Miles, Mutants and Microbes - Lois McMaster Bujold [82]
He made his way to one of the module's viewports; it framed a dull vista of unwinking stars. The port on the other side gave an oblique view back toward the Habitat. Movement caught his eye, and he mashed his nose to the cold glass in an attempt to make out the details.
The silvery flash of work suits, bobbing over the outside surface of the Habitat. Refugees? Or a repair party? Could his first hypothesis of a real accident be correct after all? Not good, but in any case it was still Graf's baby.
But there were quaddies out there, dammit, quaddie survivors. He could see the arms. Graf had not made his stroke complete. Just two quaddie survivors, if one was male and the other female, would be as bad as a thousand, from Apmad's point of view. Perhaps the work party was all-male.
There was Graf himself, among the flitting figures! They carried an assortment of equipment. The wavering distortion of his transverse view through the port prevented him from making out just what. He twisted his neck, craning painfully. Then the work party was eclipsed by a curve of the Habitat. A pusher slid into, and out of, his view, arcing smoothly over the lecture module. More escapees? Quaddie or downsider?
"Hey." An excited voice from within the lecture module disrupted his frantic observations. "We're in luck, gang. This whole cupboard is filled with breath masks. There must be three hundred of 'em."
Van Atta swiveled his head to spot the cupboard in question. The last time he'd been in this module that storage had been filled with audiovisual equipment. Who the hell had made that switch, and why . . . ?
A bang reverberated through the module with a peculiar sharp resonance, like having one's head in a metal bucket when someone whacked it with a hammer. Hard. Shrieks and screams. The lights dimmed, then came up to about a quarter of their former brilliance. They were on the module's own emergency power. Power from the Habitat had been cut off.
Power wasn't all that had been cut off. Stunned, Van Atta saw the Habitat begin to turn slowly past his viewport. No, it wasn't the Habitat—it was the module that was moving. A generalized "Aaah!" went up from the mob within, as they began to drift toward one wall and pile up there against the gentle acceleration being imparted from without. Van Atta clung convulsively to the handholds by the viewport.
Realization washed over him almost physically, radiating hotly from his chest down his arms, his legs, pounding up through the top of his head as if to burst through his skull.
Betrayed! He was betrayed, betrayed completely and on every level. A space-suited figure with legs was waving a cheery farewell at the module from beside a gaping hole burned in the side of the Habitat. Van Atta shook with chagrin. I'll get you, Graf! I'll get you, you double-crossing son-of-a-bitch! You and every one of those four-armed little creeps with you—
"Calm down, man!" Dr. Yei was saying, having somehow snagged up by his viewport. "What is it?"
He realized he'd been mumbling aloud. He wiped saliva from the corners of his mouth and glared at Yei. "You—you—you missed it. You were supposed to be keeping track of everything that's going on with those little monsters, and you totally missed it—" He advanced on her, intending he knew not what, slipped from a handhold, swung and skidded down the wall. His blood beat so hard in his ears he was afraid he was having a coronary. He lay a moment with his eyes closed, gasping, temporarily overwhelmed by his emotions. Control, he told himself in a mortal fear of his imminent self-destruction. Control, stay in control—and get Graf later. Get him, get them all. . . .
Chapter 12
Leo unsuited to the wails of disturbed quaddies.
"What do you mean, we didn't get them all?" he asked, his elation draining away. He had so hoped that his troubles—or at least the downsider parts of them—would be over with the ignition of the jet cord cutting off Lecture Module C.
"Four of the area supervisors are locked in the vegetable cooler with breath masks and won't