Lifeline

Chapter 46

ORBITECH 1—Day 50

Harhoosma’s lab space would not be private enough. Other people, other listeners, were dangerous things to have nearby.

Allen Terachyk recalled the lesson shown by Linda Arnando’s mistake: privacy could no longer be assumed on Orbitech 1 unless one took elaborate precautions beforehand. Terachyk wanted no eavesdroppers, no way for sharp ears to hear his words and report them back to Brahms.

He entered the vacuum welders’ zero-G lab space without announcing himself. The smell of feed chemicals and raw materials hung in the air. Smoke floated near the burns; without gravity, it could not rise to the ventilator filters. Large fans on either side of the room kept the air stirred. On the wall, a cheery red sign reminded them that Orbitech 1 considered “Safety First!”

Three men and one woman floated at the far wall of the chamber, pressed against a transparent shield with their hands thrust into gloves that extended to a vacuum chamber outside. In the cold and microgravity of space, they tested welding techniques, different filler metals or base alloys. The welders did not need to worry about heated metals absorbing oxygen or nitrogen in the vacuum, which would have made a weld brittle and weak.

Other workers practiced simple zero-G welding at several modules, spraying argon or helium shielding onto the metal, trying new flux compositions that would not separate in the weightless environment. Some of the operations hissed and sputtered with plasma arcs and molten metal; others used silent electrical-resistance welding, while the workers chatted in forced conversation.

Terachyk could call to mind most of the projects here, since he inspected them in his assessor duties. Much of the bustle and conversation involved repeating experiments, verifying results, gaining proficiency in techniques—and appearing busy for Terachyk’s benefit. Other watchers reported to him daily with summaries of work performed by the nontechnical personnel on Orbitech 1, but Terachyk considered it his responsibility to be familiar with all the major research.

He had taken special interest in the vacuum welding shop since pointing out Harhoosma’s situation to Brahms.

Terachyk looked around, placing his hands on his hips. His spring-green jumpsuit had not been washed in days, but the bright fabric looked fresh as new.

He watched the conversation and movements take on a different character, like a ripple moving through a pool, as they noticed his presence. They knew the chief assessor had come to see someone in particular.

“I need to speak with Sigat Harhoosma,” he announced. At first he didn’t see the man, dressed in his protective clothing against the glove-box wall.

Terachyk thought he heard a collective sigh of relief from the others, and then an intense curiosity … but no one would dare speak out loud until well after he had gone.

Harhoosma pulled his arms out of the dangling gloves and switched off the hydraulic-assist waldoes outside. He turned, straightened his uniform, and pushed off toward the door where Terachyk waited. Harhoosma was short and compact, with dark eyes and skin, thick salt-and-pepper hair. He held himself in closed body language. He avoided looking at anything except some imaginary fixed spot on the floor.

“Relax, don’t worry,” Terachyk said under his breath; he felt flushed. He was expected to do random inspections and interviews, but it made the co-workers nervous, wondering what Harhoosma might say about them in confidence. What if somebody hears us? Terachyk thought.

“Let’s go into the conference room,” he said, extending a hand. Harhoosma nodded and pulled himself along the corridor toward a room with a red-enameled door. Inside, a glossy-surfaced table occupied most of the space, with fixed chairs mounted to the floor, each with restraining bands so people didn’t drift out into the room with every conversational gesture they made. LCD screens and contact noteboards were embedded into the table surface. A large holotank took up the opposite wall.

Terachyk sealed the door behind him, cutting off all outside noise. In the silence, he wondered if Brahms had rigged listening devices into any of the rooms.

Now who was getting paranoid?

Harhoosma moved over to one of the chairs, pulled himself down, and slipped the restraining loop over his thigh. He waited in silence. Terachyk sat beside him, close enough to make the other man uncomfortable.

Terachyk didn’t know where to start. “This isn’t what you think,” he said. “Brahms does not know I’m here, and I must have your word that you will repeat none of this conversation to him.”

The sharp stab of danger raced up Terachyk’s spine. He knew he could be killed for this. Brahms would have no qualms about it. Terachyk was risking his life to talk to a man he barely knew.

Terachyk remembered Harhoosma’s report, about his invalid wife who had come here to live in the lower gravity, who had been one of the victims in the first RIF. Terachyk had never seen the woman, though he had looked at her image in the files, wondering what she was like.

Harhoosma looked up at him, puzzled. “I do not know what you mean. Is this perhaps a trick of some kind?”

The thin, accented voice quavered. Terachyk decided to continue, even without securing Harhoosma’s promise. He had already committed himself to his course of action.

“Mr. Harhoosma, there is something I am going to tell you—no one else knows about this. Your name is on the list, a new RIF list. Brahms has decided to keep you in the bottom ten percent of people on this colony. You know what that means.”

He met Harhoosma’s glittering, dark eyes. The man seemed appalled, disbelieving.

“Brahms and I disagree about this. I pointed out your extenuating circumstances, the trauma you’ve undergone, the … loss of your wife.” He paused. “Under the circumstances, I think you’re performing remarkably well. My own family was killed in the War. But Brahms insists that we perform up to the same standards as before.”

Several times, Harhoosma began to say something, but the words seemed unwilling to fall into place. Terachyk waited for him. Finally, the other man said, “But Director Brahms chose me to help Dr. Langelier on her Jump to the Kibalchich. He selected me out of every person on this place to assist her! Is this not true? I believed this was some kind of reward. Why would he do this thing?”

Terachyk shook his head. “Brahms has already made up his mind that you’re expendable. You weren’t really qualified to do that task, although I think you did an admirable job. Why would Brahms send you out like that, when he had plenty of more experienced people to choose from?”

Terachyk raised his eyebrows before giving his answer. “I think he was hoping you would slip up. Of course, he would never admit that. But I think he sent you out there, placed you in danger, because if something disastrous happened, then he would not lose anyone he considers valuable. Does that make sense to you?”

Harhoosma nodded slightly.

Terachyk lowered his voice, as if that would do any good. “I don’t think he has any right to make these kind of choices. And I am tired of being an accomplice to his twisted decisions. Did you know that he was behind the first RIF? It was Brahms, not Ombalal. Ombalal taped a speech that Brahms himself had written.”

Harhoosma’s eyes went wide, but he sat speechless.

“The mob killed the wrong person.” Terachyk drew a deep breath and closed his eyes halfway. His throat grew dry. “Now, please listen to me carefully.…”

As he listened, Harhoosma looked even more frightened than Terachyk felt.

When the wife of Daniel Aiken opened the door of her living quarters, she saw Allen Terachyk standing there. Terachyk started to mumble some sort of greeting, but Sheila Aiken met him with a hateful look of such intensity that it made him cringe.

“What?” she asked with no further preamble. “Do you want to throw me out the airlock, too? See if I’ve been falsifying some of my own results? Maybe I’m not dusting our quarters as often as I should?”

Terachyk breathed deeply. He had been prepared to deal with something like this.

“I didn’t execute your husband. Your husband wasn’t the first, and he’s probably not going to be the last. I need to talk to you.” Gently, “Your name is Sheila?”

“I suppose Mrs. Aiken isn’t really meaningful anymore.” She turned aside and said nothing, but left the door open, implying that she had no choice but to let him come in.

When Terachyk sealed the door behind him, Sheila Aiken looked uneasy. Terachyk stood, uncomfortable at not being asked to sit.

“I know Curtis Brahms,” he said. “I’ve been forced to work with him ever since he came here. I do not like him. And contrary to what everyone thinks, he is not my friend.”

That seemed to soften her a little, turning her anger to suspicion. Terachyk still felt uneasy.

“I have told this to very few people: Brahms was behind the first RIF that killed a hundred and fifty people. It was all his idea, not Ombalal’s.” She sat down in surprise. “He has rationalized in his own mind that he needed to do it. Now, though, when things are getting better, when we have all sorts of different ways to survive—new techniques, new hopes—Brahms isn’t interested. It means he’s proved himself wrong.

“I think he’s going to order another RIF. He believes he has to, just so he doesn’t look as if he made a mistake with the first one. He can’t afford to let us think things are getting better. He’s going to distort reality. He’s going to … sabotage things so that we remain in this horrible situation.

“He killed your husband, and Linda Arnando—” he saw her wince at the woman’s name “—just to keep everyone afraid. To make them cowed, to keep them shocked. It’s for his own protection.”

Standing, Sheila Aiken twisted her hands together, staring at him, then sat down without breaking eye contact.

“So?” she said, but the words carried little defiance.

“Doesn’t that mean anything to you?” Terachyk asked.

She sidestepped the question. “What do you want me to do about it? Brahms killed my husband. He made a spectacle of him in front of all the other people on the colony. I think that was the worst part—Daniel hated being humiliated more than anything else.”

“It doesn’t matter what I want you to do about it. What do you want to do about it?” He held up his hand to keep her from answering. “Just think about that.”

He turned to leave. She remained sitting, looking at him as if she were about to be sick. He had stirred up things she had obviously been trying to hide.

Allen Terachyk left her quarters.

There had been a hundred and fifty names on the original RIF list. Many of those had left loved ones behind as well.