“Mr. McLaris, I am to inform you that Chief Administrator Tomkins wants to see you.” The soft, controlled voice belonged to Kim Berenger. “Whenever you think you can face him.”
For a moment, the name meant nothing to McLaris, but then he remembered—Philip Tomkins was the head of Clavius Base. Well, he had known it was going to happen sooner or later. He let out a long sigh.
“Dr. Berenger,” he said, turning to face the woman. McLaris knew from his reflection how haggard he looked—the half-grown beard, the red eyes. “I was wondering if we might have some kind of—” he searched for a better word, a euphemism, “—service, for my daughter? And for Stephanie Garland?”
Berenger’s face remained expressionless. “We decided it was unwise to wait for you to heal. Your daughter and the pilot were interred in a cairn outside after the first day. Chief Administrator Tomkins himself gave a little eulogy.”
McLaris drew himself up in sudden anger. The doctor ignored him, instead acknowledging the medical record with her thumbprint. He fixed a haunted gaze at her. “You decided not to wait? What possible difference—”
“Dr. Tomkins insisted on holotaping the service for you. We can rig up a tank and let you watch it at your leisure.”
McLaris made his way back to the bed, feeling like the wind had been knocked out of him. He collapsed on the sheets.
“I had reasons for what I did,” he muttered.
Guilt rose up in front of him like a mirror, an echo chamber to reflect his thoughts back at him. Yes, it’s my fault. Yes, I killed my daughter.
Each time he admitted it to himself, he thought the words louder, more forcefully. Reality began to eat its way through the haze of shock and disbelief. Tomkins wants to see you. Whenever you think you can face him.
McLaris knew how to handle his own problems. He needed a focus—something to work toward, some goal to achieve. With that as a crutch, he could see himself through this. He lay back on the sheets, the pain in his body insignificant compared to the pain in his mind.
Yes, it’s my fault. Yes, I killed my daughter. But no, I didn’t intend for it to happen. And, no, I didn’t do it for selfish reasons. I did it with the best of intentions. For Jessie.
He would come out of this experience galvanized, a stronger person.
He would make it up to Jessie … somehow.
Chapter 10
KIBALCHICH—Day 10
All the tension on the Soviet research station Kibalchich had been covered up with an artificial levity, a sense of camaraderie. They held an “end of the world” party to say good-bye to everything that had been lost on Earth—all their friends, all their pasts.
Commander Stepan Rurik leaned back against the wall in the rec room. People came up to talk to him, and he responded with as much interest and encouragement as he could muster. But he focused his attention on the group in general, trying to interpret how they would react.
A day from now all of them were going to leap over a cliff blindfolded, trusting in the skills of their biochemist, Anna Tripolk. They might as well be committing suicide.
Brilliant Anna, lovely Anna—she was so hard and so driven, completely focused on her own goal, and yet so naïve about other things. That was part of her charm for Rurik.
Together, all the people had gathered to talk, to party, to reminisce, to say good-bye to each other. They had drunk up all the remaining alcohol in the stores, then bottle after bottle of illegally brewed vodka and substitute dark beer.
Tired of standing by the walls, Commander Rurik strode out into the crowd, smiling and clapping his crew on the shoulders. He filled the room with his presence, his charisma. The party suddenly seemed sincere. Rurik had brought with him two dark bottles of brandy.
“Georgian brandy? How did you get that up here?” one of the women asked.
“Not Georgian brandy. Real French brandy.” Rurik smiled and lowered his voice. “And don’t worry about how I got it up here.”
Pouring right and left with both bottles, Rurik offered tastes of his brandy until it was all gone—too quickly for most of the people.
As the alcohol seeped into their bodies, restraint dissolved away. After all, they didn’t need to be in good shape for duty the next day.
The people began talking in louder voices, some growing brash and daring, saying things they had never risked speaking before. Some bemoaned the loss of the Grand Experiment of glasnost and perestroika and complained about the harsh backlash, but the Soviet return to conservative isolationism had never quite succeeded because the world economy was too tightly woven.
A few people scowled at the political criticisms, but Rurik knew what types of men and women they really were. He had pegged them long ago. They didn’t worry him anymore.
The people sat around in small groups. One woman put on a disc of Stravinsky’s Firebird Suite, booming the music into the conversation.
Off in a corner, some people compared snapshots in pocket holocubes; others swapped stories, argued over who had the most beautiful spouse or children. But each person looked terribly frightened, and trying to keep distracted from the fear—though it always seemed to keep coming back.
Anna Tripolk joined in conversations herself but drifted from group to group, as if unwilling to become too deeply involved. Rurik watched her, and she kept looking up to meet his eyes. She smiled, looking twenty years younger in a single flash. Anna felt for him, he knew, and he showed her all the affection he could. Rurik was certain he did not love her, though she did prove an interesting secret companion during the night periods.
Tripolk looked lost and empty away from her research. She couldn’t seem to find the heart for the feigned cheer the others somehow managed. Rurik knew she felt more saddened at the loss of her life’s work than from anything else.
Her life’s work.
These last few weeks had destroyed most of their dreams, strained them to the breaking point.
The last coded orders had come up more than a week before, in the heat of battle, when Earth’s house of cards was toppling down. The Kibalchich’s political officer, Cagarin, had insisted on viewing the orders with Rurik. And because of Cagarin’s connections, Rurik could not turn him down.
“You must destroy Orbitech 1” Cagarin kept harping on him, repeating the insane orders. “Or must I do it for you? My authority supersedes your own.”
Rurik had had enough of the man. “You are just a minor administrative functionary. Your eleven cronies here are equally nondescript. Do not try to threaten me, Cagarin. Your basis for power has vanished like everything else. I am commander here!”
But Cagarin refused to play along. He raised his thick eyebrows. “Do you wish me to relieve you of your command?”
Rurik sighed, crossing his arms over his chest as if he were speaking to a misbehaving child. “The orders did not specify when I was to act. I plan to carry them out—but only when all the other people on the Kibalchich are out of the way.”
He paused, staring at the other man. “Have you not thought what the others might do when they learn of the orders against Orbitech 1? These are scientists, not military troops! Would you like to watch them all revolt? You would bear the brunt of their anger, I fear.” He raised an eyebrow, but Cagarin remained silent. “Give me time. It is too late for immediate vengeance. We will carry out the instructions, but when I say the time is right.”