00-Falling Free

by Lois McMaster Bujold

  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 postpartum 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 gobbledygook 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 bio-scientist 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 traveled 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 him, "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 crèche 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.

  Andy was tethered to Mama Nilla, weeping miserably. Mama Nilla was desperately trying to pacify him with a squeeze bottle of formula with one hand while holding a reddening gauze pad to the forehead of a crying five-year-old with the other. Two or three more clung for comfort to her legs as she tried to verbally direct the efforts of a sixth to help a seventh who had torn open a package of protein chips too wide and accidentally allowed the contents to spill into the air. Through it all her calm familiar drawl was only slightly more compressed than usual, until she saw Claire approaching. "Oh, dear," she said in a weak voice.

  "Andy!" Claire cried.

  His head swiveled toward her, and he launched himself away from Mama Nilla with frantic swimming motions, only to fetch up at the end of his tether and rebound back to the crèche mother's side. At this point he began screaming in true earnest. As if by resonance, the bleeding boy started crying harder too.

  Claire braked by the wall and closed in on them.

  "Claire, honey, I'm sorry," said Mama Nilla, twitching her hips around to eclipse Andy, "but I can't let you have him. Mr. Van Atta said he'd fire me on the spot, twenty years or no twenty years—and God knows who they'd get then—there's so few I can really trust to have their heads screwed on right—" Andy interrupted her by launching himself again; he batted the proffered bottle violently out of her hand and it spun away, a few drops of formula adding tangentially to the general environmental degradation. Claire's hands reached for him.

  "—I can't, I really can't—oh, hell, take him!" It was the first time Claire had ever heard Mama Nilla swear. She unhooked the tether, and her freed left side was instantly set upon by the waiting five-year-olds.

  Andy's screams faded at once to a muffled weeping, as his little hands clamped
her fiercely. Claire folded him to her with all four arms no less fiercely. He rooted in her shirt—uselessly, she realized. Just holding him might be enough for her, but the reverse was not necessarily true. She nuzzled in his scant hair, delighting in the clean baby smell of him, tender sculptured ears, translucent skin, fine eyelashes, every part of his wriggling body. She wiped his nose happily with the edge of her blue shirt.

  "It's Claire," she overheard one of the five-year-olds explaining knowledgeably to another. "She's a real mommy." She glanced up to catch them gravely inspecting her; they giggled. She grinned back. A seven-year-old from an adjoining group had retrieved the bottle, and hung about watching Andy with interest.

  The cut on the little quaddie's forehead having clotted enough, Mama Nilla was at last able to carry on a conversation. "You don't happen to know where Mr. Van Atta is, do you?" she asked Claire in worry.

  "Gone," said Claire joyously, "gone forever! We're taking over."

  Mama Nilla blinked. "Claire, they won't let you . . ."

  "We have help." She nodded across the gym, where Leo in his red coveralls caught her eye—he must have just arrived. With him was another legged figure in white coveralls. What was Dr. Minchenko still doing here? A sudden fear twinged through her. Had they failed to clear the Habitat of downsiders after all? For the first time it occurred to her to question Mama Nilla's presence. "Why didn't you go to your safe zone?" Claire asked her.

  "Don't be silly, dear. Oh, Dr. Minchenko!" Mama Nilla waved to him. "Over here!"

  The two downsider men, lacking the free-flying confidence of the quaddies, crossed the chamber via a rope net hung across a farther arc, and made their way toward Mama Nilla's group.

  "I've got one here who needs some biotic glue," Mama Nilla, hugging the cut quaddie, said to Dr. Minchenko as soon as he drew near enough to hear. "What's going on? Is it safe to take them back to the crèche modules yet?"

  "It's safe," replied Leo, "but you're going to have to come with me, Ms. Villanova."

  "I don't leave my kids till my relief arrives," said Mama Nilla tartly, "and nine-tenths of the department seems to have evaporated, including my department head."

  Leo frowned. "Have you had your briefing from Dr. Yei yet?"

  "No . . ."

  "They were saving the best for last," said Dr. Minchenko grimly, "for obvious reasons." He turned to the crèche mother. "GalacTech has just terminated the Cay Project, Liz. Without even consulting me!" Bluntly, he outlined the termination scenario for her. "I was writing up protests, but Graf here beat me to it. Rather more effectively, I suspect. The inmates are taking over the asylum. He thinks he can convert the Habitat into a colony ship. I think . . . I choose to believe he can."

  "You mean you're responsible for this mess?" Mama Nilla glared at Leo, and looked around, clearly stunned. "I thought Claire was babbling . . ." The other two downsider crèche mothers had come over during the explanation and hung in the air looking equally nonplussed. "GalacTech's not giving you the Habitat . . . are they?" Mama Nilla asked Leo faintly.

  "No, Ms. Villanova," said Leo patiently. "We are stealing it. Now, I wouldn't ask you to get involved in anything illegal, so if you'll just follow me to the life pod—"

  Mama Nilla stared around the gym. A few groups of youngsters were already being herded out by some older quaddies. "But these kids can't handle all these kids!"

  "They're going to have to," said Leo.

  "No, no—I don't think you have the foggiest idea how labor-intensive this department is!"

  "He doesn't," confirmed Dr. Minchenko, rubbing his lips thoughtfully with a forefinger.

  "There's no choice," said Leo through his teeth. "Now kids, let go of Ms. Villanova," he addressed the quaddies clutching her. "She has to leave."

  "No!" said the one wrapped around her left knee. "She's gotta read our stories after lunch, she promised." The one with the cut began crying again. Another one tugged her left sleeve and whispered loudly, "Mama Nilla! I gotta go to the toilet!"

  Leo ran his hands through his hair, unclenched them with a visible effort. "I need to be suited up and Outside right now, lady, I don't have time to argue. All of you"—his glare took in the other two crèche mothers—"move it!"

  Mama Nilla's eyes glinted. She held out her left arm with the quaddie attached, blue eyes peering in fright at Leo around Mama Nilla's sturdy bicep. "Are you going to take this little girl to the bathroom, then?"

  The quaddie girl and Leo stared at each other in equal horror. "Certainly not," the engineer choked. He looked around "Another quaddie will. Claire . . . ?"

  After a barracuda-like investigation, Andy chose this moment to begin wailing protests at the lack of expected milk from his mother's breasts. Claire tried to soothe him, patting his back; she felt like crying herself for his disappointment.

  "I don't suppose," Dr. Minchenko interjected mildly, "that you would care to come along with us, Liz? There would be no going back, of course."

  "Us?" Mama Nilla regarded him sharply. "Are you going along with this nonsense?"

  "I rather think so."

  "That's all right, then." She nodded.

  "But you can't—" Leo began.

  "Graf," Dr. Minchenko said, "did your little depressurization drama just now give these ladies any reason to think they were still going to have air to breathe if they stayed with their quaddies?"

  "It shouldn't have," said Leo.

  "I didn't even think about it," said one of the crèche mothers, looking suddenly dismayed.

  "I did," said the other, frowning at Leo.

  "I knew there were emergency air supplies in the gym module," said Mama Nilla, "it's in the regular drill, after all. The whole department ought to have come here."

  "I diverted 'em," said Leo shortly.

  "The whole department should have told you to go screw yourself," Mama Nilla added evenly. "Allow me to speak for the absent." She smiled icily at the engineer.

  One of the crèche mothers addressed Mama Nilla in distress. "But I can't come with you. My husband works downside!"

  "Nobody's asking you to!" roared Leo.

  The other crèche mother, ignoring him, added to Mama Nilla, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Liz, I just can't. It's just too much."

  "Yes, exactly." Leo's hand hesitated over a lump in his coveralls, abandoned it, and switched to trying to herd them all along with broad arm-waving gestures.

  "It's all right girls, I understand," Mama Nilla soothed their evident anxiety. "I'll stay and hold the fort, I guess. Got nobody waiting for this old body, after all," she laughed. It was a little forced.

  "Will you take over the department, then?" Dr. Minchenko confirmed with Mama Nilla. "Keep it going any way you can—come to me when you can't."

  She nodded, looking withdrawn, as if the bottomless complexity of the task before her was just beginning to dawn.

  Dr. Minchenko took charge of the quaddie boy with the still-oozing cut on his forehead; Leo at last successfully pried loose the other two downsider women, saying, "Come on. I have to go empty the vegetable cooler next."

  "With all this going on, what is he doing spending time cleaning out a refrigerator?" Mama Nilla muttered under her breath. "Madness . . ."

  "Mama Nilla, I gotta go now." The little quaddie wrapped all her arms tightly around her torso by way of emphasis, and Mama Nilla perforce broke away.

  Andy was still wailing his indignant disappointment in intermittent bursts.

  "Hey, little fellow," Dr. Minchenko paused to address him, "that's no way to talk to your mama. . . ."

  "No milk," explained Claire. Glumly, feeling dreadfully inadequate, she offered him the bottle, which he batted away. When she attempted to detach him momentarily in order to dive after it, he wrapped himself around her arm and screamed frantically. One of the five-year-olds twisted up and put all four of his hands over his ears, pointedly.

  "Come with us to the infirmary," said Dr. Minchenko with an understanding smile. "I think I have somethi
ng that will fix that problem. Unless you want to wean him now, which I don't recommend."

  "Oh, please," said Claire hopefully.

  "It will take a couple of days to get your systems interlocked again," he warned, "the biofeedback lag time being what it is. But I haven't had a chance to examine you two since I came up anyway . . ."

  Claire floated after him with gratitude. Even Andy stopped crying.

  * * *

  Pramod hadn't been joking about the clamps, Leo thought with a sigh, as he studied the fused lump of metal before him. He punched up the specs on the computer board floating beside him, a bit slowly and clumsily with his pressure-gloved hands. This particular insulated pipe conducted sewage. Unglamorous, but a mistake here could be just as much a disaster as any other.

  And a lot messier, Leo thought with a grim grin. He glanced up at Bobbi and Pramod hovering at the ready beside him in their silvery work suits; five other quaddie work teams were visible along the Habitat's surface, and a pusher jockeyed into position nearby. Rodeo's sunlit crescent wheeled in the background. Well, they must certainly be the galaxy's most expensive plumbers.

  The mess of variously-coded pipes and tubing before him formed the umbilical connections between one module and the next, shielded by an outer casing from microdust pitting and other hazards. The task at hand was to realign the modules in uniform longitudinal bundles to withstand acceleration. Each bundle, strapped together like the cargo pods, would form a sturdy, self-supporting, balanced mass, at least in terms of the relatively low thrusts Leo was contemplating. Just like driving a team of yoked hippopotamuses. But realigning the modules entailed realigning all their connections, and there were lots and lots and lots of connections.

  A movement caught the corner of Leo's eye. Pramod's helmet followed the tilt of Leo's.

  "There they go," Pramod remarked. Both triumph and regret mingled in his voice.

  The life pod with the last remnant of downsiders aboard fled silently into the void, a flash of light winking off a port even as it shrank from sight around Rodeo's curvature. That was it, then, for the legged ones, bar himself, Dr. Minchenko, Mama Nilla, and a slightly demented young supervisor waving a spanner they'd pried out of a duct who declared his violent love for a quaddie girl in Airsystems Maintenance and refused to be budged. If he came to his senses by the time they reached Orient IV, Leo decided, they could drop him off. Meantime it was a choice between shooting him or putting him to work. Leo had eyed the spanner, and put him to work.