Miles, Mutants and Microbes - Lois McMaster Bujold [67]
Claire almost burst into tears. "I don't know," she squeaked, and swallowed hard.
"What?"
"They won't let me see him."
"What?"
Leo, studying his fingernails distantly, put in, "Andy was removed from Claire's care. On charges of child-endangering, or some such thing. Didn't Bruce tell you that either?"
Dr. Minchenko's face was darkening to a brick-red hue. "Removed? From a breast-feeding mother—obscene!" His eyes swept back over Claire.
"They gave me some medicine to dry me up," explained Claire.
"Well, that's something . . ." His mollification seemed slight. "Who did?"
"Dr. Curry."
"He didn't report it to me."
"You were on leave."
" 'On leave' doesn't mean 'incommunicado.' You, Graf! Spit it out. What the hell's going on around here? Has that pocket-martinet lost his mind?"
"You really haven't heard. Well, you'd better ask Bruce. I'm under direct orders not to discuss it."
Minchenko gave Leo a stabbing glare. "I shall." He pushed off and entered the corridor through the airseal doors, muttering under his breath.
Claire and Leo were left looking at each other in dismay.
"How are we going to get Tony back now?" cried Claire. "It's less than twenty-four hours till Silver's signal!"
"I don't know—but don't cave now! Remember Andy. He's going to need you."
"I'm not going to cave," Claire denied. She took a steadying gulp of air. "Not ever again. What can we do?"
"Well, I'll see what strings I can pull, to try and have Tony brought up—bullshit Bruce, tell him I have to have Tony to supervise his welding gang or something—I'm not sure. Maybe Minchenko and I together can work something, though I don't want to risk rousing Minchenko's suspicions. If I can't"—Leo inhaled carefully—"we'll have to work out something else."
"Don't lie to me, Leo," said Claire dangerously.
"Don't leap to conclusions. Yes, I know—you know—the possibility exists that we won't be able to retrieve him, all right, I said it, right out loud. But please note any, er, alternative scenarios depend on Ti to pilot a shuttle for us, and must wait until we re-connect with the hijack crew. At which point we will have captured a jumpship, and I will begin to believe that anything is possible." His brows bent, stressed. "And if it's possible, we'll try it. Promise."
There was a growing coldness in her. She firmed her lips against their tremble. "You can't risk everybody for the sake of just one. That's not right."
"Well . . . there are a thousand things that can go wrong between now and some—point of no return for Tony. It may turn out to be quite academic. I do know, dividing our energies among a thousand what-ifs instead of concentrating them for the one sure next-step is a kind of self-sabotage. It's not what we do next week, it's what we do next that counts most. What must you do next?"
Claire swallowed and tried to pull her wits back together. "Go back to work . . . pretend like nothing's going on. Continue the secret inventory of all possible seed stocks. Uh, finish the plan of how we're going to hook up the grow-lights to keep the plants going while the Habitat is moved away from the sun. And as soon as the Habitat is ours, start the new cuttings and bring the reserve tubes online, to start building up extra food stocks against emergencies. And, uh, arrange cryo-storage of samples of every genetic variety we have on board, to re-stock in case of disaster—"
"That's enough!" Leo smiled encouragement. "The next step only! And you know you can do that."
She nodded.
"We need you, Claire," he added. "All of us, not just Andy. Food