Ti pushed through the flex tube first. The jumpship's engineer was waiting for him on the other side. Silver could hear his angry voice: "Gulik, you bent our portside docking ring. You wireheads all think you're Mr. Twinkletoes when you're plugged into your sets, but on manual you are, without exception, the most ham-handed—" He broke off, his voice thinning out in a little hiss, as Silver flitted through the hatch and hovered, her laser-solderer pointed sturdily at his stomach. It actually took him a moment to notice the weapon. His eyes widened and his mouth opened as Siggy and Jon backed her up from behind.
"Take us to where the pilot is, Ti," said Silver. She hoped the fear that edged her voice made her sound angry and fierce, not pale and weak. All her strength seemed washed out of her, leaving her limp-stomached. She swallowed and took a tighter grip on the solderer.
"What the hell is this?" began the engineer, his voice a taut octave higher than before. He cleared his throat and brought it back down. "Who are you . . . people, anyway? Gulik, are they with you?"
Ti shrugged and produced a sickly smile that was either very well acted, or real. "Not exactly. I'm kind of with them."
Siggy, reminded, pointed his solderer at Ti. Silver, when approving this ploy, had kept her inner thoughts about it most secret. Going in with Ti unarmed, apparently under the quaddies' guns, covered him in case of later capture and legal prosecution. Equally, it disguised the possibility of making his ersatz kidnapping real, should he decide to bolt back to the side of his legged companions at the last moment. Wheels within wheels; did all leaders have to think on multiple levels? It made her head hurt.
They filed quickly through the compact crew's section to Nav and Com. The jump pilot sat enthroned in his padded chair, plugged into the massive crown of his control headset, a temporary, regal cyborg. His purple company coveralls were stitched with gaudy patches proudly proclaiming his rank and specialization. His eyes were closed, and he hummed tunelessly in time to the throbbing biofeedback from his ship.
He yelped in surprise as his headset detached and rose, cutting his communion with his machine, when Ti thumbed the disconnect control. "God, Ti, don't do things like that—you know better—" A second yelp at the sight of the quaddies was swallowed with a gulp. He smiled at Silver in complete bewilderment, his eyes, after one shocked pass over her anatomy, locked politely on her face. She wriggled the laser-solderer, to bring it to his attention.
"Get out of your chair," she ordered.
He shrank back into it. "Look, lady . . . uh . . . what is that?"
"Laser gun. Get out of your chair."
His eyes measured her, measured Ti, flicked to his engineer. His hand stole to his seat harness buckle, hesitated. His muscles tensed.
"Get out slowly," Silver added.
"Why?" he asked.
Stalling, Silver thought.
"These people want to borrow your ship," Ti explained.
"Hijackers!" breathed the engineer. He coiled, floating in his position near the airseal door. Jon's and Siggy's solderers swivelled toward him. "Mutants . . ."
"Get out," Silver repeated, her voice rising uncontrollably.
The pilot's face was drawn and thoughtful. His hands floated from his belt to rest in a parody of relaxation over his knees. "What if I don't?" he challenged softly.
She fancied she could feel control of the situation slipping from her to him, sucked up by his superior imitation of coolness. She glanced at Ti, but he was staying safely and firmly in his part of helpless—and unhelpful—victim, lying low as the downsiders phrased it.
A heartbeat passed, another, another. The pilot began to relax, visibly in his long exhalation, a smug light of triumph in his eyes. He had her number; he knew she could not fire. His hand went to his belt buckle, and his legs curled under him, seeking launch leverage.
She had rehearsed it in her mind so many times, the actual event was almost an anticlimax. It had a glassy clarity, as if she observed herself from a distance, or from another time, future or past. The moment shaped the choice of target, something she had turned over and over without decision before; she sighted the solderer at a point just below his knees because no valuable control surfaces lay behind them.
Pressing the button was surprisingly easy, the work of one small muscle in her upper right thumb. The beam was dull blue, not enough to even make her blink, though a brief bright yellow flame flared at the edge of the melted fabric of his supposedly nonflammable coveralls, then winked out. Her nostrils twitched with the stink of the burnt fabric, more pungent than the smell of burnt flesh. Then the pilot was bent over himself, screaming.
Ti was babbling, voice strained, "What d'ja do that for? He was still strapped to his chair, Silver!" His eyes were wells of astonishment. The engineer, after a first convulsive movement, froze in a submissive ball, eyes flickering from quaddie to quaddie. Siggy's mouth hung open; Jon's was a tight line.
The pilot's screams frightened her, swelled up her nerves to lance through her head. She pointed the solderer at him again. "Stop that noise!" she demanded.
Amazingly, he stopped. His breath whistled past his clenched teeth as he twisted his head to stare at her through pain-slitted eyes. The centers of the burns across his legs seemed to be cauterized, shadowed black and ambiguous—she was torn between revulsion, and the curious desire to go take a closer look at what she had done. The edges of the burns were swelling red, yellow plasma already seeping through but clinging to his skin, no need for a hand-vac. The injury did not seem to be immediately life-threatening.
"Siggy, unstrap him and get him out of that control chair," Silver ordered. For once, Siggy zipped to obey with no argument, not even a suggestion of how to do it better gleaned from his holodrama viewing.
In fact, the effect of her action on everyone present, not just their captives, was most gratifying. Everyone moved faster. This could get addictive, Silver thought. No arguments, no complaints—
Some complaints. "Was that necessary?" Ti asked, as the prisoners were bundled ahead of them through the corridor. "He was getting out of his seat for you . . ."
"He was going to try to jump me."
"You can't be sure of that."
"I didn't think I could hit him once he was moving."
"It's not like you had no choice—"
She turned toward him with a snap; he flinched away. "If we do not succeed in taking this ship, a thousand of my friends are going to die. I had a choice. I chose. I'd choose again. You got that?" And you choose for everybody, Silver, Leo's voice echoed in her memory.
Ti subsided instantly. "Yes, ma'am."
Yes, ma'am? Silver blinked, pushing ahead of him to hide her confusion. Her hands were shaking in reaction now. She entered the life-pod first, ostensibly to yank all the communications equipment but for the emergency directional finder beeper, and to check for the first-aid kit—it was there, and complete—also to be alone for a moment, away from the wide eyes of her companions.
Was this the pleasure in power Van Atta felt, when everyone gave way before him? It was obvious what firing the weapon had done to the defiant pilot; what had it done to her? For every action, an equal and opposite reaction. This was a somatic truth, visceral knowledge ingrained in every quaddie from birth, clear and demonstrable in every motion.
She exited the pod. A hoarse moan broke from the pilot's lips as his legs accidentally bumped against the hatch, as they stuffed him and the engineer through into the life-pod, sealed it, and fired it away from the jumpship.
Silver's agitation gave way to a cool pool of resolve, within her, even though her hands still trembled with distress for the pilot's pain. So. Quaddies were no different than downsiders after all. Any evil they could do, quaddies could do too. If they chose.
* * *
There. By placing the grow-tubes at this angle, with a six-hour rotation, they could get by with four fewer spectrum lights in the hydroponics module and still have enough lumens falling on the leaves to trigger flowering in fourtee
n days. Claire entered the command on her lap board computer and made the analog model cycle all the way through once on fast-forward, just to be sure. The new growth configuration would cut the power drain of the module by some twelve percent from her first estimate. Good: for until the Habitat reached its destination and they unfurled the delicate solar collectors again, power would be at a premium.
She shut off the lap board and sighed. That was the last of the planning tasks she could do while still locked up here in the Clubhouse. It was a good hiding place, but too quiet. Concentration had been horribly difficult, but having nothing to do, she discovered as the seconds crept on, was worse. She floated over to the cupboard, took a pack of raisins, and ate them one at a time. When she finished the gluey silence closed back in.
She imagined holding Andy again, his warm little fingers clutching hers in mutual security, and wished for Silver to hurry up and send her signal. She pictured Tony, medically imprisoned downside, and hoped in anguish Silver might delay, that by some miracle they might yet regain him at the last minute. She didn't know whether to push or pull at the passing minutes, only that each one seemed to physically pelt her.
The airseal doors hissed, jolting her with anxiety. Was she discovered—? No, it was three quaddie girls—Emma, Patty, and Kara the infirmary aide.
"Is it time?" Claire asked hoarsely.
Kara shook her head.
"Why doesn't it start, what's keeping Silver . . ." Claire broke off. She could imagine all too many disastrous reasons for Silver's delay.
"She'd better signal soon," said Kara. "The hunt is up all over the Habitat for you. Mr. Wyzak, the Airsystems Maintenance supervisor, finally thought of looking behind the walls. They're over in the docking bay section now. Everybody on his crew is having the most terrific outbreak of clumsiness"—a curved moon of a grin winked in her face—"but they'll be working this way eventually."
Emma gripped one of Kara's lower arms. "In that case, is this really the best place for us to hide?"
"It'll have to do, for now. I hope things break before Dr. Curry works all the way down his list, or it's going to get awfully crowded in here," said Kara.
"Is Dr. Curry recovered, then?" asked Claire, not certain if she wanted to hear a yes or a no. "Enough to do surgery? I'd hoped he'd be out longer."
Kara giggled. "Not exactly. He's kind of hanging there all squinty-eyed and puffy, just supervising while the nurse gives the injections. Or he would be, if they could find any of the girls to give injections to."
"Injections?"
"Abortifacient." Kara grimaced.
"Oh. A different list from mine, then." So, that was why Emma and Patty looked pale, as from a narrow escape.
Kara sighed. "Yeah. Well, we're all on one list or another, in the end, I guess." She slipped back out.
Claire was cheered by the company of the other two quaddies, even though it represented a growing danger of discovery not only of themselves but of their plans. How much more could go wrong before the Habitat's downsider staff started asking the right questions? Suppose the entire plot was discovered prematurely, following up the loose end she'd left? Should she have submitted docilely to Curry's procedure, just to keep the secret a little longer? Suppose 'a little longer' was all it took to make the difference between success and disaster?
"Now what, I wonder?" said Emma in a thin voice.
"Just wait. Unless you brought something to do," said Claire.
Emma shook her head. "Kara just grabbed me off my work shift in Small Repairs about ten minutes ago. I didn't think to bring anything."
"She got me out of my sleep sack," Patty confirmed. A yawn escaped her despite the tension. "I'm so tired, these days . . ."
Emma rubbed her abdomen absently with her lower palms in a circular motion familiar to Claire; so, the girls had already started childbirth training.
"I wonder how all this is going to go," sighed Emma. "How it will turn out. Where we'll all be in seven months . . ."
Hardly a figure chosen at random, Claire realized. "Away from Rodeo, anyway. Or dead."
"If we're dead, we won't have a problem," Patty said. "If not . . . Claire, how is labor? What's it really like?" Her eyes were urgent, seeking reassurance from Claire's expertise, as the sole initiate present in the maternal mysteries of the body.
Claire, understanding, responded, "It wasn't exactly comfortable, but it's nothing you can't handle. Dr. Minchenko says we have it a lot better than downsider women. We have a more flexible pelvis with a wider arch, and our pelvic floor is more elastic, on account of not having to fight the gravitational forces. He says that was his own design idea, like eliminating the hymen —whatever that was. Something painful, I gather."
"Ugh, poor things," said Emma. "I wonder if their babies ever get sucked from their bodies by the gravity?"
"I never heard of such a thing," said Claire doubtfully. "He did say they had trouble close to term with the weight of the baby cutting off circulation and squeezing their nerves and organs and things."
"I'm glad I wasn't born a downsider," said Emma. "At least not a female one. Think of the poor downsider mothers who have to worry about their helpers dropping their newborns." She shuddered.
"It's horrible, down there," Claire confirmed fervently, remembering. "It's worth risking anything, not to have to go there. Truly."
"But we'll be by ourselves, in seven months, that is," said Patty. "You had help. You had Dr. Minchenko. Emma and me—we'll be all alone."
"No, you won't," said Claire. "What a nasty thought. Kara will be there—I'll come—we'll all help."
"Leo will be coming with us," Emma offered, trying to sound optimistic. "He's a downsider."
"I'm not sure that's exactly his field of expertise," said Claire honestly, trying to picture Leo as a medtech. He didn't care for hydraulic systems, he'd said. She went on more firmly, "Anyway, all the complicated stuff in Andy's birth mostly had to do with data collecting, because I was one of the first, and they were working out the procedures, Dr. Minchenko said. Just having the baby wasn't all that much. Dr. Minchenko didn't do it—really, I didn't do it, my body did. About all he did was hold the hand-vac. Messy, but straightforward." If nothing goes wrong biologically, she thought, and had the last-minute wit not to say aloud.
Patty still looked unhappy. "Yes, but birth is only the beginning. Working for GalacTech kept us busy, but we've been working three times as hard since this escape-thing came up. And you'd have to be a dim bulb not to see it's going to get harder later. There's no end in sight. How are we going to handle it all and babies too? I'm not sure I think much of this freedom-stuff. Leo talks it up, but freedom for who? Not me. I had more free time working for the company."
"You want to go report to Dr. Curry?" suggested Emma.
Patty shrugged uncomfortably. "No . . ."
"I don't think by freedom he means free time," said Claire thoughtfully. "More like survival. Like—like not having to work for people who have a right to shoot us if they want." A twinge of harsh memory edged her voice, and she softened it self-consciously. "We'll still have to work, but it will be for ourselves. And our children."
"Mostly our children," said Patty glumly.
"That's not all bad," remarked Emma.
Claire thought she caught a glimpse of the source of Patty's pessimism. "And next time—if you want a next time—you can choose who will father your baby. There won't be anybody around to tell you."
Patty brightened visibly. "That's true."
Claire's reassurances seemed effective; the talk drifted to less threatening channels for a while. Much later, the airseal doors parted, and Pramod stuck his head in.
"We got Silver's signal," he said simply.
Claire sang out in joy; Patty and Emma hugged each other, whirling in air.
Pramod held out a cautionary hand. "Things haven't started yet. You've got to stay in here a while longer."
"No, why?" Emma cried.
"We're waiting for
a special supply shuttle from downside. When it docks is the new signal for things to start happening."
Claire's heart thumped. "Tony—did they get Tony aboard?"
Pramod shook his head, his dark eyes sharing her pain. "No, fuel rods. Leo's really anxious about them. He's afraid that without them we might not have enough power to boost the Habitat all the way out to the wormhole."
"Oh—yes, of course." Claire folded back into herself.
"Stay in here, hang on, and ignore any emergency klaxons you may hear," said Pramod. His lower hands clenched together in a gesture of encouragement, and he withdrew.
Claire settled back to wait. She could have wept with the tension of it, but Patty and Emma didn't need the bad example.
* * *
Bruce Van Atta pressed a finger to one side of his nose, squeezing the nostril shut, and sniffed mightily, then switched sides and repeated the procedure. Damn free fall and its lack of proper sinus drainage, among its other discomforts. He could hardly wait to get back to Earth. Even dismal Rodeo would be an improvement. He wondered idly if he could whip up some excuse—go inspect the quaddie barracks being readied, perhaps. That could be stretched out to about five days, if he worked it right.
He drifted over and shored himself across one corner of Dr. Yei's pie-wedge-shaped office, sighting over her desk, his back to a flat inner wall and his feet braced where her magnet board curved, thick with stuck-on papers and flimsies. Yei's lips tightened with annoyance as she swiveled to face him. He hitched his feet to a comfortably crossed position, deliberately letting them muss her papers, out-psyching the psycher. She glanced back to her holovid display, declining to rise to the bait, and he mussed a few more. Female wimp, he thought. A relief, that they had only a few weeks left to work together, and he didn't have to jolly her up any more.
"So," he prodded, "how far along are we?"
"Well, I don't know how you're doing—in fact," she added rather venomously, "I don't even know what you're doing—"
Van Atta grinned in appreciation. So the worm could wriggle after all. Some administrators might have taken offense at the implied insubordination; he congratulated himself upon his sense of humor.