IN THE CONTROL ROOM, Lamar and Helice stared at the wall screen. Titus Quinn had just evaporated from the lab module. The harness assembly suspended from the crossbar was empty and motionless, giving no hint that, moments before, it had held a 190-pound man. At the moment he crossed over, he had appeared to become two-dimensional. Then his whole body turned thirty degrees and moved backward, like a piece of paper being sucked into a copier.
“Did he make it?” Lamar breathed.
Helice pursed her lips, then said, “Let's be optimistic.”
That sounded like a splendid idea, optimism. But Lamar was filled with a cool dread. Their instruments couldn't penetrate the other dimension at will. There was absolutely no way to know.
“How long do we wait?” Lamar asked. What, short of seeing Titus Quinn reappear, would constitute success? And when?
Helice turned to him. “You mean how long before we retaliate against his brother?”
Lamar was often startled by her pronouncements. She looked so clean-cut. She hadn't had time in her brief life to grow so bitter. Or had she?
Company gossip had it that her parents were both dreds. Or rather, to put it more politely, they'd opted out of their education, going instead for the dole. Dred was a word he never used publicly, denoting as it did those of average IQ: one hundred IQ points, give or take. One hundreds were the laborers of the world. Those who relied on muscle instead of neurons.
Helice had grown up smart despite her parentage. But no doubt the kids at school had thrown dred at her because of her folks, especially when she started to surpass her classmates. Jealousy. Kids could be cruel, often aiming for anyone who hadn't the decency to be average. The irony of it was that Helice was now jealous of Quinn, and was punishing him for excellence. Abrasive and lonely, Helice doted on her dogs and the damn parrot that went everywhere with her, the creatures that loved her in spite of herself.
Lamar got it in his head to contradict her. “If we sent him into vacuum space, there's no reason to take it out on Rob.”
Helice frowned. “But that was the deal. A promise is a promise.” She went on, “Plus, there's Mateo.”
“Mateo?”
“Up for the Standard Test soon. I heard he might take it early.”
She had heard no such thing. She was investigating the boy. “Mateo has nothing to do with this, Helice.”
She turned on him. “He's our insurance that Quinn will come back.” She popped open her water bottle and took a pull.
“If he can, he will. Why wouldn't he come back, for God's sake?”
With elaborate patience, Helice said, “Last time he stayed ten years. So I upped the ante. Even if the kid tests savvy, like his uncle and his grandfather did, his results are still going to look bad. Quinn knows this. It's our leash to bring him home.”
Lamar muttered, “Even you can't subvert the Standard Test.”
“But it's numbers, Lamar. I'm very good with numbers.”
So this was why Quinn had made Lamar promise to protect the family, because Helice had threatened the youngster.
She noted the expression on his face. “Okay, be outraged, Lamar. Must feel good to be so pure. Just remember people are dying in those Kardashev tunnels—hundreds of people every year. And it's all we've got for transport. You think Rob and Mateo and their careers are worth more than that?”
“It's not as though shit-canning Mateo will save lives, Helice. Hurting the boy is just plain vicious. And he's practically kin to me. His grandfather—”
She interrupted. “Donnel, Quinn's father. Right. Well, he's been dead twenty years. All your contemporaries are dead, Lamar. I hate to point out that you are retired—and at the request of the board that no longer found your perspective helpful. You're out of the loop. Now that Quinn's in the other place, we really don't need your advice anymore. Don't interfere.”
“You hate him, don't you?”
She stared at her water bottle.
“Because he got the assignment and you didn't?”
She turned to face him. “I hate him because he's going to scratch the assignment. He didn't go there for us, you know. He won't be on-task, not on our task.”
“How do you live with yourself, Helice? How do your dogs stand you?”
Her face hardened. “How do you live with yourself, Lamar? Look at you, pasty-faced, turkey neck, age spots. And that's only the beginning. Soon there's incontinence, impotence, and all the little transplants you can stand. I'm never going to be like you. Never.”
Lamar was stunned. Where had all this come from? “Age comes to us all, my dear,” he said with satisfaction.
“Perhaps.” She paused, resetting her tone. “Sorry for the outburst. That was uncalled-for.”
He nodded, not wanting to fight with her.
“Look,” she said. “I hope as much as you do that Quinn will come back. If he doesn't, we'll have to send someone else, that's all.”
A chime on the control board got Helice's attention, and she toggled the comm switch. “What?”
“Thought you'd want to see this,” the tech's voice reported. On-screen, they saw what one of the cameras had captured Quinn from a low angle as he'd gone through the cleansing process before suiting up. The picture showed that his feet hadn't exactly been bare.
She squinted at the screen. The close-up view showed what looked like pieces of paper stuck to his soles. Helice swore under her breath.
Lamar suppressed a chuckle, but he couldn't help saying, “He never did mind.” He imagined those were family pictures, taped to the soles of his feet—the pictures that Quinn had wanted to bring in the first place.
Helice stormed out to talk with the technicians, leaving Lamar wondering about her comment, I'm never going to be like you.
Did she just despise him that much...or did she hope for more out of life than most people got? He looked at the door where Helice had just exited. The woman had never learned to live with limits.
He caught his reflection in a darkened computer monitor and turned away, not liking mirrors and the story they told.