Lifeline

Chapter 30

AGUINALDO—Day 39

Dobo rushed into the laboratory, red-faced and short of breath. Sandovaal looked up from what he was doing and growled. “This had better be important, Dobo.”

Sandovaal released the red grips of the micro-waldoes he used to guide the nucleus-sized needle tip into a cellular mass. On the holotank image in front of him, an electron micrograph showed his work surrounded by a dashed bull’s-eye pattern. Without his guidance, the tiny needle slewed off to the side of the target.

“I thought you knew by now not to disturb me. You could have ruined this entire series.”

Rising from the lab bench, Sandovaal wiped his hands on his white apron. He was annoyed, but not overly so. The experimental grafts had been successful, and Dobo’s entrance served to release the tension in his neck—yelling at someone always made him feel better.

Dobo shifted his weight from one foot to another, as if standing on a hot plate. “It is about Ramis! Orbitech 1 has decided to allow him … I mean, Ramis has asked the Orbitech director for permission to—” He gulped a deep breath.

Sandovaal tapped his fingers together. “Well, out with it!” He waved for his assistant to take a seat. “Is Ramis in trouble again?” Sandovaal eased himself into his chair, which was far more comfortable and lower than the lab bench.

Dobo could barely keep his excitement to himself. “He is going to Jump from Orbitech 1 to the Kibalchich!”

Sandovaal straightened in his chair. His long white hair fell into his eyes, and he flipped it away with such force that it dropped back into his face again. “What nonsense are you talking about?”

“It is true! Ramis has volunteered to cross the distance and see what has happened to the Soviet colony—”

“A hundred kilometers by Jumping?” Sandovaal snorted. “If he is only a little off course he will float forever! No, he will probably carry air tanks with him for maneuvering. Hmmm, I thought his journey in the sail-creature would make him grow up.”

“Ramis is ready even as I speak. Orbitech 1 is broadcasting it over the ConComm.”

Sandovaal rocked forward in his chair and sprang up to pace across the room. He punched up the Aguinaldo communications center on the holotank. A man’s face came into focus, startled at Sandovaal’s override.

“What is this nonsense about Ramis Jumping?” Sandovaal said.

The face in the holotank blinked at him. Behind him, the nerve center of the Aguinaldo went about business as usual: safety operations in the zero-G core, housing emergencies, micrometeorite drills. “We are monitoring the Orbitech 1 transmissions over ConComm, Dr. Sandovaal. They are beaming us a view from outside their colony. Ramis has attached himself to some sort of wire and will secure it to the Kibalchich once he completes his journey.”

Sandovaal raised his hands and shouted at the communications officer. “Now I know the Americans are insane. They have so polluted their bodies with pizza and nachos that my wall-kelp must have sent them over the brink.”

The officer’s image faded, and was replaced by a starry view outside Orbitech 1. Dobo leaned forward to mutter to him. “I believe the Americans are using a new type of wire. It is very dangerous, I think.”

“New type of wire?” Sandovaal turned away from the holotank, raising his bushy eyebrows. “A hundred kilometers of wire? Do they have enough material to make a wire that long, or a place to store it?”

The holotank’s picture rotated around Ramis, taking in the giant Manned Maneuvering Unit strapped to his back and resting on a small orange canister mounted to the colony’s surface. Trailing from the canister, a thin Day-Glo orange strand was barely visible against the colony, enhanced for the broadcast. The image focused on the strand, and a voice started describing the wire in English.

“That is the stuff they make clothes out of!” Sandovaal made a deprecating sound with his lips. “I thought they could only draw that out a few kilometers a day.”

As the explanation grew more detailed, Sandovaal frowned and leaned forward in his seat. “Turn the volume up.” The footage took on the air of a documentary, with only Ramis’s breathing to punctuate the background as the broadcaster’s voice continued. It seemed rehearsed. At least the Americans would leave a good record of the efforts they had made, in case they did not survive.

Sandovaal strode to the holotank, squinting. “Magnify the image, Dobo. There, where it connects to Ramis’s suit.” Seconds later the weavewire filled the holotank; the sharp image warbled at the edges with the intense magnification.

Sandovaal’s voice rose imperceptibly. “Do a data search, Dobo—request all information Orbitech 1 will give us about how they draw out this fiber of theirs.”

Poking his finger into the hologram image, Sandovaal tried to touch Ramis. “And make a note about those tactile-response holotanks. Times like these are when it is worth putting the damned things together.”

Sandovaal traced the thin orange line from a belt around Ramis’s waist. Another space-suited person floated in and out of the recorder’s view. The narrator’s voice grew quiet as another voice came over ConComm. “I am ready, Mr. Brahms.”

The holotank swelled with the vision of Ramis. He squatted on Orbitech 1’s surface with his knees bent deep. The bulky MMUs looked as though they were going to make him topple backward.

Then Ramis sprang from the hull. The holocamera followed him as he receded from the colony. The view swung down for a parting shot at the unit reeling out the weavewire. A space-suited figure stood by the mechanism, stroking its surface as if it were alive.

Sandovaal remained quiet, staring into the holotank. The fiber seemed mystical to him.

“Dr. Sandovaal?”

Sandovaal waved Dobo quiet. A full minute passed before he whispered, “I must speak with Yoli Magsaysay.”

The dato did not share his enthusiasm. Sandovaal blew his nose and spoke slowly, controlling himself. His impulse was to explain again, as if to an uncooperative child. But he knew that would annoy Magsaysay more than anything.

“The weavewire is the key, Yoli. I did not know they could produce useful quantities of the stuff. But apparently this is a new discovery. We must have this weavewire—it is the only way.”

Magsaysay studied him before answering. “The only way, Luis? That sounds like a dangerous assumption from the outset.”

Dobo relaxed beside Sandovaal, and thankfully kept his mouth shut. Magsaysay drummed his fingernails on the table and continued. “We are doing well now, are we not? Your projections show a sufficient distance between ourselves and starvation. This weavewire is the only way for what?”

“The only way for us to exploit the Orbitech 2 site—all the resources left there.”

He kept a smile off his face as Magsaysay reacted. Sandovaal continued. “Did we not learn from our pigheaded ancestors, who were so enamored of the old ways that they refused to accept help, to consider more efficient methods of production?” A sudden vision of tractors rusting in rice paddies filled his head.

“Yes, we can survive and live forever in our little colony. We will keep the status quo and never achieve anything else. And when the Americans survive and reach higher and higher, we will be their little brown brothers again, even if we outnumber them two hundred to one. Look what happened to the Chinese, and they outnumbered the Americans by a thousand times!”

Sandovaal narrowed his eyes and leaned across the table to the president. “We sent Ramis to Orbitech 1 because we believed in helping people. It is time now to help ourselves. With the weavewire, we can safely Jump to the construction site and ferry all the supplies back here. The American crew left plenty of things there, including superior computers, materials, tools. With that, perhaps we can maintain our position as equals.”

Magsaysay shifted uncomfortably. “Improving our way of life is one thing—changing our culture is a different matter.”

Dobo seemed about to say something, but Sandovaal jutted out his jaw. “If we are growing antibiotics, then it is all right! But using the processing plant left at Orbitech 2, that is forbidden? This is like a race. Everyone else is riding a horse. We should not insist on walking because we are too lazy to look in the stable.”

The two men stared at each other. Sandovaal had known Yoli Magsaysay for scores of years. They had butted heads often, but they shared the goal of bettering the Filipino people. Down Magsaysay’s path, the Filipinos would keep to themselves, and the wall-kelp would see them through—just barely. But down the other path, they faced the danger of losing themselves and their culture, becoming ensnared with the Americans’ obsession with breakneck progress. Or what was left of it.

But the Aguinaldo also had the opportunity to hold its own, to be equals instead of patronized “little brothers.”

Sandovaal smiled plaintively. It was all an act, and he knew it. Magsaysay knew it, too. “Yoli, I followed you into space because I believed in your dream for us. Now I am asking you to follow my dream.”

After some moments, a grin came to Magsaysay’s lips, then he sighed. “You, my friend, have a point. But tell me—how will we get the weavewire to the Aguinaldo? Assuming Orbitech 1 will even give it to us.”

“We gave them the wall-kelp, did we not?” Dobo interrupted. “How can they refuse our request?”

Sandovaal shot a sidelong glance at Dobo. “Ramis used a sail-creature; so can we. And if we carry other sail-creature nymphs with us, and launch them at appropriate times during our flight, we can complete the circle and sail back to the Aguinaldo.”

Magsaysay looked puzzled. “Who is ‘we,’ Luis? Only a few of us have Ramis’s tenacity to survive the journey.”

Sandovaal looked surprised. “Why, Dobo and myself, of course. Who better to ensure that the sail-creatures will make it back?”

A chair tipped over and clattered to the deck. Both men turned, startled at the sound. Dobo lay crumpled on the floor.

Sandovaal shrugged. “You see, Yoli? He has fainted with the excitement.”