Lifeline

Chapter 34

CLAVIUS BASE—Day 41

Clancy’s job-site headquarters felt more like a locker room than a survival hut. Stuffed with ten people in a space meant for five, the airtight shanty provided Clancy’s crew a chance to take a break from the excavation and construction. It reminded him of those quaint little Quonset huts the old British soldiers had used in India or Africa. Another team had set up similar huts out by the mass driver.

Clancy stared outside through the quartz inset plate. He could make out three other enclosures in the distance; the job site had fifteen units total—half again as many as necessary to house his crew. But that margin didn’t seem like much when everybody crammed in the central dwelling—the powwow tent, Shen called it. Clancy felt as if he had to breathe in whenever anyone breathed out. But he insisted on having an open door policy during any construction operation. He wanted his people to feel free to talk over problems and share ideas.

The radio-telescope project was about to take off, big time. Clavius Base had systematically provided all the necessary items—air, water, food, and now housing. At least now they didn’t have to worry about funding problems or maddening permits—the Earth bureaucracy was one welcome casualty of the War.

Clancy’s people had constructed the huts in record time, ferried them out on the six-packs, and erected them just outside the crater, where the gigantic telescope dish would sprawl. The Lunatics back at the base had reacted with such enthusiasm to the expedition that it had Clancy convinced they wanted his construction crew out of there.

Tomkins had come up with a name for his baby. He had proudly announced that the crater-sized telescope would be dubbed “Arecibo II.” Clancy and his people thought the name sounded much too pretentious, and decided to call it “Bigeye” instead. The engineers and the Lunatics insisted on using their preferred names whenever referring to the project, each side hoping the other would give up.

Clancy tried to push his way through the crowd in the headquarters hut. The regular ConComm broadcasts of news from the other colonies always generated a lot of interest, but this time, Orbitech 1 seemed to be up to something spectacular. All the senior engineers had gathered in the powwow tent to watch on the portable holotank there, normally used for communicating back with Clavius Base.

Laughter rose around him as three of the excavation crew related an incident that had occurred earlier in the day. As Clancy squeezed past, a hand snaked out and grabbed him around the waist.

“Hey, boss.” A body pressed against him.

“Hello, Shen.”

“Kind of tight in here, isn’t it?” She rotated him around until they faced each other. He felt off balance in the low gravity; he preferred either full-G or nothing—none of this fractional-weight ballet. The top of Shen’s head came just to the middle of his chest. He had to look straight down to see her. Long black hair framed her face.

Clancy nodded. “See what happens when I call the foremen together. Can’t expect them to work now, can I?”

“You’ll have to have these meetings more often.”

Clancy overacted a grimace.

Shen pushed a finger in his stomach. “Come on, Cliffy—you love it. How else could you get a group of intelligent, talented women to throw themselves at you?”

“Thanks a lot, Shen.”

“Wiay,” she corrected him. “After all this time—my first name is Wiay. Some compassionate boss you turned out to be.”

“All right … Wiay. Thanks a lot.”

Wiay Shen had started to retort when the room grew-quiet. People crowded around the holotank image. Clancy steered Shen toward the receiver. He stepped up on the single-cast table to see above people’s heads, and pulled Shen up to join him.

When he was finally able to look down on the three-dimensional image, he saw pitch black around the edges. Seconds passed before he could make out stars. Suddenly, the view swung around to encompass a spacesuit and a stretch of gleaming surface on which the figure stood.

“Where’s this coming from?” Clancy asked.

“Orbitech 1,” someone said. Someone else shushed him. Clancy scowled.

A sober voice from the tiny speakers described Ramis’s heroic journey from the Aguinaldo and his odyssey to the Soviet colony. Coming over the ConComm, it sounded like a propaganda film. As Ramis bent to start his fifty-mile Jump, Shen slipped her arm around Clancy’s waist.

Clancy dwelled on the narrator’s explanation of the weavewire. One of the hopes of zero-G manufacturing had always been the development of a true monofilament—a fiber held together by a force stronger than the covalent bonds of the atoms themselves. The garments produced by Orbitech 1 had used this monofilament—a frivolous waste of good science, in Clancy’s opinion. Until a way was found to efficiently and rapidly draw out the filament, it would continue to be a toy. But if somebody had found a way….

The others listened to the announcer’s speculation on what Ramis might find on the silent Kibalchich, what might have happened to the Soviets. Clancy kept pondering the weavewire, though. They could draw out unlimited lengths of this fiber, which required negligible raw materials. The possibilities sparkled in his imagination like champagne.

The holotank faded to neutral gray, with the announcer promising updates at regular intervals. In the last scene, Ramis appeared no more than a flickering dot, contrasting with the stars that burned steadily through the darkness. In typical fashion, the engineers debated why Ramis’s image would shimmer. Someone pointed out that he must be moving his arms, randomly reflecting the sunlight, for the scintillation to appear.

Clancy became aware of other sounds in the room. An idea had flashed through his mind—a vision. The implications almost struck him down. He grinned like an idiot.

He was still standing on top of the table. As he started to move, he met resistance. Glancing down, he discovered Shen’s arm had been around his waist throughout the holocast. He muttered something unintelligible and helped her down from the table. Her hand was warm and damp.

She looked up at him, her eyes bright. “What do you think?”

“About what?”

“The Jump—that kid flying fifty miles across space!”

His voice grew quiet, lowered conspiratorially. He didn’t meet her eyes. “I just had this crazy thought—”

Shen stood on her tiptoes and searched his face. “After that, nothing could be crazy. What is it?”

Clancy shook his head. “Later. I want to check it out first.” The crowded room had become as humid as the tropics, but Clancy felt drained, dehydrated, with his excitement. Searching the hut, he spotted his crew scheduler, Josef Abdallah. Clancy raised his voice to be heard over the crowd. “Josef—over here. When’s our next six-pack heading back to base?”

Abdallah answered around a mouthful of fried wall-kelp. “Tomorrow morning.”

“Great,” muttered Clancy to no one in particular.

Shen pressed back against him, but not as close as before. Her voice was low, as if she were sharing a secret. “What’s up?”

“Nothing. I just need to check something out.”

“I can get you back to base.”

He shook his head. “This can wait.”

“If it’s really important, I’ll drive the six-pack. They won’t even notice one of them is missing.”

“And have the top two people away from the crew?”

“Josef is a big boy, and the crew can get along fine. It’s only a six-hour trip. Besides, you’re the boss. Do what you want—otherwise, there’s no point in having the job.”

Clancy looked her in the eyes for the first time since the holotank had switched off. Her dark eyebrows contrasted sharply against her skin. Her space suit was oversized for her petite figure and lay against her in soft folds, giving her an exotic look, like a nymphet wearing a mattress.

On impulse he asked, “Do you know anything about celestial mechanics?”

“No, but I can set up an orbital program that’ll blow your socks off. Is that what you need to check out?”

“I need an expert.” Then he quickly added, “Not to take away from your offer.”

“Well, you up for a six-hour jaunt, then?”

A pause. “You’re right, as usual. Sometimes that six hours makes it seem we’re a thousand miles away.”

“It’s the inconvenience that matters. Come on. If we head out now we’ll be back before the end of next shift.”

Clancy answered by pushing through the crowd and collaring Josef Abdallah. After Josef complained about rescheduling and juggling who would need what and when, he nodded his approval. Clancy motioned to Shen.

Seconds later they were in the airlock, prepping for the trip outside on the lunar surface.