“My God.” Leo glanced up the length of the cafeteria module, crowded with quaddies. My God…

Durrance scratched his chin reflectively. “If it’s true, do you have any idea what it’s going to do to the space transport industry? The Jump pilot claims the Betans got the damned thing there in two months—from Beta Colony!—boosting at fifteen gees and insulating the crew from the acceleration using it. There’ll be no limit to acceleration now but fuel costs. It probably won’t affect bulk cargos much for that very reason, but the passenger trade’ll be revolutionized. The speed news travels, which’ll affect the rate of exchange between planetary currencies—military transport, where they don’t care what they spend on fuel—and you can bet that’ll affect interplanetary politics—it’s a whole new game all around.”

Durrance finished scraping the last globs of food out of the pockets of his lunch tray. “Damn the colonials. Good old conservative Earth-based GalacTech left in the lurch again. You know, I’m really tempted to emigrate out to the farther end of the wormhole nexus sometimes. The wife’s got family on Earth, though, so I don’t suppose we ever will…” Leo hung stunned in his straps as Durrance droned on. After a moment he swallowed the bite of squash still in his mouth, there being no more practical way to dispose of it. “Do you realize,” he choked, “what this will do to the quaddies?”

Durrance blinked. “Not much, surely. There’s still going to be plenty of jobs to do in free fall.”

“It will destroy their edge in profitability versus ordinary workers, that’s what. It was the downside medical leaves that were boosting the personnel costs. Eliminate them, and there’s nothing to choose between—can this thing provide artificial gravity on a space station?”

“If they could mount it on a ship, they can put it on a station,” opined Durrance. “It’s not some kind of perpetual motion, though,” he cautioned. “It sucks power like crazy, the Jump pilot said. That’ll cost something.”

“Not as much—and surely they’ll find more design efficiencies as they go along—oh, God.”

This chance wasn’t going to favor the quaddies. This chance favored no one. Damn, damn, damn the timing! Ten years from now, even one year from now, it could have been their salvation. Here, now, might it be—a death sentence? Leo flipped his feet out of the straps and coiled to launch himself toward the module doors.

“You just leaving this tray here?” asked Durrance. “Can I have your dessert…?”

Leo waved a hand in impatient assent as he sprang away.

One look at Bruce Van Atta’s glum and hostile face, as Leo swung into his Habitat office, confirmed Durrance’s story. “Have you heard this artificial gravity rumor?” Leo demanded anyway, one last lurch of hope—let Van Atta deny it, name it fraud…

Van Atta glared at him in profound irritation. “How the hell did you find out about it?”

“It’s none of your business where I found out about it. Is it true?”

“Oh, yes it is my business. I want to keep this under wraps for as long as possible.”

It was true, then. Leo’s heart shrank. “Why? How long have you known about it?”

Van Atta’s hand flipped the edges of a pile of plastic flimsies, computer printouts and communiques, magnetized to his desk. “Three days.”

“It’s official, then.”

“Oh, quite official.” Van Atta’s mouth twisted in disgust. “I got the word from GalacTech district headquarters on Orient IV. Apmad apparently met the news on her way home, and made one of her famous field decisions.”

He rattled the flimsies again, and frowned. “There’s no way around it. Do you know what came in yesterday on the heels of this thing? Kline Station has cancelled its construction contract with GalacTech, the first one we were going to send the quaddies out on. Paid the penalty without a murmur. Kline Station’s out toward Beta Colony, they must have found out about this weeks ago—months. They’ve switched to a Betan contractor who, we may presume, is undercutting us. The Cay Project is cooked. Nothing left to do but wrap it up and get the hell out of here, the sooner the better. Damn! So now I’m associated with a loser project. I’ll come out reeking with odor of loss.”

“Wrap, wrap how? What do you mean, wrap?” “That bitch Apmad’s most favored scenario. I’ll bet she was purring when she cut these orders—the quaddies gave her nervous palpitations, y’know. They’re to be sterilized and stashed downside. Any pregnancies in progress to be aborted—shit, and we just started fifteen of ‘em! What a fiasco. A year of my career down the tubes.”

“My God, Bruce, you’re not going to carry out those orders, are you?”

“Oh no? Just watch me.” Van Atta stared at him, chewing his lip. Leo could feel himself tensing, pale with his suppressed fury. Van Atta sniffed. “What d’you want, Leo? Apmad could have ordered them exterminated. They’re getting off lightly. It could have been worse.”

“And if it had been—if she had ordered the quaddies killed—would you have carried it out?” inquired Leo, deceptively calm.

“She didn’t. C’mon, Leo. I’m not inhuman. Sure, I’m sorry for the little suckers. I was doing my damndest to make ‘em profitable. But there’s no way I can fight this. All I can do is make the wrap as quick and clean and painless as possible, and cut the losses as much as I can. Maybe somebody in the company hierarchy will appreciate it.”

“Painless to whom?”

“To everybody.” Van Atta grew more intent, and leaned toward Leo with a scowl. “That means I don’t need a lot of panic and wild rumors floating around, you hear? I want business as usual right up to the last minute. You and all the other instructors will go on teaching your classes just as if the quaddies really were going out on a work project, until the downside facility is ready and we can start shuttling ‘em. Maybe take the little ones first—the salvageable parts of the

Habitat are supposed to be moved around the orbit to the Transfer Station, we might cut some costs by using quaddies for that last job.”

“To imprison them downside—”

“Oh, come off the dramatics. They’re being placed in a perfectly ordinary drilling workers’ dormitory, only abandoned six months ago when the field ran dry.” Van Atta brightened slightly in self-congratulation. “I found it myself, looking over the possible sites to place ‘em. It’ll cost next to nothing to refurbish it, compared to building new.”

Leo could just picture it. He shuddered. “And what happens in fourteen years, when and if Orient IV expropriates Rodeo?”

Van Atta ruffled his hair with both hands in exasperation. “How the hell should I know? At that point, it becomes Orient IV’s problem. There’s only so much one human being can do, Leo.”

Leo smiled slowly, in grim numbness. “I’m not sure… what one human being can do. I’ve never pushed myself to the limit. I thought I had, but I realize now I hadn’t. My self-tests were always carefully non-destructive.”

This test was a higher order of magnitude altogether. This Tester, perhaps, scorned the merely humanly possible. Leo tried to remember how long it had been since he’d prayed, or even believed. Never, he decided, like this. He’d never needed like this before…

Van Atta frowned at him suspiciously. “You’re weird, Leo.” He straightened his spine, as if seeking a posture of command. “Just in case you missed my message, let me repeat it loud and clear. You are to mention this artificial gravity business to no one, that means especially no quaddies. Likewise, keep their downside destination secret. I’ll let Yei figure out how to make them swallow it without kicking, it’s time she earned her overinflated salary. No rumors, no panics, no goddamn workers’ riots—and if there are, I’ll know just whose hide to nail to the wall. Got it?”

Leo’s smile was canine, concealing—everything. “Got it.” He withdrew without turning his back, or speaking another word.