Falling Free Read online

  "The assistant inspector did accept the bribe. The welds passed the computer certification all right—because it was the same damn good weld, replicated over and over and inserted into the data bank in place of real inspections, which for the most part were never even made. Twenty propulsion chambers were put online. Twenty time bombs.

  "It wasn't until the second one blew up eighteen months later that the whole story was finally uncovered. This isn't hearsay; I was on the probable-cause investigating team. It was I who found it, by the oldest test in the world, eye-and-brain inspection. When I sat there in that station chair, running those hundreds of holovid records through one by one, and first recognized the piece when I saw it again—and again—and again—for the computer only recognized that the series was free of defects—and I realized what those bastards had done . . ." His hands were shaking, as they always did at this point of the lecture, as the old memories flickered back. Leo clenched them by his sides.

  "The judgment of the map was falsified in these electronic dream images. But the universal laws of physics yielded a judgment of blood that was absolutely real. Eighty-six people died altogether. That"—Leo pointed again—"was not merely fraud, it was coldest, cruelest murder."

  He gathered his breath. "This is the most important thing I will ever say to you. The human mind is the ultimate testing device. You can take all the notes you want on the technical data, anything you forget you can look up again, but this must be engraved on your hearts in letters of fire.

  "There is nothing, nothing, nothing more important to me in the men and women I train than their absolute personal integrity. Whether you function as welders or inspectors, the laws of physics are implacable lie detectors. You may fool men. You will never fool the metal. That's all."

  He let his breath out, and regained his good humor, looking around. The quaddie students were taking it with proper seriousness, good, no class cut-ups making sick jokes in the back row. In fact, they were looking rather shocked, staring at him with terrified awe.

  "So"—he clapped his hands together and rubbed them cheerfully, to break the spell— "now let's go over to the shop and take a beam welder apart, and see if we can find everything that can possibly go wrong with it. . . ."

  They filed out obediently ahead of him, chattering among themselves again. Yei was waiting by the door aperture as Leo followed his class. She gave him a brief smile.

  "An impressive presentation, Mr. Graf. You become quite articulate when you talk about your work. Yesterday I thought you must be the strong silent type."

  Leo flushed faintly and shrugged. "It's not so hard, when you have something interesting to talk about."

  "I would not have guessed welding engineering to be so entertaining a subject. You are a gifted enthusiast."

  "I hope your quaddies were equally impressed. It's a great thing, when I can get somebody fired up. It's the greatest work in the world."

  "I begin to think so. Your story . . ." She hesitated. "Your fraud story had great impact. They've never heard anything like it. Indeed, I never heard about that one."

  "It was years ago."

  "Really quite disturbing, all the same." Her face bore a look of introspection. "I hope not overly so."

  "Well, I hope it's very disturbing. It's a true story. I was there." He eyed her. "Someday, they may be there. Criminally negligent, if I fail to prepare them."

  "Ah." She smiled shortly.

  The last of his students had vanished up the corridor. "Well, I better catch up with them. Will you be sitting in on my whole course? Come on along, I'll make a welder of you yet."

  She shook her head ruefully. "You actually make it sound attractive. But I'm afraid I have a full-time job. I have to turn you loose." She gave him a short nod. "You'll do all right, Mr. Graf."

  Chapter Three

  Andy stuck out his tongue, extruding the blob of creamed rice Claire had just spooned into his mouth. "Beh," he remarked. The blob, spurned as food, apparently exerted new fascination as a plaything, for he caught it between his upper right and lower left hands as it slowly rotated off. "Eh!" he protested as his new satellite was reduced to a mere smear.

  "Oh, Andy," Claire muttered in frustration, and removed the smear from his hands with a vigorous swipe from a rather soiled high-capillarity towel. "Come on, baby, you've got to try this. Dr. Yei says it's good for you!"

  "Maybe he's full," Tony offered helpfully.

  The nutritional experiment was taking place in Claire's private quarters, awarded her upon the birth of Andy and shared with the baby. She often missed her old dormitory mates, but reflected ruefully that the company had been right; her popularity and Andy's fascination would probably not have survived too many night feedings, diaper changes, gas attacks, mysterious diarrheas and fevers, or other infant nocturnal miseries.

  Of late she'd missed Tony, too. In the last six weeks she'd hardly seen him, his new welding instructor was keeping him so busy. The pace of life seemed to be picking up all over the Habitat. There were days when there scarcely seemed to be time to draw breath.

  "Maybe he doesn't like it," suggested Tony. "Have you tried mixing it with that other goo?"

  "Everybody's an expert," sighed Claire. "Except me . . . He ate some yesterday, anyway."

  "How does it taste?"

  "I don't know, I never tried it."

  "Hm." Tony plucked the spoon from her hand and twirled it in the opened seal-a-cup, picked up a blob, and popped it in his mouth.

  "Hey—!" began Claire indignantly.

  "Beh!" Tony choked. "Give me that towel." He rid himself of his sample. "No wonder he spits it out. It's Gag Station."

  Claire grabbed the spoon back, muttered "Huh!", and floated over to her kitchenette to push it through the hand-holes to the water dispenser and give it a steaming rinse. "Germs!" she snapped accusingly at Tony.

  "You try it!"

  She sniffed the food cup in renewed doubt. "I'll take your word for it."

  Andy in the meantime had captured his lower right hand with his uppers and was gnawing on it.

  "You're not supposed to have meat yet," Claire sighed, straightening him back out. Andy inhaled, preparing for complaint, but let it go in a mere "Aah," as the door slid open revealing a new object of interest.

  "How's it going, Claire?" asked Dr. Yei. Her thick useless downsider legs trailed relaxed from her hips as she pulled herself into the cabin.

  Claire brightened. She liked Dr. Yei; things always seemed to calm down a bit when she was around. "Andy won't eat the creamed rice. He liked the strained banana well enough."

  "Well, next feeding try introducing the oatmeal instead," said Dr. Yei. She floated over to Andy, held out her hand; he captured it with his uppers. She peeled off his hands, held her hand down farther; he grasped at it with his lowers, and giggled. "His lower body coordination is coming along nicely. Bet it will nearly match the upper by his first birthday."

  "And that fourth tooth broke through day before yesterday," said Claire, pointing it out.

  "Nature's way of telling you it's time to eat creamed rice," Dr. Yei lectured the baby with mock seriousness. He clamped to her arm, beady eyes intent upon her gold loop earrings, nutrition quite forgotten. "Don't fret too much, Claire. There's always this tendency to push things with the first child, just to reassure yourself it can all be done. It will be more relaxed with the second. I guarantee all babies master creamed rice before they're twenty no matter what you do."

  Claire laughed, secretly relieved. "It's just that Mr. Van Atta was asking about his progress."

  "Ah." Dr. Yei's lips twitched in a rather compressed smile. "I see." She defended her earring from a determined assault by placing Andy in air just beyond reach. A frustrated paroxysm of swimming-motions gave him only an unwanted spin. He opened his mouth to howl protest; Dr. Yei surrendered instantly, but bought time by holding out just her fingertips.

  Andy again headed earring-ward, hand over hand over hand. "Yeah, go for it, baby,
" Tony cheered him on.

  "Well." Dr. Yei turned her attention to Claire. "I actually stopped by to pass on some good news. The company is so pleased with the way things have turned out with Andy, they've decided to move up the date for you to start your second pregnancy."

  Tony's face split in a delighted grin, beyond Dr. Yei's shoulder. His upper hands clasped in a gesture of victory. Claire made embarrassed-suppression motions at him, but couldn't help grinning back.

  "Wow," said Claire, warm with pleasure. So, the company thought she was doing that well. There had been down days when she'd thought no one noticed how hard she'd been trying. "How much up?"

  "Your monthly cycles are still being suppressed by the breast feeding, right? You have an appointment at the infirmary tomorrow morning. Dr. Minchenko will give you some medicine to start them up again. You can start trying on the second cycle."

  "Oh my goodness. That soon." Claire paused, watching the wriggling Andy and remembering how the first pregnancy had drained her energy. "I guess I can handle it. But whatever happened to that two-and-a-quarter-year ideal spacing you were talking about?"

  Dr. Yei bit her words off carefully. "There is a Project-wide push to increase productivity. In all areas." Dr. Yei, always straightforward in Claire's experience, smiled falsely. She glanced at Tony, hovering happily, and pursed her lips.

  "I'm glad you're here, Tony, because I have some good news for you, too. Your welding instructor Mr. Graf has rated you tops in his class. So you've been picked as gang foreman to go out on the first Cay Project contract GalacTech has landed. You and your co-workers will be shipping out in about a month to a place called Kline Station. It's on the far end of the wormhole nexus, beyond Earth, and it's a long ride, so Mr. Graf will be going along to complete your training en route, and double as engineering supervisor."

  Tony surged across the room in excitement. "At last! Real work! But—" He paused, stricken. Claire, one thought ahead of him, felt her face becoming mask-like. "But how's Claire supposed to start a baby next month if I'm on my way to where?"

  "Dr. Minchenko will freeze a couple of sperm samples before you go," suggested Claire. "Won't he . . . ?"

  "Ah—hm," said Dr. Yei. "Well, actually, that wasn't in the plans. Your next baby is scheduled to be fathered by Rudy, in Microsystems Installation."

  "Oh, no!" gasped Claire.

  Dr. Yei studied both their faces, and arranged her mouth in a severe frown. "Rudy is a very nice boy. He would be very hurt by that reaction, I'm sure. This can't be a surprise, Claire, after all our talks."

  "Yes, but—I was hoping, since Tony and I did so well, they'd let us—I was going to ask Dr. Cay!"

  "Who is no longer with us," Dr. Yei sighed. "And so you've gone and let yourselves become pair-bonded. I warned you not to do that, didn't I?"

  Claire hung her head. Tony's face was mask-like, now.

  "Claire, Tony, I know this seems hard. But you in the first generations have a special burden. You are the first step in a very detailed long-range plan for GalacTech, spanning literally generations. Your actions have a multiplier effect all out of proportion —look, this isn't by any means the end of the world for you two. Claire has a long reproductive career scheduled. It's quite probable you'll be getting back together again someday. And you, Tony—you're tops. GalacTech's not going to waste you, either. There will be other girls—"

  "I don't want other girls," said Tony stonily. "Only Claire."

  Dr. Yei paused, went on. "I shouldn't be telling you this yet, but Sinda in Nutrition is next for you. I've always thought she was an extraordinarily pretty girl."

  "She has a laugh like a hacksaw."

  Dr. Yei blew out her breath impatiently. "We'll discuss it later. At length. Right now I have to talk with Claire." She thrust him firmly out the door and keyed it shut on his frown and muffled objections.

  Dr. Yei turned back to Claire and fixed her with a stern gaze. "Claire—did you and Tony continue to have sexual relations after you became pregnant?"

  "Dr. Minchenko said it wouldn't hurt the baby."

  "Dr. Minchenko knew?"

  "I don't know . . . I just asked him, like, in a general way." Claire studied her hands guiltily. "Did you expect us to stop?"

  "Well, yes!"

  "You didn't tell us to."

  "You didn't ask. In fact, you were quite careful not to bring up the subject, now that I think back—oh, how could I have been so blindsided?"

  "But downsiders do it all the time," Claire defended herself.

  "How do you know what downsiders do?"

  "Silver says Mr. Van Atta—" Claire stopped abruptly.

  Dr. Yei's attention sharpened, knife-like and uncomfortable. "What do you know about Silver and Mr. Van Atta?"

  "Well—everything, I guess. I mean, we all wanted to know how downsiders did it." Claire paused. "Downsiders are strange," she added.

  After a paralyzed moment, Dr. Yei buried her face in her hands and sniggered helplessly. "And so Silver's been supplying you with detailed information?"

  "Well, yes." Claire regarded the psychologist with wary fascination.

  Dr. Yei stifled her chortles, a strange light growing in her eyes, part humor, part irritation. "I suppose—I suppose you'd better pass the word to Tony not to let on. I'm afraid Mr. Van Atta would become a little upset if he realized his personal activities had a second-hand audience."

  "All right," Claire agreed doubtfully. "But—you always wanted to know all about me and Tony."

  "That's different. We were trying to help you."

  "Well, we and Silver are trying to help each other."

  "You're not supposed to help yourselves." The sting of Dr. Yei's criticism was blunted by her suppressed smile. "You're supposed to wait until you're served." Yei paused. "Just how many of you are privy to this, ah, Silver-mine of information, anyway? Just you and Tony, I trust?"

  "Well, and my dormitory mates. I take Andy over there in my off hours and we all play with him. I used to have my sleep restraints opposite Silver's until I moved out. She's my best friend. Silver's so—so brave, I guess—she'll try things I'd never dare." Claire sighed envy.

  "Eight girls," Yei muttered. "Oh, lord Krishna . . . I trust none of them have been inspired to emulation yet?"

  Claire, not wishing to lie, said nothing. She didn't need to; the psychologist, watching her face, winced.

  Yei turned indecisively in air. "I've got to have a talk with Silver. I should have done it when I first suspected—but I thought the man had the wit not to contaminate the experiment—asleep on my feet. Look, Claire, I want to talk with you more about your new assignment. I'm here to try and make it as easy and pleasant as possible—you know I'll help, right? I'll get back to you as soon as I can."

  Yei peeled Andy off her neck where he was now attempting to taste her earring and handed him back to Claire, and exited the airseal door muttering something about "containing the damage . . ."

  Claire, alone, held her baby close. Her troubled uncertainty turned like a lump of metal under her heart. She had tried so hard to be good. . . .

  * * *

  Leo squinted approvingly against the harsh light and dense shadows of the vacuum as a pair of his space-suited students horsed the locking ring accurately into place on the end of its flex tube. Between the two of them their eight gloved hands made short work of the task.

  "Now Pramod, Bobbi, bring up the beam welder and the recorder and put them in their starting position. Julian, you run the optical laser alignment program and lock them on."

  A dozen of the four-armed figures, their names and numbers printed in large clear figures on the front of each helmet and across the backs of their silvery work suits, bobbed about. Their suit jets puffed as they jockeyed for a better view.

  "Now, in these high-energy-density partial penetration welds," Leo lectured into his space suit's audio pick-up, "the electron beam must not be allowed to achieve a penetrating steady-state. This beam can punch through half
a meter of steel. Even one spiking event and your, say, nuclear pressure vessel or your propulsion chamber can lose its structural integrity. Now, the pulser that Pramod is checking right now"—Leo made his voice heavy with hint; Pramod jerked, and hastily began punching up the system readout on his machine —"utilizes the natural oscillation of the point of beam impingement within the weld cavity to set up a pulsing schedule that maintains its frequency, eliminating the spiking problem. Always double-check its function before you start."

  The locking ring was firmly welded to its flex tube and duly examined for flaws by eye, hologram scan, eddy current, the examination and comparison of the simultaneous x-ray emission recording, and the classic kick-and-jerk test. Leo prepared to move his students on to the next task.

  "Tony, you bring the beam welder over—TURN IT OFF FIRST!" Feedback squeal lanced through everyone's earphones, and Leo modulated his voice from his first urgent panicked bellow. The beam had in fact been off, but the controls live; one accidental bump, as Tony swung the machine around, and—Leo's eye traced the hypothetical slice through the nearby wing of the Habitat, and he shuddered.

  "Get your head out of your ass, Tony! I saw a man cut in half by one of his friends once by just that careless trick."

  "Sorry . . . thought it would save time . . . sorry . . ." Tony mumbled.

  "You know better." Leo calmed, as his heart stopped palpitating. "In this hard vacuum that beam won't stop till it hits the third moon, or whatever it might encounter in between." He almost continued, stopped himself; no, not over the public com channel. Later.

  Later, as his students unsuited in the equipment locker, laughing and joking as they cleaned and stored their work suits, Leo drifted over to the silent and pale Tony. Surely I didn't bark at him that hard, Leo thought to himself. Figured he was more resilient . . . "Stop and see me when you're finished here," said Leo quietly.

  Tony flinched guiltily. "Yes, sir."

  After his fellows had all swooped out, eager for their end-of-shift meal, Tony hung in the air, both sets of arms crossed protectively across his torso. Leo floated near, and spoke in a grave tone.