Miles, Mutants and Microbes - Lois McMaster Bujold [47]
"Son-of-a . . ." He allowed her to draw him into the corridor, then lurched back into his cabin to grab a tool belt. "All right, go, go, lead on."
They sped through the maze of the Habitat, offering strained bland smiles to those quaddies and downsiders they flew past in the corridors. At last, the familiar door to "Hydroponics D" closed behind them.
"What happened? How did this happen?" Leo asked her as they brushed through the grow-tubes to the far end of the module.
"They wouldn't let me go see Claire day before yesterday, when you brought her back on the shuttle, even though we were both in the infirmary. Yesterday we were on different work teams. I think it was on purpose. Today I made Teddie trade with me." Silver's voice smeared with her distress. "Claire said they won't even let her into the crèche to see Andy on her off-shift. I went to get fertilizer from Stores to charge the grow-tubes we were working on, and when I came back, the lock was just starting to cycle. . . ." If only she hadn't left Claire alone—if only she had not let the shuttle take them downside in the first place—if only she had not betrayed them to Dr. Yei's drugs—if only they'd been born downsiders—or not been born at all. . . .
The airlock at the end of the hydroponics module was almost never used, merely waiting to become the airseal door to the next module that future growth might demand. Silver pressed her face to the observation window. To her immense relief, Claire was still within.
But she was ramming herself back and forth between door and door, her face smeared with tears and blood, fingers reddened. Whether she gulped for air or only screamed Silver could not tell, for all sound was silenced by the barrier door, like a turned-down holovid. Silver's own chest seemed so tight she could scarcely breathe.
Leo glanced in. His lips drew back in a fierce scowl in his whitened face, and he turned to hiss at the lock mechanism, scrabbling at his tool belt. "You fixed it but good, Silver . . ."
"I had to do something quick. Shorting it that way blocked the alarm from going off in Central Systems."
"Oh." Leo's hands hesitated briefly. "Not so random a stab as it looks, then."
"Random? In an airlock control box?" She stared at him in surprise, and some indignation. "I'm not a five-year-old!"
"Indeed not." A crooked grin lightened his tense face for a moment. "Any quaddie of six would know better. My apologies, Silver. So the problem, then, is not how to open the door, but how to do so without tripping the alarm."
"Yes, right." She hovered anxiously.
He looked the mechanism over, glanced up rather more hesitantly at the airlock door, which vibrated to the thumping from within. "You sure Claire doesn't need—more help anyway?"
"She may need help," snapped Silver, "but what she'll get is Dr. Yei."
"Ah . . . right." His grin thinned out altogether. He clipped a couple of tiny wires and rerouted them. With one last doubtful look at the lock door, he tapped a pressure plate within the mechanism.
The inner door slid open and Claire tumbled out, gasping rawly, ". . . let me go, let me go, oh, why didn't you let me go—I can't stand this . . ." She curled up in a huddled ball in midair, face hidden.
Silver darted to her, wrapped her arms around her. "Oh, Claire! Don't do things like that. Think—think how Tony would feel, stuck in that hospital downside, when they told him . . ."
"What does it matter?" demanded Claire, muffled against Silver's blue T-shirt. "They'll never let me see him again. I might as well be dead. They'll never let me see Andy . . ."
"Yes," Leo chimed in, "think of Andy. Who will protect him, if you're not around? Not just today, but next week, next year."
Claire unwound, and fairly screamed at him. "They won't even let me see him!