Lifeline

“So, Mr. McLaris—” Tomkins stared at him, “about this business of stealing the Miranda. That was rather a selfish and ill-advised thing for you to do, don’t you think? On a par with one man in a lifeboat drinking all the water when everyone else is asleep.” His voice was rich and well controlled, as if from a lifetime of speaking in large auditoriums.

McLaris tried to keep his expression from changing. He wanted to cringe, confess his guilt, beg for forgiveness. He forced himself to count to five before he answered, to make his voice steady.

“My daughter has already paid the price for my selfishness. So has Stephanie Garland.” He swallowed, but found he couldn’t wait any longer to ask. “What are you going to do to me? Saying I’m sorry just won’t—”

“You’re going to be punished, of course,” Tomkins interrupted. McLaris felt cold.

“You are not going to get a free ride—no lounging around some padded cell, wasting your time watching the holos. I’m going to make you pay, put you to work.” He paused. “From now on, you are going to do some of my tedious administrative duties. Input the daily logs, study workforce and resource allocation sheets. Deathly boring stuff. Worse than working on an assembly line.”

McLaris blinked at the administrator. It all seemed so absurd. “That’s it?”

“It’s been punishment for me—I can’t stand doing those things.”

The chief administrator turned back to stare out the narrow window at the tread-marked lunar dust. He sounded tired. “Mr. McLaris, if I ordered your death, what would that accomplish? What good would it do? The difference between human beings and machines is that we learn from our mistakes.”

Tomkins extended a large hand toward McLaris. “Welcome to Clavius Base.”

McLaris walked carefully forward and gripped the administrator’s hand, feeling as if his own would be swallowed up in the other man’s broad palm. His first impulse was to be intimidated, but as he watched Tomkins move and talk, he picked up subtle hints. The chief administrator looked massive but gentle, and he was not as comfortable as he tried to appear.

“Besides, I’m afraid you’ve been vindicated. You can now say ‘I told you so’ and have people believe you.”

McLaris felt an ice ball forming in the pit of his stomach. “What do you mean?”

Tomkins closed his eyes and spoke without looking at anything. “On Orbitech 1 your director, Roha Ombalal, just ejected a hundred and fifty people out of the airlock. Ten percent of the population. He called it a reduction in force.”

McLaris sat down, blinking hot tears from his eyes. “Ombalal doesn’t have the spine to do something like that. Brahms was behind it.” He hung his head. “Now do you see why I had to get my daughter out of there?”

“I didn’t ask you for any explanations, Mr. McLaris. Our official response was outrage. We broadcast a direct communiqué to Orbitech 1, breaking off all contact.”

McLaris couldn’t seem to focus on what Tomkins was saying, or why it mattered. “What good is that going to do?”

Tomkins looked flustered. “Since we’re completely cut off from each other anyway, there aren’t a lot of things we can do. Think of it as a symbolic gesture.”

Tomkins motioned for McLaris to join him at one of the tables. He walked to a wall unit and came back carrying two steaming cups, then shoved equipment aside to make room on the tabletop. “Tea,” he explained. “No nutritional value, but we can manufacture the water and synthesize the flavoring. More substantial food is in shorter supply, I’m afraid.” He took a sip, slurping on the edge of the cup.

“At least there’s no shortage of personnel—not with two hundred extra construction people from Orbitech 2. I’m keeping everyone at low physical activity to reduce caloric consumption. I don’t know how much good that’ll do.”

The chief administrator set down his tea, stood, and paced back and forth. Tomkins seemed starved for conversation, and McLaris let him speak. Tomkins had a faraway look in his eyes.

“I wanted to attend the Air Force Academy and be an astronaut—my father worked for NASA at Langley—but I was too tall. Six foot ten. Silly reason, huh? Instead, I went to the Hampton Institute and studied astrophysics. I got here eventually, though. Been chief administrator three years now.”

Tomkins turned his gaze away, staring into the rising steam from his tea. “But I’m no administrator, Mr. McLaris. We don’t have a genuine manager on this entire base—we’re all scientists. My passion is radio astronomy, not red tape and paperwork.”

McLaris sighed, sensing what the man needed. “Please call me Duncan. I’d like you to.”

Tomkins walked back over to the narrow window in two long strides. Tapping his fingers on the thick glass, he indicated the shadowed surface of the crater’s basin.