The Duke of Uranium

by John Barnes

  Of course, with tens of thousands of news sources and millions of different-interest readers, most people would never know about him, but a few tens of thousands of people around the solar system might be impressed, and you never knew, one of them might be able to do him some good.

  He decided to give Uncle Sib a call and see what he thought of the idea of applying to work on the Spirit of Singing Port. It would beat being continually bored, but maybe there was some aspect Jak was overlooking.

  Sib's reaction was straightforward. "Old pizo, you are being had. But it's really good for you and I think you should go along with it."

  "What do you mean, had?" No such thought had occurred to Jak; he drummed his fingers impatiently on the communications desk while he waited for Uncle Sib's image to go from a still picture to motion again.

  "—ship's crews always have gender balance problems," Sib said, after the radio lag. The detector that took it back to motion when you spoke never seemed to work quite perfectly, so half of the initial "sh" had been cut off. "It's an effect of having a small population. They don't want to lose ship-raised people, who are far too valuable, so they have to find potential mates for them who might want to move shipboard. And they very often recruit passengers. They're going to offer you a position as a cupvy, and I strongly suggest that you take it. First of all, your friend is telling you the truth—it's your way into the Spatial, which is worlds better than being stuck in the Army. The Hive Spatial is just about eighty percent union anyway, so you can even get more union points during your hitch. You could end up as a crewie, which, as you've noticed, is not a bad life, and besides it might be a good place to be if you decide to join that so-rial club your aunt and I belong to. And you did want to travel. Okay, now you ask questions." An instant later his face froze into a still photo.

  Jak had the odd thought that Uncle Sib might be doing anything right now during the radio lag, but after all, just nine days into the voyage, the lag was still less than a minute. Probably Sib was only scratching or sipping his coffee.

  Jak shook himself out of his reverie and asked, "What's a cupvy? And if it's such a good deal, why are they trying to trick me into it?"

  About ten long seconds later, the time for the radio message to get back and forth, Uncle Sib's face moved again. "—C-U-P-V, Crew, Unpaid, Passenger, Volunteer. They'll tease you about it and there are dozens of CUPV jokes you'll hear, but half the space crew families on the sunclippers started out that way, and you'll be fine if you just take it in a good spirit. It's basically affectionate; crewies think theirs is the best life in the solar system (they do have a case) and they only invite people they like into it.

  "And that's the answer to your other question. They weren't trying to trick you, exactly. They're just aware that because they lead highly regulated lives, and most people who can afford to travel in space as passengers don't lead highly regulated lives, their way of life might seem very strange and unpleasant to you. So they try to give you the chance to see what you might like about it, but they're nervous about the subject because they know that so many noncrewie people have neither the sense of responsibility nor the dedication to really learn the lifestyle, you see? But you might. You haven't been raised as a spoiled brat, like most people with your advantages. I've tried to make sure that you know about doing what needs doing when it needs to be done. So you should have more than enough self-discipline to fit into their culture, if that's what you want." Sib looked down and licked his upper lip; for a moment Jak thought he was about to ask for more questions, but then he realized it was the way Sib always looked when he was about to ask something awkward. "Uh, just to check here… I suppose I'm just kind of wondering if things have changed at all… by any chance is there a really lovely, intelligent, charming young woman involved in this process?" His image froze; Jak's turn to talk.

  Jak couldn't help laughing, and immediately told Sib all about Phrysaba. "So she's just bait for acquiring new crewies? She and her brother seemed like such toktru toves!" Jak said to the motionless image of his uncle's face.

  After the long lag, Sib looked precessed. "Not at all! As I said, it's not a trick! They wouldn't be doing this if they didn't really like you and want to share their way of life with you. You really should feel flattered, honored, and welcome, and it's absolutely a friendly thing they're doing—you're not being shanghaied or press-ganged, honestly!

  "I was about to point out one more advantage, was all. After all, once you get Princess Shyf out of her predicament, you must realize that she can hardly come back to the Hive for a while—her cover here is blown, and anyway agents of Uranium might well try another kidnapping. So she's going to have to spend at least a long time, until things cool down or agreements are worked out, back at the family palace in Greenworld. It was kind of time for that anyway—she needed to get much more acquainted with her family, and the politics, and the court traditions. And I do know how fond of her you really are and that no matter what, even if she were to decide she wanted you as one of her consorts and you were to accept, it's going to be a few years. So I was sort of hoping that… well, you're a healthy young man, and you know, pizo, there's one thing that always helps a broken heart recover—"

  Jak grinned. "Uncle Sib," he said, "you've sold me on the advantages, toktru, but having you worry about my love life is far too weird. All right, I speck you've told me everything I needed to know." They chatted for a few minutes; Sib gave him the gossip from home, and Jak talked about the strangeness of being a minor star of the news.

  When they disconnected, Jak immediately called up the appropriate screens and signed on as a CUPV. Before he went to sleep that night, he had already been issued two old coveralls that didn't quite fit right, each with "CUPV" printed on the chest and back, in the large block letters that Jak associated with convicts, plus a UAS Points Log to clip to the breast pocket, and a schedule of shifts. The next morning, when he rose to go to his first shift, he found that he had a message from Phrysaba, inviting him for coffee that night. It felt like the world was falling into place.

  Chapter 6

  There's Always Gold in Mercury

  Within an hour of reporting for work, Jak was bounding down an auxiliary propulsion tube about three meters across, pulling out panels that had detectable rough spots and replacing them with new, smooth panels. The interesting technical part of it was that you were only supposed to touch the sides on panels that had been identified as rough and were about to be replaced.

  In the abstract, Jak was well aware that if it had not been him, it would have been some shipborn ten-year-old, who would no doubt have been much less awkward and much quicker, not to mention also not spoiling two smooth panels early on by slipping and missing. But having to stay in the moment to get it done felt great. The rush of trying to drop a quarter kilometer in .02 g, in a very precise pattern aiming to hit the eight points where sprites danced on the surface, all the while carrying the ultralightweight replacement panel with him, challenged and exhilarated him. After one initial bad drop that spoiled a panel—the shift chief, Lewo Treadora, seemed almost to expect it, and was not the least bit unkind about it—Jak enjoyed the complexity and precision of the task, the way in which his own skill developed, and perhaps most of all the thought that he was doing something that might matter.

  After Jak put the last panel before break in place, he felt like he'd finally done a singing-on job. Lewo said, "All right, nice work. The truth is, that's some of the best I've seen from a CUPV, and it's just your first day, so by the end of the voyage, I think we ought to be able to make a moderately clumsy, not-too-dangerous rigger out of you."

  Jak took that as the compliment it was and asked, "If you could, do you suppose you could tell me why I was doing that?"

  "Well, really it was to let me see whether you had the coordination, the aptitude, and most of all the willingness to learn. A certain number of CUPVs don't want to do jobs that are tedious, or take concentration, or aren't glamorous or demandin
g or exciting enough. If you're not willing to do what one of our children has been doing for years, and try to become as automatically good at it as one of the children, then I need to know that so I can shunt you off to harmless and trivial things. And so far, anyway, you pass that aspect of the test with your screen solid green; I'm going to feel pretty confident about putting you into jobs that matter that aren't necessarily the most fun but are where you can learn the craft fastest."

  Jak nodded. 'Thank you, but what I meant was—why do we replace panels for being rough?"

  Lewo laughed. "And I thought it was a philosophical matter. I was just about to give you my whole philoso-phy of education." He laughed again. "Do you know what an auxiliary propulsion tube does?"

  "Propels auxiliaries?"

  "Not a bad guess, which is what I say when you're completely wrong but I'm not going to make fun of you about it. When we need extra thrust, we open the tube to vacuum at one end or the other, point it in some direction, squirt in some charged propulsion particles (high-energy protons, fission electrons from the ship's reactor, sometimes hard alpha), put a like charge on the walls of the tube, and pump current through the big coil that surrounds this tube on the outside, to set up a magnetic field running through the tube parallel to the walls. Basically it's one of about two hundred nozzles for the ion rocket. Very small errors in the surface can create turbulence in the flow, which can rob us of a big percentage of the power, which is bad. Panels get rough from chemical processes, dust, all sorts of things, but it's so cheap for the nanos to make more that we just replace and recycle constantly. So you made two kids' day, today, two of my nine-year-olds, because they do this every day all day long."

  Jak looked at the shift clock. "So, making a wild guess, I bet there are some more tubes I'm supposed to do?"

  Lewo beamed at him. "I see budding executive material already."

  After the third tube that day, the job might have gotten dull, but Jak tried to focus on doing it well. Besides, once Lewo mentioned that the nine-year-olds could do a tube in less than half an hour, whereas it was taking Jak about an hour and ten minutes, it gave him some-thing to shoot for. As Jak finished his last, fourth tube for the day, and signaled the robot to haul him up the center, he was pleased to see that he had finally done one in less than an hour. "Do you happen to know," he asked Lewo, "if this is what I'll be assigned to again tomorrow? I'm kind of hoping so, because I'd like to get good at it."

  "Eh?" Lewo looked startled, and then suddenly grinned. "I can't quite believe you asked that. Oh my, pizo, you are a rare breed."

  "I'm sorry, did I ask—"

  "Not at all. The other, hidden part of the work assignments I give is that they help most passengers find out that being a crewie on shift is dull hard work, for the most part. Probably three-quarters of CUPVs they send me quit after the first day, pretty much all after the second. The usual question is about how soon they can steer the ship or something silly like that. So, all right then. You're on tube duty for a while, till you're good at it." From the way Lewo smiled and shook his head as he made the entry, Jak had to conclude that somehow, what he had said must be singing-on what he ought to have said.

  He went to his offshift workouts—Disciplines sparring with Clevis, who was weak at it but a good sport and much better than just working out against the machine— feeling a little tired, with his muscles just not quite what they usually were due to the unaccustomed ways of using them. It felt good, and the Public Baths after were really lovely. Jak wasn't sure that he'd want to be a crewie for the rest of his life, but he was finding the possibility hard to dismiss.

  Also, he wasn't sure, but it felt like the atmosphere in the Bachelors' Mess was subtly different; word gets around fast in a small community, and perhaps Lewo had said something or other that had indicated how pleased he was with Jak's work. Or then again, perhaps Jak had just felt a little guilty before about doing no work when everyone else did, and now he didn't, and therefore the difference was in him and not in his messmates. Whatever the reason, he felt more accepted, more like someone who belonged there and less like a guest, and he liked that feeling, as he tried to explain to Phrysaba over coffee that evening.

  "It's strange," she said, "how some problems can be invisible till you get to see them in other people. All of us here have been accepted our whole lives—I mean, not necessarily liked, there are some pretty bitter feelings here and there—but I've never had to feel like I wasn't part of the Spirit, or if I quarreled with someone, I'd never hear from them." She ran a hand through her short hair and said, "So how did you end up with a princess, again?"

  "I told you, she didn't seem that different from anyone else. Smarter and prettier than any other girl I know, of course, kindhearted and loyal, and she had the good taste to be interested in me—"

  One reason why Jak felt less guilt about his situation was that Sesh was one of Phrysaba's favorite subjects of conversation. Her other favorites, in no particular order, were the complexity of optimizing a course for maximum revenue, what to wear for the Exchange Dance, how nice it was to talk with someone who cared about her feelings, the failings of her brother as a human being, and what an absolute pain projective geometry in which you brought seven dimensions down to the usual four was; unlike Piaro, she still had some years of academic study ahead of her.

  Piaro had told him that his sister was generally quite shy and reserved, but Jak noticed after a while that he was having a hard time getting a word in; well, very likely a part of his attraction to her was that he was willing to listen. Or at least to look into her eyes in a way that almost anyone would mistake for listening. The last time he had been paying attention, she had been talking about the difficulty of an exercise she was working through in numerical simulations training; now the subject seemed to have switched to whether, in the much-less-fashionable world of the Spirit of Singing Port, it was time yet to introduce the asymmetric fashions that had been common in the Hive for the better part of a decade, and especially whether she could possibly be the first girl on board to get away with wearing gozzies.

  Jak went to his bunk that night a little less enamored and a little more confused; he really didn't know what to make of Phrysaba.

  A few days later, after their shifts and after a dozen or so rounds of Disciplines sparring, Piaro and Jak were catching their breaths and contemplating whether or not they wanted to go any more rounds. "How's the work going?" Piaro asked. "Lewo specks you're doing all right."

  "That's what he tells me, too, so either he's maintaining a consistent story, or I'm doing all right. I'm off propulsion tubes and out in an evasuit, now, defouling lines. It's scarier but the challenge is nice."

  "Yeah, we lost a seven-year-old a couple of years ago doing that. Brill's cousin, I don't remember his name. Poor kid never did take to being swatted, and he was trying to jolt one of the mountings up and down, just throwing the lever back and forth—which they tell you to only do in emergencies—because it was late in his shift, and I suppose he didn't want to take the car a hundred or two hundred kilometers up toward the sails to free up a fuse point so he could replace the lines."

  The monosil lines that connected the sunclipper to its array of continent-sized shrouds were astonishing for their ratio of strength to weight, but over time they tended to lose the one-atom-thick coat of hydrogen atoms that kept them from sticking to each other. Once enough hydrogen atoms were lost, when two lines bumped, they fused, with a strength far greater than anyone could separate, and left to themselves, all the lines would eventually have ended up as a tangled mass of fused spaghetti, collapsing the sails and leaving the sun-clipper helpless in space. A typical fuse point would grow from a centimeter to a few kilometers long within an hour, so they were not something to neglect, and had to be dealt with immediately. Hence, whenever two lines fused, it was necessary to go out to where they had joined, fuse two long patching pieces onto the lines somewhere on the sunclipper side of the fuse point, go over the fusion to whe
re the lines separated again on the sail side, fuse the ends of the repair pieces to the lines there, and finally cut away the ruined piece of monosil, winding it onto a spool for recycling.

  In an emergency, it was sometimes possible, by yanking on the two lines, to cause the fused lines to break apart, usually leaving one of them functional and the other dangling, and to fix the latter with a simpler, easier procedure that didn't involve going out. It made for a sloppy joint, left a weak spot in one line, and sometimes simply didn't work, and you weren't supposed to do that.

  "So what happened to him?"

  "Oh. Well, it was nasty. He got caught jouncing, so he was about to take a whack on the head, when he undipped from the safety lines and tried to run away. But, you know, on a cable platform—maybe three dozen monosil cables under tension—and being unclipped, and panicking, he kicked kind of hard, and he sailed right across a monosil cable."

  "Errggh." Jak felt sick. Monosil cables weren't much thicker than a dozen strands of DNA; they would go through metal like a cheese slicer through butter.

  "It must've been pretty quick. He was cut in half probably before he knew it, and out in the vacuum, the explosive decompression from all those open organs and blood vessels would have made sure he was unconscious an instant later. It also propelled him away from the ship—so as far as anyone knows, he's still out there in a cometary orbit, on his way to somewhere up beyond Pluto, coming back into the lower system in a few hundred years."

  "I still can't believe you have little kids doing that kind of work."

  Piaro shrugged. "Most of them learn. Practically all. But for every environment, there are people who can't or won't function in it—or at least observably don't. This kid was always in trouble from the moment he could talk and move; he always acted like he thought the rules were there because adults were mean, like people hit him for fun or because they didn't like him, like if he just whined about it then everything would change to the way he wanted it to be. I have no idea how he came to be that way. He wasn't raised any different from any other kid." Piaro paused to stretch and said, "Wow, you really got a good shot into my ribs last time; I think you didn't pull it as much as you might have."