The Sunspacers Trilogy

by George Zebrowski

  “Um—good,” Ro said. “Not like any mushroom soup I’ve tasted.”

  “There’s bean curd in it,” Bob said as he sat down between his parents. “I’ve made it since I was a kid.” He rolled his eyes.

  I happened to like the mushroom dishes I had tasted on Merk, but then I usually didn’t eat them all the time, either. Because it was easy to grow them here in parts of the dark tunnels, mushrooms were plentiful and seemed to turn up in almost everything I ate.

  “I’m glad you like it,” Mrs. Svoboda said, smiling.

  “It’s very fine, Mrs. Svoboda,” I said, knowing that I wouldn’t want to have her angry at me for anything.

  “Please,” she said, “call us Robert and Eleanor. Now—you’re Joe, Rosalie, and Bernard.”

  “Call me Bernie.”

  “I hope the delay hasn’t been too boring,” Robert Svoboda said from the head of the table. “I’m aware that there has been some bad feeling—”

  “We’re anxious to work,” I said.

  Bob wheeled out our empty bowls and breezed back with the main course. We took our plates as he went around. I looked at what seemed to be a piece of meat with mushroom gravy, green beans, and a potato. My feet trembled as I took a bite. Robert Svoboda looked up, his face a hard mask.

  He stared right through me. I tensed. Then his face softened as quickly as it had gone rigid. He ran his fingers back through his hair and sighed.

  We were silent.

  “Well?” he asked harshly.

  “Is there anything we should do if one comes?” I asked.

  “We’re on a bad fault, Joe. The big danger is in loss of pressure and cave-in.” A distant look came into his eyes. “It didn’t seem so bad in the early years, but it got worse.”

  “And we got used to worse,” Eleanor added.

  I looked at her and realized that she had seen people die. When she looked at her son, she saw that her future was still being held hostage. I imagined living here with Ro all these years, and it frightened me.

  “Things will be better,” Eleanor said nervously, trying to sound cheerful. “Bob, the wine.”

  Bob almost tripped as he went out to the kitchen. On Earth he would not have been able to right himself and catch the chair so quickly; there were some advantages to lower g.

  “You’re the third group we’ve had to dinner,” Eleanor said, sounding more in control of herself.

  “What do you think of us?” Ro asked, and my stomach jumped.

  “You’re nice people to leave your schooling. I hope you don’t lose too much time.”

  Bob brought back a large green bottle and poured out full glasses for everyone. The white liquid trembled slightly in my goblet. Robert Svoboda was staring intently at his glass. Bob put the bottle on the table and sat down.

  Robert Svoboda raised his glass. “I want to thank you personally, even if you have doubts about being here. You’re not likely to get any medals from Earth Authority.”

  We sipped.

  “The grapes grow well here,” Eleanor said.

  Bob saw his chance. “We sure have enough sun!”

  We laughed and sipped some more.

  “Where are you from, Joe?” Robert Svoboda asked.

  “New York City.”

  He held back a laugh. “Now I know you’re not used to our quarters. Must seem like jail cells. How about you, Rosalie, Bernie?”

  “I’m from Bernal,” Ro said.

  “Same here,” Bernie added.

  “He helped build the place,” I said.

  Svoboda’s eyebrows went up. “Bernal functions admirably. I visited once … It seems so long ago now.” Eleanor gazed at him with concern.

  Bob rolled out tea and coffee after dinner. We took our cups and followed Eleanor out into the living room, where we reclaimed our seats. Bob sat cross-legged on the floor. His parents sat on some shabby black cushions. I wondered how many people had died on Mercury, but was afraid to ask.

  Eleanor smiled at me, and I saw how beautiful she was, how even more beautiful she had been.

  “What were you studying, Joe?” she asked.

  “Physics—I thought.”

  “You’re not sure?”

  I sipped my tea. “Maybe later, I don’t know.”

  “Rosalie, what interests you, besides Joe?”

  I looked at her. She was blushing.

  “There are a number of things I might want to do.”

  Robert Svoboda’s brooding concern filled the room, pressing in around us. These people had almost forgotten how to relax. They might have left a long time ago and found a better life, but there were too many dead for the Svobodas to leave. The Svobodas carried Mercury on their shoulders.

  “How many of your people do you think will stay after the habitat is built?” Bernie asked.

  Robert looked surprised. “This is their home—a whole generation has grown up here. That may be hard for some people to understand, but it’s always been true. People have lived in deserts and on frozen tundra—it’s actually easier than that here.” A strangeness came into his eyes, as if he were peering through the rock. “There is beauty in living here, in stealing Mercury’s insides while the big Sun stands watch. A habitat will take off the rough edges. Then maybe more people will immigrate here, and those here will feel better about staying.”

  “How big will the habitat be?” Bob asked. I could see that he just couldn’t wait.

  “The asteroid is maybe twelve kilometers long,” Bernie said. “That should take over a hundred thousand people in time.”

  Hope and wonder danced in Bob’s eyes, and right there I knew that it would all be worth it.

  “I’ve always wanted a house,” Eleanor said, “with sky and clouds and sunlight coming in through the windows.…”

  “The old mass driver,” Bernie continued, “will be replaced by the gravitational catapult. You’ll be able to shove slugs into faster orbits toward Earth. And the string of solar-power satellites will relay energy to Mercury’s surface even when the sun is down, so you’ll have full industrial capacity all the time.”

  Svoboda said, “Some of my men suspect they’ll only have to work harder.”

  “I don’t think so,” Bernie replied.

  I heard a high-pitched whine. Svoboda turned his head suddenly. “I’m being called. Excuse me.” He stood up and left the room.

  Eleanor motioned to her son. “Maybe you’d like to take our guests to the Center?”

  “Uh—maybe later,” Bob said. I guessed he wanted us to himself for a while. “What’s it like on Earth, Joe?”

  I told him about open skies, colorful sunsets, ocean waves, winds and rainstorms, tall cities and crowds. “You’ll see it yourself one day,” I finished, not thinking about what I was saying.

  He shook his head. “It would be hard. Remember, I was born here, my muscles grew up here. I’d have to wear walking bones to brace me in the higher gravity. Maybe I could adjust—I’ve always exercised. I can go to the Moon, Mars, the Asteroids, maybe even Bernal, which isn’t a full g anyway, and much lower in places.”

  I felt sorry for him, as if he were crippled. Lucky for him there were good schools on places besides Earth. On the Moon he’d have to exercise to keep up his Mercury muscles in the one-sixth gravity. I’d never thought too much about it, but it was an important problem.

  “That’s another reason we need the habitat,” Eleanor said, “so we can have the choice of gradually increasing the g-spin at which our children are born, so future generations won’t be cut off from Earth. Many of our people are now too old to ever go back.”

  “That may take a long time,” I said.

  “It may never happen,” Eleanor continued, “if enough of us decide against it. It’s how it happened in the first place that’s shameful.”

  “People were promised regular trips back,” Bob said. “Some go now, but only because the ships have grown faster. In the old days people traveled back and forth in pods attached to a slug. It
took months in zero-g. Not many went.”

  “The Asteroid settlers,” Eleanor continued, “keep their habitats at two thirds Earth gravity, so they can go anywhere, while we can go only to the low-g places in the solar system. That was the point with those serving life sentences, to trap them here, but others were caught and are now too bitter and too weak to go even if they could.”

  “That’s terrible,” I said, as the full implications sank in. Earth had done this, but I felt as if I had done it myself. The habitat had to be built as quickly as possible.

  Eleanor smiled at my sense of outrage. “It’ll be easier on future generations. It’s hardest on those who remember Earth.”

  “It’s not so bad,” Bob said. “People do live longer in low-g, and they don’t have back trouble, without all the medical fix-up you have to go through on Earth.”

  “Why did people have children,” Rosalie asked, “if they knew they’d be trapped?”

  Eleanor grimaced. “They said to go ahead—raise families, you’ll have your habitat.”

  “They treated usall like convicts,” Robert Svoboda said as he came back and sat down next to his wife. “Problems in the control room. The foreman is sick.”

  “Where are you from, Eleanor?” Ro asked.

  “Virginia. I was in my teens when Robert and I left.”

  Svoboda took her hand. “We’ll visit. We can get in shape, you’ll see. Our muscles will remember.”

  Her face was calm, but I felt angry for her.

  “Bob,” Eleanor said, “the Community Center.”

  We all stood up. Eleanor was smiling faintly at me. Robert looked as if he had just gotten his second wind, and I knew he was going to visit the control room.

  “Thank you for coming,” Eleanor said.

  “Care to come with me, Bernie?” Svoboda asked.

  “Thanks—but I’ve got to get some sleep.”

  Bob led us to the door. “I usually go down to the Center dance anyway.” He turned the crank.

  We stepped out and over the crack. Ro and I held hands as we followed him.

  “Have a good time,” Bernie said at the first branching, sounding a bit lonely.

  “Good night, Bernie!” I called after him as he disappeared into the tunnel at our left.

  |Go to Table of Contents |

  16

  Dancing

  Two massive doors stood at the end of the passageway. One was cranked partly open, spilling yellow light into the rocky tunnel. Music mingled with voices and laughter.

  The Community Center had always been full of kids when I’d looked in, but Ro and I had been shy about going in uninvited. Most of us kept to the common areas near our quarters. Many of the Merk kids were not as polite as their parents, we had noticed, but I couldn’t blame them; Mercury had good reason to dislike Earth, without our making it look as if we had come to take over. The Merk kidsneeded to feel superior to us, at least for a while. It would be easier going in with Bob Svoboda.

  The chamber was a fused upside-down bowl, at least seven meters high at the center and sixty meters across. Dancers surrounded the screen platform—at least a hundred couples spinning, rubbing, and jerk-jumping to the percussion. The flat screen, not a 3-D holo, was picking up music and dance from a New York station, delayed by the six minutes or so it took the signal to reach Mercury at light speed, not counting relay time. There was a sharp contrast between the well-dressed New York kids on the screen and the coverall drabness of the Mercurians.

  I spotted Linda and Jake. Her hair was loose and flying in all directions. He seemed to be doing his best not to become airborne. We had all tried hard not to show off by doing things the Mercurians could not—like jumping high into the air. It would be easy for us to win fights with Merk kids, given our stronger Earth muscles. I had been careful not to use my full strength when moving around. The Merk girls looked at us with some interest, which annoyed their boyfriends.

  “Hey!” someone shouted. “Let’s see you go up real high!”

  The dancers made a circle around Linda and Jake.

  “Come on—do it!”

  Jake looked around, and jumped.

  “You can do better than that!” the same voice shouted.

  The crowd hooted. I sensed both hostility and interest in their demand.

  Jake motioned for Linda not to do it, but she went up high, turned over, and landed in a group of people, toppling them to the floor.

  Everyone laughed. “Don’t worry—they’ll be here long enough to weaken!”

  A boy I didn’t know shot up higher, and landed on a couple.

  “I’ve sprained my ankle!” the girl complained, unable to get to her feet. Her boyfriend did not look amused. I caught his eye and he glared at me.

  “How’s she going to work?” he demanded.

  I felt bad.

  “They’re not so tough,” another boy said, giving Jake a shove from behind. Someone cursed. Jake stumbled toward me, and I caught him.

  “Calm down!” a voice boomed over the screen’s public address system, but it was too late.

  A fair fight wouldn’t have been possible, despite our Earth muscles; there were only eleven of us in the hall. The crowd booed as the music dropped to a whisper and we were rushed from all sides. People fell to the floor, punching and clawing, tearing at each other’s clothes. Ro and I retreated through a sudden hole in the circle. A short, stocky girl grabbed Linda by the hair. Jake was being pummeled on the floor by three boys. The Merks were doing very well, but I was afraid that someone would get seriously hurt.

  The crowd pressed in closer, cheering. I saw a familiar New York caster on the screen, speaking very low. His blindness to what was going on below him seemed comic.

  A loud whistle shot through my ears as police invaded the hall. It was obvious that they had been watching the situation closely. Six green-uniformed cops penetrated the crowd and began to untie the knot of kids on the floor.

  “Okay!” shouted one of the cops. His voice went through his handset and boomed through the screen speakers. “All earthies out of the hall!”

  One of the other cops glared at me. Bob smiled, and I saw a bit of his parents in his features.

  “It was our fault,” I said loudly. “Let’s go.”

  Linda, Kik, Jake and the six others grouped around Ro and me. We turned and led the way out.

  “That was really dumb,” I whispered to Ro.

  “Sure was,” she said, looking exasperated.

  A cop cranked the door open all the way, and we went out into the tunnel.

  I heard a deep growl, as if a beast were creeping toward us from somewhere ahead. We stopped, but nothing appeared. It was invisible, I thought stupidly as the lights flickered.

  “What’s that?” Kik asked behind me.

  I peered ahead in the fluttering light. A cloud of fine dust was creeping toward us across the floor.

  “Tremor,” I said, taking a few steps forward.

  “Joe…” Ro started to say as the floor lifted, throwing me back. We clutched at each other and staggered to one side, hitting the wall with our shoulders.

  Old Merk danced for us.

  The tunnel floor buckled and split. Ro and I were on all fours, tasting dust.

  “Back inside!” I shouted as I raised myself on shaky legs.

  A crack opened near the doors and cut down the tunnel like slow black lightning. We jumped to avoid it.

  The lights wavered. I saw Kik stumble, fall in slowly between blinks, and disappear. Ro and I were on opposite sides as the crack passed us, veered, and split the wall.

  “Kik!” Linda cried, unsteady at the edge.

  “Get back!” I shouted, afraid that the fault would widen.

  “Kik!” she called. “Kik!”

  Jake grabbed her.

  “Aaaaaaaaaaaaa!” she wailed, struggling. It looked as if she would pull Jake in with her.

  “Back into the hall!” I shouted again.

  Ro and I made our way back, s
taring at the fault between us. The others were at the door, but Linda still squirmed in Jake’s arms.

  “Let me go, let me go!”

  Jake hauled her back. “He’s gone—we’ve got to get back—try to understand what I’m saying.” She broke free and dropped to her knees. Jake tried to pull her back by one arm.

  “No! No! I can see him!”

  “Help me,” Jake said as I reached them. Ro hesitated at the door.

  “Get inside,” I called to her and grabbed Linda’s other arm.

  “He’s hanging there,” she insisted, “I can see him.” She was very strong. “I can see him—please look!”

  I peered down, and she stopped wriggling. “Can’t see a thing,” I said, coughing from the dust.

  “Don’t let go,” Jake whispered.

  Linda looked up at me. “Joe! Look hard—I can see him, please!”

  I strained to see into the gloom. There was a body hanging some five meters below us. “Jake, he’s there.”

  “Looks like a shadow.”

  “Let me go!” Linda shrieked, twisting her arms. “Let me go!”

  “I’ll go,” Jake said, and let go her hand.

  I knelt next to Linda, and we watched him climb down. Linda’s arm was limp in my hand.

  Merk trembled.

  “Inside!” a cop shouted. “Got to close these doors.”

  “Injured person,” I called back.

  “It’s you or all those in here, son.” Loss of air pressure in the tunnel might come at any moment, I realized.

  “Linda,” I said, tugging her arm as I stood up.

  “You go,” she said, pulling free of me.

  I heard the door closing.

  “Jake—they’re locking us out!”

  “Coming!”

  “Kik!” Linda shouted.

  “He’s gone,” Jake called more softly.

  The lights went out. I turned and saw that the door was three quarters closed.

  “Kik! Bring him up—Jake do you hear me?”

  “Head’s caved in where he hit,” Jake said. “His neck is broken and he’s stuck on some sharp rocks. No breathing at all. Get going, both of you! Can’t see. Got to feel my way up.” His voice broke and I remembered that they had been friends.