Lifeline

As he grew close, though, the station took on an alien look: jutting struts, weirdly placed objects on the exterior, even the paint scheme looked dark and brooding. The silent Soviet colony looked dormant, devoid of life. Tiny darkened portholes dotted clear patches on the outer hull.

Ramis remembered his approach to Orbitech 1 while riding in the organic solar sail, watching as the flatscreen broadcast the view from the external cameras mounted on Sarat. He had been half an hour away from the American colony when he had injected Sarat with the hormone that collapsed the huge, beautiful sails. He had been half an hour away when he had caught sight of faces in the colony windows—weary and frightened faces, watching him with hope.

Now, thirty minutes from the Kibalchich, he saw nothing.

“I will use the maneuvering units to guide me in,” he said into the radio.

“Be careful—every time you punch those MMUs, you’re adding some component to your forward velocity,” Karen said. “It might not seem like much, but remember how fast you’re already going.”

“I will manage.” Ramis thought to himself that with all her concern, Karen did not know of his experience flying in the Aguinaldo. He had hit the Jump squares peppering the Sibuyan Sea going twice as fast as he was moving now. The Kibalchich should have had two hundred people aboard, waiting to greet him. But instead, the colony refused any contact. It hung dark, like a giant empty house in space.

Chapter 32

ORBITECH 1—Day 39

Drawing in a breath, Allen Terachyk looked both ways down the corridor. He was all alone, yet he had a feeling that someone was watching him. Air coming from a ventilation grate made a whispering sound in the silence.

Of the four division leaders on Orbitech 1, only he remained. Duncan McLaris had stolen the shuttle and escaped to Clavius Base; Tim Drury had been killed in the first RIF; and three days ago, Linda Arnando had been murdered. And now, Terachyk was the only one who knew that Brahms, not Ombalal, had ordered the RIF.

He did not feel comfortable in his exclusive position.

When his home city of Baltimore had become one of the first slag heaps in the War, his family had gone with it. He had had a wife and four sons. Their names haunted him: Helen, Josh, Jon, Cameron, and Danny. For a moment, he couldn’t remember their faces, their voices—only the motionless family portrait he kept in a holocube in his quarters.

Brahms had never given him time to grieve.

Under a clever disguise and sidetracking of blame, Brahms had styled himself a Napoleon in space. His watchers remained armed and visible throughout the corridors. Brahms had not appointed any replacements for the other division leaders—he probably didn’t trust anyone else. As the only assessor left, Terachyk had to keep aware of everyone’s work. He had to judge its significance and suggest how it might be used to help their survival. He had to provide data on which Brahms would base his decisions, his efficiency ranking system.

With the wall-kelp giving them a small amount of breathing space, Terachyk didn’t know why Orbitech 1 still required Brahms’s brutal crackdown measures, but the director refused to hear any argument about it.

The spoke-shaft elevator to the docking bay stood directly in front of him, like the closed metal doors of a coffin. The light on the elevator door blinked without a sound, signaling it was ready to be boarded. Terachyk clutched the d-cube he carried and closed his eyes.

A recurring nightmare haunted him. In the dream, the elevator seemed to beckon him, drawing him inside for a silent journey to the bay. He stepped out from the dilated opening, floating up to the high bay window. He heard the sound of the elevator whisking shut, leaving him alone … only to see Brahms watching from the control panel, self-righteously playing Ombalal’s recording on why it was so important for Allen Terachyk to die for the survival of the colony. Nobody else knew that it had been Brahms and not Ombalal all along.

Beads of sweat formed on his forehead and he felt hot, scared. He lurched down the corridor. It was getting more difficult to move past the elevator each time he had the nightmare. He wondered if anyone had used that elevator since Brahms had RIFed Linda Arnando and Daniel Aiken.

RIF.

Reduction in force. What a wonderful euphemism.

Duncan McLaris had figured it out ahead of time. He had stolen the shuttle and escaped.

Terachyk was trapped on Orbitech 1 with the rest of them. After the loss of his family, his life and the lives of others had become doubly precious to him. That made everything harder about his own job as assessor and the implications of his results.

And who would believe him if he revealed that Brahms had been behind the first RIF? They would tear him apart along with Brahms, for how would they know who was telling the truth?