Lifeline

Chapter 18

ORBITECH 1—Day 14

The mass spectrometer did not give the results she wanted. Karen Langelier felt tears of frustration brim in her eyelids. It was so difficult to work in fear.

After five years of testing and development, the weavewire she had developed at the Center for High-Technology Materials proved a growing success. Indestructible garments woven from the monomolecular fiber had just started to gain popularity before the War, first in protective clothing and then in expensive items of high fashion. It had nearly unlimited potential: surgical knives, new types of construction and engineering, materials processing. But drawing the weavewire out a few kilometers a day in their precious L-5 industrial complex was not economically feasible for Orbitechnologies Corp. Karen had been sent up to Orbitech 1 only a few months before to work on a scheme for accelerating the extraction process. In theory, the weavewire should be able to form along its laser guide beam as fast as molecules could react.

In theory.

Karen felt frantic with pressure to perform. Perhaps the spinneret had been too small this time. Her hands had been shaking during the attempt.

In her anger, she tossed the Pyrex flask across the lab. It tumbled end over end, striking the curved wall and ricocheting back. The specimen hardened into a lump inside the flask. Karen scowled at it. Give me the right answer, dammit! Her thoughts brimmed with hysteria. Do what you’re supposed to do!

Polymer research in zero gravity had so little history that everything was new. When a technique worked, they tried every variation, attempting to improve the process, or at least to understand it.

The complex had been a bustling outpost, with dozens of other chemistry team members working at their own brainstormed experiments. The laboratory bay contained imaginative apparatus with odd adaptations for zero-G: heating units were self-enclosed and mechanically stirred, since convection did not occur; gas-jet burners had been supplanted by high-intensity electrical-resistance heating units—without gravity, open flames remained spherical and extinguished themselves from lack of oxygen.

But the lab cubicles were without friendly banter after the RIF. Two of the testing stations stood painfully empty. A few of the other researchers looked up at Karen’s outburst and watched, but most kept working.

Primary researchers and their assistants sweated over their own projects, as if they could bring them to fruition by sheer force of will. Others, like Karen, worked independently, hoping for that one breakthrough, whatever it was, that might turn things around.

Everything will work out the way it’s supposed to, Karen thought to herself. It had always sounded good to her before. But what if it doesn’t work out?

She swallowed back her fear, pretending not to look affected. It would work next time. She would just try again. She needed to make a significant breakthrough.

Nobody competed for Nobel prizes anymore—this time, the reward was simple survival. And Curtis Brahms was the only judge.

Brahms had suggested they all work together, to cooperate more than ever. But Karen knew the teams would prefer to tear each other apart, gladiators in a scientific coliseum, squirming to climb on top and give themselves a few more moments of survival.

And only two weeks had passed since the War. What would they do when things began to get worse, much worse?

She thought again of Ombalal’s RIF—a hundred and fifty people dead, without warning. She had been in her quarters, reading Soviet Physics JEPT online, when the announcement had come over the PA system.

Ombalal’s words were slow and precise, as if he was reading from a prepared statement. It took a few moments for her to realize exactly what he was saying. Nobody questioned the orders of the director … why should they? Karen remembered dimming the light, switching off her book, and lying back in bed as she listened to the growing horror.

Her mind filled in all the details, over and over again, as she scrambled to a viewport, wondering if she even wanted to look. She had caught a glimpse of frozen bodies drifting along with the station, and her imagination showed their faces fixed in a scream, bloated and petrified in the frozen vacuum.

Everything will work out the way it’s supposed to.

Karen gave Ombalal credit for the resolution to admit his actions, rather than let rumors go wild. Viewed through cold logic, the way he presented his case, Ombalal had perfect justification for doing it, too. Karen wasn’t that cold—but she wouldn’t want to be in his place.

She had stood in the hall beside two other people and watched the low-res holotank announcement of Ombalal’s death. Brahms did not seem comfortable in the transmission, and kept moving from side to side, out of the best-focus zone.

“I want you all to see what you have done.” Brahms’s face dissolved into the awful images of the blood-spattered cafeteria complex and Ombalal’s body. “We are supposed to be civilized. We are supposed to be human beings—not animals!” A hint of horror seeped into his voice, but he spoke with absolute conviction.

“I have looked through the personnel files and selected a group of ‘Watchers’ who will supplement our minimal security force, since our security has proven itself inadequate. They will also assist in implementing new rationing schemes.

“It is not a measure I enjoy taking, but this appalling episode of violence has made it necessary. Now, as acting director, I must do everything I can to hold off another RIF as long as possible.”

As long as possible.

Karen and the other two workers stared at each other as if wondering whether they were really awake. Up and down the hall other doors slid open as people gawked in sick amazement at the acting director’s words, at the images of Ombalal’s slaughter. Karen felt a sudden urge to hide, to go someplace where Brahms could not find her. But on the sealed colony, no one could hide anywhere.

Brahms continued his careful explanation. Karen listened, trying to convince herself of what he was saying—that Ombalal had acted on his own, without consulting his division leaders. Watching the holotank in the hall, a middle-aged man started to grumble angrily, but Karen and the others hushed him.

“We are on our own,” Brahms said. “You all know that Earth will not rescue us. We are trapped with only our abilities and whatever resources remain here. If there is a way to survive, we have to find it without outside help. We must drive ourselves, work ourselves as hard as we can.”

Brahms turned his head, swiveling the picture around as if he were trying to stare down the entire population of the station. Karen shuddered.

“I respect science and I have a firm faith in human ingenuity. We have incredible technological resources here on Orbitech 1—we must find a way. We have raw materials of Moon rock outside the station—enough to supply us with air and water for years, but we can’t live on that alone.

“If we don’t come up with a new way to survive, then we’ll all be dead in a few months. This isn’t just a pep talk. Station Director Ombalal tried one solution with the RIF; let’s not allow the untimely deaths of our friends to be in vain. Turn your creativity loose, unlock the fringes of your imaginations. I want us all to live.”

Brahms swallowed hard, and his three-dimensional image wavered for a moment.

“To this end, I am assigning a team of assessors to oversee your work, to inspect what you are doing, and assess the importance of your research—how well it is done, how hard you are working.

“Naturally, we will be looking for new modes of food production and transport to the other colonies, or perhaps back to Earth—but we cannot be narrow-minded. A single discovery does not exist in a vacuum. Cooperate with each other. If one researcher creates a new alloy, then perhaps someone else can use that alloy for some kind of vehicle to get us out of here. I leave it to your imaginations. The assessors will report to me the importance of the new developments.

“My first two appointments are my remaining division leaders, Linda Arnando and Allen Terachyk. I will issue a formal statement describing their duties and responsibilities.”

Brahms scanned the screen once more. His eyeglasses seemed to be an absurd attempt to make him look serious.

“We must strive harder. We must find a way to save ourselves. We need to share the results of our work, so that others may use your discoveries in tandem with their own. Save us … you have to save us.” The image of Brahms faded into the gray, neutral pattern of the holotank.

Karen and the other researchers buried themselves in their work, frantically trying to make breakthroughs as fast as they could. They never said anything aloud, but they knew a useful discovery would keep their name off the RIF list.

The once homey touches in the labs now seemed pathetic. A spider plant drifted in the corner near a workstation, growing in random directions, sending streamers straight up into the air and sideways in search of gravity. Over by the lounge area, colorful personalized coffee containers, some with lids hanging open, bobbled untouched against the wall. The times when anyone could casually drink or eat throughout the day had passed, leaving nothing but harried work and restrained hysteria.

Karen Langelier did not want to know how well she had done in the Efficiency Study. When Brahms had collected his data, she had just separated from Ray, and she had taken too long to adjust to work up here … if she hadn’t been riding the coattails of her weavewire discovery, Karen might have joined the first hundred fifty.

The airlock door at the end of the laboratory complex opened and a chunky young woman drifted in. She wore a pale green jumpsuit with the insignia of Orbitech 1 prominent on the left shoulder—the work outfit that had become the uniform for Brahms’s watchers. Karen kept a scowl from her face. She looked away, feigning concentration on her work.

Nancy Winkowski grabbed hold of the handbars on the wall and pulled herself across the room. Her hair was carrot orange, and she had a carpet of freckles on her arms.

Winkowski stood still for several moments, hovering close beside her. “Hello, Karen.”

Karen watched her, lips pressed together.

Winkowski floated up and steadied herself on the table. “Thinking about new lines of research? Are you going to save us all?”

Karen turned her gaze away. She resented how easily she felt helpless and intimidated. “That’s the general idea. But it’s hard to concentrate with distractions.”

Winkowski glanced at the mass spectrometer; somehow, she even noticed the bobbing flask near the wall where Karen had thrown it. Her sarcasm grew stronger. “Well, I’m sure it’s going to be something big and exciting.”

Nancy Winkowski had been Karen’s laboratory assistant. Never terribly helpful, Winkowski had always carried a grudge, angry that she had been with Orbitechnologies Corporation for years and had not advanced beyond technician, while newcomers from Earth, like Karen Langelier, just walked into important positions.

But that had all changed, now that Brahms had picked her as one of his watchers to look for ways to make the colony run more efficiently. It seemed so patriotic, and logical at first—after all, with everything so scarce, hoarding and laziness could not be tolerated. And now Winkowski apparently felt she had to get back at Karen, to harass her as much as she could.

Karen expected it, in a way, but she was still disappointed in her former assistant. Winkowski was not stupid. She was ambitious, but impatient, and she preferred to have her way directly rather than take the trouble to earn her position.

Karen glared at her, then snatched her Pyrex flask from the air and began to reheat the polymer batter. She worked her jaw, keeping her face turned away from Winkowski. “If you’ll excuse me, Nancy, I’m doing important work here.”

Satisfied at Karen’s reaction, Winkowski turned and drifted along the laboratory areas, puffed with her own importance.

Winkowski left through the opposite airlock, leaving it open so that one of the technicians had to drift over and close it. The other teams in the lab looked at Karen sidelong, trying not to be too obvious with their stares. They seemed relieved that Winkowski had chosen her, instead of one of them, as a scapegoat.

Karen found it difficult to breathe. Orbitech 1 seemed dark and forbidding—a prison with no escape, where jailers and prisoners all waited side by side on Death Row.

By habit, she shut down her equipment, ran through the checks, and secured her experiments. It would be only a matter of time before the researchers started sabotaging each other’s work. The idea made her feel sick inside.

She needed peace. Quiet. And escape.

The door of the Japanese garden sealed behind her, and she stood in silence, breathing the humid air. She leaned back against the camouflage-painted wall, smelling the plants, listening to the artificial bird song. She heard no one else. Few people took the time to relax anymore.

Karen wondered how long it would be until the colonists were driven to the point where they would break in here and strip the garden bare to eat the plants. Some of the leaves and stems were probably toxic—would starving people care?

She already felt weak from low rations. She could picture herself, gaunt and sunken-eyed, haunted by hunger. Would she pause a moment to think of the beauty in the garden before she tore flowers off the shrubs?

First Ombalal and then Brahms had cut back their food. Hunger was a dull ache now: nothing intolerable, but knowing that it was only the beginning made it much more difficult. The nightmare would spiral deeper and deeper into darkness, and people would begin to do irrational things.

She stared at the splashing fountain with such an intensity that her eyes dried out, though she felt like crying. Her vision grew blurry as she tried to focus on the droplets of water hanging in the air and drifting slowly to the pool.

She ran her fingers along the tips of the leaves.

What if Brahms did another RIF? She could not hide anywhere on Orbitech 1—not even here in the garden.

To her disappointment, the garden looked … run down. Leaves floated in the fountain pools. The path had not been swept. The flowers themselves looked un-trimmed and in disarray, with dead blooms unsnipped.

The place was empty—nature holding sway without the presence of man. Would the garden continue to grow, she wondered, even after all the inhabitants had died?

Irregular bird song burst cheerfully from hidden microphones in the foliage. The muted skylights, the precision of the rows and sculpted shrubbery, showed the deft but obvious hand of the gardener.

Karen did not see Kaitanabe; in fact, she had not seen him the last two times she’d been in the garden. She thought that with Brahms’s plea for everyone to work twice as hard for survival, Kaitanabe would have turned the garden over, tried to cultivate some fast-growing edible plant. She didn’t know anything about the station’s biological stores, but she assumed they must have some sort of seed stock.

Karen wandered along the pathways looking for him. “Hello?” she called, not wanting to speak too loudly. The silence of the place made it seem like a cemetery.

Then she remembered the storage and maintenance cubicle set into the wall, hidden behind a row of hedges. Karen doubted anyone else cared whether they saw the cubicle door or not, but the precision of Kaitanabe’s garden would not have allowed such an anachronism to be seen.

She broke through hedges of magenta oleanders and found the door. She called out again but heard no response. The cubicle door was ajar, and she wondered if he might be sleeping. A heavy, acrid odor of chemicals hung in the air.

Several of the random speakers rang out at once, making the garden sound as if it were filled with raucous birds.

Karen pulled open the door to a gagging stench. Containers of fertilizer and plant nutrients, growth hormones, and caustic treatment chemicals had been spilled on the floor.

The blotched and bloated corpse of Hiro Kaitanabe lay sprawled out in a frozen spasm on his thin cot. His lips were cracked and stained, and dribbles of colored chemicals had dried on his chin. Somehow, he had managed to keep his hands primly folded across his chest, even though his spine was twisted upward in mid-convulsion.

She looked at the spilled containers on the floor and stared at him in horror, but she could not look back. It had taken him a very long time to die.

Karen took several steps away from the cubicle, leaving the door open. She bumped into the hedge and it seemed to reach out and grab her. The rustle of the branches dislodged one of the hidden speakers. She swallowed a scream.

Would the others mourn, or would they consider it one less mouth to feed without worrying about who would be chosen for the next RIF? Karen shuddered.

What are we becoming?

Out in the garden, the cheerful bird song continued.