Outland

by Alan Dean Foster

  "So something snapped in me yesterday. I couldn't bear to watch Paulie clattering around still another bleak place. He has no friends. Ever since he was born he's been trucked off from one cesspool to the next, a year or two at a time. He's a child, and he's never set foot on Earth. Never. He reads and looks at pictures of Earth all day long, and then he hides them from you, blanking the recall code, so your feelings won't be hurt."

  She smiled bleakly. "You know what he talks about all the time? Trees. Not Africa or sports or rockets or games. Trees. He's never seen a goddamn tree, Bill.

  "But he's like his father. No matter how bad he's feeling, no matter how bad it gets for him, he never complains. He's not like his mother, God knows."

  O'Niel leaned forward, rested his chin on his folded hands, his face lit by the glow from the screen. His muscles were all tight, belying his relaxed posture.

  "Don't you see," Carol went on, "he deserves a childhood. A real childhood, before he grows up. He deserves a chance to breathe air. Real outside unrecycled air, someplace where you won't broil or freeze or explode. Air that smells like life, not like ventilation unit lubricant.

  "You think it's all worth it. You think that you go where they send you. You keep the good old peace and do the good old job. Well, I'm not as fortunate as you. I don't have your abiding faith in whatever-it-is." The long restrained bitterness was finally creeping into her voice.

  "I can't see that, Bill. I can't see anything except one God-forsaken mining town that looks just like every other one. The Company is the same, the greedy people are the same, the violence is the same. I'm just not as good as you are. I don't think it's all worth it."

  O'Niel's teeth had tightened against each other, until the small muscles in his jaw had started to twitch.

  Carol was not quite finished. Her tone softened a little. "So . . . so I'm taking Paulie back home. Back to the home he's never had, back to the home he deserves. A real home.

  "I love you, Bill. You don't deserve this. You deserve the best. I just have to go, my love. I'll get back in touch in a few days."

  She stared straight into the pickup, evidently trying to add something else. She couldn't get it out. Her eyes were blurred and the tears had started dribbling listlessly down her cheeks. She swallowed, tried vainly to smile, and finally gave up, ending it with a pathetic little shrug, the mute gesture a poor substitute for the words she'd searched for unsuccessfully.

  The screen blanked. Writing appeared, coldly indifferent.

  END MESSAGES O'NIEL, W.T.

  It blinked on and off, signaling silently. O'Niel ignored it, made no move to switch the screen off. He just sat there, gazing at the steadily blinking letters, his eyes staring but not seeing . . .

  Montone was running the regular morning roll call and check. The roll call really wasn't necessary, more formality than anything else. If someone was absent from duty; it was simple enough to check out their whereabouts as there weren't many other places to go.

  O'Niel sat off by himself at the back of the squad room, partially taking note of what was being said and mostly someplace else.

  "Okay," the sergeant was saying briskly, "what do we have?" He studied his acrylic board, then looked up toward one of the junior officers. "Ballard, what's happened with the Purser's Area? That was your job, wasn't it?"

  The younger man nodded. "We've had a monitor on the whole section for thirty-six hours. It's been quiet as a church. Foot patrol turned up nothing either. No fingerprints when we went through and photographed, no skin oil residue around the jimmy marks, no body odor pickup. Nothing."

  "Suits me fine," was Montone's opinion. "Keep the monitor on it for two weeks and discontinue the foot patrol. Maybe whoever did it has been scared off by all the attention. You sure the monitor's well hidden?"

  Ballard nodded once more. "It'd take somebody with instrumentation to find it. I set it up myself."

  "Good." O'Niel was chewing on a stylus, paying no attention to what was being said. Montone looked away from the Marshal, turning his attention to a more serious item.

  "Nelson, what about the detonators?"

  "They were found," the deputy in question informed him.

  "Where?"

  "I don't know." He looked unconcerned. "The shift foreman for the level they disappeared from reported that they'd been found . . . and said not to bother about it any more."

  "Nelson, we're talking about nuclear detonators. You don't lose them and then find them. You lose your comb and then find it. But not detonators. I'm glad they've turned up, but that's not good enough.

  "I want to know where they were found, who found them, and if there was anyone else around when they were found. You get my drift?" He stared meaningfully at the deputy.

  "Yes, sergeant." Nelson's alertness. level had abruptly risen fifty percent.

  "Good for you, Nelson." Montone's gaze went back to the board. "What about the Club?"

  "Nothing unusual." The deputy pushed at her hair, looked throughtful. "The usual junk. Oh yeah, Sheppard asked us for a couple more people for the late shift. You know, just to keep the boys and girls in line after a few belts. Seems they've been getting a smidgen rowdier than usual and he thought a show of force would be enough to get the troublemakers to tone it down."

  "He can have them," said Montone agreeably. His attention shifted to the next in line. "Slater, what about the incident in the mine elevator?"

  "Nothing much to tell, Sarge." The deputy made a face. "Some cupcake named Cane decided he wanted to go for a walk without an environment suit. They're still sponging him off the elevator wails. Couple of the off-shift people who greeted the remains got green enough to have to go on Sick Leave. Legit, according to the medics. Can't say I blame 'em. Helluva thing to run into unexpectedly."

  Slater said it all matter-of-factly, without emotion, yet still managed something none of his colleagues had succeeded in doing: he woke up O'Niel.

  The Marshal's gaze returned from the distant something it had been focused on to settle fixedly on the deputy. Other than that there was nothing to hint that he'd even heard the questioning.

  "Any details?" Montone wanted to know.

  "Not much." Slater consulted his memory. "He was alone. Nobody was near enough to have thrown him in. A bunch of the guys tried to get into the airlock after him, but he'd sealed it from inside. They were close enough that they would have seen anybody if he'd been pushed.

  "Besides, the couple who got a look at him before he went downside and inside-out said he didn't have the look of somebody who'd been forced into doing something against his will. Said he was smiling all the time, right up to and including when the elevator started down. No way it could have been homicide. Had to have been suicide.

  "Even if he'd somehow been shoved in he could have stopped the elevator anytime before passing Decompression. I checked. The controls were still on manual and nobody'd tampered with them. He didn't stop himself."

  "Did he leave a note?"

  The sudden presence of O'Niel's voice startled everyone. The Marshal spoke evenly, almost quietly, and yet he had their attention at once. It was a peculiarly confident voice, all the more arresting because its owner was now evidently interested in something.

  "I beg your pardon, Sir?"

  O'Niel repeated the question for the deputy. "I said, did he leave any kind of note?"

  "Uh . . ." Slater was thinking fast and trying not to say anything stupid. "None that we know of, Sir."

  "Did anyone think to look?"

  Slater looked around for help. Another deputy answered. "I was with him when we did the report, Sir. I checked Cane's locker and quarters but there was no note, nothing on his personal computer line. He didn't say anything to anyone beforehand, either. At least, not to any of the people we talked to. If he said anything to anyone else they haven't come forward with it."

  O'Niel looked back at Slater. "Then how do you know it was suicide?"

  "Uh . . . it . . . there's no other
possible explanation," Slater said haltingly. "He knew exactly what he was doing, that's for sure. You can't fall into an airlock and then an elevator. You have to open hatches, press buttons, seal hatches, call the elevator, seal it, and chose a level. All manually. None of those controls were preset. That's so this kind of thing can't happen accidentally. Suicide's just the only explanation."

  O'Niel studied the deputy for a long moment, finally said softly, "Thank you."

  "Yes, Sir." Slater no longer looked bored and indifferent. Neither did any of his formerly somnolent companions. They were all sitting alertly now, trying to watch O'Niel without catching his eye. The result was a flurry of surreptitious glances that reminded him of a bunch of respectable businessmen passing a porno palace.

  When it was clear that O'Niel was finished, at least for the moment, Montone looked back to his list. "Okay then, that's it for the elevator business. Fanning, your turn."

  Another deputy shifted in his seat, trying not to look off to his left to see if the Marshal was watching him, too.

  "What do you have on the pump station?"

  "Just a fight. We brought 'em both in to cool off. They were straightened out in about an hour, shook hands, and went back to work arm-in-arm." Somebody made a rude joke, snickered, shut up fast at a look from the sergeant.

  "Hill?"

  "Pretty quiet elsewhere, Sarge. There were a couple of calls from the Administration residential level about noise in the corridors. Somebody reported a few viewing tapes stolen sometime last night."

  "Probably left them in a drawer someplace."

  Hill nodded then smiled. "That was my thought also, but I took the complaint just the same."

  "Good boy. I don't need Admin on my neck about trivialities." He pressed a small stud set in the side of the board. Words rushed past through the acrylic surface, eventually slowed to a halt at the preset point.

  "Duty roster for today. Fanning, it's your turn on Admin." The deputy so designated rose, started for the door. "Slater, you take the Club. Morton, you're on mine patrol Outside." She groaned.

  One by one the deputies acknowledged their assignments and filed out. O'Niel watched them go, trying to grade them according to their reports but still thinking primarily of Carol and Paulie, and the distance that was growing between them every day. Both kinds of distance.

  But there was also something else. It nagged and pestered and made a part of his brain itch. It wouldn't go away no matter what kinds of arguments he threw at it. He made himself a promise to scratch it further . . .

  IV

  The bunks were multi-tiered and set in long aisles. Each bunk was home to the man or woman who slept there, the only home any worker could know on Io.

  The people and computers who'd designed the bunks were interested in efficiency, the conservation of space, and not much else. Their creations reflected this. They offered their tenants enough room to stretch out in and to sit up and not much else.

  One side was heavily screened to provide more security and a sense of privacy. Each bunk also boasted solid screens that could be closed to provide further privacy. Both ends of a bunk were solid, as was the overhead, and were insulated against noise as much as possible. That could inhibit but never eliminate the dormitory feeling.

  At least the beds were comfortable. They had to be, since so much time was spent on them. Drawers and cabinets were ingeniously set into the headboard and footboard of each bunk. Some of the workers had put in little additions of their own, like portable drawers magnetically secured to the sides of the bunk or to the solid ceiling above. Along with food, water, and air, space was not allowed to go to waste on Io.

  At the end of each aisle were communal banks of video monitors. One provided a hundred twenty-three different entertainment channels from classical music (which wasn't much employed) to news (more so) to porn (less so than you might think) to sports (the most popular by far) with every available taped form of entertainment filling the channels in between.

  Another monitor offered the time, not only on Io but at over a hundred similar mining or outpost stations as well as on Mars, Luna, and Earth and the various deep-space support stations. It also displayed internal and external temperature.

  The internal readings were always carefully discussed while no one paid much attention to the external, since it never fell within the narrow band acceptable for human life. The same was true of the readings for atmosphere.

  Another screen offered tectonic information and predictions. It connected to those outlying instruments which kept a constant watch on Io's unstable bowels and to the section of the main computer which ventured, forth predlictions of upcoming I-quake and volcanic eruptions.

  It also frequently put out short programs exhorting the miners to greater efforts. This Company propaganda was always ignored, as were most of the glowing fiscal reports. The only time attention was paid to the latter was when some mention was made of bonuses. Then the screen drew considerable attention, with everyone in the locker room trying to pack around their designated monitor.

  These quarters were rarely entirely deserted. Someone was usually around, studying the screens, reading on private portable monitors or from a real book, changing clothes, sleeping with a closed bunk shield. Groups of men were leaving their bunks and going to and from the shower and bathrooms. The quarters for the women workers backed onto the hygienic facilities and were no different in look or feel from the somewhat larger male-populated dormitory, save for a slightly higher concentration of pastel decoration and the occasional bouquet of artificial flowers taped to the outside of a bunk.

  It was impossible to navigate one's way down an aisle without having to squeeze past at least one or two neighbors. This crowding did not generate the mental discomfort early psychological planners had feared.

  After all, sailors had been doing it on submarines for many pre-space decades. For that matter the entire Japanese nation had coped with such problems throughout history. It wasn't difficult. You created a little invisible bubble of privacy around you. No one intruded on it and you didn't intrude on anybody else's. A fair number of the Jove-jockie were of Japanese ancestry. The mine wasn't comfortable, but it worked.

  It had to work.

  The man with the broken nose who'd visited the cafeteria without eating on the previous morning now entered the locker area. He paused at the head of an aisle to glance above the heads of several other workers, at the screen they were currently watching.

  It showed the replay of a recent major-league nullball game. The men muttered quietly to each other, occasionally letting out a curse or compliment depending on the play at the time, offering comments on strategy as they cheered the players and derided the referees.

  After several minutes during which he joined in the conversation, Spota moved on down the long aisle. Ahead, a miner settled on the fourth, uppermost tier of bunks, swung his legs over the side and started to climb down. He reached the floor a few seconds after Spota passed beneath him.

  Keeping some twenty feet apart, the two men walked the length of the aisle, ignoring other workers as assiduously as they did each other, and finally entered the bathroom.

  Steam filled much of the large chamber, steam from recycled wash water that provided one of the few real luxuries for the workers. Loud voices echoed off the walls. Drenched, soapy men moved about in the open shower area, careful never to come in contact with the exposed pipes carrying the hot water. Other workers groomed themselves in front of mirrors.

  The waste stalls were located near the far side of the chamber. Spota entered one, closed the door carefully behind him.

  A few seconds later the man who'd left his bunk occupied the stall next to him. There was the usual wait, then he reemerged and left. Shortly afterward, Spota came out and headed for the exit. The worker returned to his bunk, Spota to an aisle leading out of the dormitory via an accessway different from the one he'd entered by.

  They drew the attention of no one, which was exa
ctly what they wanted.

  The hospital was cleaner than the workers' dorms but far more cluttered, despite the built-ins and space-saving devices. The instrumentational overkill was necessary. The modest medical section had to serve the entire mine as dispensary, infirmary, emergency room, surgery, pharmacy, laboratory, and diagnostic center.

  It was not patterned after the advanced, gleaming clinics found in similar locales on Earth. This was a place for repairing, not rebuilding. For fixing up, not researching. Its nearest analog at the mine was not the workers' quarters but the engineering shed where important mine machinery was patched up. It was no secret that the machine repairs were usually more permanent than those performed on the workers.

  That was the hospital's primary function: to keep the mine's organic components operating. Its duties beyond that were quite limited, reflected both in its equipment and personnel.

  It had a full-time staff of eight, whose importance was secondary to that of the diagnostic machines. The staff was aware of their position in the medical hierarchy and it didn't bother them. On the contrary, they were glad of it. It was much easier to let the machines make the important decisions.

  There were four nurses, three paramedics, and Dr. Marian L. Lazarus, who was sick of jokes about rising from the dead.

  To new arrivals she was a figure ripe for fun, an easy target. They got the word quickly— don't joke with Lazarus. You just might find yourself in the infirmary some day with a busted leg or worse, and the last joke would be on you. The doctor was not noted for a tolerant sense of humor.

  Lazarus was a rumpled older woman whose expression could shift rapidly from that found in a Goya war etching to the bright face of an alert twelve-year-old. The former predominated. Her eyes were gray and belonged to someone much prettier, which she had once been.