Lifeline by Kevin J. Anderson Page A

Maintenance/Services Division leader, began to speak, but Brahms held up his hand, indicating Terachyk intent at the terminal.
    “Don’t disturb him. He’s doing something for me.”
    Drury shrugged. “Question—when are we going to start getting things back to normal? We’ve told everybody they have a few days off to recover from the shock, but some service parts have already started fizzling. My people are going to have to go back to their maintenance duties before long. It’s going to be dregs for their morale if they’re the only ones back on the job.” Drury threw a glance at Ombalal and lowered his voice. He knew who really made the decisions. “Are you going to restart the production lines, Curtis?”
    “I’m just the associate director.” Brahms kept his gaze on Ombalal, trying to spark some life in the man.
    “Ask me if it makes any difference now.” Drury rolled his eyes. He didn’t seem to realize what Brahms was trying to do.
    Drury had long, curly blond hair and a bushy reddish mustache poised on his upper lip as if it intended to launch itself off at any moment. And he was huge.
    Brahms disliked people who had such low self-esteem that they allowed themselves to get so enormously fat. “A lazy body is the sign of a lazy mind” he had always believed. Brahms kept himself in good shape, reveling in the fine-tuned feel to his body. But Drury was always so good-natured it was difficult to be angry at the man.
    Ombalal finally spoke. “He is correct, Mr. Brahms. Do not let me hold you back.”
    Brahms removed his glasses, blinking in the light. “Well we have the raw materials to last us a while. Just no food. Yes, all divisions will return to work. It’ll distract them, keep them quiet for a little longer. Until we can think of something.”
    Drury smirked. “How can the universe bear to go on without a continual supply of our no-smear lipstick? Or airy-but-durable single-molecular weaves for the height of fashion!” He paused. “But what about Production Division? Who’s going to fill McLaris’s place—now that he’s taken, er, a brief leave of absence?” The heavyset man made a maddeningly aloof smile.
    Once again, Brahms burned. McLaris’s theft of the shuttle-tug was an appalling betrayal of Brahms’s leadership—a betrayal of all the good people on Orbitech 1. Not only had McLaris taken the last working shuttle, but he had shocked the colonists, called attention to their desperate situation, before Brahms could find a way to solve things. McLaris had stolen their icon of hope, the symbol that allowed them to think they still had a link with Earth. Even now, McLaris was en route to the Moon, safe and free, leaving the rest of them trapped. Trapped.
    Brahms threw a glance at Ombalal, hoping that the man might volunteer for McLaris’s former position. The station director continued to stare at his large feet.
    “I’ll take over his duties,” Brahms said, sighing. How could McLaris have done such a thing? He eased back, breathing slowly, slapping a mask of composure on his face. Brahms hated himself for these lapses into weakness, these brief moments without control. He had never been so quick to anger before.
    “Okay.” Drury shrugged. “How about a game of checkers, anybody?”
    Brahms bristled. “Fifteen hundred people have their throats up against the razor blade right now—we have to find a way to survive!”
    Brushing aside the associate director’s retort, Drury spread his meaty hands. “Oh, things’ll work out in the end. Positive thinking, Curtis. Give it a whirl.”
    “Get the hell out of here!”
    Waving, Drury left, wandering back out into the corridor of administrative offices. The silica-fiber carpeting muffled his footsteps.
    Drury had been with the parent company for the past fourteen years. He was a competent manager, but not truly gifted. Brahms, who had done the numbers himself, knew that Drury had not scored well on the Efficiency Study.
    Four months