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be a sacrifice, for the sake of form, after the accident. All he had to do was
keep his mouth shut, and... Van Atta had to wrench his attention back to his
present surroundings.
I ve got to check on my quaddies! The young woman was growing wild-eyed. She
gave up on the comm unit and began to shove her way back toward the airseal
doors.
Yes, another man joined her, and I ve got to find Wyzak, he s still not
here. He s bound to need help. I ll go with you -
No! cried Van Atta urgently, almost adding
You ll spoil everything!
You re to wait for the all-clear. I won t have a panic.
We ll all just sit tight and wait for instructions.
The woman subsided, but the man said skeptically, Instructions from whom?
Graf, said Van Atta. Yes, it was not too early to start making it clear to
witnesses where the hands-on responsibility lay. He controlled his
excitement-spurred rapid breathing, trying for an aura of steady calm. Though
not too calm - he must appear as surprised as any - no, more surprised than
any - when the full extent of the disaster became apparent.
He settled down to wait. Minutes dragged past. One last panting group of
refugees made it through the airseal doors; the
Habitat-wide rate of depressurization must be slowing. One of the
administrators from inventory control - old habits die hard -
presented him with an unsolicited head-count of those present.
He silently cursed the census-taker s initiative, even as he accepted the
results with thanks. The proof that all were not present might compel him to
action he did not desire to take.
Only eleven downsider staff members had not made it.
A necessary price to pay, Van Atta assured himself nervously. Some were
doubtless holed up in other pressurized pockets, or so he could maintain he
had believed, later. Their fatal mistakes could be pinned on Graf.
A group by the airseal doors was making ready to bolt. Van Atta inhaled, and
paused, momentarily uncertain how to stop them without giving away everything.
But a cry of dismay went up from one woman - All the air is out of the
corridor now! We can t get through without pressure suits! Van Atta exhaled
in relief.
He made his way to one of the module s viewports; it framed a dull vista of
unwinking stars. The port on the other side gave an oblique view back toward
the Habitat. Movement caught his eye, and he mashed his nose to the cold glass
in an attempt to make out the details.
The silvery flash of worksuits, bobbing over the outside surface of the
Habitat. Refugees? Or a repair party? Could his first hypothesis of a real
accident be correct after all? Not good, but in any case it was still Graf s
baby.
But there were quaddies out there, dammit, quaddie survivors. He could see the
arms. Graf had not made his stroke complete.
Just two quaddie survivors, if one was male and the other female, would be as
bad as a thousand, from Apmad s point of view.
Perhaps the work party was all-male.
There was Graf himself, among the flitting figures! They carried an assortment
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of equipment. The wavering distortion of his transverse view through the port
prevented him from making out just what. He twisted his neck, craning
painfully. Then the work party was eclipsed by a curve of the Habitat. A
pusher slid into, and out of, his view, arcing smoothly over the lecture
module.
More escapees? Quaddie or downsider?
Hey, an excited voice from within the lecture module disrupted his frantic
observations. We re in luck, gang. This whole cupboard is filled with breath
masks. There must be three hundred of em.
Van Atta swivelled his head to spot the cupboard in question. The last time
he d been in this module that storage had been filled with audiovisual
equipment. Who the hell had made that switch, and why... ?
A bang reverberated through the module with a peculiar sharp resonance, like
having one s head in a metal bucket when someone whacked it with a hammer.
Hard. Shrieks and screams. The lights dimmed, then came up to about a quarter
of their former brilliance. They were on the module s own emergency power.
Power from the Habitat had been cut off.
Power wasn t all that had been cut off. Stunned, Van Atta saw the Habitat
begin to turn slowly past his viewport. No, it wasn t the Habitat - it was the
module that was moving. A generalized Aaah! went up from the mob within, as
they began to drift toward one wall and pile up there against the gentle
acceleration being imparted from without. Van Atta clung convulsively to the
handholds by the viewport.
Realization washed over him almost physically, radiating hotly from his chest
down his arms, his legs, pounding up through the top of his head as if to
burst through his skull.
Betrayed! He was betrayed, betrayed completely and on every level. A
space-suited figure with legs was waving a cheery farewell at the module from
beside a gaping hole burned in the side of the Habitat. Van Atta shook with
chagrin.
I ll get you, Graf! I tt get you, you double-crossing son-of-a-bitch! You and
every one of those four-armed little creeps with you -
Calm down, man! Dr. Yei was saying, having somehow snagged up by his
viewport. What is it?
He realized he d been mumbling aloud. He wiped saliva from the corners of his
mouth and glared at Yei. You - you - you missed it. You were supposed to be
keeping track of everything that s going on with those little monsters, and
you totally missed it - He advanced on her, intending he knew not what,
slipped from a handhold, swung and skidded down the wall. His blood
beat so hard in his ears he was afraid he was having a coronary. He lay a
moment with his eyes closed, gasping, temporarily overwhelmed by his emotions.
Control, he told himself in a mortal fear of his imminent self-destruction.
Control, stay in control -
and get Graf later. Get him, get them all.
...
Chapter 12
Leo unsuited to the wails of disturbed quaddies.
What do you mean, we didn t get them all? he asked, his elation draining
away. He had so hoped that his troubles - or at least the downsider parts of
them - would be over with the ignition of the jet cord cutting off Lecture
Module C.
Four of the area supervisors are locked in the vegetable cooler with breath
masks and won t come out, reported Sinda from
Nutrition.
And the three crewmen from the shuttle that just docked tried to make it back
to their ship, said a yellow-shirted quaddie from Docks & Locks. We trapped
them between two airseal doors, but they ve been working on the mechanism and
we don t think we can hold them much longer.
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