A Song Called Youth (88 page)

FirStep, the Space Colony.

The Colony was blacked out. Dark. It looked like a dead thing hanging in space. Even the New-Soviet blockade ship, orbiting a spare twenty miles away, called in to Colony Comm Center to ask if the Colony was in danger.

But the Colonists were there, alive, sitting in the darkness and semidarkness. The only illumination came dull red from the emergency panels glowing over the doors.

Russ had switched off the Colony’s power. Only the emergency battery power remained, the bare minimum to sustain Life Support. And only for two hours.

Russ moved down the ladder in the eerie silence of the maintenance access shaft, his rubber-soled boots making almost no sound on the rungs. He wore a hard hat with a light on it, and where he looked, a blob of colorless light pooled on the wires, tubes, and microprocessor boxes lining the curved walls.

Russ saw LSSCH LEVEL stenciled on an oval hatch. He stepped onto a metal grid under the door and swayed, almost losing his balance on the narrow ledge. The black throat of the shaft yawned behind him. He clutched at the door, his fingers found the wheel, and he hung on; felt the shaft suck at his back, felt sweat tickle his neck.

He took a deep breath and got his footing. Then he turned the wheel and opened the door, climbed through. He was in front of the air lock that led to the LSS Computer housing. The door was open. It was dark in there, except for the faint, malevolent shine of a small, round red emergency light like a demonic eye.

He couldn’t go in.

If he went in, the door would slam and the air would suck away, and this time no one would come.

Rimpler can’t slam the door, can’t draw out the air,
Russ told himself
.
He hasn’t got the power to do it anymore. You’re safe. Go on in.

Russ took a step toward the door—and stopped when his lungs seized up, an ice giant’s fingers closed around his chest, tightening. He wheezed and shook with a surge of fear that was like an electric current.

There’s air here.
He forced himself to breathe, and take a step, and another, and he was inside, committed. The icy hand went away, and the electric feeling, replaced with a dull ache of fear.
He can’t do anything now! He’s shut down!

Russ saw the open panel on the door across the chamber and, in his mind’s eye, saw the tanned, confident German crouching there, reaching into the door and shaking with electrocution. Only his toolbox and the LSS Computer replacement unit remained, on the floor where they’d left them.

Russ said, “Come on, now.” He took the printout diagram from his pocket and bent, diagram in hand, beside the door. He looked at the diagram and matched it up with what he saw in the panel. He reached in.
Don’t touch it. Electrocution.
But he found the lever for the emergency manual over-ride, something that wouldn’t have worked while Rimpler was still powered, and pulled it down. The door clicked and moved out a quarter of an inch from the jamb.
If I put my fingers in it, he’ll slam the door shut, smash them.

Using up his reserves of willpower, he pushed his fingers into the margin and pulled the door back. It slid easily into the wall.

The little room beyond was all convoluted arrangements of component shelves, consoles, dials, numbers. He was dazzled by its cryptic intricacy.

Should have brought a tech with me,
he thought
.
I’m lost.

But he’d elected to come alone because of what had happened the last time he was here. A man had died. This way, he risked only himself.
Stupid. An act of guilt.
He had felt that, being Admin Security, he had some culpability in the death of all those aboard RM17.

After twenty minutes of looking and staring at the second page on the diagram, he found the unpretentious metal box containing the LSS Computer guidance unit, and what was left of Rimpler’s brain.

He unscrewed the panels, opened it. Inside was a black metal box that was sloppily soldered where it interfaced with other units. It looked jerry-rigged.

That was it. A big portion of a man’s living brain was in there, in that small box. And all that remained of the man. An ambition, a dream, and an irrational rage.

He clipped the wires, removed the box, his hands shaking. “I’m sorry, man,” he said.
Had
to say it. “Rest in peace.”

Russ put in the purely electronic unit, following directions on the diagrams.

Then, carrying the cybercerebral interface box, he found his way out and back up to the power station. An hour later the Colony lit up like a Christmas tree.

Russ took the box containing Rimpler’s brain to a jettison air lock. He thought he could feel impotent fury tingling from the box into his hands as he carried the thing into the air lock, but of course he was imagining that . . .

He left it there, in the air lock, and went back to the control chamber. He told the jettison tech, “Seal it.” The air lock sealed off. Then Russ closed his eyes, said a prayer ending in, “Ashes to ashes, dust to stardust. Be part of it forever.” And then he nodded at the tech, who pressed a button, opening the air lock so that the atmosphere in it, and the little metal box, were sucked out into space, and gone.

The Island of Malta.

Karakos could feel Torrence glaring at him as he came into the room. He saw Torrence from the corner of his eye, standing by the window.

Steinfeld was lying on his cot, staring at the ceiling. Levassier was sitting on the edge of the cot beside him, staring at the floor. They looked comical that way, one looking up, the other looking down.

Karakos felt the tension in the room like a bubble, pressing him back, so he stayed in the doorway. “They said you wanted me, Steinfeld.”

“Lila died.”

“Oh, Lord. God, no.”

“Yes.”

“The ambush was a terrible thing. I was almost shot myself, many times,” Karakos said. “I was lucky.”

“Yes.”

“Well . . . I am deeply sorry to hear—”

Steinfeld interrupted. “I am telling you this because I want you to take Claire’s radio duty. She was very close to Lila. I don’t want someone distracted by . . . well, I prefer she rest now. So report to the—”

Torrence had crossed the room, was standing by the cot, staring at Steinfeld, pointedly not looking at Karakos. “This is . . . ” He shook his head as if he couldn’t believe it. “It’s stupid. You’re going to let
him
on radio call? He knows we’re pulling out.”

Karakos looked at Torrence. “What?”

Steinfeld snorted. “He
didn’t
know. But I was going to inform him, true. Yes, Karakos, we’re moving out. In just under two days. The entire HQ staff. We’ll establish a new base in Italy. We’ll be leaving here in forty-eight hours.”

Karakos struggled to maintain his mask. He wanted to shout,
Damn you, no! That’ll be a day too soon.
But he said only, “Italy? Where?”

“Steinfeld . . . ” Torrence said warningly. “There’s no reason to tell him, especially when he’s going on radio . . . ”

“Shut up!” Steinfeld snapped, glaring at Torrence. Steinfeld had the look of a man who’s angry from weariness. “This man has worked with me for years. I know more about him than I know about you. I want no more of this idiotic divisiveness in our ranks.”

Torrence turned angrily toward Karakos, who stepped aside, and Torrence shoved roughly past him, stalked away down the hall.

Steinfeld said, “We’re moving to somewhere near the town of Bari on the coast of the Adriatic.”

“Bari!” Karakos was surprised. Bari and the entire coast around it was supposed to be an SA stronghold. The man Tellini whom they called The Cutthroat was in power there, an SA major who was said to disdain gas and the other mass-killing methods as being economically wasteful. “
You bring them to the sea, you cut their throats, you push them off the cliffs, one-two-three, no messy mass burials, no expensive gas chambers, simple, effective, and fast.”
The Cutthroat tolerated no rebellion within shaking distance of Bari.

Steinfeld smiled wanly and said, “You look surprised. You’ve heard the stories about Tellini. I’ll surprise you some more: Tellini is
our
man. The SA are not the only ones with extractors; we have one, just one, in Rome . . . Tellini was extracted by Witcher’s best man, put under extractor post-directive. Now and then he does things we want him to and doesn’t remember doing it. He will protect our base without knowing he’s doing it. The SA could put him under an extractor and find nothing. But the postdirective is in there.” He stood and put a meaty hand on Karakos’s shoulder. “I’m telling you this because . . . I want you to know I trust you. Because you have been with me so long. You are like part of me. I would sense it if there was anything wrong . . . ” He turned away.

Karakos was surprised by the warmth of the gesture and the tears in Steinfeld’s eyes.

Karakos clapped Steinfeld on the shoulder. “Thank you, my friend. You will not regret it.” And then he went to do his radio duty.

• 14 •

FirStep, the Space Colony.

Russ sat on the desk in the admissions area of Detentions and felt a foolish shiver of vicarious happiness as he watched Lester coming through the door, running to embrace Kitty Torrence.

Praeger was right, Russ thought. I’m too soft for this job.

Other prisoners were emerging. A group of women now: Judy Assavickian, Angie Siggert, an Oriental woman—Chu, or something—and the black twins, Belle and Kris Mitchell, hugging one another, crying with relief. Belle and Kris looking as if they’d been routinely beaten about the face.

A group of men came out, and then Faid, walking up to Russ in a tentative way, almost on tiptoe, and Russ knew he was carrying bad news.

“Chief—” Faid’s voice broke. “There are being only half as many prisoners as there should be . . . ”

Russ went cold inside. “Did you talk to the guards who were here?”

“Not yet, but the prisoners say the bloody bastards took people away every day for the last week and they never came back and, chief, I don’t thinking they are letting them go—”

“No. No, I don’t think they did either.”

“I wonder,” Praeger said, “if you have even the slightest inkling as to what’s going to happen to you, Russ, eh?”

Russ leaned against the wall of Praeger’s cell with his hands in his pockets. Praeger looked small and pink sitting in the corner of his white-walled cell. A guard in full uniform—except, they didn’t wear the helmets now—stood at the door. He was one of Russ’s people.

Russ said, “I can’t believe you did it.”

Praeger acted as if he hadn’t heard. “UNIC won’t stand for it. NASA won’t stand for it. The European Space Agency won’t stand for it. The American government.”

“We’ve been getting transmissions again. The American government has big problems of its own right now. The president of the United States is going to be impeached.”

Praeger laughed softly. “A silly rumor. Nothing will come of it.”

“They seemed pretty certain about it, friend. How did you do it, exactly? Did you put them alive and kicking out into space, Praeger? Did you at least kill them with sedation first? Twenty-seven men and women taken from the cells and vanished.”

Praeger shrugged and said offhandedly, “I told them to do it the way they thought best. I know the bodies were jettisoned.”

“I feel like hitting you. Just holding you down and hitting you.” The desire to do it was a buzz going through him. “But what I’m going to do is, I’m going to try you for the murder of the people on the RM17, and for the murder of the prisoners in your charge, and, if the jury agrees, I’ll execute you. And Judith. A
technicki
jury. I think they’ll go for it.”

Praeger stared at the floor. He swallowed so you could see it, and said, “You’re getting yourself in deeper and deeper.”

“I was in deep a long time ago.”

“Not Judith, Russ.”

“Oh, yes. If anything she’s worse than you are. But the Second Alliance bulls, all of them, will be considered on a case by case basis. The SA leadership is going to be prosecuted in the US, it seems. If that happens, I’ll ship them down.”

“Chances are none of this will happen,” Praeger said rather distantly. “The New-Soviets will . . . ah . . . ”

“They’re withdrawing. Most people think they aren’t going to fall back on nukes. We have too many missile-carrying submarines. They lost too many subs in the war. And anyway they’re scared of nuclear war as much as we are.”

Praeger said nothing.

“We’re overcrowded with prisoners, so I’m going to have some put in here. With you.”

Praeger shot him a look of pure venom.

Russ chuckled. “The idea of being in with the hoi-polloi repel you? Yeah, you’ll have to crap in front of them too.”

“This making you feel better, Russ? You think you can take this thing over and the people on Earth will shrug? Russ—the colony belongs to Earth. It belongs to those nations. They won’t take this.”

“Sure they will. We were about to go into the black, before the shit started coming down. We’re a moneymaking proposition. If we’re unanimous, if we’re united here, we’ll be making them an offer they can’t refuse. They need us, more and more they need us economically. Asteroid mining is beginning to really take off. And we’ll tell them what the Admin did. We’ll tell them about RM17 and about the other murders. And I think they’ll understand.”

“ ‘If we’re united here?’ You’re a Communist!”

“You say that like you mean I fuck my mother. No, I’m not a Communist. But I’m making Kitty Torrence and her husband the technicki reps. He for electrician ratings, comm ratings, and mechanics; she for the other labor levels. And
they’re
lefties. Me, I ain’t a lefty but I guess I’ve gone a ways to the left. And that’s
your
fault, Praeger, you did it to me, you pushed me to the left. I don’t like it over in the left: it’s cold over here.” He went to the door. Stopped just long enough to say: “And Praeger? You asked if jugging you with the scum was going to make me feel better? You know—I think it is.”