"Alex?"
"What?" He turned his head. In the dark he could not see Gordon, but he could sense the youngster's presence in the other bed.
"About… About the dip trip…"
"What? That again?" Couldn't the kid let it be? I'd like to have seen him do better. "What about it?" he snapped.
"I'm sorry I didn't speak English."
"… When?"
Gordon twisted around, painfully, to look at him. "When? In final innocent carefree moment before missile shred Piranha's fin!"
Idiot. "Gordon, it was too late. The missile must have been in flight before I, before, hell. I should have torched off and gone home. They'd found us. We knew it."
Silence.
"Maybe we could have made another orbit. Only, we don't carry all that much oxygen. And we needed the nitrogen, we did, that's not… not just Lonny talking."
"Then it wasn't what I said. Or didn't."
It had really been bothering Gordon. The stilyagin must have flunked some math courses. "What do you picture me doing about anything, with a couple of seconds to work with? What kind of acceleration is that to move a mass like Piranha, with three tiny embarrassed fins and the scoop dragging us, too?"
Silence filled the blackness between them. Finally, Gordon spoke again. "Alex, do you think this Titan business will work?"
Alex crossed his arms behind his head and stared at the ceiling. Blackness should have stars in it, he thought. "I don't know. If there is a ship and if we can find fuel… What do you think?"
He heard a heavy sigh in the darkness. "If we can rendezvous, no problem. If they have to come and snatch us as we go past… They will not do it."
"No, I don't think they would."
Gordon hesitated. "Maybe my family can…"
"Maybe they could what? Overrule Lonny or Sergei? Not a chance. They can count as well as we can. They've got enough fingers. Hell, you know it's not the personal anger. Not a Floater in orbit would hesitate to risk his life to save another. But when we use common resources, the entire station is at risk, and we have to draw the line. Start making exceptions and where do you stop? When everyone is dying because too much has been used up?"
He was beginning to sound unpleasantly like Lonny Hopkins. "No, your folks will cry as you arc past"--Which is more than anyone will do for me--" and they'll curse God that they can't come out and snag you; but they won't jeopardize the station for no other gain than two more mouths to feed."
Alex remembered the old Eskimo on the glacier describing how his wife and daughter had been killed and eaten by his erstwhile comrades. And he hadn't chased after the cannibals and he hadn't wasted any tears. Old Krumangapik hadn't been cruel or heartless. Alex had seen the pain in the old man's eyes. But when you lived on the edge, you learned to cut your losses. Krumangapik had never heard of cost-benefit ratios, but he knew that in his milieu he could waste nothing, not even tears.
Eskimos abandoned their aged and infirm to the Ice. Krumangapik had done it. During their nighttime trek across the Ice, warmed by that invisible beam of prana from SUNSAT, he had told of building his mother's Final Igloo.
She was old and frail and she had insisted. She even picked the spot. When it was completed they had hugged each other and said good-bye; and Krumangapik had sealed the entryway to keep the wolves out and left her there and never looked back.
Alex shivered as he remembered. "A duty to die."
How long would it be before elderly Floaters took themselves to the airlocks out of a similar sense of duty? Yes. That was how they would do it. No injections, because they had to conserve the medicines. No slashed wrists, no blood droplets to purge from the air system. They would climb into the airlock, nude, so as not to lose the fabric of their clothing. They would just turn on the pumps to evacuate the chamber. Alex remembered dying such a death. Later, a detail would reenter the airlock and salvage the valuable organics.
Perhaps that was the most unfortunate consequence of the new era of shortages, both in Orbit and down in the Well. That it forced them all, Downer and Floater alike, to be unkind.
"Is it right to string them along?"
Alex jumped. He'd thought Gordon was asleep. "What do you mean, Gordo?"
"These Downers. Fandom. They're risking a lot to help us, aren't they? Shouldn't we tell them they're wasting their time?"
"Don't burn bridges, Gordo. There might be enough fuel to reach orbit on our own."
"Or no fuel at all. Meanwhile, she puts her neck at risk for us. Maybe we should contact Big Momma for instructions."
"No!" Alex spoke sharply. "No," he repeated more softly. "We'd have to make contact through this Oregon Ghost character. If we do, the fans will know how iffy the whole scheme is and then…"
"And then?"
"And then they might give the effort up. Do you want to be stuck down here the rest of your life?"
"No, but--"
"Look. They're already in deep enough for what they've already done. We'll just let things go long enough to see if there is any chance at all. Then… Then, we'll decide."
"All right, Alex," Gordon said doubtfully. "You're the boss."
Alex relaxed into the pillow and closed his eyes. The room did not become any darker. He listened to his pulse pushing the blood through his arteries. "Gordon?"
"Yeah?"
"She's too old for you."
Gordon didn't answer right away. "She's younger than she looks, Alex," he said after a moment. "Gravity."
"Go to sleep, Gordo." Alex tried to roll over on his side. He almost made it. Good news from all over.
CHAPTER NINE
"Please, Sir, May I Have Some More?"
Alex dreamed he had been strapped down in a runaway centrifuge. The module spun faster and faster. G-forces sat on his bones like mountains. Under the steady pull his face dripped away and pooled around his naked skull. He kept trying to cry out that he wanted off now; but he couldn't speak.
Then he heard drapes slithering, and sunlight warmed his face. "Wake up!" a cheerful voice insisted. "Time for soorya narnaskar!" Alex kept his eyes closed and practiced the savasam pose. Go away, Steve, I'm dead.
But the man would not be put off. He shook Alex by the shoulder. "Come on, you two. Discipline is the key. You've got to work at this every day."
Alex opened one eye. Steve stood between the two beds, legs akimbo and hands balled on his hips. He reminded Alex of a coiled spring. If the Downers could only find a way to tap Steve's energy, they could use it to melt the glaciers.
Beyond him, Alex saw Doc setting up two trays. Tall glasses of milk. A high-calcium diet. "Whatever happened to privacy?" he asked.
"Alex," said Gordon. "It snowed last night."
He opened both eyes and turned to see Gordon standing (standing!) with his hands braced on the window sill. His breath made little clouds in the air and steamed the glass. Alex stifled a groan. If Gordon could do it… He pushed the comforter and the blankets off his body. With that much weight removed he felt as if he could float out of bed. Careful, Alex. Watch those reflexes. Slowly, he swung his legs out over the edge of the bed and pushed himself to a sitting position.
"That's very good," said Steve, and Alex felt like one of his day-care charges who had just gotten a star on his forehead.
"They tell me it snows a little every night up here," said Doc. He brought the milk over. Even during the summer. It's colder in California than it used to be; but L.A. only gets snow a couple times a year. Here, drink this. It's good for you."