huh, said Ti. Well, at least you're not trying to pin it on the pilot . . . but what was the damage, really?

The rod itself wasn't hit—

Ti let out a relieved breath.

—but the portside titanium vortex mirror was smashed.

Ti's breath became a howl in a minor key. That's just as bad!

Calm down! Maybe not quite as bad. I have one or two ideas yet. I wanted to talk to you anyway.

When we tookover the Habitat, there was a freight shuttle in dock.

Ti eyed him suspiciously. Lucky you. So?

Planning, not luck. Something Silver doesn't know yet—Leo caught her eye; she braced herself visibly, soberly intent upon his words, we weren't able to get Tony back before we took over the Habitat. He's still in hospital downside on Rodeo.

Oh,no, Silver whispered. Is there any way—?

Leo rubbed his aching forehead. Maybe. I'm not sure it's good military thinking—the precedent had to do with sheep, I believe—but I don't think I could live with myself if we didn't at least try to get him back. Dr. Minchenko has also promised to go with us if we can somehow pick up Madame Minchenko.

She's downside too.

Dr. Minchenko stayed? Silver clapped her hands, clearly thrilled. Oh, good.

Only if we retrieve the Madame,Leo cautioned. So that's two reasons to chance a downside foray. We have a shuttle, we have a pilot—

Oh, no, began Ti, now, wait a minute—

—and we desperately need a spare part. If we can locate a vortex mirror in a Rodeo warehouse—

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You won't, Ti cut in firmly. Jumpship repairs are handled solely by the District orbital yards at Orient IV.

Everything's warehoused on that end. I know' cause we had a problem once and had to wait four days for a repair crew to arrive from there. Rodeo's got nothing to do with Superjumpers, nothing. He crossed his arms.

I was afraid of that,said Leo lowly. Well, there's one other possibility. We could try to fabricate a new one, here on the spot.

Ti looked like a man sucking on a lemon. Graf,you don't weld those things together out of scrap iron. I know damn well they make' em all in one piece—something about joins impeding the field flow—and that sucker's three meters wide at the top end! The thing they stamp them out with weighsm ulti tons. And the precision required—it would take you six months to put a project like that together! Leo gulped, and held up both hands, fingers spread. Had he been a quaddie he might have been tempted to double the estimate, but, Ten hours, he said. Sure, I'dlike to have six months. Downside. In a foundry. Witha monster alloy-steel press die machined to the millimicron, just like the big boys. And mass water-cooling, and a team of assistants, and unlimited funding—I'd be all set up to make ten thousand units. But we don't need ten thousand units. There
is
another way. A quick-and-dirty one-shot, but one shot's all we're going to have time for. But I can't be up
here,
refabricating a vortex mirror, and down
there,
rescuing Tony, both at the same time. The quaddies can'tgo. I need you, Ti. I'd have needed you to pilot the shuttle in any case. Now I'll just need you to do a little more.

Look, you, Ti began. Theory was, I was going to get out of this with a whole skin' cause GalacTech would think I was kidnapped,and had Jumped you out with a gun to my head. A nice, simple, believable scenario. This is getting too damned complicated. Even if I could pull offa stunt like that, they're not going to believe I did it under duress. What would keep me from flying downside—and just turning myself in?

That's the sort of questions they'll be asking, you can bet your ass. No, dammit. Not for love nor money.

I know, Leo growled. We've offered both.

Ti glared at him, but ducked his head to evade Silver's eyes.

A thin young voice was echoing down the corridor. Leo? Leo . . . !

Here! Leo answered. What now . . . ?

One of the younger quaddies swung into sight and darted toward them. Leo! We've been looking all over for you. Come quick!

What is it?

An urgent message. On the comm. From downside.

We're not answering their messages. Total blackout, remember? The less information we give them,the longer it's going to take them to figure out what to do about us.

But it's Tony!

Leo's guts knotted, and he lurched after the messenger. Silver, pale, and the others followed hot behind.

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The holovid solidified, showing a hospital bed. Tony was braced against the raised backrest, looking directly into the vid. He wore T-shirt and shorts, a white bandage around his left lower bicep, a thick s tiffness to his torso hinting at wrappings beneath. His face was furrowed, flushed over a pale underlay.

His blue eyes shifted nervously, white-rimmed like a frightened pony's, to the right of his bed where Bruce Van Atta stood.

Took you long enough to answer your call, Graf,Van Atta said, smirking unpleasantly.

Leo swallowed hard. Hullo, Tony. We haven't forgotten you, up here. Claire and Andy are all right, and back together—

You're here to listen, Graf, not talk, Van Atta interrupted. He fiddled with a control. There, I've just cut your audio, so you can save your breath. All right, Tony, Van Atta prodded the quaddie with a silver-colored rod—what was it? Leo wondered fearfully—say your piece.

Tony's gaze shifted back, to the silent vid image Leo guessed,and his eyes widened urgently. He took a deep breath and began gabbling, Whatever you're doing, Leo, keep doing it. Never mind about me. Get Claire away—get Andy away—

The holovid blacked out abruptly, although the audio channel remained open a moment longer. It emitted a strange spatting noise, a scream, and Van Atta swearing Hold still, you little shit! before the sound cut off too.

Leo found himself gripping one of Silver's hands. Claire was on her way over, Silver said lowly, to be in on this call.

Leo's eyes met hers. I think you'd better go divert her.

Silver nodded grim understanding. Right. She swung away.

The vid came back up. Tony was huddled silently in the far corner of the bed, head down, hands over his face. Van Atta stood glaring, rocking furiously on his heels.

The kid's a slow learner, evidently, Van Atta snarled to Leo. I'D make it short and clear, Graf. You may hold hostages, but if you so much as touch' em, you can be swung in any court in the galaxy.
I've
got a hostage I can do anything I want to, legally. And if you don't think I will, just try me. Now, we're going to be sending a Security shuttle up there in a little while to restore order. And you
will
cooperate with it. He held up the silvery rod, pressed something; Leo saw an electric spark spit from its tip. This is a simple device, but I can get real creative with it, if you force me to. Don't force me to, Leo.

Nobody's forcing you to—Leo began.

Ah, Van Atta interrupted, just a minute... he touched his holovid control, now talk so's I can hear you.

And it had better be something I want to hear.

Nobody here can force you to do anything, Leo grated. Whatever you do, you do of your own free will.

We don't have any hostages. What we have is three volunteers, who chose to stay for—for their consciences' sake, I guess.

If Minchenko's one of them, you'd better watch your back, Leo. Conscience hell, he wants to hang onto
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his own little empire. You're a fool, Graf. Here—he made a motion off-vid, come talk to him in his own language, Yei.

Dr. Yei stepped stiffly into view, met Leo's eyes and moistened her lips. Mr. Graf, please, stop this madness. What you are trying to do is incredibly dangerous, for all concerned—Van Atta illustrated this by waving the electric prod over her head with a sour grin; she glanced at him in irritation, but said nothing and plowed on grimly, Surrender now, and the damage can at least be minimized. Please. For everyone's sake. You have the power to stop this.