“It wasn’t the best night of my life to begin with,” Tan had said.
“Do you have someplace to stay?”
Meg and Tan had looked at each other, shrugged.
“Come and hang at my place,” Best said. He corrected himself. “My dad’s place. We can set fire to the curtains and throw the furniture through the windows.”
So here she was, in Philip K. Best’s duplex penthouse, atop a high-rise that spiked out of the roof of downtown Regnar like a quill on the back of a balding porcupine.
They hadn’t thrown anything through the windows, which were just screens, anyway. The only damage they’d done was to Philip K. Best’s liquor cabinet, for which Meg was now paying the price. She really wasn’t much of a drinker. She blamed Collie Mack.
The bed rocked as she stirred. It hung from the ceiling, instead of standing on the floor. A gauzy canopy enclosed it, cocooning her in privacy. She could hear water trickling musically over rocks. The sound came from, get this, an actual waterfall in the atrium. She could get used to this ...
A bright red flash pierced the bed’s canopy. And another. Each flash bathed the sheets in gory crimson.
She rolled out of bed and stumbled over Tan, who was sleeping on the floor. The flashes came from the window. Some kind of warning? An emergency alert? Her fight-or-flight reflex went into overdrive. She reached for a weapon she didn’t have.
The flashing stopped. The window went back to displaying a view of the atrium.
There, among the fruit trees and sculptures, stood Collie Mack himself, laughing, pointing Best’s handgun at her, or so it felt like. He’d been aiming the sighting laser at the camera.
“Very fucking funny,” Meg said. She shook Tan conscious.
They trailed out to the atrium, wearing the same civvies they’d had on yesterday. Best and Colm were sitting at the wrought iron table near the waterfall. Colm was chowing down on steak and mashed potatoes, presumably whipped up to order by the kitchen staff, while Best palely stuck to coffee.
She pulled up a chair. “So did you score, Collie Mack?”
“Yeah, and then I puked on her,” Colm said. He re-enacted the scene with comic exaggeration. Meg guffawed, suddenly feeling a lot better. Even Best smiled.
“If my wife finds out I’ve been hanging with you guys ...” sighed Tan, the family man. He perked up as the maid delivered his breakfast, a huge omelet and a mountain of hash browns. Meg thanked the woman for her coffee. It made her feel icky to be waited on, although she knew the economy on Gna functioned differently. The planet was awash in underemployed humans. They were cheaper than robots. If you could afford to hire them, it was considered a civic duty to do so. That’s why Philip K. Best kept a staff of ten hanging around his duplex, even though he was rarely here.
“So,” Colm said. “I got a job offer.”
“What kind of thing? Private security?” Meg said. That was the only line of work she could think of. She had never considered a career outside the Fleet.
“Construction,” Colm said.
Tan said, chewing, “Who’s hiring? I need to make some money, too. I have to get home.” A note of desperation escaped through his mouthful of hash browns. He was stranded two light years from his wife and daughters, who lived on Mars. Meg forgot her own misery as she considered how much that must suck. She was a little bit jealous of him, and at the same time, glad she didn’t have any dependents. She only had her father, back on Earth. They had a cordial but not close relationship: he’d never understood why she had joined the Fleet, when she’d won a national karate championship in her teens, and could’ve had a safe career on Earth as a pro.
“Good news,” Colm said. “I’m hiring. I’ve accepted the job, on the condition that I can hire my own crew.”
He laid it out in the laconic tone Meg knew well, which meant he was dying with excitement inside. Massive new defence investments in the Kuiper Belt. It’ll be a feeding frenzy. This is our chance to get in on the bottom floor. We’ll be working for Crasibo Lovelace, an Uzzizellan construction company. They’ve got a contract to build 150 new manned bases on Kuiper Belt objects ...
He got no further before Tan tossed down his knife and fork. “I’m in.”
Meg frowned. “An Uzzizellan company? What’s an Uzzizellan?”
Colm’s voice went soft. “They’re aliens, Smythe.”
Best, who had been silent until this point, said, “I wouldn’t touch it with a ten-foot pole.”
“That’s your business,” Colm said easily. “I assume you’ve got better opportunities. But when you’re broke, it doesn’t matter if your boss has got two legs or eight.”
“It’s a scam,” Best said.
“Sure. Every big-budget defense program is a scam. But does it matter? If the bases get built, they’ll help keep Earth safe.”
In her heart of hearts, Meg wondered if anything could keep Earth safe from the Ghosts. But this gig had to be better than working private security. It would be, as long as Collie Mack was there. “I’m in, too.”
They high-fived. For a dark instant Bekkelund’s ghost hovered beside them.
Colm read Meg’s thoughts. “Vike would approve,” he said quietly. “He’d be glad we’re still in the fight, even if we’ve traded in our guns for shovels.”
*
AS THEY WERE LEAVING, Meg stopped to talk to Best in the atrium. She was still worried about him. “Are you going to be all right?”
“Sure.”
She adopted a stern aunt’s tone. “I want you to promise you won’t do anything stupid.”
“Oh, last night? I was drunk off my ass,” he said dismissively. “I can’t even remember what I said.”
“Really? OK. Cool, I guess.” Maybe she’d overreacted.
Best pointed up into the fig tree overhead. Tame doves roosted on the branches, cooing. “These little guys come from Earth. They don’t know there’s a freezing, toxic atmosphere outside that would kill them instantly.” He met her eyes. “The conditions in the Kuiper Belt are far, far worse than here. Worse than anywhere you’ve worked. Tan thinks it’ll be like building houses on Mars; he’s wrong. It won’t be anything like that. Mackenzie? He doesn’t know shit. He just wants to fly again.”
Meg hoisted her duffel bag on her shoulder. She wasn’t going to stand here and listen to that.
Perhaps realizing he’d crossed a line by ripping on Colm, Best reached out as if to hold her back. “I respect you, Megumi Smythe.” He really was different out of uniform. The Fleet had never been able to wipe away his sheen of privilege, but getting booted from the Fleet had. Unshaven, hungover, he didn’t seem to belong in this luxurious apartment, any more than she did. He said, “I don’t want to see you blindly walking into a ... a boondoggle. That’s all.”
She hesitated. “Do you really think it’s a scam?”
“I know it’s a scam. I’ve heard a lot about this Ring Around the Sun over the last year or so.” Of course, Best’s family connections gave him access to inside information. “There’s an ongoing controversy about accepting bids from alien contractors.”
“If they’ve got the right tech for the job, why not?”
“Yeah, but the sentrienza don’t want us to get mixed up with the queazels. Regardless of what you think of the sentrienza, you have to take that seriously.”
Meg shrugged. “Well, we have to do what it takes to win this war. Whatever it takes.”
She felt bad about dismissing his reservations, but she trusted Colm. If Collie Mack had satisfied himself that this was on the level, that was good enough for her.
“Oh, I agree,” Best said. “We have to win this war, or die trying. That’s why I’m going to go home and join the family business.”
Meg grinned. It was a load off her mind to know he’d made the decision to get on with life, instead of wallowing. “Doing what? Do you know yet?”
“Not in any detail. But Best Industries is also bidding for a contract to build parts of the Ring Around t
he Sun.”
CHAPTER 15
COLM CALLED HOME FROM Kuiper Belt Object 11890, newly named Mezamiria.
“All right, Mam, Dad?”
It would take four hours for his message to reach their computer in Drumnadrochit, so he spoke as if he wasn’t expecting a response. In fact, he was returning their call from yesterday. He had a screen grab from it on the console beside him: his father saying, Are you keeping your hand in, Colm? and holding up a pair of wooden spoons.
“We’ve really got it down to a routine now,” he said. “It’s like a travelling circus. Dad, remember when you went on the road with that circus? We drove all over the country to see you on the weekends ...” Colm couldn’t help needling his father about how far he’d fallen from the heyday of his career: from center ring to kids’ birthday parties. All the fault of the drink, of course, and the weed he grew in the garden shed. “So the Mackenzie and Friends show’s got one more day to run here, and then it’s off to our next assignment.”
He wrenched his gaze away from the video grab and focused on the exterior feed, which showed the sun. Sol was merely the brightest star in the sky. Mezamiria took two millennia to orbit the sun. Hard to believe that it was spring in Scotland now.
Hard to believe that Colm was 39 and his father was still after him to keep his hand in.
But he did not feel as angry with the old man as he would once have. There were several reasons for that, but one big reason was the Kuiper Belt. The isolation out here was enough to make anyone feel more kindly towards Earth and the people there. Although he’d travelled much further with the Fleet, he felt as if he’d never been further from home than he was now, among these lifeless lumps of rock and ice.
Of course, what the Kuiper Belt really was, was empty. Gravitational resonances with Neptune scoured some regions clear, while crowding others with frozen, slowly tumbling planetoids and planetesimals—but crowding was relative, in a region stretching for 20 AUs.
Even time itself seemed to move more slowly out here. The war felt far away. The echoes of military defeats in the Gliese system reached the Kuiper Belt as decisions taken on Earth and Gna, simplified to: Work harder! Work faster! Get it done NOW!
Colm would have liked to bring some of the Crasibo Lovelace execs out here for a visit. See if they still thought it was possible to work harder and faster in temperatures of -200° and below, while the lube froze in your effectors, and microgravity added a maddening tumble factor to every motion. They spent more time maintaining the construction machinery than they did operating it.
He didn’t mention any of this to his parents, of course. “Thanks for the tips, Mam.” She had answered some questions he’d asked in his last call. “I’d forgotten about sifting the flour and baking powder together. Our oven’s a bit wonky, but I’ll send a picture if it turns out. Give my love to Bridget.”
He reached out to end the recording. Then hesitated. His father stared at him from the other screen, frozen in mid-taunt: Are you keeping your hand in, Colm?
“By the way, Dad, you’ll be glad to know I’ve been practicing. I’ve not been playing the spoons, but I’ve been working on this.” He held up a 3cm diameter hex nut. It stood in for a coin. There was no money out here. He threw it up in the air, caught it on the back of his hand. Lifted his other hand away. Gone. He reached towards the camera and plucked the hex nut out of the lens. “Not bad, huh?”
He grinned into the camera, then ended the recording. Let’s see you do a coin vanish that good, Dad.
He hit send and left the cockpit. He was in the middle of baking.
Sift the flour and baking powder together, Mam had said, and don’t forget a pinch of salt. Right you are.
Colm had already beaten the eggs and added sugar, hot water, and vanilla extract. The eggs were reconstituted from powder, but they’d do the job. He was baking a cake for what had become their ritual ‘job done’ party—a bash to celebrate the completion of another KBO base.
This party would also mark the end of their second year out here. Colm wasn’t sure that was a milestone to celebrate. He was planning a strawberry filling for the cake, anyway. His mother had given him the recipe.
He hoped his parents wouldn’t be able to tell that when he called them, he’d been high on tropodolfin.
As he shook the sieve, flour drifted like snow onto the handkerchief-sized galley counter. They had 0.5 Gs of artificial gravity in the crewship, generated the same way as the AG on Navy carriers a thousand times bigger, with a compact meson generator that heterodyned an electromagnetic field to make space-time ‘think’ it was tilted towards the generator. Could space-time actually think? Of course not. But you could still trick it. Interesting ... AG gobbled power like nobody’s business. You wouldn’t normally put it on a five-person ship. But neither could you ask five people to live in freefall for months on end, and build barracks, and hangars, and power plants, and put in all the wiring and the plumbing and etceteras.
Anyway, the crewship’s reactor could handle the power requirements. Esthesia feedback reassured Colm that the molten salt was flowing sweetly, kicking out the kilowatts that stood between them and death.
Outside, the barren ice of Mezamiria stretched to the horizon. The ice glimmered reddish, heavily contaminated with irradiated hydrogen sulfide. Impact craters provided some topographical variety. More prominent was a lowslung geodesic dome, the shield of the base they had just finished building. This base, like the 123 other identical ones now scattered throughout the Kuiper Belt, lay almost entirely underground. Colm poured the batter into a silicon cake tin and panned around with his external eyes for the gearship.
Five times the size of the crewship, the gearship carried the prefabricated structures they assembled and installed. It was unmanned, a flying warehouse. Its cuboid bulk stood on the ice between the crewship and the base. Colm checked the temperature of the oven and put the cake in. At the same time, he moved through the cramped maintenance corridors of the gearship, brushing through bundles of wiring as if they weren’t there, into the engineering spaces that housed the ship’s key systems. Power, propulsion, heat rejection, zero-gravity field generation ... Initiate pre-launch checks.
25 minutes at 180°.
47 minutes to lift-off, assuming the system checks didn’t turn up any issues.
They were scheduled to pull out later today. He’d be launching the gearship first. Had to make sure it got into orbit OK. A month and a half on the ice does no favors to sensitive electronic components. The gearship had its own reactor, of course, which had been ticking over all this time, keeping the ship from freezing. But you can’t cut any corners when you’re 15 AUs from help.
Of course, they could go FTL from here and reach Triton in half an hour.
But if anything goes wrong with the ships, the zero-gravity field generators’ll be borked, too. So there’s that.
“Let’s eat,” he bellowed.
The others had already gathered in the common room, around the circular table. Colm sat down and said a brief grace. He couldn’t remember why he’d started doing this, but nowadays it felt wrong to skip it. “In the name of our Lord, Amen,” he finished, and they all dug into roast chicken, potato dumplings, cream of spinach soup, and freshly baked bread.
Zhanna had baked the bread. In fact, she’d cooked most of the meal. In addition to being a very good geologist, she was also a natural in the kitchen. Just don’t ask her to wait tables.
Colm smiled to himself, watching her tuck her dark hair behind her ears as she chatted with Tan. It could so easily have been a mistake to hire a geologist he’d picked up at a Hawaiian-themed bar on Gna. It had turned out to be one of his better decisions.
They were talking about the zoo on Gna, where Tan planned to take his kids when they got home. Tan had moved his family to Gna, so he could see them on surface leaves. Unspoken: he’d moved them out of the path of the Ghosts. Mars was considered to be the likeliest target for invasion, if and when the Ghosts came t
o our solar system.
That, anyway, was what Fitch said. Fitch Reynolds, two last names, no sense of humor. He was the only crew member Colm hadn’t picked himself. Fitch came from Crasibo Lovelace, billed as an expert in vacuum assembly and construction. Sure, he knew his stuff. He was also a bit of a fantasist. Listen to him now, wearing Smythe’s ear off about the Egyptian pyramids and Atlantis, tying it all in with the Ghosts through some convoluted conspiracy theory.
Smythe just listened and uh-huh’d, chewing stoically on her dumplings. Smythe ... oh Smythe. Colm’s good mood ebbed as he watched her. Of all of them she had the least to do. There just wasn’t any real call for a security expert, even though Crasibo Lovelace stipulated they had to have one. She couldn’t fight the cold, and Colm felt bad every time he saw her mending a fan or cleaning a sewage tank, just to keep busy. He felt bad for hiring her away from some theoretical alternate career path that would have been more exciting. Felt bad around her for any number of reasons, so when she tried to involve him in the ridiculous conversation about Atlantis, he excused himself, saying he had to take the cake out of the oven.
The smell of baking filled the galley. A skewer came out clean. Colm set the cake on the counter to cool. Then he leaned against the cabinets, blowing out deep breaths. The tropodolfin had worn off. The pain was back.
Bright little pains in his jackstands.
A dull ache in his starboard wing.
A rhythmic twinge in his heat exchangers.
Just little dings and breakages. Nothing serious, nothing that would keep them from getting back to Gna. Nothing that could be fixed in these temperatures, even by Smythe, who’d surely have tried if she knew what he was going through. He wasn’t going to let her risk her life out there when he could deal with it.
Anyway, even if they fixed the minor shit, there would still remain the hunger.
The Chemical Mage: Supernatural Hard Science Fiction (The Tegression Trilogy Book 1) Page 9
