“Who’s the ordering official, please?”
“Mr. Irasco.”
* * *
SHE LEFT THE office, strolled casually down the corridor, said hello to Patricia, who was just coming out of the conference room, and descended to the main deck. Then she hurried to her hotel room, packed, and ten minutes later showed up on bravo dock, where the Baumbachner was secured. A second ship had arrived and was being unloaded on the far side. She thought of Frank’s comment: “We don’t have anybody to send.” Well, it was possible Frank had asked, but the carrier had other uses for the vehicle and declined. It wasn’t hard to imagine its happening that way. After all, it’s not life and death. Frank asks for help and has to show somebody’s in imminent danger. Out here, where you’re dealing with interstellar distances, by the time the danger becomes imminent, it tends to be fairly late.
She stopped at the departure desk. Nobody was there, but an AI asked her name.
“Priscilla Hutchins.”
“Priscilla, have you determined a destination yet?”
“Teegarden’s Star,” she said.
“Purpose of visit?”
“Rescue operation.”
“Will you be carrying any passengers?”
“Negative. I’ll be alone.”
“Very good, Priscilla. You’re clear to go.”
“Thank you.” She went into the access tube, hurried down to the dock, and boarded the ship. She closed the air lock, stowed her bag, and went onto the bridge. “Hello, Myra,” she said.
“Hello, Priscilla.” The AI sounded cheerful. “Where are we going?”
“Teegarden’s Star.”
“Teegarden’s? Why are we going there?”
“To bail out an Academy team.”
“Really?”
“Yes.”
“Excellent. I’ve never done a bailout.”
* * *
THE ENGINES CAME on. “Ops, this is Baumbachner. We are ready to go.”
The launch doors began to open, and Yoshie was back on the circuit. “Baumbachner, proceed at your leisure. Priscilla, there are no other vehicles in the area.”
“Roger that, Yoshie. See you when I get back.” She switched off the mike. “Okay, Myra, let’s move. Just like last time.”
“Lines released, Priscilla. Thrusters activated.” They began to back out of the dock.
“Bring us around until we face the launch doors, Myra.”
Gradually, she lined up with the exit, and the ship moved forward.
“Hutchins!” Irasco’s voice exploded over the commlink. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
She stared at the mike. Made a noise deep in her throat. And responded: “Frank, I’m headed for Teegarden.”
“No you’re not. Priscilla, bring it back.”
Myra’s voice: “What do we do, Priscilla?”
“Keep moving.”
The doors began to close. “We do not have time to pass through, Priscilla.”
“Okay,” she said. “Hold it.”
Someone exhaled on the commlink. Yoshie. Then Irasco said, quietly, “After it’s docked, stop by my office.”
* * *
“HAVE YOU LOST your mind?” Frank sat behind his desk, glaring. “What the hell were you trying to do? Show me up?”
She was standing in front of his desk. “It wasn’t about you, Frank. It was about the people at the other end. They’re waiting for somebody who may or may not get the word that they’re in trouble.”
“All right.” He shook his head. “Priscilla, I just don’t understand you. But you haven’t left me much choice. You’re terminated. Please go away.”
“Frank. We lost Joshua because we didn’t get to him in time. Eventually, we’ll be forced to establish a response unit of some kind. Do you want to wait until somebody else is killed?”
“Damn it, Priscilla, back off. You think I like this arrangement? It’s the system we have. You go out there in that wreck, and something goes wrong, you’re dead.” He took a deep breath. “You’re lucky, by the way.”
“How’s that?”
“I’m not going to take your license. But I doubt if, after this, anybody will hire you.”
* * *
PRISCILLA’S JOURNAL
Five people stranded out there, and all I can do is think of myself. Why is it always about me? But the reality is that, eventually, I may turn out to be the only casualty of this thing.
—January 19, 2196
Chapter 29
PRISCILLA RETURNED TO her office, dropped into a chair, and stared at the link. Maybe she should call and apologize. Assure Irasco she’d stay in line from now on. Cause no more problems. She did not want to walk away from this job. Did not want to go back to Princeton, where she’d probably spend her time waiting on tables at the Chicken Stop. But there was no way she could bring herself to do that. Anyhow, he probably wouldn’t back off even if she did.
Good-bye, Alpha Centauri.
She called the shuttle terminal and asked for a reservation. The afternoon flight was full. They could accommodate her in the morning. She locked it in and started gathering her personal belongings. It was easy enough; she hadn’t really moved much stuff into the office. There was a Liberator desk calendar, with a fresh cartoon every day. The Liberator had the funniest cartoons on the planet. The current one showed an idiotic-looking clerk assuring his boss that he shouldn’t worry about a thing. “I’ll take care of it personally.”
She kept a change of clothes in the closet. She gathered her notebook and her pens and took down the wall calendar. It was all pictures of animals. January featured two kittens. (She liked paper calendars.) She picked up her toothbrush and, finally, the framed photo of the six graduating cadets, taken at the ceremony.
She put everything into her bag and decided to avoid saying good-bye to her coworkers. There was no way that could turn out well. As angry and frustrated as she was, she didn’t want to leave in a trail of tears.
Maybe she could take advantage of her meeting with Dr. Campbell and get a position with the Academy Project. Though, probably, they wouldn’t hire her once they learned what had happened. But she had nothing to lose.
Jolie Peters, a data-scan specialist, was outside in the corridor. “Hi, Hutch,” she said.
That meant she probably hadn’t heard yet. You don’t do jokes with somebody who’s just been terminated. She said hello, took the elevator down, walked past more offices on the main deck, and went out into the concourse. A couple of hundred tourists were wandering around, looking out through the portals, filling the gift shops and the restaurants and the game centers. Maybe Frank had been right, maybe she should have stayed out of it. Done what she was told.
But she was still too close to the people caught in the lander to assume that it was okay to take chances, not worry too much about the details, just have faith that everything would be all right.
She went into one of the game centers and spent half an hour shooting down space invaders. They were evil-looking creatures with enormous eyes and crocodile snouts, and they kept landing in gravity-defying saucers and emerging in walking tripods, like the ones in H. G. Wells. She had never played the game before, had in fact not bothered much with shoot-out games after she got past twelve years old. But on that occasion she took considerable pleasure in mowing stuff down.