In fact, the effect of her action on everyone present, not just their captives, was most gratifying. Everyone moved faster.
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 and 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?”
Ti subsided instantly. “Yes, ma’am.” Yes,
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 accidently 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 fourteen 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 and 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
“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 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
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. Min-chenko. 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.”
