Falling Free (Vorkosigan Saga)

by Lois McMaster Bujold

  Silver clapped all her hands with delight as she saw Ti thump up the ramp, burdened with Tony clinging piggyback just as Leo had carted her at the transfer station. They got him! They got him! Dr. Minchenko followed close behind.

  There was a short argument back at the airlock, Doctor and Madame Minchenko’s muffled voices, then Dr. Minchenko galloped back down the stairs to crack a cold flare and stick it to the land rover’s roof. It gave off a brilliant green glare. Good, the stranded security guards should have no trouble seeing that beacon, Silver decided with some relief.

  Silver scrambled back across to the copilot’s seat as Ti staggered into the pilot’s compartment, dumped Tony into the engineer’s seat, and vaulted into the command chair. He yanked his breath mask down around his neck with one hand while switching on controls with the other. “Hey, who’s been messing with my ship … ?”

  Silver turned and pulled herself up to look over the top of her seat at Tony, who had rid himself of his own breath mask and was trying to get his seat straps in order. “You made it!” She grinned.

  He grinned back. “ ‘ust bar-ry. ‘Er right behin’ us.” His blue eyes, Silver realized, were huge with pain as well as excitement, his lips swollen.

  “What happened to you—?” Silver turned to Ti. “What happened to Tony?”

  “That shit Van Atta burned him in the mouth with his damn cattle prod, or whatever the hell that thing was he had,” said Ti grimly, his hands dancing over the controls. The engines came alive, lights flickered, and the shuttle began to roll. Ti hit his intercom. “Dr. Minchenko? You folks strapped down back there yet?”

  “Just a moment—” came Dr. Minchenko’s reply. “There. Yes, go!”

  “Did you have any trouble?” asked Silver, sliding back into her seat and groping for her own straps as the shuttle taxied.

  “Not at first. We got to the hospital all right, walked right in with no problem. I thought sure the nurses were going to question our taking Tony, but evidently they all think Minchenko is God, there. We just blasted right through and were on our way out, with me playing donkey—that’s all I am, just transportation, y’know?—when who should we meet, going out the door, but that son-of-a-bitch Van Atta coming in.”

  Silver gasped.

  “We tripped him up—Dr. Minchenko wanted to stop and beat the shit out of him, on account of Tony’s mouth, but he would have had to delegate the most of it to me—he is an old man, little though he wants to admit it—I dragged him out to the land rover. I last heard Van Atta running off screaming for a security jetcopter. He’s surely found one by now …” Ti scanned the monitors nervously. “Yes. Damn. There.” He pointed. A colorized flare swooped over the mountains, marking the following ‘copter’s position in the monitor. “Well, they can’t catch us now.”

  The shuttle rocked in a wide circle, then halted; the engines’ pitch rose from purr to whine to scream. Its white landing lights tunneled the darkness in front of them. Ti released the brakes and the ship sprang forward, gobbling up the light, with a terrifying noisy rumble that ceased abruptly as they rotated into the air. The acceleration shoved them all back in their seats.

  “What the hell does that idiot think he’s doing?” Ti muttered through his teeth as the jetcopter grew rapidly in the tracking monitor. “Try to play chicken with me, will you … ?”

  It was swiftly apparent that was exactly the jetcopter’s intent. It arced toward them, diving as they rose, evidently with some idea of forcing them down.

  Ti’s mouth thinned to a white line, his eyes blazing, and he powered his ship up further. Silver gritted her teeth, but kept her eyes open.

  They passed close enough to see the ‘copter out the ports, whipping in a strobe-like flash through their lights. In the blink Silver could see faces through the bubble canopy, frozen white blurs with dark round holes of eyes and mouths, but for one individual, possibly the pilot, who had his hands pressed over his eyes.

  Then there was nothing between them and the silver stars.

  *

  Fire and ice.

  Leo rechecked the tightness of every C-clamp personally, then jetted back a few meters in his work suit to give his efforts one last visual inspection. They floated in space a safe kilometer’s distance from the D-620–Habitat configuration, which hung huge and complete now above Rodeo’s arc. Anyway, it looked complete on the outside, as long as you didn’t know too much about the hysterical last-minute tie-downs still going on within.

  The ice die, when finished, had turned out over three meters wide and nearly two meters thick. Its outer surface was irregular; it might have been a tumbling bit of space debris from some gas giant’s ice ring. Its secret inner side precisely duplicated the smooth curve of the vortex mirror that had molded it.

  The evacuated inner chamber was capped by layers. First, the titanium blank; next, a layer of pure gasoline for a spacer—a handy second use Leo had found for it: unlike other possible liquids it would not freeze at the ice’s present temperature—then the thin plastic divider circle, then his precious TNM-gasoline explosive, then a cap made of scrap Habitat skin, then the bars and clamps—all in all, quite a birthday cake. Time to light the candle and make his wish come true, before the ice die began to sublimate in the sunlight.

  Leo turned to motion his quaddie helpers to get behind the protective barrier of one of the abandoned Habitat modules floating nearby. Another quaddie, he saw, was just jetting over from the D-620–Habitat configuration. Leo waited a moment, to give him or her time to come up and get behind their shelter. Not a messenger, surely, he had his suit com for that… .

  “Hai, Leo,” said Tony’s voice thickly through the suit com. “Sorry I’m lae’ for work—d’you leave any for me?”

  “Tony!”

  It wasn’t easy, trying to embrace someone through a work suit, but Leo did his best. “Hey, hey, you’re just in time for the best part, boy!” said Leo in excitement. “I saw the shuttle docking a bit ago.” Yes, and a horrid turn it had given him for a moment, thinking it was Van Atta’s threatened security force at last, until he’d correctly identified it as theirs. “Didn’t think Dr. Minchenko’d let you go anywhere but the infirmary. Is Silver all right? Shouldn’t you be resting?”

  “She’s fine. Dr. Minchenko had a lot t’ do, ‘n Claire ‘n Andy’s asleep—I looked in—didn’t want to wake the baby.”

  “You sure you’re feeling all right, son? Your voice sounds funny.”

  “Hurt mah mout’. S’all right.”

  “Ah.” Briefly, Leo explained the task in progress. “You’ve arrived for the grand finale.”

  Leo jockeyed his suit around until he could just see over the abandoned module. “What we’ve got out there, in that box on top—the cherry-bomb on the icing, as it were—is a charge capacitor with a couple thousand volts stored in it. Leads down into a filament placed in the liquid explosive—I used an incandescent light bulb filament with the polyglass envelope knocked off—that thing sticking up is an electric eye swiped from a door control. When we hit it with a burst from this optical laser, it closes the switch—”

  “And the ‘lectricity sets the ex’losive off?”

  “Not exactly. The high voltage pouring through the filament literally explodes the wire, and it’s the shock wave from the exploding wire that sets off the TNM and gasoline. Which blows the titanium blank out until it hits the ice die and transfers its momentum, whereupon the titanium stops and the ice, ah, carries the momentum away. Quite spectacularly, which is why we’re behind this module …” He turned to check his quaddie crew. “Everybody ready?”

  “If you can stick your head up and watch, why can’t we?” complained Pramod.

  “I have to have line-of-sight for the laser,” said Leo primly.

  Leo aimed the optical laser carefully, and paused a moment for the anxiety rush. So many things could go wrong —he’d checked and rechecked— but there comes a time whe
n one must let all the doubts go and commit to action. He gave himself up to God and pressed the button.

  A brilliant, soundless flash, a cloud of boiling vapor, and the ice die exploded, shards flying off in all directions. The effect was utterly enchanting. With an effort Leo tore his gaze away and ducked hastily back behind the module. The afterimage danced across his retinas, teal green and magenta. His pressure-gloved hand, resting against the module’s skin, transmitted sharp vibrations as a few high-speed ice cubes pelted against the other side and ricocheted off into space.

  Leo remained hunkered a moment, staring rather blankly at Rodeo. “Now I’m afraid to look.”

  Pramod jetted around the module. “It’s all in one piece, anyway. It’s tumbling—hard to see the exact shape.”

  Leo inhaled. “Let’s go catch it, kids. And see what we’ve got.”

  It was the work of a few minutes to capture the workpiece. Leo refused to let himself call it ‘the vortex mirror’ just yet—it might still turn out to be scrap metal. The quaddies ran their various scanners over the curving gray surface.

  “I can’t find any cracks, Leo,” said Pramod breathlessly. “It’s a few millimeters overthick in spots, but nowhere too thin.”

  “Thick we can take care of during the final laser-polish. Thin we can’t remedy. I’ll take thick,” said Leo.

  Bobbi waved her optical laser, crossing and recrossing the curved surface, numbers blurring in her digital readout. “It’s in spec! Leo, it’s within spec! We did it!”

  Leo’s innards were melting wax. He breathed a long and very tired sigh of happiness. “All right, kids, let’s take it Indoors. Back to the—the—darn it, we can’t keep calling it the ‘D-620-and Habitat-Reconfiguration’. ”

  “Ah sure can’t,” agreed Tony.

  “So what are we going to name it?” An assortment of possibilities flitted through Leo’s mind—the Ark—the Freedom Star—Graf’s Folly… .

  “Home,” said Tony simply after a moment. “Let’s go home, Leo.”

  “Home.” Leo rolled the name in his mouth. It tasted good. It tasted very good. Pramod nodded, and one of Bobbi’s upper hands touched her helmet in salute of the choice.

  Leo blinked. Some irritating vapor in his suit’s air was making his eyes water, no doubt, and tightening his chest. “Yeah. Let’s take our vortex mirror home, gang.”

  *

  Bruce Van Atta paused in the corridor outside Chalopin’s office at Shuttleport Three, to catch his breath and control his trembling. He had a stitch in his side, too. He wouldn’t be the least surprised if he was developing an ulcer out of all this. The fiasco out on the dry lake bed had been infuriating. To pave the way, and then have fumbling subordinates totally fail him—utterly infuriating.

  Sheer chance, that having returned to his own downside quarters for a much-needed shower and some sleep, he’d awakened to take a piss and called Shuttleport Three to check progress. They might not even have told him about the shuttle landing otherwise! Anticipating Graf’s next move, he had flung on his clothes and rushed to the hospital—if he’d been moments sooner, he might have trapped Minchenko within.

  He had already chewed out the jetcopter pilot, reamed his ass for his cowardice in failing to force down the launching shuttle, for his dilatory failure to arrive at the lake bed faster. The red-faced pilot had clamped his jaw and his fists and said nothing, doubtless properly ashamed of himself. But the real failure lay higher up—on the other side of these very office doors. He jabbed the control, and they slid aside.

  Chalopin, her security captain Bannerji, and Dr. Yei had their heads together around Chalopin’s computer vid display. Captain Bannerji had his finger on it, and was saying to Yei, “… can get in here. But how much resistance, d’you think?”

  “You’ll surely frighten them very much,” said Yei.

  “Hm. I’m not crazy about asking my men to go up with stunners against desperate folk with much more lethal weapons. What is the real status of those so-called hostages?”

  “Thanks to you,” snarled Van Atta, “the hostage ratio is now five to zero. They got away with Tony, damn them. Why didn’t you put a twenty-seven-hour guard on that quaddie like I told you? We should have put a guard on Madame Minchenko, too.”

  Chalopin’s head came up, and she gave him an expressionless stare. “Mr. Van Atta, you seem to be laboring under some misconceptions about the size of my security forces here. I have only ten men, to cover three shifts, seven days a week.”

  “Plus ten each from each of the other two shuttleports. That’s thirty. Properly armed, they’d be a substantial strike force.”

  “I’ve already borrowed six men from the other two ‘ports to cover our own routine, while my entire force is devoted to this emergency.”

  “Why haven’t you stripped them all?”

  “Mr. Van Atta, Rodeo Ops is a big company—but a very small town. There are not ten thousand employees here altogether, plus an equal number of dependents not also employed by GalacTech. My security is a police force, not a military one. They have to cover their own duties, double for emergency squad and search and rescue, and be ready to assist Fire Control.”

  “Dammit—I drove a wedge for you with Tony. Why didn’t you follow up immediately and board the Habitat?”

  “I had a force of eight ready to go up to orbit,” said Chalopin tartly, “upon your assurance of cooperation from your quaddies. We were not, however, able to get any confirmation of that cooperation from the Habitat itself. They went right back to maintaining com silence. Then we spotted our freight shuttle returning, so we diverted the forces to capture it—first a groundcar, and then, as you yourself came howling in here demanding not two hours ago, a jetcopter.”

  “Well, get them back together and get them into orbit, dammit!”

  “For one thing, you left three of them out on the lake bed,” remarked Captain Bannerji. “Sergeant Fors just reported in—says their groundcar was disabled. They’re returning in Dr. Minchenko’s abandoned land rover. It’ll be at least another hour before they’re back. For another, as Dr. Yei has several times pointed out, we have not yet received authorization to use any kind of deadly force.”

  “Surely you’ve got some kind of hot pursuit clause,” argued Van Atta. “That,” he pointed upward, indicating the events now going on in Rodeo orbit, “is grand theft in progress at the very least. And don’t forget, a GalacTech employee has already been shot by them!”

  “I haven’t overlooked that fact,” murmured Bannerji.

  “But,” Dr. Yei put in, “having asked HQ for authorization to use force, we are now obliged to wait for their reply. What, after all, if they deny the request?”

  Van Atta frowned at her, his eyes narrowing. “I knew we should never have asked. You maneuvered us into that, damn you. They’d have swallowed any fait accompli we presented, and been glad of it. Now …” He shook his head in frustration. “Anyway, you’re overlooking other sources of personnel. The Habitat staff itself can be used to follow up the opening Security drives into the Habitat.”

  “They’re scattered all over Rodeo by now,” Dr. Yei remarked, “back to their downside leave quarters, most of them.”

  Bannerji cringed visibly. “And do you have any idea the kind of legal liability that situation would present to Security?”

  “So deputize ‘em—”

  A beeping from Chalopin’s desk console interrupted Van Atta; a com tech’s face appeared in the vid.

  “Administrator Chalopin? Com Center here. You asked us to advise you of any change in the status of the Habitat or the D-620. They, um—appear to be preparing to leave orbit.”

  “Put it on up here,” Chalopin ordered.

  The com tech produced the flat view from the satellite again. He upped the magnification, and the Habitat–D-620 configuration half-filled the vid. The D-620’s two normal-space thruster arms had been augmented by four of the big thruster units th
e quaddies used to break cargo bundles out of orbit. Even as Van Atta watched in horror, the array of engines flared into life. Stirring a glittering wake of space trash, the monstrous vehicle began to move.

  Dr. Yei stood staring open-mouthed, her hands clapped to her chest, her eyes glistening strangely. Van Atta felt like weeping with rage himself.

  “You see”—he pointed, his voice cracking—“you see what all this interminable dithering has resulted in? They’re getting away!”

  “Oh, not yet,” purred Dr. Yei. “It will be at least a couple of days before they can possibly arrive at the wormhole. There is no just cause for panic.” She blinked at Van Atta, went on in an almost hypnotically cloying voice, “You are extremely fatigued, of course, as are we all. Fatigue invites mistakes in judgment. You should rest—get some sleep… .”

  His hands twitched; he burned to strangle her on the spot. The shuttleport administrator and that idiot Bannerji were nodding, reasonable agreement. A choked growl steamed from Van Atta’s throat. “Every minute you wait is going to complicate our logistics—increase the range—increase the risk—”

  They all had the same bland stare on their faces. Van Atta didn’t need his nose rubbed in it—he could recognize concerted noncooperation when he smelled it. Damn, damn, damn! He glowered suspiciously at Yei. But his hands were tied, his authority undercut by her sweet reason. If Yei and all her ilk had their way, nobody would ever shoot anybody, and chaos would rule the universe.

  He snarled inarticulately, wheeled on his heel, and stalked out.

  *

  Claire woke without yet opening her eyes, snugged in her sleep sack. The exhaustion that had drenched her at the end of last shift was slow to ebb from her limbs. She could not hear Andy stirring yet; good, a brief respite before diaper change. In ten minutes she would wake him, and they would exchange services; he relieving her tingling breasts of milk, the milk relieving his hungry tummy —moms need babes, she thought sleepily, as much as babes need moms, an interlocking design, two individuals sharing one biological system … so the quaddies shared the technological system of the Habitat, each dependent on all the others… .