Severance (7 page)

One of the children held back from the group, looking at his
terminal with a bored expression. He had been asking lots of questions earlier
in the tour, but appeared to have lost interest. This was a seventh year class,
which would make him about eleven. Stein thought his name was Bert, based on
some exasperated shushing from one of the teachers.

“You’re going to miss learning how antimatter reactors work,”
Stein said, deciding to try her luck with the child’s name. “Bert, was it?”

Bert didn’t correct her. “I already know how they work,” he
said, with the air of a practiced know–it–all. “Deuterium molecules go into
anti–deuterium molecules and it goes BANG and then we get energy.”

“Pretty good,” Stein said. “You’ve read all about that in
school?”

“Laugh!” Bert replied, saying the word instead of laughing. “They
don’t teach us any of that stuff in seventh year. I had to teach myself all
about it. Like the 8–D magnets they use to control it.”

Stein’s eyes widened. “You’re a smart kid.”

“
Obviously.
Did you know that it takes a hundred
times more energy to make antimatter than we can get out of it?”

Stein nodded. “I think I knew that, yes.”

“That’s why we can’t make any more of it,” Bert said. He
bounced up and down. “But we can make more matter!”

“I don’t know if that’s right.”

“Well, we can’t ‘make it,’ make it. But we didn’t bring
enough of it. That’s what the terminal says. We were burning it wrong. So, we’ve
had to start mixing it with ground rock! Isn’t that crazy?”

“That is crazy.” It sounded familiar though, the sort of
factoid she’d heard before in school, but evidently not something that had
stuck.

“Do you know where they get the rock from?”

“I don’t know. You’d have to ask Max.”

“Okay! Can he show us the rockets?” Bert sniffed. “’Cause
this is all boring.” He glared at the reactor, which was the beating heart of
the ship.

“There’s no tours of the aft engines any more, Bert. They’re
busy working on them — getting them back into shape.” Stein held up her hands
in a what–can–you–do gesture.

“For the Big Push,” Bert said.

“That’s right.” The Big Push was the braking sequence the
Argos would have to make if it didn’t want to smoke into its new home at
several thousand kilometers per second. It was supposed to have begun the
previous day, but thanks to a navigational error and massive course correction
a hundred and seventy years previous, the schedule had been pushed back. “That’s
pretty advanced stuff for a kid your age.”

“I think it’s neat is all.”

Stein smiled. “It is neat. I can see why you’d want to see
what the drives look like.” Bert nodded earnestly, as though he hoped that
Stein, impressed with his moxie, would magically pull some strings and get him an
all–access pass to the ship. Stein continued, “But, boring as it is, this guy
here is what’s kept us alive for the last couple hundred years.”

“Laugh,” Burt said. “You sound like my dad.”

Stein felt enormous sympathy for Bert’s dad, and all the
other adults in his life. As the tour group made its way back from the far end
of the engine room, she exchanged a glance with one of the teachers, who let
out a short bark of a laugh after recognizing the look on Stein’s face.

Bert crossed the room to bother the naval technicians who
had moved off to the side when the kids arrived. A twisted black box lay at
their feet, some component of the reactor that Stein couldn’t readily identify.
That wasn’t surprising — she was well out of her element in this room. She
guessed they were in the middle of a repair when the tour group interrupted
them.

She wouldn’t normally have chaperoned one of these, but she
was short staffed again that day — Gabelman still hadn’t shown up for work.
Bruce was great with stuff like this, but that morning the big man had strongly
hinted that he’d found out something interesting about M. Melson and was going
to dig up more that day. With Bruce, this ‘digging’ process could entail almost
anything, and although Stein knew enough not to ask any questions, she couldn’t
not worry about it. Visions of Bruce putting small children in armlocks danced
in her head. Best to leave him to his own devices when he was in such a mood,
as far away from the distressing 11–year–olds as possible.

§

It was the best place on the ship to see why the garden well
had been so named, a floor–to–ceiling window offering a panoramic view of the entire
well. Although any observer in the well could see it was a massive hollow
cylinder, only here at the end, four stories above the surface, was it possible
to look down the entire length of the ship. The illusion of looking down a well
was dizzyingly strong.

The rest of the office was well appointed. A massive desk
sat in the center of the room, lightly scuffed, but very precisely curved to
match the curve in the floor. The carpet on the floor was aggressively purple,
plush on the sides, worn in the middle. In truth, everything in the room was
worn, maybe a bit less so than other parts of the ship, but still noticeable.
That was a never–ending source of annoyance to the room’s current resident, who
wanted, even
needed
everything in this room to impress.

Nothing here impressed the captain, and Mayor Eric Kinsella
hated him for it. Every other person on the Argos who held any real power owed
their position to Kinsella in some way, whether they knew it or not. Nominally,
Captain Helot did, as well. The ship’s constitution was very clear about the
relative authority between the civilian government and the commander of the
vessel itself. But there was a certain lack of deference in Helot’s behavior
that suggested to Kinsella that his counterpart thought otherwise.

“Diagnostics on all the rotational thrusters have been
completed. We should have eighty–five percent of them working before
deceleration begins,” Helot read without looking up from the terminal in his
hand.

Helot had been made Captain almost twenty years earlier by
one of Kinsella’s predecessors. Kinsella didn’t know the whole story, but got
the impression that Helot had been given the job ahead of older and more
experienced personnel as part of some multi–layered political stratagem being
played by the mayor at the time. He couldn’t recall if the stratagem worked or
not, and indeed it didn’t really matter — that mayor was long gone.

The next mayor had chosen to leave Helot in place, seeing no
need to rock the boat as it were. A mistake as far as Kinsella was concerned.
By being made Captain at such a young age, Helot had spent a third of his life
in office, plenty of time to become a familiar and comfortable presence to the
ship’s citizens. This left Kinsella handcuffed by a captain who was — though no
one would come out and say it — significantly more popular than he was.

Bored, Kinsella drummed his fingers on his desk. Realizing
he was being rude, he stopped, then just as quickly wished he hadn’t. He didn’t
have to care if he was rude. He was tired of dealing with Helot. He smiled
involuntarily, then caught himself when he realized he never smiled during
cabinet briefings. Concentrating, he focused his energies on not fidgeting with
the terminal sitting on his desk, recently delivered to him by Thorias, the
security chief.

Helot had given every appearance of a man dedicated to his
career. His list of dependents was short: no wife, no children, one ship. In a
society where the privilege of breeding was a precious commodity, the lack of a
family marked him as unusual. Kinsella tried to hide a smile. How would people
react if they knew their captain’s brave solitude wasn’t a reflection of his
commitment to public service? Just a side effect of a secret and dark
perversion? The information on the terminal in front of him was toe–curlingly
detailed.

Kinsella allowed himself a thin smile as the captain
continued to drone through his briefing. Yes, Helot was going to be out of his
hair soon. And Kinsella had big plans for his going away party.

§

One day, this will all be yours
. Bruce strolled down
one of the leafy tree–lined streets in the garden well, looking up at the low–rise
apartment buildings around him.
Gonna move on up. Get me some windows. Live
like a pope.

While Stein burgled merely for her own amusement, Bruce had
actual goals in mind when he worked the nights. Although many dwellings below
decks did have windows, when they fronted out to a hallway, this wasn’t a lot
to get excited about. Not like the expensive and hard–to–come–by windows in the
garden well, with their breezes and laughter and classy women leaning out of
them. It was a nice goal, stealing for windows. It certainly felt more romantic
than stealing for money, which is what it looked like he was doing most of the
time.

Bruce spotted the address, 2835 Begonia, and walked in the
front door. Taking the stairs up to the third floor he examined the interior
halls thoughtfully. Dust and grime, but much, much less than in his place. Ms.
Redelso had done quite well for herself since selling the old family studio in
the aft. Finding the right apartment, Bruce rang the buzzer and waited.

He had to hurry, window–wise. There was no point getting a
window after the ship had stopped and they were all living in caves or
whatever. Then everyone would have windows. They would be worthless. Worse than
worthless — they would be liabilities. Letting in cold and dirt and leopards.
He had no use for those windows.

The door opened, revealing a modestly attractive middle–aged
woman. Bruce recognized her from his research: she was the semi–famous,
artistically–middling painter, Charlotte Redelso.

“Maintenance,” Bruce said, by way of introduction. “You have
a problem with your heat?”

Confused, Charlotte shook her head. “No. I don’t think so.”
She looked behind her. “Nope, we never have problems here.”

Of course not, woman, you live in a tropical paradise.
“Hmmmmmmmm,” Bruce said, checking his terminal. “Looks like we’ve got a problem,
then. Do you mind if I come in and take a look?”

“Well, actually…”

“Thanks,” Bruce said, “my boss will kill me if this doesn’t
get looked at. I’m not kidding. She has these knives, and is just constantly
looking for an excuse to use them. It’s a real bad scene. Thank you for your
understanding.” As predicted, this barrage of information overwhelmed Redelso,
who retreated inside the apartment, wide–eyed.

Bruce followed her inside, putting his terminal carefully
into his webbing. At the center of the room, he stopped and looked around
slowly, turning a complete circle. Spotting the membrane above the door he had
just entered with a look of surprise, he reached up and prodded it with a
temperature probe. After examining the probe with the most thoughtful
expression he could muster, he made a noise that he hoped sounded like
something a man who was solving a complicated problem would make. He turned
again, passing a quick smile at Redelso as he did so. “Looks okay so far.” He
moved across the apartment to one of the two — two! — windows and peered
outside.

“You open these windows very often?”

“Sometimes. How often is often?”

Bruce furrowed his brow. “I honestly don’t know. Eighty?” He
turned back to the window, opened it, and stuck his head out.

“Eighty what?” she asked.

“That’s an excellent question,” he responded, closing the
window. “I’ll have to look it up. Anyways, our sensors might be getting
confused when you open or close the window. I’ll make a note of it, so we don’t
bother you anymore.”

“Thanks,” she said, exasperation showing. “I guess?”

“You’re very welcome,” he said with a big smile. “Have a
nice day.”

§

From the roof of the building directly across from Charlotte
Redelso’s window, Bruce aimed the piton gun and fired. As the piton sailed
away, the thought occurred to him that he probably should have aimed above the
window rather than directly at it. The nano–piton smacked into the window,
bouncing off it with a crack before clattering to the ground below. Wide–eyed,
Bruce quickly recoiled the piton and cable before ducking down behind the short
wall at the edge of the roof. After a couple of minutes had passed without any
cries of alarm, he cautiously peeked over the edge. No lights on.
Let’s try
that again.

Another thought lurched into view, this time thankfully
before he fired. Redelso had two windows in her apartment, and he had only
tampered with one of them. Moving a short distance down the edge of the roof,
he took aim at what he was sure was the correct window, caught himself, shifted
his aim upwards, and fired again. The piton sailed across the gap and impacted
the wall of the building, embedding itself easily in the surface. Bruce glanced
at the piton gun’s display: a solid hold.

Designed for rock climbers who mucked about and occasionally
died on the exposed faces at either end of the garden well, the nano–piton’s
holding capacity was highly variable, dependent upon how squarely they had hit
whatever they were fired at. Their average loading capacity was supposedly
three hundred and fifty pounds, but the standard deviation on that figure was
wide enough that Bruce, and the two hundred and fifty pounds he carried with
him at all times, was always reluctant to use it. Bruce attached the piton gun
and cable to a second gun using a jury–rigged binding. He fired the second
piton at the wall of the roof access staircase he had climbed up, then reeled
in the gun until the whole apparatus — cables, guns, and ramshackle binding —
was taut.

The next part of the plan was where things got stupid. To
describe it to any right–thinking man was a guaranteed way to see him wince and
inhale sharply. It gave even Bruce, no stranger to ill–advised schemes, some pause.
Grabbing one of the piton guns in each hand, he flipped the setting of one to
reverse, then triggered them both simultaneously. The apparatus of madness
whirred forward slowly. Bruce sat up on the roof’s edge and spun his legs out
over the edge. He grabbed both piton guns firmly. “This will not seem like a
better idea the longer you wait,” he said, then lowered himself off the roof,
putting his weight on the apparatus. The pitons, cables, guns, and makeshift
binding all held. He swallowed, adjusted his balance slightly, then pulled both
triggers. With a faint whir, the large man sailed through the night sky.