Lifeline

“We must strive harder. We must find a way to save ourselves. We need to share the results of our work, so that others may use your discoveries in tandem with their own. Save us … you have to save us.” The image of Brahms faded into the gray, neutral pattern of the holotank.

Karen and the other researchers buried themselves in their work, frantically trying to make breakthroughs as fast as they could. They never said anything aloud, but they knew a useful discovery would keep their name off the RIF list.

The once homey touches in the labs now seemed pathetic. A spider plant drifted in the corner near a workstation, growing in random directions, sending streamers straight up into the air and sideways in search of gravity. Over by the lounge area, colorful personalized coffee containers, some with lids hanging open, bobbled untouched against the wall. The times when anyone could casually drink or eat throughout the day had passed, leaving nothing but harried work and restrained hysteria.

Karen Langelier did not want to know how well she had done in the Efficiency Study. When Brahms had collected his data, she had just separated from Ray, and she had taken too long to adjust to work up here … if she hadn’t been riding the coattails of her weavewire discovery, Karen might have joined the first hundred fifty.

The airlock door at the end of the laboratory complex opened and a chunky young woman drifted in. She wore a pale green jumpsuit with the insignia of Orbitech 1 prominent on the left shoulder—the work outfit that had become the uniform for Brahms’s watchers. Karen kept a scowl from her face. She looked away, feigning concentration on her work.

Nancy Winkowski grabbed hold of the handbars on the wall and pulled herself across the room. Her hair was carrot orange, and she had a carpet of freckles on her arms.

Winkowski stood still for several moments, hovering close beside her. “Hello, Karen.”

Karen watched her, lips pressed together.

Winkowski floated up and steadied herself on the table. “Thinking about new lines of research? Are you going to save us all?”

Karen turned her gaze away. She resented how easily she felt helpless and intimidated. “That’s the general idea. But it’s hard to concentrate with distractions.”

Winkowski glanced at the mass spectrometer; somehow, she even noticed the bobbing flask near the wall where Karen had thrown it. Her sarcasm grew stronger. “Well, I’m sure it’s going to be something big and exciting.”

Nancy Winkowski had been Karen’s laboratory assistant. Never terribly helpful, Winkowski had always carried a grudge, angry that she had been with Orbitechnologies Corporation for years and had not advanced beyond technician, while newcomers from Earth, like Karen Langelier, just walked into important positions.

But that had all changed, now that Brahms had picked her as one of his watchers to look for ways to make the colony run more efficiently. It seemed so patriotic, and logical at first—after all, with everything so scarce, hoarding and laziness could not be tolerated. And now Winkowski apparently felt she had to get back at Karen, to harass her as much as she could.

Karen expected it, in a way, but she was still disappointed in her former assistant. Winkowski was not stupid. She was ambitious, but impatient, and she preferred to have her way directly rather than take the trouble to earn her position.

Karen glared at her, then snatched her Pyrex flask from the air and began to reheat the polymer batter. She worked her jaw, keeping her face turned away from Winkowski. “If you’ll excuse me, Nancy, I’m doing important work here.”

Satisfied at Karen’s reaction, Winkowski turned and drifted along the laboratory areas, puffed with her own importance.

Winkowski left through the opposite airlock, leaving it open so that one of the technicians had to drift over and close it. The other teams in the lab looked at Karen sidelong, trying not to be too obvious with their stares. They seemed relieved that Winkowski had chosen her, instead of one of them, as a scapegoat.

Karen found it difficult to breathe. Orbitech 1 seemed dark and forbidding—a prison with no escape, where jailers and prisoners all waited side by side on Death Row.

By habit, she shut down her equipment, ran through the checks, and secured her experiments. It would be only a matter of time before the researchers started sabotaging each other’s work. The idea made her feel sick inside.

She needed peace. Quiet. And escape.

The door of the Japanese garden sealed behind her, and she stood in silence, breathing the humid air. She leaned back against the camouflage-painted wall, smelling the plants, listening to the artificial bird song. She heard no one else. Few people took the time to relax anymore.

Karen wondered how long it would be until the colonists were driven to the point where they would break in here and strip the garden bare to eat the plants. Some of the leaves and stems were probably toxic—would starving people care?