Lifeline

Darkness filled his head again. He had to save her. He refused to consider that he might be too late, that the decompression and loss of air would be almost instantaneous. His ears began to ring loudly. He couldn’t think, couldn’t concentrate. The only thing he could feel was horror—and then a baffled, nightmarish thought: why couldn’t he see her face? The space suit looked hauntingly empty, vacant, as if her body had vanished entirely.

But then he faded into the off-kilter sea of blackness again.

McLaris woke when they moved him. He blinked back a nightmare of a dwarf sitting on his back, stabbing into his spine over and over again with a sharp little dagger. Jessie … Jessie … Jessie!

His eyes focused again, rolling up to reveal a suited man hauling him from the wreckage of the Miranda. He couldn’t see the man’s face or his expression; his polarized faceplate was turned into harsh shadow. But McLaris stared at the name patch on his suit, glowing orange.

CLANCY.

He memorized the name, as if it was something sacred and important. Clancy. He couldn’t understand why Clancy was wearing the suit of an Orbitech 2 construction engineer—weren’t they supposed to be at L-4?

McLaris tried to call for his daughter, but only a hoarse sound came from his throat—like the sound of air escaping from a cracked faceplate.

Clancy could not understand him, but seemed to recognize that McLaris had returned to consciousness. His words came clearly into McLaris’s suit radio, filled with a mixture of anger and dismay.

“You idiot!” Not too gently, Clancy set him inside a rover vehicle. “Do you think we’re any better off here?”

Chapter 7

AGUINALDO—Day 8

Pliant green strands, gelatinous and damp.…

Luis Sandovaal ran his fingers through the fresh wall-kelp, allowing himself a broad grin since no one else was around. The solarium alcove looked like a lush, primeval forest. Thick fronds dripped from the walls and window plates.

A month ago, ten days ago, his kelp had been nothing more than animal feed. Now the Aguinaldo’s survival depended on it. President Magsaysay had told him to find a way to get wall-kelp to Orbitech 1 and to Clavius Base as well, perhaps even to the Soviet Kibalchich station at L-5. It was just like Magsaysay to worry about other people in trouble before he got himself out of the same mess.

The odor of sewage filled the air. Hidden vats circulated the Aguinaldo’s untreated wastes for absorption by the kelp nexus. Harsh light from the viewing ports glared into the chamber, washing over the wall-kelp appendages.

Under these ideal conditions, with all the nutrients and sunlight it could handle, the genetically enhanced kelp grew fast enough to be harvested daily. It was food—unappealing to the colonists, perhaps, but it would see them through. They could treat it, remove all taste, then add their own cayenne and soy and other chemical seasonings. If you were starving, who cared about seasonings anyway?

The other colonies were in much worse shape than the Aguinaldo, which the Filipinos had always intended to make into a viable home. The international Clavius Base, the American Orbitech 1, and the Soviet Kibalchich—they had been caught with their pants down. They had no contingency plans for disasters. Oh, certainly they had backup launch systems on Earth, agreements with other countries, reciprocal treaties with non-spacefaring nations, and even scores of shuttles—but none of that mattered now that Earth’s industrial capability had been removed. Even if some industry still functioned, the survivors would use it to rebuild things they desperately needed—not to send supplies to stranded space colonies.

American and Soviet technologies far outstripped what the Filipinos had available to them. With all that skill and knowledge at hand, the superpowers had more than enough ability to survive—but, Sandovaal thought, they seemed to have the wrong mind-set.

The superpowers relied too heavily on high technology—machines—when the key was biotechnology, genetic engineering. Living organisms were more sophisticated and adaptable than anything humans would ever build. The success of Sandovaal’s wall-kelp would put the Filipinos in the forefront of all future genetic research. He knew it. Especially now.

But how to get kelp nodules to the other colonies? The Aguinaldo didn’t have the capability for powered spaceflight, or a facility, or resources to create fuel. All of the stations were effectively stranded on desert islands—like living on the Philippine Islands before the age of boats. Sandovaal was the Aguinaldo’s chief scientist. He was supposed to come up with ideas.

He flared his nostrils, wondering how much responsibility one person could shoulder. It seemed the more he did, the more they expected of him.