Falling Free (Vorkosigan Saga)

by Lois McMaster Bujold

  “Are they … preparing for a siege or something?” Dr. Yei asked aloud, evidently following a similar line of thought. “Surely they must realize how futile it would be.”

  “Who knows what that damn fool Graf thinks?” Van Atta growled. “The man’s run mad. There are a dozen ways we can stand off at a distance and knock that installation to bits even without military supplies. Or just wait and starve them out. They’ve trapped themselves. He’s not just crazy, he’s stupid.”

  “Maybe,” said Yei doubtfully, “they mean to just go on quietly living up there, in orbit. Why not?”

  “The hell you say. I’m going to hook them out of there, and double-quick, too. Somehow … No bunch of miserable mutants are going to get away with sabotage on this scale. Sabotage— theft—terrorism …”

  “They are not mutants,” began Yei, “they are genetically-engineered childr—”

  “Mr. Van Atta, sir?” piped up another com controller. “I have an urgent memo for you listed on my all-points. Can you take it here?”

  Yei, cut off, spread her hands in frustration.

  “Now what?” Van Atta muttered, seating himself before the com unit.

  “It’s a recorded message from the manager of the cargo marshaling station out at jump point. I’ll put it online,” said the tech.

  The vaguely familiar face of the jump-point station manager wavered into focus before Van Atta. Van Atta had met him perhaps once, early in his stint here. The small jump-point station was manned from the Orient IV side, and was under Orient IV’s operations division, not Rodeo’s. Its employees were regular Union downsiders and did not normally have contact with Rodeo, nor with the quaddies once destined to replace them.

  The station manager looked harried. He gabbled through the preliminary IDs, then came abruptly to the meat of his matter: “What the hell is going on with you people, anyway? A crew of mutant freaks just came out of nowhere, kidnapped a jump pilot, shot another, and hijacked a GalacTech cargo superjumper. But instead of jumping out, they’ve headed back with it toward Rodeo. When we notified Rodeo Security, they indicated the mutants probably belonged to you. Are there more out there? Are they running wild or something? I want answers, dammit. I’ve got a pilot in the infirmary, a terrorized engineer, and a crew on the verge of panic.” From the look on his face the station manager was on the verge of panic himself. “Jump-point station out!”

  “How old is this memo?” said Van Atta rather blankly.

  “About”—the com tech checked his monitor—“twelve hours, sir.”

  “Does he think the hijackers are quaddies? Why wasn’t I informed”—Van Atta’s eye fell on Bannerji, standing blandly at attention by Chalopin’s elbow—“why wasn’t I informed of this at once by Security?”

  “At the time the incident was first reported, you were unavailable,” said the security captain, devoid of expression. “Since then we’ve been tracking the D-620, and it’s continued to boost straight toward Rodeo. It doesn’t answer our calls.”

  “What are you doing about it?”

  “We’re monitoring the situation. I have not yet received orders to do anything about it.”

  “Why not? Where’s Norris?” Norris was Operations manager for the entire Rodeo local space area; he ought to be on this thing. True, the Cay Project was not in his chain of command proper, as Van Atta reported directly to Company Ops.

  “Dr. Norris,” said Chalopin, “is attending a materials development conference on Earth. In his absence, I am acting Operations manager. Captain Bannerji and I have discussed the possibility of his taking his men and the Shuttleport Three Security and Rescue shuttle and attempting to board the hijacked ship. We’re still not sure who these people are or what they want, but they appear to have taken a hostage, compelling caution on our part. So we’ve let them continue to decrease their range while we attempt to gain more information about them. This”—she eyed him beadily—“brings us to you, Mr. Van Atta. Is this incident somehow connected to your crisis at the Cay Habitat?”

  “I don’t see how—” Van Atta began, and broke off, because suddenly he did see how. “Son-of-a-bitch …” he whispered.

  “Lord Krishna,” Dr. Yei said, and wheeled to stare again at the live vid of the Habitat half-dismantled in orbit far above them. “It can’t be …”

  “Graf’s crazy. He’s crazy. The man’s a flaming megalomaniac. He can’t do this—” The engineering parameters paraded inexorably through Van Atta’s mind. Mass—power—distance—yes, a pared-down Habitat, a percentage of its less-essential components dropped, might just barely be torqued by a superjumper into wormhole space, if it could be wrestled into position at the distant jump point. The whole damn thing … “They’re hijacking the whole damn thing!” Van Atta cried aloud.

  Yei wrung her hands, half-circling the vid. “They’ll never manage. They’re barely more than children! He’ll lead them to their deaths! It’s criminal!”

  Captain Bannerji and the shuttleport administrator glanced at each other. Bannerji pursed his lips and opened his hand to her, as if to say, Ladies first.

  “Do you think the two incidents are connected, then?” Chalopin pressed.

  Van Atta too paced back and forth, as if he could so coax an angle from flat view of the Habitat. “… the whole damn thing!”

  Yei answered for him. “Yes, we think so.”

  Van Atta paced on. “Hell, and they’ve got it apart already! We aren’t going to have time to starve ‘em out. Got to stop ‘em some other way.”

  “The Cay Project workers were very upset at the abrupt termination of the Project,” Yei explained. “They found out about it prematurely. They were afraid of being remanded downside, being unaccustomed to gravity. I never had a chance to introduce the idea gradually. I think they may actually be trying to—run away, somehow.”

  Captain Bannerji’s eyes widened. He leaned across the console on one hand and stared into the vid. “Consider the lowly snail,” he muttered, “who carries its house on its back. On cold rainy days when it goes for a walk, it never has to backtrack… .”

  Van Atta put an extra half-meter of distance between himself and the suddenly poetic security captain.

  “Weapons,” Van Atta said. “What kind of weapons does Security have on tap?”

  “Stunners,” answered Bannerji, straightening up and studying his right thumbnail. Was there a flash of mockery in his eyes? No, he wouldn’t dare.

  “I mean on your shuttle,” said Van Atta irritably. “Ship-mounted weapons. Teeth. You can’t make a threat without teeth.”

  “There are two medium-power ship-mounted laser units. Last time we used them was—let me see—to burn through a log snag that had backed up flood waters threatening an exploration camp.”

  “Yes, well, it’s more than they have, anyway,” said Van Atta excitedly. “We can attack the Habitat—or the superjumper—either, really. The main thing is to keep them from connecting with each other. Yes, get the jumpship first. Without it the Habitat is a sitting target we can polish off at our leisure. Is your security shuttle fueled up and ready to go, Bannerji?”

  Dr. Yei had paled. “Hold on! Who’s talking about attacking anything? We haven’t even made verbal contact yet. If the hijackers are indeed quaddies, I’m sure I could persuade them to listen to reason—”

  “It’s too late for reason. This situation calls for action.” Van Atta’s humiliation burned hot in his stomach, fueled by fear. When the company brass found out how totally he had lost control—well, he’d better be firmly back in control by then.

  “Yes, but …” Yei licked her lips, “it’s all very well to threaten, but the actual use of force is dangerous—maybe destructive—hadn’t you better get some kind of authorization first? If something went horribly wrong, you wouldn’t want to be left holding the bag, surely.”

  Van Atta paused. “It would take too much time,” he objected at last. “Maybe a da
y, to reach District HQ on Orient IV and return. And if they decided it was too hot and bounced it all the way to Apmad on Earth, it could be several days before we got a reply.”

  “But it’s going to be several days, isn’t it?” said Yei, watching him intently. “Even if they succeed in fitting the Habitat to the superjumper, they aren’t going to be able to swing it around and boost it like a fast courier. It would never stand the strain, it would use too much fuel—there’s lots of time yet. Wouldn’t it be better to get authorization, to be safe? Then, if anything went wrong—it wouldn’t be your fault.”

  “Well …” Van Atta slowed still further. How typical of Yei’s wishy-washy, wimpy indecision. He could almost hear her, in his head: Now, let’s all sit down and discuss this like reasonable people… . He loathed letting her push his buttons; still, she had a valid point: cover-your-ass was a fundamental rule for survival even of the fittest.

  “Well … no, dammit! One thing I can damn well guarantee is that GalacTech is going to want this whole fiasco kept quiet. The last thing they’ll want is a lot of rumors flying around about their pet mutants running wild. Better for all of us if this is handled strictly inside Rodeo local space.” He turned to Bannerji. “That’s the first priority, then—you and your men have got to get that jumpship back, or at least disable it.”

  “That,” remarked Bannerji to the air, “would be vandalism. Besides, as has been pointed out before—Shuttleport Three Security is not in your chain of command, Mr. Van Atta.” He glanced significantly at his boss, who stood listening and pulling worriedly on a strand of hair escaped from her sleek coiffure.

  “True,” she agreed. “The Habitat may be your problem, Mr. Van Atta, but this jumpship hijacking is clearly under my jurisdiction, regardless of their connections. And there’s still a cargo shuttle docked up there that’s mine, too, though the transfer station reported they picked up its crew from a life pod.”

  Van Atta stood fuming, blocked. Blocked by the damned women. It had been Chalopin’s buttons Yei had been aiming for, he realized suddenly, and she’d scored a hit, too. “That’s it, then,” he said through his teeth at last. “We’ll bounce it to HQ. And then we’ll see who’s in charge here.”

  Dr. Yei closed her eyes briefly, as if in relief. At a word from Chalopin a com tech began readying his system for the relay of a scrambled emergency message to District, to be radioed at the speed of light to the wormhole station, recorded and jumped through on the next available transport, and radio-relayed again to its destination.

  “In the meantime,” said Van Atta to Chalopin, “what are you going to do about your”—he drew the word out sarcastically—“hijacking?”

  “Proceed with caution,” she replied levelly. “We believe there is a hostage involved, after all.”

  “We’re not sure if all the GalacTech staff is off the Habitat yet, either,” put in Dr. Yei.

  Van Atta growled, unable to contradict her. But if there were still downsiders being held aboard, senior management must surely realize the need for a swift and vigorous response. He must call the transfer station next and get the final head count. If all these dithering idiots were going to force him to sit on his hands for the next several days, he could at least lay his plans for action when he was unleashed.

  And he was certain he would be unleashed, sooner or later. He had not failed to read Apmad’s underlying horror of the mutant quaddies. When word of this mess finally arrived on her desk it would goose her three meters straight up in the air, hostages or no hostages—Van Atta’s eyes narrowed. “Hey,” he said suddenly, “we’re not as helpless as you think. Two can play that game—I have a hostage, too!”

  “You do?” said Dr. Yei, puzzled. Then her hand went to her throat.

  “Damn straight. And to think I almost forgot. That four-armed geek Tony is down here!”

  Tony was Graf’s teacher’s pet—and that little cunt Claire’s favorite prick, and she was surely a ringleader—if he couldn’t swing this to his advantage, he was dead in the head. He spun on his heel. “Come on, Yei! Those little suckers are going to answer our calls now!”

  *

  Jump pilots might swear their ships were beautiful, but really, Leo thought as the D-620 heaved silently into view, the superjumper looked like nothing so much as a mutant mechanical squid. A pod-like section at the front end contained the control room and crew quarters, protected from the material hazards encountered during acceleration by an oblate laminated shield and from the hazards of radiation by an invisible magnetic cone. Arcing out behind trailed four enormously long, mutually braced arms. Two housed normal space thrusters; two housed the heart of the ship’s purpose, the Necklin field generator rods that spun the ship through wormhole space during a jump. Between the four arms was a huge empty space normally occupied by cargo pods. The bizarre ship would look more sensible when that space was filled with Habitat modules, Leo decided. At that point he would even break down and call it beautiful himself.

  With a jerk of his chin Leo called up a vid of his work suit’s power and supply levels, displayed on the inside of his faceplate. He would have just time to see the first module bundle pushed into place and attached before being forced to take a break and restock his suit. Not that he hadn’t been ready for a break hours ago. He blinked sand and water from his itching, no-doubt-bloodshot eyes, wishing he could rub them, and sucked another mouthful of hot coffee from his drink tube. He wanted fresh coffee, too. The stuff he was drinking now had been out here as long as he had, and was growing just as chemically vile, opaque and greenish.

  The D-620 sidled near the Habitat, matching velocities precisely, and shut down its engines. The flight lights blinked out and the parking lights, signaling that it was safe to approach, flicked on. Banks of floods suddenly illuminated the vast cargo space, as if to say, Welcome aboard.

  Leo’s gaze strayed to the crew’s section, dwarfed by the arcing arms. From the corner of his eye he saw a personnel pod peel away from the superjumper’s starboard side and ferry off toward the Habitat modules. Somebody heading home—Silver? Ti? He had to talk to Ti as soon as possible. A previously unrealized knot unwound in his stomach. Silver’s back safe. He caught himself up; everybody was back. But not safe yet. He activated his suit jets and caught up with his quaddie crew.

  Thirty minutes later Leo’s heart eased as the first module bundle slid smoothly into place in the D-620’s embrace. In a minor nightmare, undispelled by checking and rechecking his figures, he’d envisioned something Not Fitting, followed by endless delays for correction. The fact that they’d heard nothing from downside yet apart from repeated pleas for communication did not reassure him much. GalacTech management on Rodeo had to respond eventually, and there wasn’t a thing he could do to counter that response until it shaped itself. Rodeo’s apparent paralysis couldn’t last much longer.

  Meanwhile, it was half past breaktime. Maybe Dr. Minchenko could be persuaded to disgorge something for his throbbing head, to replace the eight hours of sleep he wasn’t going to get. Leo punched up his work gang leaders’ channel on his suit com.

  “Bobbi, take over as foreman. I’m going Inside. Pramod, bring in your team as soon as that last strap is bolted down. Bobbi, be sure that second module bundle is tied in solid before you adjust and seal all the end airlocks, right?”

  “Yes, Leo. I’m on it.” Bobbi waved acknowledgment from the far end of the module bundle with a lower arm.

  As Leo turned away, one of the one-man mini-pushers that had helped tug the module bundle into place detached itself and rotated, preparing to thrust away and help the next bundle already being aligned beyond the superjumper. One of its attitude jets puffed, then, even as Leo watched, emitted a sudden intense blue stream. Its rotation picked up speed.

  That’s uncontrolled! Leo thought, his eyes widening. In the bare moment it took him to call up the right channel on his suit com, the rotation became a spin. The pusher jetted off wildly, missing colli
ding with a work-suited quaddie by a scant meter. As Leo watched in horror it caromed off a nacelle on one of the superjumper’s Necklin rod arms and tumbled into space beyond.

  The com channel from the pusher emitted a wordless scream. Leo bounced channels. “Vatel!” he called the quaddie manning the nearest other little pusher. “Go after her!”

  The second pusher rotated and sped past him; he saw the flash of one of Vatel’s gloved hands visually acknowledging the order through the pusher’s wide-angle front viewport. Leo restrained a heart-wrenching urge to jet after them himself. Damn little he could do in a power-depleted work suit. It was up to Vatel.

  Had it been human—or quaddie—error, or a mechanical defect that had caused the accident? Well, he would be able to tell quickly enough once the pusher was retrieved. If the pusher was retrieved … He squelched that thought. Instead he jetted over to the Necklin rod nacelle.

  The nacelle housing was deeply dented where the pusher had collided with it. Leo tried to reassure himself. It’s only a housing. It’s put there to protect the guts from accidents just like this, right? Hissing in dismay, he pulled himself around to shine his work-suit light into the man-high dark aperture at one end of the housing.

  Oh, God.

  The vortex mirror was cracked. Over three meters wide at its elliptical lip, mathematically shaped and polished to angstrom-unit precision, it was an integral control surface of the jump system, reflecting, bleeding or amplifying the Necklin field generated by the main rods at the will of the pilot. Not just cracked—shattered in a starry burst, cold titanium deformed past its limits. Leo moaned.

  A second light shone in past him. Leo glanced around to find Pramod at his shoulder.

  “Is that as bad as it looks?” Pramod’s voice choked over the suit com.

  “Yes,” sighed Leo.

  “You can’t—do a welded repair on those, can you?” Pramod’s voice was rising. “What are we going to do?”

  Fatigue and fear, the worst possible combination—Leo kept his own tired voice flat. “My suit supply-level readout says we’re going to go Inside and take a break right now. After that we’ll see.”