Energized (22 page)

The polo players and observers were mostly still outside. Through the clear walls of the Grand Atrium, Dillon saw a freefall scuffle break out over a stash of oxygen bottles, even as a hopper approached towing a fresh supply.

“I don't
understand,
” Maria said. “Why are we going outside into lethal radiation? I thought the hotel has electromagnetic shielding, that the whole place is a radiation shelter.”

That had been explained, but he knew he hadn't internalized all the bad news. He guessed she hadn't, either. “I heard the captain say the shield generator has failed. We have to evacuate.”

“To Earth?”

From more than four thousand miles up? Anyone evacuating by escape pod would get a fatal dose of radiation long before reaching the ground. And—sudden intuitive flash—their safe evacuation to Earth could do nothing to advance Yakov's plan. Whatever the hell that was.

“I don't know,” Dillon lied. “We need to get going.”

Captain Aganga had been drenched with sweat from her jog, but Felipe and Jonas had been fresh and dry. Because rather than catching their breaths, they were lookouts. They had been keeping watch for Lincoln, the electrical-engineering wizard. Had
EM SHIELD
been a placard on a door between the two men? Dillon was almost sure it was.

By the south-polar air lock, people had queued up. Some carried bags, small suitcases, or even, in one case, a backpack. Most, like he and Maria, had only the spacesuit they wore.

He thought, We look like refugees.

Aganga continued directing the evacuation. “There are too few staff to pilot all the hoppers. Any guest qualified to fly a hopper is invited to identify herself to the staff inside the air lock. Hotel personnel will assign guests to hoppers for the flight to Phoebe.”

“Phoebe!” Maria shuddered. “That's
far
. And off-limits.”

Two hundred miles. “The depths of Phoebe are the only possible radiation haven we can reach. They have no choice but to accept us.”

And that must have been Yakov's plan! Somehow. Part of it, anyway. Dillon no longer flattered himself he understood his erstwhile “partner.”

How could even
Yakov
plan for a CME to come shooting at Earth?

Someone in staff livery came speeding by, and Maria grabbed his sleeve. She said, “Hoppers? Why not the escape pods?”

“Sorry, ma'am. The pods do one thing: return to Earth if something goes catastrophically wrong.” (Something
had
gone catastrophically wrong, Dillon thought. As always, people had anticipated the wrong catastrophe.) “To keep the pods simple and reliable, that is all they can do. Once lit, the solid-fuel retrorocket runs till it burns out. The pods will deorbit; they cannot be used to maneuver
in
orbit. If you'll excuse me?”

“But I don't want—”

“That's just how it is, ma'am.” Shaking off Maria's hand, the hotel worker rushed off.

*   *   *

By the time Thad's charges had regrouped at their docking posts, the evacuation of PS-1 was well underway. “We have plenty of time,” he had assured them, hoping he was right.

They had the good sense to keep chatter to a minimum, or at least to use private channels among themselves.

Forty tourists? Twenty hotel staff? Phoebe's population was about to quadruple. It was going to be cozy in the shelter.

Oxygen and water for the extra people would not be a problem; Phoebe produced those for The Space Place in the first place. But what else might they need in the shelter? Food. First-aid kits. Blankets. Flashlights and a battery assortment. Datasheets, because the CME could take hours to stream past. Critical spare parts for—he was not sure what, and hoped someone had had time to think that through. Counting only the staff, the number of toilets in the shelter was marginal. So: bunches of urine collection devices, and fresh piddle pads for the ladies.

A CME could fry satellites and much of Phoebe's surface gear. The bigger the structure, the more susceptible, to both charge buildup and induced currents. In theory, PS-1 had been designed to handle a CME. He guessed they would find out.

The hopper garage was crowded by the time Thad got to Phoebe. Waving the inspection team toward the main air lock, he advised, “In you go. Anything small you guys may want with you in the shelter, get it now.”

“Is there time to change into clothes?” Reuben asked.

“Is there time to check messages?” Marcus asked.

“You figure that out,” Thad said. “Just be inside the shelter in fifteen minutes.” Because in not much longer, the first wave of the Phoebe evacuees would descend on them. Soon after that Phoebe would emerge from behind Earth.

Soon after
that,
the leading edge of the CME would burst over them.

After cycling through the air lock, they grabbed Velcro slippers from the wall rack and scattered. Thad joined them in flouting the rule about keeping spacesuits near the entrance. He dashed to his own room to find the message-waiting light blinking on his comm console. Not forwarded while he had been out, he supposed, because the recall had put local networks into overload. He tapped
DISPLAY NEXT
.

Take care of yourself. Cousin Jonas is coming. Your cousin, Jacob.

This is not happening! Thad told himself.

He yanked open the deepest drawer in his small dresser and flung the clothes from it into his hammock. With a nail file jammed into the crack he pried up the drawer's false bottom. Beneath lay the parcel hidden for
so
long. He stuffed the parcel and fresh batteries into a tote bag, covered everything with a clean jumpsuit, and put the false bottom and wadded clothing back in their places.

Then he sped to the main air lock. “Cousin Jonas” would be among the soon-to-arrive tourists.

*   *   *

Do not reveal yourself unnecessarily.
The words gave Thad hope Yakov's other agents would not reveal him if he cooperated. He might yet come through …

Through what? He had no inkling, beyond
something bad.

Just inside the main air lock he found a frightened-looking crowd, all wearing red or yellow counterpressure suits: tourists or hotel staff. Helmets in hand, borrowed Velcro slippers crammed over their boots, they shuffled down the station's central corridor into the station. Here and there an evacuee carried a suitcase or a pitiful satchel.

Thad noticed three men in red at the rear of the procession, looking all around. Why had they caught his eye? Because they looked more composed than the rest?

The chief had put on a fresh jumpsuit for the occasion. “This way,” he urged, waving evacuees down a cross corridor. “I'm Irv Weingart, station chief on Phoebe. Our deep shelter is this way. This way, people. I'm…”

The shortest man among the trio fixed his eyes on Thad. “Cousin Thaddeus?” The man managed the Polish pronunciation, something Thad had only heard from a great aunt. “Is that really
you
?”

Yakov's contact. “Yes, it's me. Small world, Jonas.”

The three men angled over to Thad. “Where are they?” the short one hissed.

“Follow me,” Thad whispered. He ushered them into a nearby pantry.

The pantry was empty—not only of people, but with many of its shelves cleared. Thad reached into his tote and delivered the parcel and the sack of batteries.

Jonas tore open the parcel, nodded approval, and put everything into his satchel. “These better work.”

“They will.” Thad opened the door. “We have to get into the shelter.”

“In a minute.” Jonas seemed oddly indifferent to the CME racing their way. “Now give me user ID and password for a sysadmin account for the powersat.”

“It's useless. Sysadmin log-on only works from hardwired terminals on PS-1 itself.” And going there
now,
with the CME about to strike, would be insanity. Thad could not get his mind around what these men thought to accomplish. “We have to get to the shelter.”

“Indeed we do.” Jonas smiled enigmatically. “Our mutual acquaintance told me that the magic word is ‘Robin.'”

Thad flinched. “All right.” He recited his log-on codes. “Now can we go?”

“We three will go. You have to disable long-range comm first.”

“I
can't
turn off comm,” Thad protested. “We have people still on the surface. They're shutting down and securing the observatory, solar-cell factory, nuclear power plant, and anything else they can get to in time.”

“Long range,” Jonas repeated. “As in, reaching Earth. But I said
disable,
not turn off.”

“The long-range radio is already switched off as protection against the CME. If I turn it back on, the CME will get it.”

“This isn't up for discussion.” Pause. “Remember Robin.”

“All right.” For Robin. “Let me take you to the shelter before someone gets suspicious about us.”

“We wouldn't have it any other way,” Jonas repeated.

The surface crew, still in their vacuum gear, emerged from the main air lock as Thad shepherded Jonas and his companions toward the shelter. “Stragglers,” Thad explained.

When they reached the entrance to the shelter, lights blazed inside. He wondered if anyone had thought about pumping out the heat from so many extra bodies, or to bring in extra fuel cells.

“
There
you are.” Irv looked relieved. He stood beside an open hatch. “Cutting it close, don't you think? Go on down. I'm going to make one final sweep of the station.”

Pausing on the ladder that led down a shaft into the shelter, Jonas shot a dark look over his shoulder.

“I'll check things out, Chief,” Thad said.

“Station chief's prerogative.”

“Our visitors have met you,” Thad said, desperately. “You keep them calm while I do the run-through.”

Irv shrugged. “Okay. Don't tarry.”

Tarzan-swinging toward the command center, Thad tried to imagine an innocent-seeming way to disable comm. He could not just pop the circuit breaker or jiggle loose a socketed component. After the CME had passed, someone might get to the command center before him. But when the CME came through, all sorts of electronics would fry.…

He found heavy-gauge wire in a parts cabinet and snipped off a length. Gripping the wire with insulated pliers, he shorted the high-voltage terminal of the power supply to components inside the main radio console. Sparks flew. On circuit boards, devices went
pop
. Smoke erupted. For good measure he fried the diagnostic subsystem, too, then closed the cabinet doors.

By wrapping his hand in a handkerchief, he managed to coil the wire—still hot, its insulation bubbled and blackened—without doing harm to the fingers of his counterpressure suit. He rushed to his tiny room to cram the coiled wire under the drawer's false bottom. It would not do for anyone to find the wire.

He found Irv pacing outside the shelter entrance. “I was about to come looking for you.”

“Ye of little faith,” Thad said. “Let's go down.”

*   *   *

Dillon stood in the shelter, obsessively looking around, obsessively checking the wall clock. The CME was almost upon them.

Welded aluminum panels lined the shelter, a volume hollowed out deep beneath Phoebe's main base. Phoebe's mines offered many minerals in abundance, but not metals. Those had to be lofted from Earth, and that happened only for a good reason. Such as providing a few key parts of PS-1. And a sturdier storm cellar …

A stranger (a woman, he thought) had shoved a drink bulb into his hands. Someone in a blue flight suit, anyway, so he or she was one of the Phoebe personnel. He had half drained the bulb before it registered that he had burnt his mouth on hot coffee. Tuning out the discomfort, he checked the clock again. Another minute had passed.

The shelter was full, but more people kept crowding inside. Dillon recognized maybe half the faces in the shelter, from among hotel guests and staff. A few others looked familiar. He guessed he had seen those people, in fact, remembered having had a dinnertime conversation with one, at space training in Houston.

That was another world. Literally.

Maria, reunited with Adriana, stood across the shelter speaking rapid-fire Spanish. At least Dillon thought it was Spanish. With so many people talking at once it was hard to tell.

Jonas, Felipe, and Lincoln were in a huddle near the entrance. They, like many of the evacuees, had blankets draped over their shoulders. Of the three, Dillon could see only Jonas's face. He looked tense.

Why the hell
not
look tense, Dillon thought. He still shook from the long hopper ride.

Jonas saw Dillon watching. “Join us,” Jonas mouthed.

They were smart and tech-savvy. They would understand what was going on. As Dillon edged through the crowd to stand with them, more people came in. One gave Jonas a nervous, sideways glance.

Dillon flinched at a sudden loud booming. Looking toward the noise, he saw the station chief rapping on the still-open metal door. People turned, and some quieted down. More rapping and booming. The crowd gradually fell silent.

“May I have your attention?” Weingart said. The station chief's hand had moved to the metal door's simple latch handle. “According to forecasts, the leading edge of the CME will reach us in five minutes. It's time we close ourselves into the shelter to wait it out.”

“Is everyone accounted for?” Jonas asked. “From Phoebe, the hotel, and PS-1?”

“Yes,” Weingart said.

“Here, inside this room?” Jonas persisted. “Everyone.”

“Yes.” Weingart repeated impatiently. “It's time we—”

“Excellent,” Jonas said. “My friends and I will be leaving.”

“I cannot allow that,” Weingart said. He began pulling the door. “We'll be all right.”