“Understandable,” replied Lakesh mildly. “From a medical point of view. However, under the circumstances, I hope you don’t object if we do.”
DeFore’s dark eyes glittered. “It wouldn’t matter if I did. There’s your report. Speculate, postulate and hypothesize away.”
She pushed her chair back from the table and stalked from the hall.
After she was gone, Lakesh remarked conversationally, “Is it my imagination, or do certain members of my staff seem unusually on edge these days?”
Brigid fixed a penetrating gaze on Lakesh. “It’s not your imagination, and you don’t need me to tell you that.”
Kane and Grant glanced curiously from Lakesh to Brigid, but said nothing. Lakesh cleared his throat noisily. “As for the dwarfs most likely point of origin, the database yielded very little on Parallax Red itself, beyond what it was supposed to be, not what it became after it was built or what it is at present.”
“So you’re not absolutely sure it’s there.” Grant was not asking a question; he was making a statement.
“No, not absolutely. I’ll have to qualify my assertion and say there is a ninety-eight percent certainty that it’s there.”
“Why would this space station be kept secret,” inquired Kane, “if it was supposed to be, as you said, a Utopia?”
Lakesh shrugged. ‘ ‘Your question is its own answer. As a citizen of the late twentieth century, imagine how you would feel knowing that a select group of people were allowed to escape all the sociopolitical instabilities, the fear of war or ecological catastrophe, economic hardships, the hunger for food or sex or power.
“If such a floating paradise was built and inhabited, the people in power had very good reasons to conceal it. They feared an uprising among the rank-and-file citizenry, a revolt of the so-called useless eaters that might result in civil war.”
“Judging by the dwarf, Parallax Red doesn’t seem like much of a paradise to me,” growled Grant dourly. “Floating around weightless all the time.”
Lakesh chuckled. “The spinning of the station would produce the effect of Earth gravity around its equator, much like a gigantic centrifuge. However, if the rotation cycle was adversely affected, gravity would fall off in proportion to the decrease of the spin, with zero G at the axis. It’s likely the revolution cycle was interfered with.”
Kane linked his fingers together on the tabletop. “Presuming we do have a mat-trans jump line to the place, what would we find if we went there?”
Lakesh shrugged. “Worst case, a zero G atmosphere, perhaps only one half of Earth gravity. It may be uncomfortably cold or intolerably hot. The air may be so thin you cannot breathe it.”
“Why don’t we teleport a vid probe first?” asked
Brigid, “just to make certain we can establish a retrieval lock?”
”Like a note in a bottle?” Lakesh smiled at her fondly. “I contemplated that, but if Parallax Red is indeed occupied, we would be forewarning its inhabitants of our arrival.”
Grant scowled. “If we manage to move around in a weightless environment without puking our guts out, how do you figure we can keep from freezing, burning up or suffocating?”
Lakesh smiled and pushed himself to his feet. “That was the first problem I addressed, friend Grant. All of you follow me, please.”
He led them from the dining hall, down the corridor and into the big square room that served as the Cerberus armory. As Lakesh entered, he pressed the flat toggle switch on the door frame, and the overhead fluorescent fixtures flashed with a white light.
Stacked wooden crates and boxes lined the walls. Glass-fronted cases held racks of automatic assault rifles. There were many makes and models of subguns, as well as dozens of semiautomatic blasters, complete with holsters and belts. Heavy-assault weaponry occupied the north wall, bazookas, tripod-mounted M-249 machine guns, mortars and rocket launchers.
All the ordnance had been laid down in hermetically sealed Continuity of Government installations before the nukecaust. Protected from the ravages of the outraged environment, nearly every piece of munitions and hardware was as pristine as the day it was first manufactured.
Lakesh strode purposefully past the two suits of Magistrate body armor mounted on steel frameworks to a row of metal lockers arranged against the far wall.