Lifeline

To his right and left, vertical walls blocked off sections of private rooms, looking odd against the smooth arcs of the torus. He tried several doors; most were unlocked. Ramis poked his head in but found no one, only darkened spaces that seemed to be administrative offices, meeting rooms. Some looked to be rather plush living quarters all clustered in a row—probably for the high-ranking Soviets.

Inside one room he saw the soft, greenish-yellow glow of an aquarium module. The aerator bubbled in the silence, humming with insolent noise. Half a dozen fish floated belly-up in the tank.

Ramis kept walking. The constant tension was starting to wear on him. He jumped at little noises.

The walls ahead of him ended abruptly on either side, opening into a large section of the torus. Long tables were lined up—a mess hall for the two hundred men and women aboard the station. It was clean, yet something about it conveyed a sense of disarray.

Ramis noticed medical supply carts, packages neatly stacked, five used hypodermic syringes on a stainless-steel counter. He sniffed, but the air had been long purged of any odor that might have hinted at what the inhabitants had done with themselves. They had left no signs, no notices, nothing to indicate where they had gone.

At the end of the mess hall the side walls appeared again, enclosing additional private work spaces. The inner curved wall showed a bright red hydraulic door that marked another of the spoke-shaft lift platforms. He had traveled a quarter of the way around the station, and had still found no sign of people. In the air in front of his face a cloud of fruit flies flitted like static in a faulty holotank; they must have escaped from some biological experiment.

Ramis walked ahead. On the floor he found several access hatches. When he stomped his feet, he heard a hollow echo. Looking at the ceiling and where the floor met the curved wall, he realized that there must be another entire level below him.

The next set of rooms appeared to be laboratories cluttered with experimental paraphernalia. Sketches and equations were scrawled on magnetic-imprint boards. The markings had not been degaussed, but were beginning to fuzz out from the passage of time.

He passed another section of living quarters, this one more austere than the others. In each cabin the beds were neatly made and empty. On some of the bureaus, he found stereocubes with pictures of families, which had been left activated. Beside them he found occasional messages or data cubes. In one instance he even picked up a note written by hand, but he couldn’t read any of the Russian.

Everything was silent. The Kibalchich held its breath.

As the curve continued, the side walls dropped away again. A red cross on a field of white signified that the large room ahead would be the infirmary.

By now, Ramis had grown accustomed to the dim light. He moved as if he were one of the shadows, not an enemy of them. His eyes were wide. His bare feet made no sound as he crept forward.

The walls opened up around him, and the infirmary ahead seemed like a vast empty space, broader and colder than the gulf between the two colonies. The soft light glowed, and he blinked his eyes, staring and trying to gather in as much detail as he could. He took a deep breath.

Spread out in front of him lay all the Soviets, row upon row upon row.

His throat was dry. He stood still.

They looked like legions from an ancient Roman army, all lined up side by side, motionless and cold. Each body was encased in a glass coffin, a crystalline chamber flecked with frost on the inside and lit up by a mixed glow of monitor lights.

The cubicles lined the entire infirmary, crammed together.

He took a step forward and placed his hand on the top of the nearest coffin. The man inside looked waxen, expressionless, at peace. The glass felt cold.

Ramis raised his eyes and stared in front of him at all of them. They had all come here. Forsaking hope, had they all just given up and died?

He moved forward between the cubicles, feeling numb and awed. He didn’t know what to think or do, but part of the fear had melted from him.

He had found the inhabitants of the Kibalchich.

Part Three

Interaction

Chapter 34

CLAVIUS BASE—Day 41

Clancy’s job-site headquarters felt more like a locker room than a survival hut. Stuffed with ten people in a space meant for five, the airtight shanty provided Clancy’s crew a chance to take a break from the excavation and construction. It reminded him of those quaint little Quonset huts the old British soldiers had used in India or Africa. Another team had set up similar huts out by the mass driver.