So much for Graf’s famous safety record. Blessings in disguise, at least the engineer wouldn’t be able to jam that down his throat any more. A little humility would be good for him.

And yet—the situation was so damned anomalous. It shouldn’t be possible to depressurize the whole Habitat at once. There were back-ups on the backups, interlocks, separated bays—any accident so system-wide would take foresight and planning.

A little hiss escaped his teeth, and Van Atta locked into himself in a sudden bubble of furious concentration, eyes widening. A planned accident—could it be, could it possibly be…?

Genius Graf. An accident, an accident, a perfect accident, the very accident he’d most desired but had never dared wish for aloud. Was that it? That had to be it! Fatal disaster for the quaddies, now, at the last moment when they were all together and it could be accomplished at one stroke?

A dozen clues fell into place. Graf’s insistence upon handling all the details of the salvage planning himself, his secretiveness, his anxiety for constant updates on the evacuation schedule—his withdrawal from social contacts that Yei had observed with disfavor, obsessive work schedule, general air of a man with a secret agenda driven to exhaustion—it was all culminating in this.

Of course it was secret. Now that he had penetrated the plot himself, Van Atta could only concur. The gratitude of the GalacTech hierarchy to Graf for relieving them of the quaddie problem must appear indirectly, in better assignments, quicker promotions—he would have to think up some suitably oblique way of transmitting it.

On the other hand—why share? Van Atta’s lips drew back in a vulpine grin. This was hardly a situation where Graf could demand credit where it was due, after all. Graf had been subtle—but not subtle enough. There would have to be a sacrifice, for the sake of form, after the accident. All he had to do was keep his mouth shut, and… Van Atta had to wrench his attention back to his present surroundings.

“I’ve got to check on my quaddies!” The young woman was growing wild-eyed. She gave up on the comm unit and began to shove her way back toward the airseal doors.

“Yes,” another man joined her, “and I’ve got to find Wyzak, he’s still not here. He’s bound to need help. I’ll go with you—”

“No!” cried Van Atta urgently, almost adding You’ll spoil everything! “You’re to wait for the all-clear. I won’t have a panic. We’ll all just sit tight and wait for instructions.”

The woman subsided, but the man said skeptically, “Instructions from whom?”

“Graf,” said Van Atta. Yes, it was not too early to start making it clear to witnesses where the hands-on responsibility lay. He controlled his excitement-spurred rapid breathing, trying for an aura of steady calm. Though not too calm—he must appear as surprised as any—no, more surprised than any—when the full extent of the disaster became apparent.

He settled down to wait. Minutes dragged past. One last panting group of refugees made it through the airseal doors; the Habitat-wide rate of depressurization must be slowing. One of the administrators from inventory control—old habits die hard—presented him with an unsolicited head-count of those present.

He silently cursed the census-taker’s initiative, even as he accepted the results with thanks. The proof that all were not present might compel him to action he did not desire to take.

Only eleven downsider staff members had not made it. A necessary price to pay, Van Atta assured himself nervously. Some were doubtless holed up in other pressurized pockets, or so he could maintain he had believed, later. Their fatal mistakes could be pinned on Graf.

A group by the airseal doors was making ready to bolt. Van Atta inhaled, and paused, momentarily uncertain how to stop them without giving away everything. But a cry of dismay went up from one woman—”All the air is out of the corridor now! We can’t get through without pressure suits!” Van Atta exhaled in relief.

He made his way to one of the module’s viewports; it framed a dull vista of unwinking stars. The port on the other side gave an oblique view back toward the Habitat. Movement caught his eye, and he mashed his nose to the cold glass in an attempt to make out the details.

The silvery flash of worksuits, bobbing over the outside surface of the Habitat. Refugees? Or a repair party? Could his first hypothesis of a real accident be correct after all? Not good, but in any case it was still Graf s baby.

But there were quaddies out there, dammit, quaddie survivors. He could see the arms. Graf had not made his stroke complete. Just two quaddie survivors, if one was male and the other female, would be as bad as a thousand, from Apmad’s point of view. Perhaps the work party was all-male.

There was Graf himself, among the flitting figures! They carried an assortment of equipment. The wavering distortion of his transverse view through the port prevented him from making out just what. He twisted his neck, craning painfully. Then the work party was eclipsed by a curve of the Habitat. A pusher slid into, and out of, his view, arcing smoothly over the lecture module. More escapees? Quaddie or downsider?

“Hey,” an excited voice from within the lecture module disrupted his frantic observations. “We’re in luck, gang. This whole cupboard is filled with breath masks. There must be three hundred of “em.”

Van Atta swivelled his head to spot the cupboard in question. The last time he’d been in this module that storage had been filled with audiovisual equipment. Who the hell had made that switch, and why…?

A bang reverberated through the module with a peculiar sharp resonance, like having one’s head in a metal bucket when someone whacked it with a hammer. Hard. Shrieks and screams. The lights dimmed, then came up to about a quarter of their former brilliance. They were on the module’s own emergency power. Power from the Habitat had been cut off.

Power wasn’t all that had been cut off. Stunned, Van Atta saw the Habitat begin to turn slowly past his viewport. No, it wasn’t the Habitat—it was the module that was moving. A generalized “Aaah!” went up from the mob within, as they began to drift toward one wall and pile up there against the gentle acceleration being imparted from without. Van Atta clung convulsively to the handholds by the viewport.

Realization washed over him almost physically, radiating hotly from his chest down his arms, his legs, pounding up through the top of his head as if to burst through his skull.

Betrayed! He was betrayed, betrayed completely and on every level. A space-suited figure with legs was waving a cheery farewell at the module from beside a gaping hole burned in the side of the Habitat. Van Atta shook with chagrin. I’ll get you, Graf! I’tt get you, you double-crossing son-of-a-bitch! You and every one of those four-armed little creeps with you—

“Calm down, man!” Dr. Yei was saying, having somehow snagged up by his viewport. “What is it?”

He realized he’d been mumbling aloud. He wiped saliva from the corners of his mouth and glared at Yei. “You—you—you missed it. You were supposed to be keeping track of everything that’s going on with those little monsters, and you totally missed it—” He advanced on her, intending he knew not what, slipped from a handhold, swung and skidded down the wall. His blood beat so hard in his ears he was afraid he was having a coronary. He lay a moment with his eyes closed, gasping, temporarily overwhelmed by his emotions. Control, he told himself in a mortal fear of his imminent self-destruction. Control, stay in control—and get Graf later. Get him, get them all. …