A thump, and the whir and grind of machinery, told Claire that the shuttle had arrived in its clamps. Her hands reached out, drew in self-consciously. The quaddie manning the control booth waved to two others in the bay, and they locked the flex tubes into position and sealed them. The personnel tube opened first, and the shuttle’s engineer stuck his head through to double check everything, then whipped back out of sight. Claire’s heart lurched in her chest, and her throat constricted dryly.
Dr. Minchenko emerged at last and hovered a moment, one hand anchored to a grip by the hatch. A leathery-faced, vigorous man, his hair was as white as the GalacTech medical service coveralls he wore. He had been a big man, now shrunken to his frame like a withered apricot, but, like a withered apricot, still sound. Claire had the impression he only needed to be re-hydrated and he’d pop back to like-new condition.
Dr. Minchenko shoved off from the hatchway and crossed the bay toward them, landing accurately by the grips around the airseal doors. “Why, hullo, Claire,” he said in a surprised voice. “And, ah—Graf,” he added less cordially. “You’re the one. Let me tell you, I don’t appreciate being leaned on to authorize violation of sound medical protocol. You are to spend double time in the gym for the duration of your extension, you hear?”
“Yes, Dr. Minchenko, thank you,” said Leo promptly, who was not, as far as Claire knew, spending any time in the gym at all these days. “Where’s Tony? Can we help you get him to the infirmary?”
“Ah,” he looked more closely at Claire. “I see. Tony’s not with me, dear, he’s still in hospital downside.”
Claire stifled a gasp. “Oh, no—is he worse?”
“Not at all. I had fully intended to bring him with me. In my opinion, he needs free fall to complete his recovery. The problem is, um, administrative, not medical. And I’m on my way right now to resolve it.”
“Did Brace order him kept downside?” asked Leo.
“That’s right.” He frowned at Leo. “And I’m not pleased to have my medical responsibilities interfered with, either. He’d better have a mighty convincing explanation. Daryl Cay wouldn’t have permitted a screw-up like this.”
“You, um… haven’t heard the new orders yet, then?” said Leo carefully, with a warning glance at Claire—hush…
“What new orders? I’m on my way to see the little schmuck—that is, the man right now. Get to the bottom of this…” He turned to Claire, switching firmly to a kinder tone. “It’s all right, we’ll get it straightened out. All Tony’s internal bleeding is stopped, and there’s no further sign of infection. You quaddies are tough. You hold your health much better in gravity than we downsiders do in free fall. Well, we explicitly designed you not to undergo de-conditioning. I could only wish the confirming experiment hadn’t happened under such distressing conditions. Of course,” he sighed, “youth has something to do with it.… Speaking of youth, how’s little Andy? Sleeping better for you now?”
Claire almost burst into tears. “I don’t know,” she squeaked, and swallowed hard.
“What?”
“They won’t let me see him.”
“What?”
Leo, studying his fingernails distantly, put in, “Andy was removed from Claire’s care. On charges of child-endangering, or some such thing. Didn’t Bruce tell you that either?”
Dr. Minchenko’s face was darkening to a brick-red hue. “Removed? From a breast-feeding mother—obscene!” His eyes swept back over Claire.
“They gave me some medicine to dry me up,” explained Claire.
“Well, that’s something…” his mollification was slight. “Who did?”
“Dr. Curry.”
“He didn’t report it to me.”
“You were on leave.”
“ ‘On leave’ doesn’t mean ‘incommunicado.’ You, Graf! Spit it out. What the hell’s going on around here? Has that pocket-martinet lost his mind?”
“You really haven’t heard. Well, you’d better ask Bruce. I’m under direct orders not to discuss it.”
Minchenko gave Leo a stabbing glare. “I shall.” He pushed off and entered the corridor through the airseal doors, muttering under his breath.
Claire and Leo were left looking at each other in dismay.
“How are we going to get Tony back now?” cried Claire. “It’s less than twenty-four hours till Silver’s signal!”
“I don’t know—but don’t cave now! Remember Andy. He’s going to need you.”
“I’m not going to cave,” Claire denied. She took a steadying gulp of air. “Not ever again. What can we do?”
“Well, I’ll see what strings I can pull, to try and have Tony brought up—bullshit Bruce, tell him I have to have Tony to supervise his welding gang or something—I’m not sure. Maybe Minchenko and I together can work something, though I don’t want to risk rousing Minchenko’s suspicions. If I can’t,” Leo inhaled carefully, “we’ll have to work out something else.”
“Don’t lie to me, Leo,” said Claire dangerously. “Don’t leap to conclusions. Yes, I know—you know—the possibility exists that we won’t be able to retrieve him, all right, I said it, right out loud. But please note any, er, alternative scenarios depend on Ti to pilot a shuttle for us, and must wait until we re-connect with the hijack crew. At which point we will have captured a Jumpship, and I will begin to believe that anything is possible.” His brows quirked, stressed. “And if it’s possible, well try it. Promise.”
There was a growing coldness in her. She firmed her lips against their tremble. “You can’t risk everybody for the sake of just one. That’s not right.”
“Well… there are a thousand things that can go wrong between now and some—point of no return for Tony. It may turn out to be quite academic. I do know, dividing our energies among a thousand what-ifs instead of concentrating them for the one sure next-step is a kind of self-sabotage. It’s not what we do next week, it’s what we do next, that counts most. What must you do next?”
Claire swallowed, and tried to pull her wits back together. “Go back to work… pretend like nothing’s going on. Continue the secret inventory of all possible seed stocks. Uh, finish the plan of how we’re going to hook up the grow-lights to keep the plants going while the Habitat is moved away from the sun. And as soon as the Habitat is ours, start the new cuttings and bring the reserve tubes on-line, to start building up extra food stocks against emergencies. And, uh, arrange cryo-storage of samples of every genetic variety we have on board, to re-stock in case of disaster—”
“That’s enough!” Leo smiled encouragement. “The next step only! And you know you can do that.”
She nodded.
“We need you, Claire,” he added. “All of us, not just Andy. Food production is one of the fundamentals of our survival. We’ll need every pair, er, every set of expert hands. And you’ll have to start training youngsters, passing on that how-to knowledge that the library, no matter how technically complete, can’t duplicate.”
“I am not going to cave,” Claire reiterated through her teeth, answering the undercurrent, not the surface, of his speech.
“You scared me, that time in the airlock,” he apologized, embarrassed.
“I scared myself,” she admitted.
“You had a right to be angry. Just remember, your true target isn’t in here—” he touched her collarbone, above her heart, fleetingly. “It’s out there.”
So, he had recognized it was rage, rage blocked and turned inward, and not despair, that had brought her to the airlock that day. In a way, it was a relief to put the right name to her emotion. In a way it was not.
“Leo… that scares me too.”
He smiled quizzically. “Welcome to the human club.”
“The next step,” she muttered. “Right. The next reach.” She gave Leo a wave, and swung into the corridor.