Lifeline by Kevin J. Anderson Read Free Book Online Page B

water, and he felt ready to melt. They were going to make it—they had passed the major challenge. The shuttle was free of Orbitech 1.
    One sharp voice cut though the babble on the radio. The other voices fell silent. McLaris felt his heart pause with animal fear as he recognized the voice of Curtis Brahms.
    “Damn you, McLaris!” He could not possibly have measured the amount of anger and betrayal in the associate director’s voice. “Damn you!”
    McLaris desperately reached forward and switched the radio off.
    Behind him, Jessie cried.
    ***

Chapter 5
    ORBITECH 1—Day 2
    Curtis Brahms unsealed the desk and withdrew his bronze-rimmed eyeglasses. He slid them on, careful not to disturb his precise blond hair. The lenses in the glasses were blanks, for show only, but they made him look older. At twenty-nine, the youngest associate director ever, Brahms felt too self-conscious of his wunderkind status. And right now he needed to command respect. He insisted on holding the meeting in his own office chamber.
    The actual director of Orbitech 1, Roha Ombalal, slouched next to him in shock. His expression showed little life. Ombalal had spent half a day poring over the detailed disaster plan developed by the Orbitechnologies Corporation years before. Brahms had heard him mumbling to himself, astonished and dismayed because “the plan was supposed to cover every emergency!”
    Indeed, Orbitechnologies had not thought of every scenario. They had not even designed life-support pods into the station: Brahms felt sure that they hadn’t considered it cost-effective to provide “lifeboats” for all fifteen hundred inhabitants.
    Across from him sat the R & D Division leader, Allen Terachyk, who looked little better than Ombalal—a wrong word might bring down his mental house of cards, and Brahms didn’t have time for that. He needed Terachyk to help him find the right information. Ombalal could be ignored for the moment.
    “Well, Allen? Do you think you can do it?” Brahms added a distinct compassionate tone to his voice. Terachyk was six years older than Brahms, and kept his brown hair cropped very close to his head. Black-framed eyeglasses stood out heavily on his face.
    Terachyk blinked at Brahms, his expression as blank and open as a test pattern. Brahms kept his face carefully neutral and reached over to turn on the desktop computer terminal. He swiveled the holoscreen to face Terachyk. Terachyk remained sitting with his hands folded in his lap. Ombalal blinked, but offered no assistance.
    Brahms scowled. This was like trying to work with mannequins. He picked up the keypad and dropped it in Terachyk’s lap.
    “Allen? Hello? Is anybody in there? Come on, you came up through Computer Applications—I need that information. Do you still remember how to get it?”
    Terachyk squinted at the holoscreen and stared at the keypad in his lap. “Ask me in a couple days, Curtis—I’ll be all right then.”
    “We don’t have a couple days, Allen. I have to know now.”
    “Dammit, can’t you have a little compassion?” Terachyk flared up. “What difference does it make?”
    Brahms set his mouth. He always worked very hard at showing compassion; he considered it one of his strong points.
    Terachyk had been on Orbitech 1 for more than three years, and he was due to be rotated home in four months. He’d been a model employee, one of the most exceptional workers on the colony. A wife and four sons waited for him in Baltimore.
    Or had. From the first scattered reports they’d received, Baltimore had been obliterated in the War.
    Two months before, Ombalal’s wife and children had been sent home under some sort of cover story that no one believed. On company orders, Ombalal remained on Orbitech 1, his self-esteem badly hurt, while Brahms took over the station.
    Brahms tapped his fingernails on the desktop. Ombalal knew he had no part in the discussion. “Allen, listen to me. The other people here haven’t figured out how