Bannerji. “Sergeant Fors just reported in—says their groundcar was disabled. They’re returning in Dr. Minchenko’s abandoned land rover. It’ll be at least another hour before they’re back. For another, as Dr. Yei has several times pointed out, we have not yet received authorization to use any kind of deadly force.”
“Surely you’ve got some kind of hot pursuit clause,” argued Van Atta.
“I haven’t overlooked that fact,” murmured Bannerji.
“But,” Dr. Yei put in, “having asked HQ for authorization to use force, we are now obliged to wait for their reply. What, after all, if they deny the request?”
Van Atta frowned at her, his eyes narrowing. “I knew we should never have asked. You maneuvered us into that, damn you. They’d have swallowed any fait accompli we presented, and been glad of it. Now…” he shook his head in frustration. “Anyway, you’re overlooking other sources of personnel. The Habitat staff itself can be used to follow up the opening Security drives into the Habitat.”
“They’re scattered all over Rodeo by now,” Dr. Yei remarked, “back to their downside leave quarters, most of them.”
Bannerji cringed visibly. “And do you have any idea the kind of legal liability that situation would present to Security?”
“So deputize ‘em—”
A beeping from Chalopin’s desk console interrupted Van Atta; a comm tech’s face appeared in the vid.
“Administrator Chalopin? Comm Center here. You asked us to advise you of any change in the status of the Habitat or the D-620. They, um—appear to be preparing to leave orbit.”
“Put it on up here,” Chalopin ordered.
The comm tech produced the flat view from the satellite again. He upped the magnification, and the Habitat-D-620 configuration half-filled the vid. The D-620’s two normal-space thruster arms had been augmented by four of the big thruster units the quaddies used to break cargo bundles out of orbit. Even as Van Atta watched in horror, the array of engines flared into life. Stirring a glittering wake of space trash, the monstrous vehicle began to move.
Dr. Yei stood staring open-mouthed, her hands clapped to her chest, her eyes glistening strangely. Van Atta felt like weeping with rage himself.
“You see—” he pointed, his voice cracking, “you see what all this interminable dithering has resulted in? They’re getting
“Oh, not yet,” purred Dr. Yei. “It will be at least a couple of days before they can possibly arrive at the wormhole. There is no just cause for panic.” She blinked at Van Atta, went on in an almost hypnotically cloying voice, “You are extremely fatigued, of course, as are we all. Fatigue invites mistakes in judgment. You should rest —get some sleep.…”
His hands twitched; he burned to strangle her on the spot. The shuttleport administrator and that idiot Bannerji were nodding, reasonable agreement. A choked growl steamed from Van Atta’s throat. “Every minute you wait is going to complicate our logistics—increase the range—increase the risk—”
They all had the same bland stare on their faces. Van Atta didn’t need his nose rubbed in it—he could recognize concerted non-cooperation when he smelled it. Damn, damn, damn! He glowered suspiciously at Yei. But his hands were tied, his authority undercut by her sweet reason. If Yei and all her ilk had their way, nobody would ever shoot anybody, and chaos would rule the universe.
He snarled inarticulately, wheeled on his heel, and stalked out.
Claire woke without yet opening her eyes, snugged in her sleep sack. The exhaustion that had drenched her at the end of last shift was slow to ebb from her limbs. She could not hear Andy stirring yet; good, a brief respite before diaper change. In ten minutes she would wake him, and they would exchange services; he relieving her tingling breasts of milk, the milk relieving his hungry tummy—moms need babes, she thought sleepily, as much as babes need moms, an interlocking design, two individuals sharing one biological system… so the quaddies shared the technological system of the Habitat, each dependent on all the others…
Dependent on her work, too. What was next?
Germination boxes, grow tubes—no, she could not yank grow tubes around today, today was Acceleration Day—her eyes sprang open. And widened in joy-
“Tony!” she breathed. “How long have you been here?”
“Been watching you abou’ fifteen minutes. You sleep pretty. Can I come in?” He hung in air, dressed again in his familiar, comfortable red T-shirt and shorts, watching her in the half-light of her chamber. “Gotta tie down anyway, acceleration’s about to start.”
“Already…?” She wriggled aside and made room for him, entwining all their arms, touching his face and the alarming bandage still wrapping his torso. “Are you all right?”
“All right now,” he sighed happily. “Lying there, in that hospital—well, I didn’t expect anyone to come after me. Horrible risk to you—not worth it!” He nuzzled her hair.
“We talked about it, the risk. But we couldn’t leave you. Us quaddies—we’ve got to stick together.” She was fully awake now, reveling in his physical reality, muscled hands, bright eyes, fuzzy blond brows. “Losing you would have diminished us, Leo said, and not just genetically. We have to be a people now, not just Claire and Tony and Silver and Siggy—and Andy—I guess it’s what Leo calls ‘synergistic.’ We’re something synergistic now.”
A strange vibration purred through the walls of her chamber. She hitched around to scoop Andy out of his sleep restraints beside her, and fold him to her with her upper hands while still holding Tony’s lowers with her lowers, under the sleep sack’s cover. Andy squeaked, lips smacking, and fell back to sleep. Slowly, gently, her shoulderblades began to press against the wall.
“We’re on our way,” she whispered. “It’s starting…”
“It’s holding together,” Tony observed in wonder. They clung to each other. “Wanted to be with you, at this moment.…”
She let the acceleration have her, laying her head against the wall, cushioning Andy on her chest. Something went
“This is the way to travel,” sighed Tony. “Beats stowing away.…”
“It’s going to be strange, without GalacTech,” said Claire after a while. “Just us quaddies… what will Andy’s world be like, I wonder?”
“That’ll be up to us, I guess,” said Tony soberly. “That’s almost scarier than downsiders with guns, y’know? Freedom. Huh.” He shook his head. “Not like I’d pictured it.”
Yei’s suggested sleep was out of the question. Morosely, Van Atta returned not to his living quarters, but to his own downside office. He had not checked in there for a couple of weeks. It was about midnight now, Shuttleport Three time; his downside secretary was off-shift. It suited his foul humor to sulk alone.
After about twenty minutes spent muttering to himself in the dim light, he decided to scan his accumulated electronic mail. His usual office routine had gone to pot these last few weeks anyway, and of course the events of the last two days had blown it entirely to hell. Perhaps a dose of boring routine would calm him enough to consider sleep after all.
Obsolete memos, out-of-date requests for instructions, irrelevant progress reports—the quaddie downside barracks, he noted with a grim snort, was advertised as ready for occupancy at fifteen percent over budget. If he could catch any quaddies to put in them. Instructions from HQ viz wrapping up the Cay Project, unsolicited advice upon salvage and disposal of its various parts…
Van Atta stopped abruptly, and backed up two screens on his vid. What had that said again?
He checked the source of the order. No, it hadn’t come through Apmad’s office, as he’d first guessed. It came from General Accounting & Inventory Control, part of a long computer-generated list including a variety of lab stores. The order was signed by a human, though, some unknown middle manager in the GA&IC back on Earth.
“By damn,” Van Atta swore softly, “I don’t think this twit even knows what quaddies
