Charles Sheffield - Starfire

Pay all that money for prime half-gee living space, then find you’re sitting in free fall like the poor peasants on the axis.”

The smiles and nods of agreement said Poor like us. To someone with Maddy’s sensitivity to people, that was easy to read. How much money did a Sky City engineer make? She could ask that some other time. Her bet was that she had an income more than this whole group combined, except maybe for Lauren, who was as expensively dressed as before. The harder part was to comprehend the rest of what the others were saying. She was getting the picture very slowly, not because she was unintelligent or because what she was hearing was particularly obscure but because the idea was so alien. This small group was quietly discussing ways of moving the vast and complex Sky City out to the end of the shield and parking it next to Cusp Station. And that, in turn, had huge implications. Why would anyone ever consider such a move, unless the project to save Earth was in dreadful trouble?

Once again, the trained observer in Maddy noted another oddity of the group. Something was missing. Where was the jockeying for position? Where were the hidden agendas that you found in every meeting back on Earth? Even Celine Tanaka, whom Maddy liked, possessed secret meeting goals that she would never reveal.

And where were the egos? Maddy could see no sign of them. All that seemed to matter were technical problems. It was a different world from the one she was used to. It was also a world with its own attractions; men like John Hyslop and Will Davis, awkward and often inarticulate, without the smooth, persuasive line of talk you were so used to. You were not always fighting with them for a controlling hand, or wondering what they wanted from you. They were men who were what they seemed to be.

Not that Sky City was without its own unpleasant characters. The faceless murderer, wandering unseen through the corridors, the blood of a dozen young girls on his hands. Seth Parsigian. Not a murderer — at least, not this murderer — but one of Gordy Rolfe’s hard-core bully boys.

John Hyslop’s quiet voice brought Maddy back from her brooding. “So we know where the immediate problems are. Optimal placement of thrustors — even though the accelerations are low, we’re moving an awful lot of mass. Local stresses will be fierce and local strains need checking. That’s your area, Lauren. I’ll worry about balancing thrust movements about the center of mass. Low-intensity beam generator and pulse generator we’ve already discussed — that’s you, Will and Torrance. Allocation of computing resources when we need them — that will be you, Amanda.”

“You say when we need them.” Amanda Corrigan was a slim brunette. Maddy took a closer look and revised her first impression. While that undeveloped body and slender legs made her seem about thirteen years old, her eyes told a different story. She was in her mid-twenties or older. She must also be highly competent to hold a place in John Hyslop’s elite engineering group. “Isn’t it really if ,” Amanda went on, “and not when we have to move Sky City? Do you honestly think it will be necessary to do it?”

John took the question very seriously, finger-tapping at the control panel on his lap while he was thinking. Finally he nodded. “It will be necessary. I wish I didn’t feel this way, and I’m surely no physicist. Astarte Vjansander acts a bit peculiar, but she and Wilmer Oldfield have me completely convinced. The particle storm is coming sooner than we thought. And it will be nothing like we expected.”

He glanced around the group. “Any other questions?”

“Materials,” Will Davis said. “We’re going to need lots of electronics for the broad-beam field and pulse generators, but I’m not sure yet what the requirements will be. When we do know, we’ll be in a hurry. Standard procurement channels are a pain — and they’re slow.”

“Good point. Until “we’re out near Cusp Station and ready for action, I’ll put a no-limits ceiling on material requests. If you’re going to need anything really outlandish, you should contact me and discuss it. I’m available anytime, but don’t call me unless you really have to. It’s not that I’m antisocial; I just like to sleep now and again.”

The group dispersed and drifted out of the room. John Hyslop stayed. So did Maddy, despite the curious glances that she received from the others.

John, at least, seemed pleased to see her. He smiled shyly, looked away, and said, “Well, I don’t imagine that was very much fun for you.”

“Not great. You love all this, don’t you?”

“I suppose I do. It’s my world, Maddy. Where I live.” He hesitated.

Maddy waited.

Could you learn to live here, too?

He hadn’t said that. Of course he hadn’t. It was her own mind, producing perplexing questions. Nothing had been the same since the sight of Lucille DeNorville’s body. Old memories, dredged up from Maddy’s deepest levels, pushing away the present, drawing in the past. The white bulging eyes, the gray and blotchy face. You’re all I’ve got now . . . make me proud of you.

She had done her best. She was Maddy Wheatstone, close to the top in the Argos Group and ready to rise farther yet. She was star-bright, diamond-hard, tough as she had to be. Even Gordy Rolfe treated her with respect. Meg could have done no better.

And then in one moment it all became meaningless.

Lucille DeNorville’s dry, ravaged corpse floated in front of her, abandoned like trash in the dark and barren corridor. Lucille had been mourned long ago. Now there could only be second sorrow and a quiet interment.

Lucille’s death, like any death — like any life — was meaningless. Everything that Maddy had done was meaningless. Nothing had significance. Nothing brought the slightest satisfaction.

She felt a hand on her arm. John Hyslop was at her side. “Are you all right?”

Maddy took a deep breath. “I will be. I’m just — a little tired.”

“You ought to be taking things easier. Come on, sit down.” He led her to one of the reclining chairs. “Dr. Weinstein said that you might not feel a hundred percent for quite a while.”

“I’m all right now.” The feeling of desolation was passing. Had that been mentioned as an aftereffect of labyrinthitis and the Asfanil injection? If so, Maddy didn’t remember it — or believe it. The change was deeper and more long-lasting. It had begun on her first visit to Sky City, her first meeting with John Hyslop. Make me proud of you. Even if she could one day take over from Gordy Rolfe and run the whole of the Argos Group, was that something to make a father proud? What about the rest of her life?

Maddy made herself sit up straighter in the chair. She found John Hyslop staring at her. He looked worried. She forced a smile and said, “I’m feeling better. But John, I can’t afford to take things easy. None of us can.” She deliberately made the switch of subject. “Why does Sky City have to change its position?”

The change was immediate and obvious. As John began to speak she saw him relax. Technical discussions, no matter how complex, were easy and natural for him.

Personal issues, things such as dealing with an emotionally tattered and unstable Maddy Wheatstone, came much harder.

He explained about the meeting with the two physicists who had arrived from Earth. Maddy had never heard of them, but that was not surprising. The world of science and that of the Argos Group intersected only in very specialized areas.

Halfway through John’s summary of the meeting with Wilmer Oldfield and Astarte Vjansander, Maddy caught another of its implications.

She interrupted him. “Sky City has to be moved, and the old shield will be useless. If there’s to be a new defense system for the particle storm, who is going to do all that?”