by Baen Books
I couldn't see the antenna. In order to use the MOM's flood lights, I'd have to turn off the laser or risk blowing a hole in the hull. As I tried to tap the off command for a third time, sound crackled through my ear piece. The MOM was sending me a message telling me she would overheat if she didn't stop the laser.
"I'm trying damn it!" I said through chattering teeth. Then I realized she had contacted me via radio.
"Turn off laser, MOM."
"Laser off."
"I need you to acc...ess the EMERGENCY CONTROL CENTER screen back in the wor...kshop."
"Contact established."
"Ini...tiate the Ring Four sep...aration pro...proto..col."
"Initiated."
Without a sound, huge mechanical locks swung away from the ring struts. Clouds of chipped paint and ice crystals puffed into space and the ring separated into two C-shaped halves, each carrying three struts. Since the rest of Arturo was still under thrust, the two halves tumbled away slowly and fell behind. In the distance, near one the Ring Four sections, I saw a wheeling, roughly star-shaped figure that resembled a human body. Then it passed out of the light and was gone. Could I have breached the hull? It didn't matter now. If I had it was too late and I was a murderer.
I could no longer feel my hands or feet, but using tiny puffs from the MOM's attitude thrusters and hooking my arms and wrists around the hatch frame I pulled myself back into the pod. Using the MOM as an interface, I verbally commanded it to close the pod's hatch, pressurize the cabin and turn the heat on high.
#
I felt no elation as I left the pod and floated back into my little hub workshop, only exhaustion and a niggling worry about what could only have been a floating body. My hands and feet felt as if they were on fire, but I knew from my winters in Chicago that feeling the pain was a good sign.
I instructed the nanobots to seal the hull again and turned to Nora. She sat in the control seat with my interface goggles covering the upper half of her head. I immediately realized that her bubble suit hood was pulled down around her neck, but before I could yell at her I also saw that her quivering mouth and chin were covered with tears.
"Nora?"
She didn't answer.
I pulled myself over to the control station and looked at the scroll screen attached to the workspace next to her. It showed the same employee location diagram I had used to watch the Ring Four occupants scurry back to their cabins, only now it was separated into two large C-shaped sections. One of the cabin wedges was flashing red with a decompression tag. Blinking employee ID markers filled the corridor outside the ruptured cabin. So perhaps I really had killed someone.
Nora flinched when I gently pulled the goggles from her head. Tiny tear beads left a glittering trail between the goggles and her face, then started falling aft. She slapped them aside and ran wet hands through her rumpled hair.
"I'm sorry you had to see that, Nora. I'm not sure what happened. Nobody should have died. I don't know--I just..."
She cocked her head at me and squinted tear clogged lashes together. "You didn't kill anyone. I did."
I blinked at her, totally confused.
She pointed at the employee location diagram. "You left that open. I saw where Seth's cabin was and I remembered what you told that guy about burning a hole in his wall."
A cold chill crept down my back.
"And you'd already showed me how to control the MOMs."
I couldn't speak, but I grabbed her and pulled her into a tight hug. She broke down into great gulping sobs muffled against my chest. Then she spoke. In long unbroken strings.
"I saw it all! Through the camera. I'm not sorry he's dead, but... I didn't know you were going to leave them behind. Will I go to jail? He just clawed at...at nothing. I thought he'd die instantly, but..."
"Shhhh...It's all over."
"Will I go to jail?"
"No...I don't know. I don't think so. You were trying to protect your mother."
She cried again. I stroked her hair and there was nothing I could say that would make it better, but I might still be able to protect her. I'd gone to this much trouble to get Nora fee, I wasn't about to let her be incarcerated by the Martian state if I could help it.
Since the MOM systems are under my control, if I admitted to ordering the attack on Seth, the Martian investigators would probably not see any need to dig further. I decided to send the authorities a message admitting that I had stolen the station and killed Seth. Perhaps, under the circumstances they would be lenient.
After a couple of minutes, I sat Nora back in the control seat and looked at the EMERGENCY CONTROL CENTER screen. Just over an hour had passed since I sent the de-spin command. I ordered the station to slowly spin up again, increased the thrust to 60% and triggered the automatic course corrections that would send us to Mars.
#
After the station's remaining three rings were once again spinning and providing Earth normal gravity, we entered the elevator for Ring One so that we could go see Nora's mother in the Medical Unit.
When the lift doors closed, Nora looked up and me and said, "I can't stop thinking about what I did."
"I know," I said and knelt down next to her. "Look, what you did is wrong and that will never change, but it's over. You can get past this and live your life. I didn't think I could go on after Felicia died, but I did. Does that make sense?"
She shook her head slowly. "It's not the same thing."
"No. It's not the same," I said and then stood up. I couldn't look her in the eye for my next statement. "When we get to Mars, it will be kind of crazy, but I need you to do something for me. I don't want you to lie to anyone, but I also don't want you to tell about Seth unless you're asked."
Her eyes squinted at me, immediately suspicious. "Why?"
Before I could answer, the door opened and a burner gun was thrust into my face, with Meathead attached to the other end.
"My last orders from Lieutenant Eisenhower were to arrest your sorry ass and that's what I'm going to do."
I sighed and gently pushed Nora behind me.
"No, you're not," I said, trying to sound calm and reasonable, "and I'll tell you why. We're on our way to Mars. It's all automated at this point and the controls are locked down. Nothing you do to me will change that. I've also already started broadcasting messages to the press about what has happened here, how we were all enslaved, but finally managed to take over the station and come seeking freedom and justice from the Martian people."
Meathead blinked and glanced at his equally confused partner. Most of that had been a lie. I wasn't really broadcasting to Mars yet, but still had the better part of two weeks to start that up.
"So? You're still under arrest."
"You don't want to be jailed for murdering me as soon as we get to Mars space do you?"
"No one said anything about killing you," he muttered and lowered the gun.
"Good. If you don't beat anyone up during the next two weeks, we might actually be able to pass you two off as heroes who helped save all these poor people. Wouldn't you like to be a hero?"
Meathead chewed on his lip and glanced at his partner who just shrugged.
"It's not like he can go anywhere," Nora said. "You'll know where to find him if you decide you need to beat him up later."
"Gee, thanks," I muttered.
Meathead holstered his gun. "There will be a trial, you know."
"Yeah, but wouldn't it be better for the press to think you're a hero instead of bully?"
"Girls love heroes," Nora said.
That made him smile, then he produced a stern face again. "Why should we trust you? What would stop you from making us out the bad guys when the trial comes?"
"I just want to get this station to Mars. I don't really care what happens to you two after that. Besides, you know that with my robots I could have killed you any time I wanted and yet you're still here."
He thought about that for a second, then shrugged. "C'mon Ramon. Let's go ge
t some grub."
Nora and I started down the corridor in the other direction, toward the Medical Unit.
"You did good, Clarke," Felicia said and I stopped in the middle of the hall. I had forgotten Felicia's canister in my workshop. It was the first time since her death that I'd gone farther than the bathroom without her.
I wasn't really crazy, not totally. I knew that Felicia's voice was all in my head, but part of me had always believed that voice would go away if I didn't keep what was left of her near me. Now I knew that wasn't true.
"What's wrong?" Nora said.
I took a deep breath, shook my head and continued walking. "Nothing important. Let's go see your mom."
END
Magic and Other Honest Lies
by Robert Buettner
Tamara Welder visored her right hand above her eyes and stared skyward at the star cruiser. Drifting down as silent as a pearlescent feather, the great ship cast a shadow broader and darker than a storm cloud’s. Around her churned casino chauffeurs, free-lance escorts, and purveyors of the other diversions that earned Foundationally Earthlike 117 its common name, “Funhouse.”
Tam’s job wasn’t normally guest pickup, but the Earthman she was picking up was no normal guest.
She slid a two-Titan coin from her pocket, rolled it across the backs of her left hand’s fingers, thumbed the brass disk under her palm, repeated, then shifted it to her right.
The finger rolls calmed her, but also maintained the nimble fingers that now made her living, as Pop had always believed they would.
Not that Tam believed everything Pop had believed. Pop had believed in what he called honest lies, and he was dead. Tam believed that, except for magic, lies were lies, and she was still alive.
Clang.
The hovering cruiser’s gangway telescoped out from the vast hull, rang against the arrival plaza’s flagstones, then rumbled as a tide of disembarking vacationers flooded down it.
Tam whispered her guest’s name onto her handheld, then held its screen high, so the three-inch tall red letters would lead the Earthman to her.
She was predisposed to mistrust Dr. Trevor Jamieson because she mistrusted everyone who wasn’t Pop. Also, Merlin told her Jamieson was a Trueborn Earthman, and like most outworlders Tam believed that it was easier to take a Trueborn’s money than it was to take a Trueborn.
But mostly Tam mistrusted Jamieson because he was from the government and he was here to help her. In her lifetime, Tam had suffered the lie in that crummy joke often, enjoyed its truth never, and couldn’t afford to misplace her trust again.
The man with watery blue eyes waved a hand at her as the crowd buffeted his spindly body. Predictably, he wore neat casuals. Less predictably, he carried himself with round-shouldered diffidence, rather than the upright openness that Trueborns called self-assurance—and Outworlders called arrogance.
He extended his hand to her, smiled. “Trevor Jamieson.”
She nodded, furled her handheld, then shook the proffered hand like it was attached to a corpse, not to a cop who had a Ph.D in Gaming Theory. “I’m Tam Welder.”
Jamieson’s eyes widened. “Tamara Welder? You came to meet me yourself?”
She pointed to her left. “Dr. Jamieson, baggage claim is this way.”
The Earthman held up a faded knapsack. A fresh upshuttle carryon tag still dangled from one shoulder strap. “This is all there is.” The Trueborn smiled again. “And call me Trevor. Please.”
Jamieson raised his eyebrows when he saw the Merlin’s House of Cards electrobus. Sagging on worn springs, it squatted diagonally where Tam had parked it, blocking both VIP pick up lanes.
A gray haired casino chauffeur, leaning against the fender of the limo that the bus blocked in, shook his finger at Tam. “Next time I’ll turn you in to the Port Authority, Tam.”
She wagged a finger back at the old man. “Don’t. Or next time I’ll turn you into a toad, Leo.”
He dismissed her threat with a wave. “Everybody knows magic’s a lie.”
Tam called back, “Exactly! That’s what makes it an honest lie.”
The chauffeur sighed. “Just move that heap.” As he turned away, the old man scolded over his shoulder. “You got a serious problem with authority, young lady!”
Three minutes later, Tam felt the clunk as the Parkway’s autolane took over driving. She sat back and looked out the window, away from the Earthman in the front passenger seat alongside her.
Jamieson said, “He seemed angry. I assume he would turn you in next time.”
Tam shook her head. “Doubtful. I got Leo that job. Trueborns assume too much.”
“But you assumed a Trueborn would have so many bags that you brought a bus.”
“No. You need a VIP Lane permit to park close so I brought a bus. Plus, I refuse to buy new tags for my car.”
“Ah.” Jamieson nodded. “So you don’t have a problem with Trueborns. You just have a problem with authority?”
Tam shrugged. “If authority has a problem with me.”
Jamieson pursed his lips. “I assume you know why I’m here?”
Tam gripped the wheel, breathed deep. Because authority had a problem with her? “To ask me questions. Because I followed the rules and reported an incident to the Gaming Authority.”
Jamieson nodded.
Tam said, “Merlin said there won’t be trouble with my dealer’s license if I’m forthcoming.”
Jamieson smiled. “I expect your Merlin’s right. So, tell me how you remember the incident.”
“Incidents. It’s happened three times now, since the first one. Last month I was dealing during my show and I felt—” Tam spun a hand at her temple, “—a ping. But not a ping.”
Jamieson cocked an eyebrow. “A ping?”
She rolled her eyes. “I don’t know what you call it at a university, Doctor. In the real world we call it a ping when a card cheat sneaks a physiologic sensor into a casino to read the dealers’ tics. To get a betting edge. Dealers are trained to feel it.”
“I assume pinging is common on Funhouse?”
Tam wrinkled her forehead. “It’s nonexistent on Funhouse. And every other gaming jurisdiction. Pinging’s obsolete. Because you can’t ping a ‘bot, all the casinos’ table games are dealt by ‘bots.”
“You’re not a ‘bot.”
“Sharp, you Trueborns.” Tam shook her head. “Dealing limited stakes games incident to card manipulation and table magic is defined as entertainment, not gaming. You still need a dealer’s license, though. There’s maybe four of us card pushers working the smaller casinos, and a couple lounges around Funhouse.”
“Ah. But the important thing is -”
“Whoa!” Tam and Jamieson pitched forward as the bus hard-braked itself.
A hundred yards ahead three fawn-colored, droop-snooted quadrupeds, each standing over twenty feet tall at the shoulder, had lumbered out of the orange and violet forest beside the road. The ‘pods hopped the parkway’s border fence, crossed the traffic lanes and resumed grazing the trees in the parkway’s median.
Jamieson whistled. “First live titanopods I’ve seen. Surprisingly agile.”
The bus sped itself up.
Tam shrugged. “The ‘pods always surprise first timers. But the government says they’re road hazards.”
Jamieson pointed at the Casino Grand Luxoriana, a pair of alabaster eighty-story crescents that rose like ship sails above the multihued forest, and wrinkled his brow. “Human presence on most outworlds affects less than one percent of the planet. Most indigenous species just learn to avoid us.”
“‘Pods may be agile. But fast learners?” Tam shook her head. “No.”
A two-place, open animal control skimmer popped up above the treetops and streaked for the three ‘pods. The right-seat warden leaned out and darted the biggest. It wobbled and crashed into the underbrush as the smaller two sprang back into the forest from which they had come.
Tam sighed. “They’ll haul that one off
to one of the tracks and race it to death. Isn’t that crap?”
Jamieson cocked an eyebrow. “You disapprove of pari-mutuel wildlife contests? But you make your living here. Without them Funhouse would be just another subtropical Earthlike.”
“You ever actually see full-contact titanopod racing, Jamieson? They strap spiked armor skirts around the ‘pods, hop ‘em up on speed, and they gore each other the whole way round the track while the jockeys beat the hell out of one another.”
The Luxoriana disappeared behind them.
Tam said, “By the sixth race, blood turns the finishing straight into red mud. Life expectancy is six months for the ‘pods, three for jockeys. I feel sorrier for the ‘pods.”
“Oh?”
“The animals aren’t intelligent enough to know it, but they don’t even have a choice. The jocks are intelligent, so at least they have that.”
Jamieson said, “I suppose the worst of all worlds would be to have the intelligence but not have the choice.”
Tam looked away, nodded. “Trueborns would be surprised how often that happens on the outworlds.”
“Some Trueborns might not be. Surprise works both ways.”
Then the Earthman was again peering out at the next landmark.
Tam said, “That monstrosity over there’s the Funhouse Sporting Club. The amphitheater in the middle’s the Coliseum. They import the biggest offworld species to fight the biggest local ones. Makes ‘pod races look like gerbil wrestling.”
“With bigger bets?”
“Most profitable gaming enterprise in the Human Union, twelve years running.” It was a question she thought a gambling expert wouldn’t need to ask.
Jamieson eyed a road sign as the bus continued up resort row on Lucky U Parkway. “These are the most exclusive resorts in the Human Union. But the name of the main road sounds like it belongs on a row of cheap motels.”
Tam shrugged. “The Gaming Authority names the roads. So the names ‘evoke and promote gaming.’ Even if they sound like crap.”
