Tumbler

by Brand Gamblin

  The bored blinked slowly and sighed, "Well, let's take a look." He tapped listlessly at his computer for a few moments, then said, "That would be #32-171846b. Pretty unremarkable rock. Preliminary analysis shows it's more trouble than it's worth. Appraised at around thirty thousand dollars."

  She squinted at it, "For such an unremarkable rock, I wouldn't figure it was more than ten."

  "Well, it does still show evidence of potential ore, that's got to be worth at least 28 thousand."

  "For a rock that's more trouble than it's worth? I couldn't imagine it being worth more than 15 at best."

  "Well, you've got an honest face, so I suppose I could knock off the appraisal fee and the processing, and call it 26."

  "I suppose you could knock off more than that. I was in that rock when I heard about the lost little girl, so it has sentimental value for me. Because it's so special, let's say I could go as high as 17."

  He shook his head, smiling, "I'd love to, but I'd be losing money at 23."

  "I've got twenty thousand cash."

  "That'll do. Sign here."

  ***

  Libby stood in the door of the Hail Mary, and watched as the place silenced again. She waited, trying to think of how to say what she needed to. Then she took a deep breath, "I was never one of you. I was tricked into coming here, by a company that's been employing me for the last year. They didn't tell me what I was getting into, and they let me walk into the trap. At the same time, I never asked the questions I should have, so that's partially my fault."

  She looked around at them, and cleared her throat before continuing, "I wasn't one of you, and I knew it. I'm an outsider. I treated you like an outsider. I've been -" she shrugged, "I've been harder on you than I really should have. It wasn't your fault, and I'm sorry about that. But the thing is that I never had a choice, and I never could forgive anyone for that."

  There was a short pause as she marshaled her courage again, "But I just bought my own plot of land, with the money I was going to use on a ticket home." A murmur of humorous surprise rippled through the room. "Now that I've bought it, I've made my choice. My choice. Not the company, not you guys. Mine. I know, this time, what I'm getting into, and I'm doing it anyway. So, it's nobody's fault any more. Nobody but me. I'm not blaming anybody else for this anymore.”

  Libby felt the energy drain out of her, “So, I guess that's all I had to say."

  There was a brief moment as she stood there awkwardly, then the peal of a loud bell sounded, and everybody looked at the bar. Miriam held the rope to a bell hammer as she said, "You boys heard her. Our girl's come home. Next round's on the house!"

  A loud cheer rang through the bar, and people swarmed over Libby with a renewed warmth. People were shaking her hand, slapping her back, hugging her, and offering her drinks. She was pulled up to the bar by the press of well wishers, and given a seat. She tried to thank each of them, but the faces swirled before her, mixing into one parade of grins.

  Then the crowd seemed to part for a moment, as Woody walked up to her. He wasn't smiling, just looking at her with an odd expression. He said something to her, refusing to speak up in the loud group. Over the roar, she could just barely hear him, "So, you made yer mind up. Ya finally figure we're good enough for the likes of you."

  Libby started to protest, "It's not like that. I just hated the situation I was -"

  "If it's so bad, we coulda helped. Face it, Tumbler. Ya always wanted to do this on yer own. Wouldn't take no help from no body."

  He stepped forward and embraced her, his bony frame wrapping around hers with surprising sensitivity. He whispered into her ear, "Good job, girl. Don't take nothin' for free. There ain't no value in what gets handed to you."

  He stepped back, saying, "Now that don't make what you did right. I find out you're running around blaming everybody else for your problems, you'll feel the toe of my boot." She smiled at him, his face stern, but his eyes were glistening.

  She nodded, "Understood." It was the second time he had threatened kicking her in the last two days, and she still didn't believe it. She wondered how many more times he would threaten kicking her. She wondered how many more times she would shrug it off.

  After that, the party really took off. People kept turning her this way and that, offering thanks and congratulations. At one point, a ripple ran through the room, and the party turned to face the door. Standing there was the Davis family, with little Dora in front, bouncing on her good leg. They all waved as the people rushed up to them, and carried them gladly up to the bar. Libby noticed that the press of people petered out as soon as the Davis's showed up. She was fine with that, though, even preferred it. Libby knew that the girl was the real story, anyway.

  The party continued through the night, and if Ted Sperling was sputtering over lost wages, at least he had the good sense not to do it around them. People brought musical instruments, started singing and dancing, and Libby let herself be pulled into it. At the end, exhausted and happy, she flew back to her little rock.

  She tethered her runabout to the rock, then reached for the door and stopped. She crawled over to the bare patch in the rock, where she could still see the screwdriver jammed into the dust of the asteroid. She stared at it for a moment, then smiled and pulled it out with a grin.

  Chapter 15

  “C'mon, Tumbler. It's fun! Besides, you're not doing anything!” Dora bounced in front of Libby as her brother bounced counterpoint beside her.

  She waved them off, “Forget it. You're giving me a headache.”

  They sang in unison, “Please?”

  She looked sideways at them, “Why? Why me? Aren't there plenty of other people you could ask?”

  Dora shook her head, “No. They're all adults.”

  Libby pointed one finger between her breasts, “I'm an adult. You don't seem to mind asking me.”

  Howie shook his head, “Naw, you're just an old kid. We need kids for this game.”

  Dora piped in, “All we need is one more kid, now that Anne twisted her ankle.”

  Libby shook her head, “No, I'm busy. Maybe some other time.”

  Howie bounced up and down again, “Wait! Wait, wait wait!”

  “What?”

  “What are you doing?”

  Libby looked back at the tea sitting on the bar. She took a deep breath and said, “How long does this take?”

  Dora beamed, “Not long. Not long at all!”

  They each took a hand and pulled Libby out to the edge of the dome. They got suited up while Dora and Howie explained the rules.

  Libby cycled through the door behind them, and got on her runabout. She switched on the sonar nav beacon and set it to the respondent frequency that Dora had given her, before heading out to follow them. Libby asked on the local channel, “So, who's team am I on?”

  Dora piped in, “Mine.” She came up beside Libby and waited as her brother got out of range, “I'm thinking we should pick spots over near the Campbell quarter. It's almost totally abandoned, with nothing but useless rock. I figure that should make the signal bounce pretty good.”

  Libby nodded and headed off behind her. The rules to “Sonar Seek” were pretty simple. All the teams had to pick locations to hide, within a certain range of 10 miles above Ceres' surface. One team was designated as the “seekers” and they would search over the thousands of miles of available space.

  If it was a sight-based search, this would never work. But these kids were inventive, and they'd come up with a way to make the vastness of space searchable. Sonar beacons.

  Inside Libby's runabout, a powerful transmitter was sending a periodic beep at a particular frequency. This frequency had once been used for shipping containers to move between large rocks without collision. But now that the shipping traffic had better nav tracking data, they had abandoned the segment of the frequency. Now kids used it for games.

  The “seekers” could hear, from anywhere within range of Ceres, a brief ping from every player in the game. The strength
of the signal determined how close they were to a target. Half of the game was sifting through all the signals you heard to determine which was the loudest. The other half was navigating based on that signal.

  Libby watched Dora pull away, headed for a largish rock with dozens of obvious cave entrances. The seekers would have to really look to find out which cave entrance Dora was using. At the same time, Libby wondered if that might be too obvious. After all, if a seeker heard their nav beacon coming from this quarter, then saw a huge rock with an immense cave system, wouldn't they head right for it? She looked around, searching for an unassuming, smaller rock. Something big enough to have it's own cave system, but small and smooth enough to not stand out in this group.

  Then she saw it, a pockmarked oblong asteroid, with ridges that hid a cave system in the shadow of the small cliffs. Libby grinned as she headed over to it, and ducked into one of the hidden caves.

  Libby tethered her runabout to the mouth of the cave, and slowly backed deeper into it. The cave wall felt smooth and regular as she entered, keeping one hand on the wall. She crouched near the entrance, smiling to herself. This wasn't her kind of game, but the fun of it was starting to get the better of her. She sat in a crouch, preparing to jump out at the seekers, if they should happen to find her. The ground beneath her was flat and regular, giving her a good angle to spring from.

  Something about that nagged at the back of her mind. Why would the cave floor be flat?

  Libby turned around slowly, showing her headlights around the room. From the interior, she had to call it a room. It was too man-made to be a cave.

  Tools were strewn throughout the room, though not haphazardly. Libby walked back through the room, cataloging in her mind. She passed a stack of drills, a palette of ore sifters, and a pile of thumper analysis tools. It was like a warehouse for a miner who couldn't afford shelves. In the back, Libby saw the largest of them all. Her headlamps glinted yellow A huge GeoMack extractor loomed over it all, easily two times as tall as any stack of tools.

  Libby frowned at it. This didn't make sense. It looked like a warehouse for spare parts, but why would a company leave them in piles like that? Were they all broken, waiting for repair or recycling? Even if that were the case, why would they be left in an abandoned rock, inside a hidden cave?

  Libby spent the better part of an hour poring through the stacks. She didn't find any that needed significant repair, and some of the equipment looked like it was in mint condition.

  Libby began to worry that she was seeing something she wasn't supposed to. Maybe the company didn't want to advertise this because they were keeping parts separate from other companies. Or maybe they didn't want to make these tools part of the public pool. Either way, this seemed wrong.

  She ran up to the entrance, switching her radio to it's local circuit, and as she opened her mouth to call for Dora, she heard a call ring out.

  “Gotcha! Laz, I found Dora!” Libby heard the squeal of young Lorelai Lee. Dora immediately started arguing, and saying Lor had cheated. Libby climbed out of the cave entrance as she heard Lazuli chip in, “That means Tumbler's gotta be somewhere around here.”

  Libby's eyes widened as she pictured what would happen next. The kids would find the cave, they'd find the equipment. People would start asking questions, and the company would lose face. Libby ran to her runabout and took off from the asteroid. When companies lose face, they don't normally react well.

  She called out, “Yeah, you got us. Good job!” Libby hoped the tension didn't show in her voice. She joined Dora and the others as the went looking for the last of the hidden kids, but lagged behind the group. She couldn't get it out of her head. Why would the company keep a stockpile of equipment in a hidden cache?

  Once the game was over, Libby headed back to the Mary, looking for the one person who knew about the companies, and still knew how to keep a secret.

  “Woody!” She found him sitting at the bar, staring at his reflection between the bottles on the back wall. He turned to face her, smiling.

  “What's up, buttercup?”

  Libby bounced up to him, and sat on the next stool down. She lowered her voice and looked around to make sure no one was paying too much attention to them. Libby leaned in close, and Woody leaned in as well, a bemused smile on his lips. She didn't whisper, but said in a low monotone, “I think I found one of the company's secret caches.”

  Woody nodded slowly at her, a serious look on his face, then said, “Company don't deal in cash. S'worthless out here in the boonies.”

  She blinked at him, nonplussed for a moment, then shook her head, “No, you don't understand. I found a stack of equipment that the company hid out in the middle of nowhere.”

  A new layer of gravity washed over Woody's face, as he leaned back, “S&V don't keep their stuff hidden. None of 'em do.”

  Libby nodded, her eyes getting wider, “That's what I'm saying. Nobody's seen anything like this before. I think this is a company secret, and I don't know what to do about it.”

  Woody scratched at his beard for a moment, “Well now, that ain't altogether true. I've seen it before.” He reached for his whiskey, and downed it quickly. He leaned onto his elbow and stared hard at her. “Now lissen up. This is important.” Libby nodded, surprised. His voice had an odd urgency, and had even lost a bit of it's folksy twang, “The things you saw out there, all that equipment. Was it junk?”

  She shook her head slowly, “No. I mean, it wasn't all mint, but it all seemed usable and -” Woody stood up suddenly, “Well then, unfortunately, I know what we gotta do.”

  Woody started for the door, gesturing over his shoulder for her to follow him, “C'mon. You're the one that seen it, you're gonna need to do the talkin'.”

  Libby followed him as Woody walked out to the dome of Blessed. Libby didn't try to talk to Woody as he trudged through the cacophony of bustling people, but she couldn't help noticing how worried and distracted he looked.

  As they suited up at the dock, Libby asked him, “What is it? Where are we going?”

  He didn't look up from the seal as he checked his suit's dummy lights, “We gotta talk to Bronson.” He stopped for so long, Libby opened her mouth to ask something else, then he said under his voice, “I just hope nobody gets hurt this time.”

  Libby frowned at that and joined him on the runabout. They traveled out to Bronson's trailer without a word. Woody took the lead again as they entered. Bronson and Jimmy were standing at the desk, poring over an ore analysis. Bronson waved briefly at them, “Can this wait, Tumbler? We've got a bit of a -”

  Woody stomped his foot once on the ground, making a loud clang that got Bronson's attention. They both looked up suddenly, and Woody waved a vague hand at Jimmy, “I expect you'll want the boy to clear on out.”

  There was a moment where no one moved, and then Bronson said, “Hey Jimmy, why don't you go get a -” he looked around at the desk, then the office, then shrugged, “Why don't you just go for a little bit. We'll give you a shout when we're done with whatever this is.”

  Jimmy nodded, and started collecting papers. As he brushed past Libby, he raised his eyebrows in a silent query. She just shrugged in answer, and held the door for him.

  Once the door was sealed, Woody turned back to Bronson, and gestured Libby forward, “Tell him what'cha found.”

  Libby took a few steps forward, clutching the helmet of her suit, and she started the story. Woody never looked at her. He watched Bronson sadly through the whole tale.

  When she was finished, Bronson looked up at Woody for a long moment. Neither one said anything. Then he turned to face Libby and stuck an accusing finger out. “Now listen to me, Tumbler, because this is important. I want you to think about this very carefully.”

  Libby nodded silently as he took a deep breath and asked, “That equipment. It was all junk, right? Just a bunch of parts. Nothing that could really be used.”

  Libby glanced quickly over at Woody, who refused to meet her gaze, then she looked b
ack. “No sir. It was all in working condition, as near as I could -”

  Bronson pounded a fist down on the desk. Papers flew away from him in a cloud, and settled slowly, like leaves in an autumn gust. “Dammit!” he shouted.

  Bronson sat back in his chair and brought fists up to his eyes. He rubbed at them for a while, then turned to Woody. “What can we do?”

  Woody shrugged, “You know what we do.”

  “No, aside from that. Is there any other way?”

  Woody's eyes locked on him as he shook his head slowly, “Not that I've seen.”

  Bronson eyes unfocussed as he looked at the back wall. He shook his head slowly and said, “If they can't be honest, couldn't they at least be smart?”

  Woody took a deep breath and shoved his hands into the pockets of his overalls, “Don't look like it. Not this time, anyway.”

  Bronson nodded at him, “You going to be with me?”

  Woody shrugged, “Ain't how I work. I don't have a dog in this fight.”

  Bronson pointed a finger at him, “But when we're there. When I'm in the room.”

  Woody nodded slowly, “I'll back yer play.”

  Bronson ran his hands through his hair, “I just pray it's not Scudder.”

  Woody nodded slowly, and said, “The girl's got the coords. You all gonna meet us there?”

  Bronson nodded, “It's the only way to be sure. I'll call the gang.”

  Woody walked out, with Libby in tow. Together, they headed out to the same rock where Libby had found the equipment cache. By the time they got there, a small cluster of sleek, expensive runabouts were littered outside the cave entrance. Woody clucked his tongue and when they landed, he started grabbing runabouts and dragging them into the cave.