ACCIDENT
The blare of the speakers set into the cafeteria’s stone ceiling interrupted Trudy’s increasingly tedious monologue.
“EMERGENCY MEDICAL TEAM TO THE MAIN AIRLOCK,” the synthesized voice demanded. “EMERGENCY MEDICAL TEAM TO THE MAIN AIRLOCK.”
Half a dozen men and women scrambled from their seats at the long tables and raced out the cafeteria’s door.
“A medical emergency?” Halleck asked, looking up at the speakers.
Several other people were heading for the door; others were talking to each other, looking worried, fearful.
Trudy shot to her feet. “Maybe they’ll need some volunteers to help them.” Without another word she started for the door also.
Frowning at the interruption, McClintock said to Halleck, “I’d better go see what this is all about.”
She stood up beside him. “Carter, you’re like the man who races to get ahead of the mob because he’s supposed to be their leader. But he doesn’t know where they’re heading.”
“They’re heading,” he said bitingly, “to the main airlock.”
He hurried in that direction, Halleck keeping pace beside him. Plenty of others were rushing down the corridor, too.
The main airlock’s locker area was crowded. Most of these people are onlookers, rubberneckers, McClintock thought as he shouldered his way through them.
One of the technicians, a chubby-faced redhead, growled belligerently, “Who ya shoving, mister?”
“I’m Professor Uhlrich’s deputy,” McClintock snapped. “Get out of my way.”
The man stepped aside, grudgingly.
Trudy was kneeling beside a man on the floor who was still encased in a space suit, although his helmet had been removed. Several others were gathered around the prostrate body, removing his boots, pressing a breathing mask over his face, clipping a monitor onto one of his bared fingers.
“It’s Harvey Henderson,” someone beside McClintock whispered.
“What happened?”
“How the hell should I know?”
“He was outside.”
“Something went wrong.”
“You’re a real detective, pal.”
Bending over the medics, McClintock demanded, “Who’s in charge here?”
Blocky, gray-haired Dr. Kapstein glanced up at him, her squarish face looking somewhere between annoyed and inquisitive. “I am.”
“And you are?”
“Ida Kapstein, resident physician. Who the hell are you?”
“Carter McClintock. I’m Professor Uhlrich’s number two.”
“Since when?” Dr. Kapstein asked as she returned her attention to the injured man on the floor. Others of the medical team were tugging off his space suit trousers now.
“For the past three weeks,” McClintock replied, with iron in his voice. Inwardly he realized that he hadn’t made much of an effort to make himself known to Farside’s rank and file. With more than a hundred people in the facility, he told himself, I can’t be expected to keep track of everyone’s name.
He saw that the man’s right foot was bloody. Another space-suited figure came through the airlock hatch. As she lifted off her helmet Dr. Kapstein asked her, “What happened out there, Josie?”
“We were taking apart the mirror frame,” the young woman said, her olive-skinned face taut, her dark eyes wide with anxiety, focused on the unconscious man.
“And?” the doctor prompted.
“We were breaking it down into segments for shipment to Selene.”
“What the hell happened to him?” Kapstein snarled.
“He tried to carry one of the segments to the tractor all by himself,” the young woman said, her words tumbling out almost breathlessly. “I told him to wait and let one of the robots do it, but he toted it by himself and it slipped out of his gloves and banged his foot.”
The doctor puffed out a weary sigh. “Dumb sonofabitch should’ve known better. Just because things only weigh one-sixth up here they forget they’ve still got the same mass.”
“I tried to tell him.…” The young woman seemed on the brink of tears. “He was in a rush to get in for dinner.”
A voice in the crowd of onlookers said in a stage whisper, “Hurry-up Harvey ain’t gonna hurry for a while.”
As if he’d heard the comment, the injured Harvey Henderson stirred slightly and moaned.
“Take it easy,” said Dr. Kapstein, placing a gentle hand on Henderson’s arm. “You’re a lucky man, Harvey. Good thing your boot wasn’t penetrated. Then we’d have to suck your body out of the suit with a vacuum cleaner.”
Harvey Henderson grinned weakly. “I screwed up, huh?”
Kapstein nodded, then said, “We’ll have to ship you back to Selene for stem cell treatment. Get that mangled foot back in shape.”
McClintock straightened up and Trudy got up from her knees.
“It can be dangerous out there,” Trudy said, her voice low, hollow.
“So I see,” said McClintock. The crowd was starting to dissipate as the medical team gently lifted Henderson onto a gurney.
Looking around, McClintock realized that Anita Halleck was nowhere to be seen. She probably went back to the cafeteria, he thought, to pick up some dessert. Coldhearted bitch.
Then he realized that Professor Uhlrich was not there, either.