And there were pictures of the ground staff. Five people, led by an Alexander Quinn. Quinn reminded her of a history teacher she’d had back in high school. Tall, thin, with a long nose and a take-no-prisoners attitude. His opinion was always on display.
Quinn and his people would not be happy trying to get by for a few days without meals. His team all looked pretty young. Two guys and two women. There was no question what the WSA should be doing. And if something went wrong because they hadn’t given maximum effort, she’d be as guilty as Irasco. She checked the schedule to see who was on duty in operations. It was Yoshie Blakeslee. Priscilla knew her but not well. “Nikki,” she said, “connect me with Ops.”
The green light blinked, and Yoshie responded: “This is Operations. What can I do for you, Priscilla?”
“Yoshie, I need a favor.”
“Sure.”
“I want you to prep the Baumbachner for departure. Do a complete refueling. I’ll need two weeks’ supply of food and water for one.”
“Priscilla, why do you need to refuel? It has plenty of fuel.”
“I’d just as soon you not ask too many questions. But I’ll be making a jump.”
“On the Baumbachner?” She sounded reluctant.
“Yes.”
“Destination, please?”
“I’m still working on it. Just get it ready. Posthaste. I’ll be there in a half hour.”
“Who’s the ordering official, please?”
“Mr. Irasco.”
* * *
SHE LEFT THE office, strolled casually down the corridor, said hello to Patricia, who was just coming out of the conference room, and descended to the main deck. Then she hurried to her hotel room, packed, and ten minutes later showed up on bravo dock, where the Baumbachner was secured. A second ship had arrived and was being unloaded on the far side. She thought of Frank’s comment: “We don’t have anybody to send.” Well, it was possible Frank had asked, but the carrier had other uses for the vehicle and declined. It wasn’t hard to imagine its happening that way. After all, it’s not life and death. Frank asks for help and has to show somebody’s in imminent danger. Out here, where you’re dealing with interstellar distances, by the time the danger becomes imminent, it tends to be fairly late.
She stopped at the departure desk. Nobody was there, but an AI asked her name.
“Priscilla Hutchins.”
“Priscilla, have you determined a destination yet?”
“Teegarden’s Star,” she said.
“Purpose of visit?”
“Rescue operation.”
“Will you be carrying any passengers?”
“Negative. I’ll be alone.”
“Very good, Priscilla. You’re clear to go.”
“Thank you.” She went into the access tube, hurried down to the dock, and boarded the ship. She closed the air lock, stowed her bag, and went onto the bridge. “Hello, Myra,” she said.
“Hello, Priscilla.” The AI sounded cheerful. “Where are we going?”
“Teegarden’s Star.”
“Teegarden’s? Why are we going there?”
“To bail out an Academy team.”
“Really?”
“Yes.”
“Excellent. I’ve never done a bailout.”
* * *
THE ENGINES CAME on. “Ops, this is Baumbachner. We are ready to go.”
The launch doors began to open, and Yoshie was back on the circuit. “Baumbachner, proceed at your leisure. Priscilla, there are no other vehicles in the area.”
“Roger that, Yoshie. See you when I get back.” She switched off the mike. “Okay, Myra, let’s move. Just like last time.”
“Lines released, Priscilla. Thrusters activated.” They began to back out of the dock.
“Bring us around until we face the launch doors, Myra.”
Gradually, she lined up with the exit, and the ship moved forward.
“Hutchins!” Irasco’s voice exploded over the commlink. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
She stared at the mike. Made a noise deep in her throat. And responded: “Frank, I’m headed for Teegarden.”
“No you’re not. Priscilla, bring it back.”
Myra’s voice: “What do we do, Priscilla?”
“Keep moving.”
The doors began to close. “We do not have time to pass through, Priscilla.”
“Okay,” she said. “Hold it.”
Someone exhaled on the commlink. Yoshie. Then Irasco said, quietly, “After it’s docked, stop by my office.”
* * *
“HAVE YOU LOST your mind?” Frank sat behind his desk, glaring. “What the hell were you trying to do? Show me up?”
She was standing in front of his desk. “It wasn’t about you, Frank. It was about the people at the other end. They’re waiting for somebody who may or may not get the word that they’re in trouble.”
“All right.” He shook his head. “Priscilla, I just don’t understand you. But you haven’t left me much choice. You’re terminated. Please go away.”
“Frank. We lost Joshua because we didn’t get to him in time. Eventually, we’ll be forced to establish a response unit of some kind. Do you want to wait until somebody else is killed?”
“Damn it, Priscilla, back off. You think I like this arrangement? It’s the system we have. You go out there in that wreck, and something goes wrong, you’re dead.” He took a deep breath. “You’re lucky, by the way.”
“How’s that?”
“I’m not going to take your license. But I doubt if, after this, anybody will hire you.”
* * *
PRISCILLA’S JOURNAL
Five people stranded out there, and all I can do is think of myself. Why is it always about me? But the reality is that, eventually, I may turn out to be the only casualty of this thing.
—January 19, 2196
Chapter 29
PRISCILLA RETURNED TO her office, dropped into a chair, and stared at the link. Maybe she should call and apologize. Assure Irasco she’d stay in line from now on. Cause no more problems. She did not want to walk away from this job. Did not want to go back to Princeton, where she’d probably spend her time waiting on tables at the Chicken Stop. But there was no way she could bring herself to do that. Anyhow, he probably wouldn’t back off even if she did.
Good-bye, Alpha Centauri.
She called the shuttle terminal and asked for a reservation. The afternoon flight was full. They could accommodate her in the morning. She locked it in and started gathering her personal belongings. It was easy enough; she hadn’t really moved much stuff into the office. There was a Liberator desk calendar, with a fresh cartoon every day. The Liberator had the funniest cartoons on the planet. The current one showed an idiotic-looking clerk assuring his boss that he shouldn’t worry about a thing. “I’ll take care of it personally.”
She kept a change of clothes in the closet. She gathered her notebook and her pens and took down the wall calendar. It was all pictures of animals. January featured two kittens. (She liked paper calendars.) She picked up her toothbrush and, finally, the framed photo of the six graduating cadets, taken at the ceremony.
She put everything into her bag and decided to avoid saying good-bye to her coworkers. There was no way that could turn out well. As angry and frustrated as she was, she didn’t want to leave in a trail of tears.
Maybe she could take advantage of her meeting with Dr. Campbell and get a position with the Academy Project. Though, probably, they wouldn’t hire her once they learned what had happened. But she had nothing to lose.
Jolie Peters, a data-scan specialist, was outside in the corridor. “Hi, Hutch,” she said.
That meant she probably hadn’t heard yet. You don’t do jokes with somebody who’s just been terminated. She said hello, took the elevator down, walked past more offices on the main deck, and went out into the concourse. A couple of hundred tourists were wandering around, looking out through the portals, filling
the gift shops and the restaurants and the game centers. Maybe Frank had been right, maybe she should have stayed out of it. Done what she was told.
But she was still too close to the people caught in the lander to assume that it was okay to take chances, not worry too much about the details, just have faith that everything would be all right.
She went into one of the game centers and spent half an hour shooting down space invaders. They were evil-looking creatures with enormous eyes and crocodile snouts, and they kept landing in gravity-defying saucers and emerging in walking tripods, like the ones in H. G. Wells. She had never played the game before, had in fact not bothered much with shoot-out games after she got past twelve years old. But on that occasion she took considerable pleasure in mowing stuff down.
* * *
SHE STAYED AWAY from the Cockpit that evening. And the Skyview. Best, if she wanted to eat alone, was probably the North Star, which mostly served tourists. It was pricey, but she owed herself a good meal. She ordered turkey and mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce and carrots, added a glass of burgundy, and ate by candlelight. There was music, of course, and a handsome young man tried to pick her up. He could not have chosen a worse night.
She had a second glass of burgundy, drank it slowly, and wondered when she’d be back. If she’d be back.
She was not ready to return to her hotel room, so she walked the concourse, lost in regret, and hardly noticed when she passed the North Star again. The concourse was circular, somewhat more than five kilometers around. She wondered what Jake was doing. Imagined what her mother’s reaction would be when she heard the news. Speculated about whether anything would have been different had she been able to get the Baumbachner out through the launch doors. Her father would have been disappointed in her getting fired. Or no, maybe he wouldn’t. He’d have been proud of her. Do the right thing regardless of consequences. It had been his mantra. Don’t get caught up in the bureaucracy. Sometimes, you just have to take your chances.
She stopped in one of the viewport lobbies and looked down at Earth. They were over the Atlantic. Nothing but ocean down there, illuminated by starlight. The station was on the dark side of the planet, and there was no moon. She thought how nice it would be to buy a cabin cruiser and go to sea for a year or two. Pity she wasn’t wealthy.
* * *
IT WAS GOING to be a long night. She arrived back at her apartment, thinking about the time she’d spent on the Copperhead, waiting while they tried to ride out the fragmented rescue attempt. Then, she’d been distracted by the presence of the girls. And the truth was that she’d never been able to accept the idea that somebody would not survive even after she knew the numbers wouldn’t work. Somehow, there’d been a sense that someone would show up, charge in while there was still time. She hadn’t believed any other outcome was possible until she saw Joshua in the cargo bay.
Maybe not even then.
She got out of her clothes, showered, set the alarm, and climbed into bed. There was nothing on the HV, just political talk shows, reruns of comedies and police procedurals, cooking directions, and how to upgrade your real estate. But she didn’t want to deal with a silent room. So she left one of the talk shows on while she lay quietly staring at the overhead.
Some dark part of her wanted the rescue to go wrong, the Grosvenor to decline the assignment, to blow an engine, something that would prove her right. She realized what that would probably mean for Quinn and his colleagues, and that brought a rush of guilt, but on that night the guilt seemed secondary to everything else. She wanted to get even with Frank and Patricia. The director had to be involved, too. There was no way Frank would have terminated her without clearing it first with the boss. And Priscilla did have an option: She could go to the press. The downside to that was that she’d mark herself as a whistle-blower. That would destroy whatever remaining chance she might have to hire on with anybody.
In the morning, she dragged herself out of bed, dressed, and packed. Then she called her mother. “Coming home, Mom,” she said.
“When? What happened?” She sounded, and looked, alarmed. “Is something wrong?”
“I’ll tell you about it when I get there.”
“When will that be?”
“Today,” she said.
“Today? Priscilla, what’s going on?”
“It’s just not working out, Mom. Listen, I’ll talk to you later, okay?”
She went down to the lobby and checked out. “We’re sorry to see you leaving, Ms. Hutchins,” said Laura, the lady at the desk. “We thought you were going to be staying with us indefinitely.”
“My plans have changed,” she said, “I’m sorry to say.”
She went outside and hailed a cab. They were small electric vehicles, automated, with open sides. Her bags went on top. She climbed in, touched her link to the connector, and told it to take her to the launch terminal. Mukarram came out of the Cockpit, which was located directly across the way. He waved, and she waved back. He looked happy.
She arrived at the terminal, got out of the cab, and went inside. It was early yet, and the place was almost empty. She checked in, dropped off her bags, and went back across the concourse to get some breakfast. Best for a quick meal was Belly Up.
She was just starting on some pancakes when Irasco walked in. He smiled weakly. “Mind if I sit down, Priscilla?”
She looked at him. Looked at the empty chair opposite her. “Good morning.”
“You’re not always easy to get hold of. I’ve been trying to call you for an hour.”
“I was turned off.”
“Oh.”
Her waiter came over. A young man, ginger-colored hair, green eyes, nice smile. Much more likable than Frank. “Is there anything else I can get for you?” he asked. Then he turned to her former boss: “Did you want a menu, sir?”
“Just coffee,” he said. “Thank you.” He glanced down at Priscilla’s pancakes. “And make it one check.”
“Separate checks, please,” said Priscilla.
The waiter smiled uncertainly and backed away.
Frank toyed with a fork. “I’m sorry about what happened.”
“What is it you want?” she asked.
“Well,” he said, “we talked it over last night. I probably acted a little abruptly. Priscilla, we’d like to keep you on board. Start over.” He gazed across the table at her. “If it’s all right with you, we’ll forget the whole thing happened.”
“Why?” she asked.
“I don’t think you understand what we’re dealing with here, what’s at stake. You know there’s a movement out there to shut the space authority down. Everybody’s economy is in a shambles. Even the Germans are suggesting the space program’s a waste of resources desperately needed elsewhere.”
“I’m aware of that, Frank. I don’t live in a box.”
“Okay. Bottom line: I don’t want to do anything to support their argument.”
Priscilla was tired of the debate. “Something goes wrong at Teegarden, and those people die; you think that won’t be one more nail in the coffin?”
“I overreacted. Sorry.” He tried to rearrange himself in his chair. “We want you to stay with us. The only thing I’m going to ask of you is that you promise not to go off half-cocked like that again. Do we have a deal?”
“I don’t think I can make that promise, Frank. Not if somebody’s life is at stake.”
“Look, I don’t want to restart this thing, but it wasn’t a life-and-death situation. The question was whether they might miss a few meals. To be honest, I think we both overreacted. But I’ll tell you what: If something comes up, and you feel that strongly again, just warn me first, okay? And so we’re on the same page here, the drive unit on board the Baumbachner hasn’t been used for years. There’s no way to know how reliable it is. The only life that was at risk yesterday was yours.”
She looked at him. Into those frustrated eyes. “Okay, Frank.”
“Then you’ll come back?”
&nb
sp; “Yes.”
“Excellent. Take the morning off and get yourself together.” His coffee arrived. He tasted it, paid both bills, and got up. “I’ll see you this afternoon.”
“All right. And Frank?”
“Yes?”
“Just for the record.”
“I’m listening.”
“You remember who you assigned responsibility to for maintaining the Baumbachner?”
“Sure. You.”
“Right. And you can take my word for it that, if we need it, the Baumbachner will be ready to go.”
“I hope it doesn’t run up the bill.”
* * *
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