Falling Free

pattern, thought you’d like that, being in hydroponics and all.”

“Oh…” One of Valeria Virga’s heroines might have been at home in such a garment. Silver reached for it, drew her hand back. “But—but I can’t take it”

“Why not? You take the book-discs. It wasn’t that expensive.”

Silver, who felt she was beginning to have a fairly clear idea of how money worked from her reading, shook her head. “It’s not that. It’s, well—you know, I don’t think Dr. Yei would approve of our meeting like this. Neither would—would a lot of other people.” Actually, Silver was fairly sure that “disapprove” would barely begin to cover the consequences should her secret transactions with Ti be found out. “Prudes,” scoffed Ti. “You’re not going to let them start telling you what to do now, are you?” But his scorn was tinged with anxiety.

“I’m not going to start telling them what I am doing either,” said Silver pointedly. “Are you?” “God, no,” he waved his hands in horrified negation. “So, we are in agreement. Unfortunately, that,” she pointed regretfully at the blouse, “is something I can’t hide. I couldn’t wear it without someone demanding that I explain where I got it.”

“Oh,” he said, in the blunted tone of one struck by incontrovertable fact. “Yeah, I—guess I should have thought of that. Do you suppose you could put it away for a time? I’ve only been taking my gravity leaves on the Rodeo side because all the shuttle bonus berths at Orient IV get nailed by the senior guys. Well, and you can log a lot more hours here I faster, with all the freight hauling. But I’ll have my shuttle commander’s rating and be back to permanent Jump status in just a few more cycles.”

“It can’t be shared, either,” said Silver. “You see, the thing about the books and the vid dramas and lings, besides being small and easy to hide, is that they can be passed all around the group without being used up. Nobody gets left out. So I can get, um, a lot of cooperation when I want to, say—get away for a little time by myself?” A toss of her head indicated the privacy they were presently enjoying.

“Ah,” gulped Ti. He paused. “I—hadn’t realized you were passing the stuff around.”

“Not share?” said Silver. “That would be really wrong.” She stared at him in mild offense, and pushed the blouse back toward him on the surge of the emotion, quickly, before she weakened. She almost explained further, then thought better of it.

Best Ti didn’t know about the uproar when one of the book-discs, accidently left in a viewer, had been found by one of the Habitat’s downsider staff and turned over to Dr. Yei. The search—barely alerted, they had scrambled successfully to hide the rest of the contraband library, but the fierce intensity of the search had been warning enough to Silver of how serious was her offense in the eyes of her authorities.

There had been two more surprise inspections since, even though no more discs had been found. She could take a hint.

Mr. Van Atta himself had taken her aside—her!—and urged her to spy out the leak for him among her comrades. She had started to confess, stopped just in time, as his rising rage tightened her throat with fear. “I’m going to crucify the little sneak when I get my hands on him,” Van Atta had snarled. Maybe Ti would not find Mr. Van Atta and Dr. Yei and all their staffs ranked together so intimidating—but she dared not risk losing her one sure source of downsider delights. Ti at least was willing to barter for what was in effect a bit of Silver’s labor, the one invisible commodity not accounted for in any inventory; who knew, another pilot might want things of some kind, far more difficult to smuggle out of the Habitat unnoticed.

A long-awaited movement in the loading area caught her eye. And you thought you were risking trouble for a few books, Silver thought to herself. Wait’ll this shit gets on the loose…

“Thank you anyway,” said Silver hastily, and grabbed Ti around the neck for a prolonged thank-you kiss. He closed his eyes—wonderful reflex, that—and Silver rolled hers toward the view out the control booth window. Tony, Claire, and Andy were just disappearing into the shuttle hatch flex tube.

There, thought Silver, that’s it. I’ve done what I can—the rest is up to you. Good luck, double-luck. And more sharply, I wish I was going with you.

“Oof! Look at the time!” Ti broke off their embrace. “I’ve got to get this checklist completed before Captain Durrance gets back. Guess you’re right about the shirt,” he stuffed it unceremoniously back into his flight bag, “what do you want me to bring you next time?”

“Siggy in Airsystems Maintenance asked me if there were any more holovids in the Ninja of the Twin Stars series,” Silver said promptly. “He’s up to Number 7, but he’s missing 4 and 5.”

“Ah,” said Ti “now that was decent entertainment. Did you watch them yourself?”

“Yes,” Silver wrinkled her nose, “but I’m not sure—the people in them did such horrible things to one another—they are fiction, you say?”

“Well, yes.”

“That’s a relief.”

“Yes, but what would you like for yourself?” he | persisted. “I’m not risking reprimand to gratify Siggy, whoever he is. Siggy doesn’t have your,” he sighed in remembered pleasure, “dear double-jointed hips.”

Silver fanned out the three new book cards in her |lower right hand. “More, please, sir.”

“If it’s dreck you want,” he captured each of her hands in turn and kissed their palms, “it’s dreck you shall have. Uh, oh, here comes my fearless captain,” Ti hastily straightened his shuttle pilot’s uniform, turned up the light level, and picked up his report panel as an airseal door at the far end of the loading bay swished open. “He hates being saddled with junior Jumpers. Tadpoles, he calls us. I think he’s uncomfortable because on my Jumpship, I’d outrank him. Still, better not give the old guy something to pick on…”

Silver made the book cards disappear into her work bag and took up the pose of an idle bystander as Captain Durrance, the shuttle commander, floated into the control booth.

“Snap it up, Ti, we’ve had a change of itinerary,” said Captain Durrance. “Yes, sir. What’s up?” “We’re wanted downside.”

“Hell,” Ti swore mildly. “What a pain. I had a hot date lined—er,” his eye fell on Silver, “was supposed to meet a friend for dinner tonight at the Transfer Station.”

“Fine,” said Captain Durrance, ironically unsympathetic. “File a complaint with Employee Relations, your work schedule is interfering with your love life. Maybe they can arrange that you not have a work schedule.”

Ti took the hint, and moved hastily out to continue his duties as a Habitat technician arrived to take over the loading bay control booth.

Silver made herself small in a corner, frozen in horror and confusion. At the Transfer Station, Tony and Claire had planned to stow away on a Jump ship for Orient IV, get beyond the reach of GalacTech, find work when they got there; a horribly risky plan, in Silver’s estimation, a measure of their desperation. Claire had been terrified, but at last persuaded by Tony’s plan of carefully thought-out stages. At least, the first stages had been carefully thought-out; they had seemed to get vaguer, farther away from Rodeo and home. They had not planned on a downside detour in any version.

Tony and Claire had surely hidden themselves by now in the shuttle’s cargo bay. There was no way for Silver to warn them—should she betray them to save them? The ensuing uproar was guaranteed to be ghastly—her dismay wrapped like a steel band around her chest, constricting breathing, constricting speech.

She watched on the control booth’s vid display in miserable paralysis as the shuttle kicked away from the Habitat and began to drop toward Rodeo’s swirling atmosphere.

Chapter 4

The dim cargo bay seemed to groan all around Claire as deceleration strained its structure. Buffeting, accompanied by a hissing whistle, vibrated through the shuttle’s metal skin.

“What’s wrong?” gasped Claire. She released an anchoring hand upon the plastic crate behind which they had hidden to double her grasp of Andy and hold him closer. “Are we sideswiping something? What’s that funny noise?”

Tony hurriedly licked a ringer and held it out. “No draft to speak of.” He swallowed, testing his eustachican tubes. “We’re not depressurizing.” Yet the whistle was rising.

Two mechanical ka-chunks, one after the other, that were nothing at all like the familiar thump and click of