Lifeline

“We must grow wall-kelp on a massive scale. Use all our available space. Cover the viewport end, the athletic fields, the grazing lands.”

The senator from Cebu interrupted. Her accent was heavily Americanized, since she had grown up near the bases. “But wall-kelp tastes like water buffalo manure. And it damn well looks like it, too.”

Ramis thought Dr. Sandovaal was going to jump over the table and strangle her. “I presume you have tasted both?” he asked.

Over the snickers, the chief scientist shook his fist at the statistics displayed in the holotank. “We have the means to survive—for all people on the Aguinaldo. But we must act now. So what if the wall-kelp’s original purpose was animal feed? Will that make you lose sleep at night when you are starving? So what if it tastes worse than tofu or taro? It is protein, and we can produce it fast enough to meet our needs.”

The chamber erupted into scattered shouting. Ramis found himself realizing with a half-smile that Dr. Sandovaal had done it again: shocked his audience, then rubbed their noses in the only possible answer.

Chapter 4

ORBITECH 1—Day 1

Fifteen minutes! Duncan McLaris fought with himself not to call up the time again. He sat in the plush viewing chair in the Orbitech 1 observation alcove. His five-year-old daughter Jessie squirmed and tugged her hand from his grip.

“Not so hard, Diddy!”

He had turned all the lights down so that the reddish glow did not interfere with the panorama of stars. Normally the ocean of space filled him with awe, made him forget all the trivial problems of being Production Division leader. Now, those “trivial problems” outweighed anything he had ever endured before.

The first scattered reports implied that a good portion of Earth’s population had survived the War, but most communications were wiped out from the electromagnetic pulse. As McLaris had guessed, they were utterly incapable of sending any more supply ships, probably for years. That didn’t surprise him: when only one of the early NASA shuttles had exploded, the entire nation’s space program was grounded for three years. This disaster was much more extensive than a single explosion. Their entire industrial base had probably been knocked to its knees.

As Orbitech 1 rotated, the great shining ball of the Moon swung into view. It seemed so bright, like a bowl filled with hope. Clavius Base lay on the Moon’s surface. The oldest of the space settlements, it had been set up as a stepping-stone for the Lagrange colonies. And since supply shuttles had a vastly more difficult job entering and leaving the Moon’s deep gravity well, Clavius Base had been forced to become self-sufficient much sooner than the other colonies.

“Diddy, what star is that?” Jessie’s voice interrupted his thoughts.

McLaris looked where his daughter pointed. Her little finger smeared against the crystal, but he had learned to sight along her arm. “That’s called Fomalhaut, honey.” He wasn’t certain, but he knew she’d be disappointed if he didn’t come up with some answer for her. “The Arabs named it.” She giggled at the strange-sounding name, but seemed satisfied.

She wore her reddish-brown hair in braids. McLaris had never been able to decide if Jessie really preferred her hair that way, or if she just wanted her father to spend the time braiding it.

The first time he had tried it, back when his wife was still on Orbitech 1, McLaris had done nothing more than make a tangled mess of Jessie’s hair. Taking it upon himself as a father’s duty, he sat up late by the light of a small glow-lamp, toying with strings in his hand, studying the diagrams and instructions he had called up on the big screen of his terminal, practicing how to braid hair. Diane slept restlessly in their bed beside him, probably dreaming about hills and trees and fresh air.

McLaris glanced at his watch again in the observation alcove. Close enough. “Ready to go, Jessie?” He tried to sound cheerful, to keep the quaver out of his voice. “Take a last look.”

“Ready.” She grasped her toy synthesizer/keyboard (she called it her “keeburd”) like a teddy bear. McLaris had built it for her from a kit, and she played it relentlessly. He had told Jessie she could take only one of her toys with them tonight, and her decision had not surprised him.

He drew a deep breath and stood up, adjusting the lights in the observation room back to normal. He blinked, waiting to become accustomed to the brightness. Jessie rubbed her eyes but grinned. She didn’t look at all worried—she seemed to have a lot of faith in her daddy’s abilities.

McLaris didn’t want to stop, didn’t want to think. He would become frightened if he wasted too much time thinking. This was not the type of decision one made rationally.