Miles, Mutants and Microbes - Lois McMaster Bujold [51]
He rattled the flimsies again, and frowned. "There's no way around it. Do you know what came in yesterday on the heels of this thing? Kline Station has cancelled its construction contract with GalacTech, the first one we were going to send the quaddies out on. Paid the penalty without a murmur. Kline Station's out toward Beta Colony—they must have found out about this weeks ago—months. They've switched to a Betan contractor who, we may presume, is undercutting us. The Cay Project is cooked. Nothing left to do but wrap it up and get the hell out of here, the sooner the better. Damn! So now I'm associated with a loser project. I'll come out reeking with odor of loss."
"Wrap, wrap how? What do you mean, wrap?"
"That bitch Apmad's most favored scenario. I'll bet she was purring when she cut these orders—the quaddies gave her nervous palpitations, y'know. They're to be sterilized and stashed downside. Any pregnancies in progress to be aborted—shit, and we just started fifteen of 'em! What a fiasco. A year of my career down the tubes."
"My God, Bruce, you're not going to carry out those orders, are you?"
"Oh no? Just watch me." Van Atta stared at him, chewing his lip. Leo could feel himself tensing, pale with his suppressed fury. Van Atta sniffed. "What d'you want, Leo? Apmad could have ordered them exterminated. They're getting off lightly. It could have been worse."
"And if it had been—if she had ordered the quaddies killed—would you have carried it out?" inquired Leo, deceptively calm.
"She didn't. C'mon, Leo. I'm not inhuman. Sure, I'm sorry for the little suckers. I was doing my damndest to make 'em profitable. But there's no way I can fight this. All I can do is make the wrap as quick and clean and painless as possible, and cut the losses as much as I can. Maybe somebody in the company hierarchy will appreciate it."
"Painless to whom?"
"To everybody." Van Atta grew more intent, and leaned toward Leo with a scowl. "That means I don't need a lot of panic and wild rumors floating around, you hear? I want business as usual right up to the last minute. You and all the other instructors will go on teaching your classes just as if the quaddies really were going out on a work project, until the downside facility is ready and we can start shuttling 'em. Maybe take the little ones first—the salvageable parts of the Habitat are supposed to be moved around the orbit to the transfer station, we might cut some costs by using quaddies for that last job."
"To imprison them downside—"
"Oh, come off the dramatics. They're being placed in a perfectly ordinary drilling workers' dormitory, only abandoned six months ago when the field ran dry." Van Atta brightened slightly in self-congratulation. "I found it myself, looking over the possible sites to place 'em. It'll cost next to nothing to refurbish it, compared to building new."
Leo could just picture it. He shuddered. "And what happens in fourteen years, when and if Orient IV expropriates Rodeo?"
Van Atta ruffled his hair with both hands in exasperation. "How the hell should I know? At that point, it becomes Orient IV's problem. There's only so much one human being can do, Leo."
Leo smiled slowly, in grim numbness. "I'm not sure . . . what one human being can do. I've never pushed myself to the limit. I thought I had, but I realize now I hadn't. My self-tests were always carefully non-destructive."
This test was a higher order of magnitude altogether. This Tester, perhaps, scorned the merely humanly possible. Leo tried to remember how long it had been since he'd prayed, or even believed. Never, he decided, like this. He'd never needed like this before. . . .
Van Atta frowned suspiciously at him. "You're weird, Leo." He straightened his spine, as if seeking a posture of command. "Just in case you missed my message, let me repeat it loud and clear. You are to mention this artificial gravity business to no one, that means especially no quaddies. Likewise, keep their downside