by Chris Bunch
"Hell if I know. Couple years ago I had my boy risk his old butt and come right out and ask. Thoresen ain't sayin'. Except that it's, quote, vital to the interests of the Company, endquote."
"Who's your man?"
Mahoney grimaced. “I can't say."
"Colonel! I asked you a question!"
Mahoney sat up straight. He knew where the chain of command started. “Yessir. It's a guy on the board of directors. Named Lester."
"Lester ... I know him. I was at his birth ceremony. Absolutely trustworthy in matters concerning the Empire. ‘Course, in a hand of poker—well, nobody's perfect. So Lester is suspicious of this Bravo Project, huh?"
"Very. Thoresen is practically bleeding the Company dry to pay for it. He's maintaining barely enough profit to keep the stockholders happy. Even then, Lester thinks he's messing with the books."
"That's not much to go on. Even I can't put the Guard on Vulcan on mere suspicion. I'd lose all credibility. Hell, I founded this Empire on the principles of free enterprise and zip government interference."
"Do you have to believe your own propaganda?"
The Emperor thought about it a second. Then answered regretfully, “Yes."
"So what do we do about it?"
The Emperor frowned, then sighed and chugged his drink down. “Hate to do this, but I got no other choice."
"Meaning?"
"Meaning, I'm about to lose a great drinking buddy. For a while, anyway."
Outraged, Mahoney came to his feet. “You're not sending me to that godforsaken hole? Vulcan's so far out of the way even comets duck it!"
"Got any better ideas?"
Mahoney ran it over. Then shook his head. Slugged down his drink. “When do I leave?"
"You mean you're still here?"
[Back to Table of Contents]
CHAPTER NINE
The airlock cycle clanked to an end. Thick yellow gas billowed into the chamber. Sten could barely see the other workers against the opposite wall.
The interior lock door slid open, and Sten walked toward his job station, across the kilometer-wide hemisphere of Work Area 35.
He figured that two years had passed, plus or minus a cycle or six, since he'd begun his sentence. How the time flies when you're having fun, he thought sourly.
The floor-level vats bubbled and boiled, gray slime crawling up onto the catwalks. Sten threaded his way around the scum, around huge, growing lumps of crystal.
He stopped at his first station, and checked the nutrient gauges feeding into one of the meters-high boulders. It took Sten half a very sweaty hour to torch off the spiraling whorls of a granular cancer from the second boulder in his area. He fed the crumbly residue to the atmosphere plants in the nearest vat, and went on through the roiling yellow atmosphere.
Area 35 was an artificial duplicate of a faraway world, where metals assumed a life of their own. Minerals “grew,” “blossomed,” and “died."
Samples of the various metals indicated one with rare properties—incredible lightness, yet with a tensile strength far in excess of any known alloy or element.
The Company's geologists found the mineral interesting and with enormous commercial potential. There were only two problems:
Its homeworld was a man-killer. That was the easiest part. The Company's engineers could duplicate almost any conditions. And with the condemned Migs of the Exotic Section to harvest the minerals, the casualty rate was “unimportant."
The second, and bigger, problem was working the material. After years of experimentation, metal-based “virii” on the mineral's homeworld were mutated, then used as biological tools to machine the crystal.
The shaped metal was used for superstressed applications: driveship emergency overrides and atomic plant core sensor supports as well as the ultimate in snob's jewelry. The cost, of course, was astronomical. Sten's foreman once estimated a fist-size chunk as worth an Exec's contract pay for a year.
The growth rate and size of each boulder were carefully controlled and computer monitored. But Sten had found a way to override the nutrient controls on one boulder. For six cycles, a small, unnoticed lump had been cultured, gram by gram, on one boulder.
Sten checked “his” boulder. The lump was ready for harvesting—and machining into a useful little tool that Sten wasn't planning to tell the Company about.
He undipped a small canister of a cutting virus from the bulkhead, and triggered its nozzle near the base of his lump. A near-invisible red spray jetted. Sten outlined the base of the growth with it.
He'd once seen what happened when a worker let a bit of the virus spray across his suit. The worker didn't even have time to neutralize the virus before it ate through and he exploded, a greasy fireball barely visible through the roiling yellow haze as the suit's air supply and Area 35's atmosphere combined.
Sten waited a few seconds, then neutralized the virus and tapped the lump free of its mother boulder.
He took the lump to his biomill and clamped it into position, closed and sealed the mill's work area, and hooked his laboriously breadboarded bluebox into circuit so the mill's time wouldn't be logged in Area 35's control section.
Sten set the biomill's controls on manual, and tapped keys. Virus sprayed across the metal lump. Sten waited until the virus was neutralized, then resprayed.
And he waited.
* * * *
There were only two ways of telling time in Exotic Section. One was by counting deaths. But when the attrition rate was well over 100 percent per year, that just reminded Sten he was riding on the far edge of the statistics.
The other way was with a handful of memories.
* * * *
The hogjowled foreman had waited until the guards unshackled Sten and hastily exited back into Vulcan's main section. Then he swung a beefy fist into Sten's face.
Sten went down, then climbed back to his feet, tasting blood. “Ain't you gonna ask what that was for?” Sten was silent.
"That was for nothing. You do something, and it's a whole lot worse.
"You're in Exotics now. We don't run loose here like they do up North. Here Migs do what they're told.
"Exotic's split up into different areas. Ever’ one of them's a different environment. You'll work in sealed suits, mostly. All the areas are what they call High Hazard Envir'ments. Which means only volunteers work in them. That's you. You're a volunteer.
"You mess, sleep, and rec in Barracks. That's the next capsule down from Guard Section, which is where you are now.
"You don't come north of Barracks unless you figure your area ain't killin’ you quick enough.
"One more thing. What goes on in Barracks ain't our business. All that matters is the machines are manned every shift and you don't try to get out. Those is the only rules."
He jerked his head, and two of the Exotic Section's guards pulled Sten out.
* * * *
The lump was almost down to the right dimensions. Sten rechecked his “farm” and corrected the nutrients, then returned to the biomill and set up for the final shaping cut.
* * * *
Sten's first area was what the foreman called a cinch shift.
It was a prototype high-speed wiremill. Nitrogen atmosphere. Unfortunately, it wasn't quite right yet. Extruder feeds jammed. Drawers put on too much pressure, or, most commonly, the drum-coiler gears stripped.
And every time the plant went down, someone died. Raw wire piling up behind the jammed extruder tore off a man's arm. Broken wire whiplashed through a man like a sword. A coil of wire lifted from its bin curled around a momentarily inattentive inspector's neck and guillotined him.
About a hundred “volunteers” worked in that area. Sten figured there was one death per cycle.
He figured the foreman had been being funny. Until he graduated and found out how fast other areas killed Migs.
* * * *
The virus had shaped that lump into a small dull black rectangle. Sten tapped the STORE button, and the neutralizer
control, then walked to another console. He quickly built up the three-dimensional model of the tool he would build, which included measurements of the inside of Sten's loosely closed fist.
This tool would fit only one man.
* * * *
"Ya gon’ gimme your synthalk for as long as I want?"
"That's right."
"What'yawant?"
"You know how to fight. Foreman—his bullies—don't mess with you."
"Clottin'-A they don't. Learned how to tight-corner all over the galaxy. Boy, I even had some guards training!” The little man beamed proudly. “You want to be taught?"
"That's it."
"Yeah. Yeah. Why not? Ain't nothin’ else to do down here. ‘Cept wait to die."
* * * *
Sten hit the TRANSFER switch and input his model, set up as a machining program, into the biomill. Waited until the PROGRAM ACTIVE light went on, then touched the START button.
Small, medium-power lasers glowed and moved toward the block of metal. Virus sprayed onto the block, and more metal crumbled away. Then the lasers “masked” areas, and the virus shaped that block into the reality of Sten's model.
The shift hours dragged past, and the mill hummed on happily. Once Sten had to shut down when a guard came through. But he didn't stop at Sten's machine.
* * * *
"Base position. Now. Clot! Stick always goes across your body. Just above the waist. Then you're ready for any kind of defense."
"What about a knife?"
"You know stick—you'll be able to put that knife about eight inches up the lower intestine of the guy what pulled it on you. Now. One—swing your left up. Stick's straight up and down. Step in ... naw. Naw. Naw! Stick's gonna go into the side of somebody's neck. You ain't askin’ to dance with him. Do it again."
* * * *
An hour before shift-change, the TASK COMPLETE light went on. Sten began flushing the mill's interior with neutralizer. He knew better than to hurry.
* * * *
"You in a bibshop. Man breaks off a bottle. Comes at you. What'ya do?"
"Kick him."
"Naw. Naw. Naw. Hurt yourself that way. Throw somethin'. Anythin'. His arm's low, throw for his face. He's ice-pickin', slide a chair up his groin. Awright. You hit him. He goes back. What'ya do?"
"Kick. Kneecap. Arch if you can get close. Neck."
"Awright! He goes down. What next?"
"Put his bottle in his face."
"Sten, I'm startin’ to get proud of you. Now. Get your tail in the head. Practice for the rest of the off-shift. Next off-shift, I'll show you what to do if you got a knife."
* * * *
Sten unlatched the work-area cover and lifted out his tool.
His. For the first time in his life, he had something that wasn't borrowed or leased from the Company. That the material cost was a merchant prince's ransom and the machining techniques used enough power for an entire dome made it even sweeter.
Sten held a slim double-edged dagger in his clumsy suit gloves. The skeleton handle was custom-fit for Sten's fingers to curl around in the deadly knife-fighter's grip the little man had taught him.
There was no guard, just serrated lateral grooves between the haft and blade that tapered from 5 cm width down to a needle tip. The knife was 15 cm long and only .39 cm thick.
It was possibly the deadliest fighting blade that had ever been constructed. The crystal tapered to a hair-edge barely 15 molecules wide, and the weight of the blade alone was enough pressure to cut a diamond in half.
Sten tucked the knife in an unused suit storage pocket. He already had the sheath built. Hite had done that for him.
He and Sten had hidden out in a normal-environment disused area. He'd put Sten out with a central anesthetic. And then delicately gone to work.
The sheath was inside Sten's lower arm. With pirated microsurgery tools, Hite laid back a section of Sten's skin down to the dermis. He put an undercoat of living plaskin next to the subcutaneous tissue, then body-cemented into place the alloy U-curve that Sten had already built. That would keep the knife's blade from touching anything—including the U-curve.
A wrist muscle was rerouted across the mouth of the sheath to keep the knife in place. Then Hite replaced the layer of dermis and epidermis over the surgical modifications and body-cemented Sten back together.
It took several cycles to heal. But Hite was satisfied the plaskin was nonirritative, and the skin over the sheath would continue to regenerate.
The shift buzzer in Sten's suit blatted. Sten shut down the mill and headed for the lock.
* * * *
Nobody knew exactly what Hite had done to get stuck in Exotic Section. It was known that he'd been a pioneer-world doctor. It was known that he'd taken a Tech contract on Vulcan for an unknown reason. And it was obvious that he'd done something incredibly wrong.
Hite never told anyone—including Sten—about what he'd done.
He was not only the only medic the Migs had access to but he'd been in Exotic Section for years.
He was also the only friend Sten ever had.
"Sten, lad. The problem with you is you don't laugh enough."
"Laugh? I'm stuck in the anus of Vulcan ... everybody's trying to kill me—they're gonna succeed—and you want me to laugh?"
"Of course, boy. Because what could be funnier than all that?"
"I don't get it."
Hite leaned closer. “It's because the gods hate you. Personally."
Sten considered. Then smiled slowly. And started laughing. “Huh?"
"What's there to laugh about? You're up the arse of Vulcan and everyone's trying to kill you. I'd get worried if I were you."
Sten stared at him. Then shook his head and started howling.
* * * *
In the shiftroom, Sten fed high-pressure disinfectant into his suit and resealed it. He waited. There was no leak. Sten dumped the disinfectant into the recycler and pegged the suit. In the Exotic Section, elderly vacuum worksuits, condemned by the Techs, were used. Leaks were very common. And in an area, there wasn't time to patch them. Sten yawned and pushed through the Barracks toward his bunk.
The knife was tucked inside Sten's arm. His open hand held it securely in position. Sten couldn't wait to show it to Hite.
Barracks smelled like The Row. Cubed and recubed. With no Sociopatrolmen. A couple of hulks were going through the meager effects of a young boy who lay sprawled in a pool of blood. One of them grinned up at Sten. “Got fresh meat in today."
Sten shrugged and kept walking. The ethanol stand was crowded as always. He stopped by his bunk. The female Mig who bunked over him had his blanket hung as a curtain, and paired grunts came from behind it.
Sten headed for Hite's square. The old man had been sick, and Sten hoped he was feeling semihuman. He wanted to ask him more about Pioneer Sector.There was a knot of men around Hite's bunk. The foreman and some of his toadies. And beside them, a robot trundle.
Two of the thugs picked up a gray, frail, still form from the bunk and dumped it unceremoniously onto the trundle.
Sten broke into a run as the trundle automatically swiveled away. He smashed a fist into its control panel and the trundle stopped.
"Ain't no use,” one of the toadies said. “01’ basser's dead."
"What happened?"
"Guess he just went and died. Natural causes."
Sten started to turn ... then pulled Hite's body over.
Blood still oozed from the slash in Hite's throat. Sten looked up at the foreman.
"He di'n't want to go on-shift. So, like Malek says, he just died. Naturally."
The foreman made the mistake of laughing.
Sten came off the floor at the foreman. One thug body-checked him and Sten went to the floor, twisted, and came back to his feet.
And the little man echoed in his brain. You're never angry. You never want anything. You are a response without a mind.
A toady moved in, and Sten's foot lashed. The man's knee
cap shattered audibly and he dropped.
"Take him."
The toadies surged forward. One huge man had Sten from behind, crushing him with both hands. Sten wiggled an arm free and swung a fist back, thumb extended.
The tough dropped Sten and howled back, blood pouring fromhis eye socket.
Sten spun, his foot coming wide against the base of the bully's neck. It snapped and the man crashed to the deck.
"Get him, you clots!” the foreman thundered.
The two men left looked at the foreman and at Sten, trying to decide which was worse. One of the men ripped a bunk support free, and the second man's hand snaked into his pocket and flicked out with a gleaming knife, honed down from a hand chisel.
Sten dropped his right hand limply. Curled his fingers. The knife dropped into his hand. Cold. Comforting.
The man with the steel bar reached Sten first, swinging. Sten brought the knife up ... and the blade razored through the steel. The man gaped for a second at the short steel stub he held, then Sten lashed in and cut his throat like soft butter.
The knifeman feinted once as Sten spun, then lunged for Sten's stomach. Sten overhanded a block...
The foreman stared, horrified, as his toady's arm, still holding a knife in writhing fingers, thudded to the deck.
Then the foreman turned and ran. The wrong way. Down, away from the guard capsule. Toward the areas.
Sten caught him just before the shiftroom. The foreman turned. Holding out both hands. Panicked eyes wide.
Sten slashed once.
The foreman screamed as his guts bulged out, and slopped wetly to the deck.
"That was for nothing."
Sten ran for his suit as alarms began to shrill.
* * * *
Inside Area 35, Sten could hear the banging on the lock. He wasn't too worried. He'd dumped the lock air and wedged the inner door open. That'd take them some time to get through.
The guards had to figure Sten was trapped. There was no interconnection to another area. All that was outside Area 35 was hard vacuum.
Sten gingerly lifted the viral spray tank out of his bio-lathe and muscled it to the dome's curving outer wall. He flipped the bleed valve open and scrambled back toward the overturned gravsled as the red viral spray hissed against the dome's skin.
