by Low Bo
Belowstairs was useful for diverting attention. Hap and his mates noticed that whenever one politician attacked another for some legal lapse, the next thing you knew, the opponent would be on yacking off at Belowstairs.
"...damaging precious systems vital to human existence..."
"Who do you think keeps this place running, you stupid time-waster?" the Chief yelled, throwing an empty beer bulb at the screen.
Upstairs didn't like to think about that truth. But short of 1) giving everyone Belowstairs official jobs (and, hence, IDs), 2) eradicating them all (which would create opprobrium for Upstairs all over the human-settled galaxy and in alien systems with beings rights), or 3) collecting everyone Below and sending them all somewhere else, Upstairs had to acknowledge it had an ugly boil on its backside. As much as possible it pretended the problem of homelessness did not exist. To tell the truth, that suited everyone Below just fine. But Hap wanted to see Upstairs. He dreamed of having a job and living in the upper levels. He'd been watching station vids all his life. He knew just how wonderful it must be, to be clean all the time and to eat something before anybody else had.
"Dammit," Merg said, sticking his arm down the disposer chute. "I dropped my spanner." Hap leaped to help him. They leaned the synthesizer over on its side. Hap upended it and shook it until Merg could reach his tool.
"Quiet!" bellowed the Chief. "I'm listening!"
An announcer had replaced the politician on the screen. "...reports from Earth of a breakthrough technology: organic circuitry. Based upon theories of human brain development, scientists have at last come up with a means of growing functional systems that can learn emgrams. It will revolutionize all electronic system, agglomerating all components flawlessly..."
"What's agglom... ?" Hap began to ask.
"Bunching them all in a mass," the Chief said. "Shut up."
"So far, however, the process has been slow. Only one small sample of the finished product has been successfully produced. Scientists will be meeting with manufacturers later this week on Delta Station to talk about means of growing more, quickly but accurately. The demand is expected to be worth over eight billion credits the first year alone."
"Whew," the Chief said, flicking the audio down with a gesture. "Wish I had some of that. Don't you?"
"You bet I do," Merg said.
"Yeh," Hap said, thinking what he could do with eight billion credits, or even eighty credits. He'd have orange silk cushions in his crate-no, he'd build a hotel, with rooms as big as the Chief's and all of them full of silk cushions. And real food from Earth, lots of it, in storage compartments everywhere, so all he'd have to do was reach out any time he wanted.
The Chief saw the dreamy look on his face and laughed. "Go on, get out of here, boy!" he roared.
* * *
"I'm so excited to meet you," Perry Antonio, president of Techgen said, shaking hands with Min Haseen. Tall and broad-shouldered with a born executive's thick head of red-brown hair just beginning to silver at the temples, he towered over his guest. The slim, dark-haired woman slid into the seat he indicated for her at the big oval table in the executive suite of Techgen headquarters on Deck J. "Thank you for coming all the way out here to the Station."
"It's a pleasure," she said, nodding to the others. She had soft, dark eyes and a little pointed chin that made her look delicately elfin and childlike. "I've never been on a space station before. It's been an experience. Fun, in fact."
Antonio smiled at her naivete. He went around the table, introducing the rest of the men and women at the table. The skinny, gum-chewing boy with big ears and a crest of carmine hair was Bill Imbrie, Techgen's chief programmer. Darkskinned Lu Obama was head of biochemistry. The troubled black-haired woman in the blue-white uniform was the station commander, Penelope Chinn. The rest were various technology wonks, bean-counters and government officials. Chinn, he knew, was keen to become the liaison for transhipment of the new products. Techgen needed Delta's good will, at least for the time being. They would have a very private conversation later to see if Chinn could bribe him well enough to obtain an exclusive right-of-way.
He glanced at the slender girl in a blue-white shipsuit and cap standing at the far end of the room next to an open door. No expense had been spared to impress Haseen. The finest melons, pate and caviar had been brought up from Earth, and had been arranged on platters with the best fruits and vegetables from Delta's hydroponic gardens. She stood by, ready to serve the refreshments. At his signal she came forward with a tray to begin taking drink orders.
Haseen noticed the direction of his gaze. "Is it all right if I left my things in there?" she asked, nodding toward the other room. "My transport only arrived an hour ago. I didn't have time to check into my quarters."
"No problem," he said, smoothly. "Welcome, everyone. You've all had a chance to thumbprint your nondisclosure contracts, so let's get this meeting under way."
* * *
With his back to the rest of his guests, Antonio gulped down a stimdrink at the wet bar at the side of the room. Haseen wasn't the soft touch she looked like. In fact, she was as sharp as that chin of hers. In a moment he would be giving up a substantial share of Techgen's stock in order to obtain manufacturing rights to Opalite.
"Where is it?" Haseen cried.
Antonio turned, putting the little bottle out of sight behind his back. "Where is what, ma'am?" he asked.
"The Opalite," she said, her hands shaking. She pointed at a small white plate on a small mahogany occasional table near the entrance to the hospitality room. "It was right there a moment ago. Where is it?"
"How big is it? Is it a sample?" Antonio asked. He scanned the tables for a strange container, but saw nothing but the depleted bowls of caviar and the fruit platters, nearly picked clean by the browsing conferees.
"No! It's the whole thing," Haseen replied, her eyes huge with dismay. "Three cubic centimeters, worth a hundred million credits!"
Chinn's eyebrows went up, and the two of them began to search the room.
"What's the problem?" Imbrie asked.
"The Opalite is missing," Antonio said, in a low voice.
"Hell!" the boy said, snapping his gum.
"Don't tell anyone," Antonio ordered. "Just help me look. It's an irregular lump, white embedded with sparkling colors, about this big," he held two fingers apart. Imbrie began to push plates and carafes around, looking frantically.
But the Opalite was not to be found. Tactfully, Antonio began to ask the other attendees if they had seen an object of its description, not alluding to the fact that it was valuable, nor that he and his guest were frantic to find it because it represented their two companies' financial future, only that he wanted to know what had become of it.
"A multi-colored lump?" the server asked, when Antonio finally got around to her. "Yes. I thought it was one of Mr. Imbrie's wads of gum. I thought it was kind of disgusting, sitting there on a clean plate in the middle of all this food."
"What," Antonio asked tightly, moving closer so that he was towering over the girl, "did you do with it?"
"Why," the girl said, her eyes big with fear, "I threw it in the disposer."
Antonio turned to Chinn, whose mouth had dropped open in disbelief. "Call security. Now!" He turned to the girl, plucked the ID clip from her collar, and snapped it in two. "You're out of here. Send her Below," he growled at the two armed guards who appeared at the door of the hospitality room.
"What? Why?" the girl wailed. But she was marched away. Antonio closed the passage door and returned to the party. No one could have missed the excitement, ending in the expulsion of the food service worker. He straightened his tunic and strode forward, wearing a polite but grave expression.
"I'm so sorry," Antonio said. "There's been a misunderstanding. Shall we get on with our meeting?"
"I thought we were going to see this Opalite," said Barbara Skyler, Secretary of Technology for Earth-Gov.
"That will have to wait," Antonio said, in what
he hoped would be a final tone, but Skyler, a politician, had fried bigger fish than he.
"I don't want to go back and tell the Secretary General that this was all a waste of time, or a fraud... " she began.
"No! I assure you, Madam Secretary, I hope we'll have a full demonstration soon."
"Where is my Opalite?" Haseen demanded.
"I'm afraid it's missing, Ms. Haseen," Antonio said, at last. "The young woman we just had removed may be part of a conspiracy to steal the technology. We have to find out whether she was working alone or with a gang."
"This is terrible," Skyler said. "Under our very noses! You will get to the bottom of this. Both of you," she added, glaring at Chinn.
"At once, Secretary," the station commander agreed. Her dismayed gaze met Antonio's.
* * *
"...More interviews are being conducted into the theft of the wonder substance, Opalite. Station police ask that if you have any information, you can submit it anonymously on any communications kiosk, no questions asked." The newscaster shifted her eyes to the next story on her teleprompter. "Fans of the Blue Asteroids were overjoyed today when their team went 1-0 against the undefeated Star Slayers in overtime..."
"Hope they don't come down here," Merg growled, kicking a discarded water tube that was in his way on the corridor floor. The owner, a girl of twelve or thirteen, scrambled to retrieve it and stuff it back among her belongings.
"Hey, scum!"
"Amlin," Merg muttered under his breath.
The guard muscled over to them and shoved her face close to theirs. "That conduit in the main square you said you fixed, it's spewing crap all over the ground. There's sparks shooting out of it now. The traders want your eyeballs."
Merg lifted a scanty eyebrow. "That's nothing we did."
"Take care of it, and I won't tell the Chief you screwed up! Now, move it!"
"Dammit," Merg muttered, as they retraced their steps toward the main corridor. "It's worse than being in the army."
* * *
"Eat new Frosted Star Clusters!" the cheerful woman's voice said. "Now with all essential vitamins and minerals! Part of this complete breakfast."
Hap couldn't see the screen. He didn't want to think about food at that moment. The leaking pipe had waited just until he and Merg were underneath it, then it had let loose. Gallons of unrefined sewage from Upstairs poured out all over them. Whole peelings, bones, feces, whatever dropped into the disposers up above was all over the place.
Merg grabbed for his radio. "Hey, Sal, turn off the main hose in section 54 Z. Yeah, the one in the market. No, now! Hang in there, kid."
Hap thrust his arm up inside the nearest whole section of pipe, feeling for the emergency valve. His lips and eyes were pressed shut. He wished he could plug his nose and ears against the stench, too. Suddenly, the torrent ceased. He staggered backwards and sat down in a foot of sludge. The traders, men and women who sold anything they could scavenge or make to one another in exchange for a few credits, stood on their tables or climbed handy beams and shouted complaints at the two workmen. Merg got on his radio and called for more maintenance men, but Hap doubted anybody else would come.
He rubbed his hands on his disgusting coverall, dashing away liquid garbage. Something went 'plink' as it flew away and hit the floor. Hap caught a glint of electric red and blue. A chip, perhaps? A piece of jewelry that someone accidentally dropped into a loo?
He picked up the small lump and shook the goo off it. It was an irregularly shaped piece of clay or something, but not like any clay he'd ever seen. It was pretty, glittering in the emergency lights. Hap stuffed it into his pocket to look at later. In the meantime, there was a lot of crap to clean up. Then he was going to march into the bathhouse and demand a full shower, no matter if it wasn't his day to bathe.
* * *
Chief Gormley eyed Station Commander Chinn up and down. "Well, well. We're not usually this honored down here," he said, leaning back in his chair with his thick hands clasped comfortably over his belly. "It's like God paying a visit on Lucifer, or am I quoting you wrong? That's what you called me in the media last time."
"You stole a whole shipment of machinery," Chinn said, trying not to look as uncomfortable as she felt.
"Take that back!" Gormley shouted. At his back was a whole contingent of shipsuited men and women, all heavily armed. She wondered how they got ammunition down here, when it was strictly controlled Upstairs. She only had two, which she had only been able to bring to this meeting after considerable negotiation. "I received it. Too bad for you if the delivery captain was new and couldn't read the markings on the ports. I didn't change'em."
Chinn hesitated. What he said was true. Earth-Gov hadn't been happy about the error. Neither had the people who'd ordered those synthesizers. The only thing that had saved her and the captain from paying for the lost unit out of their own pocket had been her eloquence. She never dreamed she'd have her words thrown back in her teeth.
"I'm sorry. It was a mistake. Politics. Look, Chief Gormley, I've got a problem."
Gormley grinned. "I know. It's been all over the news. You tell 'em not to talk, but someone takes a reporter aside in confidence, and your face is red. Pisser, isn't it? It wasn't the girl who stole it. We're taking care of her. It wasn't nice of you to dump her down here just like that, just for dropping that lump down the drain by accident. She's a hard worker, and I think you even broke her contract not sending her back to Alpha. Well, personally, I haven't seen your missing Opalite. You can take that to the bank, though I doubt you will. Chances are if it went down a disposer it's been broken up into hydrogen by now. But if it didn't, a whole lot of hypothetical questions beg to be asked. If I knew where this thing was, and if I could return it to you safely and not break it by accident and not sell it to someone else and not go public about my new acquisition, what will it gain me? You know, I hate long negotiations. I've got so much to do, haven't I, mates?"
His little army murmured agreement.
"If you haven't got it," Chinn said, "then maybe one of your people found it. Listen to me," she addressed the ragged band. "If one of you finds it, I'll reward you very well. You can't use it; you don't know how. It's of no use down there. If you return the Opalite you can write your own ticket, but I am authorized to reward only one person. All you have to do is contact me in the main office Upstairs. Don't waste my time with phony claims." She nodded curtly to Gormley. "Thank you for seeing me." Spinning on her heel, she marched out.
Behind her, she heard Gormley laughing at her. "Lovely exit," he snickered.
* * *
"Chief?"
Aha, Gormley thought, his attention snapping away from his vidscreen, where the news was running a segment about the station police's phony search for the Opalite. Who'd have guessed it would be the boy.
"Come in, Hap," he said. "Sit down. Want some coffee? Better than the muck in the street machines."
The youth looked at the synthesizer nervously. "Well..."
"All right," Gormley said, taking charge. "Two coffees. Real connoisseurs drink it black." The machine churned and raised its flap on two cups. He handed one to the boy and sat down on the edge of his battered desk.
The boy felt in his pocket and brought out a folded scrap of cloth. "I found it. This is it, isn't it?"
He shook the brown rag open. Prismatic shafts of living color, reds, blues, violets, golds and greens, lanced out of the knot of pale matrix, strong enough to knock a person's eyes out. Gormley nodded, grinning broadly.
"Congratulations, Hap. So that's what a hundred million credits looks like, eh?"
The very concept of that much wealth was too much for the boy. His hands started shaking. Gormley took everything out of his hands and put it on the desk.
"I guess you'll want to talk to the Station Commander, then," he said.
"Yes, sir!"
"Thought about what you want to ask for as a reward?"
Hap nodded vigorously. He was almost grateful to
the burst pipe for raining down crap on him. "I want to go Upstairs, Chief."
Gormley's eyebrows rose up toward his thinning hair. "Not a chance."
"But why not?" Hap said, crestfallen. "She said I could write my own ticket. You don't want me to do it?"
The Chief blew a raspberry. "What I want has nothing to do with it. You heard Chinn when she was desperate. They've all had time to think about their problem. Don't try to ask for too much. This is a big fat embarrassment to them. You know what they did to that girl who made the mistake. They shucked her down here without hesitation. She was nothing to them. You're less than nothing. They'll promise you everything you want."
"But this'll be my ticket Upstairs! A job! An ID! A home! A wife! Kids!"
"Don't do it," the Chief warned, looking alarmed for the first time. "If you do, you're marked. You don't know how to live up there."
"I've seen it all on vids," Hap protested. He didn't understand why the Chief was trying to hold him back. "They'll show me what to do."
"No, they won't. You'll be on your own. Anything you get at gunpoint, like this, they'll resent forever. You'll make mistakes, plenty of them. They'll be waiting. First infraction, even a tiny one-zing! All your benefits, gone. Second infraction-bang! Jail. Third-you're back down here."
"At least I'll have had a chance to try," Hap said.
" I've had it, and it's not as great as you think. Settle for your dreams as dreams, kid, and you'll never be disappointed. I'm free down here. I'm king, because I only have what I can hold. Can you control anything? Are you ready?"
"Sure I am," Hap said. "I'm not a kid!"
The Chief smiled ruefully. "See? You can't even stand up to me, and I'm only one level up the food chain from you. You are as far away from the powers that be as you are from the very stars outside."
Hap was crestfallen. "So what should I do?"
"Give it up," the Chief advised him. "This whole situation is bigger than your next meal. It's bigger than your life. They're going to look at you like a bug that learned to talk."
