Falling Free

“Half the channels are dead.”

“Can’t you even raise Central Systems?”

“Lady, I am Central Systems—”

“Shouldn’t we have a head-count? Does anybody know exactly how many there are up on rotation right now?”

“Two hundred seventy-two, but how can you know which are missing because they’re trapped and which are missing because they’re out there dealing with it—”

“Let me at that damned comm unit—”

“CLOSE THE DOOR!” Van Atta himself joined the chorus this time, semi-involuntarily. The pressure differential was becoming more marked. He was glad he wasn’t a latecomer. If this went on it would shortly become his duty to see the doors stayed closed at any cost, no matter who was pounding for admittance from the other side. He had a little list… Well, anybody who lacked the wit to respond quickly to emergency instructions shouldn’t be on a space station. Survival of the fittest.

If they hadn’t amassed the whole two hundred seventy-two by now, they were surely getting close. Van Atta pushed his way through the bobbing crowd toward the center of the module, stealing momentum from this or that person at the price of their own displacement. A few turned to object, saw who had nudged them, and bit short their complaints. Somebody had the cover off the comm unit and was peering into its guts in frustration, lacking delicate diagnostic tools doubtless dropped somewhere back in the Habitat.

“Can’t you at least raise the quaddies’ gym?” demanded a young woman. “I’ve got to know if my class made it there.”

“Well, why didn’t you go with ‘em, then?” the would-be repairman snapped logically.

“One of the older quaddies took them. He told me to come here. I didn’t think to argue with him, with that alarm howling in our ears—”

“No go.” Grimacing, the man clicked the cover shut.

“Well, I’m going back and find out,” said the young woman decisively.

“No, you’re not,” interrupted Van Atta. “There’s too many people breathing in here to open the door and lose air unnecessarily. Not till we find out what’s going on, how extensive this is, and how long it’s likely to last.”

The man tapped the holovid cover. “If this thing doesn’t cut in, the only way we’re going to find out anything is to send out somebody with a breath mask to go check.”

“We’ll give it a few more minutes.” Damn that overweening fool Graf. What had he done? And where was he? In a breath mask somewhere, Van Atta trusted, or better yet a pressure suit—although if Graf had indeed caused this unholy mess, Van Atta wasn’t sure he wished him a pressure suit. Let him have a breath mask, and a nasty case of the bends for just punishment. Idiot Graf.

So much for Graf’s famous safety record. Blessings in disguise, at least the engineer wouldn’t be able to jam that down his throat any more. A little humility would be good for him.

And yet—the situation was so damned anomalous. It shouldn’t be possible to depressurize the whole Habitat at once. There were back-ups on the backups, interlocks, separated bays—any accident so system-wide would take foresight and planning.

A little hiss escaped his teeth, and Van Atta locked into himself in a sudden bubble of furious concentration, eyes widening. A planned accident—could it be, could it possibly be…?

Genius Graf. An accident, an accident, a perfect accident, the very accident he’d most desired but had never dared wish for aloud. Was that it? That had to be it! Fatal disaster for the quaddies, now, at the last moment when they were all together and it could be accomplished at one stroke?

A dozen clues fell into place. Graf’s insistence upon handling all the details of the salvage planning himself, his secretiveness, his anxiety for constant updates on the evacuation schedule—his withdrawal from social contacts that Yei had observed with disfavor, obsessive work schedule, general air of a man with a secret agenda driven to exhaustion—it was all culminating in this.

Of course it was secret. Now that he had penetrated the plot himself, Van Atta could only concur. The gratitude of the GalacTech hierarchy to Graf for relieving them of the quaddie problem must appear indirectly, in better assignments, quicker promotions—he would have to think up some suitably oblique way of transmitting it.

On the other hand—why share? Van Atta’s lips drew back in a vulpine grin. This was hardly a situation where Graf could demand credit where it was due, after all. Graf had been subtle—but not subtle enough. There would have to be a sacrifice, for the sake of form, after the accident. All he had to do was keep his mouth shut, and… Van Atta had to wrench his attention back to his present surroundings.

“I’ve got to check on my quaddies!” The young woman was growing wild-eyed. She gave up on the comm unit and began to shove her way back toward the airseal doors.

“Yes,” another man joined her, “and I’ve got to find Wyzak, he’s still not here. He’s bound to need help. I’ll go with you—”

“No!” cried Van Atta urgently, almost adding You’ll spoil everything! “You’re to wait for the all-clear. I won’t have a panic. We’ll all just sit tight and wait for instructions.”

The woman subsided, but the man said skeptically, “Instructions from whom?”

“Graf,” said Van Atta. Yes, it was not too early to start making it clear to witnesses where the hands-on responsibility lay. He controlled his excitement-spurred rapid breathing, trying for an aura of steady calm. Though not too calm—he must appear as surprised as any—no, more surprised than any—when the full extent of the disaster became apparent.

He settled down to wait. Minutes dragged past. One last panting group of refugees made it through the airseal doors; the Habitat-wide rate of depressurization must be slowing. One of the administrators from inventory control—old habits die hard—presented him with an unsolicited head-count of those present.

He silently cursed the census-taker’s initiative, even as he accepted the results with thanks. The proof that all were not present might compel him to action he did not desire to take.

Only eleven downsider staff members had not made it. A necessary price to pay, Van Atta assured himself nervously. Some were doubtless holed up in other pressurized pockets, or so he could maintain he had believed, later. Their fatal mistakes could be pinned on Graf.

A group by the airseal doors was making ready to bolt. Van Atta inhaled, and paused, momentarily uncertain how to stop them without giving away everything. But a cry of dismay went up from one woman—”All the air is out of the corridor now! We can’t get through without pressure suits!” Van Atta exhaled in relief.

He made his way to one of the module’s viewports; it framed a dull vista of unwinking stars. The port on the other side gave an oblique view back toward the Habitat. Movement caught his eye, and he mashed his nose to the cold glass in an attempt to make out the details.

The silvery flash of worksuits, bobbing over the outside surface of the Habitat. Refugees? Or a repair party? Could his first hypothesis of a real accident be correct after all? Not good, but in any case it was still Graf s baby.

But there were quaddies out there, dammit, quaddie survivors. He could see the arms. Graf had not made his stroke complete. Just two quaddie survivors, if one was male and the other female, would be as bad as a thousand, from Apmad’s point of view. Perhaps the work party was all-male.

There was Graf himself, among the flitting figures! They carried an assortment of equipment. The wavering distortion of his transverse view through the port prevented him from making out just what. He twisted his neck, craning painfully. Then the work party was eclipsed by a curve of the Habitat. A pusher slid into, and out of, his view, arcing smoothly over the lecture module. More escapees? Quaddie or downsider?

“Hey,” an excited voice from within the lecture module disrupted his frantic observations. “We’re in luck, gang. This whole cupboard is filled with breath masks. There must be three hundred of “em.”

Van Atta swivelled his head to spot the cupboard in question. The last time he’d been in this module that storage had been filled with audiovisual equipment. Who the hell had made that switch, and why…?

A bang reverberated through the module with a peculiar sharp resonance, like having one’s head in a metal bucket when someone whacked it with a hammer. Hard. Shrieks and screams. The lights dimmed, then came up to