eventually I found it. There were only four sets of SCBA where there should be more than two dozen, and just two moon suits. A pile of EEBA—emergency escape breathing apparatus—all tangled together. I wasn’t surprised. No one ever expected to have to use the lifeboats.
The schematics for the sensors and chemical controls looked good, but the maintenance schedule told another story: there was plenty of water, of course, for the sprinkler system, and plenty of regular foam, but someone had decided not to bother replacing the alcohol-resistant foam canisters. That smelt of Hepple: ARF had a short shelf life, and was expensive. Ketone spills were very rare. It probably seemed like a reasonable risk.
Air scrubbers; multilevel valves for sampling vapors and liquids heavier than air and water; incident control procedures . . . They were all there. I wondered how familiar Magyar was with all this. I hoped I would never have to find out.
FOUR
Lore is seven. Her father, Oster, is brushing her hair. It is high summer. Outside, the buildings are washed gold by the sinking sun, but inside Lore’s bedroom the ancient wooden paneling sucks in what light manages to get through the tiny window set deep in the thick fifteenth-century walls. Oster has almost finished with her hair, but Lore wants him to stay longer with her instead of running off and talking to Tok about his stupid pictures, or playing with Stella’s hair, which she has just started dyeing yellow. Lore thinks about Stella’s yellow hair. Lore’s hair—and Oster’s and Katerine’s, and Tok’s and Willem’s and Greta’s—is gray, like Lore’s eyes. Gray all over.
“Why is our hair gray?”
Oster puts the hairbrush down, pulls back the bedcovers, and motions for her to climb in. “You won’t let me go until I explain everything, will you?”
“No,” she says seriously.
“A long time ago, in a fit of ostentation—” Lore frowns at
ostentation
but does not interrupt. “—your grandmother had the color-producing allele turned off. She was rich—”
“As rich as we are?”
“No, but rich enough to be stupid. Anyway, she was so rich she did not know what to spend her money on. Doctors had just discovered that those people with pigmentless hair—gray with age, or white-haired albinos—got a lot of cancer in the scalp. That’s because without pigment, the hair acts like a fiber-optic cable, conducting ultraviolet from sunlight straight to our follicles, bombarding them with mutagenic radiation.” She frowns and he sighs, tries again. “Like the telephone wire brings your mother’s voice and picture to you when she’s out in the field.” Katerine never calls her when she goes away to strange places to work, but Lore says nothing. It would only upset Oster.
“So when people get old and their hair turns gray, they get cancer?”
“No. They just dye their hair black or brown or dark red or whatever, or wear a hat.”
“Is that why Stella dyes her hair? To stop the cancer?”
“No. Stel changes her colors because she wants to. Like your mother changes the color of her contact lenses.” He smiles and ruffles her hair, the hair he has just brushed. Lore pats it back down. “She doesn’t have to, none of our family do, because Grandmama van de Oest was so rich she could have genetic treatment—do you understand what genetic treatment is?” Lore nods, even though she doesn’t. He is crossing and uncrossing his legs, which means he is getting restless. “She had genetic treatment against cancer. It’s very, very expensive, and it takes a long time, and it hurts.”
“Then why did she do it?”
“Because she was stupid and too rich. She—”
“Does that mean we’re too rich?”
He looks at her for a long moment, his blue eyes still. “I suppose it does.”
He doesn’t say anything for a minute, and Lore has to prompt him. “So Grandmama pays a lot of money for the cancer stuff. . .”
“Yes. And then she paid a lot more
The schematics for the sensors and chemical controls looked good, but the maintenance schedule told another story: there was plenty of water, of course, for the sprinkler system, and plenty of regular foam, but someone had decided not to bother replacing the alcohol-resistant foam canisters. That smelt of Hepple: ARF had a short shelf life, and was expensive. Ketone spills were very rare. It probably seemed like a reasonable risk.
Air scrubbers; multilevel valves for sampling vapors and liquids heavier than air and water; incident control procedures . . . They were all there. I wondered how familiar Magyar was with all this. I hoped I would never have to find out.
FOUR
Lore is seven. Her father, Oster, is brushing her hair. It is high summer. Outside, the buildings are washed gold by the sinking sun, but inside Lore’s bedroom the ancient wooden paneling sucks in what light manages to get through the tiny window set deep in the thick fifteenth-century walls. Oster has almost finished with her hair, but Lore wants him to stay longer with her instead of running off and talking to Tok about his stupid pictures, or playing with Stella’s hair, which she has just started dyeing yellow. Lore thinks about Stella’s yellow hair. Lore’s hair—and Oster’s and Katerine’s, and Tok’s and Willem’s and Greta’s—is gray, like Lore’s eyes. Gray all over.
“Why is our hair gray?”
Oster puts the hairbrush down, pulls back the bedcovers, and motions for her to climb in. “You won’t let me go until I explain everything, will you?”
“No,” she says seriously.
“A long time ago, in a fit of ostentation—” Lore frowns at
ostentation
but does not interrupt. “—your grandmother had the color-producing allele turned off. She was rich—”
“As rich as we are?”
“No, but rich enough to be stupid. Anyway, she was so rich she did not know what to spend her money on. Doctors had just discovered that those people with pigmentless hair—gray with age, or white-haired albinos—got a lot of cancer in the scalp. That’s because without pigment, the hair acts like a fiber-optic cable, conducting ultraviolet from sunlight straight to our follicles, bombarding them with mutagenic radiation.” She frowns and he sighs, tries again. “Like the telephone wire brings your mother’s voice and picture to you when she’s out in the field.” Katerine never calls her when she goes away to strange places to work, but Lore says nothing. It would only upset Oster.
“So when people get old and their hair turns gray, they get cancer?”
“No. They just dye their hair black or brown or dark red or whatever, or wear a hat.”
“Is that why Stella dyes her hair? To stop the cancer?”
“No. Stel changes her colors because she wants to. Like your mother changes the color of her contact lenses.” He smiles and ruffles her hair, the hair he has just brushed. Lore pats it back down. “She doesn’t have to, none of our family do, because Grandmama van de Oest was so rich she could have genetic treatment—do you understand what genetic treatment is?” Lore nods, even though she doesn’t. He is crossing and uncrossing his legs, which means he is getting restless. “She had genetic treatment against cancer. It’s very, very expensive, and it takes a long time, and it hurts.”
“Then why did she do it?”
“Because she was stupid and too rich. She—”
“Does that mean we’re too rich?”
He looks at her for a long moment, his blue eyes still. “I suppose it does.”
He doesn’t say anything for a minute, and Lore has to prompt him. “So Grandmama pays a lot of money for the cancer stuff. . .”
“Yes. And then she paid a lot more
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