"We know you missed dessert," Mickey said. "That's where we're going. See, we're already here—and you have a treat in store ... hot fudge sundaes, banana splits, chocolate sodas, trust me on this. This is going to be the best part of your trip. I know, the desserts you had on the elevator were good, but most of them are too rich and too sweet to be really enjoyed. You practically have to wear protective gear.
"No, this is ice cream made the traditional way, without overdoing it—and in case you're wondering, Charles, it's all made right here at Geostationary, up on Disk Two. That's where most of the farms are right now, although we'll be opening up new farm levels when Disk Four is finished. Have you seen pictures of the farms? It's not the same, you've got to see them in person. No, we don't have any cows, Bobby—what we have is even better; we do it the Udder Way. Get it? The udder way? Never mind. But we've got the best genetically tailored udders anywhere. You'll see in a minute. You're about to have ice cream that's literally out of this world. That's another joke."
"He's tired," Douglas explained.
"And those weren't very good jokes," I added. Douglas frowned at me.
Dad spoke up then. He'd been very quiet ever since Doug and I had realized the truth about the monkey. "Excuse me, Mickey—why are we stopping for ice cream?"
Mickey pretended he didn't hear. He was studying the menu.
After a minute, he looked across the table at Dad. "I think you should have the banana split. Bananas get more expensive the farther out you go. This might be your last chance to enjoy a banana split." The waiter arrived then, and Mickey looked around the table. "Okay, are we all decided?"
We ordered two hot fudge banana splits and four spoons, and a chocolate soda for Stinky. While we waited, I shifted uncomfortably in my seat. Now was as good a time as any to tell them. "Um, Dad—if I tell you something, will you promise not to get mad at me?"
Dad looked over at me quizzically. "What is it, Charles?"
"Um—I know who tipped off Station Security." Mickey and Doug both looked up at that, but I pushed on anyway. "It was J'mee."
"The boy in the swimming pool?"
"He was really a girl. In disguise. They're sneaking off-planet too. Like everybody else, I guess. She's got an implant. She looked us up. And—well, she said a lot of bad stuff about us ... "
"Like what?"
"Like about Douglas ... and Bobby ... and you ... "
"Is that how you found out about ... ?"
"Yeah, it wasn't Mom." I pushed on with the rest of it. "And she said stuff about me too. About all those reports from school. What the counselors said. And she was pretty rude about it, so I—well, I called her a goddamned nasty bitch."
"Jeez," said Douglas. "You're lucky she didn't file an abusive language complaint."
Mickey shook his head. "Hard to prove. 'He-said, she-said.' And her access to private records taints the case." He added, "Besides, she had a better way to get revenge. No one knew where you were; they all thought you were caught at Terminus or hiding out at One-Hour. She tipped off the marshals. Now we know why—" Charles' big mouth.
He didn't say the last part. He didn't have to. Everyone was looking at me. Waiting. '
"I'm sorry," I said. It didn't feel like it was enough.
Dad's face was unreadable, like he was having another one of those private arguments that only he could hear. Mickey had wisely fallen silent. Douglas shook his head and shrugged and did his performance of geek retrieving flies about social skills. Finally, he reached over and patted my hand. "It's okay, Chigger. It was your turn to screw up. Everybody else did, why not you?"
"Is that supposed to make me feel better?"
"Nah. I'm just reminding you that you're a Dingillian. You're as normal as the rest of us."
"You wanna get a bigger shovel? You can dig faster."
Douglas spread his hands. "Look at it this way, Chig. From here on out, it has to get better."
"Why?"
"Because it can't get any worse."
I nodded. I heard what he said. But it wasn't enough. The waiter brought our ice cream then and even after he passed out spoons, I didn't say anything. Douglas had said all the right things, but Dad hadn't said anything at all. If Dad had said it, if Dad had said anything at all, I would have felt a lot better about my mistake. The knot that had been churning in my stomach since we'd left Terminus was bigger than ever now.
"Chigger—" That was Dad, I looked up. "Eat your ice cream." I suppose he meant well. It didn't help. It was too little, too late. It still felt like a ticking bomb and it was just a matter of time before everything went boom.
We ate in silence. There was no sound except the clink of spoons against glasses and Stinky making bubbles at the bottom of his chocolate soda. Finally I said, sort of in an effort to change the mood, "This is good ice cream, Mickey. And so is the hot fudge. Thank you."
"You're welcome, Charles. I'm glad you like it." He looked up then, "Ahh, Alexei—dos vidanya." He pulled out a chair for the newest arrival, a tall, skinny, geeky-looking guy, all arms and legs. He looked like a spider. He gangled. He wore a Russian-looking turtle-neck, shorts, and sandals—except for the shirt, it was pretty standard station wear. To the rest of us, Mickey said, "Alexei is a native Loonie, down here for college and muscles. How go the exercises, Alexei?"
Alexei grinned and made a muscle. There wasn't much to show, but he seemed proud of it. "I shall be a muscleman when I return home. The girls will flock around me at the beach." He grinned and laughed. "I must remember not to be too rough with them, like some of the Earth boys are." I didn't know if he was kidding or not. Everybody said that native Loonies were all tall, skinny, and weak—but the way he was joking, I got the feeling that wasn't completely true, because he was making fun of it. But I just stared at him; so did Douglas and Stinky. We'd never met a real Loonie before.
Mickey must have seen the expressions on our faces, because he made full introductions then. Alexei stood up and bowed to each of us, then offered his hand for a handshake. He shook hands with each of us, grabbing our hands in both of his own to do it. He seemed almost too polite, too effusive to be real. "Alexei's family is from Georgia—"
"The Russian Georgia," Alexei explained, "not the American one. Y'awl." He laughed at his own joke, no one else did. I got the feeling he told it a lot. "I was born in Gagarin Dome. My mother wanted to name me Yuri, my father wanted to call me Neil. So they compromised, and I am Alexei."
"Alexei?"
"Alexei Krislov, Captain of the Allied Worlds Starcruiser, Private Enterprise—from the video series, you have heard of it, da? About an interstellar space trader? He was the only cosmonaut both my parents liked—a fictitious one. Personally"—he leaned forward with a conspiratorial air—"I think they watch too much television." Suddenly he was all business. He swiveled to face Mickey and said casually, "So? You said you had packages?"
Mickey nodded toward us. "Four. Five, if you count me."
Alexei glanced at us again, his face darkening. "I don't know, Mikhail. I'm not equipped for a job like this—this is a little big for me."
Mickey raised an eyebrow.
Alexei shrugged. "Sometimes I talk too big. So sue me—no wait, forget I said that. I know your mom. I would like to keep the royal jewels." He grinned and grabbed his crotch. To us, he said, "They really are royal jewels. My family is descended from the Romanovs. The last Tsar of Russia? That was a long time ago, I don't expect you to remember. But no matter. My great-uncle continues to file lawsuits in the World Court, every session, for the restoration of the monarchy. No, I would not be the Tsar—not unless sixteen of my cousins died mysteriously first, which will not happen. I only hate four of them." He turned back to Mickey. "This won't be easy. You know that the whole Line is locking down."
"I know," said Mickey.
"It's going to be expensive."
"I have information. Big information."
Alexei pursed his lips and frowned to himself. He was thinking it
over. He steepled his fingers in front of his chin and nodded thoughtfully. "How big?"
"The biggest. It will affect your business." To us, Mickey said. "Alexei is a money-surfer. In the truest sense. Do you know what money-surfers are?"
"Sure. Everybody does. A money-surfer is someone who rides the flow of money."
"That's right," said Alexei. "That is the common usage. But I am a traditional money-surfer, one of the best. Maybe Mikhail will explain later." He looked at his friend. "So? What do you want me to do?"
"Deliver the packages."
"You overestimate me, Mikhail. Didn't you have any ideas of your own?"
"Only one."
"Ah. What was your wonderful idea?"
" 'Call Alexei.' "
Alexei made a face. "That was not a good idea. Tell me, what is Alexei supposed to do?" He sighed. "I am sorry, Mikhail, I cannot help you with this."
"Listen, Alexei—Max here has pissed off one of the Super-Nationals. Do you know Hidalgo? Yes, that one. He's apparently involved. He threatened Max—oh, not directly, of course—but there was no doubt about his intentions. This might very well be a matter of life and death."
Alexei glanced over at us again, with new respect. "I like you. You make powerful enemies." To Mickey, he said, "All the more reason why I shouldn't get involved in this."
"Yes, you should," said Mickey. "You really want to hear what I know."
"Don't do this to me, Mikhail."
Mickey leaned over and whispered in Alexei's ear. Alexei's eyes widened, and he pulled back to stare at Mickey. "You're crazy."
"No—they're crazy."
"They'd have to be—good God." Alexei put his hand over his mouth, shocked. It was like he didn't want to let himself say anything else. It took him a moment to find his voice again. "I have phone calls to make, lots of phone calls," he said. "I wish you hadn't told me—no, that's not true. I'm glad you told me. But now I'm obligated to do this stupid thing for you, aren't I?"
"That's why I told you." Mickey smiled sweetly.
"You have the soul of a viper. Your mother trained you well."
"I love you too, Alexei." Mickey glanced at his watch. "Come on. We'd better get going." Mickey slid his card through the table's reader. "Okay, we're paid. Let's go."
FLOWING UP
In one of his weirder moods, Douglas once said that the best definition of a living creature is that it's a bag of water that moves by itself and makes more bags of water. Life is nothing more than a convenient way for water to get up and take a walk. Life is how water takes a vacation. Life is the way that water flows uphill. Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.
But yeah, I guess if you think about it that way, it sort of makes sense. Life is water in a membrane, doing stuff. And anywhere that life wants to go, it has to take water with it. So it's the membrane that makes life possible.
Weird says a lot of stuff like that. He says good philosophy is the foundation of sentience, but good plumbing is the foundation of civilization. Once, he even said, "If you want to really know people, look in their sewers." That was good for three weeks of teasing him about going around looking down toilets as a way to meet girls. I stopped the joking only when he threatened to stuff me headfirst down the commode in search of intelligent life. That is, I stopped the jokes in front of his face, not behind his back—
At least until Alexei said something about showing us what space sewers looked like—"Come, I will show you the plumbing." He pointed toward the ceiling. "Here we keep it in the attic." He led us toward a hatch opening into a service corridor. So I poked Weird and said, "Hey, we're going to get to know these people really well, right, Doug?"
"Bag it, Chigger." He said it without any apparent emotion. If he was too worried to be nasty, then the situation was serious enough to be serious. I shut up.
Alexei had pulled out his phone and was already calling people. Most of his calls were in Russian; he spoke in thick, rabid phrases, shouting almost hysterically at whoever was on the other end. Each time as he broke the connection, he smiled at us. "You've got to talk to them in their own language: Stupid. Is not to worry. They will do what I tell them. There is too much money at stake." He looked at Mickey. "This is going to be very expensive—for everyone. Especially for me. Not for you, though. You are already paid. The information you have given me—I will make millions of dollars today. Already I am having some wonderful ideas. Mikhail, I hope there is time for them all. I am most grateful that you called me—I will name my firstborn child after you, even if he is a girl." He popped his phone open and started hollering into it again.
Still roaring into his phone, Alexei fumbled a pass card out of his shirt pocket and used it to unlock a wide hatchway; we followed him into a service bay and boarded a cargo elevator. Alexei gestured impatiently at the walls, and we all grabbed handholds—he hit the Go panel and we rose "up" toward the axis, the innermost rings of the disk. As we rose, pseudo-gravity faded out. Dad and Doug and Mickey took turns carrying Stinky, who hadn't quite fallen asleep again, but was content to just rest in the arms of whoever was carrying him. In micro-gravity, he wasn't as much of a burden, but he was still an awkward bundle.
Alexei closed his phone and looked at Mickey. "I am going to make too much money today, Mikhail. I will have to give you some of it or my conscience will trouble me—not too much, though. I do not have a very large conscience. You will share some of it with your new friends, da? That gives me another idea—later." He opened his phone again. "Mishka, when you get home to your kennel, don't let your mother bite you in the ass—listen to me, you son of a German whore—" I didn't know if Alexei was like all Russians, but he had a strange way of treating his friends. If those were indeed his friends. I wasn't sure.
When we got to the top, we came out of the tube into a narrow service corridor, the floor here had the steepest up-curve of all. The pseudo-gravity was too light for real walking, so we sort of bounced forward, caroming off the walls for a bit until Alexei slowed us down and suggested we conserve our energy. He pointed to handholds spaced along the walls. "Use those. Pull yourselves along. Pretend you're swimming. I will carry the little one—" I wished he hadn't said that about swimming. I was already having trouble remembering up and down. This wasn't as much fun as it looked. Stinky thought it was fun. He wanted to try bouncing by himself, but Alexei promised him that it would be more fun to ride on his back, so he decided to try that instead. How often do you get to piggy-back ride a Loonie in free fall?
We passed a whole bunch of keep out, this means you! and authorized personnel only! signs, but Alexei ignored them. Whenever we came to a locked hatch, Alexei would pull out an appropriate clearance card and pass us through. "How do you have all these cards?" Dad asked.
"Ah, it speaks—" Alexei laughed. To Dad, he said, "What do you think I came here to study? Domestic Ecology. I am on a work-study plan. I earn my education with hands-on experience. I am three years here, I have clearances everywhere. I can go anywhere on the station. It is the perfect job for a young smuggler, da? Do not worry, Mr. Dingillian, I do not abuse the trust of my employers. At least, not very often. And usually only for a good cause. This is a good cause. Besides, if what Mikhail tells me is true, I think that my usefulness here has just ended. I am returning to Gagarin very shortly. I will visit my money."
"When?" Dad asked.
"Tonight," laughed Alexei. "On the very same elevator as you. We go out together. Ann, here we are—"
Here was a thick hatch into a triple-sealed room—an airlock? Inside was a ladder up into a hatch in what would have been the ceiling, except there was so little gravity here, it didn't feel like a ceiling—except for the orientation of a big red arrow marked this side up in English as well as in several other languages.
Alexei passed Stinky into Mickey's arms and pulled himself up the ladder. At the top, he hesitated, scratching his cheek thoughtfully. He put his card into the reader and punched an entry code. The panel flashed green. He looked back down
to us. "You must be very careful here. We are at the hub. The axis. The Line passes through a pressurized core. We run pipes and conduits and vents through the core all the way from Disk One to Disk Seven. It is the foundation for the next stage of construction—a common domestic ecology. But the core doesn't rotate, because it's connected to the Line itself. As you come through the hatch, it will look like the top side of the corridor is moving; it isn't—we are. It isn't fast, but it's fast enough to look scary. Just keep your head down, hold onto the railings, you'll be fine. I'll be right here to help. Any questions? No? Good. Let's go."
Alexei tapped the Go panel and the hatch slid open. He pulled himself up through the opening and disappeared for a moment. Then his head reappeared. "Hokay, Douglas, you come next please?" Douglas jumped and floated right up to the hatch, grabbing onto the handholds near the top. Alexei put a hand on his shoulder to keep him from sailing through. Douglas pulled himself up carefully and peered through the hatch. "That's right," Alexei coached. "Float through slowly. Hang onto this railing and just move down to make room." Douglas nodded and went through.
"Hokay, Charles—you come next. This is very easy, da?" I swallowed hard. For some reason, up and down and sideways had suddenly decided to stop being up and down and sideways and were all changing directions on me. I felt dizzy. I squeezed my eyes tightly shut. Sometimes that helped. This time it didn't.
"Charles? Are you all right—?" That was Dad. I didn't answer.
"Charles—.'" That was Alexei. "Open your eyes and look at me. Do it now!" His voice was so hard it startled me. I opened my eyes. He was holding his hand out toward me. "Look at my hand, see? Just grab my hand, hokay? I'll do the rest."
Before I could shake my head no, or even as I did, I felt Dad lifting me up to take Alexei's hand. Alexei grabbed my arm and pulled me gently through the hatch. "See, that wasn't so bad—here, grab this railing and hold on. Douglas, hold him, please? Thank you. Move down now, just a bit. Make room for the others." I was still uncomfortable—almost close to tears, I didn't know why—but then Douglas put his arm around my shoulder and held me close and I didn't feel quite so bad anymore.
Jumping off the Planet d-1 Page 19
