Miles, Mutants, and Microbes Read online

  But the forklift, clearly, was not voice-activated. It kept coming, bulldozing their pack before it. There were only a few centimeters' clearance on the sides and top of the crate. Claire retreated, so terrified her screams clotted in her throat like cotton, and she emitted only a smeary squeak. Back, back; the cold metal wall behind froze her. She flattened against it as best she could, standing on her lower hands, holding Andy with her uppers. He was howling now, infected by her terror, earsplitting shrieks.

  "Claire!" Tony cried from the ladder, a horrified bellow laced with tears. "Andy!"

  The pack, beside them, compressed. Little crunching noises came from it. At the last moment, Claire transferred Andy to her lower arms, below her torso, bracing against the crate, against gravity, with her uppers. Perhaps her crushed body would hold the crate off just far enough to save him—the robolift's servos squealed with overload. . . .

  And began to withdraw. Claire sent a silent apology to their oversized pack for all the curses she and Tony had heaped upon it in the past hours. Nothing in it would ever be the same, but it had saved them.

  The robolift hiccuped, gears grinding bewilderedly. The crate shifted on its pallet, out of sync now. As the lift withdrew, the crate skidded with it, dragged by friction and gravity, skewing farther and farther from true.

  Claire watched open-mouthed as it tilted and fell from the opening. She rushed forward. The crash shook the warehouse as the crate hit the concrete, followed by a booming shattered echo, the loudest sound Claire had ever heard. The crate took the forklift with it, its wheels whirring helplessly in air as it banged onto its side.

  The power of gravity was stunning. The crate split, its contents spilling. Hundreds of round metal wheelcovers of some kind burst forth, ringing like a stampede of cymbals. A dozen or so rolled down the aisle in either direction as if bent on escape, wobbling into the corridor walls and falling onto their sides, still spinning, in ever-diminishing whanging pulses of sound. The echoes rang on in Claire's ears for a moment in the stupendous silence that followed.

  "Oh, Claire!" Tony swarmed back into the cell and wrapped all his arms around her, Andy between them, as if he might never let go again. "Oh, Claire . . ." His voice cracked as he rubbed his face against her soft short hair.

  Claire looked over his shoulder at the carnage they had created below. The overturned robolift was beeping again, like an animal in pain. "Tony, I think we better get out of here," she suggested in a small voice.

  "I thought you were coming behind me, onto the ladder. Right behind me."

  "I had to get Andy."

  "Of course. You saved him, while I—saved myself. Oh, Claire! I didn't mean to leave you in there . . ."

  "I didn't think you did."

  "But I jumped—"

  "It would have been plain stupid not to. Look, can we talk about it later? I really think we ought to get out of here."

  "Yes, oh yes. Uh, the pack . . . ?" Tony peered into the dimness of the recess.

  Claire didn't think they were going to have time for the pack, either—yet how far could they get without it? She helped Tony drag it back to the edge with frantic haste.

  "If you brace yourself back there, while I hang onto the ladder, we can lower it—" Tony began.

  Claire pushed it ruthlessly over the edge. It landed on the mess below, tumbled to the concrete. "I don't think there's any more point in worrying about the breakables now. Let's go," she urged.

  Tony gulped, nodded, moved quickly onto the ladder, sparing one upper arm to help support Andy, whom Claire held in her lowers, her upper hands slapping down the rungs. Then they were back to the floor and their slow, frustrating, crabwise locomotion along it. Claire was beginning to hate the cold, dusty smell of concrete.

  They were only a few meters down the corridor when Claire heard the pounding of downsider foot-coverings again, moving fast, with uncertain pauses as if for direction. A row or two over; the steps must shortly thread the lattice to them. Then an echo of the steps—no, another set.

  What happened next seemed all in a moment, suspended between one breath and the next. Ahead of them, a gray-uniformed downsider leaped from a cross-corridor into their own with an unintelligible shout. His legs were braced apart to support his half-crouch, and he clutched a strange piece of equipment in both hands, held up half a meter in front of his face. His face was as white with terror as Claire's own.

  Ahead of her, Tony dropped the pack and reared up on his lower arms, his upper hands flung wide, crying, "No!"

  The downsider recoiled spasmodically, his eyes wide, mouth gaping in shock. Two or three bright flashes burst from his piece of equipment, accompanied by sharp cracking bangs that echoed, splintered, all through the great warehouse. Then the downsider's hands jerked up, the object flung away. Had it malfunctioned or short-circuited, burning or shocking him? His face drained further, from white to green.

  Then Tony was screaming, flopping on the floor, all his arms curling in on himself in a tight ball of agony.

  "Tony? Tony!" Claire scrambled toward him, Andy clamped tightly to her torso and crying and screaming in fear, his racket mingling with Tony's in a terrifying cacophony. "Tony, what's wrong?" She didn't see the blood on his red T-shirt until some drops spattered on the concrete. The bicep of his left lower arm, as he rolled toward her, was a scrambled, pulsing, scarlet and purple mess. "Tony!"

  The company security guard had rushed forward. His face was harrowed with horror, his hands empty now and fumbling with a portable com link hooked to his belt. It took him three tries to detach it. "Nelson! Nelson!" he called into it. "Nelson, for God's sake call the medical squad, quick! It's just kids! I just shot a kid!" His voice shook. "It's just some crippled kids!"

  Leo's stomach sank at the sight of the yellow pulses of light reflecting off the warehouse wall. Company medical squad; yes, there was their electric truck, blinkers flashing, parked in the wide central aisle. The breathless words of the clerk who'd met their shuttle tumbled through his brain— . . . found in the warehouse . . . there's been an accident . . . injury . . . Leo's steps quickened.

  "Slow down, Leo, I'm getting dizzy," Van Atta, behind him, complained irritably. "Not everybody can bounce back and forth between null-gee and one-gee like you do with no effects, you know."

  "They said one of the kids was hurt."

  "So what are you going to do that the medics can't? I, personally, am going to crucify that idiot security team for this. . . ."

  "I'll meet you there," Leo snarled over his shoulder, and ran.

  Aisle 29 looked like a war zone. Smashed equipment, stuff scattered everywhere—Leo half tripped over a couple of round metal cover plates, kicked them impatiently out of his way. A pair of medics and a security guard were huddled over a stretcher on the floor, an IV bag hoisted on a pole like a flag above them.

  Red shirt: Tony, it was Tony who'd been hurt. Claire was crouched on the floor a little farther down the aisle, clutching Andy, tears streaming silently down her ragged white mask of a face. On the stretcher, Tony writhed and cried out with a hoarse sob.

  "Can't you at least give him something for pain?" the security guard urged the medtech.

  "I don't know." The medtech was clearly flustered. "I don't know what all they've done to their metabolisms. Shock is shock, I'm safe with the IV and the warmers and the synergine, but as for the rest of it—"

  "Patch in an emergency com link to Dr. Warren Minchenko." Leo advised, kneeling beside them. "He's chief medical officer for the Cay Habitat, and he's on his month's downside leave right now. Ask him to meet you at your infirmary; he'll take over the case there."

  The security guard eagerly unhooked his com link and began punching in codes.

  "Oh, thank God," said the medtech, turning to Leo. "At last, somebody who knows what the hell they're doing. Do you know what I can give him for pain, sir?"

  "Uh . . ." Leo did a quick mental review of his first aid. "Syntha-morph should be all right, until you get in touc
h with Dr. Minchenko. But adjust the dose—these kids weigh less than they look like they ought to—I think Tony masses about, um, 42 kilos."

  The peculiar nature of Tony's injuries dawned on Leo at last. He had been picturing a fall, broken bones, maybe spinal cord or cranial damage. . . . "What happened here?"

  "Gunshot wound," reported the medtech shortly. "Left lower abdomen and . . . and, um, not femur—left lower limb. That's just a flesh wound, but the abdominal one is serious."

  "Gunshot!" Leo stared aghast at the guard, who reddened. "Did you—I thought you guys carried stunners—why in the name of God—"

  "When that damned hysteric called down from the Habitat, yammering about his escaped monsters, I thought—I thought—I don't know what I thought." The guard glowered at his boots.

  "Didn't you look before you fired?"

  "I damn near shot the girl with the baby." The guard shuddered. "I hit this kid by accident, jerking my aim away."

  Van Atta panted up. "Holy shit, what a mess!" His eye fell on the security guard. "I thought I told you to keep this quiet, Bannerji. What did you do, set off a bomb?"

  "He shot Tony," said Leo through his teeth.

  "You idiot, I told you to capture them, not murder them! How the hell am I supposed to sweep this—" he waved his arm down Aisle 29, "under the rug? And what the hell were you doing with a pistol anyway?"

  "You said—I thought—" the guard began.

  "I swear I'll have you canned for this. Of all the ass-backwards—did you think this was some kind of feelie-dream drama? I don't know whose judgment is worse, yours or the jerk's who hired you—"

  The guard's face had gone from red to white. "Why you stupid son-of-a-bitch, you set me up for this—"

  Somebody had better keep a level head, Leo thought wretchedly. Bannerji had retrieved and holstered his unauthorized weapon, a fact of which Van Atta seemed to be unconscious—the temptation to shoot the project chief shouldn't be allowed to get too overwhelming—Leo intervened. "Gentlemen, may I suggest that charges and defenses would be better saved for a formal investigation, where everyone will be cooler and, er, more reasoned. Meantime we have some hurt and frightened kids to take care of."

  Bannerji fell silent, simmering with injustice. Van Atta growled assent, contenting himself with a black look toward Bannerji that boded ill for the guard's future career. The two medtechs snapped down the wheels of Tony's stretcher and began rolling him down the aisle toward their waiting truck. One of Claire's hands reached out after him, fell back hopelessly.

  The gesture caught Van Atta's attention. Full of suppressed rage, he discovered he had an object on which to vent it after all. "You—!" he turned on Claire.

  She flinched into a tighter huddle.

  "Do you have any idea what this escapade of yours is going to cost the Cay Project, first to last? Of all the irresponsible—did you con Tony into this?"

  She shook her head, eyes widening.

  "Of course you did, isn't it always the way. The male sticks his neck out, the female gets it chopped off for him. . . ."

  "Oh, no. . . ."

  "And the timing—were you deliberately trying to smear me? How did you find out about the Ops VP—did you figure I'd cover up for you just because she was here? Clever, clever—but not clever enough!"

  Leo's head, eyes, ears throbbed with the beating of his blood. "Lay off, Bruce. She's had enough for one day."

  "The little bitch nearly gets your best student killed, and you want to stand up for her? Get serious, Leo."

  "She's already scared out of her wits. Lay off."

  "She damn well better be. When I get her back to the Habitat . . ." Van Atta strode past Leo, grabbed Claire by an upper arm, yanked her cruelly and painfully up. She cried out, nearly dropping Andy; Van Atta overrode her. "You wanted to come downside, you can bloody well just try walking—back to the shuttle, then."

  Leo could not, afterwards, recall running forward or swinging Van Atta around to face him, but only Van Atta's surprised, open-mouthed expression. "Bruce," he sang through a red haze, "you smarmy creep—lay off."

  The uppercut to Van Atta's jaw that punctuated this command was surprisingly effective, considering it was the first time Leo had struck a man in anger in his life. Van Atta sprawled backwards on the concrete.

  Leo surged forward in a kind of dizzy joy. He would rearrange Van Atta's anatomy in ways that even Dr. Cay had never dreamed of—

  "Uh, Mr. Graf," the security guard began, touching him hesitantly on the shoulder.

  "It's all right, I've been waiting to do this for weeks," Leo assured him, going for a grip on Van Atta's collar.

  "It's not that, sir . . ."

  A cold new voice cut in. "Fascinating executive technique. I must take notes."

  Vice President Apmad, flanked by her flying wedge of accountants and assistants, stood behind Leo in Aisle 29.

  Chapter 6

  "Well, it wasn't my fault," snapped Shuttleport Administrator Chalopin. "I wasn't even told this was going on." She glowered pointedly at Van Atta. "How am I supposed to control my jurisdiction when other administrators hopscotch my properly established channels of command, blithely hand out orders to my people without even informing me, violate protocol . . ."

  "The situation was extraordinary. Time was of the essence," muttered Van Atta truculently.

  Leo secretly sympathized with Chalopin's testiness. Her smooth routine disrupted, her office abruptly appropriated for the Ops VP's inquest—Apmad did not believe in wasting time. The official company investigation of the incident had commenced, by her fiat, a bare hour ago in Aisle 29; he'd be surprised if it took her more than another hour to finish sifting the case.

  The windows of Shuttleport Three's administrative offices, sealed against the internal pressure of the building, framed a panorama of the complex—the runways, loading zones, warehouses, offices, hangars, workers' dormitories, the monorail running off to the refinery glittering on the horizon and the eerily rugged mountains beyond. And the vital power plant; Rodeo's atmosphere had oxygen, nitrogen, and carbon dioxide, but in the wrong proportions and at too low a pressure to suit human metabolism. The air conditioning labored constantly to adjust the gas mix and filter out the contaminants. A human might live for fifteen minutes outside without a breath mask; Leo was uncertain whether to think of it as a safety margin or just a slow death. Definitely not a garden spot.

  Bannerji had sidled around behind the shuttleport administrator. Hiding behind her, Leo thought. It might be the best strategy for the security guard at that. From her smart shoes through her trim GalacTech uniform to her swept-back coiffure, not a hair out of place, and her set, clean jawline, Chalopin radiated both the will and the ability to defend her turf.

  Apmad, refereeing the scrimmage, was another type altogether. Dumpy, on the high end of middle age, frizzy gray hair cut short, she might have been somebody's grandmother, but for her eyes. She made no attempt to dress for success. As if she already possessed so much power, she was beyond that game. So far from regulating tempers, her laconic comments had served to stir the pot, as if she was curious what might float to the top. Definitely not a grandmother's eyes.

  Leo was still close to a boil himself. "The project is twenty-five years old. Time can't be that much of the essence."

  "God almighty," cried Van Atta, "am I the only man here conscious of what the bottom line means?"

  "Bottom line?" said Leo. "GalacTech is closer to its payoff from the Cay Project than ever before. To screw things up now with an impatient, premature attempt to wring profits is practically criminal. You're on the verge of the first real results."

  "Not really," observed Apmad coolly. "Your first group of fifty workers is merely a token. It will take another ten years to bring the whole thousand online." Cool, yes; but Leo read a fierce concealed tension in her the source of which he could not yet identify.

  "So, call it a tax loss. You can't tell me this," Leo waved a hand toward the window, i
ndicating Rodeo, "can't use a tax loss or two."

  Apmad rolled her eyes at the man who stood silently at her shoulder. "Tell this young man the facts of life, Gavin."

  Gavin was a big rumpled goon with a broken nose whom Leo had taken at first for some kind of bodyguard. He was in fact the Ops VP's chief accountant, and when he spoke it was with startlingly precise and elegant elocution, in impressive rounded paragraphs.

  "GalacTech had been offsetting the Cay Project's very considerable losses with Rodeo's paper profits since its inception. I'd better recapitulate a little history for you, Mr. Graf." Gavin scratched his nose thoughtfully.

  "GalacTech holds Rodeo on a ninety-nine-year lease with the government of Orient IV. The original terms of the lease were extremely favorable to us, since Rodeo's unique mineral and petrochemical resources were at that time still undiscovered. And so they remained for the first thirty years of the lease.