When the truck came to a halt, Ivarsen leaned out and yelled, “Everybody in back!”
We trooped to the ladder on the side and climbed up and over, then down into the extra-large bed where two single-person shovels sat. They’re called shovels because the hydraulic arm on the front of each unit was attached to a large scoop designed to dig hundred-kilo hunks of clay out of the ground.
There was nothing to say while we rode out of the crater and started on the packed-earth highway to the eastern hills. We just gazed out the back of the bed, the truck kicking up a column of dust, each of us enjoying the movement of air which partially alleviated the ever-present heat. Once we arrived at the dig site, Lisa climbed up on top of the cab while Godfrey and I slid into the bucket seats on our respective shovels. Ivarsen used controls in the cab to lower the aft lip of the dumper’s bed to the dirt, and then Godfrey and I caterpillared out and began to attack the scarred hillside.
Clay is not the same thing as mud. I’d learned that my first month on the job. You had to look for the phyllosilicate deposits, then clear off the top layers of worthless dirt and pry out the heavier stuff underneath. It came in various stages of plasticity, depending on how much moisture a given dig retained between thunderstorms, and we could hydrate it using a cistern back at the forming pit.
A familiar, pungent odor filled my nose when my shovel’s scoop bit into the ground. I worked the scoop’s hydraulic controls until a decent hunk had been pulled free, then motored back to the dumper and threw my load in. I did this two more times, and stopped to watch Godfrey struggle for his first shovelful. It was his third time driving, and the kid still didn’t get it. He was punching his scoop into the hillside like a jackhammer, knocking crumbled clay loose until it threatened to engulf the front of his machine.
I motored up to him and yelled over the whine of the hydraulics, “Finesse, man! Gradual and steady! Push in slow, lift out slow.”
“I’m trying!” He yelled back. “Tractor’s nothing but a piece of shit!”
I wanted to tell him it wasn’t the machine that was a piece of shit, then thought better of it.
“Here,” I said over the noise of both engines, “watch me.”
Godfrey backed off while I drove up and eased my scoop into the beige-gray mass. The load pulled free with relative ease, I spun my shovel on the axis of its treads, and moved away to let the kid continue.
His next few attempts were almost competent.
I sighed and kept working, the day wearing imperceptibly on while we filled the dumper with clay. Lisa used her controls on the top of the dumper’s cab to operate the dumper’s claw arm, re-arranging our shovelfuls as the need arose, and ultimately picking up and depositing each shovel back into the bed once we had enough clay to take back to the forming pit.
Ivarsen watched us the whole time, standing off from the dig by about ten meters, hands on his hips. His head didn’t move, but I always had the impression his eyes were constantly sweeping from behind his sunglasses, like radar.
Once we’d secured the shovels and the dumper’s claw arm, we climbed back into the bed and Ivarsen went back to the cab. The drive to the forming pit was as silent as the drive from the kiln, and I idly scratched dirt out of my hair, thinking again about my imminent parole. The government of Eta Cassiopeiae Five was finally going to make me a citizen again. It was odd to think I’d spent my entire thirties locked up—the bitter wage of a mistake I’d long since learned to regret. I wondered what kind of life I could now make for myself, beyond firing brick. With my legal file as checkered as it was, my options were limited. Maybe I could talk to the asteroid miners again? They always needed help. Could I get a felony waiver?
Such thoughts continued to occupy me when we arrived at the forming pit.
Lisa plucked the shovels from the bed before Ivarsen up-ended the entire thing into the slaking ditch. There the clay was allowed to bathe in rainwater from the nearby cistern, and would sit until it had reached an appropriate state of homogenous mushiness. A different slaking pit was ready for draining, and we polished off the early evening by shoveling—manually, this time—wet clay into forms. The forms came in various sizes and dimensions, to fulfill the needs of the construction workers back in civilization, and we had to poke and stir the contents of each form to get the air bubbles out before the clay began to dry. Trapped air bubbles would cause the dried bricks to crack or even explode in the kiln during firing, and though a certain percentage of the load would always be scrapped as a result of damage, losing too many bricks was a basic waste of sweat equity—not to mention it showed up on the monthly tally.
Again Ivarsen watched us from a distance, never moving except to take a tug off the canteen normally slung across his shoulder.
When we’d gotten a decent bunch of the forms filled and stacked for drying, we were all exhausted and ready to call it quits. We washed—clothes and all—using the make-shift showerheads attached to the cistern, then climbed back up into the dumper bed. The clay in the bed’s bottom had dried and cracked, and we let the wind dry us on the ride from the forming pit to our hooches—which sat just outside the low rim of the kiln’s crater wall.
Chow consisted of pre-sealed trays which were microwavable and contained a variety of meats, starches, and vegetable matter. All of it originally Earth-native—imported with the original colonists who’d made the long trip from Sol System, almost a century prior. Earth life did okay on EC5, with a bit of genetic tweaking to account for EC5’s soil and mineral content. The farms surrounded the coastal settlements, and—some day—there would be forests in the hills and mountains surrounding the farms. And men would build with wood again.
Until then, the world needed bricks, which meant the world needed us.
We tore into our meals, then threw the empty trays and drinking bulbs into the trash compactor. With Eta Cassiopeiae setting, we each took turns at the single outhouse, and finally stumbled into bed—EC5’s three small moons beginning to rise over the eastern hills. Though, calling them moons was probably a bit too generous. They were captured asteroids: one trailing behind the other, which trailed behind the other again. I imagined the miners and engineers working all day and all night—all planetary year long—turning those moons into way stations for the big colonial ships that would eventually bring more people from Earth; once EC5’s biosphere had been sufficiently beefed up. Two, maybe three more human generations.
Some day EC5 would be a garden. But not yet.
With night fully upon us, Ivarsen activated the electric fence which cordoned off the prisoner hooches from the guard hooch. Like most nights, I found the familiar hum from the fence’s transformer to be oddly soothing. I also wondered if tonight I’d be awakened by yet another horrified scream.
“Don’t bite off more than you can chew, kid,” I said quietly, and laughed.
Smiling in spite of myself, I faded into oblivion.
• • •
Morning came, and Godfrey was undamaged. In fact, we had to go kick him out of his cot an hour after sunrise. The activities of the day before had thoroughly exhausted him, despite his youth and size. Grousing and giving us the finger, Godfrey hastily pulled on his jumper and work boots. We ate a microwaved breakfast, used the outhouse again, then took the dumper back into the crater.
This time the kiln was sufficiently cool. Needle in the green.
Lisa used the dumper’s claw arm to lever the kiln’s huge door out of the way—like the angel rolling aside the stone at the crypt of Jesus—and we all walked in to inspect our work. Even Ivarsen, who seemed to take genuine pleasure in seeing the finished bricks, all lined neatly on their stacked ceramic pallets, ready to be sent north and laid into homes, shops, offices, apartments, and everything else that needed building.
Lisa and I showed Godfrey how to check for cracks and damaged bricks, which we’d separate from the rest when we used a shovel—now modified with a fork on its arm—to lift each pallet from the kiln and place it carefully n
ear the dumper.
The kid just grunted, saying, “Whatever,” and began examining the kiln’s contents. He did it with the enthusiasm of a six year old being made to eat asparagus.
Lisa followed me out of the kiln while I went to get my canteen. Constant hydration was an ever-present necessity this far south.
“Lee,” Lisa said as she leaned close to me, “I’m so sick of getting stuck with these morons.”
“Yeah. Must be slim pickings these days. Pretty soon Corrections might have to start drafting civilians for the brick brigades.”
Ivarsen, who had been getting out of the dumper’s cab, laughed mightily. “That’ll be the day! Imagine how much they’d have to pay union workers to come out here and do what you guys do for free.”
“You’re union,” I said, with sarcasm.
“Damn right,” Ivarsen replied, thumping his chest with a fist.
We shared a smile between the three of us. Then came a sudden yelp from the kiln, followed by the sound of a pallet collapsing and bricks tumbling.
“Lord,” Lisa said, rolling her eyes.
We hurried back through the kiln entrance to find Godfrey hopping up and down on one leg while he held the other foot. Obscenities peeled from his lips.
Lisa, Ivarsen and I almost fell over, it was so funny.
“Stop laughing,” Godfrey fumed.
“Kid,” I said, “One man’s pain is another man’s pleasure.”
Godfrey’s mouth grimaced sourly as he prepared to give me a four-lettered broadside, but then he stopped.
All the pallets were rattling violently.
“What the—?”
The booming rumble shuddered through the floor of the kiln.
“Quake!” Ivarsen yelled.
Really? I’d not been through one of those since I’d been a boy.
What happened next was a slow blur.
Stacked columns of pallets swayed like hula dancers. Lisa was screaming and trying to get to the door, only she kept having her feet knocked out from under her. One of the columns tilted too far, and collapsed against the side of the kiln. Then another. Godfrey managed to keep his feet, his mouth hanging open and his eyes gone stupidly wide. The column next to him started to give—this time, towards the middle of the kiln.
Ivarsen’s reaction was so fast I didn’t even realize what had happened until both he and Godfrey were on the floor, sliding out of the path of the collapsing bricks.
One of the walls popped thunderously, and a new crack split wide from floor to ceiling, shining a shaft of light crossways to that which already flooded in from the main door.
Two more columns of bricks went down.
And then … silence.
Lisa and I were coughing spastically on the dust that had filled the kiln. I discovered I’d been sitting on my butt the entire time. Heaps of whole and broken bricks were everywhere, and I got to my feet to move around to where I thought I’d last seen Ivarsen and the kid.
I got there just in time to see Godfrey crown Ivarsen with a brick the size of my forearm. Our guard crumpled.
“Oh shit—” I said.
The kid moved quickly, snatching the pistol out of Ivarsen’s holster and pointing it at me while he used his free hand to explore the pockets of Ivarsen’s shorts.
Lisa froze when she came around the corner and saw what was happening.
“You stupid, stupid asshole,” I said to Godfrey. “Ivarsen saved your life.”
“Fraccaro, you and Phaan get against the wall.”
Lisa and I didn’t move until Godfrey thumbed the pistol’s safety and pulled the hammer back. Then we raised our hands and backed into the shadows as Godfrey came away with the keycard for the dumper.
“You won’t make it,” Lisa said, deadpan. “The chip is already sending its alarm to the satellite.”
Godfrey scoffed. “Pig ‘aint dead. Just knocked out.”
I looked at Ivarsen’s still form, and thought I saw thick, dark fluid running from the back of his head where Godfrey had hit him.
“If he dies,” I said, “then we’re dead too.”
“You, maybe,” Godfrey replied. “I’m out of here.”
“Where are you going to go, kid? There’s no native forage on this land mass. And they can track the movement of the dumper. You’ll be—”
“Shut the hell up, Fraccaro. Maybe you like being a slave. Not me. Freedom’s better than nothin’. I’ll take my chances.”
Finally, the rage that had been rising in me, boiled over.
“Damn you, I was getting paroled!”
Godfrey considered this while sidling towards the doorway. He looked back at Ivarsen, then to Lisa, and then to me.
“Sorry man,” was all he said.
Then he was gone, and Lisa and I were rushing to Ivarsen’s side. The guard’s heart still beat, and his lungs took in air. That was good. But the deep laceration on his head bled profusely, and I dared not explore it for fear of finding pulp where there should be skull.
Lisa ripped open Ivarsen’s shirt and we tore off pieces to use as a temporary bandage.
Outside, the dumper’s electric engine started up. We heard its large tires crunch on the dirt while Godfrey drove away.
Lisa was cursing and started to rise to her feet, but I stopped her.
“Let him go. We’ve got more immediate concerns.”
She thought for a second.
“We can take him on the shovel. It will be fastest.”
I nodded—there was a first aid locker in Ivarsen’s hooch.
Would we get to it in time?
• • •
Godfrey had gone off-road and disappeared over the southern hills by the time we got Ivarsen back to camp. I drove the shovel while Lisa sat on a pallet that we’d cleared, and which now held Ivarsen’s unmoving body. The pallet was perched on the fork of the shovel’s hydraulic arm, and I did my best to avoid bumps. At ten kilometers an hour, it took precious minutes to motor out of the crater and follow the trail along the rim wall to where the hooches sat.
I set the pallet down and Lisa leapt off, running into Ivarsen’s hooch to get his cot. It wasn’t a perfect stretcher, but we managed to get him onto it, moving him into his hooch so he’d be out of the sun. Lisa helped me rummage through the first aid locker and apply a more suitable bandage to the head wound. Next I checked his pupils with a flashlight, and was alarmed to see that one of them had gone as wide as the iris would allow.
“Damn,” I said.
“Is it that bad?” Lisa asked.
“Bad enough. We need Ivarsen’s satellite phone. If he doesn’t get a medevac soon, he’s as good as dead.”
“I think the phone was in the cab of the dumper,” Lisa said. “He always kept it there when we were working.”
Lisa and I looked at each other. Neither of us needed to say what was on our minds.
When the SWAT guys got here, it wouldn’t matter what story we told them. All they’d find was a dead Corrections officer, and two live prisoners. And that would be that. Meaning me and Lisa. Done. And Godfrey, when they tracked him down, as surely they would. We’d all be lucky if they sent us back to The Island. More probably, we’d be shot.
I stood up from Ivarsen’s side and stomped out into the glaring sunlight, sweat making my shirt damp and my eyes squinting in spite of my sunglasses. I screamed and kicked the treads on the shovel. Years of patient effort. Down the toilet. Thanks to a dumb kid. I’d have kept screaming, except that I thought of Ivarsen, and how he’d deserved this even less. Me, I’d lost my life a long time ago. And deservedly so. But Ivarsen had been a decent man. Such a waste!
I went back inside to find Lisa rummaging furiously through Ivarsen’s other things. Our patient’s breaths had become quicker, more shallow, and a sheen of sweat covered the exposed areas of his skin. I unzipped his sleeping bag and threw it over him for a blanket, then went to help Lisa. She was obviously looking for a backup phone. Surely they wouldn’t issue Ivarsen just the sing
le unit?
The only thing we found was the remote for the mirrors in the crater.
Lisa threw the remote to the floor in disgust, but I picked it up and walked outside, staring up into the cerulean sky. Lisa came out and looked up with me.
“What?”
“How many satellites watch this region?” I asked.
“Heck if I know.”
I kept looking. Then I quickly strode to the crater’s rim wall and scrambled up its side until I was standing on the top and staring down into the circular field of mirrors.
The remote had several preset codes. I chose the toggle for manual movement. The circular thumb pad in the middle illuminated, and I depressed it, pushing first to the north, then to the south. Out in the field, the little servos on the base of each mirror began to whine. The mirrors obediently leaned to the south, then back to the north.
Okay …
I programmed in a repeating series of motions, pressed the SEND button, and then dropped the remote into my pocket and watched the mirrors begin their slow dance.
Lisa nodded, catching on. “I hope someone is paying attention, Lee.”
• • •
The day wore on, and we stayed in the guard’s tent. Lisa occasionally sponged Ivarsen down with a wet rag, and I ran checks on his vitals every fifteen minutes, as well as checking his pupils. The dilated one stayed dilated, and I wondered if the man wasn’t just a vegetable already.
Out in the crater, the mirrors kept spinning and swiveling.
There was no sound, other than the occasional wind across the camp.
Evening came quickly. When I checked the supply bunker I discovered that Godfrey had been there before us and taken most of the cases of microwave meals. He’d at least been that smart. But without water I knew he’d be getting thirsty soon. And unless he found a natural spring, or we got some rain, he’d be in a bad way before the following day was out.
I allowed myself a small amount of satisfaction at the thought of Godfrey dying for lack of water, then I heated two trays for Lisa and I, and went back into the tent.
I almost dropped the trays when Ivarsen’s head turned to look at me.
Racers of the Night: Science Fiction Stories by Brad R. Torgersen Page 5
