Lifeline

Chapter 2

ORBITECH 1—Day 1

The industrial colony Orbitech 1 hung at L-5 with its supply lines cut—fifteen hundred people, stranded and helpless. They pressed their faces and palms against observation windows, staring at the wounded Earth far below. Still in a state of shock, they had not thought to mourn for their past, for their memories.

Most of the people wallowed in self-protective confusion and shock. They had not yet faced the realization that they would get no more supplies from Earth.

But Duncan McLaris, the Production Division leader on Orbitech 1, came to that conclusion not ten minutes after the war started.

He tried to look casual as he approached the shuttle-tug Miranda. The Miranda was tied down in the colony’s docking bay, seeming to glow in the harsh lights reflected from the clean metal walls.

Boxes of Orbitech 1 export products were tethered throughout the bay area: large, perfect crystals grown in zero gravity, three-dimensional computer chips, superconducting wires, pharmaceuticals, strange alloys with baffling electromagnetic properties … the list of Orbitechnology accomplishments ran on and on.

Rah rah for the company, McLaris thought.

The docking bay seemed deserted. Everyone else was huddling in their quarters or sobbing in the community rooms. The last shuttle looked empty and alone. McLaris called out, “Hello—anybody in there?”

Seconds passed. McLaris started to turn when the pilot, Stephanie Garland, pushed out of the shuttle, wiping her hands on her dark-blue coverall. She eyed McLaris and set her mouth.

McLaris wore a smile as he pushed off the floor, drifting in the zero-G bay until he reached the metal hull of the Miranda. Palms splayed, he absorbed the impact and maneuvered himself down to floor level again.

Garland’s hair was a salt-and-pepper shade of gray, but she didn’t give off a sense of being old. “I hope you’re not going to give me a pep talk, Mr. McLaris. Save that for your employees. I know what happened. I heard snatches of the broadcast. The Earth has turned into a shit pot and there’s no use my going back there.”

“Call me Duncan, please,” McLaris interrupted. “And you won’t hear any pep talks from me. I’m a realist. An ‘it’ll all come out right in the end’ speech would sound kind of hypocritical right now.”

McLaris locked his gray eyes with the woman’s gaze. He did recognize a well-controlled undercurrent of fear and despair in the pilot’s demeanor. He felt for her, was able to put himself in her shoes. He considered that the mark of a good manager.

Wild and contradicting reports were still coming in and being passed along over the Orbitech 1 PA system; but the Miranda was apparently the only inter-orbital shuttle that had survived the War. The other two craft, Ariel and Oberon, had finished their runs to Clavius Base on the Moon and out to the L-4 colonies and had returned to low Earth orbit only shortly before the War, awaiting refueling. An extensive fleet of Earth-to-orbit rockets should have brought up more fuel, more supplies, perhaps a change of crew.

The two pilots had radioed back, in shock after the War, calling for any kind of contact. They had escaped destruction, but now the two—friends of Garland’s—were locked in low orbit, with no fuel and no place to go. Maybe forever.

The two shuttles could not land themselves because the craft had never been designed to withstand the stress of passing through the atmosphere. And they did not have enough fuel to reach the Lagrange colonies again … not that it would do them any good. The colonies weren’t any better off.

On her last run, though, Stephanie Garland had been half a day late arriving at Orbitech 1, and had only just unloaded the supplies. She announced that she would stay an extra day, exercising her option to claim R and R whenever she deemed it necessary to her performance. A coincidence. Otherwise, she would have been stranded as well.

In the docking bay, McLaris took a deep breath. “Why don’t we go inside and chat?”

“Why?”

“Well, for one thing, the docking bay monitors can’t pick up anything there, right?” Garland looked startled, but then realized—as McLaris had intended—just what he was going to ask her.

“I was wondering when someone would come,” Garland muttered. “I didn’t think it would be so soon. Zen, it hasn’t even been an hour yet!”

McLaris looked around the docking bay, saw the cameras mounted on the walls to monitor operations. It would be just like Curtis Brahms to be watching his division lead—“Just for me,” McLaris insisted. He felt a flush on his cheeks. It was very important to him that Garland understands why he had to ask this.

“I’m doing it for Jessie. If you could just take her, all by herself, I’d be willing to stay. I’d face what the rest of us have to face. But somebody has to help you. And you need me to get you out of the docking bay—I can double-talk the engineers and anybody else who might be guarding the shuttle. Brahms isn’t going to take long to figure this out.”

He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to beat down the sickness of guilt building inside him. “Besides, I wouldn’t live long anyway if I helped you to escape and then stayed behind. They’d probably throw me into one of the metal processing units or something.”

Looking uncomfortable, Garland distracted herself with her equipment. Had he convinced her? McLaris couldn’t tell. He kept talking, recognizing that it was partly to convince himself that he was doing the right thing.

“I admit this is a snap decision. I haven’t had time to think about it. I’m afraid to think about it too much, because then I might change my mind or lose my nerve. But if I waste time considering the possibilities, somebody else will think of it too, and then we’ll lose our chance.

“You don’t know Brahms—he’s sharp and he’s fast and he does not hesitate. He’ll be only one step behind me.”

“He seemed nice when he came to greet me.”

McLaris clenched his hands. “I know him. He might appear to be a nice violin case, but he’s really carrying a machine gun inside.”

Garland set her mouth. “If we’re really going to do this, we’ll have to move fast. When do we go?”

McLaris felt a wash of cold sweat break out on his back, as if he had just stepped off a cliff. No turning back now.

“In an hour, if Brahms doesn’t seal off the shuttle bay.”