Miles, Mutants and Microbes - Lois McMaster Bujold [55]
"What?" Her eyes widened.
"Brucie-baby is trying to keep it under wraps, but the Cay Project has just been scheduled for termination—and I mean that in the most sinister sense of the word."
He detailed the anti-gravity rumor to her, all that he had yet heard, and Van Atta's secret plans for the quaddies' disposal. With rising passion, he described his vision of escape. He didn't have to explain anything twice.
"How much time do we have left?" she asked whitely, when he had finished.
"Not much. A few weeks at most. I have only six days until I'm forced downside by my gravity leave. I've got to figure out some way to duck that; I'm afraid I might not be able to get back here. We—you quaddies—have to choose now. And I can't do it for you. I can only help with some of the parts. If you cannot rescue yourselves, you will be lost, guaranteed."
She blew out her breath in a silent whistle, looking troubled indeed. "I thought—watching Tony and Claire—they were doing it the wrong way. Tony talked about finding work, but do you know, he didn't think to take a work suit with him? I didn't want to make the same mistakes. We aren't made to travel alone, Leo. Maybe it's something that was built into us."
"But can you bring in the others?" Leo asked anxiously. "In secret? Let me tell you, the quickest end-scenario for this little revolution I can imagine would be for some quaddie to panic and tell, trying to be good. This is a real conspiracy, all rules off. I sacrifice my job, risk legal prosecution, but you risk much more."
"There are some who, um, should be told last," said Silver thoughtfully. "But I can bring the important ones in. We've got some ways of keeping things private from the downsiders."
Leo glanced around the chamber, subtly reassured.
"Leo . . ." Her blue eyes targeted him, searching. "How are we going to get rid of the downsiders?"
"Well, we won't be able to shuttle them down to Rodeo, that's for certain. From the moment this thing comes out in the open, you can count on the Habitat being cut off from re-supply." Besieged, was the word Leo's mind suggested, and carefully edited. "The way I thought of was to collect them all in one module, throw in some emergency oxygen, cut it off the Habitat, and use one of the cargo pushers to move it around orbit to the transfer station. At that point they become GalacTech's problem, not ours. Hopefully it'd ball things up a bit at the transfer station, too, and give us a little more time."
"How do you plan to—to make them all get into the module?"
Leo stirred uncomfortably. "Well, that's the point of no return, Silver. There are weapons all around us here. We just don't recognize them because we call them 'tools'. A laser-solderer with the safety removed is as good as a gun. There's a couple of dozen of them in the workshops. Point it at the downsiders and say 'Move!'—and they'll move."
"What if they don't?"
"Then you must fire it. Or choose not to, and be taken downside to a slow and sterile death. And you choose for everybody, when you make that choice, not just for yourself."
Silver was shaking her head. "I don't think that's such a good idea, Leo. What if somebody panicked and actually fired one? The downsider would be horribly burned!"
"Well . . . yes, that's the idea."
Her face crumpled with dismay. "If I have to shoot Mama Nilla, I'd rather go downside and die!"
Mama Nilla was one of the quaddies' most popular crèche mothers, Leo recalled vaguely, a big elderly woman—he'd barely met her, as his classes didn't involve the younger quaddies. "I was thinking more in terms of shooting Bruce," Leo confessed.
"I'm not sure I could even do that to Mr. Van Atta," said Silver slowly. "Have you ever seen a bad burn, Leo?"
"Yes."
"So have I."
A brief