Part 14 (1/2)
”Oh! Yes, Dr. Colby introduced us. Did you get the chemists' display tank?”
”Yes. Thank you.”
”Amazing you'd recognize me. I didn't know you.” The warning chime sounded, and she gripped the handles of the treadmill. ”Here we go.”
Elegantly muted sound heterodyned up to a pleasant, multi-voiced hum as the tank began to rotate, and the platforms swung up onto the sides of the drum. They flexed their knees and blinked away the slight disorientation from the Coriolis force and then they were both walking in place.
t.i.tus had attached his telemetry monitors to a device that would feed it good human data, so he didn't have to worry about the duty tech noticing anything odd about him. He could concentrate on Mintraub.
Chapter ten.
t.i.tus made small talk, probing for subject areas where Abbot had Influenced her. He'd learned the trick from Abbot but rarely used it. Luren who acted as agents were trained to create and erase ident.i.ties, tying human records into knots. Occasionally, they hunted luren gone feral, thus honing their skills. But t.i.tus, except for a few episodes, had been a scholar depending an agents to protect him.
He was bemused at his own audacity. To expect to outmaneuver Abbot at this game was more naive than expecting to best him in computers. Yet even Abbot wasn't invulnerable.
Delicately, he advanced into a sensitized area. ”Did you say cryogenics? Haven't there been some marvelous advances in that machinery in the last five years?”
”Yes, but don't you use the new superconductors in physics these days? All our hardware does.”
”My new computers had them in the core that was destroyed.” He took a deep breath and pitched his voice carefully. Abbot Nandoha has had to fabricate replacement components based on the older technology.”
”He is a genius, isn't he?” she agreed starry-eyed.
Oh, Abbot, that's unfair, implanting hero wors.h.i.+p in a her! ”Thorough,” t.i.tus allowed.
She rallied to Abbot's defense, and gradually, a picture formed. She knew little of the objectives of either Biomed or Cognitive Sciences, though both drew on her equipment pool. But Abbot had convinced her that she couldn't handle the alien ”corpse's” preservation chamber alone. Since she would be involved when they did anything to the ”corpse,” Abbot would also be called in. Very neat.
Preparing to withdraw, t.i.tus began to reinforce in her a reluctance to mention this casual conversation to Abbot, as if she'd shared trivial confidences with another woman.
Out of the blue she volunteered, ”You know, Abbot's a strange one. I often wonder if he has an apartment! He turns up at all hours, even keeps a shaver in my desk. And I think he's stashed his toiletries in the cryogenic room and uses the sterilizing shower as if it were his own. How do you account for someone like that? I mean it couldn't take more than fifteen minutes to get to his apartment!”
”People are strange.” He hadn't Influenced that out of her. She was jogging along at a good clip, and had augmented his hypnotic effect by going into natural alpha state.
What's really in the sleeper's room? A transmitter component? The whole transmitter? Getting in to find out would be a project itself. Before he even tried, he'd rifle the Brink's files for the cryogenic chamber's alarm system, and find out more about Diving Belle. As a physical anthropologist, she'd be in the Cognitive Sciences group, next door to the chamber. But he couldn't ask Sisi about her. Abbot would notice such an inquiry immediately.
t.i.tus came out of his thoughts to find Sisi slowing down, puffing hard. He felt as if he were jogging uphill.
The pleasant hum of the rotators climbed in pitch, and as it did, t.i.tus's knees began to sag. He jabbed at the stop b.u.t.ton, at the emergency override, at the attendant call signal-nothing-The panel stayed dark. ”Malfunction!” he said. ”Dismount and try to make it to one of the chairs!”
”Impossible,” she stated with the adamant conviction of an expert mechanic. She kept poking control b.u.t.tons in varying combinations while t.i.tus tried to dismount.
He estimated they were at two g's now, but his reflexes, if they weren't off too much from low grav, should be up to it. He ripped the telemetry wires free then unhitched his safety belt. The treadmill was forcing him to run faster and faster. If the telemetry had not crashed with the g-control, he'd be in a lot of trouble. His idiot program would have kept sending dead-level healthy signals for one-g stress.
Calculating mentally, he stepped off the treadmill and curled into a forward roll, matching his momentum relative to the floor. It would make a wonderful exam question for his freshmen. He landed hard, the black traction strips on the floor ripping his suit and sc.r.a.ping his skin raw. He sat up, bleeding from his forehead and nose.
Mintraub still clutched the handlebars of the treadmill, her feet trailing out behind her, her body sagging alarmingly under the increasing gravity. He lunged to his feet and staggered to her, shouting, ”Let go. I'll catch you.”
”No!” she yelled back. ”I'm too heavy now.” Her knuckles Ere white, her hands slipping gradually.
He planted his feet to either side of hers. She might weigh two hundred pounds now, which t.i.tus could manage. But he had to get her free before her weight climbed to three hundred and neither of them could move. ”Let go!” he commanded with Influence and yanked her loose, pulling them both over backwards. ”Got to get to the chairs,” he gasped, struggling to his knees. ”They're contoured for four g's.”
”You're bleeding!” she said.
”So are you.” At least his blood was an acceptable color for human blood. It was now all over her gym suit.
She wiped her nose and stared at her b.l.o.o.d.y hand.
”Don't tilt your head back,” t.i.tus advised. ”Better to lose a lot of blood than ruin your neck from gravity. Crawl.” They had no more than five strides to go, but it took an eternity. The few weeks he'd been on the moon had undermined his strength.
At last they climbed into seats. t.i.tus. .h.i.t the controls in the armrest. ”Dead. It's going to be a long ride.”
”Can't be. Safeties kick in at four g's, or the motors burn out. Designed that way. Awful lot of momentum in this baby.” Panting, she added through clenched teeth, ”If I survive this, I'm going to get the sonuvab.i.t.c.h responsible!”
And if she dies, how do I explain surviving four g's for an hour? His record showed he had high blood pressure and mild claustrophobia. The anxiety would be sending a human's blood pressure reading off the scale.
He'd acquired the phobia by being killed in a car crash and then buried alive. He was thankful it was a mild phobia, but now that he had nothing to do but endure, he worried about how to explain not having a heart attack or stroke.
For the lift-off, he'd been issued special medication-which he hadn't taken, of course. Maybe he could ”confess” that and say he'd had it with him now? But why carry it in his gym suit? Irrational fear of the centrifuge? That would get him sent back to Earth, but he couldn't quit until he'd pinpointed the probe's target and Connie replaced him.
And the odor of human blood was making him ravenous.
Then the lights went off.
”Oh, s.h.i.+t. t.i.tus, I hate the dark. Hold my hand.”
It was really dark. Other than the dim glow of her body and the warm machinery, it was like a buried coffin.
”Hey, t.i.tus-you all right?”
”Yeah.” He took her hand.
”Is it my imagination, or is it getting stuffy in here?”
”Let's not dwell on it.” He did a quick calculation. ”There's plenty of air for the time we'll be in here. Just relax. Four g's isn't really all that much.”
She squeezed his hand. ”This helps.”
She was right. His universe narrowed to the few square centimeters of skin against his. Somehow, she communicated more to him by that simple touch than words ever could. Hot tears stung his eyes and a bit of moisture leaked out the corners and down his temples. And he didn't know why.
He concentrated on enduring and keeping her confident.
”It is getting stuffy in here,” Mintraub panted.
”Won't be long now.” But he was panting, too. Could somebody be pumping CO2 in?
The darkness became reddish, sparkling. It brought back the awful time in his coffin. He had wakened and started using oxygen. There hadn't been much. His raging hunger triggered panic, using more oxygen. He hadn't realized he'd been mentally screaming for help powered by Influence. When Abbot's hand, glowing with vitality, had broken through the coffin lid, flooding cool air, mud, and rain down upon him, he had gone for Abbot's throat like a ravening animal.