Half Life (30 page)

Belvew had paused to digest his latest biochemical-information meal when Seichi’s preliminary report was announced. The sergeant reacted predictably.

“What it
isn’t
may be a relief, but what
is
the stuff? Prions? Protein fragments? Not bits of lab, I hope.”

“If I’d expected prions it wouldn’t be in here—,” Seichi started.

“There could have been. Why
is
it there? I thought you’d sent it outside for the work.” Maria’s voice was less sympathetic than usual. “Are you trying to pull a Goodall?”

“No, Commander. I just wasn’t thinking of that. I—”

“Maybe that’s what’s happening to humanity. We’ve added so many things to the original saber-toothed cats in our environment that we can’t remember all the ones we should be careful about. Consider yourself reprimanded.”

“Sorry, Commander.”

“Are
there prions, or anything like them?”

“Well, there are what seem to be protein fragments. Whether they can replicate I don’t know, and I don’t see offhand how we find out.”

“There’s always the hard way. Better get them outside before we do.” This was Belvew.

“I was careful to keep them sealed. If I didn’t succeed, whatever can happen probably already has.”

Maria was firm again. “Nevertheless, get them out to the vacuum lab. That won’t compromise any data; zero-P must have done all it could to the stuff before it got up here. We don’t want to find out what putting it back into atmosphere might do, just yet.”

Belvew didn’t actually contradict, but couldn’t hold back.

“You mean we’d love to find out, but not by personal experience. Will it speed things up if I help you, Seichi?”

“I doubt it, with both your arms broken.”

“They’re splinted. I can use ’em to move low-mass stuff in free fall.”

“Don’t try, Sergeant. You’re an experimental subject until we find out how long it takes those bones to knit, if they ever do. Until then, no unplanned variables.”

“All right, Commander. But shouldn’t
someone
help Seichi? The faster that stuff is outside, the better, it seems to me.”

“You may be right, but the fewer the people who have a chance for cross-infection, the better, too. Get at it, Captain.”

“I’m topping off my suit. I’ll be bringing the main box out in about ten minutes. Check your doors. Status, monitor me and the suit as completely as you can.”

“I am doing so. Your own physical parameters are within normal range, and your suit shows no clear sign of chemical attack or surface contamination not attributable to oxygen and water. Straight up to the axis and then to the antidock pole remains the safest route. Captain, I would advise not touching any of the material until your suit is ready and you are back inside it.”

“Right. Sorry. I won’t do it again. I was thinking of saving time by fastening the sample cases together so I could take them along all at once.”

“Sensible enough, Seichi,” Maria approved. “Just wait till you’re back in armor before you do it. That may cost a little time, but I’m willing to spend it.”

“All right. The suit checks out now, and I’m getting back into it. Status, monitor my checklist.”

“Watching, Captain. I suggest you be sure the waldo function is deactivated before getting into it.”

This obvious recommendation would have been insulting from a human being but was within the range of Status’s programmed concerns. Seichi merely nodded; the processor, after all, was watching him. He sealed and checked the suit, and began to assemble into a single bundle the specimen container and the half dozen specialized labs.

The packing proved much more awkward than expected. The station labs were much larger than those grown and used down below, and were not intended to be portable even in free fall. The problem settled down to deciding whether to take out the specimen container first and come back for the labs, or reverse the procedure. Seichi opted for the former.

“I’m unsealing,” he reported. “I’ll have to make two trips; I can’t carry all the labs with the big box. I could bring one or maybe two, but they can’t readily be fastened to anything but tabletops and each other, and I’d hate to lose any of them once outside, so it’s two trips either way.”

Even with the smaller load, travel was not easy. Floating along free-fall handholds while carrying a half-meter cube—too large to be tucked conveniently under one arm—was another item no one had foreseen during station design, though the passageways were big enough and the effective gravity was much less than one percent. Yakama rested briefly, releasing his load and floating freely himself, when he reached the axis. He had the foresight to make sure he and his burden were a little off the line on the same side, so any drift would be in the same direction for both.

Status had not been told to stop the personal check of the armor, and now reported again.

“Captain, there is a film growing on both gloves and forearms of your suit.” Seichi was too startled to react at once, and Belvew had returned to his chemical studies; but Maria responded fast enough.

“Get your load out to the air lock, and stand by there until we can get an extrapolation. Don’t evacuate the lock until we have some idea of your chances of reaching the vacuum lab and getting back in before you leak—or pop.”

“Right. On the way.”

“Status, do what you can to correlate thickness of film with that wing failure while he’s in range of your eyes. When he goes into the air lock give an estimate of how long that suit will be space-worthy, and how much you trust the estimate.”

“Measuring. My sensing equipment can follow him through the lock and out to the vacuum lab.”

“Good, but report while he’s still in the lock. He won’t open until you do. That’s an order, Seichi. Sorry if it’s unnecessary; no insult intended. Ginger, you’re suited up.” It was not really a question.

“Sure,” the major lied, almost certain that Status wouldn’t comment. She was not going to miss any fun.

“As soon as Seichi is in the lock, go up and wait there until he comes back. If he doesn’t manage it under his own power, be ready for a rescue.”

“And contaminate my own suit and the rest of the station?”

Maria may not have thought of that aspect, but answered promptly but vaguely, “First things first.” Xalco may have had doubts about which were the first things, but she said nothing. If the commander wondered why a full two minutes passed before Ginger reported that she was unsealing her quarters, this too remained unvoiced.

“Don’t come out until Seichi is into the lock. That’ll be a minute or two yet. Is the film either spreading or going deeper, Status?”

“Yes. Both. It is growing much faster than it did on the aircraft skin, but it should be several minutes yet before the suit will be unsafe.”

“High temperature or different chemical environment,” muttered Martucci, obeying GO6 in about as few words as possible.

“Open the inner door as he nears it, so he won’t be trying to do two things at once,” Maria said, maintaining her close supervision of the procedure.

Status responded by opening the door at once; Yakama and his load were now within a hundred meters of the lock, floating at a higher speed along the ice-walled axis than Maria herself would have cared to risk, and using each brief contact with the hand-holds and even the sides of the axial tunnel to increase his pace. As he approached the door, he worked himself around so that he was floating in front of the case.

The commander tensed, imagining the man being flattened between the outer door of the lock and the massive block of extremely hard plastic he was carrying, but Seichi had recovered from whatever brief panic Status’s warning had given him and was planning sensibly.

He went though the inner door feet-first, with his arms holding the case as far above his head as he could while maintaining a firm grip on it. Status closed the door the instant it was clear, and a moment later Yakama’s feet hit the outer seal. Even after years of zero-G he had no trouble controlling a deep-knee bend, bringing the load to a halt with over a meter to spare for his own crouching body. He took the block’s relatively mild impact on the back of his suit at shoulder-blade level. Maria, whose screen had been shifted to an appropriate viewpoint by Status without orders, resumed breathing.

“You have four minutes on worst-case assumption before the handling extremities of your suit are likely to yield to internal pressure.”

“What’s the other extreme?” asked Yakama.

“You don’t want that,” cut in Maria. “Can you get out and back in four?”

“Probably not. I’ll go slowly, just the same. I’d hate to lose this thing now. Status, open this door and the lab one.”

Seichi’s goal was a ten-meter cube made from interior partitions of the original ship, attached by a set of cables to a dozen points of the rotating station, “orbiting” under their restraint a hundred meters from the “north” pole, the one opposite the jet dock. It appeared from the pole to remain at a particular spot on the horizon, projected against the disk of Titan.

More cables held a comparable mass of ice equally far on the other side of the pole, minimizing precession forces, which, with the station’s rotation period of two hundred twenty minutes, were small enough anyway. The unit looked like a very small target in a very large field, but the man made no comments as he hooked a leg about one of the cables without actually touching it.

He took a firm grip with both arms around his burden, pushed away from the station with the other leg, and promptly cocked that one around the cable too.

It had been a good push-off; he traveled the hundred meters in less than two minutes, with only an occasional contact between the cable and either leg.

For just a moment he floated unrestrained as he transferred from the cable to the doorway, keeping his mind firmly away from the hopelessness of even an attempt at rescue by the damaged and nearly fuelless ship only a kilometer away. Then he was inside and Status had closed the portal. Without too much haste, since carelessness could waste the risks taken already, Seichi attached the case to a worktable before asking anything about his personal safety.

“How’s my suit?”

“The estimate is indefinite. The film seems to have stopped growing since you reached vacuum. Your suit material is, however, dangerously thin in several spots. You should be most careful of the affected hands and forearms. I strongly suggest that Major Xalco bring the other load from your quarters, rather than have you exposed to decompression before your suit heals.”

Belvew rejoined the conversation. “Is that risk greater than having her suit infected?” he asked.

“Since the infection is stopped by vacuum—”

“Stopped permanently?”

Status admitted ignorance.

“We’ll have to find out anyway.” Maria took control again. “Seichi, get in as fast as possible without overstressing your gauntlets. You’ll have to do your own guessing at what stress they can take right now. Status, watch for any resumption of film growth on his suit. Ginger, stay where you are until he’s in the lock.”

Ginger reacted typically at once. She was, after all, of theoretician grade. “Shouldn’t I go to Seichi’s place and get that other stuff? The sooner it’s out of the station, the better.”

Maria hesitated just a moment; even with Xalco suited up, the mental taboo against entering anyone else’s quarters except in a medical emergency was stronger than mere regulations. The major was not wrong; GO6 had been applied before, in slightly strained fashion perhaps, to orders as well as ideas.

“All right,” she finally said. “It’s nice to know vacuum will take care of it at least temporarily, though I hope we don’t have to use that on the whole station. Go on, Major.”

Ginger didn’t get far. She heard directly only the outer lock opening, since Yakama was outside; but the thud of its closing was covered by another announcement from Status.

“The captain’s right gauntlet has ruptured. He is inside the lock. There seems no time for gradual pressurization. Major, I am performing inner-door emergency opening; get a handhold.” Ginger failed to manage this, since no handhold was in reach, and was kicked toward the barrier by the gust as air filled the chamber. The sight of the drifting form in the lock left her undecided for a moment, until Yakama’s voice uttered in very firm, though rather hoarse, tones, “I don’t
like
vacuum.”

“Did you get much of it?” asked Maria.

“Enough. I was inside the lock when it happened, but the outer door hadn’t closed yet, and even with it closed the lock has a lot more volume than my suit. I didn’t pass out, though.”

“Good. Get back to your quarters and have Status give you a complete checkout. Ginger, go with him and get the other package. Have Status check your armor for infection before you go out, and keep repeating it; if possible, get your load to the outside lab too. If your armor
is
infected by then, tell me and wait for orders. There’s worthwhile work to do on the stuff out there, but I still have to think about the whole station. Now we have something which can infect aircraft material in the Titan environment, which is not a vacuum. That something, after several hours, can still attack suit tissue. This second infection, however, is
stopped
by vacuum.”

“Maybe not the same something,” interjected the doctor.

“True. And I’m not saying this affects our main project, but there are only nineteen of us left, and anything which seems likely to threaten all of us needs to be understood.”

“Commander, there are only eighteen left,” came the voice of Status. “Captain Yakama is dead.” There was no pause for dramatic effect for this announcement, which helped reverse the slowly growing attitude among some of the staff that Status was a personality.

Ginger lost control of her load for a moment; Maria and several others repeated the last word in various tones of disbelief.

“But he seemed all right at the lock, and on the way back. He talked and moved well enough.”

“He said only a few words, right after recompression. He was indeed conscious and coordinated then. He died forty-five seconds ago from suffocation. His lungs are nearly full of blood. There is no procedure available to me to repair the injury.”