"What do we do, Rue?" asked Evan. He was on the other sled.
"Just wait a sec," she said. Rue had to keep reminding herself that Jentry was not the model for all men. She was probably overreacting. She put a call directly through to Crisler.
He appeared in a little inscape window down near where her hands gripped the sled. "Ms. Cassels, I'm sorry for this inconvenience," he said immediately. "But we've got a situation here."
"When I spoke to you ten minutes ago you said you had everything under control," she said.
"Yes, well… the important thing right now is to ensure that no further damage is done. Since I don't know who caused this explosion, everyone's a suspect. I'm confining everyone to quarters and that includes your people. It's just until we can investigate properly and make sure the Banshee's safe."
"And what about me?"
He hesitated, for just a second. "Naturally, you'll be free to move about as you wish."
She didn't believe him. That little hesitation said it all.
"All right then. Cassels out." She closed the window and leaned back. Her marine was at the front of the sled, his helmet turned toward the Banshee. Behind him was Salas, then Corinna. Rue had boarded the sled last.
They were still several minutes from the decel burn. She eased her feet out of the straps that connected her to the sled. Her heart was pounding. "I'm going to count on you guys to cooperate," she said on a public channel. "Do what you're told and answer any questions they might have. We'll get through this quicker that way. I mean, none of us did it, so we've nothing to worry about."
She spread her arms wide and cocked her hands down. Lifting her legs from the sled slowly, she gently fired her wrist jets. For a second it felt like she was hanging onto something with both hands. Then she cut the jets and watched the sled glide away.
"But what about Max?" blurted Evan.
"Max throws a fit over anything that keeps him from his hammock," she said. Her mouth felt dry as she watched the two sleds converge on the habitats of the Banshee. It wasn't that she was afraid of being out here in space— this was her home. She was frightened of facing Crisler's anger.
Well, hell, he was pushing her buttons and besides, she didn't have to justify herself to him. Really.
Now she was getting mad at herself. Cursing, Rue flipped over and oriented herself to face Lake Flaccid. With a couple more squirts of the jets, she was headed straight for it.
"Cassels, what are you doing?" She wasn't sure whose voice that was, but whoever it was, they were pissed.
"I'm looking to my ship," she said. "How do we know they won't bomb that, too?" Then she switched off the radio.
This ought to start 'em guessing.
It was with a feeling of déjà vu that she found herself grabbing the cable outside the lake's airlock and hauling herself in. Last time it had been her brother chasing her. This time it would be marines— they'd be sure to have turned the sleds around, or launched more by now.
Wryly, she thought, who's it going to be next time? The Lasa?
Rue flipped her way through the airlock and dove for the strap gallery. They'd shut off the lights here, so she used her helmet spot to navigate. This was dangerously fun, actually— nothing better than thumbing your nose at authority. The only thing that made her feel guilty was the fact that she had a crew to look after. They'd be feeling pretty bewildered right about now.
But, as Jentry often said, "always negotiate from a position of strength." If she was locked up aboard the Banshee, she'd have no way to influence the outcome of Crisler's investigation. Especially if he, say, rigged the explosion himself as a pretext for taking control of the whole cycler.
Not that she believed this, she thought as she launched herself across the length of the axis cylinder. She was just a paranoid yokel from the Stations. Well, maybe. But she would still negotiate from strength.
They'd catch up to her pretty fast. Even now they might be at the airlock. Rue reached the far shore of Lake Flaccid and found the corresponding strap palace there. As they'd discovered, the axis of the lake was indeed symmetrical, with two shores, two strap palaces, and two airlocks.
A minute later, she was outside again, perched on the hull of the lake and out of sight of the Banshee.
There was no handhold here and no light except from the stars. That was plenty of light for Rue, who spotted what she was looking for almost immediately. She sailed over to the cluster of rings and little robot arms that held onto one end of a thin white cord. This cord rose slackly into the night, spiralling away to infinity.
Rue had seen the radar maps of the cycler habitats. They were all still connected to the plow sail by cables and not much slack had entered the system since the last turn.
She clipped herself to the cord and kicked off from the Lake. As she rose she gave herself a few tugs on the line to speed herself up, then used a third of her remaining jet pressure to accelerate some more.
The jets had accelerated her to about 150 kilometers per hour. She concentrated on trying to keep the cord from touching the ring of the clip; it rattled when it did so and would reduce her speed. Too much of that would be bad: She had a thousand kilometers more to go today. So she unclipped it, played out a little of her own grappling cable, made a much bigger loop and put that around the cord. As long as she wasn't going to drift away, she'd be all right.
It would take at least six hours for her to get to the plow sail. She had almost a day's worth of air and power in the suit, so that wasn't a worry. But she fretted, wondering what was going on back at the Banshee, while the gray line of the tether stretching out ahead of her wavered and swung as it passed through her loop.
RUE FELL ASLEEP despite her best efforts. She had an inscape window open next to the wavering cord and had reviewed her suit's recording of the trip to the lake. Then she put on some music she'd downloaded into the suit months ago and sang along with it. She ran through all that too and ended up staring at the long line as it zipped by her, until she was hypnotized and finally, dozing.
She came to with the impression that something was wrong and had no idea where she was for a few seconds. She saw only stars, heard herself breathing in the suit and reached out reflexively.
Her glove found the cord and clutched it before she realized what she was doing. She let go immediately, but not before she realized what was wrong: She had stopped moving.
Rue looked behind herself. The cord seemed to coil up back there; she must have hit a really slack part or a long curve, which had pulled on the loop of belt line until it braked her to a stop.
Great. She checked the time: She'd been asleep for three hours. Rue knew she had passed the halfway point before falling asleep, but beyond that, who knew? There was no way to tell where she was; the plow sail might be two hundred kilometers away or only five.
For a few seconds she just hung there, discouraged and cursing herself for a fool. What was she doing out here, anyway?
She would have to boost up to speed again. That meant losing more propellant. She'd be dangerously low when she finally got to the sail. But it was too late to turn around and go home.
The alternative was to pull herself along, which would be slower, but wouldn't waste any fuel.