"Bios" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wilson Robert Charles)

ELEVEN

Degrandpre had planned to give Avrion Theophilus the full tour of the IOS—when had there been such a guest as Avrion Theophilus?—but the Devices and Personnel man was having none of it.

“What I want to see this morning,” Theophilus had said mildly, “is your shuttle quarantine.”

And what a grand scion of the Families this Theophilus had turned out to be! Tall, bone-thin, gray-haired, aquiline of nose and fashionably pale of complexion. Degrandpre’s orchidectomy badge, which so impressed his subordinates, was nothing to this man but a servant’s tattoo. No doubt Theophilus had already sired a brood of young aristocrats, strapping creatures with blue eyes and immaculate teeth.

Admirable, powerful! And potentially very dangerous. Avrion Theophilus was a Devices and Personnel functionary of unknown rank who conducted himself with all the arrogance of a Works Trust official, and that in itself was deeply confusing.

The news from Earth was equally troubling. Hints of turmoil among the Houses and the Families, show trials, perhaps a purge in the Trusts. But news through the particle-pair link was heavily censored, and although this Theophilus must know far more about the crisis than anyone onboard the IOS did, he hadn’t volunteered to talk about it.

And Degrandpre dared not ask, for fear of seeming impertinent.

It was all so maddeningly ambiguous. Should he court the favor of Avrion Theophilus, or would that appear as a betrayal to his sponsors in the Works Trust? Was there a middle path?

An oppressive emotional atmosphere gripped the IOS, much as Degrandpre tried to minimize it. The loss of the Oceanic Station weighted heavily on staff even here; by all accounts, the surface personnel had grown brutally dispirited. Some saw it as the end of the human presence on Isis. And that it might well be, although this Theophilus seemed disturbingly indifferent. “Your orbital station needs some maintenance,” Theophilus remarked blandly. “The ring corridor is filthy, and the air isn’t much better.”

The walls were dirty, true. Cleaning servitors had lately been scavenged for the interferometer project; replacements had not yet arrived from the Turing factories. As for the smell—“We’ve had some trouble with the scrubbers in our waste-management stacks. Temporary, of course, but in the meantime … I apologize. One grows accustomed to it.”

“Perhaps not as easily as one might hope.”

Perfect aristocratic tone, Degrandpre thought: insult and menace ill a single phrase. He promised to see to the problem, though he couldn’t imagine what he could do except bother the engineers yet again. No spares had arrived with the Higgs sphere, and he cynically wondered if replacements had been set aside to make room for the noble mass of Avrion Theophilus.

He escorted his guest as far as the massive bulkhead doors dividing Shuttle Quarantine from the rest of the IOS. Theophilus proceeded to inspect the seals and the rivet heads in minute detail, making Degrandpre wait. “As I’m sure you’re aware,” Degrandpre hinted, “these are the standard bulkheads; the sterile perimeter is inside.”

“Nevertheless, I want these bulkheads inspected daily. By qualified engineers.” At Degrandpre’s shocked expression he added, “I don’t think the Works Trust will disapprove, do you?”

Degrandpre palmed the admit button and the bulkhead door wheeled open. Inside, a single Kuiper-born medical engineer monitored the quarantine from a steel chair. The four survivors of the deep-sea disaster, a shuttle pilot and three junior marine exobiologists, had been languishing in containment for ten days now. A monitor image from the isolation chamber filled the screen above Degrandpre’s head: two men, two women, all haggard in lab whites except for the pilot, whose Trust uniform was still relatively crisp.

Theophilus asked the medical engineer pointed and knowledgeable questions about quarantine procedures, redundancy, fail-safes, alarm systems. Degrandpre took note but could infer nothing from the exchange … except that perhaps Devices and Personnel had grown nervous about the sterile status of the IOS.

But there had never been any question of that. Yes, it would be disastrous if there were an outbreak aboard the orbital station. The steel necklace of the IOS contained and nurtured nearly fifteen hundred human souls, and there was no plausible escape route for most of them; the planet below was universally toxic and the single spare Higgs launcher reserved for emergencies would carry a mere handful of managers at best. But there had never been even the hint of such a threat. Shuttles from Isis passed through the sterilizing vacuum of space, and cargo and passengers were rigorously quarantined and scrutinized. As the medical engineer patiently explained. And further explained. And continued to explain, until Degrandpre was forced to express his hope that the senior manager from Earth wasn’t overwhelmed by all this perhaps unnecessary detail.

“Not at all,” Theophilus said crisply. “Standard quarantine is ten days?”

The medical engineer nodded.

“And when will this one be finished?”

“Just a few hours from now, and no sign of contagion, nothing at all. They’ve been through a lot, these four; they’re looking forward to release.”

“Give them another week,” Avrion Theophilus said.

“Master Theophilus,” Degrandpre asked, “is there anything else you would like to see? The gardens perhaps, or the medical facilities?”

“Isis,” Theophilus said.

They always want a window. “I can recommend the view from the docking bays.”

“Thank you, but I’ll be needing a closer look than that.”

Degrandpre frowned. “Closer? You mean … you want to visit a ground station?”

Theophilus nodded.

My God, Degrandpre thought. He’ll kill himself. On top of everything else, this grand, stupid Family cousin will kill himself, and the Families will blame me.