My hollow was located along a long tunnel branching off the west side of the central node. Benji stood cleaning the outside of his hollow’s hatch with a rag that was probably only making it dirtier. I raced by him without bothering to say hello. My thumb extended to work the print-based locking mechanism, and that was when I noticed the view-screen posted adjacent to my hatch.
The month’s rent to Pervenio Corp had come up short. Apparently, paying for both our home and my mom’s upgraded stay had now depleted my account as well as hers. We had a week to come up with the credits, or the hollow would be leased out to another poor Ringer scraping along for a living. Without John’s terminal or the noodle shop, I wasn’t going to be able to raise them. Even if she got out, my mother would be homeless.
“Everything all right, Kale?” Benji asked.
“Not now, Benji,” I said, seething. “Fuck!” I punched the screen as hard as I could. It was Pervenio-made, so the thing didn’t even crack, but it sure as Trass hurt my knuckles.
“Kale!” Benji approached me, his face flush with concern.
“Would you just stay out of it!” I shouted, shoving my finger into his chest.
I flung open my hatch, stormed inside, and locked it. Then I hurried over to my bed and tore the hand-terminal out of my pillow. My chest heaved as I typed a response.
IF YOU CAN REALLY HELP MY MOTHER, I’LL HELP YOU. WHO ARE YOU AND WHAT DO YOU NEED?
-KALE
I struck “Send” before I could second-guess myself. I wasn’t sure if I felt a sense of relief or nausea afterward, but my response to R streamed invisibly out into the ethers of Solnet, bouncing off laser-com relays throughout Sol toward wherever R was.
I sat quietly for a while, barely able to tear my eyes off the bright screen. I tried switching on the Darien Newsfeed to distract myself, but again, that didn’t help. A story about Pervenio Corp’s decision to ask the USF Assembly to include offworlders in the Departure Lottery played. The reporters said Titan’s locals were thrilled and depicted the riot in the Upper Ward’s atrium from an angle that made it seem like it was a celebration. On one of the clips, I could see myself standing in the corner of the screen, looking bewildered.
“Liars,” I grumbled.
I switched it off and decided I preferred staring at a blank screen. I’d started to doze, when suddenly, my hand-terminal vibrated. I fumbled to hold it upright and steady the screen so that I could read the incoming message.
MY IDENTITY IS IRRELEVANT. HAVE FAITH THAT MY END OF THE BARGAIN WILL BE FULFILLED AS LONG AS YOU SUCCEED. I NEED YOU TO LINK THIS HAND-TERMINAL TO THE MAIN NAVIGATION CONSOLE OF THE PICCOLO ONCE IT IS WITHIN SATURN’S ATMOSPHERE. THE PROGRAM LOADED ONTO IT WILL EXECUTE AUTOMATICALLY AFTER YOU DO SO.
FAIL, OR REPLY TO THIS MESSAGE, AND OUR ARRANGEMENT WILL BE NULLIFIED. YOU ARE MORE THAN YOU KNOW, KALE DRAYTON. TRASS GUIDES YOU.
FROM ICE TO ASHES—R
“What program?” I whispered, as if anybody could hear me. I leaned back against the rocky wall of my hollow. I don’t know why I was surprised, but I was hoping for more of a direction than that.
My hand-terminal made a strange squealing noise, as if answering me. The screen flickered, and a new icon appeared in the corner of the flat screen: an orange circle set against a white background. I attempted to open whatever the strange program was, but it was encrypted and, again, well beyond my ability to slice.
A program... I didn’t have to sneak a bomb or a weapon onto the Piccolo but merely upload whatever the program was, and my mother would be free. Of all the unlawful tasks I’d ever been asked to perform, this one seemed perhaps the most innocent. The only sneaking around required would be to make sure nobody examined the hand-terminal too closely on my journey to Pervenio Station, which I didn’t think would be difficult, since the device operated the same as any other hand-terminal.
Yet, as the tiny orange circle stared at me like an all-knowing eye, I couldn’t shake the feeling that the program was more than what it seemed. A similar symbol had been painted on the hatch of Dexter’s shop where I found him dead.
I put the device down and exhaled. It was too late to turn back. I could’ve reported the message before I responded, but now I was too guilty to avoid imprisonment if I were caught. I closed my eyes and pictured my mother’s face, her sallow flesh pulled so taut that she was beginning to look like a skeleton, and I knew I’d made the only decision I could.
EIGHT
Scanners. Why do there have to be scanners?
The morning after meeting with Captain Saunders and getting my job back, I waited in line at the Darien Docks to board a shuttle bound for Pervenio Station. Getting onto any inter-Ring Shuttle off Titan required passing through heavy-duty security scanners and decon-chambers.
They existed between the Upper and Lower Wards, but while I’d been nervous passing through them with the hand-terminal, those scanners were focused mostly on ensuring nobody had unlicensed weapons or explosives. Since the last time I’d taken a shuttle, however, state-of-the-art scanners had been installed in the docks, I presumed because of all the recent trouble on Titan. Being Pervenio-made meant that they were the finest in the solar system, and they were integrated fully with decon-chambers for the sake of efficiency. Not even Earthers could avoid full inspection. That meant Pervenio officers were going to directly examine all my belongings while I was being cleaned. I wouldn’t even be there to provide an explanation for the mysterious program on my hand-terminal if they noticed it.
My throat got so dry I could hardly swallow. For years, I’d made a living breaking laws, but they were never serious enough to get me spaced had I been caught.
The Earthers waiting at the shuttle’s designated hangar went first—only they could afford the best seats—but I was next in line. Another failed attempt to see my mom before I departed had forced me onto the last possible shuttle that would reach Pervenio Station in time for the Piccolo’s departure. In my rush, I’d hurried to the front of the Ringer passengers. I regretted it immediately. The teams monitoring the security equipment probably would’ve been listless by the end of the line. Now I would have their full attention.
I aimed my gaze straight ahead and tried not to panic. Sweat poured down my forehead. Thankfully, the warm temperature inside the metal-clad hangar had every other Ringer sweating too. My flaring nostrils or twitching fingers probably weren’t much of a help, though.
“Next,” a voice called out.
I could picture officers breaking into the decon-chamber while I stood naked and alone, their batons cracking me across the head before they cuffed me and dragged me away.
“Next!” the officer in front of me grunted. “Pay attention, Ringer! We’re on a schedule.”
It was my turn. I murmured “sorry” to him and handed him my ID card. He scrutinized it, and me, for about a minute before returning it and ushering me into the decon-chamber. It was much bigger than the one at the quarantine—more industrial. They were never my favorite things to step into, but typically, I only had to worry about my body coming up clean.
The din of the waiting area was silenced as the vacuum-sealed chamber closed behind me. The only sound other than the rapid thumping of my heart was the soft, melodious hum of high-end electrostatic cleaners powering up.
“Clothes and belongings,” an automated female voice requested. A panel in the wall beside me folded open, revealing a chute.
I placed my travel bag in first. It contained only clothes and sanitary products. I removed my shirt next, just to buy myself time, and then my gloves and mask. With nothing left but my pants, I dipped my hand into my pocket, feeling my pulse in my fingertips as I did. I slowly withdrew the hand-terminal. I think I was closing my eyes during most of this, but I peeked through my lashes once to notice that the enigmatic icon on the screen was no longer orange. I don’t know when, but it had become blue and filled with green to resemble a normal Solnet icon.
I stared at the hand-terminal for a few second
s, confused, then realized I probably looked suspicious and dropped it in the chute. It struck the bottom so hard, I was lucky the screen didn’t break.
I attempted to shrug it off and act casual before undressing all the way. When I was finished, I was directed to the center of the chamber, where the decontamination process initiated. The procedure was similar to the one in the Q-Zone, and the blowing air along with the tingling beams dried the thick layer of sweat on my back. Every second I stood there felt like an hour, until a voice announced I was clean and my belongings reappeared by the exit. I’d never been so thrilled to hear the word “clean,” though for all the wrong reasons.
I threw my clothes back on before anyone decided to change their mind. I was still snapping my gloves over my wrists when I exited and hurried toward the docked shuttle. An officer at the entrance gave me one final check with a scanner, even though he let an Earther ahead of me walk right on by, and then I was through.
My assigned seat was in the last row of the ship. Ignoring the glowers of the dozens of already seated Earthers, I shuffled down the aisle. I stowed my bag below the cushion and fell into it.
The heat and my nerves had me panting uncontrollably. My sanitary mask at least helped stifle the sound so that the other passengers wouldn’t think I was having a panic attack. I stretched open my pocket and glanced inside at the hand-terminal. Nobody sat near me yet, but I wasn’t going to take any more risks.
The icon was orange again.
“Kale Drayton!” someone exclaimed and slapped me on the shoulder.
I yanked my hand out of my pocket too fast, banging it against the seat in front of me. It hurt like hell. Two years on the gas harvester really had made me forget everything I’d learned in the Lowers about acting cool when I was up to no good. I glanced up and saw Desmond’s toothy grin.
“Don’t tell me you got a job on the fuckin’ station?” he asked. He stored his bag and plopped down beside me. Considering my luck, I don’t know why I ever expected to be seated next to anybody else.
“Nope,” I replied, struggling not to show how much pain I was in. “Decided I’d give the Piccolo another chance.”
“Is that right? I’m surprised that mud stomper Saunders took you back. He whined like a child when he asked me to try and help him find some new recruits.”
“Yeah, well, he did.”
“Trass, what crawled up your ass?” Desmond shifted in his seat to get more comfortable, purposefully jutting his bony elbow over my armrest.
I nudged him back. “Sorry. It’s hot on here.”
“As usual.” He leaned his head back and closed his eyes. “You missed a hell of a time the other night. Your girl got drunker than I’ve ever seen her. Mentioned you a few times too. She seemed pissed you were leaving.”
It was hard to know when he was bullshitting. I figured this was one of those times based on how I’d seen her acting at the Foundry. I grunted in response and turned my head toward a narrow viewport to try to take a nap. Desmond thankfully didn’t bother me much after that. It was an eight-hour flight through zero-g to Pervenio Station, and the shuttle wasn’t going to get any cooler. I figured he was saving his latest wisecracks for the four months we’d be sharing a dorm.
Unable to sleep, I gazed through the shuttle’s viewport out into space for most of the flight. No stars were visible, since by then, Saturn constituted the entire view and was cast in shadow while it eclipsed the sun. I could, however, see the glimmer of the planet’s blade-like belt of rock and ice, illuminated by the bright lights of Pervenio Station. It was built into one of the planet’s tiniest moons, located along its inner ring. If Titan was the heart of the Ring, the station was its brain, directing everything that happened on Saturn’s many moons and settlements.
People said it was the largest station in all of Sol. Almost all transport of goods from around the solar system ran through the many docking shoots poking out of the rocky exterior, along with most of Saturn’s gas-harvesting and ice-hauling industries. Those were what had allowed Pervenio to grow into the largest corporation in Sol. Others had smaller stations and colonies located on the Ring, but it was only with Pervenio’s permission, and getting that cost a pretty credit.
Captain Saunders liked to boast that the Piccolo was his, passed down through his clan-family to those who were worthiest, but everybody who’d served more than a shift and seen all the faded corporation logos on board knew that wasn’t true. Pervenio just didn’t care much about its antiquated harvesters anymore and rented them out. They operated slower, took in less gas, and required more of a workforce.
“We will be arriving at Hangar 13 on Pervenio Station in fifteen minutes,” an automated voice announced throughout the cabin. I could hardly hear it over Desmond’s incessant snoring. “Please ensure your restraints remain fastened.”
Most of the passengers, including myself, already had theirs on. We were in zero-g, after all, and the security officers on board didn’t take too kindly to people floating around the cabin unless they had to use the restroom. The warning only existed because there was always the danger of the shuttle banging into a rock or some debris as it gradually descended over Saturn’s inner rings toward the station.
After once again preventing Desmond’s arm from slipping into my area, I leaned closer to my viewport to watch as we grew nearer. An ice hauler blinked around a frozen rock a few hundred kilometers to the shuttle’s side, and another one beyond that. Many more haulers existed than gas harvesters, since they were almost entirely automated. There were fewer potential hazards to account for outside of Saturn’s erratic atmosphere, where they operated. Communications within it were spotty at best, limiting updates from the stations monitoring the planet and the ability to exclusively automate systems.
New-age gas harvesters circumvented that by skirting the very fringes of Saturn’s atmosphere and depositing balloon-like vessels to sink through, fill with gas, and rise back to be retrieved. They worked well, but nowhere near as efficiently as the gas harvesters like Piccolo that went deeper. They required skilled, hands-on navigators like Cora to avoid unpredictable storms and locate concentrated pockets of the vital gases we were after. Honestly, I didn’t understand how Cora managed it all.
Cora... For the first time since accepting R’s offer, I realized that I was going to be uploading the mysterious program into her command console. The captain oversaw the ship, sure, but she controlled navigation. Though the thought of spending time with her again was the single bright spot in this whole ordeal, she was the last person I wanted to be forced to lie to.
I didn’t have a choice. I had to get the job done, like old times. The stark curtain of blackness beyond the glass made my reflection clearer than usual, and all I could see in my yellow-brown eyes was the mother I shared their color with. Her condition deteriorated rapidly. She couldn’t have long.
My reflection vanished when the shuttle slipped into one of Pervenio Station’s airy hangars. The ship tilted vertically ninety degrees until it was able to land atop the very airlock it passed through. Pervenio Station, and what was left of the moon it invaded, had been provided additional spin when it was built to generate a stronger centripetal force. The floors of all its inhabitable spaces were located on the inner face of the exterior shell to take advantage of that.
A familiar force tugged on my body as soon as the ship touched down. The simulated g conditions on the station were relatively similar to Titan’s, and after hours in transit, they were much appreciated. My restraints came undone, and a security officer began escorting passengers out of the shuttle. Earthers went first, since they were in the front, and the pack of masked Ringers followed soon after.
Desmond and I were in the last row and had to wait until everyone else was off. I nudged him awake. We didn’t have much time to waste, considering the Piccolo’s hangar was located clear across the station.
“What’s your rush?” Desmond asked, yawning. He rubbed his eyes and got to his feet as leisurel
y as one could possibly do so.
“The Piccolo’s scheduled to leave soon,” I said. I sprang up once he was finally ready and grabbed my bag. I stayed right on his heels as he moseyed down the aisle.
“Relax. You think Saunders will leave without us there? Crew is light as it is.”
“I’d rather not risk it.”
He sighed. “Dammit, Kale. Have you ever broken a rule in your life?”
I would’ve grinned if I hadn’t been so nervous. I didn’t talk about my past life much. I’d found that the best way to leave it behind was to pretend it’d never happened. What he didn’t know was that the only reason I was eager to get on the Piccolo was to escape the prying eyes of security. Though the armed presence would be greater, there’d be no more decon-chamber scanners to pass through after we disembarked.
“Can we just get there and then argue?” I asked.
“Fine, fine, quit your whining,” he said. “You just can’t wait to see Cora, can you? Me neither.” He smirked and picked up his pace as if he expected me to smack him. I’m not going to lie—I wanted to. But at least he gave me something to worry about other than what was in my pocket.
“Relax,” he said as I sped up to catch him. My cheeks were probably fluorescent pink. “I met a girl back in Darien during our last break. I tried as hard as I could, but Cora’s all yours.”
“She’s not mine,” I grumbled.
“Have I ever told you you’re a damn idiot?”
I took an exasperated breath of the station’s warm, stale air. “Plenty.”
The similarities between the docks of Pervenio Station and those of Darien didn’t extend beyond the fact that they were both packed. The former wasn’t a place to go shopping. Hangar bay after hangar bay was positioned on either side of a gracious concourse. The only breaks were for eateries and bars catering to the station’s tremendous workforce. I’d visited a few before and after shifts, but the moods of the mostly Earther patrons were exactly what you’d expect: gruff, exhausted, and wary of my kind.
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