She scowled, "Funny that the one with the bad business practices is the one who's trying to stick to the contract. Let me ask you something. If the previous user falls and breaks his leg on the equipment when it's my month to use it, who is responsible? Not me, because I hadn't even taken control of the equipment. Not him, because his month was up. So, would that be you, then?"
The man blanched at this, his skin turning the color of parchment, "That's never happened before."
She smiled slowly, enjoying it, "I'm sure it's covered in your gentlemen's agreement, though, right? How about if I use the equipment all month, then decide to break a leg on your property after that. How much do you think I would get from the company? Certainly enough to buy myself a new set of equipment all to myself, right?"
He drew himself up, and looked down his nose at her, "You've made your point. Take all the equipment today. I insist."
She shrugged, "Well, if you're sure."
"And I'll expect you to turn it over to the new party at the end of this month. Promptly, Ms. Carter."
"No problem, chuckles. So, where is it?" She headed for the door.
"You'll find it on the Sperling claim."
Libby stopped dead in her tracks, "Ted Sperling? Ted put himself on the list, while still stirring people up about giving up the communal equipment?" She stared into the middle distance for a moment. "This is going to be fun."
Chapter 19
Libby found Ted on his claim, processing a block of ore with a group of his friends. She landed and walked over to him, "Hey, Ted. Your month's up. Gimmie the tools."
He looked over at her, then waved her off, "The digger's over there. It'll be a shame to see it go, but a deal's a deal." He shrugged, and turned back to the processor.
She waved up at her crew, who were all landing behind her. Five runabouts landed next to her, and she started assigning them to the different machines. As soon as they headed into the control bays for the different tools, Ted looked up at her and frowned, "Hey, now wait a minute. I'm not done with those!"
She smiled, "Your month's up, Ted."
"Yes, but you're supposed to take just the things you need! You can't need all of this at the same time!" He was waving frantically at one of the crew members who was firing up the piloting circuits on the processor's tow rig.
She followed along behind Ted, nodding, "See, that's where you're wrong. I've been waiting for this for a long time. I've been planning out exactly what I'm going to do, and how to do it. I've been putting all of my resources into getting ready to use all the equipment at the same time, so yeah, I'm taking it all now."
He waved at the crew, "Besides, how did you organize this? Who are all these people?"
She beamed, "This is my crew. They're helping me out for the weekend. It's amazing what you can get done with the promise of a keg of beer."
He turned to her, exasperated, "But that's not fair! I didn't get all month with the equipment! They told me to take the things I needed, and nothing else!"
She shrugged, "I dunno. When I talked to him, the company representative insisted that I take it all." He looked at her, and she nodded, "Insisted."
"I just don't understand. It's just not fair."
She shook her head with mock sadness, "I know, if I were you, I'd sue them. After all, you didn't get all the equipment for the whole month, did you?"
She watched as his despair turned to a shrewd look of cunning, "That's an excellent point. I didn't get my fair share. I need to think about this."
Grinning, she turned back to her crew and flipped her radio to the work circuit, "Okay, you bozos. The sooner you get this stuff back to my rock, the sooner you can go drink yourself silly." She tethered the runabouts to her own, and headed back to her place.
***
When they got back to her rock, the men could see exactly how she planned to set up the work. In one area was a large square of rope lines, defining where she wanted to cut. In another spot were a set of pre-cut deep furrows, all ready to be snapped off and set aside for refuse. A third location had a deep square cut out of it, ready for ore excavating. Yet another spot had piles of large ore chunks, all ready for analysis and processing.
The men were professionals, and they didn't need to be told where to land the machinery. As they came to a landing, Jimmy gave a low whistle, "Wow. Nice work, Tumbler. How did you pull this off?"
Over the circuit, he could hear her answer from the surface, "Well, you know Bronson let me borrow the tools a couple of times. Each time I got my hands on them, I worked on a different part of the process."
"Because you knew today was coming?" She could hear the smile in his voice.
She tethered the runabouts to her shed door, "I don't like to waste time." Looking up at the equipment slowly descending onto her rock, she said, "Speaking of which, when are you people actually going to land? If you wanted to just fly around rocks, I think you missed your calling as pilots."
They worked for hours that day, with nobody trying too hard to keep track of the time. Libby was engaged in all of it, bouncing over to the digger to make sure they were grabbing what she needed, then bouncing back to the processor to make sure the filtering was as pure as it could be, then bouncing back over to the analyzer to make sure they were looking for the right type of ores. At the end, she was wasted, exhausted, and exhilarated. Her body ached and begged for rest, but her mind couldn't slow down. She was as good as her word, and paid for the booze when they all retired to the Hail Mary.
That was the hardest month of work Libby had ever done. She took every other day off, after saving up all her vacation time. Whenever she could, she got one or two coworkers out to her rock to work on whatever step she was currently involved in. She would alternate every night, to keep it fresh and stay awake. She would spend three hours digging, then three hours analyzing the previous nights excavation. It was a month of backbreaking work, on top of her job, but it was worth it. She was getting so much more done every night when she went home, it kept her awake and excited all the time. She would work to the point of exhaustion, then pass out in bed with the excitement still buzzing in her mind.
Sometimes while she was working, people would drop by to visit or chat. People had known her long enough not to be offended when she didn't stop working for a visit. She would smile, and chat distractedly with them, while continuing with her work. Once, Woody came out to visit, and he spent the entire day criticizing her work. At first, she got a little miffed by it, then she started noticing that he had a real eye for the work. His suggestions were spot on, and the things she got from him cut hours off of her work. She could tell that he was getting interested in it too, as he moved from one site to another, pointing at mistakes and weak spots, chattering about how she was "wasting her fool time" with one process, when another would be far better. By the end of the day, she almost expected him to roll up his sleeves and start working with her. But after he had evaluated it all, and given her his suggestions, he nodded and left, satisfied.
Another time, the whole Davis family showed up. Libby put down the drill and started to walk over to the clan as they landed, then looked surprised as they all split up. Minerva headed for Libby's shack, Mike bounced over to the processing system, Dora started warming up the extractor, and even little Howie got into the carbon extractor, ready to help out his siblings. Ira walked up to her as she skidded to a stop.
She looked at him, nonplussed, "Um, hello, Mr. Davis. What brings the family out here?"
He beamed at her, "Well, the kids and I just finished pulling out a good chunk of Krypton out of the farm."
She smiled, "Krypton! Wow. That's a nice haul."
He nodded, thumbs hooked into the utility belt around his suit, "Yeah, I figure it'll pay for Dora to go to school on Luna." It was common knowledge that the best schooling an outworlder could hope for was Luna University. The schooling on the moon wasn't exactly Ivy League, but it was safer than risking a trip to Earth.
A person who lives their who
le life on Earth gets used to full gravity, and doesn't even notice it. But the longer you live in zero gee, the more your body expects it. Your blood pressure slows, your muscles acclimatize to less work. On the plus side, you start to age slower. On the minus side, you can't ever go back to Earth. People who have been away from Earth too long can't handle the full gravity. It takes a lot of hard work and preparation to avoid dying of sheer exertion just by living on the surface of Earth. Your heart can't pump blood, your muscles can't hold your body up, and it's hard work to even breathe.
When Libby went home, it would be hard on her system, but she could probably adjust. But for Dora, who was born outside of Earth's gravity, the planet was a death sentence.
Libby nodded at Ira, then asked, "So, I still don't understand. If you just hit a big win, shouldn't you be out celebrating?"
He looked at her, a blank expression on his face, "We finished our work."
"Yes?"
"So we had some free time." He looked back over at his children, who were already showing results from their work. Libby wanted to bounce over to them, help out with their gracious support, when suddenly she heard another voice.
"There's not much in the kitchen, but I came prepared. I've got sandwiches and water ready, as soon as you're at a stopping point." Minerva came out of the shack holding a covered tray. She bounced over to Libby and said, "Go on, dear. I've got this part handled. You should be out there digging."
She grinned at them both, then bounced over to where the kids were working.
There weren't many days like that, but there were times that people would drop by to see how she was doing, or help out a bit if they had the time. When her month was up, she turned over the whole equipment set to the next customer. Word of how Libby had prepared for her turn was getting around, and people were planning all kinds of ways that one could prepare for it. She had gained a minor celebrity status just from making that change. Now, when her successor took over the equipment, he was ready to use all of it on day one, and he knew that the whole town was watching to see how he did with it.
As for Libby, she didn't care. She'd done everything she wanted to do, and now she was standing on a cube of nearly pure copper, almost exactly three cubic meters in size. Next to her, was a cube of sulfur, two meters cubed. And packed next to that was her real nest egg. A half-meter cube of nearly pure platinum. It shone brilliantly off the light of the headlamp as she ran one hand across it.
For all her hard work, she never expected platinum. She had high hopes for this rock, but she never expected to get anything this good this soon. It wasn't enough to buy her way into the lap of luxury, but it was easily the most valuable thing she would find that year. She sat down on the copper cube and looked at it all.
This was the testament to her hard work. It represented everything she had ever worked for. It wasn't a huge amount of money, but it was all hers, from the sweat of her brow, and she was proud.
The money that she made off of this would make things easier. She could afford some of the cheaper equipment, second hand. She could even afford to lease some of the newer stuff now. She rocked back and forth happily. This would make everything easier.
She tied up the last of it, and jumped back down to her runabout. One of the nice things about working in near zero gravity was that you didn't need a powerful rocket to pull your ore around. Her little runabout would be more than enough to get the ore to Blessed, and from there, she could have it analyzed and auctioned off. She looked back as she took off. She knew she was leaving the rock as a poor rockhound, but she'd be coming home a wealthy woman. To commemorate the moment, she'd even put on her mother's earrings as she got ready.
As she headed toward town, she saw some friends out on their land, watching as the huge cube passed overhead. They smiled and waved as she passed. She saw people running out of the house to look up at her haul, and cheer soundlessly at her. It seemed like the whole town knew about what she had done, and how much of an accomplishment this was. She waved back at them and grinned.
As she neared Blessed, another runabout raced to catch up with her. As it pulled up alongside her, she could see Jimmy grinning through the visor. She waved at him and said, "What are you doing out here?"
He shrugged, making the runabout shiver and correct itself, "Well, I was in the area. Had the day off. Figured I'd come out here and see how things were going with you."
She nodded, "Well, thanks. It's good to have somebody else with me." She pointed at some of the people who were waving at them from a nearby rock, "With all this attention, I expect we'll have a welcoming party by the time we make it to Blessed."
"Well, it's a big deal. Lots of people are interested." He looked over at her, "So, is this going to be enough?"
"Enough?"
"To go home with all your fame and fortune. I know you've got platinum in that set. Is it enough to make you as rich as you want to be?"
She shrugged, "No, but it's enough to solve a lot of problems. Life is going to be a lot easier from here on out."
There was a short silence as both of them looked ahead, as the bubble of Blessed started to come into view. She said, "You know what the best part is? It's that nothing can hurt me now."
"How do you mean?"
"Well, let's face it, I've been through Hell. I've lost everything in the world, all my money, my family, my opportunities. When I got out here, I had nothing but the clothes on my back. I was pushed into indentured service, and lived for about a year in a spinning top. I even lost my ability to make a choice about my destiny. I had to work hard just to get that choice back, then I had to work hard to build up the claim that I chose." She waved at Jimmy just as he was about to say something, "Don't get me wrong, I had help the whole way. But in the end, all this was my work."
She smiled, "You know, Woody was right. He said that money you earn is better than money you get through luck. I think I'm more proud of this than anything I've ever done. And the best thing is, nothing will ever seem that bad, because I've had to go through the worst things imaginable to get here. Nothing will ever be that bad again."
He nodded, then seemed to get a far away look in his eye. He stared out past the asteroid Ceres, to something in the middle distance. She cocked her head to one side, looking at him, "What? What's wrong?"
He pointed, squinting, "Do you see that?"
She followed his finger and looked out at a bright spot in space. It was a tiny bright dot, but it was growing larger and seemed to be moving fast.
One thing about living in the asteroid belt, you get used to lots of rocks flying around. There's basically three levels of sky. There's the stars in the distance, glowing pinpricks, steady and bright. Then there's the distant asteroid belt, which looks like a dirty brown smear across the sky. You know it's moving, but you can't see the motion, because it's so far away. The middle distance just looks like a slowly-moving cloud layer. Then there are the local rocks, which range from the size of your hand to the size of the moon. You learn to spot the movement of them, see them as a constantly moving set of constellations, shifting in the large-scale sense, but mostly stationary from the local viewpoint. They each had their orbits, and a resident would learn them just by osmosis.
But this new point stood out from all that. It was new from their viewpoint, and fast moving through their space. Libby watched as it grew in size, then as quickly as it reached them, it flew past them and blurred away. It looked like a tiny white rock, with a long trail behind it. They could feel the pull of it, as it tugged at their runabouts. Libby had to correct for the ore she was pulling.
Jimmy said, "A comet? I've never seen one so close before." Then, as Libby looked at the tail of the comet, she saw hundreds of smaller rocks following in it's wake. The comet had a huge gravitational pull, and was affecting all the rocks in the area. Larger rocks were being pulled more than smaller ones, some leaving their orbits for the first time in centuries. Huge continents were pulled out of orbit by the comet's tail.
Libby watched as asteroids, pulled out of their sedentary paths, collided suddenly against each other. Everything seemed to spin and pull in the direction of the comet's movement. She saw people's claims pulled out of their orbits, and watched as they slammed into each other. She saw working claims splinter and shatter noiselessly as they collided with others. She watched in horror as one of the large claims, the Veasey homestead, bounced off of the main dome of Blessed, shattering the claim and cracking the shell of the capital city. Air spilled out like milky liquid from the new hole in the shell.
They watched as the zip lines that tethered satellites to Ceres either snapped or twisted around the rocks, binding them to each other, pulling them down into the gravity of the giant rock. They slammed into Ceres, crushing buildings. The environment bubble of Blessed was segmented into hexagonal sections for exactly this kind of emergency. So even though some sections were destroyed, the overall integrity of the bubble remained secure. Even so, the hole in the shell was substantial. Sparks and liquid air shot out from the damaged areas as the rocks careened wildly around.
Libby and Jimmy looked at each other, wide-eyed, and Jimmy stammered, "I - I don't -"
Libby shouted, "Come on!" and kicked her runabout into high gear. She flipped the switch that let go of her payload with a heavy heart, but no hesitation. It had her name on it, maybe it would coast to a stop on a rock, and somebody would find it later.
She and Jimmy soared at top speed toward Blessed. It was a lot harder to navigate now, and they had to weave between asteroids, through holes in crippled rocks, and around the untethered zip lines that were now whipping randomly as they got tangled in one thing after another. Blessed looked like a crippled octopus, with zip lines whipping madly around it, and a gushing wound in the bulbous hemisphere of a head.
Tumbler Page 14
