Uranus

by Ben Bova

  “Whatever for?”

  “For refusing to have sex with him.”

  “Ah.”

  “He used Rust on me. Got me to do things…” Raven let her voice trail off into silence.

  Umber’s red, round face settled into a forbidding scowl. “I’ve tried to get him to stop that kind of behavior.”

  “He won’t stop. He enjoys it.”

  “Yes, I know. I’m afraid he’s damning himself, his soul.”

  “And dragging others down with him,” said Raven.

  With a sad shake of his head, Umber admitted, “There’s no way I can control him, bring him to God’s grace. God knows I’ve tried, but he ignores me. He laughs at me!”

  “There is one thing you can do, Reverend. It’s just a little thing, but you can help free Alicia Polanyi and me from Evan’s control.”

  “Free the two of you?”

  Raven bit her lip, then plunged ahead. “Alicia and I want to open a women’s clothing shop.”

  Umber’s eyes went wide for a moment. Then he leaned forward in his capacious desk chair and asked, in a voice heavy with skepticism, “A women’s clothing store? How in the world could that make a difference here on Haven?”

  Raven took a deep breath, then began to explain.

  * * *

  Raven’s throat felt scratchy, sore, by the time she finished telling Reverend Umber of the hopes that she and Alicia had built.

  Umber’s chunky face went from scowling disbelief to puzzled wonderment, to nodding understanding. By the time Raven finished her description he seemed to grasp what she was driving at.

  But once she stopped talking, he slowly shook his head. “I’m not sure it’s such a good idea, Raven. We don’t want to set up distinctions of dress among our people. We don’t want that kind of competition among them.”

  “But it’s natural!” Raven countered. “Why should everybody dress the same? Let the women express themselves. They’ll be happier for it, and so will the men.”

  “It will set them in competition against one another. That’s something we should avoid.”

  “Some competition is natural, Reverend,” Raven pleaded. “You think the women of this habitat don’t compete against one another?”

  Umber hesitated, then replied, “I … I don’t know. I suppose I’ve never given it much thought.”

  “Well, they do. It’s natural. And healthy, I think.”

  A long silence. Raven thought she could see wheels turning inside Umber’s head.

  “Most of the women already alter their uniforms,” she argued. “Just in small ways, perhaps, but they try to make their uniforms a little bit different, distinctive. It’s quite natural, actually.”

  “But if you give them the chance to buy completely different outfits it will set up competition, rivalries, resentments among our women.”

  With a shake of her head, Raven countered, “It will allow the women of the habitat a measure of self-expression that’s denied to them now. Our boutique wouldn’t offer the kind of outrageous outfits you can buy on Earth,” she insisted. “But something more stylish than these uniforms we’re forced to wear would be welcome, I think.”

  “It’s true that many of the women alter their uniforms, at least a little,” Umber admitted.

  “Of course they do,” Raven said. “Why should we all dress exactly alike? It’s not natural.”

  “Not natural,” he muttered.

  “Let us open the boutique and see how the women react to it,” Raven pleaded. “If you’re unhappy with the results, you can shut us down easily enough.”

  “I suppose that’s possible.”

  “Then you’ll do it? You’ll let us open a shop?”

  For an endless moment, Umber remained silent. At last he said, “On a temporary basis. A trial run. If it causes dissension, disharmony, I’ll have to close it down.”

  Raven jumped up from her chair. Suppressing an urge to lean across the desk and kiss the reverend, she extended both her hands and grasped his. “Thank you, sir! Thank you! From both of us!”

  Umber looked more embarrassed than pleased. But he managed to say, “Good luck with your endeavor.”

  Raven practically ran out of his office, not willing to give the red-faced Umber a chance to change his mind.

  THE MINERS

  There were only four of them—three men and a heavyset, deeply tanned woman. And Professor Abbott, of course, marching alongside a fifth person, a much smaller dark-skinned man with tightly curled black hair, wearing a wrinkled jumpsuit of faded blue.

  They were an undistinguished-looking group, Gomez thought as he stood in the reception area, except for Abbott, striding along as if he were leading a parade.

  Abbott trooped them to where Gomez was standing.

  “Tómas Gomez,” he boomed, by way of introduction, “meet Vincente Zworkyn, the best product ever of Italian-Russian collaboration.”

  Zworkyn grinned, put out his hand and said, “Hello.” Gomez took the hand in his own. “Welcome to Haven, Dr. Zworkyn.”

  The man barely came up to Abbott’s shoulder. Even Gomez was a good three or four centimeters taller. His face was swarthy, squarish, with a strong chin and slightly hooked nose. His hair was thick and dark.

  “I don’t have a doctorate,” Zworkyn said, without a trace of embarrassment. “I’m a mining engineer.”

  Gomez glanced at Abbott, then stumbled, “Oh! I’m sorry … that is, I apologize…”

  “No need to apologize,” Abbott said. “Vincente is the top man in his field. He doesn’t need a PhD, do you, Vince?”

  Zworkyn shrugged good-naturedly, “I’ve never found the time to acquire one.”

  Gomez realized that his mental image of miners was of dirt-encrusted men shoveling rocks in some deep, dank underground cavern. These people are engineers, he told himself: they don’t go down into mines, they direct machinery that does the labor.

  Abbott introduced the other three miners, then led the little group through the computers that registered their arrival while they scanned their bodies, leaving Gomez standing there, suddenly alone.

  “See you at dinner, Tómas,” Abbott called to him as he hurried the miners to the hatch that led into Haven’s interior.

  * * *

  Gomez felt more than a little shaky as he walked alone toward the habitat’s main restaurant. I’m getting accustomed to having Raven as my dinner companion, he realized. But for the past few evenings, Raven had been busy with Alicia Polanyi, planning the shop they were going to open.

  All right, Gomez said to himself as he pushed through the doors of the restaurant’s main entrance. I don’t need her. I can stand on my own feet.

  Still, he missed her.

  The restaurant was crowded, but the human maître d’ led Gomez directly to the circular table where Zworkyn and his four colleagues were sitting with Abbott and a half-dozen of his astronomers. There was one empty chair, between Abbott and Zworkyn. A robot came up and held it out for Gomez.

  “Ah, here at last,” Abbott said, with a big gap-toothed grin.

  “It’s still a few minutes before seven,” Gomez protested.

  “Yes, yes. We started ahead of you.”

  Gomez saw that each of the men and women around the table had drinks at their places. He ordered a margarita.

  “With salt?” asked the robot.

  “Of course.”

  “Of course,” echoed Abbott. Gomez wondered how much he’d already had to drink.

  Zworkyn leaned forward slightly and asked Gomez, “What on Earth ever possessed you to search for evidence of life here on Uranus?”

  Gomez shrugged. “All the other major planets in the solar system have biospheres—extensive biospheres. It seemed odd that Uranus was sterile. It didn’t fit.”

  “Good thinking,” said Abbott. “Go after the anomalies. Find out why they’re anomalies.”

  Zworkyn nodded. “And you found this piece of steel.”

  “It’s not natural,�
� Gomez said. “And it didn’t come from one of our own submersibles.”

  “That’s not one hundred percent assured,” Abbott corrected.

  “Close enough,” said Gomez.

  Nodding again, Zworkyn agreed. “Close enough to get us sent out here to help you explore the region.”

  “Yes,” said Gomez.

  Tugging at one end of his luxurious moustache, Abbott asked the miner, “So when do you start digging?”

  With a tight smile, Zworkyn replied, “Once we find something worth digging for.”

  “Explain, please,” said Abbott.

  “First we’ll have to install our scanning equipment in your submarine, Dr. Gomez—”

  “Please call me Tómas.”

  Zworkyn dipped his chin minimally. “Tómas, then. And I am Vincente.”

  Abbott smiled benignly at the two of them.

  “We will survey the area where you found the relic,” Zworkyn continued, “scanning that region of the sea bottom for similar metal. Penetrating radar and isotopic scanners should let us see at least a hundred meters below the seabed’s surface. Once we have a picture of what’s sitting down beneath the surface, then we can start digging.”

  “But what if there isn’t any other steel down there?” Gomez asked.

  With a shrug of his narrow shoulders, Zworkyn replied, “Then we’ll have to expand our search.”

  “Poke around in the dark,” said Abbott, “in the hopes of finding something.”

  One of the other miners chipped in, “Playing blind man’s bluff, down at the bottom of the ocean.”

  “What we’re looking for might be buried deeper than our instruments can scan,” Zworkyn admitted.

  Gomez muttered, “If that’s the case…”

  “If that’s the case,” Zworkyn said softly, “then we’re out of luck. You could be sitting atop a gold mine, but if it’s buried too deep for our instruments to detect it, we’ll never know that it’s there.”

  Abbott shook his head. “Doesn’t sound terribly encouraging, does it?”

  Gomez didn’t reply aloud, but he thought, They don’t expect to find anything. They think they’ve been sent here on a fool’s errand, and I’m the fool who’s responsible for it.

  PATIENCE … AND ANTICIPATION

  Raven was running through a long list of women’s fashions when her phone buzzed. Glancing at the corner of her screen, she saw that it was Tómas calling. Again.

  I’ve been neglecting him, she realized. She looked over at Alicia, busily conversing with the image on her screen of the contractor who was turning one of the habitat’s empty storage areas into their shop.

  Leaning closer to her own screen, Raven said softly, “Phone answer.”

  Tómas’s face filled the screen. “Raven! Hello!”

  “Hello, Tómas,” she said.

  “How’s it going?”

  She smiled “We’re aiming to open the shop in two weeks.”

  “That’s good.”

  “It’ll be good only if we can get a thousand and one details squared away in that time.”

  “Oh. You must be pretty busy.”

  “Very,” she said. “Extremely.”

  Gomez looked disappointed. “I guess you don’t have time to go to dinner, then.”

  Raven hesitated. Tómas looked disappointed, forlorn.

  She asked, “Would you mind if I brought Alicia along?”

  It was his turn to hesitate.

  “She’s been working awfully hard,” Raven said. “I think a pleasant dinner would be very good for her.”

  Gomez nodded, but it seemed clear his heart wasn’t in it. “Okay, I guess.”

  Raven smiled her brightest. “You’re a dear.”

  “Seven o’clock? In the main restaurant?”

  “Can you make it eight o’clock? We have so much work to get through.”

  “Eight o’clock, sure,” said Gomez. Then he added, a bit more sullenly, “Dinner for three.”

  * * *

  Alicia objected that she didn’t want to be a third wheel at dinner.

  “It’s you he’s interested in, not me.”

  “I know,” Raven admitted. “But I don’t think I want to let him get too close. Not yet. Not now.”

  Alicia studied Raven’s face for a long, silent moment. At last she said, “All right. I’ll be your chaperone.”

  “Thanks,” said Raven. Yet somehow she didn’t really feel grateful.

  * * *

  Once she and Alicia had seated themselves at the table with Gomez, Raven asked, “How’s the search going, Tómas?”

  “Zworkyn and his people have just started scanning the area,” Gomez replied, noticeably less than enthusiastic. “Nothing’s turned up so far.”

  “Patience,” Alicia counseled. “You’ve got to be patient.”

  Gomez tried to grin at her, failed.

  Raven said, “They’ve just started, after all.”

  Gripping his salad fork hard enough to bend it, Gomez said, “I wish I could go down there myself and dig through the rubble.”

  “Rubble?” asked Raven.

  With a shrug of his shoulders, Gomez replied, “The seabed’s covered with rocks, all shapes and sizes. And a lot of sand. Like somebody’s pounded everything into wreckage.”

  Alicia’s brows knit. “There’s a word for that … for when you see what you expect to see, instead of what’s really there.”

  Raven suggested, “Hope?”

  “No, it’s something else,” Alicia said. “I remember reading it somewhere.”

  “Anticipation,” said Gomez.

  “Yes, that’s it,” Raven said. Then she cautioned, “But you mustn’t let your anticipation blind you to what you’re actually seeing.”

  Alicia giggled. “Like the two of us are doing with this shop we’re going to open.”

  Raven glared at her.

  “Well, look at us,” Alicia explained. “We’re working night and day to set up our boutique. But suppose once we open it, nobody comes to buy? What if the women in this habitat don’t care about what we offer them?”

  Gomez gave her a lopsided grin. “The Japanese have a word for that.”

  “They do?”

  “Sure. Hara-kiri.”

  * * *

  The three of them walked slowly along the passageway that led to their living quarters.

  Still thinking of Tómas’s “hara-kiri” joke, Raven wondered what he would actually do if the search of the sea bottom turned up nothing of interest. How will he react? she asked herself. What will he do?

  They reached Alicia’s quarters and bade her goodnight, then Raven and Gomez walked slowly onward. His unit was next, then hers, several doors farther along the passageway.

  “You’re awfully quiet,” he said as they strolled along.

  “I’ve got a lot to think about,” Raven replied. “A lot of things to do.”

  Gomez studied the flooring as they walked. “I’ve got nothing to do. Nothing but waiting.”

  “They’ll find something, Tómas. I know they will.”

  He made a tiny smile. “As my Jewish friends say, ‘From your mouth to God’s ear.’”

  “You’ll see,” Raven insisted.

  They reached the door to his apartment.

  “Would you like to come in?” he asked. “For a nightcap?”

  “Tómas, I shouldn’t,” said Raven. “I can’t.”

  “You could if you wanted to.”

  “I do want to. But I shouldn’t. Please try to understand.”

  He shook his head. “I’ll never understand women.”

  Raven pecked at his cheek. “Patience, Tómas. Please.”

  “And anticipation,” he added softly. Reaching for her arm, he said, “Come on, I’ll walk you home.”

  SCANNING

  Tómas Gomez sat in the stuffy observation center between Zworkyn and Abbott, staring at the viewscreen that covered one entire wall of the crowded room.

  The observation cent
er was built like a miniature theater. All four of Zworkyn’s assistants were sitting tensely at the bottom level, eyes focused on the viewscreens they were monitoring. Gomez, Zworkyn and Abbott sat at the next higher level, then a half-dozen of Abbott’s astronomers sat in the next tier, above them.

  The submersible that Gomez had originally used—now packed with deep-scanning sensors—was slowly coasting a few meters above the sea floor. A pencil-thin beam of blue-green laser light angled upward, toward the ocean’s surface, a precariously slim pencil beam of communication.

  The observation center’s wall screen showed a full-color view of the seabed, nothing but rocks and sand. No fish, no fronds of vegetation, no sign of life whatsoever.

  “Good imagery,” Abbott said.

  “We’re lucky,” replied Zworkyn. “The sea’s very calm today, very clear. Yesterday the verdammt laser beam was so scattered by turbulence that we had to get the sub to send up message drones.”

  “Today is better,” Gomez half whispered, as if fearful of breaking their good luck.

  “Much,” Abbott agreed.

  Zworkyn muttered, “Scan twenty meters deeper.”

  One of his assistants replied, “That would be nearly at the equipment’s limit. We can’t scan much deeper.”

  “Do it,” Zworkyn said.

  The image on the wall screen changed minimally. Rocks and sand. Sand and rocks.

  “No steel,” muttered Abbott.

  “No metals of any kind,” Zworkyn agreed. Somehow, Gomez thought, the man sounded just as disappointed as he himself felt.

  A curved line slid into their view. Zworkyn’s brows hiked up. “What’s that?” he asked.

  The one woman among his assistants looked down at an auxiliary screen set into her desktop. “Strontium eighty-seven,” she said.

  “Follow it.”

  The man beside her spoke into the microphone perched just above his lip. The big wall screen followed the curved line.

  Zworkyn glanced at Gomez, the beginnings of a smile slightly bending his lips. Before Tómas could ask a question, he explained:

  “Strontium eighty-seven is formed when rubidium eighty-seven decays radioactively. Its half life is some fifty billion years, within an error of roughly thirty to fifty million years.”