Lifeline (18 page)

She leaned forward out of the net chair, got to her feet, and moved around behind him. Aiken sat stiffly, afraid to move. He gripped the edge of his work surface. Around him the details of his lab—the enclosed petri dishes, the culture flasks, the fermentation locks—stood clean and quiet.

He jumped when she touched him.

Linda rubbed his neck, ran her fingernail down the side of his face, lingered on his lips, then traced down to where a few curly chest hairs stuck out from his lab smock.

“I think we could come to some … sort of agreement.”

Aiken sat perfectly still. It excited her. There was something like a rabbit about him. He swallowed, then spoke in a whisper, “My wife—”

Linda smiled. That made it even better; she had forgotten about his wife. “I think you can work something out, Daniel—considering the stakes.”

She moved to leave, but at the door of his cubicle she paused and turned. “You can find the location of my quarters. I’ll expect you there, oh, let’s say, twenty-two hundred hours?”

She knew from his schedule that he always spent time at home then.

Before he could stammer anything, she left.

***

Chapter 24

ORBITECH 1—Day 34

The American colony was full of strange smells, odd sounds, subtle changes that continually reminded Ramis that he did not belong there. This was not his home. The
Aguinaldo
might as well have been a million kilometers away.

He saw a lot of metal here—ordered cubicles, color-coded sections. He missed the natural chaos that made the Filipino colony seem more a world than a construction project.
Orbitech 1
was like an office building, precisely arranged and cold, not a place to live. Even the occasional “living walls,” showing holographic scenes from Earth, did not help. A smattering of angry graffiti marred the pictures, taking away from the forced naturalness.

Ramis felt exhausted, impatient, and depressed all at once. He had focused on the challenge, the mission, the risk of flying the sail-creature through open space against all odds, to arrive here.

Ramis spent two days resting under medical observation, being treated for radiation exposure and having his blood checked. Brahms allowed him to use the
Orbitech
communications center to radio back to the
Aguinaldo,
where he spoke of trivial things with Magsaysay. It wasn’t until partway through the conversation that Ramis realized Brahms had put him on the ConComm, broadcasting the conversation to everyone on the other colonies.

Dr. Sandovaal asked him several specific questions about Sarat—how long the sail-creature had survived, how difficult was steering, and so on—which Ramis answered as best he could. He had checked on the care of the sail-creature embryos he had brought with him. Everything seemed to be fine, but it would be nearly a year before they reached maturity. He was stranded here until then.

Now that things had settled down, he felt as if he were waiting for something else to happen. He had nothing to do, no place in this industrial research station. He could speak formal English, but the American colloquialisms confused him and made him feel inadequate. He had brought the wall-kelp, they had thanked him, and now they wanted him to … ride westward?
Ride off into the sunset
—that was the right phrase. He shook his head. He felt trapped here, isolated from the things he had taken for granted.

Ramis couldn’t Jump in the zero-G lab spaces. The cubicles were too regimented, serviceable rather than livable. Even his clothes were uncomfortable: an Orbitech-issue jumpsuit made of some sort of superfiber—weavewire, they called it. He remained barefoot in a small effort to imitate life on the
Aguinaldo.

His new quarters seemed alien, too, as if he had trespassed in someone else’s room. Some personal possessions had been removed, but much remained from the previous occupant. The quarters were spacious, with a window plate, a large bed, and a small entertainment center. Posters of famous Earth restaurants covered the walls: the Brown Derby, Antoine’s, M&J’s Sanitary Tortilla Factory. Brahms told him that it had been the suite of Tim Drury, one of the division leaders on
Orbitech 1.

When Ramis asked the director what had happened to Drury, Brahms had stared at the wall for a long moment. “He was a victim of our first reduction in force.”

Only after Brahms left did Ramis realize what he had meant.
Orbitech 1
suddenly seemed too small for him.

Ramis spent the next two days wandering the colony. He went to look at the sail-creature embryos in their monitored incubators; he watched Orbitech workers attach nodules of wall-kelp to prime spots around the station.

He roamed free. A few people tried to touch him, as if to bless themselves with his optimism, his brighter outlook toward the future. Then one woman with a long, gray-blond ponytail shouted at him for disrupting her train of thought, and continued shouting long after he had left.

Not everyone viewed him as a savior. Some saw only the extra mouth to feed. His fears and loneliness increased, making him want to run and hide.

He found himself in the Japanese garden.

The foliage brought back memories from home. The enclosed acre lacked the lushness of the greenhouse alcoves on the
Aguinaldo,
and the humidity was not as high. Still, it seemed more peaceful here than anywhere else on the colony, away from the brooding paranoia in the corridors, the signs of restless frustration, the lowered voices of the other workers.

Bright stars shone like ice picks through the crystal port above, and light the color of melted butter seeped from banks of lamps at the intersection of the wall and the ceiling. Recorded bird song broke into the air at regular intervals.

As Ramis wandered about, a fountain splashed slow drops through the canopy of green. He saw traces of cleared vegetation, bare spots in the imported soil, furrows that had been scooped deep enough to expose a gash of the metal deck.

The small harvest from the Japanese garden could never sustain
Orbitech 1.
Even Ramis could see the scope was all wrong—too much food needed in too little time.

Along the periphery swelled several masses of wall-kelp, recently planted and growing well. The thick strands of coarse greenery were reaching up the wall toward the crystal port that allowed sunlight into the atrium. Ramis wondered if the wall-kelp would eventually dominate the other plants in the garden, swallow them up.

He found himself walking by the fountain again. Droplets of water curled from the apex back to the stream, falling in slow motion. He felt serene, quiet and peaceful, as the fear faded back like fluttering wings on the edges of his thoughts. The garden insulated him from the crowds, the horror of the RIF the people had gone through.

His thoughts turned to home, then to Earth, to the place he had lived before coming to the
Aguinaldo.
His memory of the Philippine Islands grew dimmer with each passing year.

Salita … was he still alive? His last evening with his lanky older brother rose like a ghost to the front of his mind—the Philippine president’s reception at the Hotel Intercontinental for all the departing
Aguinaldo
colonists, the throngs of people lining Manila’s boulevards. Though he was only ten years old, Ramis had managed to sneak Salita into every whirlwind event. No longer barefoot, dressed in the finest barongs, the two had stayed up most of the night before Ramis left, chatting and drinking San Miguel in their hotel room. Ramis felt tough and mature to have his own room, to drink beer with his brother, to sit and talk with Salita as though they were men.

Salita had squirmed back and forth on the bedspread, mussing it, then running his fingers over the red fabric nubbins. His skin was creamier than Ramis’s, and his brown eyes looked like weak coffee instead of having irises so deep they swallowed the pupils.

Ramis took a long drink of his beer. The inside of his head already seemed to be ringing with a TV test pattern from the alcohol. Salita pocketed the packs of matches in the hotel ashtrays. Ramis took off his stiff, polished dress shoes and thumped them on the floor.

When Salita frowned at the wall, unwilling to look at his younger brother, Ramis could see the angular contours emphasized on his face. For a moment he could clearly see what Salita would look like as an old man.

Ramis said, “I wish you were coming up with us.”

“I do not want to go.” Salita wiped his mouth and cradled the beer bottle between his thighs. “I will be glad to untie myself from our parents. They never loved me much anyway—not like you.”

“You talk like a crazy water buffalo.” Ramis shuffled his bare feet on the carpet, wiggling his toes. Outside the door he could hear rowdy attendants running down the hall. “They let you do what you want, Salita. They do not hover over you. You are free. They will allow you to stay here, and you are only sixteen. I think you must be the special one, not me.”

The expression on his brother’s face didn’t change. Salita stared at the wall. The inactive stereo tank in the corner remained a neutral gray, absorbing all light from the room. “And you, my little brother, would not know a fact if it rose up and bit you on the butt.” He drew moodily on the San Miguel bottle.

They heard more sounds from the celebration below, but Ramis was wrapped up in his own little world. He stretched his hands over his head and yawned, uncertain how to distract his brother from his depression.

“Come on, Salita—finish your beer. I need to sleep.” With the first planeload of colonists leaving for the Australian launch site the following morning, the shouting and merrymaking outside would soon be over as well.

Salita threw back his head and gurgled the remaining beer, but reached into the ice pack for another.

“Salita, I said I’m tired—” Ramis heard a whine in his voice. He had wanted it to sound like a stern reproval.

“Sit down, little one.” Salita motioned with his new beer, and Ramis dropped back to the floor with a scowl. Salita took a pull on the bottle before speaking. Ramis had to lean forward to hear his words.

“You are tough, Ramis, and I am proud of you. But sometimes you do not look at what is right in front of your face. People will think you are stupid if you fail to notice the obvious. I was your age when I realized why I was always treated so coldly at home. Just look at me!”

Ramis fought back conflicting emotions. Salita was proud of him!—but he did not understand what his brother meant. The silence in the room was broken only by the low humming of the air conditioner. Salita stared at him, then frowned in disgust, partially drunk himself. He took the bottle of San Miguel with him and went to the door. When he opened it, the sounds of the music and people grew suddenly louder.

He turned and locked eyes with Ramis. “Have a good trip, little one. Take care of yourself, and learn how to be brave and strong. I will look up at the stars and think of you. Maybe I will even wave.”

He turned his back and closed the door behind him, muffling the outside sounds again. Ramis got up off the floor and lay on the bedspread Salita had wrinkled. It was still warm.

He had never seen his brother again.

Now, his parents were both dead in an accident on the
Aguinaldo,
and the War had probably destroyed the Islands, and Salita as well.

It had taken him years to figure out what Salita had meant. He was tall for a Filipino, with lighter skin and eyes. His features looked different, softened. His birthday celebrations had always been subdued. Their father had always treated Salita with something akin to resentment. Ramis could not remember when he had realized that his mother must have been pregnant before she and Agpalo had been married. That would have been enough to shame them, with their strict Roman Catholic upbringing.

But he wasn’t sure that was enough to explain everything. Both parents had been students at the University of the Philippines. His mother had lived in Angeles City, where she had grown up, near the American military base. But before graduating from the university, both Agpalo and Panay had dropped out, married, and left Angeles City. With a promising future there, they had moved north, instead, to run a Sari-Sari store in Baguio.

They had ignored all their biochemistry training until Dr. Sandovaal had tracked them down for the
Aguinaldo
assignment. Ramis’s father had seemed afraid to leave Baguio, afraid to go near the Americans, whom he often cursed at home.

People will think you are stupid if you fail to notice the obvious.

After all he had been through—the flight through space, killing Sarat, being trapped here where a hundred and fifty people had died because of some administrative order—why did this still upset him so much?

One of the recorded bird songs rang out next to him, and he whirled, ready to yank the speaker free and step on it, even with his bare feet.

Then he recoiled in shock as he saw a woman standing behind him, smiling with deep empathy. Ramis rubbed his eyes and tried to regain his composure.

She spoke softly. “Are you all right?”

Ramis started to answer, but his voice caught in his throat.

The woman continued to speak in a controlled, warm voice. Her eyes were brown but bright, quick to move and focus on anything that captured her interest. A few dark freckles dusted her cheeks and forearms, like tiny splashes of tan from a melanin experiment gone wrong.

“You’re the Filipino boy.” She held out her hand. “I’m Karen Langelier, one of the polymer chemists here.”

Ramis took a deep breath. “My name is Ramis. I am sorry—I was thinking.”

She smiled. “I come here often, too, and I think I know how you feel. If you want to talk later, I’ll be here to listen.” She turned to go. “Look me up.”

Ramis studied her face for a moment. A few crow’s-feet spread from her eyes. She looked old; but then, at sixteen, everyone over twenty looked old to him.

“Thank you,” he said. “I have not made any friends here yet.”

She smiled again, and for a moment Ramis thought she was going to hug him, and he didn’t know if he wanted that or not. He was afraid to let himself feel vulnerable on this foreign colony.

“Come to my lab and I’ll show you what I’m working on. It’ll be nice to talk to someone who isn’t paranoid.”

Before Ramis recognized the fear in her own eyes, Karen had walked away. All he could hear was the cool rainfall of the fountain.

***