Lifeline

As the colony loomed closer, Ramis groped out to touch the walls of the cyst, searching for stability, trying to fight off the sickening vertigo. He would be falling forever because there was no place to land.

Sarat had always saved him from falling before … but would Sarat still be there for him, even as Ramis killed him?

Ramis was cramped, hot. The air in the cyst was stifling. The pain in his elbows and knees ached without relief. He felt dizzy most of the time now, sick to his stomach.

Dr. Sandovaal had warned him that the suit might not protect him enough from the hard radiation. They had given him some kind of medication before departure, something that had made him uncomfortably queasy for more than a day, that would supposedly help him fight radiation damage. Now he just considered himself lucky that no solar flares had occurred. He would be a long time recovering from this journey … if he survived at all.

Sarat hardly responded to Ramis’s course-adjusting maneuvers anymore. Reluctantly, Ramis had had to resort to vicious jabs with the knife to get the sail-creature to turn even a little.

The L-5 colony filled most of the viewscreen, like a rotating dumbbell with two wheels spinning on a central axle.

Ramis reached out and stroked Sarat’s inner membrane through the thick jungle of wall-kelp. He didn’t know if the creature could feel him, or respond, but he continued his caress. It kept his hands occupied.

Ramis conserved the batteries in his transceiver, using it only occasionally to send a signal toward the American colony. He had long ago passed out of range of the Aguinaldo. Magsaysay had promised that they would continue to transmit to the people on Orbitech 1, telling them what to expect, telling them how they could receive the lifesaving supplies Ramis was bringing them. But Ramis had no way of knowing if those messages had been acknowledged, or even received.

Was anybody even alive on the Orbitech colony? The wheels’ metallic surfaces glinted in the sunlight, causing bright flares and smears on the video screen. The colony’s observation windows glimmered with light from the inside, but they were devoid of any wall-kelp, naked. It looked strange to Ramis, but he could not focus the video camera enough to see inside.

What if he found no one at all? What if they were all dead, a result of some rampage by the director, or some riot by the other colonists? How would he ever get back? He couldn’t even get inside unless someone caught the sail-creature, freed him, and took him in.

And Sarat was almost dead, which left Ramis with no way back home.

“Orbitech 1, I am almost to you.”

A loud meaningless crackle returned, but Ramis kept trying. He hated these line-of-sight, energy-conserving units. The Americans had to know he was coming. No one could mistake the sight of the giant organic solar sail drifting closer every day. He kept trying and almost missed it when a weak voice came from the receiver.

“###tech here###. Ready###receive you.”

As Ramis stroked the inner membrane of the sail-creature, he willed Sarat to remain alive just a short while longer.

They rapidly closed on the L-5 colony. Ramis’s stomach wrenched because he knew what that would mean for Sarat. In order to slow down enough to impact the colony without killing himself, Ramis had to collapse Sarat’s broad and beautiful sails—draw them in to cushion him from the crash.

Orbitech 1 gleamed on the monitor. He knew which end would have the docking bay, where people would be waiting for him—he hoped. Ramis watched the wheels turning, one clockwise, the other counterclockwise. Floating above, the discontinuous, near-invisible mirror hung where it could direct sunlight inside the colony. With each rotation of Orbitech 1, Sarat drifted nearer. Ramis swallowed. The picture on the monitor screen blurred, but it was just his eyes watering.

Moving slowly, like someone preparing to give a eulogy, Ramis withdrew the pressurized vial from its cellophane pack, along with the tiny explosive-driven carrier pellets.

He had to judge when the time was right. He had to know, and he could not hesitate.

Ramis had to rid himself of all sentimentality now, because he would not have time for it when the moment came. If he botched this up, he’d sacrifice Sarat for nothing—and make a martyr of himself, as well.

And he would have snuffed the last hope of survival for everyone inside the American L-5 colony.

He could see the details of the giant docking bay now, the Orbitechnologies logo, the viewing windows studded on either side of it. The colony swelled to fill the entire video screen.

Out here, somewhere, floated the hundred and fifty bodies that had been ejected from the airlock.