The Callisto Gambit

by Felix R. Savage

  viii.

  “So,” Kiyoshi said, as he and Wetherall waited for the train. “You’re in real estate, huh?”

  “That’s right,” Wetherall said. “A little of this, a little of that.”

  “I met a peacekeeper named Greg yesterday. Greg something. I sold him a couple of Jupiter trojan asteroids.”

  Wetherall laughed. “Sweet! So you’re in real estate, too?”

  “Sure. That’s been my main gig for a while. Buying, selling.”

  That was one way of putting it. A more honest version would have been, I’m looking for a piece of real estate my people can call home. Just one piece, that isn’t gonna get nuked, slagged, or blown up.

  “High five, brother,” Wetherall said, extending an EVA glove. “The asteroid market is going down hard. You made the right move getting out.”

  This was news to Kiyoshi, who hadn’t wanted to sell his asteroids—he figured there was still a lot of upside left in the market. “Greg seemed pretty keen to buy,” he said.

  “Sure, the stupid money is still riding the wave. But it’s peaked. Did you hear about 433 Eros?”

  “Shit, no. Another one?”

  “Yeah. Like half an hour ago. Blown to nanodust.”

  “God damn the goddamn PLAN,” Kiyoshi said, unguardedly. “Where is this gonna end?” Dark premonitions assailed him. Out here, they were just spectators, dodging the shrapnel from the war. Jun was in the middle of the inferno. If his journey with Tiangong Erhao had gone according to schedule, he’d reach Mars tomorrow. It suddenly seemed insane that Kiyoshi was standing on a train platform on Callisto, talking about real estate.

  But Jun trusted him to look after their people, and one way or another, that’s what he was going to do.

  “So can I ask,” Wetherall said, “what was your interest in the bug-out crew in the Bussard ramjet?”

  Kiyoshi hunched his shoulders. “I’ve got friends on board.” He looked down the platform. The train was coming, yellow headlights spearing across the frozen waste. “Let’s get back to town.”

  He hadn’t yet decided whether to tell Sister Terauchi and the others that he’d found the Salvation, kind of. He was thinking not. All the Galapajin would start trying to contact their friends on board. It would be a big mess.

  As the Callisto Interrail neared its last above-ground stop—a farm dome cluster nestling in the foothills of the Doh range—Wetherall rose and picked up his EVA helmet and rucksack.

  “You getting off?” Kiyoshi said in surprise.

  “Yeah, this’s my stop.”

  “I was going to offer to buy you a drink. Thank you for your help.”

  Wetherall grinned. “I never say no to those kind of offers. How about I take you to a place I know?”

  Kiyoshi had only a few seconds to make up his mind. If no one triggered the airlocks, the train would move on automatically after 20 seconds. “OK.”

  They strolled along the platform, which ended at a rail spur for the farm domes. The Interrail track actually forked at this station. The other fork shot off to the southwest, rising on steel trestles, a low arc glittering in Jupiter’s light.

  “Where does that go?”

  “Oh, the branch line? Down south to the ice spires,” Wetherall said. “You know. The natural marvels of Callisto. Before the war, they were trying to get them on the list of the Seven Wonders of the Solar System. Now? ‘Tourist’ numbers this year have broken all records. But none of them are interested in the ice spires. They’re interested in a nice safe hole in the ground.” He sniggered. “Most of them didn’t want to be here at all, but they couldn’t afford entry visas for Ganymede.”

  Wetherall was skipping over the lumps of rock and ice, his boots scuffing up low-gee showers of frost. A low ridge hid the farm domes from sight. For a moment they seemed to be entirely alone on Callisto. Only the maglev rail proved humans had ever been here, and even that looked alien, with starlight reflecting off the steel, the arch of the southbound track inhumanly perfect. Kiyoshi stopped walking.

  “So what’s your scam?” he said.

  Ahead of him, Wetherall turned around, balanced with both feet together on a rock. His big rucksack made him look hunchbacked, like some kind of bird. “You are one suspicious S.O.B., aren’t you? I’m taking you to a place I know. I can’t be more honest than that. You’ll like it.”

  “Don’t fuck with me.”

  “I’m not fucking with you. I got that message loud and clear.”

  Kiyoshi knew he did project a ‘don’t fuck with me’ aura. Not everyone noticed it, but a survivor like Wetherall, attuned to nuances, could probably tell he’d been to scary places, seen scary shit. Killed people.

  Of course, Wetherall didn’t know he was currently broke and unarmed.

  Well … not quite unarmed. The Galapajin had abandoned their guns in their hasty evacuation from the Startractor, but Hardware Engineer Asada had saved his personal hoard of blades, and Kiyoshi had one of those in his thigh webbing now. On a spacewalk, a knife was as good as a laser. Those bulky old suits like Wetherall had on ripped easily.

  Over the next hill, a pit opened up in the ground. It was the size of an open mine, ringed by blue LED lights to warn any ground traffic of the drop. A fold of high ground hid it from the railway. Kiyoshi looked back at the farm domes, a couple of klicks away.

  Wetherall chuckled. “The farmers? They’re some of our investors. The food biz is high-volume, low-margin. What we’re doing, we’re expecting a much bigger return on investment.”

  His interest piqued, Kiyoshi followed Wetherall down a slope of epoxy-stabilized scree. About 60 meters down, the open pit turned into a tunnel that shot downhill at a shallow angle. “What’re you mining here, that you couldn’t pick up off the surface?”

  “What looks like a mine, but isn’t a mine?”

  “I dunno, what?”

  “You’ll see.”

  “The suspense is killing me.”

  They slithered down towards bright lights. The tunnel opened out into a cavern. Kiyoshi was unsurprised to see construction machinery standing around. After a second the sense of familiarity faded. In the cavern’s center stood a mechanical monster the size of a Startractor. It had a spiral-grooved boring head. It had legs—about twenty of them. Its body was heavily shielded.

  “That’s Daisy,” Wetherall said. “Bessie is somewhere down there.” He pointed to yet another hole in the floor. This cavern was not a destination, after all, but a landing, like one of the floors in Asgard’s stair-step streets.

  “Automated drilling rigs?” Kiyoshi said. He pointed at the bizarre tangle of pipes in front of the shielded part. “What’s that?”

  “Steam generator.” Kiyoshi could hear the grin in Wetherall’s voice.

  “Steam-powered drilling rigs. Whatever next?”

  “Hey, steam is cheap,” Wetherall said. “Dig up the ice, boil it with a radioisotope generator, and away you go!”

  “So you’re digging holes … gonna sell them to refugees from the Belt? How are you gonna get paid? The people camping out in Asgard can’t even afford hotel rooms. They sure as shit can’t afford deep-drilled habs.”

  “You’re not thinking big enough,” Wetherall chided him.

  Just like the boss used to say. Maybe it was a fair criticism. Kiyoshi softened slightly. “Pretty cool concept, anyway.”

  “You haven’t seen the half of it yet. Let’s hitch a ride!” Wetherall bounded over to an oversized dumptruck. On the way, he exchanged high fives with the gray-suited people working on ‘Daisy.’ Kiyoshi joined him in the back of the dumptruck, which was otherwise empty. It set off, pausing at the entrance of the deeper hole for another dumptruck to emerge. This one was piled high with tailings. It towed a train of skips, also full of rock and ice chips.

  “We take that shit over to the smelter. They get the metal content, we get the water for free.”

  “And you heat it up with radioisotope generators?”

  “Yeah.” Wether
all sounded a bit embarrassed. It was an exremely basic setup. But after witnessing the high-tech car crash in progress that was the Salvation, Kiyoshi felt that low tech was good. Low tech was reliable.

  “Whatever works, man.”

  The dumptruck picked up speed. Abruptly, it lurched and seemed to shift into a higher gear. At the same time, the ride got smoother.

  “Now we’re sledding!” Wetherall shouted. “These babies have retractable skis!”

  Kiyoshi looked up at the roof whizzing past. In the backscatter from the dumptruck’s headlights, ice glittered. They’d bored this hole out pretty clean. Well, high-powered jets of hot steam would have that effect. Wetherall’s crew weren’t so much boring out tunnels in Callisto, as they were melting them out.

  The tunnel turned and twisted— “Going under the mountains! Now we’re under the spaceport!”

  “How far under it?” Kiyoshi didn’t like the idea that spaceships were landing on top of them.

  “Oh, half a kilometer!”

  That ought to be enough, Kiyoshi reflected. It might even be enough to shield the tunnels from targeted impacts … such as PLAN kinetics … although it would depend how big of an impact you were talking about.

  The dumptruck slowed and stopped. Several people stood silhouetted in the mouth of a smaller tunnel, waiting for a ride. Kiyoshi hopped down after Wetherall. The other hitch-hikers climbed into the dumptruck, waving to the driver. One of them also waved at Kiyoshi.

  Wetherall said, “That was your buddy Greg. He’s not wearing his blue helmet today!”

  Kiyoshi checked his HUD and saw that he was back in range of the Asgard Spaceport wifi. “So the peacekeepers know about you?”

  Wetherall made a waffling gesture. “Kinda sorta. When we started boring under the spaceport, UNSA told us to quit it. But we worked that out with Greg’s boss. Now we’re getting more people on board all the time.”

  Kiyoshi couldn’t deny that he was intrigued. There had to be some kind of an opportunity here for the Galapajin, if he could work out what.

  They walked down the offshoot tunnel. Ice became gravel underfoot. A steel ramp led to an airlock. A hand-printed sign said: WARNING! You are about to return to UN territory! Do you really want to do this?

  So they’d come back to Asgard City, where they started out.

  Air jetted into the chamber of the airlock. Kiyoshi opened his helmet seals, and smelled fried food. The air was hot and sticky. Taking advantage of the airlock as a changing cubicle, Wetherall stripped off his EVA suit and climbed into his baggy black shirt, pants, and duster. Kiyoshi had put on his EVA suit when he got up this morning, so he didn’t have the option to change, but his suit was one of the pricey ones that looked like clothes. Admittedly, it was worn and patched. He stowed his helmet in his waistpack and opened his torso seal halfway down. It was really hot.

  Outside the airlock, the reek of stale cooking oil, spices, and burnt sugar almost knocked him over. This was a region of Asgard City he hadn’t seen before, low-ceilinged, poorly lit. He had thought the street outside the Heinlein Hotel was crowded and dirty, but clearly the Galapajin could have landed in much worse places. Like right here.

  Crowds jostled, their faces discolored by the light from aggressive signage. Pawn shops … chop shops … roach motels offering special hourly rates … medical clinics … printer rentals … We Buy Iridium, Palladium & Rhenium, NO Questions Asked!!! Virtual avatars, projected on his retinal implants, stalked through the throng, selling lottery tickets.

  “Our own little piece of Ganymede!” Wetherall cried. “Actually, we call this level Hel’s Kitchen. Geddit? Norse mythology. Asgard, Valhalla … Hel was the Norse goddess of, you guessed it, Hell!”

  “Smells like a recycling center,” Kiyoshi said.

  It was his kind of place.

  From Karl Ludwig City to New Vladivostok, he’d always gravitated to neighborhoods like this when he was flying solo. 6 Hebe and 433 Eros were shells of dust in the void now. But the PLAN hadn’t yet ended all the parties in the solar system.

  Most of these people might be desperate, hardly knowing where their next meal was coming from … but they were also determined to enjoy themselves. Music pounded from a row of bars and clubs, piped straight into Kiyoshi’s BCI. Each blast lasted for about three seconds until he got out of range.

  Wetherall pulled him down an alley, up a flight of stairs, and into a second-floor bar that seemed very quiet after the racket in the street. Electrofolk played softly. Solo drinkers nodded to Wetherall. This was clearly his local.

  Kiyoshi liked the ambiance, but he also felt a frisson of wariness. As he sat down, he adjusted his dagger, hitching the hilt out of his thigh webbing to make sure Wetherall saw it.

  The bartender brought their drinks. Kiyoshi stared at her, momentarily forgetting where he was. Spaceborn-tall, she had skin as pale as milk. Blue dreadlocks spilled over her shoulders. By spaceborn standards, she was voluptuous. And absolutely stunning.

  She placed their drinks on coasters, and also laid down a pair of rebreather masks attached to gas canisters. She did not utter a word of explanation. Was it possible that she, too, felt a teensy bit flustered? As she retreated to the bar, Kiyoshi checked out her rear view. Wow, just wow.

  Wetherall cleared his throat. Kiyoshi jumped, realizing that he was still staring at the bartender. Wetherall winked. Then he raised his glass. “Earth is toast. Cheers.”

  Kiyoshi searched the younger man’s eyes. Wetherall believed what he said. Defeatism was spreading like an epidemic out here.

  Kiyoshi sipped his drink—plain sparkling water. “If Earth is finished, what makes you think Callisto can survive?”

  “A moon is a lot easier to defend than a planet.”

  “The PLAN got Eros with dark KKVs,” Kiyoshi countered. He’d read the news on the train. “Cannonballs launched from a couple of million klicks away. No heat signatures. By the time Eros detected them, it was too late. Hard to imagine what people must’ve experienced, when they knew the end was coming, and couldn’t get out of the way.”

  “The same thing could happen to Earth. It is happening to Earth. Hyderabad … Seoul …”

  “Wipe out a city, you’re still a long way from wiping out human civilization.”

  “Have you heard about the biobombs the PLAN is throwing at Earth? Meteors with some kind of nano shit inside! Gray goo. Something like the Dust they threw at Luna, but optimized for Earth’s atmosphere. The PORMSnet has stopped them all so far … but someday, something’s gonna get through.”

  Kiyoshi shook his head, dismissing what sounded like internet rumors. “That’s why we gotta win this war.”

  “We can’t win it.”

  “Then we’re all fucked,” Kiyoshi said a bit too loudly. He was angry with Wetherall for judging the war lost. Jun was going to win it. But of course, Wetherall didn’t know that.

  “I’ll tell you what’s gonna happen,” Wetherall said in a low voice. “Earth is finished. But the pols, the captains of industry, the rich bastards who live on seasteads, these guys who run their own fucking nations, you think they’re gonna go down with the old ship? They are not. There’ll be an evacuation. They’ll fall back on the colonies. Dude, that’s what the colonies are for.”

  Kiyoshi laughed aloud. He slapped the table in delight as he finally understood the audacious scale of Wetherall’s business plan. “And you’ll be here to sell them deep-drilled habs.”

  “You got it,” Wetherall said, grinning.

  “What if they just confiscate your shit, instead of paying for it? That’s how the UN rolls.”

  “Point-defense cannons at the spaceport,” Wetherall smirked. “It’s all about striking a deal.”

  Kiyoshi had no doubt that Wetherall would be able to strike a deal with the President of the UN, if it ever came to that. This disfigured, pureblooded motormouth had pretty much sold him on the project, and he was probably a tougher mark than President Hsiao.

  Wetherall finish
ed his drink, called for another, and sucked from the tube of his rebreather apparatus.

  “What’s that?” Kiyoshi said. The canisters were unlabeled.

  “Just oxygen. The air’s bad down here.”

  “I noticed.” Kiyoshi took a pull on his own tube. Sure enough, he got the familiar oxygen rush. “Why’s the air so bad? The guys at the refinery are throwing all that oxygen away. Couldn’t they sell some of it to Asgard City?”

  “Oh, it’s not an air mix problem. We got plenty of oxygen. It’s just the circulation is a problem. Rats get in the ducts, their nests block the fans.”

  “Rats, huh? You’d better make sure they don’t get in your luxury underground habs.”

  “It’s easy to keep ‘em out. It’s not easy getting ‘em out, once they’re in.”

  “I’m just jerking your chain.” Bored, Kiyoshi glanced around. The walls were decorated with holos, all in the same style, probably by a local artist. Ice spires. Unlikely scenes of people wandering around on Callisto’s surface without spacesuits. Auroras. Villages of stone cottages, with the ice spires in the background to show that this was still Callisto.

  Suddenly he got it. “Terraforming.”

  Wetherall nodded with a big grin.

  “That’s gonna be your selling point over Ganymede. An atmosphere.” He locked his fingers in a steeple, mathing it out with the help of his BCI. “One bar of oxygen would be enough to stop harmful radiation. With bonus auroras, bigger and brighter than anything seen on Earth.”

  “We won’t need to go up to one bar. 0.3 bars would be enough for people to live on the surface.”

  “Of course, of course. One bar would be a shit-ton of oxygen.”

  “Oh, we’ve got it. That hydrogen refinery where we were today? There are fifteen more like that. Bigger.”

  “Jeez, someone was optimistic about market demand for hydrogen.”

  “Not market demand. Government demand. All that hydrogen was gonna go to the United Nations Venus Remediation Project. Then someone put a stop to that madness …”

  “Yeah, that was a good day when I heard about that,” Kiyoshi said coldly. His home, the asteroid 11073 Galapagos, had been sacrificed to UNVRP.