Lifeline

Chapter 36

ORBITECH 1—Day 41

Karen Langelier put her head down and closed her eyes. She could imagine Ramis’s fear, sitting in an abandoned space station with hundreds of frozen bodies—it must be like a giant haunted house in orbit. There was one dead man in the airlock, and now another in the infirmary with wide eyes, staring at the person who had killed him by not understanding the sleepfreeze process.

Or was the process itself flawed? Maybe Ramis wasn’t to blame after all. But what would happen when the other Soviets did awake, only to find Ramis with their dead comrades? He wouldn’t stand a chance.

If the Soviets could indeed be revived. Biological researchers had pursued suspended animation for decades, and it seemed an odd topic to be pursuing in an orbital research station. That work could have been done as well on Earth, where laboratory space was not so precious.

But Karen knew what it was like to dig into an idea, spend months or even years on a false trail, perhaps give an entire life over to a single problem, only to learn that someone else had made the same discovery weeks before. Then you had to suffer the frustration of throwing yourself back into the whole crazy cycle again with a new idea.…

As competent and quick to learn as Ramis was, Karen didn’t believe he could intuitively guess all the necessary steps to revive the Soviets, and she was furious at Brahms for forcing him to try. More detailed revival information probably resided in the Kibalchich’s main computer, but she was certain it would all be in Russian.

Ramis had to have help.

Karen opened her eyes. The past few months weighed her down—her separation from Ray, her mourning for those on Earth, and now Brahms’s incessant pressure to produce.

She could get out, too, just as Ramis had.

And who better than she to go to the Soviet station? She was proficient in Russian, as were other people on the scientific staff, but that was only icing on the cake. She would be the first person to test out her weavewire ferry system. And the kicker was that she knew Ramis better than anyone else on Orbitech 1.

One thing gnawed at her: the thought of flying unprotected and alone across the gulf of space. But if she didn’t trust her weavewire, no one else would.

Fear kept her feet riveted to the floor in front of Brahms’s outer office. Months ago—days ago—she would have lacked the courage to approach him.

Once, as a little girl, Karen had come upon her cat after it had cornered a field mouse. She had been shocked to see the monster it had transformed into as it glared down at the mouse.

Brahms wielded the same kind of power. And Karen found herself unable to turn, to hide. The door slid aside.

“Dr. Langelier. I’ve been expecting you. Please come in.” Brahms’s smooth voice seemed to waft around her, twist about and pull her into the office. Karen was determined to win his favor—but why did she already feel defeated?

A sudden image of the trapped mouse vaulted into her mind, her cat licking its chops.

Karen stopped a few feet from the corner of Brahms’s desk. The director moved around the side of his desk and indicated a chair for her. He grasped her hand with both of his, wrapped his fingers around her wrists, engulfing her with his presence.

“Sit down, please.”

“Thank you,” she mumbled.

Brahms perched on the edge of his desk, leaning back. He slid his glasses on, as if assuming a different persona. He had repaired the broken lens. “You’ve come to talk about Ramis.”

Right to the point, she thought. What else does he know? “That’s right.”

Brahms drummed a finger on the desk. Karen studied the man while he seemed to be pondering something. She had never noticed it before, but the glasses made him look older. He was ten years younger than she, but their lives, their career paths, had diverged wildly. Still, both were trapped on Orbitech 1, having to make the best of their situations.

Brahms narrowed his eyes. “Dr. Langelier, when did you first meet Ramis?”

Karen shrugged. “A day or so after he got here.” A pause, then, “I guess I know him better than anyone, if that’s what you’re asking.”

Silence. Brahms studied the holotank. “I’ve been going over the records. You’re quite proficient in the Russian language—at least, written Russian. I assume you are competent conversationally, too?”

She nodded. He was leading her along exactly the line of reasoning she wanted.

“Dr. Langelier, I need—Orbitech 1 needs—access to those Soviet scientists and whatever records they may have left behind. We’ve got to wake them. You can read and interpret all those things Ramis doesn’t understand. Maybe he did something wrong when he tried to revive that first man. Do you think you could help him if you went over there?”

Karen’s heart yammered at her; she kept her mouth from forming a smile. He knows—he’s got to know! She thought. She stammered out an answer, tried to keep her composure and think straight.

He called up a memo on screen and scanned it. “Our medical staff says it would be best if someone knowledgeable in the language is actually there to help Ramis—get him to tell you what he did the first time and try to learn what he did wrong.”

Brahms scowled and looked at the metal ceiling as he spoke. “Plenty of the physical scientists are fluent in Russian, but not a single one of our medical people or biologists. Apparently nobody considered new Soviet medical research worth reading about.”

“The Soviets managed to come up with suspended animation before anybody else,” Karen said.

“That’s right.” Brahms looked angry, but he laughed to himself. “Well, it hasn’t been proved yet. Any moron can freeze people—it’s reviving them intact that has always caused the problems.”

Brahms rocked back. “Ramis was a loner here—self-sufficient and not too friendly. But I knew that if anyone was going to succeed over at the Kibalchich, it was him.”

Karen blinked and tried to keep her expression neutral. Brahms sounded as if he had talked Ramis into going.

“But now I’ve got this introverted kid over there, scared half out of his wits. If I send the wrong person over, he might crack.” Brahms paused for a moment. “You’re one of the few people here that Ramis would trust. You’ve built up quite a relationship with him. He’s asked about you.”

Karen nodded. He’s talking me into it. But this is just what I hoped would happen—there has to be something up his sleeve. “Ramis has become a good friend.”

The acting director stared at her, his lips drawn to a tight thin line. The Kibalchich would give her sanctuary from Brahms.

She drew in a breath. “I’ll do it. For Orbitech 1, of course.” Karen stood. “When should I make the journey?”

“As soon as you can.” He toggled down to another memo on his screen. “You had an idea about using the weavewire, without it cutting through everything?”

Karen answered tiredly. “Something like Ramis’s harness. There is a way to knit the weavewire into a mesh loop—I can tie one end to a dolly and loop the other end over the line to the Kibalchich. That way I’ll just ride the dolly over.”

Brahms pushed himself up from his desk, landing lightly on his feet. He didn’t seem at all interested in the technical details. “I’ll throw the engineering branch at your disposal. Priority work.”

“That won’t be necessary—”

“Dr. Langelier,” Brahms interrupted. His voice was soft, but his eyes penetrated her. “I made a mistake with McLaris—I won’t do it again. Before you go, I want to have unlimited access to this new weavewire extraction process of yours, get the engineering branch up to speed on what you’re doing. We can’t afford to lose your technique. What if something happened to you over at the Kibalchich?

“Let us begin by drawing out as much of the fiber as we can. I want to have a good stockpile on hand, no matter how much storage space it takes up. The people over on the Aguinaldo have requested a supply of their own, and I’m happy to give it to them if they’ll come get it. After all, Ramis brought us the Aguinaldo’s wall-kelp. We might also want to offer some of it to Clavius Base as a goodwill gesture. Maybe that’ll get the Moon people to break their silence. It’s starting to wear on our morale here.”

“You won’t need to store the weavewire—my new laser extraction technique can draw out a few thousand kilometers an hour.”

Brahms smiled faintly, as if he had lost interest in the subject entirely. “Then it shouldn’t be any problem. Good day, Dr. Langelier.”

Once outside the office, Karen felt nauseated. Every time she interacted with Brahms, it seemed like a game of one-upmanship. She had walked away with everything she had wanted; Brahms had given her free rein to pull it off.

So why did she feel like she was being used?