Miriam opened her flabby arms wide to encompass the whole room. "As bars go, it's not a bad place, and the best you'll find in Blessed. Thing is, some people came in thinking that 'Hail Mary' was a reference to my name, so they call me Mary, and shout hello every time they come in." She leaned in to whisper, "There's a rumor going around that you get a free drink if you hail Mary as you walk in." Miriam leaned back and started wiping down the bar with her dishtowel, "Not a word of truth to it, of course, but that's rumors for you."
Libby sipped at the stew as she listened, so she wasn't ready when Miriam asked, "So who are you then, dear? Was I right that you're just off the ship?"
Her head bobbed as she nodded, "Elizabeth Carter. Libby. Yeah. I don't think I've been on Ceres for more than an hour."
"And you've already been mugged? Wow. Welcome to Blessed." Miriam shook her head, and Libby laughed. Then she thought about it, frowned, and went back to her stew.
Chapter 3
A conversation near Libby grew louder as she ate, with one strident tenor beating out all the others for volume. She turned to see a tall, thin man, bespectacled and bald, whose hand seemed to be permanently formed into a single finger. He wagged and pointed that finger at people as he chastised them each in turn.
"Ah, but that's exactly my point!" His voice rang out, "Exactly my point. The purpose of the government is to provide for the people. If the government doesn't provide for the people, then the people have to provide for themselves. If they don't provide the machinery we need, I say, stop paying the taxes, and use that money on new machines!"
A droop-eyed man near him said, "Taxes are used for more than just the machines."
The thin man turned on him, "Yes, but if we don't have machinery, we can't make a living. What good are acres of yellow velcro streets? What use is a school that's no more than a one man shack with a dozen kids, if a man can't make a decent wage for a hard day's work?"
A burly man at the end of the bar piped up, "But that's just shifting taxes around. You're rebelling against the government, creating a machine tax, and I still haven't heard what you're going to buy with it."
The thin man spun around to face his new challenger, "I'll tell you what we'll buy. Diamond-tipped GeoMack cutters, Infinion brand ore refiners, tools that will scrape, process, and pack your ore for you in nothing flat."
The man sitting next to him looked perplexed. "Well, we already have equipment. The companies provide us with free machinery to do the work."
The skinny man's spectacles flashed as he almost jumped out of his seat with excitement, "Not good enough! One single system of tools to be shared over an entire community. One set of old, broken pieces, spread out over hundreds of claims. Each man waiting on a list for his turn to use antiquated chisels. And what do you get when you use the company tools? Do you keep all the profits of your labor? No! You have to give a percentage of your claim to the company! They make money off your claim without so much as lifting a finger! That sort of Faustian plan is no way for a man to work his claim! I'll tell you what that is, friends." He drew himself up to his full height, tucking one thumb under his lapel, and shouted at the top of his lungs, "That, my friends, is dark underbelly of socialism!"
A loud voice barked laughter from the back of the room. As she turned, Libby saw a gnarled old man, dressed in dingy gray coveralls, hobble over to the bar. His wrinkled worn face looked like it had whiskers sticking out of every pore. He approached the bar, still laughing, "We use it to wash off tha stink, an give the box to a jackass, so he can be all unsettled."
The tall man frowned, uncomprehending, "If you've got something to say, Woody, I'll be glad to hear it. But, ah, I don't understand what -"
Miriam, standing near Libby, whispered, "Here's where it gets good, honey. You want to know how this place works, you could do a lot worse than talking to Woody there. He's been here longer than any of us. Older than sin, and half the time he doesn't make a lick of sense, but when he does . . ." her voice faded away as she shook her head with quiet respect.
As Woody approached the bar, he turned to the tall man, "Tell me something, Teddy. If you bought those doodads yerself, what would you do with 'em?" Miriam sneaked an arm in and left a shot glass in front of Woody, filled with something thick and brown. The old man nodded at her and winked as Ted frowned in thought.
"Well, of course, I would share it with my friends, just as we all intend to do." He seemed wary, but didn't want to lose his momentum, "In fact, that's exactly what we're going to do with the extra money we save by not paying the-"
"Bullfeathers!" Woody exclaimed, "Who's gonna collect? Gather up all that money you're supposed to be payin' to the man?"
Ted's eyes narrowed, "Well, that's to be decided later. Perhaps by a committee of people selected fairly by -"
"Right, so all your friends get to gather the money together, and they grab a spankin' new set of toys. What then?"
Ted rose to the challenge, smiling, "At that point, we would share the tools with all the people who had supported us."
"But you still won't have enough tools for everybody, so what was that you said about a list?" Woody downed his drink in one gulp.
Ted's eyes narrowed, "Yes, well, there would be a list, but we would have doubled the number of tools available, and we would be sharing it fairly with our supporters. None of this 'percentage of the claim' bunk."
"Heh, no. You don't get the percentage on the back end, you get it on the front. Don't you remember? People gotta pay just to be in your little club, wear your jackets and have silly hats."
Heads turned back to Ted as he collected his thoughts. Sensing the change, Woody laughed, "Hey, Ted. I got another one fer ya. You're collecting the money, you're spending it, you're making up the list, and you're drumming up more folk. So I can tell yer not a socialist." Woody's voice dropped it's humorous tone, "But what exactly are you?”
Ted raised his pointing finger again, “No sir, I am not a socialist. I believe that each man has the right to collect on his own work.”
Woody nodded, “You believe in them paying you and your friends for the right to work their own land. I know your type. What you are . . . well, I don't much like having a drink this close to what you are."
A deep silence fell as Ted sat back down in his seat and tried to settle the people around him. People started asking him questions again, pointing their fingers at him as they asked. Libby picked up her tea and shuffled down the bar to sit by the old man. After an awkward moment, she asked, "So what are you, then?"
His head turned to her, seeming to see her for the first time. Brow furrowed in thought, he said, "I don't get the question."
"Well, he's a . . . " she stumbled for a word. Politics had never been her strong suit, "he's a not-Socialist, so what does that make you?"
The old man's face cleared, and he grinned at her, "Well done! That's a good un! Good question. Never trust the man who says 'Don't trust anybody'. Good girl. You keep that head about you, and you'll go places." Miriam placed another drink in front of him, and he turned back to face it.
Libby sipped her tea, then said, "You didn't answer the question."
He didn't face her, "Nope. It scares me."
She smiled at him, "It scares you to tell people your position?"
He frowned at the mirror over the bar, "Scares me just trying to figure out my position."
They sat and drank for a moment in silence, then he turned to her, "Lissen up. You take a person, all his ideas and needs and whatnot. You analyze him every which way, get his politics, his religion. You make him turn and cough. You find the closest possible label you can to fit him. Then you slap the label on him, and it's automatically wrong. D'ya understand?"
She smiled and shook her head, "No. Not at all."
He took a deep breath, and blew it out his cheeks. "Well, let's take you. What d'ya want? Why're you here?"
Libby sat up straight, "Well, I'm just off the boat from Earth, and I'm here to find my fort
une in mining. I don't mess in other people's business, and I don't like it when people - what?" She frowned at the old man as he pulled away from her, head cocked to one side.
"You ever been mining before, hon?"
"No, but I'm a hard worker, and a quick study." It was the rationale she'd been using to quell her own uncertainties, but under this man's gaze, it seemed woefully inadequate.
His eyes pierced her, "You own your own land?"
"Not yet, sir. I was promised a parcel of land by the company." She suddenly started worrying about this situation. She remembered the boy, Mike, acting strange as soon as she had mentioned it. Everybody seemed so concerned about her free land. She asked Woody, almost in a whisper, "What am I missing? What is it that I don't know?"
He frowned at her for a long moment, eyes crinkling in concern, and whispered, "Tumbler."
Then his face cleared up. He took a deep breath, and looked into her eyes, "Let's get the measure of you. I want to get to know who I'm dealin' with." He reached into the pocket of his coveralls, and pulled out a weathered deck of playing cards. "The game's called draw. Standard rules, no sissy wild cards."
She watched as his thick, calloused hands deftly guided five cards into a neat stack in front of her. She raised one eyebrow, "Well, I know the rules, but I don't really know the game."
An odd look passed over Woody's face. "Hmmm . . . may need to watch myself."
She reached for the hand in front of her and started sorting the suits, grinning, "I'm not a shark, if that's what you're thinking."
"Didn't say it was," he responded, his voice flat. "The fly that sticks in my craw is the way you admit your limits."
She shrugged, "I just wanted you to know I'm not much of a card player."
He pointed at her hand, "But you picked them cards up anyway."
She frowned down at the cards, "So, what does that mean?"
One side of his mouth twitched upward. "Not a thing, cupie doll. Not one thing."
They played a couple of hands before Libby noticed something odd. She looked up from her cards and asked, "Wait, aren't we supposed to be betting?"
"Have you got anything you want to bet with?"
She took a deep breath as her shoulder's sagged, "Well, no."
His eyes twinkled, "Good thing, then. Besides, I'm not in this game to make money."
Libby opened her mouth to ask what he was there for, when a tentative hand tapped on her shoulder. She turned to see the boy, Mike, standing there. "Uhm, miss. If you'll come with me, I can show you to your new place." He looked as though he'd rather have teeth pulled.
Libby leaped up to follow him, throwing down the cards in excitement. Woody held up a hand to stop them both. “Son, don't worry, I'll take her. You shouldn't have to do this.”
Libby looked from one of them to the other and said, “What do you mean? Do what?”
Woody shrugged, “C'mon, You'll understand when we get there.” She followed the shambling old spacer as he led her to his vehicle.
Before they could go outside, Woody got her a suit. It fit badly, baggy and antiquated, like a deep-sea divers outfit, spattered with many different dull shades of paint. Despite that, Woody assured her it was airtight, and the visor was clean.
Once they were outside of the bubble, the fear hit her. Woody walked past, holding on to a rope that ran through the landing zone, tied at waist length to poles throughout the lot. Libby clutched at the rope in one hand, and the frame of the airlock iris in the other. Her head craned inside the ill-fitting helmet as she stared into the enormity of space.
Looking up, she could see forever. There were large asteroids that hovered like moons over them. Smaller asteroids drifted lazily past her, in orbit around Ceres, or in orbit around the larger asteroids. Runabouts and ships moved quickly from place to place. Bright explosions lit up the night as the foundries pulsed with manufacturing. People were everywhere, on the surface of every rock, trudging slowly from place to place, arguing with each other in freefall, winding around each other with their vehicles. Ropes tethered different asteroids to each other, and the people jetted from one rock to another on those lines. And wildest of all, it was all happening in space! They didn't seem to notice that there was almost no gravity around them. They didn't seem to realize that, if they weren't careful, these people could just float off and die in the inky blackness. They seemed utterly unconcerned by how dangerous their world was. Libby's mouth opened and closed as her eyes darted from one sight to another.
Woody put a hand on her shoulder and smiled. Through her local radio, Libby heard him say, “You had enough? Soon as you're done gawpin', we've got places to be.” He offered her a hand, which she clamped onto, as she fought her fear of the enormous universe around her. For a moment, she feared she would hurt his hand, but she could feel a powerful strength in the thin man's hands. He led her slowly over to his vehicle, taking care to let her feel the velcro holding her down.
Woody brought her to his small, two seater runabout. It looked like a pair of plastic bowls melted together, with a bar sticking out from the center, and splitting off into a crossbar. He sat on one of the pots, and she sat on the other, then he grabbed the crossbar, and the jets under the pots lit. The runabout slowly pushed away from Blessed, and out toward the chaotic sprawl of large ore-filled rocks.
As they flew through the field, Libby gaped at huge rocks the size of continents, craggy and misshapen. Strange lines gouged through the asteroids, indicating a mining operation in progress. Most of the rocks were so big, they had their own buildings and even their own gravity. Many of the prospectors lived on their own land, chiseling away at it during the day, and sleeping on it at night. As they passed, Libby saw Woody wave at some of the miners working their land. They smiled and wave back, without losing step in their work.
Libby could feel it sinking in, and a smile crept over her face This was where her life would really start. One of those huge rocks was hers. It was mind boggling that there were so many huge asteroids, the company could afford to give away these continents in exchange for simple labor. She knew it would be hard work, but that didn't scare her. Libby was ready to get out there and make her fortune. Her hands fairly itched to get to work on her own land. She would finally be able to start building a life for herself. The grin was huge, and she couldn't stop it.
Then, in the distance, she saw the glint of something spinning. As they drew nearer, she saw what looked like a key floating in space, round and dark at one end, and jagged on the straight, pointed end. It spun madly in space, too quickly to make out the exact shape of it. But whatever it was, they were headed right for it.
As they came close to it, it grew to about nine meters in size. A quickly rolling tin rock. Woody grabbed a rope from his side of the runabout, and despite the awkward spacer suit, expertly lassoed the jagged part of the key. It jerked and pulled the runabout with it, and soon they were spinning alongside. The spinning made Libby feel sick, and she tried not to look at the universe spinning around her. She concentrated on the tin part of the statue, as her perspective quickly became consistent with it. She realized that it wasn't a key, it was a small, round rock, maybe five meters in diameter, with a tiny shack protruding from it. The shack itself was almost as wide as the rock.
Woody began to pull them in as her smile started to fade with the realization. That was it. This was her free land. This was all she would be given. A tiny little rock, barely big enough to put a shed on.
Woody cycled the door to the shed (so at least it has power, she thought), and they both stepped in. Once they were inside, Woody took off his helmet and she followed suit. He looked around sadly. "So, yeah. It's not much, but it keeps the rain off your head."
Inside, the shed was almost bare. A mirror was bolted to one corner, though there was no sink, shower, or toilet. A hammock hung from the ceiling in another corner. One chair was bolted to the ground in front of a table that looked like it was just an extension of the wall that had broken off
and bent backward. The room was dark and gray, with only one light bulb bouncing lazily from it's wire in the ceiling.
Woody looked around, "On the bright side, you don't have any windows."
She turned wide eyes to him, "That's the bright side?"
He shrugged, "Well, if you could see all the spinning outside, you'd probably never stop throwin' up."
Chapter 4
Woody ran a hand through his ragged mop of hair and said, “Look, give it some time. Think about it. If ya still need help, there's always somebody at the Mary.” He looked around for a moment, shifting in place, then said, “I'll leave the runabout and get a ride from somebody.” She didn't even look up.
Woody nodded once sadly, put on his helmet, and cycled the door. Libby moved slowly around the room, touching everything lightly, and looking at herself in the mirror. She sat on the chair, legs tucked underneath her, as a shudder ran through her.
Libby sat in the tiny room for a long time after Woody left. This room was hers. It was all she had anymore. Just a few weeks ago, she had run away from her whole life so that she could live in a tiny tin box, flat broke, with barely enough land to hold her shack. These walls were all she had in the . . . well, the whole universe. These four walls that were barely even airtight.
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