Ben Bova - Mercury

by Mercury(lit)

  At last one day, when he was walking normally again, he blurted, "May I ask you something?"

  She looked startled for a moment, then nodded wordlessly.

  "Why put the troublemakers outside?" Bracknell asked. "Wouldn't it be easier to dope them with psychotropics?"

  The young woman hesitated a heartbeat, then said, "Such drugs are very expensive."

  "But I should think the government would provide them for security purposes, to keep the prisoners quiet."

  A longer hesitation this time, then, "Yes, they do. My father sells the drugs at Ceres. They fetch a good price there."

  "Your father?"

  "The captain. He is my father."

  Holy lord! Bracknell thought. Good thing I haven't touched her. I'd arrive in Ceres in a body bag.

  The next morning the captain himself carried in his food tray and stayed to talk.

  "She told you I'm her father," he said, standing by the bunk as Bracknell picked at the tray on his lap.

  "She reports everything to you, doesn't she?" Bracknell replied.

  "She doesn't have to. I watch you on the monitor when she's in here."

  "Oh. I see."

  "So do I. Every breath you draw. Remember that."

  "She doesn't look like you."

  The captain's scarred lip curled into a cold sneer. "Her mother was a Hindu. Met her in Delhi when I was running Clipperships there from the States. Once her parents found out she had married a Muslim they threw her out of their home."

  "You're a Muslim?"

  "All my life. My father and his father, too."

  "And you married a Hindu."

  "In India. Very tight situation. I wanted to take her back to the States but she was trying to get her parents to approve of our marriage. They wouldn't budge. I knew that, but she kept on trying."

  "Is your wife on the ship, too?"

  Without even an eyeblink's hesitation the captain answered, "She was killed in the food riots back in 'sixty-four. That's where I got this lip."

  Bracknell didn't know what to say. He stared down at his tray.

  "My daughter says I shouldn't be so hard on you."

  Looking up into the captain's cold stone gray eyes, Bracknell said, "I think you've been treating me pretty well."

  "Do you."

  "You could have let them kill me, back in the hold."

  "And lost the money I get when I deliver you? No way."

  There didn't seem to be anything else to say. Bracknell picked up his plastic fork. Then a question arose in his mind.

  "How did you break up the fight? I mean, how'd you stop them from killing me?"

  With a sardonic huff, the captain said, "Soon's the automated alarm woke me up and I looked at the monitor, I turned down the air pressure in the hold until you all passed out. Brought it down to about four thousand meters' equivalent, Earth value."

  Bracknell couldn't help grinning at him. "Good thing none of those guys were from the Andes."

  "I'd've just lowered the pressure until everybody dropped," the captain evenly. "Might cause some brain damage, but I get paid to deliver live bodies, regardless of their mental capacities."

  Alhambra arrived at Ceres at last and Bracknell was marched with the other convicts through the ship's airlock and into the Chrysalis II habitat.

  The mining community that had grown at Ceres had built the habitat that orbited the asteroid. It was a mammoth ring-shaped structure that rotated so that there was a feeling of gravity inside: the same level as the Moon's, one-sixth of Earth normal.

  Stumbling, walking haltingly in the unaccustomedly low gravity, the twenty-six men and women were led by a quartet of guards in coral-red coveralls into what looked to Bracknell like an auditorium. There was a raised platform at one end and rows of seats along the carpeted floor. The guards motioned with their stun wands for the prisoners to sit down. Most of them took seats toward the rear of the auditorium while the guards stationed themselves at the exits. Bracknell went down to the third row; no one else had chosen to sit so close to the stage.

  For a few minutes nothing happened. Bracknell could hear half-whispered conversations behind him. The auditorium looked clean, sparkling, even though its walls and ceiling were bare tile. It even smelled new and fresh, although he realized the scent could be piped in through the air circulation system.

  Just as the pitch of the chatter behind started to rise to the level of impatience, a huge mountain of a shaggy, red-haired man strode out onto the stage. Bracknell expected to see the stage's floorboards sag under his weight, even in the lunar-level gravity.

  "My name's George Ambrose," he said, in a surprisingly sweet tenor voice. "For some obscure reason folks 'round here call me Big George."

  A few wary laughs from the convicts.

  "For my sins I've been elected chief administrator of this habitat. It's like bein' the mayor or the governor. Top dog. Which means everybody drops their fookin' problems in my lap."

  Like the guards, George Ambrose wore coral-red coveralls, although his looked old and more than slightly faded. His brick-red hair was a wild thatch that merged with an equally thick beard.

  Pointing at his audience, Ambrose continued, "You blokes've been sent here because you were found guilty of crimes. Each of you has been sentenced to a certain length of what they call penal servitude. That means you work for peanuts or less. Okay. I don't like havin' my home serve as a penal colony, but the powers-that-be back Earthside don't know what else to do with you. They sure don't want you anywhere near them!"

  No one laughed.

  "Okay. Here's the way we work it here in the Belt. We don't give a shit about your past. What's done is done. You're here and you're gonna work for the length of your sentence. Some of you got life, so you're gonna stay here in the Belt. The rest of you, if you work hard and keep your arses clean, you'll be able to go home with a clear file once you've served your time. You can't get rejuvenation treatments while you're serving time, of course, but we can rejuve you soon's your time's been served, if you can afford it. Fair enough?"

  Bracknell heard muttering behind him. Then someone called out, "Do we get any choice in the jobs we get?"

  Ambrose's shaggy brows rose slightly. "Some. We've got miners and other employers all across the Belt reviewin' your files. Some of 'em will make requests for you. If you get more'n one request you can take your choice. Only one, then you're stuck with it."

  A deep, heavy voice asked, "Suppose I don't get any?"

  "Then I'll have to deal with you," Ambrose replied. "Don't worry, there's plenty of work to be done out here. You won't sit around doin' nothing."

  I'm here for life, Bracknell said to himself. I'll have to make a life for myself out here in the Belt. Maybe it's a good thing that I won't be allowed any rejuvenation treatments. I'll just get old and die out here.

  JOB OFFER

  The rest of the day, the convicts were led through medical exams and psychological interviews, then shown to the quarters they would live in until assigned to a job. Bracknell noted that each of the prisoners obeyed the guards' instructions without objection. This is all new to them, and they don't know what to make of it, he thought. There's no sense making trouble and there's no place for them to run to. We're millions of klicks from Earth now; tens of millions of kilometers.

  They were served a decent meal in a cafeteria that had been cleared of all its regular customers. No mixing with the local population, Bracknell realized. Not yet, at least.

  At the end of the long, strangely tense day, the guards led them down a long corridor faced with blank doors and assigned them to their sleeping quarters, two to a compartment. Bracknell was paired with a frail-looking older man, white haired and with skin that looked like creased and crumpled parchment.

  The door closed behind them. He heard the lock click. Surveying the compartment, Bracknell saw a pair of bunks, a built-in desk and bureau, a folding door that opened onto the lavatory.

  "Not bad," said his c
ompanion. He went to the lower bunk and sat on it possessively. "Kinda plush, after that bucket we rode here in."

  Bracknell nodded tightly. "I'll take the upper bunk."

  "Good. I got a fear of heights." The older man got up and went to the bureau. Opening the top drawer he exclaimed, "Look! They even got jammies for us!"

  Trying to place the man's accent, Bracknell asked, "You're British?"

  Frowning, the man replied, "Boston Irish. My name's Fennelly."

  Bracknell extended his hand. "I'm-"

  "I know who you are. You're the screamer."

  Feeling embarrassed, Bracknell admitted, "I have nightmares."

  "I'm a pretty heavy sleeper. Maybe that's why they put us in together."

  "Maybe," Bracknell said.

  "You're the guy from the skytower, ain'tcha."

  "That's right."

  "They arrested me for lewd and lascivious behavior," said Fennelly, with an exaggerated wink. "I'm gay."

  "Homosexual?"

  "That's right, kiddo. Watch your ass!" And Fennelly cackled as he walked to the lavatory, nearly stumbling in the light gravity.

  In the top bunk with the lights out and the faintly glowing ceiling a bare meter above his head, Bracknell suddenly realized the ludicrous-ness of it all. Fennelly's down there wondering if I'm going to keep him up all night with my nightmares and I'm up here worried that he might try to make a pass at me. It was almost laughable.

  If he did dream, Bracknell remembered nothing of it in the morning. They were awakened by a synthesized voice calling through the intercom, "Breakfast in thirty minutes in the cafeteria. Directions are posted on the display screens in the corridor."

  The scrambled eggs were mediocre, but better than the fare they had gotten on the Alhambra. After breakfast the same quartet of guards took the convicts, one by one, to job interviews. Bracknell watched them leave the cafeteria until he was the only person left sitting at the long tables.

  No one wants to take me on, he thought. I'm a pariah. Sitting alone with nothing to do, his mind drifted back to the skytower and its collapse, and the mockery of a trial that had condemned him to a life of exile. And Victor's betrayal. It was Victor's testimony that convicted me, he thought. Then he told himself, No, you were judged and sentenced before the first minute of the trial. But Victor did betray you, insisted a voice in his mind. He sat there and lied. Deliberately.

  Why? Why? He was my friend. Why did he turn on me?

  And Danvers. He reported to his New Morality superiors that we were using nanotechnology. In league with the devil, as far as he's concerned. Did the New Morality have something to do with the tower's collapse? Did they sabotage the skytower? No, they couldn't have. They wouldn't have. But somebody did. Suddenly Bracknell was convinced of it. Somebody deliberately sabotaged the tower! It couldn't have collapsed by itself. The construction was sound. Somebody sabotaged it.

  One of the guards reappeared at the cafeteria's double doors and crooked a finger at him. Bracknell got to his feet and followed the guard down another corridor-or maybe it was merely an extension of the passageway he'd gone through earlier. It was impossible to get a feeling for the size or scope of this habitat from the inside, and he and his fellow convicts had not been allowed an outside view.

  There were other people moving along this corridor, men in shirts and trousers, women wearing skirted dresses or blouses and slacks. He saw only a few in coveralls. They all looked as if they had someplace to go, some task to accomplish. That's what I must have looked like, back before the accident, Bracknell thought. Back when I had a life.

  But it wasn't an accident, whispered a voice in his head. It wasn't your fault. The tower was deliberately destroyed.

  He saw names on the doors lining both sides of the corridors. Some of the doors were open, revealing offices or conference rooms. This is where they run this habitat, he realized. Why is this guard bringing me here?

  They stopped at a door marked chief administrator. The guard opened it without knocking. Inside was a sizable office: several desks with young men and women busily whispering into lip mikes. Their display screens showed charts and graphs in vivid colors. They glanced up at him and the guard, then quickly returned their attention to their work.

  Gesturing for him to follow, the guard led Bracknell past their desks and to an inner door. No name on it. Again the guard opened it without knocking. It was obviously an anteroom. A matronly looking woman with short-cropped silver hair sat at the only desk, holding a conversation in low tones with another woman's image in her display screen. Beyond her desk was still another door, also unmarked.

  She looked up and, without missing a beat of her conversation, touched a button on her phone console. The inner door popped open a few centimeters. The guard shooed Bracknell to it.

  Pushing the door all the way open, Bracknell saw George Ambrose sitting behind a desk that looked too small for his bulk, like a man sitting at a child's play desk. He was speaking to his desktop screen.

  "Come on in and sit down," Ambrose said. "Be with you in a sec." Turning his gaze to his desktop screen he said, "Save file. Clear screen."

  The display went dark as Bracknell took the contoured chair in front of the desk. It gave slightly under his weight. Ambrose swiveled his high-backed chair to face Bracknell squarely.

  "I've got a message for you," Ambrose said.

  "From Lara?"

  Shaking his shaggy head, Ambrose said, "Convicts aren't allowed messages from Earthside, normally. But this one is from some New Morality bloke, the Reverend Elliott Danvers."

  "Oh." The surge of hope that Bracknell felt faded away.

  "D'you want to see it in privacy?"

  "No, it doesn't matter."

  Pointing to the wall on Bracknell's right, Ambrose said, "Okay, then, here it is."

  Danvers' slightly bloated, slightly flushed face appeared on the wall screen. Bracknell felt his innards tighten.

  "Mance-if you don't mind me calling you by your first name-I hope this message finds you well and healthy after your long journey to Ceres. I know this is a time of turmoil and anguish for you, but I want you to realize that you are not alone, not forgotten. In your hour of need, you may call on me. Whenever you feel the need of council, or prayer, or even just the need to hear a familiar voice, call me. The New Morality will pay the charges. Call me whenever you wish."

  Danvers's image disappeared, replaced by the cross-and-scroll logo of the New Morality.

  Bracknell stared at the screen for a few heartbeats, then turned back to Ambrose. "That's the entire message?"

  Nodding, "Looks it. I di'n't open it till you got here."

  Bracknell said nothing.

  "D'you want to send an answer? It'll take about an hour to reach Earth."

  "No. No answer."

  "You sure?"

  "That man's testimony helped convict me."

  Ambrose shook his red-maned head. "Way it looks to me, you were convicted before the trial even started. They needed a scapegoat. Can't have four million deaths and chalk it up as an act of god."

  Bracknell stared at the man. It was difficult to tell the color of his eyes beneath those bushy red brows.

  "Well, anyway," Ambrose said more cheerfully, "I got a job offer for you."

  "A job offer?"

  "Only one. You're not a really popular fella, y'know."

  "That means I'll have to take the job whether I want to or not."

  " 'Fraid so."

  Taking in a breath, Bracknell asked, "What is it?"

  "Skipper of the ship you came in on. Says he needs a new third mate."

  Blinking with surprise, Bracknell said, "I don't know much about spacecraft."

  "You'll learn on the job. It's a good offer, a lot better than spendin' half your life in a suit runnin' nanobugs on some chunk o' rock."

  "The captain of the Alhambra asked for me? Me, specifically?"

  "That he did."

  "Why on Earth would he do that?" Bra
cknell wondered.

  "You're not on Earth, mate. Take the job and be glad of it. You got no choice."

  THE BELT

  At first Bracknell half-thought, half-feared, that he'd been brought to the Alhambra to become a husband for the captain's daughter. His first day aboard the ship disabused him of that notion.