Outward Borne (35 page)

They moved quickly through the
beginning of the arm using long coils of climbing rope that were
still there from the construction, but their pace slowed as they
came nearer the anti-module and the simulated gravity increased.
MuiMi was changing from one line to another when she lost her grip
and fell at a noticeable rate into the void. She was able to grab
onto a drive cable, barely. If she had picked up any more speed,
she would not have made it. “Take care,” she signaled, relieved,
but MuiMi was more shaken than she let on, and remained frozen in
place, clutching the thick greasy cable, feeling herself plunging
uncontrollably, smashing into a crossbeam.

Moving through the arm was work,
but their real test would come at the looming anti-mod bulkhead.
Access there would be carefully monitored. The Das always recorded
how much mass was being moved in and out of modules so the spinning
arms could be kept in precise balance. They reached the bulkhead
exhausted, hands and feet bleeding from contact with the abrasive
metal. MuiMi was too tired to think of what came next, but Tomat
had an idea. He had installed the emergency call system in the
shuttle tubes and knew how it worked. He moved MuiMi and Eric into
the conduit just to the right of a sliding access door. He climbed
up along the outside of the trans-arm shuttle tube. He went to the
box that controlled the shuttle doors and set the warning switch to
the call mode. Tot hurried down the scaffold, signaling Eric, who
had moved to help him, to go back. Tomat arrived just as the door
slid open and a repair bot crawled through the opening, slowly
climbing along the thick structural cable. He held onto MuiMi and
Eric as they dropped through the overhead door, while the
retreating bot lifted its bulk in the opposite direction. Tomat was
about to jump onto the cross beam below when he lost his balance,
slipping, his feet hung down as the door started to close. Eric
righted himself and reached up to Tomat to help him through, at the
last moment he caught Tomat's eye. He was afraid. Eric grabbed with
both hands and yanked him through just in time to keep from getting
caught.

The restbox was on the next level
down. They made their way quietly through the dark conduit, there
was activity on some other levels, but it seemed normal. No one was
after them yet. There was only one way out, the small doorway next
to the lift truck entry. Eric stopped to listen. He heard nothing,
but bots made no sound in standby mode. They had no choice but to
open the door to whatever fate awaited. Their air tanks were
running low, it was only a matter of luck that they had not been
seen, but luck held, the deck was dark and empty.

It took some time to find the
right storage room and get onto the roof. They did not dare turn on
a light. Even then the restbox was well hidden, but they eventually
found the panel that hid the restbox entry and pried it open. It
was a small space but well stocked. They could stay for some
considerable time if need be. MuiMi took off her boots and sat on
the preferred lower bunk. She had already turned to the problem of
communication. No news was news enough at this time, she decided.
Her father would know they made it safely to the hideaway as long
as the OLDies kept looking for them.

After they had rigged the access
door and done what they could to help MuiMi’s crew escape, Aubry
and his team returned to the Filim hub where they waited for the
trans-arm shuttle in near silence. Henrik was nervous and started
some small talk, but it soon wound down. No one joined in. They
were not waiting for the shuttle so much as an alarm. Aubry was so
intent on detecting any noise or movement that might indicate MuiMi
had been caught, that he was startled when the shuttle door flew
open. Each of the crew went to their own corner of the large car,
where a tense quiet prevailed.

When they finally reached their
habitat level, Aubry knew that both he and the crew were too tired
and tense to do anything more. On the way to his rooms, Aubry
called some of the People’s leaders to meet at the Top-Quad Cafe in
two hours. He got a bite to eat and lay down to plan what to do
next, but he fell asleep, exhausted by the tension of the
day.

He woke abruptly when Dunsten called from the
Cafe. Aubry, still ragged from too little sleep, ran up the stairs
to the Top-Quad. Dunsten, Looris, and Radnar were already there.
Aubry brought them up to date on the problems in the Farside arm
and the escape of MuiMi and her team. He asked what they thought
MaxNi9 would do when he found out, how he would react?

“
He is going to look for them, and
it will be an all out effort,” Looris, the new Council Head, said,
as he stood up and started pacing along the wall. Speaking as if to
himself, this brilliant mind began sorting through the
possibilities. “The ObLaDas will not be able to find them
immediately, their surveillance systems will not locate that hidden
room, but they will be found. So we cannot have them continue to
search. No. They must be led to believe that MuiMi and the lads
have come here, into this habitat. We must attract their attention.
Radnar, you’re a clever one, make it seem as if our young people
secretly entered the habitat tonight, it will be unfortunate that
your best efforts at secrecy will go awry, and you will make some
mistakes. Of course, MaxNi9 will demand that we surrender our
heroes, but how can we do that, I ask you.” Looris sat down,
refreshed from his stroll.

Radnar got some of the children to
tape over the surveillance cameras. They had long made a game of
finding these small lenses, and now they could make use of that
childish awareness to blind the OLDies. Sound surveillance was more
difficult, as the microphones were embedded in walls and could not
be detected. Not really a problem, for what kids have not learned
how to keep their conversations private? Music blared from rooms
throughout the compound.

Long after the evening lights were
dimmed, still called dusk for some long-forgotten reason, Radnar
and his sprightly daughter HuMini moved along the outer walls of
the habitat. If the escapees had reached the habitat, they would
try to enter through one of the emergency exits that were scattered
around the periphery of the complex. Radnar disarmed the sensor and
opened the small door. HuMini took her climbing pole, slid through
the low door, and ran along the service corridor to mask the
surveillance lenses there. As soon as she returned, breathing hard
and excited, Radnar let three of his younger dogs, all of them red
racers, escape through that selfsame opening and then he set off
the alarm. The dogs were so eager to sniff out new spaces that he
could hardly hold them and HuMini, who shared the dog’s excitement,
tried to run out into the corridor after them. Radnar had to grab
her arm to keep her from following. They could hear the dogs
barking in the distance as they pulled the door shut and locked it.
He had to sit HuMini down and make her promise again that she would
keep their adventure and the unfortunate disappearing dogs a
secret. He would tell her when she could tell all. He sent her off,
duly subdued, and climbed to the Top-Quad with a big smile. “They
are going to have a time trying to catch those pups,” he grinned,
“or they will have to beg me to fetch them home. There will be no
ignoring those wild beasts for long.”

The men were satisfied that they
had done what could be done and retired to get some sleep. Tomorrow
promised to be an interesting day. All except Wisten, Radnar's long
time trainee followed that welcome advice. She stayed at the
Communications Station to monitor the Ship’s signal traffic. It was
three hours before dawn when Wisten received the first query about
the habitat emergency exit alarm. It was an automated Ship message
that she ignored with a smile. The OLDies did not yet know about
the breakout, or should that be break-in? She continued to ignore
routine questions about the containment violation, and tried to
guess how long it would take before she received a complaint about
the dogs. The Ship was amazingly alert about normal updates and
warnings, but pretty dense when something occurred outside of its
routine.

Radnar came in after dawn to relive Wisten.
She told him that the OLDies had not learned of the break-in, or at
least have given no sign that they had. Radnar was surprised to
hear this, but his monitors remained quiet for another hour before
the message from MaxNi9 arrived.

CamBi had pretty much detached
herself from her responsibilities, and the absence of activity
within the Farside restbox went unnoticed. Air tanks were refilled
and returned, work orders issued, and supporting bots were
dispatched to the worksite to prepare for the day’s projects. In
the morning, when MuiMi and her crew failed to show up and check
in, a routine notice was sent out. Even then, the ObLaDas did not
know that MuiMi's crew had left the Farside hub.

Buth CaMa was at the control
station when that notice appeared. It added to his distress. None
of the bulkhead crews had checked in, either. They were past due?
Was this some kind of protest? That was all discarded once he
realized that those cunning humans had engineered an escape.
MuiMi’s work team was not in the Farside restbox. Where were they?
He started scanning the surveillance records. Only Tomat's search
for the missing air tanks had been picked up, nothing after that.
No communications had been recorded for the past twelve hours. He
immediately sent out five flybots and two spider bots to find the
crew. At first, he thought that they must have escaped with Aubry's
crew when the bulkhead alarm had gone off. Her father, no less. Why
did not someone think of that?

Buth made an intense effort to
find the escaped humans. The surveillance of Aubry and the other
crews was examined closely, but the escapees had not been with
them. They had not entered any of the transit shuttles. He had no
sign of the escapees passing through the bridge, at any Filim
bulkhead portal, or anywhere on the human deck. He was about to
look at the habitat’s internal records when the call came from the
Farside bulkhead.

The rigged service tube
pass-through door had finally been discovered. The three workers
could have gotten out of the Farside hub at any time. Buth’s face
compressed with some satisfaction when he learned they did not have
their containment suits. They could not survive for long without
them. It would just be a matter of time until they showed up or
their bodies were found, but his sense of relief vanished when he
learned of the emergency door violation in the human habitat. The
crew must have made it all the way there, but how they did it was
not apparent. There was no sign of them anywhere, but it seemed
obvious. The alarm must have been tripped when they were let in
and, in the confusion, some of the dogs must have gotten loose. He
called MaxNi9 with the bad news. “The infected crew had entered the
People’s habitat three hours after their lights were dimmed,” he
reported, “and now they are trying to hide them by blinding the
surveillance cameras.”

“
Are you certain that they are in
the habitat?” MaxNi9 asked. He, too, wondered how they could have
traveled so far without being seen.

“
I have no pictures of them in the
habitat, but three air tanks are missing from the storage cache.
Each tank had a six-hour supply, so they could have gotten from the
bridge to the habitat within that time. Somehow, they made it to
the Filim module without being seen. That’s what we think, and
there are three dogs running all over the deck’s peripheral
corridors.”

MaxNi9 thought Buth was probably
right, but since he did not have certain proof that the fugitives
were being sheltered within the habitat, he decided to issue a
request that the crew be given up rather than taking more forceful
action.

“
There has been a serious illness
in the Farside arm that may endanger the survival of any species
that it strikes. The sickness is highly contagious. Anyone who
comes into contact with a diseased individual will be at serious
risk. For the welfare of the fugitives and the preservation of the
entire human community, you must turn the escapees over to Medical
Intervention immediately.” Surely, the humans would give up the
crew once they understood the serious danger they were
in.

They might have done so, if the
crew had actually been in the habitat, certainly if they had been
ill, but neither was the case. Little time passed before Looris
denied that the work crew was in the habitat. MaxNi9 did not
believe him. He knew how stubborn the People could be when they
thought they were in the right, but he wanted those escapees back.
He told Looris that bots should be sent to retrieve the
fugitives.

None of the People believed that
there was any crisis. The work crew was in full containment suits
the entire time they were in Farside arm. MaxNi9 could send in bots
to search the habitat if he wished, but the People would not
cooperate.

The red racers were still outside
having a great time when the search bots arrived. Red, Rosie, and
Rusty were making one of their periodic trips past the entry when
two utility bots came around the far corner of the habitat and
lined up, side-by-side, blocking the corridor. The bots moved
steadily forward, expecting to herd the dogs into the open habitat
entryway, but instead of backing away, Rusty got on his toes and
started to run full speed toward the large trundling bots. Red and
Rosie followed at full tilt. One after another, they cleared the
bots, with room to spare. Rosie tried to jog left to avoid running
into Red and her paws lost their grip, sending her sliding into the
wall. She let out a yelp of pain, but mostly surprise, as she
jumped to her feet and took off. Big Muff had responded to her yelp
by expressing his concern, and three more dogs ran out through the
doors. The opportunity to race around the long open corridors of
the module was not to be missed, and the racers were not about to
stop until exhausted.