Lois Bujold - Falling Free

“Dammit—I drove a wedge for you with Tony. Why didn’t you follow up immediately and board the Habitat?”

“I had a force of eight ready to go up to orbit,” said Chalopin tartly, “upon your assurance of cooperation from your quaddies. We were not, however, able to get any confirmation of that cooperation from the Habitat itself. They went right back to maintaining comm silence. Then we spotted our freight shuttle returning, so we diverted the forces to capture it—first a ground car, and then, as you yourself came howling in here demanding not two hours ago, a jetcopter.”

“Well, get them back together and get them into orbit, dammit!”

“For one thing, you left three of them out on the lake bed,” remarked Captain 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. “That,” he pointed upward, indicating the events now going on in Rodeo orbit, “is grand theft in progress at the very least. And don’t forget, a GalacTech employee has already been shot by them!”

“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 away!”

“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 clunk in her cupboard; she’d check it later.

“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.