FLIGHT
With Kris Cardenas beside him, Grant rapped on the door to Anita Halleck’s quarters. No response. He pounded harder.
“She’s not there,” Cardenas said.
Grant tried the door. It wasn’t locked. Sliding it back, he saw that indeed Halleck had gone.
“Where the hell could she be?” he wondered.
“Cafeteria, maybe,” said Cardenas.
With a curt nod, Grant headed for the cafeteria, Cardenas half a step behind him. He flicked open his pocketphone, but a brief scan through the surveillance cameras showed no trace of Halleck.
There were nearly a dozen people in the cafeteria, looking halfway between bored and scared. But no Anita Halleck. Grant stepped over to where Harvey Henderson was chatting with a couple of other technicians, his place at the table littered with empty dishes and crumbs.
“Harvey, have you seen Mrs. Halleck in here?”
Henderson shook his head. “Nope.”
“How long have you been here?”
With a shrug, Henderson replied, “Nearly an hour. Not much else to do … except wait for the nanobugs to eat through all the airlocks.”
The woman on Henderson’s left grumbled, “You’re such an optimist, Harvey.”
Turning to Cardenas, Grant asked, “Where the hell could she be?”
Cardenas looked just as puzzled as Grant felt.
“This place is too small for her to hide out for long,” Grant said. “Come on, let’s get over to the surveillance center. We can run through what the cameras have picked up over the past few hours.”
Once they left the cafeteria, Grant broke into a trot, jogging along the corridor toward the surveillance center. Cardenas kept pace with him, puffing slightly.
The surveillance center always reminded Grant of an insect’s eye. One lone technician sat in a padded chair, surrounded by screens that displayed all the public spaces in the Farside facility: labs, offices, corridors, the cafeteria, the flight control center. Grant saw Josie Rivera at flight control, idly watching a video.
Grant recognized the man on duty: Sherry Phillips.
“Hi, Grant,” Phillips said, looking surprised as he turned in his chair. “What are you doing here? Come to keep me company?”
“Have you seen Mrs. Halleck on any of the screens?”
Phillips smiled amiably. “To tell you the truth, buddy, I haven’t been watching that closely. Nothing’s going on. Everybody’s just moping around, wondering where the damned bugs’ll hit next.”
“Play back the last half hour on all the corridor cameras,” Grant said.
“Why? What’s going on?”
“No time to explain, Sherry. Just show me the playbacks. And speed ’em up.”
Grumbling a little, Phillips tapped on his central keyboard and a dozen screens showed fast-forward views of Farside’s corridors. People scampered along the cheerless passageways like marionettes on amphetamines.
“There!” Cardenas pointed. “That’s her.”
“Real time,” Grant told Phillips. The view slowed to normal and Grant saw Halleck and the two others making their way up the central corridor.
“What’s Trudy doing with her?” Grant wondered aloud.
“She doesn’t look very happy,” said Cardenas.
“And Nate Oberman,” Grant added. “Where could they be heading?”
In less than a minute the display screen showed the three of them entering the locker area by the main airlock.
“They’re going to suit up!” Grant said.
He glanced at his wristwatch, then checked the time back on the screen. Twenty minutes ago. They went into the lockers twenty minutes ago.
Grabbing Cardenas by the wrist, he said, “Come on! If we hurry we can catch them before they’ve finished suiting up.”
Running alongside him, Cardenas asked, “Why didn’t you see them when you scanned the surveillance views in your phone?”
“Because Nate must’ve disabled the camera in the locker area,” Grant replied without breaking stride.
“But why are they getting into suits? Where are they going?”
“Away from here,” Grant snapped. “Halleck wants to get away before the nanos wipe out this place.”
“But where’s she going? Selene won’t take her.”
“She’s got something in mind.” Why is she taking Trudy? Grant asked himself. Is Trudy working for Halleck? Is she part of this disaster? No, she couldn’t be. Not Trudy. She wouldn’t. She wouldn’t.
And Grant realized that whether Trudy was helping Halleck or not, he was glad that she was getting away from Farside and the destructive nanomachines.
But he knew that he had to bring her back. And Halleck along with her.
* * *
Standing engulfed in a cumbersome space suit, Halleck complained to Oberman, “Can’t you go any faster?”
“Gotta check out the suits,” Oberman replied as he plugged the life-support backpack into the torso of Trudy’s suit. “You don’t want to spring any leaks out in the vacuum.”
Trudy stood mutely while Oberman finished checking her suit. We’re going outside, she said to herself for the hundredth time. Whether I want to or not, we’re going outside.
Holding her bubble helmet in her trembling gloved hands, Trudy glanced up at the wrecked surveillance camera dangling from the stone ceiling. Oberman had ripped it loose from its mounting and smashed its lens.
“Nobody’ll see us in here,” he had assured Halleck.
Trudy hoped that Grant would notice the camera’s failure and deduce what Halleck was up to.
Hurry up, Grant, she urged silently. Stop her before she makes me go outside.
As soon as he satisfied himself that Trudy’s suit was functional, Oberman began tugging on the leggings of his own suit.
“And who checks you out?” Trudy asked softly.
Sitting on the bench as he pulled on his boots, Oberman grinned at her. “You do, honey. It’s not hard to do. Just make sure all the connector lights show green. That’s all there is to it.”
“Then why does it take so damnably long?” Halleck demanded. Like Trudy, she was fully suited up except for her helmet.
“Don’t worry, Mrs. Halleck,” said Oberman. “We got plenty time.”
“You may think so. I don’t.”
Getting to his feet, Oberman said, “Didn’t you see me reset the lock when we came in here and closed the corridor door? It’ll take ten, fifteen minutes for anybody to figure out the new combination.” He looked quite pleased with himself.
As he reached for the hard shell of his suit’s torso, Oberman went on, “All four hoppers are lined up just outside the airlock. They’re all fueled and ready to go: that’s standard procedure. The lobber you came in on, Mrs. Aitch, is sitting on the blast pad, so we’ll have to take off from where the hopper’s sitting.”
“Couldn’t that be a problem?” Trudy asked.
“Nope. Those little birds can take off from just about anyplace. And land anyplace. Not like the lobbers; they’re too big for that. They need a nice smooth pad to sit down on.”
Working his arms through the suit’s sleeves, Oberman said to Trudy, “Okay, now, Dr. Yost, you pick up my backpack out of my locker and connect it onto the clips on the back of my suit.”
Trudy did as she was told, seething inside with a desperate hope that Grant would break down the corridor door and save her before they forced her outside.