Lifeline

Brahms watched Duncan McLaris’s expression click like a slide show through a series of emotions—fear, betrayal, disappointment, outrage. McLaris seemed to think he was the target for assassination—that Brahms was trying to kill him for returning.

Brahms saw Terachyk’s men fly from the Phoenix, scattering throughout the bay. Terachyk himself cringed back against the vessel’s hull in helpless terror.

Nancy Winkowski propelled herself in, brandishing the club in front of her.

“Stop!” Brahms screamed over everything, hauling the deep voice up from the center of his chest. “Stop it! Put down your weapons! Winkowski, I order you to cease!”

He felt all the clubs aimed at him, ready to fly. He wondered why he wasn’t seeing his life flash in front of his eyes. He cringed, waiting to hear one more crack as a pipe found someone’s head.

Instead, after a brief pause, Brahms turned and said, “Welcome back, Duncan.”

McLaris held onto the Phoenix’s hatch. Had he not been in zero-G, he would have collapsed to the floor. A moment of awkward silence hung in the shuttle bay, leaving only the injured woman’s cries and scattered shocked murmurs. Clifford Clancy looked astonished and confused, but he did not move. No one else seemed to understand what was happening.

“Oh, put down your weapons, you idiots!” Brahms shouted. “Bloodshed is not the way to solve problems! I thought you would have figured that out by now.”

Terachyk shouted angrily, “Only if you answer publicly for what you have done, Curtis.”

Brahms sighed, trying to exaggerate how weary he was of all this. “You can have your trial. And then we will get on with doing what we need to do.” He felt very calm, unafraid now: the colony would survive.

He looked up and met Duncan McLaris’s eyes. The other man had shaved off his beard; he looked older, but stronger. McLaris seemed to comprehend the power struggle that was going on between Terachyk and Brahms.

The crowd broke into uncertain murmuring. The watchers and the mutineers warily eyed each other and lowered their clubs. Terachyk tried to make himself heard, but his voice sounded weak and broken.

“Everyone is invited to the assembly hall. We will broadcast proceedings against Director Brahms. We will divulge the files of the Efficiency Study for everyone to see. There will be an open discussion of what action Orbitech 1 should take against him.” He turned to stare at Brahms.

“If any,” Brahms added.

McLaris interrupted, directing his words to Terachyk. He spoke in a low voice. “I think you just may find that sometimes people are forced to make difficult decisions under extreme pressures, and sometimes they make the wrong choices.”

He paused. “But you’d better look pretty deep into your own heart before you cast the first stone, Allen.”

Brahms blinked, amazed that McLaris had stood up for him. Or was McLaris perhaps talking about himself and his own decision to steal the Miranda?

“Allen,” McLaris continued, raising his eyebrows, “aren’t you at least going to welcome me back?”

Terachyk blinked at him, as if he could not bear to deal with another variable at the moment. He started to say something, but McLaris motioned with his head toward the exit. “Save it for later, Allen. I’ve been cooped up in a yo-yo for three days.”

The people diffused toward the separate doors of the spoke-shaft elevators that would lead out of the docking bay to the toroidal hub of administrative offices, conference rooms, and business areas. Nancy Winkowski drifted past, perplexed but adamant. The pipe in her hands looked unwieldy, yet she held onto it.

Several of the other mutineers stayed with Terachyk. McLaris tried to remain among them, as if he thought he could defuse tensions further. “I want you all to meet Cliff Clancy. Dr. Clancy is the one who came up with the idea for the yo-yo, and he was also head of the construction engineers working on Orbitech 2 before the War.”

Clancy started shaking hands, moving out to the people, who seemed eager to embrace him and talk with him. He glanced back at McLaris, who nodded for him to go ahead. Terachyk waved his supporters away, indicating that they should move to the assembly hall. Others began to leave, thinning out the bay.

Brahms maintained his wooden smile, waiting his chance. When he finally saw most of the attention directed away from him, when much of the fear and anger had died down among the people in the docking bay, he grabbed Nancy Winkowski around the waist and snapped a whisper into her ear. “Follow me!” He clamped his grip down on her and gave an enormous push against the side of the Phoenix, propelling both of them across the bay, toward the bank of spoke-shaft elevators standing open on the opposite wall.