00-Falling Free

by Lois McMaster Bujold

  Ah, hell, she's suffering from as bad a case of Van Atta as I am, Leo realized. The insight blunted his momentum, without bleeding off his internal pressure.

  "—I didn't invent the Cay Project, and if I were running it I'd do it differently, but I have to play the hand I'm dealt, Mr. Graf. Blast—" She controlled herself, almost visibly wrenching the conversation back on its original track. "I've got to find her soon, or I'll have no choice but to let Van Atta start the show ass-backwards. Leo, it's absolutely essential that Vice President Apmad get the crèche tour first, before she has time to start forming any—do you have any idea at all where those kids may be?"

  Leo shook his head; an inspiration turned the truthful gesture to a lie even before he'd finished it. "But will you give me a call if you find them before I do?" he pleaded, his humble tone offering truce.

  Yei's stiffness wilted a bit. "Yes, certainly." She shrugged wryly, a silent apology, and broke off.

  Leo swung back to his locker, peeled out of his work suit, donned coveralls, and hastened off to track down his inspiration before Dr. Yei duplicated it independently. He was certain she would, and shortly, too.

  * * *

  Silver checked the work schedule on her vid display. Bell peppers. She floated across the hydroponics bay to the seed locker, found the correctly labeled drawer, and withdrew a precounted paper packet. She gave the packet an absent shake, and the dried seeds made a pleasing rattle.

  She collected a plastic germination box, tore open the packet, and coaxed the little pale seeds into the container, where they bounced about cheerfully. To the hydration spigot next. She thrust the water tube through the rubber doughnut seal on the side of the germination box and administered a measured squirt, and gave the box an extra shake to break up the shimmering globule of liquid that formed. Shoving the germination box into its slot in the incubation rack, she set it for the optimum temperature for peppers, bell, hybrid phototropic nongravitational axial differentiating clone 297-X-P, and sighed.

  The light from the filtered windows plucked insistently at her attention, and she paused for the fourth or fifth time this shift to weave among the grow tubes and stare out at the portion of Rodeo this bay's angle of view allowed her to see. Somewhere down there, at the bottom of that well of air, Claire and Tony were crawling now—if they had not already surrendered—or managed to make it to another shuttle—or met some horrible catastrophe. . . . Silver's imagination, unbidden, supplied her with a string of sample catastrophes.

  She tried to crowd them out with a firm mental picture of Tony and Claire and Andy successfully sneaking onto a shuttle bound for the transfer station, but the picture wavered into a scenario of Claire, attempting to jump some gap to the shuttle's hatchway (what gap? from where, for pity's sake?) forgetting that all such tangents were bent to parabolas by the gravitational force, and missing the target. Silver thought of the peculiar ways things moved in dense gravitational fields. The scream, chopped off by the splat on the concrete below—no, surely Claire would be holding Andy—the double splat on the concrete below. . . . Silver kneaded her forehead with the heels of her upper hands, as if she might physically press the grisly vision back out of her brain. Claire had seen the same vids of life downside; surely she'd remember.

  The hiss of the airseal doors twitched Silver back to present reality. Better look busy—what was she supposed to be doing next? Oh, yes, cleaning used grow tubes, in preparation for their placement day after tomorrow in the new bay they were building to show off everybody's skills to the Ops VP. Damn the Ops VP. But for her, there'd be a chance Tony and Claire might go unmissed for two shifts, even three. Now . . .

  Her heart shrank, as she saw who had entered the hydroponics bay. Now, indeed.

  Ordinarily, Silver would have been glad to see Leo. He seemed a big, clean man—no, not large, but solid somehow, full of a prosaic calmness that spilled over in the very scent of him, reminiscent of downsider things Silver had chanced to handle, wood and leather and certain dried herbs. In the light of his slow smile, ghastly scenarios thinned to mist. She might yet be glad to talk to Leo. . . .

  He was not smiling now. "Silver . . . ? You in here?"

  For a wild moment Silver considered trying to hide among the grow tubes, but the foliage rustled as she turned, giving away her position. She peeked over the leaves. "Uh . . . hi, Leo."

  "Have you seen Tony or Claire lately?" Trust Leo to be direct. Call me Leo, he'd told her the first time she'd 'Mr. Graf'd' him. It's shorter. He drifted over to the grow tubes; they regarded each other across a barrier of bush beans.

  "I haven't seen anybody but my supervisor all shift," said Silver, momentarily relieved to be able to give a perfectly honest answer.

  "When did you last see either one of them?"

  "Oh—last shift, I guess." Silver tossed her head airily.

  "Where?"

  "Uh . . . around." She giggled vacuously. Mr. Van Atta might have flung up his hands in disgust at this point, and abandoned any attempt to wring sense from so empty a head as hers.

  Leo frowned at her thoughtfully. "You know, one of the charms of you kids is the literal precision with which you answer any question."

  The comment hung in air expectantly, as Leo did. The picture of Tony, Claire, and Andy scooting across the shuttle loading bay flashed in Silver's mind with hallucinatory clarity. She groped in memory for their prior meeting, where the final plans had been laid, to offer up as a half-truth. "We had the mid-shift meal together last shift at Nutrition Station Seven."

  Leo's lips quirked. "I see." He tilted his head, studying her as if she were some puzzle, such as two metallurgically incompatible surfaces he had to figure out how to join. "You know, I just heard about Claire's new, ah, reproduction assignment. I'd wondered what was bothering Tony the last few weeks. He was pretty broken up about it, eh? Pretty . . . distraught."

  "They'd had plans," Silver began, caught herself, shrugged casually. "I don't know. I'd be glad to get any reproduction assignment. There's no pleasing some people."

  Leo's face grew stern. "Silver—just how distraught were they? Kids often mistake a temporary problem for the end of the world. They have no sense of the fullness of time. Makes 'em excitable. Think they might have been upset enough to do something . . . desperate?"

  "Desperate?" Silver smiled rather desperately herself.

  "Like a suicide pact or something?"

  "Oh, no!" said Silver, shocked. "Oh, they'd never do anything like that."

  Did relief flash for a moment in Leo's brown eyes? No, his face puckered in intensified concern.

  "That's just what I'm afraid they might have done. Tony didn't show up for his work shift, and that's unheard of; Andy's gone too. They can't be found. If they felt so desperate—trapped—what could be easier than slipping out an airlock? A flash of cold, a moment's pain, and then—escape forever." His single pair of hands clasped earnestly. "And it's all my fault. I should have been more perceptive—said something . . ." He paused, looking at her hopefully.

  "Oh, no, it was nothing like that!" Silver, horrified, hastened to dissuade him. "How awful for you to think that. Look . . ." She glanced around the hydroponics bay, lowered her voice. "Look, I shouldn't tell you this, but I can't let you go around thinking—thinking those fearful things." She had his entire attention, grave and intent. How much dare she tell him? Some suitably edited reassurance . . . "Tony and Claire—"

  "Silver!" Dr. Yei's voice rang out as the airseal doors slid open. Echoed by Van Atta's bellow, "Silver, what do you know about all this?"

  "Aw, shit," Leo snarled under his breath. His piously clasped hands clenched to fists of frustration.

  Silver drew back in understanding and indignation. "You—!" And yet she almost laughed—Leo, so subtle and tricksy? She'd underestimated him. Did they both wear masks before the world, then? If so, what unknown territories did his bland face conceal?

  "Please, Silver, before they get here—I can't help you if . . ."
>
  It was too late. Van Atta and Yei tumbled into the room.

  "Silver, do you know where Tony and Claire have gone?" Dr. Yei demanded breathlessly. Leo drew back into reserved silence, appearing to take an interest in the fine structure of the white bean blossoms.

  "Of course she knows," Van Atta snapped, before Silver could reply. "Those girls are in each others' pockets, I tell you—"

  "Oh, I know," Yei muttered.

  Van Atta turned sternly to Silver. "Cough it up, Silver, if you know what's good for you."

  Silver's lips closed, firmed into a line; her chin lifted.

  Dr. Yei rolled her eyes at her superior's back. "Now, Silver," she began placatingly, "this isn't a good time for games. If, as we suspect, Tony and Claire have tried to leave the Habitat, they could be in very serious trouble by now, even physical danger. I'm pleased that you feel you should be loyal to your friends, but I beg you, make it a responsible loyalty—friends don't let friends get hurt."

  Silver's eyes puddled in doubt; her lips parted, inhaling for speech.

  "Damn it," cried Van Atta, "I don't have time to stand around sweet-talking this little cunt. That snake-eyed bitch that runs Ops is waiting up there right now for the show to go on. She's starting to ask questions, and if she doesn't get the answers pronto she'll come looking for 'em herself. That one plays hardball. Of all the times to pick for this outbreak of idiocy, this has gotta be the worst possible. It's got to be deliberate. Nothing this fouled up could be by chance."

  His red-faced rage was having its usual effect on Silver; her belly trembled, her vision blurred with unshed tears. She had once felt she would give him anything, do anything at all, if only he would calm down and smile and joke again.

  But not this time. Her initial awed infatuation with him had been emptied out of her, bit by bit, and it startled her to realize how little was left. A hollowed shell could be rigid and strong. . . . "You," she whispered, "can't make me say anything."

  "Just as I thought," snarled Van Atta. "Where's your total socialization now, Dr. Yei?"

  "If you would," said Dr. Yei through her teeth, "kindly refrain from teaching my subjects antisocial behavior, you wouldn't have to deal with its consequences."

  "I don't know what you're whining about. I'm an executive. It's my job to be hard-assed. That's why GalacTech put me in charge of this orbiting money-sink. Behavior control is your department's responsibility, Yei, or so you claimed. So do your job."

  "Behavior shaping," Dr. Yei corrected frostily.

  "What the hell's the use of that if it breaks down the minute the going gets tough? I want something that works all the time. If you were an engineer you'd never get past the reliability specs. Isn't that right, Leo?"

  Leo snapped off a bean leaf stem, smiled blandly. His eyes glittered. He must have been chewing on his reply; at any rate, he swallowed something.

  Silver grasped at a simple plan. So simple, surely she could carry it out. All she had to do was nothing. Do nothing, say nothing; eventually, the crisis must pass. They could not physically damage her, after all—she was valuable GalacTech property. The rest was only noise. She shrank into the safety of thing-ness, and stony silence.

  The silence grew thick as cold oil. She nearly choked on it.

  "So," hissed Van Atta to her, "that's the way you want to play it. Very well. Your choice." He turned to Yei. "You got something in the infirmary like fast-penta, Doctor?"

  Yei's lips rippled. "Fast-penta is only legal for police departments, Mr. Van Atta."

  "Don't they need a court order to use it, too?" inquired Leo, not looking up from the bean leaf he twirled between his fingers.

  "On citizens, Leo. That"—Van Atta pointed at Silver—"is not a citizen. What about it, Doctor?"

  "To answer your question, Mr. Van Atta, no, our infirmary does not stock illegal drugs!"

  "I didn't say fast-penta, I said something like it," said Van Atta irritably. "Some sort of anesthetic or something, to do in a pinch."

  "Are we in a pinch?" asked Leo in a mild tone, still twirling his leaf; it was getting frayed. "Pramod is substituting for Tony; surely one of the other girls with babies can take over for Claire. Why should the Ops VP know the difference?"

  "If we end up having to scrape two of our workers off the pavement downside—"

  Silver winced at this echo of her own ghastly scenario.

  "—or find them floating freeze-dried outside somewhere up here, it'll be damned hard to conceal from her. You haven't met the woman, Leo. She has a nose for trouble like a weasel's."

  "Mm," said Leo.

  Van Atta turned back to Yei. "What about it, Doctor? Or would you rather wait until someone calls us up asking what to do with the bodies?"

  "IV Thalizine-5 is a bit like fast-penta," muttered Dr. Yei reluctantly, "in certain doses. It will make her sick for a day, though."

  "That's her choice." He wheeled on Silver. "Your last chance, Silver. I've had it. I despise disloyalty. Where did they go? Tell me, or it's the needle for you, right now."

  She was driven from thing-ness at last to a more painful, active human courage. "If you do that to me," Silver whispered in desperate dignity, "we're through."

  Van Atta recoiled in sputtering outrage. "Through? You and your little friends conspire to sabotage my career in front of the company brass and you tell me we're through? You're damn right we're through!"

  * * *

  "Company Security, Shuttleport Three, Captain Bannerji speaking," George Bannerji recited into his comconsole. "May I help you?"

  "You in charge here?" the well-dressed man in his vid began abruptly. He was clearly laboring under strong emotion, breathing rapidly. A muscle jumped in his clamped jaw.

  Bannerji took his feet off his desk and leaned forward. "Yes, sir?"

  "I'm Bruce Van Atta, Head of Project at the Habitat. Check my voiceprint, or whatever it is you do."

  Bannerji sat up straight, tapped out the check-code; the word 'cleared' flashed for a moment across Van Atta's face. Bannerji sat up straighter still. "Yes, sir, go ahead."

  Van Atta paused as if groping for words, speaking slowly despite the jostling urgency of thought apparent in his tense face. "We have a little problem here, Captain."

  Red lights and sirens went off in Bannerji's head. He could recognize an ass-covering understatement when he heard one. "Oh?"

  "Three of our—experimental subjects have escaped the Habitat. We interrogated their co-conspirator, and we believe they stowed away on shuttle flight B119, and are now loose somewhere in Shuttleport Three. It is of the utmost urgency that they be captured and returned to us as quickly as possible."

  Bannerji's eyes widened. Information about the Habitat was under a tight company security lid, but no one could work on Rodeo for long without learning that some kind of genetic experiments on humans were taking place up there, in careful isolation. It usually took a little longer for new employees to figure out that the more exotic monster stories told by the old hands were a form of hazing, practiced upon their credulity. Bannerji had transferred in to Rodeo about a month ago.

  The project chief's words rang through Bannerji's head. Escaped. Captured. Criminals escaped. Dangerous zoo animals escaped, when their keepers screwed up, then some poor shmuck of a cop got the job of capturing them. Occasionally, horrifying biological weapons escaped. What the hell was he dealing with?

  "How will we recognize them, sir? Do they"—Bannerji swallowed—"look like human beings?"

  "No." Van Atta evidently read the dismay in Bannerji's face, for he snorted ironically, "You'll have no trouble recognizing them, I assure you, Captain. And when you do find them, call me at once on my private code. I don't want this going out over broadcast channels. For God's sake keep it quiet, understand?"

  Bannerji envisioned public panic. "Yes, sir. I understand completely."

  His own panic was a private matter. He wouldn't be collecting the fat salary he did if security was expected to be all extended
coffee breaks and pleasant evening strolls around perfectly deserted property. He'd always known the day would come when he'd have to earn his pay.

  Van Atta broke off with a grim nod. Bannerji put in a call on the comconsole for his subordinate and placed pages for both his off-duty men as well. Something that had the executive hierarchy pouring sweat was nothing for a newly-promoted security grunt to take chances with.

  He unlocked the weapons cabinet and signed out stunners and holsters for himself and his team. He weighed a stunner thoughtfully in his palm. It was such a light little diddly thing, almost a toy; GalacTech risked no lawsuits over stray shots from weapons like these.

  Bannerji stood a moment, then turned to his own desk and keyed open the drawer with his personal palm-lock. The unregistered pistol nestled in its own locked box, its shoulder holster coiled around it like a sleeping snake. By the time Bannerji had buckled it on and shrugged his uniform jacket back over it, he was feeling much better. He turned decisively to greet his patrolmen reporting for duty.

  Chapter Five

  Leo paused outside the airseal doors to the Habitat's infirmary to gather his nerve. He had been secretly relieved when a frantic call from Pramod had pulled him, shaking inside, away from the excruciating interrogation of Silver; as secretly ashamed of his relief. Pramod's problem—fluctuating power levels in his beam welder, traced at last to poisoning of the electron-emitting cathode by gas contamination—had occupied Leo for a time, but with the welding show over, shame had driven him back here.

  So what are you going to do for her at this late hour? his conscience mocked him. Assure her of your continued moral support, as long as it doesn't involve you in anything inconvenient or unpleasant? What a comfort. He shook his head, tapped the door control.

  Leo drifted silently past the medtech's station without signing in. Silver was in a private cubicle, a quarter-wedge of the infirmary's circumference at the very end of the module. The distance had helped muffle the yelling and crying.