Outward Borne (34 page)

‘
OK, what's this about?” Aubry
asked.

‘
It's our school code,” he
answered. “MuiMi is sure to remember it. It has not been that long
since we were in academy together.’

‘
Do they still do that?” asked
Aubry. “I thought you young people were too sophisticated for games
like that.” Dunsten ignored the quip.

‘
I am going to call her direct,”
Aubry said while taking out his All-1. Direct calls between All-1s
were not allowed, everything was supposed to go through Central
Communications, but it might work if they were close enough. It did
not. All local communications were being jammed.

He could not know, but MuiMi was
trying to contact him at the exact same time. None of her crew was
happy about being confined in the Farside arm overnight, MuiMi most
of all. She tried to call Central as they were making their way
over to the restbox. She had plans for the night, good plans, and
wanted to tell her friends that she would not be able to make the
party, but all links were cut off. This was just one more question
for the pile on that strange day. Being told to break for the
evening, but not return home was one other. What kind of leisurely
emergency was this anyway?

Tomat took out some of his
frustrations. He yanked open the restbox door. It was nothing less
than a small, metal room with an airtight cover. He swung himself
forcefully feet first through the small, round entry, where he
kicked an empty storage bin that someone had left to float loose in
the chamber. The bin went banging around, repeatedly smashing
against the metal walls.

“
Get in there and catch that thing
before it breaks everything in the place,” Eric yelled into his
helmet phone. MuiMi did not want to deal with anything more that
day. She pulled herself into one of the bunks, abandoning the prep
work to the men. Eric knew her moods and did not comment on this
breach of manners. He sealed off the portal and opened the
pressurization valve as stale air hissed into the chamber. MuiMi
was just going to wait there until the too-small box pressured up
and she could get out of her suit. Finally, the warning light
clicked off and she could lie back and rest. It was good to hear
quiet after hours in that hissing, buzzing coverall.

Dunsten tried again and again,
tapping out their welcoming code, but without success. His
frustration grew, as it seemed that they had run out of options.
Childeric wanted to break into the Farside arm and look for them,
but that was such a long shot. Even if they avoided being detected,
which was not likely, they would probably end up being locked in as
well. Time was running out. Aubry had already received a message to
return to the People’s habitat for the night. Dunsten hit his
wrench against the pipes in anger and one last time, BAM Bam, BAM
BAM, bam, as hard as he could.

MuiMi's eyes flew open. What? She
was sure she heard a sound. Was it the incessant ship creaking? No.
She could not help but smile, it had been years since she heard the
classes’ signal code. There is not much privacy for young people
growing up in the confined human habitat. All electronic
communication was recorded, and most spoken conversations were
picked up on some listening device, if anyone were interested in
listening, so for ages past the twenty-or-so classmates that went
through academy together had made up their own private code. All
kinds of secret plans and warnings could be sent a considerable
distance by tapping on the floor next to an air vent, especially at
night when sounds carried so well.

“
Give me the tool box,” she told
Tomat. Pulling out a hammer, she tapped out her answer code and
waited. Yes, she got a response. “It is Dunsten,” she called out.
“There is some kind of problem.” She listened carefully, gave brief
answers, as her concern grew. Her lips pressed into a straight
line, she turned to her team. “That was my father's crew. They were
called out with four others to seal off the Farside bulkhead. There
was no explanation as to why, but the job will be finished by
tomorrow afternoon. They want us to get out now.”

“
We can make it, it is not far
from here. If we worked our way through the ceiling supports we
could avoid the surveillance cameras, but we need a way through the
bulkhead,” said Eric, already starting to pack up. “I doubt the
door will be open.”

Dunsten smiled at Aubry, who visibly sighed
with relief. “They are not far away, in a restbox in the hub. I
know the one. We have a chance”

Childeric had already turned and made his way
over to the small pass-through door within the service tube. He
opened the hinge-box and pulled out the circuit. An alarm sounded.
They started receiving calls within seconds.

“
No, no,” Aubry explained. “We did
not open the Farside door. We are disconnecting the electrical
feeds and had to shut down for a minute. No. Do not worry, there
was no breach of the seal.” He was waving his hands in the air as
if he was holding them at bay.

All the while, Childeric was busy shorting
pins to bypass the alarm, as soon as he finished, the klaxon
stopped abruptly. They had a way for MuiMi's crew to get through
the bulkhead. Things were looking up when Aubry received a priority
call. They were ordered to return to the Filim module.
Immediately!

Aubry reacted quickly. He informed
the Ship that his crew needed to stay for another half hour. It was
unsafe to leave the power lines loose, he claimed. The Ship had
started to protest when Aubry cut it off. He and Eric rushed to the
supply depot. They ducked into the storage room, grabbed some fresh
air tanks, and launched them in the direction of the service tube
port. They took some electrical connectors and made a show of
bringing them to the job. Eric ‘accidentally’ smashed the flybot
that was monitoring their movements, and Aubry hustled the air
harnesses into the big tube.

At the same time, Dunsten learned
of another problem. MuiMi signaled that their air tanks were gone;
they had been taken away to be replenished. The three crewmates had
only the small bottle from the emergency kit.

Dunsten tapped out word to MuiMi.
Three air tanks were next to the service pass-through. They could
use that door without an alarm, but they must move quickly. He told
her that they had been ordered to leave. It was likely that the
ObLaDas would have something come out to check their work, but they
would keep the service tube closed off.

It was not far from the restbox to
the bulkhead, but the crew would need to move up into the ceiling
beams and through the maze of supporting girders. It would take a
minimum of five minutes MuiMi figured. Then they had to get into
the service tube. Who knew where the entry might be. “I could take
the air bottle and bring back the harnesses,” she said, but the
crew decided it would take too long, and they would surely be seen
making trips back and forth from where they were not supposed to
be. There was no choice but to share the little air bottle and go
together. Tomat and Eric sorted through the tools looking for
whatever they might need to get into the big pipe, and something
that might serve as a weapon would not hurt.

One by one, the crew moved out of
the restbox and into the space between the wall and an L-shaped
support beam. One jump and they rose to the rafters of the heavily
supported ceiling. MuiMi carried the air bottle slung over one
shoulder with the mouthpiece hanging loose. After some debate, they
left their bulky isolation suits behind and wore only tight fitting
coveralls. The thin fabric would provide little relief against the
cold, but at least they could move easily. The little green bottle
should have had enough oxygen for at least ten minutes, enough time
to get safely to the bulkhead, but its pressure was low. This one
was not full, maybe the valve leaked, who knows how long it had sat
there. Three minutes later, they were in sight of the service
conduit. Tomat got there first and began moving along its length to
find an opening. Nothing. They were still minutes away from the
bulkhead. If they went that way and did not find an access door,
they might not have time get back to the restbox. They looked at
each other in silent agreement and moved toward the massive steel
wall.

Tomat stopped and waved them over.
He had found the opening a short distance from the bulkhead, an
opening trussed up with a dozen clamps. Eric and Tomat pulled out
their tools and set to work. MuiMi gave Tot some air, and then went
to Eric. Eric was almost out of breath. When he put his mouth to
the piece, his eyes flew wide. There was no more. He panicked and
dropped his spanner, which slowly drifted away striking some
distant dark wall. Tomat took a quick glance at MuiMi and redoubled
his efforts to get into the tube. A minute later, he had the lid
off. There was no way to seal it up again, so they let it drift
away and hurried into the dark tunnel. Once there, they made quick
progress to the small bulkhead door. Tot squeezed his eyes shut and
tore it open. He was expecting the alarm to sound, but Childeric
had done his work well and there was no alert, only a blast of
bridge air, warmer but with little oxygen. Tot grabbed the gasping
Eric and MuiMi by their collars and pushed them through the door
while holding onto the frame for leverage. Eric franticly looked
around. His pale face whitened even more. There were no air tanks
in sight. He turned to MuiMi and passed out. The air harnesses were
a few meters along the tube, wedged against the conduit wall and
some pipes to keep them from drifting away. MuiMi shoved two of the
units toward Tomat and nodded toward Eric as her vision went dark.
Tomat saw her fade away and stopped his rush toward Eric. He shoved
the air supply into her mouth and turned it on. Eric didn't look
good. It had been minutes since he passed out. Tomat started
working to get him breathing. MuiMi came to with a jerk. She hardly
knew what happened. She woke to find herself in a different
position than her body expected, but quickly came
around.

MuiMi spotted her father's All-1
lying on a circuit box, and lunged for it. It had instructions for
their escape. There was an ‘unofficial’ restbox in the Filim
anti-module, fourteenth deck. He told her that they must be
extremely careful not to be seen. He was afraid they would be
terminated if the OLDies learned that they had gotten out of the
Farside arm. MuiMi did not understand why. Ok, they were supposed
to stay there for work tomorrow, but skipping out is hardly a
capital offence. Nevertheless, she had been warned. MuiMi stuck her
head out of the narrow access door and looked into the bridge
corridor to see if the OLDies, or their ever-annoying bots, were
coming to pick them up. Nothing, at least not yet. She pulled the
door closed and locked it.

Tomat and MuiMi waited until Eric
recovered. They worked out a plan to get across the bridge and into
the Filim hub. From there, they would need to travel over three
kilometers through the arm to the Filim anti-mod without being
seen, falling, or freezing to death. The beginning was easy. MuiMi
and her crewmates were able to glide silently, hand-over-hand
through the service tube, until they got the Filim side of the
bridge. This bulkhead had not been secured, passageways were open
as they normally were, and they were able to enter the hub without
encountering an alarmed door. Aubry had left instructions and a
diagram for finding the secret restbox that the People had built
inside the Filim anti-module, but it was a long way
away.

Eric, feeling well enough to be
embarrassed by his passing out, insisted on leading the way along
the walls, floating between the massive structure supports, high
into the cavernous Filim hub. This newly built structure had
several levels of storage and assembly space near the bridge
connection, but these were stacked up like trays in the center of
the hub and did not block the crew’s passage. The area was always
busy with material transfers, transport dollies, and shuttle
traffic coming and going. Tomat could see bots moving large bins
about; massive sections from the old arm were being removed
piece-by-piece and sent to the main hull for recycling. He did not
think there would be any ObLaDas in the hub. If there were, their
gold suits would be easily seen. Keeping to the darkest corners,
the crew made their way, half floating, and half climbing, toward
the hub portal. The hub was strongly built to support the stress
from the long connecting arm and the streams of suspension cables
leading to the massive modules beyond. Thick girders provided ample
shelter for the escaping crewmembers.

They were accustomed to working in
a weightless environment, and reached the beginning of anti-mod arm
without tiring. This bulkhead separated the pressurized hub from
the near vacuum of the anti-mod arm. Without their containment
suits, their only way through was within the pressurized shuttle
tube. They could make their way along the inside of that elevator
shaft all the way through the arm, if they could get in. Eric and
Tomat moved slowly around the conduit connection. They were exposed
and visible from below, but it was a long way away and they would
now be hard to see. MuiMi kept watch, looking for any movement on
the platforms, anything that might show they had been seen. There
was a door on the side of the shuttle tube that was free of any
monitoring devices. There was no need for a door there, but like
almost everything on the Outward, it was a module, and if the
module had a door, then there would be doors all over the place.
The crew began to work their way inside the shuttle tube, but it
was dark and very cold. Tomat felt the chill immediately, and made
for the light girders that supported the tube walls. He wasted no
time. They had only their exertions to keep them warm.