Lifeline (2 page)

She wondered if others would call this a mystical experience. It didn’t matter if her colleagues laughed at her technique—they couldn’t argue with the solutions she found.

Extending radially from every molecule coursed a potential, a force she couldn’t see, perpendicular to the strand. The answer tickled the back of her mind, growing stronger, more insistent. Karen didn’t push herself, but kept her thoughts flowing, visualizing the strand, imagining herself moving along its length. The potential force remained. The same potential. And hurling herself in the opposite direction, jabbing at every molecular twist, she continued to encounter the identical binding force.

And suddenly she realized. The tickling solution burst into the front of her mind.

When she had first discovered how to master irrational numbers, Karen had wept from the revelation. Now her eyes stung with tears from the knowledge of how a one-and-a-half-dimensional strand—a weave—could grow stronger as it got longer, yet could remain completely flexible. The
potential
bound every molecule, and grew with the number of molecules. The distance between each molecule didn’t matter, she realized, because the potential was radial.

The implications overwhelmed her. She blinked and found herself kneeling on the floor. She stood up and closed the door, anxious not to have anyone interrupt her train of thought.

With the laser filamentation technique, she could make a strand that was, for all practical purposes, an infinite line of infinite strength and infinite thinness.

Karen Langelier hugged her knees and began to laugh to herself. No matter what, Ray’s caseload tonight could never compare with this!

Eventually, the single-molecular fiber, woven in one and a half dimensions with its own potential, became known as weave wire. Karen would have preferred something more elegant, but the name stuck.

L-4: AGUINALDO—Day 1 Minus 3 Years

Being at the
Aguinaldo’s
Jumpoff was like standing at the bottom of a gargantuan well. Ramis floated at one end of the zero-G core; he squinted along the lightaxis to the other end, ten kilometers away. Clusters of children played in the core, punctuated by sail-creature nymphs darting in and out, genetically programmed to keep the youngsters away from the central column of fiberoptic threads. Adults navigated the rim, leaping from bouncer to bouncer in a race around the circumferential Sibuyan Sea.

Living areas curled around the cylindrical side, snaking through the fields of taro and abaca, rice paddies, stadiums, and streams. Experimental sectors of wall-kelp covered most of the remainder of the
Aguinaldo’s
metallic structure.

As Ramis revolved around the lightaxis, it seemed as though his whole world might collapse and fall to the center. The sight always made him dizzy. But he smiled.

Ramis Barrera was thirteen, though smaller than others his age, and he fiercely fought against the perception that he was younger. He tried to keep aloof, avoiding others to make himself seem more independent.

Even three years before, back on Earth in the Baguio resort on the Philippines, Ramis had tried to be tough and snub his mother when she came to see him and his brother in the Sari-Sari store. Ramis’s parents owned the store, but they spent most of their time at the Scripps Institute with Dr. Sandovaal. Ramis and his older brother Salita often minded the store, and occasionally their mother dropped in to check on them. Salita would hide his newly opened bottle of San Miguel and the blue-seal cigarettes he had been sneaking; Ramis would jump down from the counter and pretend to be businesslike, to impress his mother with how mature he could act. The room would grow quiet, and they would be able to hear the sounds from outside. With only a stern look, his mother would send them back to work …

But now, up in the
Aguinaldo
and floating at Jumpoff, he wished she were here. The exciting but frightening vertigo waited for him above.

Ramis leaped straight up. His momentum bore him high into the zero-G core. Below, Jumpoff grew farther away as he drifted parallel to the lightaxis.

One of the sail-creature nymphs flapped gracefully by as it traversed the core. Ramis fumbled with his pouch and withdrew a hand-sized canister of compressed air. Sending out a quick jet, he changed his direction slightly.

Though it was early in the subjective day, other children had been playing for hours already. As he drifted away from a congregation of them, Ramis twisted himself around and gave a shot of air from the container, slowing his motion. Another burst ensured that he drifted back. The cluster of children showed no sign of noticing him, but he knew he was implicitly included in their game.

Half a dozen sail-creature nymphs moved around the vast core, looking like brownish-green balloons with stubby, finlike “wings.” The creatures swam through the air with an eerie and seemingly effortless grace, their flowing wing-strokes calling to mind Earth’s giant manta rays. The younger ones frolicked about, some playing with the children and being treated as pets, but most of them were content just to nudge stray children back toward the core.

Ramis played floater-tag with some of the other children. After one breathless chase, he managed to escape being caught by shooting a massive burst of air from his container and flying faster than the girl pursuing him could catch up.

He let himself fly unguided, feeling the breeze rippling his hair as he traveled across the core. Here, his small size didn’t hinder him—he was the equal of any of the other children.

He watched the rimbouncing race around the Sibuyan Sea, wishing he had been picked for one of the adult teams. His friend Dobo Daeng had tried out, too, but had withdrawn his application when his work with Dr. Sandovaal had taken a sudden new direction.

Ramis heard faint, distant cheering as the rimbouncing match became more heated. He watched the children playing; bored, he turned to the rimbouncing again, and then looked down.

His heart froze. The rotating wall of the
Aguinaldo
seemed to pull at him as it rushed past. Though it was still meters away, he had drifted much too close to the rim. The Coriolis winds buffeted him.

He pushed down on the compressed-air container. It hissed, then went silent. He had exhausted the air in his rush to win in floater-tag.

One of the colony buildings was rotating toward him. The squat building contained some of the electronics-maintenance equipment. It was only two levels high, but Ramis drifted helpless, unable to get out of the way as the wall swept toward him like a giant flyswatter moving at fifty kilometers per hour.

Ramis tossed the can away, hoping for even a little momentum transfer, and frantically fumbled through his pouch for another container.

Nothing.

He went through his pockets—again, nothing.

He shouted, waving his hands wildly. It would do nothing to change his direction, but he desperately hoped the other players might be able to do something—if he could attract their attention. He had hardly any time. If only he had worn his sandals, he could have hurled them away and caused himself to drift to the side, perhaps enough to let the building slash by without crushing him. But his feet were bare and he wore only loose shorts, a light shirt—not enough mass for any kind of maneuvering.

The sharp corners came closer. Ramis seemed to be falling toward the building. His heart pounded. He felt giddy, helpless. The other children had noticed now. Some pointed at him, some began to move; a scream reached his ears. But it was too late—

Suddenly something firm rammed him from below. He let out a gasp, and then he was struck again, moving away. Ramis whirled in the air, twisting his body. It was a young sail-creature, one with a dark Z-shaped mark on its back. The creature held itself rigid as the broad expanse of the building swept by silently beneath them. Through one of the skylights, Ramis caught a glimpse of several techs working at a table. They didn’t even notice him rushing by.

The sail-creature nymph butted him one last time and knocked him toward the center of the core.

Still terrified and shuddering, Ramis drifted as some of the excited children moved in his direction. Only when one of them tossed him an extra container did he fully relax. Twisting, Ramis looked to see the young sail-creature frolicking nearby as if pleased with itself. As it spun in the air, the “Z” marking became visible again.

“Salamat po, Sarat,”
Ramis whispered in the Filipino dialect of Tagalog: “Thank you, Timely One!”

***

Part One
Isolation

***

Chapter 1

AGUINALDO—Day 1

The thrill outweighed the consequences—it was as simple as that. He didn’t need to show off for anyone but himself.

If Ramis was caught Jumping at night, he’d be barred from the
Aguinaldo’s
zero-G core for a year—until he turned seventeen. But flying across the colony’s diameter in the dark made the rush of adrenaline worth the risk.

Ramis had another two hours before the lightaxis came on for the morning period. Two hours to traverse about five kilometers of the
Aguinaldo’s
interior circumference … in the dark. Others twice his age could not claim having Jumped all the way around not even in the light.

He kept his eyes open wide as he flew across the weightless space, hoping they had sufficiently adapted to the dark; but without the danger, it wouldn’t be worth doing.

He remembered one night in the Philippine Islands, when his older brother Salita had driven him home down a winding mountain road.

“Watch this,” Salita had said, and punched the button that shut off the car lights.

Instantly plunged into the night, Ramis had watched the emptiness around them, the treacherous curves now invisible as the car continued without slowing.

“See how the road glistens?” Fascinated, Salita had accelerated the car. Ramis had gripped the door, but felt some of his brother’s feverish excitement. Salita had clicked the lights back on just in time to round a sharp curve. He had shown no sign of uneasiness, but kept smiling in silence as he drove on….

The trampoline surface of the
Aguinaldo’s
bouncer should be coming up now. Straining to see, Ramis caught a glint of light reflected off the circumpond’s surface, demarcating his path. Although one hundred meters square, the bouncer seemed no more than a speck in the Sibuyan Sea. And if he missed it, he’d get a dunking, which at the speed he traveled might not be better than slamming into the colony’s wall. His entire body felt like a coiled weapon, tense, every cell alive with energy. His lips were curled back in a startling grin.

As he roared toward the bouncer, Ramis bent his knees and shot a blast of air to adjust his momentum. The bouncer grew larger below him. Three, two, one …. now! He hit the elastic surface and pushed off as hard as he could. He felt his leg muscles cramp from the sudden effort. The bouncer hurled him back into the air. Ramis spun his arms, furiously trying to keep from tumbling.

Finally stable, Ramis exhausted his compressed-air can. He let the empty can float out, fastened to his side by a short cord, as he rummaged through his pouch for another container. The cool, damp wind of his motion rippled his shirtsleeves.

The lightaxis waited out there in the dark, somewhere across his path. The meter-thick array of fiberoptics and titanium
structure would smash him like a bug if he hit it.

He had contemplated bringing a small flashlight, but that would have encumbered his hands—and it would also have made the Jump too easy. This wasn’t supposed to be
safe.
Now Ramis felt fear building up; the adrenaline roared through his veins. He drew a deep breath. It seemed so much like flying, floating free, drifting … and he didn’t need to be terrified of looking down because he couldn’t see anything in the dark.

Ramis squinted, trying to discern a shadow of the light axis, anything that might warn him. He counted to himself, still searching, as the wind whistled in his ears. He thought he could gauge his speed and direction by the force with which he had pushed off from the bouncer.

When several heartbeats had passed, Ramis relaxed, then turned his concentration on anticipating the next bouncer on the opposite side. He tried to figure in his head the optimum angle at which he’d need to hit it.

Ramis twisted in the air, orienting his feet toward the onrushing wall—

He spotted the lightaxis directly in his path, a gigantic rod stretched out and ready to snap him in two.

The sail-creature nymphs had all been corralled for the night period, where they could feed at their leisure. He couldn’t count on Sarat helping him this time.

Ramis shot a blast of air toward the lightaxis, then curled his body into a ball to present the smallest possible target. His course altered, but not by much. The thick mass of optical fibers skimmed by within touching distance. He kicked out, pushing his bare feet against the axis and thrusting himself into safer airspace. In the silent blackness he could hear the low thrum of the vibration he had sent into the lightaxis. He emptied the second air canister to slow himself further.

He floated toward the
Aguinaldo’s
wall at a much safer speed this time. In the darkness, he could barely make out his own location in the air. He checked to make sure he had enough canisters to stop himself from drifting into the rotating deck. He had learned that lesson three years before.

It seemed pointless to finish his circumnavigation now. He was too jittery, and he had lost most of his momentum. The encounter had frightened him more than he had realized at first. He debated if he should tell
dato
Magsaysay about it.

No, then he would have to admit what he had been trying to do. Against the rules, Jumping in the dark—rules designed out of safety considerations, the
dato
had always said.

Of course the other children obeyed, like all good Filipino boys and girls. Obeying rules was part of their culture, part of what they had brought up with them from the Islands. And since Ramis was the foster son of the
dato
—the president of the colony—the others expected him to follow rules better than anyone else. Ramis smirked to himself at the thought. Father Magsaysay did not push him—all the pressure to conform, and to excel, came from within. He could never live up to his parents’ names as great martyred researchers unless he constantly pushed himself, proved that he was better than anyone else.

Ramis always pretended to acquiesce to the rules, to go to his quarters during the dark period when the
Aguinaldo
engineers louvered the outer mirrors away from the lightaxis port. Then, in the early morning hours, he slipped out to do his Jumps before the mirrors swung back into position again. He was careful. After all, it was against the rules, wasn’t it? And he was the best.

Ramis stretched in the air, taking his time to get to the wall since he had more than an hour before the subjective dawn—

Streaks of light shot through wire-fine fiberoptics as the louvered mirrors opened up. Every few millimeters along the axis, a thousand fiberoptic threads frayed outward to illuminate the ten-kilometer span.

On one end, flares of raw sunlight bounced off outer mirrors into the transparent viewing segments. The shielding iris over the viewport end dilated, opening to a vista of space with the Earth hanging off to one side. With the sudden view, it seemed as if the entire end of the colony had sheared off.

Panicked, Ramis squinted at his chronometer in the glare. The lightaxis was on a full hour early. He twisted himself around, trying to see if anyone had noticed him in the air. Luckily, he had drifted far enough away from the circumpond that he wouldn’t draw suspicion to himself.

Sounds of shouting came from the inner surface below him; muffled PA announcements echoed in the living units. There was no broadcast over the general colony loudspeakers, Ramis realized, because everyone should have been inside.

A crowd of people began to gather near the curving viewport end, pressing their faces against the transparent segments, climbing up the rungs on the wall to get a better vantage point. Ramis emptied another can of air to increase his speed, then turned around in the air, squirting short bursts in the opposite direction to slow him again as he reached the crowd.

Ramis spread his palms to absorb momentum against the wall. Bouncing, he reached a rung, then hand-walked himself down to one of the elevator platforms. It took him to a scattered group of people who stood looking out into space. Sobs mixed with angry shouting.

“What is it?” he yelled, looking for a face he recognized. “What is happening?”

Behind the broad viewing wall, the Earth hung alone in space, shining blue and white. Somebody pointed, and Ramis caught snatches of words. “I cannot see! No, over there. Look! There goes another one!” It made no sense to him.

A shaggy, white-haired man pushed impatiently past to the rungs that would take him up to the observatory alcove. Ramis tried to get his attention over the noise. “Dr. Sandovaal! What is happening?”

“Are you blind, boy, or just stupid? I am in a hurry!”

“But—”

“I have no time right now.”

Sandovaal climbed into the
Aguinaldo’s
observatory. The toroidal alcove surrounded the lightaxis, jutting out from the colony. An inertial platform inside the observatory kept the telescopes and instruments pointed toward their target—Earth, in this case.

Ramis decided against provoking Dr. Sandovaal by following him. He stared out the viewing wall, mystified, until he heard someone call his name. “Ramis! Over here, Ramis.”

“Dobo!” Ramis flipped over and anchored onto the wall-handle with his feet. Sandovaal’s assistant waved his arms over the sea of feet. “Dobo, what is going on?” Ramis called.

Dobo pointed to his ears, then cupped his hands to yell over the crowd. “Too noisy! Can you get over to me?”

Ramis kicked out into the air and maneuvered to Dobo. When he got close enough that Dobo could hear him, he yelled, “Dr. Sandovaal just rushed past me on his way to the observatory.” He felt a twinge of anger at the dismissal—after all, Ramis’s parents had worked with Sandovaal at the Institute on Earth, and had left everything to come up to L-4 with him.

“Never mind Dr. Sandovaal. He would ignore his own grandmother if she got in his way—especially right now.” He hauled Ramis in with an outstretched hand. “Are you all right? Did you come with President Magsaysay? I did not see him here.”

Ramis chose not to answer. “He must be around somewhere. But what is all this commotion about? Dr. Sandovaal seemed even more upset than usual!”

Dobo blinked at him. “You have not heard? I thought the announcement was broadcast to every dwelling.”

“I am trying to find out, Dobo! Tell me.”

Dobo bit his chubby lips, as if reluctant to share bad news. He pushed an elbow away that almost struck him in the eye. “Down there.” He took Ramis’s arm, and the two rotated in the air, grasped the handholds, and looked out into space. Dobo pointed toward the Earth.

“A war is going on. A big one. Terrible!”

From the
Aguinaldo,
the distant battle was weirdly beautiful. Four hundred thousand kilometers away, nuclear-tipped missiles rose from their silos to draw long streaks across the dark side of the Earth. The plumes were erratic, exploding with a fast sputter-burn through the missiles’ boost phase. Opposing defensive systems tried to lock onto the incoming weapons.

American Excaliburs rocketed into space from their scattered hiding places and deployed twigs of x-ray lasers. The beams knocked out delicate Soviet homing mechanisms and disoriented nuclear warheads. A swarm of Brilliant Pebbles searched out any remaining weapon.

Polar-orbiting Soviet space stations spat out kinetic-energy weapons to destroy American missiles. Jittering spots of detonations danced across the globe. Small stations in low Earth orbit exploded, as they became targets.

And then it stopped. From the view on the
Aguinaldo,
the battle seemed to last about twenty minutes.

Strategic defenses on both sides of the world had worked as planned. Even before the first surviving warheads struck Soviet and American soil, the leaders called a truce. The war was already over.

Defensive systems had destroyed all but one missile in a hundred—but that wasn’t good enough.

Over four hundred megatons worth of warheads had survived to do damage. Some burrowed deep into the soil to destroy the next round of weapons; some exploded high in the air, the electromagnetic pulse obliterating all communications.

Ramis could not even guess how many deaths he had just witnessed. He longed for the days of
glasnost,
when the world had been so different. To him, the war had been fought in silence—screams of dying people could not be heard through space. The fires had vanished, but that could mean either the flames had died out, or simply that the smoke had hidden them from view.

Quiet and stunned, he floated back from the viewing wall. Only a damp spot of perspiration remained on the glass where his hand had been.

Someone in the crowd finally spoke.
“Booto!”

The curse echoed hollowly. No one stirred. No one tittered at the schoolboy expletive.

At last the people began to disperse. The Filipinos waited numbly in line for the cross-colony shuttles. A woman sobbed. Over everything, Ramis could hear the thrumming sounds of the
Aguinaldo’s
recirculating system.

Ramis remained mesmerized by the delicate picture of the Earth. He did not yet want to grasp the full implications of the war. Through the churning clouds shrouding the planet, he tried to pick out the Philippines, letting his eye roam from the tip of Africa, up the Indian Ocean, past Indonesia, and out to the horizon where the ocean disappeared into the haze. He searched, but the ten thousand islands that made up his homeland were just over the horizon.

His brother Salita still lived there, in Baguio City. He had stayed behind to run the Sari-Sari store, refusing to accompany his parents up to the colony. Salita had never gotten along well with his father. Ramis wanted to think about his brother, but he was afraid to.

Two of the largest U.S. military bases were on the Philippines, kept in operation and granted a permanent lease after the Americans had given over the
Aguinaldo
colony to the Filipino people. The bases must have made the entire archipelago a major target.…

Dobo placed his hand on Ramis’s shoulder, startling him. They both stared into the blackness behind the viewport wall, watching the crazy cloud patterns on Earth rise and fall with unnatural speed.