Lifeline полностью

Harhoosma helped her fasten onto the cable, adjusting her yaw and facing her forward, so she could watch the Kibalchich as it grew closer. Her months on Orbitech 1 held no special memories for her—no pleasant ones, anyway. She felt relieved to be able to purge herself of the experience.

Karen spoke into the helmet radio. “Okay, I’m ready.”

Grunting, Harhoosma pushed her away from Orbitech 1. She punched the forward thrusters on the MMU pack and accelerated along the nearly frictionless fiber. There was no gravity to pull her down so that she could “slide” across the fiber to the Kibalchich. Instead, her path consisted of long sawtooth-like motions, guided by the weavewire.

Inside the colony, she had been able to watch the festive holo coverage of Ramis’s trip. But now that she participated herself, she saw none of the video, though she felt sure that holocameras mounted at various points outside the hull recorded her every move. Brahms would want to have cameras all over the place, even outside.

Harhoosma seemed to be the sole person watching her leave. She wondered if perhaps Brahms had kept this expedition quiet, just in case something went wrong. Or was he afraid dozens of people would clamor to get off Orbitech 1 in a mass exodus?

Brahms didn’t even signal to wish her good luck. One of the watchers had said that the acting director was in an important conference with someone from Clavius Base—not that Karen had wanted him to say good-bye anyway.

Harhoosma’s voice came inside her helmet. “I measure you going four point six miles per hour, Dr. Langelier. At that rate,” he paused, “you will have ten point eight hours of travel. You may wish to add more acceleration.”

The gruff female voice of one of the monitors inside the colony broke in. “We’ll give you plenty of warning to change your oxygen bottles.”

“Thank you,” Karen answered. She twisted her head around inside the helmet and caught a glimpse of Orbitech 1 out of the corner of the visor. Already she could hardly pick out Harhoosma on the nonrotating end.

She caught a fleeting glimpse of something blocking out the stars, as if an object had passed in front of her. Squinting, she tried to make out the thing as it tumbled across her path. It almost looked like a person.

And then it struck her, and was gone behind her.

The RIF! It must have been one of the bodies. . . .

She breathed deeply, trying to calm herself. She pitched and swung on the cable from the collision; she used the MMU’s stabilizers to stop her oscillation. Now, more than ever, she felt glad about leaving.

Trying to relax, Karen squeezed her eyes shut until splotches of color appeared in her vision. She heard her breath slowing, calming. She blinked and then stared at the open universe in front of her, still afraid of seeing another corpse.

Karen didn’t admit it, but the technicians on Orbitech 1 monitoring her elevated breathing would know how terrified she was.

The Kibalchich would grow larger as she approached. Now, hanging in space, she felt stranded and alone.

Chapter 39

ORBITECH 1—Day 43

The surprise was not that McLaris wanted to speak with him. Curtis Brahms had suspected that would eventually happen. Given enough time, McLaris would come strutting back, boasting, taunting Brahms about his escape to the Moon.

But he had not anticipated that McLaris would come humbly.

McLaris’s expression remained frozen in the holotank, sagging with the light lag brought on by the signal’s one-hundred-and-fifty-thousand-mile transmission path. The lag injected a one-second delay, an uncertainty, into the conversation. The image stared unflinching into Brahms’s face. He saw a deep-set pain in the traitor’s eyes. Good. But the emotion seemed tempered and controlled.

The office grew cold and silent. Brahms allowed a thin smile to play at his lips. He had McLaris figured out before the man could even speak a greeting. The former division leader hadn’t changed—Brahms knew it, and he knew McLaris knew it himself.

Even insulated by hundreds of thousands of miles, Brahms could see through the facade now, even as he should have more than a month ago. Brahms had considered Duncan McLaris his best friend aboard Orbitech 1, a man whose mind worked the same, who had the same goals, who had his head on straight and could see what needed to be done and how to do it. But McLaris had turned coward, thrown his own interests above those of all the other people on the colony.

You were lucky then, Duncan, thought Brahms. And you are lucky now. McLaris sat fidgeting, probably looking for an opening line. But Brahms beat him to it.

“Well, well. Base Manager McLaris. The Aguinaldo informed us of your new position. Does this mean that Clavius Base has finally dropped that silly boycott of ConComm? It was rather a petulant reaction.”