Lifeline

Terachyk lowered his voice, as if that would do any good. “I don’t think he has any right to make these kind of choices. And I am tired of being an accomplice to his twisted decisions. Did you know that he was behind the first RIF? It was Brahms, not Ombalal. Ombalal taped a speech that Brahms himself had written.”

Harhoosma’s eyes went wide, but he sat speechless.

“The mob killed the wrong person.” Terachyk drew a deep breath and closed his eyes halfway. His throat grew dry. “Now, please listen to me carefully.…”

As he listened, Harhoosma looked even more frightened than Terachyk felt.

When the wife of Daniel Aiken opened the door of her living quarters, she saw Allen Terachyk standing there. Terachyk started to mumble some sort of greeting, but Sheila Aiken met him with a hateful look of such intensity that it made him cringe.

“What?” she asked with no further preamble. “Do you want to throw me out the airlock, too? See if I’ve been falsifying some of my own results? Maybe I’m not dusting our quarters as often as I should?”

Terachyk breathed deeply. He had been prepared to deal with something like this.

“I didn’t execute your husband. Your husband wasn’t the first, and he’s probably not going to be the last. I need to talk to you.” Gently, “Your name is Sheila?”

“I suppose Mrs. Aiken isn’t really meaningful anymore.” She turned aside and said nothing, but left the door open, implying that she had no choice but to let him come in.

When Terachyk sealed the door behind him, Sheila Aiken looked uneasy. Terachyk stood, uncomfortable at not being asked to sit.

“I know Curtis Brahms,” he said. “I’ve been forced to work with him ever since he came here. I do not like him. And contrary to what everyone thinks, he is not my friend.”

That seemed to soften her a little, turning her anger to suspicion. Terachyk still felt uneasy.

“I have told this to very few people: Brahms was behind the first RIF that killed a hundred and fifty people. It was all his idea, not Ombalal’s.” She sat down in surprise. “He has rationalized in his own mind that he needed to do it. Now, though, when things are getting better, when we have all sorts of different ways to survive—new techniques, new hopes—Brahms isn’t interested. It means he’s proved himself wrong.

“I think he’s going to order another RIF. He believes he has to, just so he doesn’t look as if he made a mistake with the first one. He can’t afford to let us think things are getting better. He’s going to distort reality. He’s going to … sabotage things so that we remain in this horrible situation.

“He killed your husband, and Linda Arnando—” he saw her wince at the woman’s name “—just to keep everyone afraid. To make them cowed, to keep them shocked. It’s for his own protection.”

Standing, Sheila Aiken twisted her hands together, staring at him, then sat down without breaking eye contact.

“So?” she said, but the words carried little defiance.

“Doesn’t that mean anything to you?” Terachyk asked.

She sidestepped the question. “What do you want me to do about it? Brahms killed my husband. He made a spectacle of him in front of all the other people on the colony. I think that was the worst part—Daniel hated being humiliated more than anything else.”

“It doesn’t matter what I want you to do about it. What do you want to do about it?” He held up his hand to keep her from answering. “Just think about that.”

He turned to leave. She remained sitting, looking at him as if she were about to be sick. He had stirred up things she had obviously been trying to hide.

Allen Terachyk left her quarters.

There had been a hundred and fifty names on the original RIF list. Many of those had left loved ones behind as well.

Chapter 47

ORBITECH 1—Day 53

Fidgeting, Curtis Brahms leaned back in the control room of the Orbitech 1 docking bay. He hadn’t felt so eager or optimistic in a long time. The rotating light inside the docking bay changed from green to red as pumps bled the air from the chamber, cycling the bay doors. An image of the wasteful, explosive openings of those doors—from the RIF, from when Duncan McLaris had stolen the Miranda—flashed through his mind.

Beside him Allen Terachyk remained silent, sulking again. Brahms was getting disgusted with the way Terachyk moped all the time. This should be a good time. With the Kibalchich’s help, they had hope again.

“Almost here, Allen,” Brahms said.

“I know.” Terachyk’s voice carried no emotion at all.

Brahms threw him a sideways glance. “Come on, snap out of it. This is going to be broadcast.”

After another five minutes, the docking bay lights signaled that the chamber had been drained of atmosphere. Brahms, trying to give Terachyk something to do, motioned toward the controls. “You want to run the show?”

Terachyk raised his eyes, then shook his head. “No, you do it.” His voice dropped. “You have more practice than I do.”