Asimov's SF, July 2008

by Dell Magazine Authors

  “Wonderful.”

  “It's going to get better,” I lied. False hope was better than none.

  “Where are we going?”

  “Up that ladder, over a crosswalk, then up another ladder. We'll enter the fourth ventilation shaft on the left.”

  “Where are we going?” she repeated.

  “I promise this will be worthwhile, meka.”

  “Don't call me that!”

  I removed the cover from a duct and crawled inside. When we reached our destination I contorted into a sitting position in front of a vent.

  “Our Senate sold our zoo to Ceres. It's for the best. The keepers have been feeding the herbivores to the carnivores because their food budget can only afford algae.”

  Three emaciated bison moved up a ramp into the python-corridor connecting New Dearborn with a docked freighter. The crackle of electric prods filled the air with ozone. Kangaroos wore shackles. A forklift hauled a cage with my favorite tiger, Czar Nicholas. He roared his contempt, reaching through the bars to take a lazy swipe at one of the workers.

  My favorite cat, not Lisa's. She preferred the fish. Those had become tiger food.

  “They're the lucky ones,” I whispered.

  Grey eyes glowed with reflected light. “Why don't you leave?”

  “I own my apartment. Leave New Dearie now and I leave with zilch. If I stick around, my property will be worth something again. You have to hope—it's all we can afford.”

  Horses clopped serenely, scarcely a neigh. Saint Bernards were reluctant, snapping travelers. Someone dropped a box of squirrels. It broke open, providing excellent entertainment.

  We took a series of maintenance tunnels back to the Red Cross shelter in Impala Hall. Avoiding a pair of electricians kept us on our toes. It was a harmless game, sneaking through the tunnels like teens.

  “Why do you work so many jobs, Newton?”

  “Lots of civil servants bailed, and the polis can't afford to replace them. I started out as a tech in the Bureau of Stats. Now I wear a diff hat every day. I enjoy the variety.”

  “I was a Mine Supervisor for Comtelle. I had one hundred and ninety-four miners under me.”

  “That must have been lumpy.” When she didn't laugh, I hastily added, “I didn't know humans still mined.”

  “When I say miner, I mean machine. I made more money in a fortnight than you do in a decade. My job won't be open when I get back,” she sighed like a leaking tire.

  Before I could ask any questions from my long list, Diane vanished into an ocean of chars loitering around the entrance of the shelter. My stomach lurched. I squinted for a final glimpse, even the back of her head. A visual nightcap.

  I returned to Fairlane Hall ere it dawned on me that I'd forgotten to ask for another date. Feeling every inch the consummate putz, I rang the shelter. A village idiot connected me with a schizoid who connected me with a drunk who insisted his name was Diane.

  Futility gave me a thundering headache.

  But I didn't dream of Lisa.

  * * * *

  interlude

  Paul's head sagged to his desk. “C'mon, Henry, this is insane! I know a therapist with a kink for older men.”

  “Call me an older man once more and I'll staple your face to your desk. I'm only—” Could I really be forty and feel four hundred?

  “Chars will use you.”

  “My skull is too small to hold her face. There's no explaining it.”

  “Have I introduced you to Janice's cousin Zelda?”

  “Her eyes change color every time I look into them. Pure magic.”

  “Not magic, just lighting,” groaned my oldest friend. He pounded his head against the desk. “You're hopeless. Jump her bones. Get it out of your system.” He pulled weights out of a drawer and began curling.

  I rubbed my eyes, trying to remove the ghost of my wife from my imagination.

  On her day off Lisa had come to work with me; on my day off I had tagged along with my wife. It was an unspoken agreement that we wouldn't speak while the other worked. Propinquity sufficed. For two decades we'd never been more than a few hours away from each other. She was supposed to tag along with me that day, but a crew member of a docked ship was selling sausages for Neds, not hard currency. I envisioned her standing in line when that damned freighter tore through our city's hull.

  I exhaled slowly. Orders on the left and inventory on the right split my computer screen. Door motors registered a big zero again. I matched what few parts we had to citizens qualified to make their own repairs. It wasn't much, but better than sitting on my hands.

  “Henry, she's a major mistake. I might as well be talking to the wall,” he told the wall.

  “Walls? I saw some wall panels in the inventory of Storage Six. Have I mentioned how Diane smells? She—”

  “Just remember, I told you so.”

  * * * *

  second date

  I strolled from the City Printing Office with a toner cartridge stuffed down my pants. It took an hour to find Sydney. The hustler purchased the cartridge for two thousand Neds.

  No sooner had I hand-cranked my door shut than the phone beeped.

  “Henry?”

  “Diane? I tried to call you.” The plaintive tone of my voice embarrassed me.

  “I'm too bored to breathe. Would you like to kick around for a while?”

  “Pos. You could pop over here.”

  “What if we meet in Smith Hall?” she asked. “I saw the animals, but I haven't seen the zoo.”

  “They locked it up after the riot. Dream Hall might be fun. We could people watch or something.”

  “I'll see you in front of Nixon Burger in twenty.” The line went dead.

  After counting the profit from my larceny I emptied my retirement fund out of an old shoe. A roll of one hundred Ned coins came as a surprise. So much cash tempted me to splurge on a tube ride.

  Diane sat on the rim of a faux marble fountain. Framed in spotlights and water spray, her violet hair appeared to glow. Her hands and bare feet were painted to match her hair. The woman flapped her cast by way of welcome, then moaned from the ill-advised movement.

  “What happened?” My fingers brushed her cast.

  “I made the mistake of sharing a bottle my first night at the shelter. Someone thought that obliged me to share my body.”

  “I hope you hurt them, meka.”

  “Don't call me that! My husband calls me that.”

  I sat beside her. When our knees touched I felt electricity. My lungs forgot to fill.

  “Husband, past tense.” Once the first words flowed, the dam failed and more tumbled from her pouty lips. “I flew out to Chalgrin Polis to surprise him. Barry volunteered for the Trade and his contract was up. He didn't get off the transport, so I went to the consulate. Had a bureaucrat fork over a ‘Dear Diane’ memo. The son of a bitch didn't have the common decency to send a vid or even a letter.”

  My hand fluttered atop her fist. I pulled her to her feet and we wended through the retail hall. Half the lights were dark, much to the delight of hormonal teens moaning in the deeper shadows. We continued to a Vendo outlet.

  “No strings,” I promised, feeding a vending machine nine coins.

  I pushed a steaming tray of beef stew at Diane. For myself, I selected fried algae cakes. After leering at her sashay to a corner table, I went down the line until my roll of hundreds disappeared. Chocolate and carrots, almonds and leeks, and, of course, coffee-waters crowded my tray.

  “I once spent a thousand dollars—real dollars, not these phony Neds—to lose five kilos. I've lost twice that since I arrived on this can. Maybe I'll open a weight loss clinic when I return home—fortified oatmeal three times a day, that's the shelter's secret.”

  She licked a petite cube of beef gravy-free. Could a tongue be that long? After sprinkling almonds atop the stew she attacked the leeks and carrots. I nibbled on a Hershey bar before giving it to her. The only other customer rose and staggered out of the joint. />
  I needed privacy to lick a lady's fingers clean.

  “You aren't getting laid.”

  “If I wanted a sure thing, I would have rented someone. We could—”

  “Why are those Neds so incredibly large? My money-belt is a mess,” she said.

  “Whenever the Fund devalues our currency, our Senate makes the money larger. It's a laugh.”

  “Money is NEVER a laughing matter. I planned to throw Barry a mega-party. Teach my husband, my ex to call me a miser! So I had my life's saving in cash.”

  “Cash?” I asked.

  “I was going to prove I was no cheapskate. I wanted to see his face when I tipped a waiter a week's wages. But he didn't show, and I was mad, and I started drinking, and one thing led to another—my ID, my return ticket, even my clothes...all stolen. The consulate was pleasant about the disaster. They gave me a choice of carriers back home. If I had chosen better—”

  “Carrier?” I'd been distracted by the curve of her wrist.

  “Luna provides stranded citizens a ticket home. I abrogated my gov's responsibility for my well-being by jumping ship on New Dearborn. They didn't believe me about the assault. If I hadn't jumped ship, one of those perverts would have murdered me. I—”

  Diane leapt up and fled the dining area. My foot caught in the chair, slowing my pursuit. Outside the Vendo, I collided with a shopper the size of Io. By the time we untangled my date had vanished.

  I returned to the table and finished the feast. We never wasted food on Dearie. The stew tasted wonderful because she had touched it.

  * * * *

  an interlude of doubt

  I anxiously awaited the days until my job rotation placed me in front of a terminal in Judge Bundy's office, allowing me to research her record.

  For thirty years Diane had escaped the attention of John Law, then she left Luna and became a crime spree. The report of her rip-off was dated the ninth. She spent the tenth in the drunk tank. On the twelfth, she assaulted a cop who busted her for suspicion of unlicensed prostitution. The next day, she was arrested for attempted murder of a dockworker.

  Long weekends were hell on Chalgrin Polis.

  She'd filed an attempted rape report with the New Dearborn police when she blew into town. The document accused the entire second watch bridge crew of the freighter Nelson IX. Five crew members claimed a birthday party went awry after the “hired help” went insane. Given their clean records, it was an open and shut case; more so, once they learned Diane had been expelled from rowdy Chalgrin as an undesirable.

  Fortunately, jails cost money New Dearie didn't have. More fortunately for Diane, the Red Cross got to her before someone in uniform “accidently” airlocked her. I scanned a copy of a notification she'd received from home nulling her citizenship until she appeared before a tribunal of her peers back on the Moon.

  Her broken arm wasn't mentioned. However, an alert had been sent from the Red Cross to the police about her propensity for violence.

  What had I gotten myself into? What had she gotten herself into?

  * * * *

  third date

  The Red Cross shelter's antiseptic lobby harked back to my college dorm—tasteless and indestructible. Every few minutes someone asked me why I was there. I gave them Diane's name, and they wandered off, never to return. From the corner of my eye I saw her enter the room.

  She saw me and fled.

  “What's the shake?” I asked once I caught up with her.

  “We are mutually exclusive personalities. You're a go-nowhere wage-slave on a go-nowhere poverty polis. I'll escape this orbital disaster, but you're going to ROT here!”

  “You want to see something fun?”

  She shrugged.

  I used the access card I'd been issued during my stint as a janitor to activate a freight elevator. She followed reluctantly, her hand stuffed into her knife-pocket. After the ride we followed a maze of stairs and corridors.

  The Lounge had been a nightclub before the first bankruptcy. A profound chill puffed our breath. Swirling Jupiter peeked at us through bare patches in the frost-covered dome. Directly overhead, lights from a distant polis dominated the field of stars. A moon (Which one? My brain blanked as I brushed against Diane.) the size of a ping-pong ball glowed saffron as it melded the anemic rays of Sol with the reflected glory of Jupiter. We huddled wordlessly in the center of the dance floor, watching Jupiter for an hour.

  The long walk back to Impala Hall restored our body heat. Much to my surprise, her cast-topped hand wrapped around mine. That made me all the warmer. I resisted the urge to bury my face in her vivid mane.

  “I'm a loser in a loser polis. My savings are trapped like a fly in amber in a negative equity apartment. It isn't the life I planned, but it's the one I have, so I'll muddle through.”

  “I'm angry at my life, not you,” she admitted.

  “There have been massive housing shortages ever since Earth was murdered. Sooner or later, folks'll come fill Dearie. If we can replace our population, our economy will revive. This much I can hope for.”

  “Hope is all you people have, isn't it?”

  “I envy you. Bones heal. Bruises fade. You'll get back to the Moon and forget your pain. You don't need hope, you have a future. My future may never heal.”

  “Maimed metaphors don't heal either.”

  Her laughter echoed down the stairwell, leaving as dulcet and returning as a ghostly taunt. Our feet beat time on the stairs. A step groaned beneath my foot.

  Metal shrieked in my imagination. Crash doors creaked shut. Trapped behind them, the hapless pounded their fists bloody. The alarms covered their screams until the air finished hissing into space. Lisa had been found with....

  I clenched my eyes and fought the memories.

  “What if your Senate seizes your property under eminent domain and—”

  “A cheerful thought.”

  “Don't interrupt me!” She pushed me away with balled fists. Her scowl fluttered into a frown into a smile. “I'm sorry.”

  “No, it was my fault.”

  Silence strangled the moment until she said, “I found a job as a short order cook at Annie's Kudzu Chips at night and warehousing at Vollen's during the day. They both start Monday. We should celebrate this weekend.”

  “My place? No strings. I'll whip us up a feast.”

  “Don't make this something it isn't. I'm lonely, and I don't hate you. That's as far as it goes. Friday, say seven. Must you leer like that?”

  “It's not a leer. I'm suffering an astonishment-stroke.”

  “Polis trash,” she grumbled by way of good-bye outside the shelter.

  I danced home.

  * * * *

  preparations

  Nuclear industry generated our orbital city's sole export dollars. The firm ran a constant ad for help. I had refrained from temp work there in the past. However, I'd never invited a violet-haired woman to my home before.

  The doctor holstered her scanner before signing the company health certificate. Her afghan shift was threadbare, but starch-stiff and clean. “Yer remarkably healthy for a man committing suicide.”

  My ears twitched at her coarse accent. Was it something in the water that made Martians so loud? So opinionated? So very Martian?

  “I eat a lot of veggies.”

  “You can die like this!” She snapped long, calloused fingers. “If yer lucky. Otherwise, you may join the cancer of the month club. Is such risk worth a few Neds?”

  “A few thousand Neds wouldn't get me out of bed on my day off. It's that extra ration card I'll get that hooked me. I have an acquaintance who will trade a five hundred gram tinned ham for that rat-card.”

  Brown curls showered dandruff on her narrow shoulders. Orange-dyed eyes caught fire. “Yer working as a Glow Boy for a pound of meat?”

  I grinned like a polis idiot. “As long as I work smart, I'll be okay. A lot of my pards have done it. Those breeder reactors are safer than you think. Besides, it's Diane's first time o
ver, and I want to impress her with the ham.”

  “Yer killing yerself to impress a woman? Is this her name as yer next of kin? Impala Hall? That's the shelter's address. Curiouser and curiouser.”

  “You make it sound like I'm bobbing for plutonium. I replace some pipes, clean some filters, maybe mop a few floors. A few rads won't hurt me.”

  “Yer showing yer age, Citizen Newton. They're measured in ‘eels’ these days.” She flipped open a book to show me color plates of radiation burns.

  “An attitude as sour as yours will end up on your permanent record.” I laughed when she didn't.

  She glued a dosimeter on my bare chest. “Don't touch it. I'm the only person that can remove that badge without causing excruciating pain. Don't allow the Company to tell you different.”

  “Absol, meka.” I winked.

  She guffawed.

  Minutes later, I entered the reactor complex. The door on the locker room had a broken hinge. My paranoia rejoiced after I inflated the envirsuit to check for leaks and found several. It exhausted a roll of duct tape to seal the raggedy envir. A heartbeat after I donned the helmet, an alarm sounded.

  I peeked, then cautiously advanced deeper into the facility. The alarms and flashing lights tore through me. As long as I kept moving, fear didn't clot my heart. The sleazy filter in the neck of the suit made the air taste metallic. A burning figure rocketed out of a doorway. The runner knocked me flat before crashing headfirst into a wall.

  Ma Newton's boy didn't need a falling apple for inspiration. Slapping out the flames, I dragged the unconscious runner to the complex's primary airlock. The guard cycled us through in a trice; whereupon, we were sprayed, peeled, sprayed, and hustled to Chez Doc.

  “Fried,” she announced after one glance at me.

  “Remind me to discuss your bedside manner later.”

  A nurse with a Fu Manchu moustache pushed me flat on the table and slapped a derm on my shoulder. The thingee in his hand tore an appalling amount of flesh off me. He yanked the dosimeter off before the painkiller kicked in.

  The doc screamed, though I could not make out her words. She and the nurse fought to control the runner's convulsions. His face and visor had fused into a horror show. My brain capsized in the sea of numbness.