The Aftermath

going to flee not only George Ambrose and the construction task he had imposed; he was going to get away from Cheena Madagascar and her demands as well.

Not demands, he told himself. It’s not fair to call it that. You’re willing enough. Cheena’s a temptation, a siren that I’m not strong enough to resist. The only thing I can do is run away.

It wasn’t easy. Big George knew that Victor was thoroughly unhappy with his forced labor on the rock rats’ new habitat. Security personnel watched Victor: not obviously, not as if he were under guard. But Victor knew his every move was scrutinized by security cameras, night and day. Even when he spent the night with Cheena, he saw the unavoidable red eye of a surveillance camera in the passageway leading to her door, and it was still watching when he left the following morning.

Slowly and surely he drew his plans. Now, as he walked through the habitat’s control center, he was ready to set them in motion.

The control center was Chrysalis II’s brain. It hummed with constant activity, alive with the buzz of electrical circuitry and the muted talk of the men and women who observed every aspect of the habitat. Along one sweeping wall of the low-ceilinged chamber was a row of display screens, each set of six monitored by a human observer equipped with a communications set clipped to one ear. Walking slowly down the line behind them, Victor could watch every section of the habitat, oversee the construction teams working on the unfinished areas, check on the status of the life support systems, the electrical power supply, the water recyclers, everything.

On one set of screens he saw the docking ports where Pleiades and other ships were moored. A few screens down the row he could see an outside view of the maintenance robots installing new meteor bumpers on another ship’s hull.

Victor glanced up at the master clock on the wall above the screens. Its digits read 15:44. A little more than eight hours to go, he told himself.

At exactly 1600 hours he left the control center, as usual, and walked down the passageway to the main cafeteria, where he loaded a tray with his last meal aboard Chrysalis II. Or so he hoped. As he ate, an island of solitude at a small table in the midst of the bustling, noisy cafeteria, he thought that if his scheme didn’t work this might be the last meal of his life. Big George would probably be angry enough to kill him.

He ate for sustenance, chewing without tasting the food. In his mind he went over every facet of his plan. It should work, he thought. He could find nothing wrong with it. If they’re watching you night and day, you have to blind them. It’s that simple. And that dangerous.

As he left the cafeteria Victor wondered if he should visit Cheena Madagascar one last time. No, he told himself sternly. But her quarters are closer to the docking port than mine, he argued with himself. What of it? the other part of his mind answered. You’ve timed it all out. You’ll be able to get to the ship from your own quarters with minutes to spare.

He knew he should avoid the temptation. Still, it was a struggle. He went to his quarters, glanced up at the unblinking red light of the security camera at the end of the passageway, opened his door and stepped inside. Now you stay here until 12:01, he told himself.

* * *

The working shift in the control center changed at midnight. Usually the incoming crew began filtering in, in ones and twos, a few minutes before the hour.

As the relief crew started showing up at the control center, one of the observers at the security console frowned at a set of red lights that appeared suddenly on his board.

“Damn,” he said to the woman sitting next to him. “Cameras are down in sections fourteen and fifteen.”

“You’ve had trouble with them before, haven’t you?” she said.

“Last friggin’ week,” he replied, tapping at his keyboard. “Guess I’ll have to roust maintenance.”

“And security,” the woman reminded him. “There’s a special security watch in those sections.”

“Yeah, right.” He frowned. “They’re gonna love getting goosed at midnight.”

The woman shrugged. “You’ve gotta do it. Regulations. Can’t leave the surveillance cameras down.”

He gave her a sour look. “Like somebody’s gonna steal something while the cameras are down? Most people are sleepin’, this time of night.”

“It’s regulations,” she repeated.

He reached for the communications link to the maintenance department, grumbling, “If I don’t report it I’ll catch hell.”

The woman pushed her chair back and got to her feet. “Let the next shift call it in. Let them listen to the bitchin’.”

At that moment, his relief sauntered over to the console, grinning casually. “You going to stay for my shift? I’ll go back to bed, then.”

The man hopped to his feet. “Not bloody likely. I’m leaving. The cameras are down in fourteen and fifteen again.”

“Again?” said the relief observer, sliding into the warm chair. “We had trouble with them last week. You call maintenance?”

“Not yet. It’s all yours, pal.”

“Thanks a lot!”

“You gotta call security, too, y’know. Have fun.”

“Shit!”

* * *

It was a mistake, Victor thought, to try to keep the man in charge of building this habitat from getting away. I know all the systems and how to finagle around them.

The only question was timing. How long would it take the maintenance crew to bring the cameras back up? How quickly would security send a team to check on him? Victor hurried past the dead camera up on the ceiling of the passageway and made his way to the docking ports.

The security guard at the entrance to the ports was frowning at the blank screen on his desk.

“What’s the trouble?” Victor asked him.

“Dunno. Goddamn screen just went blank on me. I can’t get anything on it.”

“The system’s gone down before,” said Victor. “It usually comes up again in a few minutes.”

“Yeah,” the guard said, his voice thin with uncertainty.

Victor stepped around the desk to the seated guard’s side.

“Uh, Mr. Zacharias,” the guard said uncertainly, “You’re not supposed to be in this area, y’know.”

“I know. I just thought I could help you with your screen.”

“Why’d it hafta go blooey just when I start my shift?” the guard grumbled. “I can’t get any calls in or out.”

“Let me have a look at it…”

Victor took in a deep breath, then chopped at the back of the guard’s neck as hard as he could. The man slid out of his chair, banged his chin on the desk top, and slumped to the floor.

“Sorry,” Victor muttered. He dashed up the passageway that led to the docking ports. Undogging the hatch that led into Pleiades’s main airlock, he rushed straight to the ship’s bridge, slipped into the command chair, and began powering up the ship’s systems.

No alarms yet. Good, he thought. Even if maintenance gets the cameras back on, there’s nothing for them to see in the passageways. I’m okay until the guard comes to. So far so good.

Now comes the tricky part.

Victor had filed a departure plan for Pleiades with the habitat’s flight control computer several days earlier. The flight controllers normally were not in the same loop as the surveillance cameras or security guards. Normally they seldom talked to one another. Victor hoped this was a normal night.