Lois Bujold - Falling Free

“The rod itself wasn’t hit—”

Ti let out a relieved breath.

“—but the portside titanium vortex mirror was smashed.”

Ti’s breath became a howl in a minor key. “That’s just as bad!”

“Calm down! Maybe not quite as bad. I have one or two ideas yet. I wanted to talk to you anyway. When we took over the Habitat, there was a freight shuttle in dock.”

Ti eyed him suspiciously. “Lucky you. So?”

“Planning, not luck. Something Silver doesn’t know yet—” Leo caught her eye; she braced herself visibly, soberly intent upon his words, “we weren’t able to get Tony back before we took over the Habitat. He’s still in hospital downside on Rodeo.”

“Oh, no,” Silver whispered. “Is there any way—?”

Leo rubbed his aching forehead. “Maybe. I’m not sure it’s good military thinking—the precedent had to do with sheep, I believe—but I don’t think I could live with myself if we didn’t at least try to get him back. Dr. Minchenko has also promised to go with us if we can somehow pick up Madame Minchenko. She’s downside too.”

“Dr. Minchenko stayed?” Silver clapped her hands, clearly thrilled. “Oh, good.”

“Only if we retrieve the Madame,” Leo cautioned. “So that’s two reasons to chance a downside foray. We have a shuttle, we have a pilot—”

“Oh, no,” began Ti, “now, wait a minute—”

“—and we desperately need a spare part. If we can locate a vortex mirror in a Rodeo warehouse—”

“You won’t,” Ti cut in firmly. “Jumpship repairs are handled solely by the District orbital yards at Orient IV. Everything’s warehoused on that end. I know ‘cause we had a problem once and had to wait four days for a repair crew to arrive from there. Rodeo’s got nothing to do with Superjumpers, nothing. “ He crossed his arms.

“I was afraid of that,” said Leo lowly. “Well, there’s one other possibility. We could try to fabricate a new one, here on the spot.”

Ti looked like a man sucking on a lemon. “Graf, you don’t weld those things together out of scrap iron. I know damn well they make ‘em all in one piece—something about joins impeding the field flow—and that sucker’s three meters wide at the top end! The thing they stamp them out with weighs multi tons. And the precision required—it would take you six months to put a project like that together!” Leo gulped, and held up both hands, fingers spread. Had he been a quaddie he might have been tempted to double the estimate, but, “Ten hours,” he said. “Sure, I’d like to have six months. Downside. In a foundry. With a monster alloy-steel press die machined to the millimicron, just like the big boys. And mass water-cooling, and a team of assistants, and unlimited funding—I’d be all set up to make ten thousand units. But we don’t need ten thousand units. There is another way. A quick-and-dirty one-shot, but one shot’s all we’re going to have time for. But I can’t be up here, refabricating a vortex mirror, and down there, rescuing Tony, both at the same time. The quaddies can’t go. I need you, Ti. I’d have needed you to pilot the shuttle in any case. Now I’ll just need you to do a little more.”

“Look, you,” Ti began. “Theory was, I was going to get out of this with a whole skin ‘cause GalacTech would think I was kidnapped, and had Jumped you out with a gun to my head. A nice, simple, believable scenario. This is getting too damned complicated. Even if I could pull off a stunt like that, they’re not going to believe I did it under duress. What would keep me from flying downside—and just turning myself in? That’s the sort of questions they’ll be asking, you can bet your ass. No, dammit. Not for love nor money.”

“I know,” Leo growled. “We’ve offered both.”

Ti glared at him, but ducked his head to evade Silver’s eyes.

A thin young voice was echoing down the corridor. “Leo? Leo…!”

“Here!” Leo answered. What now…?

One of the younger quaddies swung into sight and darted toward them. “Leo! We’ve been looking all over for you. Come quick!”

“What is it?”

“An urgent message. On the comm. From downside.”

“We’re not answering their messages. Total blackout, remember? The less information we give them, the longer it’s going to take them to figure out what to do about us.”

“But it’s Tony!”

Leo’s guts knotted, and he lurched after the messenger. Silver, pale, and the others followed hot behind.

The holovid solidified, showing a hospital bed. Tony was braced against the raised backrest, looking directly into the vid. He wore T-shirt and shorts, a white bandage around his left lower bicep, a thick stiffness to his torso hinting at wrappings beneath. His face was furrowed, flushed over a pale underlay. His blue eyes shifted nervously, white-rimmed like a frightened pony’s, to the right of his bed where Bruce Van Atta stood.

“Took you long enough to answer your call, Graf,” Van Atta said, smirking unpleasantly.

Leo swallowed hard. “Hullo, Tony. We haven’t forgotten you, up here. Claire and Andy are all right, and back together—”

“You’re here to listen, Graf, not talk,” Van Atta interrupted. He fiddled with a control. “There, I’ve just cut your audio, so you can save your breath. All right, Tony,” Van Atta prodded the quaddie with a silver-colored rod—what was it? Leo wondered fearfully—”say your piece.”

Tony’s gaze shifted back, to the silent vid image Leo guessed, and his eyes widened urgently. He took a deep breath and began gabbling, “Whatever you’re doing, Leo, keep doing it. Never mind about me. Get Claire away—get Andy away—”

The holovid blacked out abruptly, although the audio channel remained open a moment longer. It emitted a strange spatting noise, a scream, and Van Atta swearing “Hold still, you little shit!” before the sound cut off too.

Leo found himself gripping one of Silver’s hands. “Claire was on her way over,” Silver said lowly, “to be in on this call.”

Leo’s eyes met hers. “I think you’d better go divert her.”

Silver nodded grim understanding. “Right.” She swung away.

The vid came back up. Tony was huddled silently in the far corner of the bed, head down, hands over his face. Van Atta stood glaring, rocking furiously on his heels.

“The kid’s a slow learner, evidently,” Van Atta snarled to Leo. “I’D make it short and clear, Graf. You may hold hostages, but if you so much as touch ‘em, you can be swung in any court in the galaxy. I’ve got a hostage I can do anything I want to, legally. And if you don’t think I will, just try me. Now, we’re going to be sending a Security shuttle up there in a little while to restore order. And you will cooperate with it.” He held up the silvery rod, pressed something; Leo saw an electric spark spit from its tip. “This is a simple device, but I can get real creative with it, if you force me to. Don’t force me to, Leo.”

“Nobody’s forcing you to—” Leo began.

“Ah,” Van Atta interrupted, “just a minute…” he touched his holovid control, “now talk so’s I can hear you. And it had better be something I want to hear.”

“Nobody here can force you to do anything,” Leo grated. “Whatever you do, you do of your own free will. We don’t have any hostages. What we have is three volunteers, who chose to stay for—for their consciences’ sake, I guess.”

“If Minchenko’s one of them, you’d better watch your back, Leo. Conscience hell, he wants to hang onto his own little empire. You’re a fool, Graf. Here—” he made a motion off-vid, “come talk to him in his own language, Yei.”

Dr. Yei stepped stiffly into view, met Leo’s eyes and moistened her lips. “Mr. Graf, please, stop this madness. What you are trying to do is incredibly dangerous, for all concerned—” Van Atta illustrated this by waving the electric prod over her head with a sour grin; she glanced at him in irritation, but said nothing and plowed on grimly, “Surrender now, and the damage can at least be minimized. Please. For everyone’s sake. You have the power to stop this.”