Falling Free (18 page)

I'm not going to jail. I'm going to the stars with the quaddies.

Yourcell will be padded.

This isn't crime. This is—war, or something. Crime is turning your back and walking away.

Not by any legal code I know of.

All right then; sin.

Oh, brother. Ti rolled his eyes. Now it comes out. You're on a mission from God, right? Let me off at the next stop, please.

God's not here.Somebody's got to fill in.Leo backed off hastily from that line of thought. Padded cells, indeed. I thought you were in love with Silver. How can you abandon her to a slow death?

Ti's not in love with me, interrupted Silver in surprise. Whatever gave you that idea, Leo?

Ti gave her an unsettled look. No, of course not, he agreed faintly. You, ah—you always knew, right?

We just had a mutually beneficial little arrangement, is all.

That's right, confirmed Silver. I got books andvi ds, Ti got relief from physiological stress. Downsider males need sex to stay healthy, you know, they can't cope with stress. It makes them disruptive. Wild genes, I suppose.

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Where did
that
line of bullshit come from—?Leo began, and broke off. Never mind.He could guess. He closed his eyes, pressed them with his fingertips, and groped for his lost argument. Right. So to you,Silver is just . . . disposable. Like a tissue. Sneeze in her and toss her away.

Ti looked stung. Give it up, Graf. I'm no worse than anyone else.

But I'm giving you the chance to be better, don't you see—

Leo, Silver interrupted again. She was now sprawled on her stomach on the bed,her chin propped awkwardly on one upper hand. After we get to our asteroid belt—wherever it turns out to be—what are we going to do with the Superjumper?

The Superjumper?

We'll be detaching the Habitat and opening it out again, surely—building on to it—the Jumper unit would just be sitting there in parking orbit. Can't we give it to Ti?

What? said Leo and Ti together. As payment. He jumps us to our destination, he gets to keep the Jump ship. Then he can go off and be a pilot-owner, set up his own transport business, whatever he likes. In a stolen ship?yi pped Ti. If we're far enough away that GalacTech can't catch up with us, we're far enough away that GalacTech can't catch up with you, said Silver logically. Then you'll have a ship that fits your neural implant, and nobody will be able to fire you again, because you'll be working for yourself.

Leo bit his tongue. He'd brought Silver along expressly to help persuade Ti—so what if it wasn't the blandishment he'd envisioned? From the blitzed look on the pilot's face, they'd gotten through to his launch-button at last. Leo lidded his eyes and smiled encouragement at her.

Besides, she went on, her eyelashes fluttering in return, if we do succeed in Jumping out of here, Habitat and all, Mr. Van Atta's going to be left looking an awful fool. She let her head flop back on the bed and smiled sideways at Ti.

Oh, said Ti in a tone of enlightenment. Ah...

Are your bags all packed? asked Leo helpfully.

Over there, Ti nodded to a pile of luggage in the corner. But.. . but.. . dammit, if this thing crashes, they'll crucify me!

Ah, said Leo. Here, see... he opened his red coveralls at the neck and drew out thel aser-solderer concealed in an inner pocket. I jimmied the safety on this thing; it'll fire an extremely intense beam for quite a distance now, until the atmosphere dissipates it—farther than the distance across this room, certainly.He waved it negligently; Ti ducked, eyes widening. If we end up under arrest, you can truthfully testify that you were kidnapped at gunpoint by a crazed engineer and his mad mutant assistant and made to cooperate under duress. You may be a hero one way—or another.

The mad mutant assistant smiled blindingly at Ti, her eyes like stars.

You, ah—wouldn't really fire that thing, would you? choked Ti cautiously.

Of course not, Leo said jovially, baring his teeth. He put the solderer away.

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Ah. Ti's mouth twitched briefly in response. But his eye returned often thereafter to the lump in Leo's coveralls.

When they made it back to the shuttle hatch where the pusher was docked, Zara was gone.

Oh, God, moaned Leo. Had she wandered off? Gotten lost? Been forcibly removed? A frantic inventory found no message left on the comm, no note pinned anywhere.

Pilot, she's a pilot,Leo reasoned aloud. Is there anything she could have needed to do? We've plenty of fuel—communicating with traffic control is done right from here... He realized, with a cold chill, that he hadn't actually forbidden her to leave the pusher. It had been so self-evident that she was to stay out of sight, and on guard. Self-evident to himself, Leo realized. Who could say what was self-evident to a quaddie?

I could fly this thing, if necessary, said Ti in a most unpressing tone, looking over the control deck. It's all manual.

That's not the point, said Leo. We can't leave without her. The quaddies aren't supposed to be over here at all. If she gets picked up by the Station authorities and they start asking questions—always assuming she hasn't been picked up by something worse...

What worse?

I don't
know
what worse, that's the trouble.

Silver meanwhile had rolled off the acceleration couch to the deck strip. After a moment of thoughtful experimentation, she achieved a four-handed forward shuffle, and marched off past Leo's knees, pant legs trailing.

Where are you going?

After Zara.

Silver, stay with the ship. We don't need two of you lost, for God's sake, Leo ordered sternly. Ti and I can move much faster, we'll find her.

I don't think so, murmured Silver distantly. She reached the flex tube, stared up and down the corridor which curved away to right and left,ringing the spoke. You see, I don't think she's gone far.

If she got on the elevator, she could be practically anywhere on the Station by now, said Ti.

Silver reared up on her tripoded lower arms, raised her uppers over her head, and narrowed her eyes for a look around the elevator foyer to her left. The controls would be hard for a quaddie to reach.

Besides, she'd know she was more likely to run into downsiders there. I think she went this way. She raised her chin and shuffled determinedly offto her right on all fours. After a moment she picked up speed by changing her gait to a series of gazelle-like bounds in the low-gee of the spoke. Leo and Ti, of necessity, bounded after her. Leo felt absurdly like a man chasing a runaway pet. It was an optical illusion of the quadrimanual locomotion—quaddies even
looked
more human in free fall.

A strange rumbling noise approached around the curve of the corridor. Silver hooted, and skidded to one side against the outer wall.

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Oh, sorry! cried Zara, whizzing past torso-down and chin up on a low roller-pallet, all four hands going like paddle wheels to propel her along the deck. Braking proved more difficult than acceleration, and Zara fetched up beside Silver with a crash.

Leo, horrified, bounded over to them, but Zara was already disentangling herself and sitting up cheerfully. Even the roller pallet was undamaged.

Look Silver, Zara said, flipping the pallet over, wheels! I wonder how they're beating the friction, inside those casings? Feel, they're not hot at all.

Zara, cried Leo, why did you leave the ship?

I wanted to see what a downsider toilet chamber looked like, said Zara,but there wasn't one on this level. All I found was a closet full of cleaning supplies, and this, she patted the roller pallet. Can I take the wheels apart and see what's inside?No! roared Leo.

She looked quite put-out. But I want to know! Bring it along, Silver suggested, and take it apart later.

Her eyes flicked up and down the corridor; Leo was slightly consoled that at least one quaddie shared his sense of urgency.

Yes, later, Leo agreed, for the sake of expediency. Let's
go
now. He tucked the roller pallet firmly under his arm, to thwart further experimentation. The quaddies, he reflected, didn't seem to have a very clear idea of private property. Probably came from a lifetime spent in a communal space habitat, with its tight ecology. Planets were communal in the same way, really, except that their enormous size put so much slack in their systems, it was disguised.

Habits of thought, indeed. Here he was worried over the theft of a roller pallet, while planning the greatest space heist in human history. Ti almost bolted when he found out what the rest of the assignment they had planned for him was to be. Leo, prudently, didn't fill in these details until the pusher was safely launched from the Transfer Station and halfway back to the Habitat.

You want
me
to hijack the Superjumper!yelped Ti.

No, no, Leo soothed him. You're only going along as an advisor. The quaddies will take the ship.

But
my
ass will depend on whether or not
they
can—

Then I suggest you advise well.

Ye gods.

The trouble with you, Ti, lectured Leo kindly, is that you lack teaching experience. If you had, you'd have faith that the most unlikely people can learn the most amazing things. After all, you weren't born knowing how to pilot a Jump—yet lives depended on your doing it right the first time, and every time thereafter. Now you'll know how your instructors felt, that's all.

How do instructors feel?

Leo lowered his voice and grinned. Terrified. Absolutely terrified.

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A second pusher, packed with fuel and supplies for its long-range excursion, was waiting in the slot next to theirs as they docked at the Habitat. Leo resisted a strong urge to take Ti aside and fill his ear with advice and suggestions for his mission. Alas, their experience in criminal theft was alltoo comparable—zero equalled zero no matter how unequal the years each was multiplied by.

They floated through the hatch into the docking module to find several anxious quaddies waiting for them.

I've modified more solderers, Leo, Pramod began unnecessarily—three of his four hands clutched the improvised arsenal to his torso. One each for five people.

Claire, hovering at his shoulder, eyed the weapons with dread fascination.

Good. Give them to Silver, she'll have charge of them until the pusher gets to the wormhole,said Leo.

They made their way down the hand grips to the next hatch. Zara swung within to begin her pre-flight checks.

Ti craned his neck after her nervously. Are we leaving right now?

Time is critical, said Leo. We don't have more than four hours till you're missed at the Transfer Station.

Shouldn't there bea—a briefing, or something? Ti too, Leo appreciated, was having trouble committing himself to falling free. Well,
jumped
or
was pushed,
after the initial impulse it would make no practical difference.

You'll have almost twenty-four hours, boosting at one gee to midpoint and then flipping and braking the rest of the way, to work out your plan of attack. Silver will be depending on your knowledge of the Supe rjumpers. We've already discussed various methods of achieving surprise. She'll fill you in. Oh, is Silver going?

Silver, Leo enlightened him gently, is in command.

Ti's face flickered through an array of expressions, settled on dismay. Screw this. There's still time for me to go back and catch my ship—

And
that,
Leo overrode him, is precisely why Silver is in charge. Your capture of a cargo Jumper is the signal for a quaddie uprising here on the Habitat. And that uprising is their death warrant. When Gal acTech discovers it cannot control the quaddies, it will almost certainly be frightened into an attempt to violently exterminate them. Escape must be assured before we tip our hand. The ship you must catch is out that way.Leo pointed. I can depend on Silver to remember that. You,Leo smiled thinly, are no worse than anyone else.Ti subsided at that, although not happily. Silver, Zara, Siggy, a particularly husky quaddie from the pusher crews named Jon, and Ti. Five, crammed into a ship meant for a crew of two and not designed for overnight use in any case. Leo sighed. The Superjumpers carried a pilot and an engineer. Five-to-two wasn't altogether bad odds, but Leo wished he could have loaded them even more overwhelmingly in the quaddies' favor.

They filed through the flex tube into the pusher. Silver, at the end, paused to embrace Pramod and Claire, who had lingered to see them off.

We're going to get Andy back,Silver murmured to Claire. You'll see.

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Claire nodded, and hugged her hard.

Silver turned last to Leo, who was gazing doubtfully atthe flex tube through which the crew he'd drafted had gone.

I thought the quaddies were going to be the weak link in this hijacking operation, jittered Leo, now I'm not so sure. Don't let Ti cave on you, eh, Silver? Don't let him bring you down. You have to succeed.

I know. I'll try. Leo . . . why did you think Ti was in love with me?

I don't know. . . . You were intimate—the power of suggestion, maybe. All those romances.

Ti doesn't read romances, he reads
Ninja of the Twin Stars.

Weren't you in love with him? At first, anyway?

She frowned. It was exciting, to be beating the rules with him. But Ti is . . . well, is Ti. Love like in the books—I always knew it wasn't really real. When I got to looking around, at our own downsiders, nobody was like that. I guess I was stupid, to like those stories so much.

I suppose they're not realistic—Ihaven't read them either, to tell you the truth. But it's not stupid to want something more, Silver.

More than what?

More than to be worked over by a lot of self-centered legged louts, that's what.We're not all like that . .

. are we?Why, after all, was he being moved
now
to lay a load of his own on her, when she needed all her concentration for the task ahead? Leo shook his head. Anyway, don't let Ti get confused between his Ninja-whatsit and what you're trying to do, either.