Her smile stayed in place, but the muscles around it hardened. “Oh, how perfectly wonderful.”
In all my life I’d never heard someone curse with as much vitriol as Allison Greene managed to put into those two words. Sailors would have fainted to hear her, plants died if she’d directed it their way.
“Tulla, would you bring up the logs from the fence, please?” Her polite mannerisms were brittle, as though her plastic shell might shatter at any moment. The pink tarantula skittered forward, and this time the hologram was one I knew. I’d been wrestling with it since gaps appeared in the fence logs, but there weren’t any gaps in the last few hours. One of the green bars representing a section of fence turned briefly orange, indicating that someone had crossed it from our side. And then nothing, unbroken green. I watched in vain for the red line that would show someone crossing from the far side, but it never came. Of course not, anything crossing from the far side would sound an alarm in case it was something dangerous.
“So,” Allison said, finally letting go of my hand. “He’s stuck out there. I hope he knows how to survive a snowstorm.”
Rubbing my right hand where she’d clamped down on it, I shook my head. “No way. He doesn’t even know there’s a storm coming. I’ll find him and bring him back.”
“You most certainly will not,” Allison answered, her eyes flashing. “I know you want him safe, but I refuse to be the manager who got two people killed instead of one. You’re staying right here, and when Karnac gets back, you can shout at him first. Deal?”
I opened my mouth, shut it again, thought it through. The first rule in a crisis is to keep yourself safe before tending to others, and it’s a good rule. But right now, that rule could take a long walk off a short pier.
“Deal?” Allison’s voice hardened and she clasped her hands in front of her. She could lock me up if she felt she had to, so I nodded reluctantly. Allison relaxed, just a fraction, and nodded. “Good. That will give us time to plan an expedition once the storm’s passed by. A proper search, not just you blundering through the wilderness.”
I scowled but didn’t argue. “Fine. I’ll try to get some work done here, then.”
Tapping on the table summoned Glitch, who appeared two feet to the right, sitting on empty air and preening. At least Allison had the sense not to push her luck, and for once didn’t try talking me into recycling him. I felt the look she gave me but she didn’t say a word.
We both buried ourselves in virtual work. Allison in sending out an email update telling everyone about the incoming storm. Me… well, it wasn’t technically work. Hacking would be a better word for it. There was an amusing irony to the fact that the alerts for the systems Glitch compromised came to me. He’d enter the western viewport control, and I’d know he’d succeeded when an email turned up to tell me the WVC had been hacked. Which I discarded, feeling a little guilt, but only a little.
It only took a few minutes to finish that job, after which I turned to load-balancing the power systems. No matter what else happened, when that snow hit, we’d lose power from the solar collectors and I wanted to make sure that everything vital would run on the batteries as long as possible.
Alarms blared, and I squealed. Allison jumped up so fast she knocked her chair over, demanding answers. In the corridor, a mishmash of voices, all demanding to know what was happening. Why were all the western viewports opening? Were we going to freeze?
Allison hurried out of the refectory and started trying to calm our colleagues down. It wasn’t an easy task, not with everyone on edge already. I slipped past her toward the western side of the building. Someone called encouragement after me, and I smiled. Nice to be appreciated for once.
“Just stay out of my way and I’ll have this fixed in no time,” I told them. “The temperature will be back up in half an hour, give or take, but if you’re cold, put on your outside gear to keep warm.”
I grabbed my coat from my locker, along with my outdoor boots. As I’d hoped, Allison’s mind was on crowd control not on me, and I’d given a good reason for taking outside gear. If she’d thought about it, she’d probably have worked out my plan, but she had too many other things on her mind.
Slipping into studio one, I found it still set up for Zeng Ru’s afternoon children’s show. It was a little creepy, the brightly colored set empty, snow drifting in and covering everything near the open window.
I didn’t pause to look at it, just climbed out the window and onto the slope beyond. The snow brought down visibility, rendering the trees as a fuzzy dark line. That would have to do for a destination, that and shouting for Karnac to come find me.
“Well done, Glitch, you can close up the windows now,” I said to my companion. He purred at my thanks, and behind us the windows slid shut. A delayed message would tell the others that everything was fine in five minutes. By then, Allison would know what I’d done from the alert she’d get when I crossed the fence. I’d be too far away for her to do anything about it, though.
I wondered if this was a good idea. But I had my heavy jacket, my heated gloves and boots, and a need to teach Karnac a damned good lesson.
Pulling my gloves on, I headed down the slope to find my mate.
My hood up, goggles on, and heating elements active, it really wasn’t that cold. In fact, by the time I’d made it down to the fence, I was sweating.
“Hey, Glitch, let me know if you see a trail to follow,” I told my companion. His purr of agreement made me jump, coming from right beside my ear while his hologram scampered at my feet. He’s a little sneak sometimes.
He led me down into the snow, though if he was following anyone’s tracks, I couldn’t see them. Not that much of a surprise, through goggles and the snow. Trusting that Glitch knew where he was going, I followed.
The snow got heavier as I descended the slope, and I looked back to check my trail. It was already vanishing, fresh snow blotting it out. The snow had turned heavy now, thick white flakes blowing everywhere, carried on the blustery wind, and I couldn’t see beyond a few yards.
“Glitch?” I couldn’t see my companion either, and for a moment I thought a predator might have caught him. Ridiculous, of course — the wildlife couldn’t hurt a hologram. It would take an attack on me, on the vambrace that held his projector. Yeah, that’s not exactly a cheerful thought either. “GLITCH!”
I spun around, looking in every direction. There: the fuzzy hologram appeared out of the snow, image glitching wildly. For once, it wasn’t due to damage to his circuits: falling snow disrupted the light as it passed through him.
“Thank goodness you’re okay,” I said, irrationally relieved. It’s one thing to know your friend’s not in danger, but much better to see he’s unhurt. Which brought me back to Karnac, alone out there in the snow. Did he know what he was doing? I frowned: he’d grown up on spaceships, been raised in artificial environments. As skilled as he was, he didn’t have a context for a snowstorm like this.
Oh, like I do? Please, I grew up in Arizona. Shivering in my jacket, I tried to orient myself, looking for the route back to the station. But the snow had gotten thick enough that I couldn’t tell, my own tracks vanishing too quickly. Even uphill wasn’t useful; between wind and blinding snow, I was lost and off-balance.