Lifeline

Stepan Rurik had known all along, and he had held her and caressed her and let her tell him about her ideas. All the while he had allowed her to go on thinking those things, knowing they would never happen.

Yet he was so devoted to that brutal little secret about the colony that he had refused the last order from Earth. Rurik had, in effect, forced them all to go into sleepfreeze so he could avoid that one command. It had turned him into a murderer, driven him to suicide. There were eleven KGB representatives aboard the Kibalchich, and Rurik had taken it upon himself to dispense justice. Didn’t he trust the other two hundred people aboard to have some sense? Even if Cagarin had taken over the station, he wouldn’t have lasted. Everyone else aboard had come for the same reason that had called Anna Tripolk.

As the days went by she watched the people from Orbitech 1 take away her sleepfreeze chambers—another step in dismantling her hopes for a Mars colony. She remembered the other people who had died, how Ramis and Dr. Langelier had awakened her from deep sleep on a whim, though they had no better future to offer.

This would not have happened if Rurik had followed his damned orders and gotten rid of Orbitech 1. The anger and betrayal made her want to lash out, and she had so many targets to choose from.

Now she entered the command center again. After the computer had verified her identity and again sealed all the access doors, Anna Tripolk strapped herself in the command chair that had once been Rurik’s.

“Computer, I am commander of this station, correct?”

“{{AFFIRMATIVE.}}”

“Commander Rurik had access to the directed-energy weapon, did he not?”

“{{FULL IDENTIFICATION NEEDED TO ACCESS THAT INFORMATION. PLEASE PLACE YOUR HAND ON THE GENETICHECK.}}” Anna complied and the computer responded,

“{{AFFIRMATIVE. COMMANDER RURIK WAS GRANTED ACCESS TO DETONATION SEQUENCE ALEXANDER.}}”

“And since I am now commander of this station, do I also have such access?”

The computer checked through the chain of logic. “{{AFFIRMATIVE.}}”

Anna Tripolk closed her eyes and let a breath out between her teeth. “Good. That is very good.”

Chapter 53

ON THE PHOENIX—Day 72

The Miranda held dark memories for him. Duncan McLaris had thought he would never see the ruined shuttle again, but now he was riding inside it. This time, instead of fleeing death at Orbitech 1, he was voluntarily going back to the L-5 industrial colony—going back to Brahms.

This time he rode with Cliff Clancy. For the first half day, Clancy kept peering out the restored portholes, overjoyed to be back in space. He reveled in the triumph of his yo-yo invention, which appeared to be working exactly as he had imagined. Clancy kept clapping him on the shoulder, full of anticipation.

McLaris remembered Stephanie Garland, the pilot who had not been able to land on the Moon. He had a flash of memory, picturing Garland’s body torn and impaled by jagged strips of the Miranda’s hull. He had only been half conscious then—why did he remember everything with such cursed clarity?

Cliff Clancy had been there at the crash, too. The construction engineer seemed to know what McLaris was thinking. “Last time we were both here, Duncan, seems to me I was pulling you out of the wreckage.”

McLaris forced a smile. “I was in pretty bad shape. And one of the things that confused me to no end was wondering what in the hell an Orbitech 2 construction jock was doing on the Moon.” Clancy laughed at the comment. But in truth, McLaris had been concerned with that for only a moment. He didn’t like to remember. It had been a dark time—something best left to nightmares.

It made him think of Jessie too much.

McLaris pushed up from his seat and peered out one of the ports. Above them, mounted with heavy support struts and jury-rigged controls through the hull, the Miranda’s rocket engines would fire and give them braking thrust so they wouldn’t smash into Orbitech 1 like a bullet.

McLaris tried to force himself not to think about the absurdity of it all. A giant yo-yo. And being so close to Clancy in the cramped compartment made it unwise for him to worry about the situation out loud. He could not see the long weavewire hauling them in. He wondered how they would ever know if the fiber somehow broke and left them to drift forever in a distorted orbit around the Earth. He tried to push the thoughts from his mind. It was too much like arguing about how many angels could dance on the head of a pin.

Clancy kept in touch with his people at Clavius Base through the communications interface. He looked for any excuse to call down to them, especially Shen. But he seemed to be accomplishing a lot, still managing his crews, even at this distance.