Lifeline (15 page)

“What if I am to blame for all that happens, just by allowing you to go?” He was silent for a long time. He placed a hand on Ramis’s shoulder. “We have been keeping something from you—something you need to know before you get to
Orbitech 1.”
The
dato
seemed to have trouble continuing.

“Something terrible just happened on
Orbitech 1
—one hundred and fifty of their people have been killed, by decree of the director. And now, apparently, the director has been murdered as well.”

Ramis spoke without hesitating. “Was it rioting? What happened?”

Magsaysay squeezed Ramis’s shoulder. “They were apparently sacrificed to save the colony. A ten percent reduction of personnel to make the remaining supplies last longer. The associate director of the station has now taken over—Curtis Brahms. I know little about him. He has been there only a few months. Orbitechnologies seems to have thought highly of him.

“They are desperate, Ramis. They are starving. It is worse than we thought. You … you are stepping into something much deeper than we expected. If you want to change your mind and not go, no one will blame you.” His eyes searched Ramis’s.

Ramis was at a loss for words. “Surely you cannot let all those people starve—”

Magsaysay dropped his hands to his sides and took a deep breath. He forced a smile. “No, no—it is an old man’s nightmare. To do nothing would be unthinkable, both for them and for us. You must save
Orbitech 1,
Ramis. And I must pray my fears for you are false.”

***

Chapter 20

AGUINALDO—Day 18

When the time came to go, Ramis participated in the ceremonies with self-contained indignation. Solemnly, he attended a special Mass held for him and managed to recite Saint Christopher’s litany without stumbling.

Dobo Daeng helped him suit up as Magsaysay watched in silence. Ramis turned around to take a yearning look back at the
Aguinaldo.
Several adult Jumpers sped around the circumference of the cylinder or bounced across the Sibuyan Sea. Ramis realized he had never completed his nighttime Jump, and now he’d probably not have another chance.
They will miss me,
he thought, knowing it was true.

The great cylindrical core, with wall-kelp, dwellings, small buildings, and recreational areas wrapped around the axis, rotated on.

Ramis followed Dobo to the airlock. President Magsaysay held out a slender hand. “Your father and mother would be proud of you this day, Ramis. Our people are proud.”

Sandovaal scowled, fidgeting where he stood. “Hurry, boy. The creature is dying as you waste time.”

Ramis set his mouth. He knew if he spoke, tears would flow. And if that happened, they would not let him go—
he is only a boy!
they would say.

“If I am doing this, Dr. Sandovaal, you can please stop calling me a
boy.”
He lowered his gaze, mainly to keep Sandovaal from seeing the smug expression on his face.

Dobo gave the boy an unexpected hug. “May God be with you.” He crossed himself.

Turning, Ramis snapped his faceplate down so no one could see the tears in his eyes. He entered the airlock and stomped his boot on the floorplates, to feel solid ground beneath him perhaps for the last time.

A bioengineer met him as the airlock outgassed to the vacuum. Ramis pushed out from the airlock, and the spectacle of the unbounded universe took his breath away. The stars, black space, the rich river of the Milky Way pouring across the sky.

Moored to the
Aguinaldo,
Sarat’s bodily core ballooned in a fat cigar shape. Three space-suited figures worked at a cavity at one end of its body. Ramis felt nauseated.
What have they done to you, Sarat?
he thought. One of the space-suited figures motioned for him to hurry.

Approaching, Ramis saw wispy-thin sails, like gigantic butterfly wings, spreading out from Sarat’s body core. They were stretched farther than he could see, more fragile than anything seen on Earth.

He drew in a breath. The air echoed in the confined chamber of his helmet. The suit pressure made his movements stiff and difficult. The thin sail-membranes reflected little light toward him. But they haloed Sarat in a glorious majesty—a crown for the sacrifice the creature would make for the survival of
Orbitech I.

A
gloved hand touched his elbow, guiding him closer to Sarat’s main body. Ramis closed his eyes, not wanting to look. Through the careful application of irritant chemicals, the bioengineers had caused a cyst to form in Sarat’s expanding core—a cramped and hollow blister to house one small rider, some packages of wall-kelp, and three sail-creature embryos. The wall-kelp would grow inside the cyst, providing oxygen and food for Ramis to survive the journey.

Swimming through open space, Ramis reached the end of the tether holding Sarat to the colony. With the help of the others, he worked his way into the cavity, pushing against Sarat’s skin, elbowing into the darkness inside. It was cramped but flexible, like a giant womb. Through the material of his gloves, he felt Sarat’s body. It seemed different—tougher, thinner. Not like the gentle, harmless beast he had played with in the core.

He tucked his arms and legs in, moving his elbows to see how much room he would have—pitifully little for a ten-day journey. The bioengineers floated in front of the opening, blocking his view of the
Aguinaldo’s
long cylinder. Together they worked to join the edges, using cellular sealant to close the cyst. Ramis was completely enclosed, safe—trapped.

He moved his legs to get more comfortable. He reached out a hand to touch the inner wall of the sail-creature and imagined Sarat exposed to the cold nothing of space.

“Boy, are you all right?” Sandovaal’s grating voice came over the radio.

“Yes.” Ramis switched his receiver off. “Stop calling me
boy,”
he muttered to himself. He methodically unpackaged the wall-kelp nodules and set them against the membrane wall. Even here, the kelp would grow rapidly, tapping into Sarat’s metabolism and filling the cavity with oxygen. Ramis also knew the kelp would drain Sarat’s energy reserves, further shortening the sail-creature’s life.

While Ramis waited, the bioengineers hooked up the external video camera, allowing him to see his destination. He could hear nothing in the vacuum, but he felt occasional vibrations through Sarat’s skin. Testing, Ramis used the joystick controls wired through the cyst. He swiveled the camera around, panning the ten-kilometer length of the
Aguinaldo.
He wondered if he would get homesick.

Through the camera, Ramis watched a suited figure move his arm rapidly up and down, signaling that everything looked good. The sail-creature started to slowly rotate, orienting its sails to the sun. He turned his receiver back on and listened to the chatter. The movement seemed to take forever.

“Prepare for release when the sail-creature is fully turned.”

“I am ready,” Ramis said.

When the bioengineers released the tether, Ramis did not even notice the slight acceleration. Inside Sarat, he imagined motion, knowing that he would start falling again—this time swooping toward Earth. He stared at the video monitor, but found it disorienting.

“Safe journey, Ramis. Travel swiftly.” He recognized Magsaysay’s voice. Then, in Tagalog,
“Good luck, my son.”

Solar photons struck the creature’s vast sail surface and increased its momentum, little by little. Pushed at an ever-accelerating snail’s pace, Sarat drifted down toward Earth.

***

Chapter 21

CLAVIUS BASE—Day 26

Damned dirty socks again.

Clancy tried to ignore the smell, but the suit refused to cooperate. Lunar rocks, their edges razor sharp in the direct sunlight, stared him in the face as he stepped around them. His foot slipped. Cursing, he kicked up a volley of pebbles and caught himself before falling in slow motion.

From up on the wall, he could see Longomontanus Crater unfold before him—sixty miles of unbroken smoothness. A five-mile-long track ran through the dust from the point where the wall-kelp had hit the lunar surface. The Filipino scientists couldn’t have aimed the package any better: the container had struck at one and a half kilometers per second, nearly tangential to the ground. Maybe it was even still intact.

“The Lunatics think we’re a bunch of rednecks, Cliffy,” Shen’s voice came over the suit radio. “But look who gets to go out on a two-day wild-goose chase for a package of space seaweed?”

“Gives you a chance to stretch your legs. Nice legs, too.” Clancy grinned inside his helmet. She gave him a raspberry over the suit radio. “Is that beeper still going strong?”

“Intermittent now—the battery must be almost dead.”

“Doesn’t matter, Cliff,” Homann’s voice interrupted. “We can see the track now. Piece of cake. It’s like a giant arrow pointing straight to the pot of gold.”

“I thought it was rainbows that pointed to the pot of gold,” Shen said.

“Can’t get any rainbows here. No atmosphere.”

“Well, let’s just find it and get back to base,” Clancy interrupted them. “Wooster’s probably screwing up my score in the docking simulator.”

At
Clavius Base
the
Orbitech 2
engineers kept to themselves. Once in a while Clancy had to step in and bash heads together, but in general the engineers were well-behaved. The other Lunatics resented the unwelcome guests, though, begrudging them the precious supplies they consumed.

But while the Lunatics sulked, Clancy’s engineers had taken over the mundane grit work that the
Clavius Base
scientists had to do—hydroponic gardening, ice mining, equipment repair. It was “busywork” for the engineers, Clancy knew—and so did they—but it kept them from being bored silly.

Left to his own intuition, Clancy would have suggested some sports activity, maybe a regular jaunt outside—it did no real harm, and the oxygen tanks were readily replenished from processing lunar rock. But Dr. Tomkins had suggested low levels of physical activity to decrease food consumption. He expressed optimism at the hydroponics teams working to increase productivity in the underground garden tunnels.

“Aww, Tomkins can’t even make up his own bed, not to mention his mind,” Shen had complained. “He’s so wishy-washy, he’ll have things in complete disarray before long.”

Clancy held up his hand, cutting short any echo of her complaints. “Tomkins might not be the most outstanding administrator around, but he’s been in charge of
Clavius Base
for years. If he wasn’t capable, NASA and the U.N. would have canned him years ago. Let’s see how he does with this kelp stuff.”

Spirits had lifted noticeably around
Clavius Base
when the container had hit the Moon. Most of the Lunatic scientists had been dubious about the slingshot scheme—especially after they found out the idea came from the arrogant and unpredictable Luis Sandovaal.

The Filipino scientist’s thick white hair stood out in the holotank. His blue eyes blazed; his face filled the unit as he shouted.

“What do you take us for—idiots? Of course we plotted the trajectory. Ten days and the package will intersect the Moon, but you will have to locate it yourself. We put a homing beacon on it. The wall-kelp is our gift to you. And once you see its growth characteristics, you will think it is manna from heaven.”

Tomkins had done his best to appease the temperamental scientist. “You have our thanks, Dr. Sandovaal. We will be in contact if we have any questions, and to describe the progress of your wall-kelp.”

Clancy felt warm in his suit, but all the gauges read normal. He wanted to find the package and start the journey back. After two days moving out in the rovers, he was getting a little tired of the tedium. The smell of dirty socks seemed to grow stronger. It had never felt like this up at
Orbitech 2.
There they at least had modular living quarters, so they could take off the suits after a long day’s work. He was tired of sucking on the suit nutrients, of using the piddlepack. He desperately wanted a shower.

Below him, the team of six-packs spread out and moved along the popcorn-powdery floor of the crater. Their big wheels rolled along, grinding the surface to dust in silence.

The second lunar rover lay fifty yards away on the crater floor. The rest of the crew was hidden by jutting rocks. He activated his chin mike and hoped the others were within line-of-sight transmission.

“Any luck?”

“The beeper’s pretty much useless now, Cliff. Just a ping or two. It’s more confusion than help.” Shen’s voice sounded loud in his helmet.

“Find anything, Homann?” He could see the silver of the other man’s suit as he bounded ahead.

“You’d hear the hollering if I did.”

“Get to a higher spot so you can see better—but be careful.” The skipping track of the package’s landing had been obvious from a distance, but on the jumbled crater floor it was indistinguishable. Clancy worked his shoulders back and forth to reach an itch on his back. Comfortable again, he looked up at the crater walls towering over him. They jutted into the star-filled sky, hiding their fissures and jagged edges.

“Looks like it skidded into the crater wall and bounced back,” Homann said. “Five hundred pounds of packaged seaweed. Blooey! So much for ‘Fragile—handle with care.’ Ever see any of those classic Roadrunner cartoons? I wonder if it’s Acme wall-kelp.”

“Okay, okay, just direct us to the terminus of the skid path. Come on, Pete, I’m getting tired of being out here.” Clancy tried to keep the impatience out of his voice.
There’s got to be an easier way to find this stuff,
he thought. He’d calculated enough scattering cones at MIT to be able to guess where the package would land.

“I’ll give you a nice long back rub when we get back, boss,” Shen said.

“Ooooh!” Homann broke in. “You could give me one!”

“Quit clowning, you guys.”

Homann directed them across the crater floor. Even from the inconvenient vantage point, now Clancy could see the skid tracks from the impact. “X marks the spot!” Homann radioed.

“Shen, listen for beeps.”

After a few more minutes of searching, Clancy brushed fine lunar dust off the pitted surface of the package. Buried under three centimeters of dust, the desk-sized container was bashed on one end from its collision with the rock, but the outer wall seemed to be unbreached. The kelp was intact.

He radioed, “Merry Christmas, everybody!”

“Easy, easy!” Philip Tomkins hovered over the construction workers like a mother hen. Duncan McLaris stood on his tiptoes away from the crowd, watching. The rest of
Clavius Base
observed through personal holoscreens. The ConComm link to the
Aguinaldo
showed the Filipino Council of Twenty, with Dr. Sandovaal in the foreground.

Clancy pried at the container until the seal suddenly burst open. “Ooof.” He went sprawling backwards.

Shen caught him and propped him back up, patting his shoulder. “I told you you’d be throwing yourself at me after a year, boss.”

Clancy ignored her and motioned to Dr. Tomkins. “All yours, sir.”

Tomkins straightened and peered into the hololink with the
Aguinaldo.
“I sincerely thank our Filipino friends for this gift of food, this opportunity. If it fulfills only a fraction of your expectations, Dr. Sandovaal, it will indeed save our lives here at
Clavius Base
.”

With Sandovaal nodding sagely in the background, Tomkins cracked open the main chamber of the container. “It appears to be intact!” Tomkins turned to the holotank. He grinned, and his big body seemed to be filled with a greater excitement than Clancy had ever seen him display.

Sandovaal’s voice came across the three hundred thousand kilometers from the
Aguinaldo.
“When your lunar tunnels are filled with wall-kelp, just remember me.” He moved out of sight of the holotransmitters, the bare hint of a smile on his face.

Clavius Base
got its first look at the wall-kelp. Clancy sniffed the air, frowning, and looked into the wet, green receptacle of wall-kelp.

Perhaps this substance was going to save them, but for now, it smelled even worse than the dirty socks in his space suit.

***