A Song Called Youth (85 page)

Ben shook his head in disbelief. “That’s . . . it’s not respectful!”

Watson went to sit on the coffee table directly in front of Ben, so close that their knees were touching. He looked into Ben’s eyes and said with all his earnestness, “It’s what Rick would have wanted. He would want whatever’s best for the Church. He was the glue that held it together. We have a world to make, Ben. A sacred war to fight. We need him for the morale of that war’s soldiers. Do you understand?”

After a moment Ben swallowed and nodded.

FirStep, the Space Colony, Life Support Central.

The Colony’s survival mechanism was operated from right here. This was the Colony’s autonomic breathing apparatus, its bodily thermostat, its immune system. And at the top of the spine that made the system work was a brain. It had been an electronic brain; it was now an uneasy collaboration between electronic and biological brains.
Rimpler.
His brain, his pared-back mind, crouching in the center of that webwork of wiring like a spider of gray matter.

Since the system was of priority importance to the survival of the Colony, it was multiply protected. It was equipped with an air lock to give it a buffer should meteor damage—or a missile—evacuate the air in the surrounding sections and out into space. It had its own temperature control units, special layers of insulation. And there were protections against sabotage . . . 

Russ could feel Rimpler watching him.

The security cam near the ceiling was whirring. Refocusing on Russ and Stedder as they entered the air lock between the access corridor and the Life Support Systems Primary Computer housing. Then the camera tracked down to look at the plastiseal box Russ carried. Did Rimpler know what was in the box? Did he guess that it was his electronic replacement?

Stedder wore an electrician’s yellow-paper jumpsuit, freshly printed out so that it rustled as he moved, and he carried a stainless-steel briefcase of tools and testers; he was a darkeyed, compact, muscular, deeply tanned German mechanic and elec-tech who was also the Colony’s low-grav wrestling champion. Most of his free time he spent training or soaking up solar radiation in the sun rooms. He was said to be gay. He had an air of perpetual boredom whenever he was at work, as if he were only putting up with this sort of thing until his shot at the Olympics came around.

He went into the air lock first, Russ right behind him. It was a rectangular room with a door on each end; the room was about the size of a walk-in closet, military green on the metal walls, ceiling, floor. Near the ceiling, to one side of the camera, was a ventilation grate. It made Russ think uncomfortably of the gas chamber he’d seen once when he’d done consultancy work.

The first door closed behind them with a hiss, and its locking wheel spun.
Clack:
locked shut.

Some of Stedder’s air of boredom vanished as he turned to look at the door.

“It does that automatically,” Russ told him. And there were two SA bulls on the other side who could open it from there for them, if necessary.

“Oh, yes. Yes, of course,” Stedder said. “I was just startled by the noise.” He turned to face the door into the Primary Computer housing, frowned, studying it. “You couldn’t get in?”

“We tried the lock about twenty times. It just won’t accept the combination. Rimpler’s over-ridden the . . . ” He broke off as Stedder looked at him, eyebrows lofted at the name
Rimpler.
Stedder didn’t know about Rimpler’s brain; the interface.

“It’s too hard to explain,” Russ said. “The main thing is—can you get us in?”

“I don’t know till I try.” Stedder examined the seals on the double-thick air-lock door. He pointed to a panel in the base of the door. It was bolted shut, the bolts the smooth kind that could only be removed from this side by force. “I could drill out those bolts, open the panel, try to trigger the door from inside.”

Russ nodded, and Stedder opened his case, squatted down to work.

Russ glanced down at the blue plastic box under his arm, then up at the camera. Wondering if Rimpler knew. Rimpler could monitor the whole Colony from here; might know that the New-Soviets had let them bring in another subsistence shipment. He might have listened in on the shipping clerk’s report on the cargo.

Stedder’s drills whined; tiny, spiral worms of metal sifted into small heaps on the floor beneath, and Russ thought,
I’m thinking of that thing in there as Rimpler. But is it Rimpler? It’s a portion of his brain, conceivably a portion of his consciousness.
It seemed they’d cut out everything but cunning, hatred, and a sense of humor so reduced, it was imbecilic. It seemed to have some memories. It had motivation, initiative. Is that enough to make it someone? Is it
Rimpler?

But what am I anymore? Used to be sure of myself, of what I was, what I believed in, who I believed in. Not now.

“There it is,” Stedder muttered, withdrawing the drill. He took a flat tool from his case, began to pry on the edge of the metal panel in the door.

“If we get in,” Russ said, “you’re going to have to help me remove something and put something else in. You might be a little . . . well, you might not like what you see. When you see it, don’t ask me why it’s there. It was a stupid idea. It’s incredible to me that Admin put it into effect.”

Stedder snorted, and, frowning with concentration as he worked on the creaking panel, surprised Russ by saying, “Ja, but you know worldly people have stupid ideas and carry them out all the time. There are very educated people who think that a real nuclear war is something a person can win . . . That the atmosphere, the ecology, that these things would absorb any amount of poison and everything would be fine.”

With a sulky rasp, the panel came free and fell on the metal floor with a rattling clank. He glanced up at Russ and again surprised him by grinning. “You have a look on your face that says you did not think I would speak that way, like a man who thinks, eh? You’re very much one of the Admin to think that, Russ Parker.” He took another tool from his case, looked into the panel, murmuring, “So we’re going to find one of those kind of stupidities in here? The intelligent person’s stupidities. That’s what I came to the Colony to get away from.” He bent to look deeper into the panel, put a hand on the door to steady himself. “Things like . . . ”

He screamed and went rigid, his neck cording, lips drawing back to show his teeth in a skull’s grimace, his whole body shaking. The smell of burning flesh, a wisp of smoke.

Russ kicked at Stedder’s hand, hard, with his rubbersoled boot. It clung, smoking, to the wall, seemed as immovable as the root of an old tree. But he kicked it again, as hard as he could, and Stedder’s hand came free of the panel.

Stedder stopped shaking. But he toppled onto on his back, face contorted, eyes staring. And the death’s-head grin was permanent.

Russ tried artificial respiration, tried to pound Stedder’s heart into re-starting. But it was like trying to revive a mannequin.

He stood up, shaking, and looked at the door to the computer housing. It was sealed with some nonconductive synthetic. The floor wasn’t electrified. But the door was wired for electricity. There shouldn’t have been enough voltage to kill a man. But Rimpler had seen to it that there was.

Russ bent, looked into the open panel. A cryptic tangle of wires. Some of them metal-cased. They could be electrified. Russ didn’t know anything about electronics. No way he could open the door on his own.

He looked up at the camera near the ceiling. Saw its lens, irising as it focused on his face. Maybe there was enough Rimpler left to reason with. “You . . . you built this colony, Rimpler. It is a legacy to you, man. Little by little you’re destroying it. Stop it. Give it up. Let me in. Let me help you .”

This is crazy,
Russ thought. It’s not as if Rimpler could reply.

But Rimpler did reply, in a way. With a hissing sound from up near the ceiling. The sound of air being sucked out of the air lock.

Russ stared at the ceiling gate, dumbfounded.

Rimpler was draining the air out of the room.

“Stop it!” he shouted. “This is . . . you’re . . . ” Hopeless to try to talk to him. To
it.

He turned to the door behind him. Tugged on the wheel.

“Oh, no.” Unbudgeable.

Already he felt pain in his ears, an ache in his lungs, headache as air pressure dropped. He took a deep breath, filling his lungs, and held it, afraid his lungs would collapse. He heard a pounding in his temples, felt the tautness in his chest become a strangling sensation as he turned, snatched up a wrench from the tool case, used it to bang on the door, frantically. Waste of energy.

Explosives. Had Stedder brought explosives? No, dammit, the council had vetoed that idea: blowing the door could damage the Life Support equipment behind it, send the whole Colony haywire.

The damn entry door was thick; the guards on the other side might not hear him. Hell, they might be gone.

Because maybe . . . maybe it wasn’t Rimpler who was pumping the air out. Maybe it was Praeger. Using this chance to get rid of him, lay the blame on Rimpler.

In which case he was a dead man.

Bang on the door. Can’t hear the sound of my own banging anymore. But keep banging.

My breath. Got to take a breath. Don’t. You’ll lose pressure in your lungs, they’ll collapse. Hold it.

The hissing had almost stopped. In its place was a high-pitched hum. Some effect of losing air pressure on his ears. God, the pain in his eardrums was unbearable. Something was going to burst.

Metal squealing and a cloud of darkness closing around him.

Rush of cool air on his face. Feeling cold. Then hot, a hot flash. A series of hot flashes rippling through him. He opened his eyes.

“Chief Parker?” the man in the helmet asked him. Directly overhead, looking down.

Russ took another deep breath. “I’m okay. You guys heard me bangin’, huh? Jesus Christ, you took your time.”

They were in Praeger’s office. Russ, Praeger, and Van Kips. The two of them on the other side of the desk from Russ. A desk built for two, it seemed. The room well lit this time . . . 

“We have no choice,” Russ was saying.

Praeger said, “A team of technicians, working at it for a while. Insulated equipment, pressure suits . . . ”

“Not enough. I’ve been looking at the security setup for the LSS. There’s more he can do. But what worries me is what else he’d do to the rest of the Colony.”

Russ remembered her touching Praeger, arousing him while the RM17 exploded on the screen, and a surge of nausea swept him.

He shook himself and took a printout from his pocket, passed it across the desk to Praeger. “It happened about the time Stedder was drilling through the door. A pipe exploded over the day-care center. Two kids nearly drowned in sludge. He meant that as a warning to us. He won’t let us tinker with him. He won’t give us time to break in the way you want to. He’s got the capability of killing us a section at a time or the whole Colony almost at once. I think he’s probably self-destructive.”

“Dr. Tate disagrees with you,” Van Kips pointed out, her voice silkily contemptuous. “He’s the psychiatrist, not you.”

“That thing—or Rimpler, if you want to call it that, he . . . it . . . it’s too unpredictable to take chances like that. We have to cut the power down to local battery units. Emergency minimum. He can’t operate on that. Life Support will hold out long enough for us to break in, and he won’t be able to stop us.”

“And the radics will use the blackout as an opportunity to run rampant.” Praeger put the tips of his fingers together. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

Russ stared at him. “What?”

“We have a report of a rumor you’re collaborating with the radics.”

“That’s bullshit.” Russ’s hands were suddenly clammy with cold sweat. “There’s always a hundred stupid rumors.”

“What you’ve proposed suggests to me that this particular rumor isn’t ‘bullshit.’ ” He pronounced the word in mocking imitation of Russ’s southwestern accent.

Van Kips was smiling, looking at the door.

Fucking hell,
Russ thought.

“I’m under arrest?” he said.

The door hushed open behind him. He felt the guards standing there.

“What are you going to do about Rimpler?” Russ asked.

“Work with a team. Protect them.”

“There is no protecting them, because they’re part of the Colony, and the Colony’s at Rimpler’s mercy.”

“Rimpler won’t endanger the Colony. His survival instinct will prevent that.”

“He’s too fucking crazy to have a survival instinct. Shit, for all you know, you cut out that part of his brain.”

“I doubt it,” Praeger said. “Anyway, we’re going to prepare carefully to make sure the operation goes as swiftly as possible. He won’t have time to do much damage.”

Russ snorted. “Not much. Just the acceptable casualties, right? A few hundred people, maybe. But what’s that, after sacrificing everyone aboard RM17? What’s a few hundred more ?”

Praeger rocked back in his chair, smiling faintly, unaffected. “Take Russ, here, to detention,” he told the guards. “He’s no longer Chief of Security. He’s unemployed now.”

“Yes, sir.”

There were two of them. Big, confident, quiet. Russ went between them down the hall, passive. But at the core he buzzed and shook, like Stedder dying.

They walked past his office. Russ stopped. “Any objection if I stop in, just send a note out on my line to let ’em know I’m out of commission? I had some meetings set up, and I don’t want to hang anyone up.”

The guards were mirror-helmeted, as they always were when they were busting someone. But their body language spoke hesitation. They turned to one another and spoke on their helmet radios, without external volume. Then one of them nodded. “If it’s quick.”

If he’d been anyone else but their former boss . . . 

He nodded, palmed his office door; the door slid aside and he went in. The guards waited politely outside. The light came on, and Russ sat at the console, typed out a quick message to Faid—a message he was instructed to take to Kitty Torrence.