“Such chains do occur, though,” said Leo, speaking from wide experience. “They’re practically my speciality.”
“Just so,” purred Minchenko, lidding his eyes. “And that vermin Van Atta billed you as his pet engineer when he brought you in. Frankly, I thought—ahem!” he looked only mildly embarrassed, “that you might be his triggerman. The accident seemed so suspiciously convenient just now, from his point of view. Knowing Van Atta, that was practically the first thing I thought of.”
“Thanks,” snarled Leo.
“I knew Van Atta—I didn’t know you.” Minchenko paused, and added more mildly, “I still don’t. What do you think you’re doing?”
“Isn’t it obvious?”
“Not entirely, no. Oh, certainly, you can hold out in the Habitat for a few months, cut off from Rodeo—perhaps years, barring counterattacks, if you were conservative and clever enough—but what then? There is no public opinion to come to your rescue here, no audience to grandstand for. It’s half-baked, Graf. You’ve made no provisions for reaching help—”
“We’re not asking for help. The quaddies are going to rescue themselves.”
“How?” Minchenko’s tone scoffed, though his eyes were alight.
“Jump the Habitat. Then keep going.”
Even Minchenko was silenced momentarily. “Oh…”
Leo finished struggling into his red coveralls, and found the tool he wanted. He pointed the laser-solderer firmly at Minchenko’s midsection. It did not appear to be a task he could safely delegate to the quaddies. “And you,” he said stiffly, “can go to the Transfer Station in the life pod with the rest of the downsiders. Let’s go.”
Minchenko barely glanced at the solderer. His lips curled with contempt for the weapon and, Leo felt, its wielder. “Don’t be more of an idiot than you can help, Graf. I know they foxed that cretin Curry, so there are still at least fifteen pregnant quaddie girls out there. Not counting the results of unauthorized experiments, which judging from the way the level is dropping in that box of condoms in the unlocked drawer in my office, are becoming significant.”
Kara started in guilty dismay, and Minchenko added aside to her, “Why do you think I pointed them out to you, dear? Be that as it may, Graf,” he fixed Leo with a stern eye, “if you throw me off what do you plan to do if one of them presents at labor with placenta praevia? Or a post-partum prolapsed uterus? Or any other medical emergency that requires more than a band-aid?”
“Well.,. but…” Leo was taken aback. He wasn’t quite sure what placenta praevia was, but somehow he didn’t think it was medical gobbledy-gook for a hangnail. Nor that a precise explanation of the term would do anything to ease the ominous anxiety it engendered in him. Was it something likely to occur, given the alterations of quaddie anatomy? “There is no choice. To stay here is death for every quaddie. To go is a chance—not a guarantee—of life.”
“But you need me,” argued Minchenko.
“You have to—what?” Leo’s tongue stumbled.
“You need me. You can’t throw me off.” Minchenko’s eyes flicked infinitesimally to the solderer.
“Well, huh,” Leo choked, “I can’t kidnap you, either.”
“Who’s asking you to?”
“You are, evidently…” he cleared his throat. “Look, I don’t think you understand. I’m taking this Habitat out, and we’re not coming back, not ever. We’re going out as far as we can go, beyond every inhabited world. It’s a one-way ticket.”
“I’m relieved. At first I thought you were going to try something stupid.”
Leo found his emotions churning, a mixture of suspicion, jealousy?—and a sharp rising anticipation—what a relief it would be, not to have to carry it all alone… “You sure?”
“They’re my quaddies…” Minchenko’s hands clenched, opened. “Daryl’s and mine. I don’t think you half understand what a job we did. What a good job, developing these people. They’re finely adapted to their environment. Superior in every way. Thirty-five years’ work—am I to let some total stranger drag them off across the galaxy to who-knows-what fate? Besides, GalacTech was going to retire me next year.”
“You’ll lose your pension,” Leo pointed out. “Maybe your freedom—possibly your life.”
Minchenko snorted. “Not much of that left.”
Not true, Leo thought. The bioscientist possessed enormous life, over three-quarters of a century of accumulation. When this man died, a universe of specialized knowledge would be extinguished. Angels would weep for the loss. Unless—”Could you train quaddie doctors?”
“It’s a forgone conclusion you couldn’t.” Minchenko ran his hands through his clipped white hair in a gesture part exasperation, part pleading.
Leo glanced around at the anxiously hovering quaddies, listening in—listening in while men with legs decided their fate, again. Not right… the words popped out of his mouth before reasoned caution could stop them. “What do you kids think?”
A ragged but immediate chorus of assent for Minchenko—relief in their eyes, too. Minchenko’s familiar authority would clearly be an immense comfort to them, as they travelled farther into the unknown. Leo was suddenly put in mind of the way the universe had changed to a stranger place the day his father had died. Just because we’re adults doesn’t automatically mean we can save you… But this was a discovery each quaddie would have to make in their own time. He took a deep breath. “All right…” How could one suddenly feel a hundred kilos lighter when already weightless? Placenta praevia, God.
Minchenko did not react with immediate pleasure. “There’s just one thing,” he began, arranging his features in a humble smile quite horribly out of place on his face.
What’s he sweating for now? Leo wondered, suspicions renewed. “What?”
“Madame Minchenko.”
“Who?”
“My wife. I have to get her.”
“I didn’t—realize you were married. Where is she?”
“Downside. On Rodeo.”
“Hell…” Leo suppressed an urge to start tearing out the remains of his hair.
Pramod, listening, reminded, “Tony’s down there too.”
“I know, I know—and I promised Claire—I don’t know how we’re going to work this…”
Minchenko was waiting, his expression intense—not a man used to begging. Only his eyes pleaded. Leo was moved. “We’ll try. We’ll try. That’s all I can promise.”
Minchenko nodded, dignified. “How’s Madame Minchenko going to feel about all this, anyway?”
“She’s loathed Rodeo for twenty-five years,” Minchenko promised—somewhat airily, Leo thought. “She’ll be delighted to get away.” Minchenko didn’t add I hope aloud, but Leo heard it anyway.
“All right. Well, we’ve still got to round up these stragglers and get rid of them.…” Leo wondered wistfully if it was possible to drop dead painlessly from an anxiety attack. He led his little troop from the locker room.
Claire flew from hand-grip to hand-grip along the branching corridors, done with patience at last. Her heart sang with anticipation. The airseal doors to the raucous gym were crowded with quaddies, and she had to restrain herself from forcibly elbowing them out of her way. One of her old dormitory mates, in the pink T-shirt and shorts of creche duty, recognized her with a grin and reached out with a lower hand to pull her through the mob.
“The littlest ones are by Door C,” said her dorm mate. “I’ve been expecting you…” After a quick visual check to be sure her flight plan didn’t violently intersect anyone else’s taking a similar shortcut, her dorm mate helped her launch herself in that direction by the most direct route, across the diameter of the big chamber.
The buxom figure in pink coveralls Claire sought was practically buried in a swarm of excited, frightened, chattering, crying five-year-olds. Claire felt a twinge of real guilt, that it had been judged too dangerous to their secrecy to warn the younger quaddies in advance of the great changes about to sweep over them. The little ones didn’t get a vote, either, she thought.