Exile-and Glory

by Jerry Pournelle

  He wasn't being generous. With a forty percent bloc it was a cinch they could find enough more among the rockrats for a majority. Some of them hated everything Rhoda stood for.

  "You've got to be crazy," Rhoda said. "Sell out to a goddam syndicate of corporations? We don't want any of you here!"

  Dalquist's face was grim. "I am trying to remain polite, and it is not easy, Ms. Hendrix. You don't seem to appreciate your position. The corporation representatives have made their decision, and the Commission has ratified it. You will either sell or face something worse."

  "I don't recognize any commissions," Rhoda said. "We've always been independent, we're not part of your goddam fascist commission. Christ almighty, you've found us guilty before we even knew there'd be a trial! We weren't even heard!"

  "Why should you be? As you say, you're independent. Or have been up to now."

  "We'll fight, Dalquist. Those company cops will never get here alive. Even if they do—"

  "Oh, come now." Dalquist made an impatient gesture. "Do you really believe we'd take the trouble of sending Intertel police, now that you're warned? Hardly. We'll merely seize all your cargo in the pipeline and see that no ship comes here for any reason. How long will it be before your own people throw you out and come to terms with us?"

  That hit her hard. Her eyes narrowed as she thought about it. "I can see you don't live to enjoy what you've done—"

  "Nonsense."

  I figured it was my turn. "Rhoda, you may not believe this, but I heard him argue them out of sending the cops without any warning at all. They were ready to do it."

  The shouts came from the bar as Jed opened the door to see if we wanted anything. "There's gonna be a great day!"

  "Everything all right here?" Jed asked.

  "No!" Rhoda shoved herself away from the table and glared at Dalquist. "Not all right at all! Jed, he's—"

  "I know what he's saying, Rhoda," Jed told her. "Cap'n Rollo and I had a long talk with him last night."

  "With the result that I'm speaking to you at all," Dalquist said. "Frankly, I'd rather see you dead." His face was a bitter mask of hatred, and the emotionless expression fell away. He hated Rhoda. "You've killed the best friend I ever had, and I find that I need you anyway. Captain Anderson has convinced me that it will be difficult to govern here without you, which is why you'll remain nominally in control after this sale is made."

  "No. No sale."

  "There will be. Who'll buy from you? Who'll sell to you? This was a unanimous decision. You're not independent, no matter how often you say you are. There's no place for your kind of nationalism out here."

  "You bastards. The big boys. You think you can do anything you like to us."

  Dalquist recovered his calm as quickly as he'd lost it. I think it was the tone Rhoda used; he didn't want to sound like her. I couldn't tell if I hated him or not.

  "We can do whatever we can agree to do," Dalquist said. "You seem to think the Corporations Commission is some kind of government. It isn't. It's just a means for settling disputes. We've found it more profitable to have rules than to have fights. But we're not without power, and everyone's agreed that you can't be let off after trying what you did."

  "So we pay for it," Jed said.

  Dalquist shrugged. "There's no government out here. Are you ready to bring Rhoda to trial? Along with all the others involved?"

  Jed shook his head. "Doubt it—"

  "And there's the matter of restitution, which you can't make anyway. And you're bankrupt, since you sent no cargo to Luna and the launch window's closed."

  "Just who the hell is this syndicate?" Rhoda demanded.

  Dalquist's expression didn't change, but there was a note of triumph in his voice. He'd won, and he knew it. "The major sums are put up by Hansen Enterprises."

  "And you'll be here as their rep."

  He nodded. "Certainly. I've been with Hansen most of my life, Ms. Hendrix. The company trusts me to look out for its best interests. As I trusted Joe Colella. Until he retired he was my best field agent."

  She didn't say anything, but her face was sour.

  "You might have got away with this if you hadn't killed Joe," Dalquist said. "But retired or not, he was a Hansen man. As I'm sure you found when he discovered your plan. We take care of our people, Ms. Hendrix. Hansen is a good company."

  "For company men." Jed's voice was flat. He looked around the small back room with its bare rock walls, but I think he was seeing through those walls, out through the corridors, beyond to the caves where the rockrats tried to make homes. "A good outfit for company men. But it won't be the same, for us."

  Outside they were still singing about the great days coming.

  EXILES TO GLORY

  To Dan Alderson, the sane genius

  CERES

  Asteroid at average distance 257 million miles (2.767 AU) from sun.

  Mass: 8 X 1023 grams

  Radius: 370 kilometers

  Surface area: somewhat larger than the state of Texas

  Period: 4.6 years

  Rotation: 9 hours, 5 minutes

  Surface gravity: 38.9 centimeters/second = .04 Earth gravity

  Escape Velocity: 5.37 X 104 centimeters/second

  Path velocity in orbit: 17.9 kilometers/second

  Largely composed of stone, Ceres has an easily accessible metallic core containing rich, commercially valuable deposits of gold, silver, tin, copper, nickel, and iron. The most valuable minerals are the super-heavy elements, particularly Arthurium, which exists in recoverable quantities. Water-ice has been found both in permafrost and underground deposits.

  Chapter One

  The first expedition to Ceres in 2007 was financed by Hansen Enterprises (Ltd. et cie, incorporated in and with General Headquarters at Hong Kong Luna). Interplanet of Zurich subsequently made extensive investments in mining and refinery operations on Ceres. The commercial future of this venture is uncertain due to general political and economic instability.

  Falton's Encyclopedia, 4th Edition

  (University of Bridgeport Press)

  First he heard the click of the switchblade. Then the whining, feral voice. "Hey man, gimme money!"

  There were four of them in his path: two slouching against the wall, two erect and staring. Westwood was deserted. The UCLA campus beyond showed lights, but it might have been in another city for all the good it did him. Kevin tasted sour bile, felt the sharp knot of fear in his stomach. They moved closer.

  "Come on, hand it over, you sumbich." The spokesman's blade moved in intricate, blurringly fast passes inches from Kevin's face. It gleamed dully despite the power-saving partial blackout in the city. His tormentor laughed as Kevin cringed away. "Beg," he said. "Beg good."

  Kevin was a well-muscled six-footer, had played football for UCLA and made his letter in his junior year before the pressure of studies made him drop from the team; he was certain he was more than a match for any of them—for any two—but the knife seemed hungry for his eyes, and he felt only fear and shame. His legs wouldn't move. He reached into his pocket and took out his wallet.

  "Watch," the mugger said. "Take it off." The whining voice was filled with contempt and sadistic power-lust. Kevin felt it wash over him, and felt contempt for himself. "Turn out all your pockets. Deucey, rub him over."

  Another of the young gangsters—they couldn't, Kevin thought, be more than sixteen—came up behind him and rubbed his hands over Kevin's clothes. The hands moved insultingly, paused in insulting places, then reached into his pockets and took out his lighter. "Aw, he's got cigarettes," Deucey said.

  "Good for you, mother," the spokesman said. "We cut you if you don't have cigarettes. Cut you good. Now we miss the fun. Get in there." The knife jerked to indicate a dark alleyway.

  Kevin was beyond terror. He had never experienced the feeling before, but he recognized it now, like something known previously from a faded photograph. They pushed him off the street and away from his last hope of rescue. The street li
ghts dimmed even more just as they entered the alley; it was almost pitch black in the stinking passageway between buildings. His foot kicked something, trash or a dead cat, and insanely he thought of the city garbage strike—would anyone find him for weeks? He was certain the gangsters were going to kill him, and kept worrying about that: would the strike end in time for them to find his body?

  Suddenly he was surrounded by the smell of naptha, strong enough to overpower the smells of urine and decay in the alley. He felt a chill on scalp and shoulders. Lighter fluid. They were going to burn him alive!

  Desperation drove him forward, away from his captors for a moment. The knife had terrified him, but the threat of becoming a living torch did something else. He was no less afraid—more so if that were possible—but now there was rage and hatred as well. He cast about for a weapon, anything to defend himself. He was certain he was going to die, but now he wanted to take them with him, to end this humiliation and show them he was a man—

  His hand struck a garbage can. It had a lid, and he seized that by the handle. Years before, when he was only seventeen—it was only five years ago, but at this moment it felt like two lifetimes—he had participated in a tournament held by the Society for Creative Anachronism. The SCA fighters used wooden swords, but their armor and other equipment had been real. He'd been fascinated by the use of shields as weapons. A hand grabbed his hair, and despair gave him strength of a different order than when he'd fought in the SCA tournament.

  He swung the lid blindly, felt it clash, then swung it backhand against the spokesman's face. He felt bone crunch, and shouted his triumph.

  As the first gangster screamed Kevin used the shield to deflect another half-seen knife attack, then again blindly swung the lid backhand with all his strength. He couldn't see anything, but he could feel when he connected, and he wanted to hurt them. He hated them with all his soul, and he wanted them to feel as humiliated as he had felt. He struck out again and again, felt the improvised shield strike home at least once more. Then he was past them and in the street.

  The sight of freedom ahead robbed him of his rage; he turned and ran. Two of them followed him for a block, but they didn't have the wind to keep up.

  He ran on and on, long after he could no longer hear their heel-beats behind him.

  The Los Angeles policeman showing his badge at Kevin's door was big and burly, and looked as if he ought to be in uniform instead of neat civilian tunic and trousers. Kevin's landlady stood disapprovingly behind him in the hall.

  "Detective Sergeant Mason," the policeman said. "May I come in?"

  Kevin couldn't think of anything he had done. He was exhausted from standing in lines for his food ration stamps, and he wanted to send the policeman away, but he was afraid that his landlady would believe he was in trouble with the law. Mrs. Jeffries was a good friend to her student tenants. She would let them be late with the rent, but she didn't want police trouble in her rooming house. "What's it about?" Kevin asked. His voice sounded much more calm than he felt.

  "This yours?" The policeman held up a wallet.

  "Uh—"

  "It's got your ID in it," the detective said. "I'm returning it. No big deal. Want to talk about how you lost it."

  "Yes, sure, it's mine," Kevin said. He felt relief, and saw that Mrs. Jeffries had lost her worried look. Kevin winked at her and got a slight smile in return before she left and the policeman came in.

  The room wasn't very large. There was a couch that could make into a bed, but it was long enough for Kevin to sleep on without unfolding it, and he never opened it. The walls were lined with bookshelves. Over the years the many students who'd lived there had added to the shelving until there wasn't a bare wall. There were two desks and a table that came from the Salvation Army Thrift Store. At the opposite end from the entrance was an opening onto an alcove where a stove, refrigerator and cat litter box filled what would not have been a very large closet. The room smelled of food and cats. The desks were littered with papers, pocket calculator, library reader-screen, opened books, drafting tools, and junk mail.

  "Reminds me of my student days," Sergeant Mason said. "I stayed down the street in a room just like this. What class are you?"

  "Senior, I think."

  "Kevin Senecal," Mason said. "Senecal. Unusual name. Don't think I ever heard it before."

  "It's Norman French. We think it used to be Seneschale," Kevin told him. "That'd be Stewart in English—you know, meant Steward." He wondered why he was so nervous with this policeman. The cop had brought back his wallet, and Kevin hadn't done anything to be afraid of. But the policeman's manner was unusual, cagey, as if he were trying to think of the right way to say something unpleasant. He didn't think the policeman would have come alone if he'd intended to make an arrest, but why was he acting this way?

  Kevin had never had much contact with police: in the neighborhood where he grew up police were to be avoided. Cops didn't have much respect for people on welfare and unemployment. When Greg Tolland's People's Alliance won the White House and Congress that had changed for a while, but then Tolland was hounded by the press and the Alliance was smeared and things went back to politics as usual and—

  His reverie was interrupted by the policeman. "Here." Mason tossed him the wallet. "Put it away. Officially, I never saw it."

  "Uh?"

  "Look, Kevin—you don't mind if I call you Kevin? We took this off some bad people last night. Guy carrying it had a broken jaw. His buddies were trying to get him to a doctor."

  "You caught the bastards! Good work," Kevin said. He looked at the policemen with new respect. His mother, who had once had a better life, had always told him the police were all right. "But isn't the wallet evidence?"

  "You don't want to prosecute."

  "But—"

  "No." The policeman was very firm. "Look, those guys belong to the Garvey Street Crips. If you identify them, you won't live until the trial. Actually, you're probably in trouble anyway; they wouldn't have kept the wallet if they didn't have something in mind. Usually they just take out the money, put the credit cards into an envelope and mail them to friends—and dump the wallet so there's no evidence if we shake them down. They kept yours. I don't have to be very smart to guess why. You did a good job on the guy with the broken jaw. And a better job on the other one."

  The policeman was looking carefully at Kevin's face. Kevin didn't care. He was glad that he'd hurt those bastards.

  Whatever the policeman saw seemed to please him. "You didn't know, did you?" the cop asked. "You killed one of them. That garbage can lid caught him just at the base of the skull. Clean and neat."

  "Jeez—" Kevin felt a rush of shock, fear, and anger. "I never meant to kill anyone! Am I in trouble for that?"

  "You would be if we knew who'd done it. But of course we don't. Never found anything at all. They must have ditched the wallet."

  It took Kevin a moment to catch on. "But—"

  "But nothing," Mason said. "We got ourselves a new DA, a real People's Alliance type, and we've got judges who don't approve of 'deadly force.' Somebody killed a juvenile last night, and you don't kill juvies in this town. That's bad news."

  "But they were trying to kill me! They poured lighter fluid on me, to set me on fire!"

  "Can you prove that?"

  "How the hell could I prove—"

  "Exactly," the policeman said. "You can't. And we can't do one damned thing for you, Kevin. If we give you protection the DA will want to know why, and we can't tell him or he'll have you up for manslaughter of a juvie. It gets worse. Those were black kids. Ever say anything about blacks? Africans taking jobs? Say anything against the quota system? Even if you didn't, the DA will likely go against you for hate crimes. You could get twenty years."

  "That can't be true."

  "I sure wish it couldn't. Look, Kevin, I don't make the rules. I'm breaking hell out of them coming here."

  "Yeah. I know that. Thanks, but—"

  "But it stinks. Look, t
he DA isn't the worst of your problems. He doesn't know who you are. The Crips do know, and they'll be looking for you. If you're smart they won't find you."

  "You're telling me I ought to run because some muggers tried to kill me and I defended myself?"

  Kevin's face showed anger. His fists clenched and he felt the blood rising—

  "Nope." The detective's calm was maddening. "Remember, I don't even know who you are. I'm just returning some property I found while I was off duty. Which, by the way, I am now. You got any beer in that fridge?"

  "Sure." Kevin went to the refrigerator. Snowdrop, his white kitten, was sitting guard on top of it. She mewed hopefully when Kevin opened the door, then looked resigned when no cat food or milk came out.