Earthfall

Dza had been working with the younger boys. She quickly counted them up. Motya, the youngest; Xodhya, Yaya, and Zhyat. She herded them to where Chveya had the younger girls. Chveya already had her tally because her girls had been working out together when the alarm went off.

"Just sit here and wait," shouted Dza to all the children.

"Can't they turn it off?" wailed Netsya, clearly terrified.

"Cover your ears, but keep looking at the rest of us!" shouted Dza. "Don't close your eyes,"

Dza thought of things quickly-if the children couldn't hear, they had to watch, so they could receive instructions if they needed to do something. Again Chveya felt a little stab of jealousy. It didn't help that she could see how clearly everyone's loyalty, trust, dependence on Dza had suddenly increased.

Even my own, thought Chveya. She really is first child, now that she doesn't misuse it.

A pair of legs appeared in the ladderway at the top of the centrifuge. Long legs, with big awkward feet. Oykib. And he was more awkward than usual, because he was carrying something bulky under his arm. Something wrapped in cloth.

When he reached the floor, he turned at once to Dza. As if he had known she would be in charge. "It's not as loud in the sleeping rooms," he shouted. "Can you get all the younger ones to their beds?"

Dza nodded.

"That's where Nafai wants them, then, if you can do it safely without losing any."

"All right," said Dza, and immediately she started giving instructions. The younger children started up the ladder, Dza reminding each one to wait in the tube just outside the centrifuge until she got up there. Chveya felt completely u

Oykib turned to her and held out the cloth bundle. "It's the Index," he said. "Elemak is awake. Hide it."

Chveya was amazed. None of the children had ever been allowed to touch the Index, even wrapped in cloth. "Did Father tell you to-"

"Do it," said Oykib. "Where Elemak won't think to look." He shoved the bundle into her stomach and her arms instinctively folded around it. Then he turned and left, following Dza up the ladder.

Chveya looked around the centrifuge. Was there anyplace to hide the Index here? Not really. The exercise space was largely unencumbered, except for the strength machines, and those offered no concealment. So she clutched the Index under her arm and waited for her turn up the ladder.

Then she saw, where the centrifuge floor curved up to make its circle around the girth of the ship, the break in the carpet where the access door was. When the centrifuge was stopped, the access door could be pulled up so that someone could crawl down into the system of wheels that allowed the centrifuge to spin. The trouble was, it would take half an hour for the centrifuge to spin to a stop even if she turned it off right now. And then another hour or more to spin back up to speed. It would be obvious to Elemak that the centrifuge had been stopped for some reason. She couldn't count on his not noticing. Just because he had never been awake during the voyage didn't mean he wouldn't be aware of anomalies in the working of the ship.

On the other hand, the very fact that the centrifuge hadn't been stopped would imply to him that nothing had been hidden there.

She ran to the access door and pulled up on it. It wouldn't budge-an interlock prevented it from being opened while the centrifuge was spi

If I drop the Index, will it be crushed?

More to the point, if I fall or even touch the roadway, will I be killed or just maimed and crippled for life?

Sweating, terrified, she extended one leg, then the other, down through the opening until she was standing on the frame of the nearest wheel assembly. Then, holding her weight on her right hand, she braced the Index against the door while she got her hand under it. Balancing the Index on her palm, she carefully lifted it down into the opening and reached into the top of the other wheel assembly, right up under the centrifuge floor. In a place where four metal bars formed a square, she gingerly tipped the Index out of her hand, so that it rolled off and dropped into place. It was secure there-nothing was going to tip it off and it was far too wide to drop through. Best of all, it couldn't be seen unless you got down into the opening so far that your head was under the level of the centrifuge floor. Chances were that long before he got down far enough to see it, Elemak would conclude that it was far too dangerous for anyone to have put the Index down here and would give up and search somewhere else.

In fact, now that she thought about it, it really was dangerous to be down here. And she had to get back up and turn the centrifuge back on so its alarm would stop sounding before the main siren finally shut down. Getting out wasn't as easy as getting down had been, and now that she wasn't concentrating on getting the Index hidden, she had time to be really terrified. Slow, she kept telling herself. Careful. One slip and they'll be scraping bits of me off the road for a month.

Finally she was out, spread-eagle over the opening.

She spider-walked until she was clear of it, then leaped to her feet and flung the door closed. It slammed into place, the catch engaged, and now she could turn the centrifuge back on. She could barely feel it speeding up-it was so well-engineered that in all that time with the motors off, friction had hardly slowed it down at all.

The siren went off The silence was like a physical blow; her ears rang. She had made it with only ten or fifteen seconds to spare.

In the silence, she heard the noise of someone on the ladder.

She looked up. Legs. Not Father's. Not a child's. If she was found here, for no reason, then Elemak would wonder why she hadn't gone with the other children.

Without even thinking, she flung herself down to the floor, curled up in fetal position, buried her face in her hands, and began to whimper softly, trembling with fear. Let them think she had panicked, frozen up, terrified by the strange loud noise. Let them think she was weak, that she had lost all control of herself. They would believe it, because nobody knew she was the kind of person who could perform dangerous acrobatics while speeding over a roadway. Why should they? She hadn't known it herself. She could hardly believe it now.

"Get up," said the man. "Get yourself together. Nothing's going to hurt you."

It wasn't Elemak. It was Vasnya's and Panya's father, Vas. Aunt Sevet's husband. So it wasn't just Elemak who was awake.

"Nothing to be ashamed of," he said. "Loud noise-it gets to some people. You should see how the little ones are. It's going to take hours to get them quieted down."

"Little ones?" She realized at once that he didn't mean the twelve- and thirteen-year-olds. "The little children were wakened?"

"Everybody's awake. When the suspended animation alarm goes off, everybody is awakened at once. Just in case something is wrong with the system."

"What set it off?" asked Chveya.

Now, for the first time, a dark look of anger came across Uncle Vas's face. "We'll have to find that out, won't we? But if it hadn't wakened us, we wouldn't have had a chance to see you as such a pretty little- what-fourteen-year-old?"