“And dozens of ways to be fooled,” Terachyk shot back.
Brahms sat up straight in his chair. “The efficiency survey can’t be fooled. It has too many safeguards built in.”
“You can’t be absolutely sure.”
“Yes, I can. I know. It was my master’s thesis at Harvard. It passed all of its beta tests.”
Terachyk nodded at the holotank. Data still floated, names highlighted with a blood-red glow. “I see an error right now—look at Sigat Harhoosma. Your Efficiency Study didn’t take his particular situation into account.”
Brahms studied the statistics. He came back quickly—too quickly. Terachyk realized that Brahms must have prepared a justification for every single person on the potential RIF list.
“You’ve pointed him out before, Terachyk. Harhoosma wasn’t hit any harder than anyone else. He is unable to perform under pressure. In fact, he gets worse. This shows that our efficiency ranking does work. Tough times demand tough people.”
Brahms rocked back in his chair. He lifted an eyebrow. “Any other examples?”
Terachyk’s stomach burned. He needed to get out of there. He stood, shaking his head. “No.” The response sounded lame.
Brahms smiled tightly. “I’m glad you approve of the technique, then. I wouldn’t want my chief assessor having second thoughts.”
Terachyk felt Brahms’s voice closing in around him, like the metal doors of the spoke-shaft elevator carrying him up out of his nightmare and into cold, empty space. He turned toward the door, feeling dizzy.
“You should keep track of Ramis’s progress, Allen,” Brahms called. “He might find something over on the Kibalchich that’ll help us all.”
Mumbling a good-bye, Terachyk backed out of the office and let the door close by itself. He saw Nancy Winkowski lounging outside the door, dressed in her spring-green watcher jumpsuit. She stared at him without emotion. Terachyk mumbled a greeting to her as he turned down the corridor. He didn’t let his face show any worry, although he wondered why Brahms had seen fit to station one of the Watchers outside his own door. Was he afraid of other colonists? Or did he not trust Allen Terachyk?
He drew in a breath to clear his thoughts. The air smelled stale and cold. He walked past the elevator, feeling trapped.
He was going to be sick.
He quickened his step.
Chapter 33
KIBALCHICH—Day 40
As Ramis approached, the torus of the Kibalchich turned in front of him like a colossal windmill. It astounded him that it had been just a point of light seen from Orbitech 1.
Karen’s voice came over the radio. “Ramis, the Doppler has pegged you five hundred yards from the Kibalchich. You’ll feel some tension in the weavewire as we help slow you down.”
Ramis mumbled an acknowledgment but continued to stare at the giant construction.
The Soviet station looked like a huge doughnut with four thick spokes radiating away from a small central sphere—the command center, most likely, which would be at zero gravity. Thinner support struts extended between the thick spokes.
Above the center of the torus, connected by a long, cylindrical shaft, floated an aluminized mirror, nearly invisible except where it reflected a smear of sunlight down into a central network of angled mirrors that, in turn, directed light into the station. The central shaft seemed able to swivel and point the mirror in different directions, perhaps to focus incoming energy toward different spots on the Kibalchich. In the zero-G environment it puzzled Ramis that the Soviets would expend so much unnecessary mass and reinforcement on a structure that would hang in place by itself.
The central shaft extended through the hub and out the bottom in a long, antenna-like prong. A rotational stabilizer for the mirror and the colony? Ramis wondered. Large masses hung hundreds of meters “below” the central hub sphere, centered on the prong; at the end of the prong, a broad inverted cone pointed toward the Sun like the Aguinaldo’s shadow shield.
Slag left over from the Kibalchich’s processing of lunar rock had been encrusted on the sides of the hull for additional radiation shielding, and another sheath of rubble drifted around the main torus. Ramis saw wide swathes where the rubble had been stripped away, as if the Soviets had needed to salvage more raw materials for their own purposes.
Cyrillic characters stood out in one of the clear patches, black against the silvery metal background. Ramis assumed the characters spelled out the name of the station, though he couldn’t read the language or even the alphabet.
As Ramis drifted in, he made his way toward the central hub sphere. He had to attach the weavewire where it would not be wound up like a fishing reel by the Kibalchich’s rotation. And from the telescope photos back on Orbitech 1, the hub would also be the most likely place for him to get inside through one of the emergency access hatches.
Orienting himself to the relative positions of Orbitech 1 and the Soviet station, Ramis shot another spurt from his MMU. He seemed to be moving in faster than he expected.
Karen’s voice broke the silence. “Ramis, we have you at approximately one hundred yards from the Kibalchich. How are you doing?”
“Fine. I doubt I can miss it now.”
He had reserve fuel in the MMU, but he had greatly increased his forward velocity by jetting with the air tank early in his Jump. Without bothering to tell Orbitech 1, Ramis turned toward the Kibalchich and kicked on the MMU braking thruster. A force hit his chest as the maneuvering unit pushed in the opposite direction, slowing his motion.
Gyrating once more about his center of gravity, he saw with some satisfaction that he had slowed himself enough, but now he had veered off course.
“Ramis, are you all right? The video showed you rotating.” Karen sounded worried.
“I am just preparing to land.”
No problem, Ramis thought to himself. This is getting easier. He made a quick estimate and, trying to hold down his breathing rate, he gave two more squirts on the thruster. He found himself drifting toward the Kibalchich’s giant mirror support. The flat reflecting surface grew closer, like a tilted plate filled with stars. Everything seemed to be in slow motion, inexorable, like a dream.
Holding his breath, Ramis reached out and grabbed onto the approaching mirror support girder as he started to sail by. His feet swung around, slamming his upper body into the mirror’s surface. He let out an audible “Ooof!” The reflector rocked back and forth, wobbling with the impact.
“Ramis! We’ve lost you on the visual. Have you reached the Kibalchich?”
Ramis pushed backward, hand over hand, down the girder. It was made of a dark, porous material—some sort of composite manufactured from lunar soil. He eyed the central hub and caught his breath for a moment. “I am here, but I need a few moments to position myself.”
“Keep in contact,” Brahms broke in.
Ramis did not bother to answer. Looking above him at the mirror’s surface still oscillating from his impact, he continued crawling down the support structure. The dish mirror did not appear to concentrate light, as the Aguinaldo’s did, only reflect it. Then the conical light collector below the station probably provided for their energy needs, he thought. So why bother with the big reflecting mirror above?
Ramis keyed his mike. “Karen?”