A Large Anthology of Science Fiction

by Jerry

There was a bull’s-eye glass port in the center of the access hatch. I saw something black and white. Couldn’t quite figure out what I was seeing.

  The lock hissed and moved out and to the side.

  And Mickey Mouse was in my face.

  I drew back, and Mickey Mouse came through, a stuffed animal almost my size, followed by a plump man with red face and slicked-back hair wearing a light blue jumpsuit who said, “Witam znajomych,” and then said, “Ah, sorry. My wrong. Hello, friends!”

  “Ah, hello,” I said, as he thrust Mickey Mouse in my direction, and I did my best to avoid the gift, which went past me and gently rotated its way to the other side of the cubic, where it struck and bounced back.

  The plump man came in and was followed by two other, leaner men, also wearing blue jumpsuits. While the plump man looked friendly and cheerful and like your favorite uncle who had a habit of tippling too much at a party, his two companions looked around, evaluating, probing, accessing.

  I knew that look very well.

  Names were lettered over their right breast zippered pockets—KAMINSKI, JANOWTIS, CYNEWSKI—with the red-and-white Polish flag underneath each name. The U.N. em blem on one upper arm, and an unfamiliar emblem on the other upper arm. They had on slip-on comm headsets and mics before their mouths.

  Grinning man said, “That gift, that is for your children, yes?”

  “Ah, yes,” I said. “Excuse me, just who the hell are you?”

  A nod. “So sorry, przyjaciel.” He thumped his chest with an open palm. “Jakub Kaminski, at your service. These are my crewmates”— and he gestured to the other two men—“Edmund Janowits, and Otto Cynewski.”

  Maria said, “Nice, but answer the Chair, who the hell are you?”

  Jakub nodded again, still smiling. “Sorry again. We are from the Polish Space Agency, Centrum Badań Kosmicznych, under contract to the United Nations Education Mission in Space. UNEMS.”

  “What?” I asked. Then I looked again at the second emblem. It was a stylized drawing of an old-fashioned school blackboard with a crescent moon, a scattering of stars, and the letters UNEMS over a wreath of ivy.

  “We are here to . . . obserwować, sorry, how you say, we are here to observe your children. To ensure they are safe. That they are healthy. That they are being educated. That’s our mission. That’s why we’re here.”

  He turned and spoke rapidly in what seemed to be Polish, and the crewman called Edmund went back into their craft, and quickly returned with some plastic wrapped packages in a net bag. Jakub took the bag, handed out to me.

  “For the children. As we observe.”

  Art and Pam now joined us, floating up from Access Tube Albert, and fastened themselves to handholds. Art said, “Observe? Hey, our kids are okay. Well-fed, well-educated, vaccinated, exercised. Better than a lot of kids back Earth-side. You tell them that, Chair.”

  Jakub turned to me. “Chair? I’m sorry, is that your name?”

  I said, “No, no, it’s my title. I’m chairman of the board of selectmen for 1820 Geographos. The people who govern here. An old-fashioned way of governing but one that works for us. The name is Janet Crosby.”

  Jakub gave me a good look-over, starting from my face, to my T-shirt, tits, and then to my scarred stumps, and I was secretly happy I hadn’t bothered to sock them before I headed out. It looked like he didn’t appreciate the way my legs looked, and I liked thinking I was shaking up that calm look.

  “American Army, tak?”

  “Yep, American Army, Third Division.”

  “Ah, and where were you wounded?”

  “Outside of Okha, on Sakhalin Island,” I said, pausing. “During the late great unpleasantness.”

  “If you say so.”

  “I do say so, and we still don’t know why you’re here. No offense . . . Jakub, you and the U.N. have no jurisdiction here.”

  “Ah, but we do,” he said, as he reached into an open zippered pocket on his jumpsuit, pulled out a thick document with a gold seal in one corner. He clumsily unfolded it and slid it over to me. “Old-fashioned paper, but this way, there are no misunderstandings, correct?”

  I caught it and before I started reading, looked back at Edmund and Otto. Both of them were still observing and evaluating.

  I gave the paperwork a quick glance, tossed it back to him.

  “U.N. Outer Space Treaty,” I said. “Close to a hundred years old. Sorry. Still doesn’t apply to us.”

  “It certainly does,” he said, still smiling, though with a bit of chill. “The United States was a signatory.”

  Maria spoke up. “This isn’t American territory. And I’m not an American citizen.”

  “Tak, of course,” Jakub said. “But this rock is registered as a corporation in the Delaware state, correct? And is operated by a nonprofit organization in Massachusetts? Your Congress changed some laws, two years ago . . . very technical, but all this”—he waved a hand around him—“is now American.”

  And he held up the paperwork. “Now there is an Article Nineteen, allowing for inspections by certain U.N. groups to treaty signatories. And that’s why we’re here.”

  I did my best to keep calm, and was pretty proud of myself. “One hell of a way to make an entrance. No communications. No warning. Overriding our systems. Not very polite.”

  “We need to do our job. . . . Sometimes we find there is cooperation, other times, not so much. We do what we have to do to gain access to do inspection of your facility and the health of your children. That is our mission, and we take our mission very seriously. If you care to make a complaint, you may do so.” A pinched smile. “The U.N. Office for Outer Space Affairs. In Vienna.”

  Pam spoke up. “Suppose we don’t want you to do your job?”

  And like they had planned it earlier, Edmund and Otto unzipped pockets in the thigh portions of their jumpsuits, pulled out thin belts with holsters and side weapons. In a moment they were armed and looking at us. I couldn’t tell what kind of weapons they were: pistols, spanglers, or webmakers.

  Didn’t make much difference.

  “Let’s make it easy for all concerned, eh?” Jakub said. “Let us cooperate. Follow the treaty.”

  And like the experts they were, Edmund and Otto set off to do their job.

  And I knew it had nothing to do with our children.

  Pam, Art, and Maria looked in my direction, and that’s when it hammered me, that this was it, this was when I had to earn my salary—hah, hah, hah—and be the numero uno, head bitch in charge, and make decisions for the sixty or so folks living here, most of whom were huddling in the shelter at the center of our little chunk of paradise.

  “Maria!” I called out. “Follow those big guys and make sure they find the shelter so they can do their interviews, all right?”

  She slid the wrench into a belt loop and shoved off with her feet, following Edmund and Otto.

  “Jakub?” I asked, in the sweetest voice I could muster.

  “Yes?”

  “Do join us for some refreshments, in our Dinfac, won’t you? Come along!”

  I left quickly, Pam on one side of me, Art on the other, as we raced along Access Tube Charlie, leaving Jakub behind.

  I said, “We got about one minute before Jakub shows up. Thoughts?”

  We were slipping through Charlie, going past pump rooms, dorm tubes, the hated gym, narrow ventilation shafts, the light of glow tubes illuminating our way. Somewhere behind us was Jakub, no doubt one pissed-off UN official, as we zoomed to our dining facility.

  “What’s the point?” Art said. “What do we have worth stealing?”

  “Nothing,” I said. “They’re not here for theft. Pam?”

  “Hostages?”

  I said, “Not bad. But our nonprofit . . . it’s barely in the black, year after year. The only asset the corporation has is this chunk of rock. And if they were taking us hostage, why the cover story? Why pretend to go through the trouble of surveying us and the kids? They could just come in and do it, no mu
ss, no fuss.”

  Up ahead and above was the dining facility. Art said, “Whatever it is, I don’t like it.” “Me neither,” Pam said.

  “Welcome to the club.”

  The dining facility was empty, and Pam and Art went to the rear prep area, came out with plastic recyclable bulbs, and Jakub came in too fast, went up, bumped off the ceiling, and then floated down, cursing, and then seeing me, holding his temper in check. He managed to fasten himself to a stone bench and said, “What an exercise, eh?”

  “We make do.”

  Another glance around, his mouth froze, and his nose wrinkled, and I figured I knew what was going on: the smell. We’re all used to it, but newbies and visitors take a while, if they ever can. It’s a thick mix of sweat, lubri cants, farts, bad breath, exhaust and every thing else that sixty or so folks can produce that the scrubbers just can’t entirely elimi nate.

  And to top it off, Pam bounced over and held out a dull white plastic bulb. “Jakub, right? Here you go. A nice hot cup of chai.”

  Jakub took it and nodded his thanks, and then his face flushed some when Pam said, “Of course, it’s recycled from our piss and sweat. Bottoms up.”

  Jakub stared at us, then brought the bulb to his mouth, and suckled some of the fluid out.

  “Delicious,” he announced.

  “Glad to hear it,” Pam said.

  He seemed to look at my tits again, and then I realized I was wrong. He said, “Ameri can Army.”

  “Still very observant.”

  “America and Army, not doing so well nowadays, eh?”

  “Maybe so, but we tend to bounce back when people least expect it.”

  He smirked. “Nice to think so, eh?”

  “Sure,” I said. “Otherwise we’d be sitting around, getting drunk on vodka, pissing and moaning about how everybody in the world is conspiring against us.”

  He took another long swallow, kept his face bland. I had just poked him, and there was no reaction.

  He was very good, whatever he was, although I was pretty sure I knew who he was.

  Our little confab didn’t last too long, since one of the two U.N. crewmembers had managed to find Jakub, and they talked in a corner of the Dinfac. They huddled and Jakub came over and said, “Well, it looks like we’re making progress . . . the numbers match, except for one.”

  The crewman said a jumble of words, and Jakub nodded. “One . . . Herb Spencer. Where would he be?”

  “He’s our farmer.”

  “Excuse?”

  “Our agricultural director. He’s . . . eccentric.”

  Jakub frowned. “Explain?”

  “He’s . . . odd. That’s all. He’s working in our farm tubes. He hardly ever listens to me or the other selectmen. Even when we or dered everyone else into the shelter, he stayed behind.”

  The other crewman spoke rapidly in Polish—or was it Russian, now?—and Jakub laughed, and the other guy said another string of words—some of which I dimly remembered from my two deployments to Sakhalin Island, so it was indeed Russian—and one word stood out.

  Chelyabinsk. Another laugh from Jakub.

  That’s it, and I found it hard to keep a smile on my face.

  Jakub said, “We’re almost through here,” he said. “I beg your indulgence, I need to meet with Edmund for a few moments to check his interview notes concerning your children here. Excuse . . . is it possible to have a meal here when I come back?”

  Pam looked like she wanted to come over and tear out the eyes of Jakub and Otto, and Art was staring at his handheld, looking sick to his stomach, and I desperately wanted to be alone with my folks.

  “I don’t see why not,” I said. “After all, we want the U.N. to know how friendly and cooperative we’ve been.”

  “Thank you,” Jakub said, and the two of them swarmed out to Access Tube Charlie.

  A moment passed, and Pam said, “Chair, mind telling us what the hell you’re doing?”

  “Short term, trying to keep us alive. Long term, trying to keep everybody on Geographos alive. Art, what do you have?”

  “I got a hit on those hull numbers you gave me,” he said. “The ship is a late-gen Soyuz transport, belongs to Roskosmos. No sign of it ever being transferred to the U.N.”

  Pam said, “Doesn’t mean much. Could just be a paperwork error.”

  “Maybe,” I said. “But paperwork error or not, I don’t think those three are Polish. I think we’ve got at least three Russians, two of them armed, wandering through here unescorted. I don’t like it.”

  Art said, “Who does? And why did you say ‘at least’?”

  “Jakub looks like a sharp fella,” I said. “You think he’d leave their Soyuz transport wide open and unguarded? No, there’s probably another crewmember or two back in there . . . which means if we were to do something, they could have backup here in minutes. With weapons. You remember seeing any weapons in our supply lockers?”

  “No,” Pam said. “And besides, our nonprofit would never allow them on board.”

  Art said, “It looks like they’re almost done with their inspection. Why not just wait them out?”

  Pam said, “Christ, we should have never let them in in the first place, Chair.”

  “Yeah, well, you and everybody else in Geographos can have my resignation if you want it.”

  That shut the both of them up for a moment. I pondered for a minute, then Pam tossed her plastic recyclable bulb back to the kitchen, where it bounced around some. “What’s going on, Chair. You heard Jakub and his friend talking. I saw your expression change, just for a second, like you heard something. Give up.”

  I said, “You sure?”

  “Course I’m sure.”

  “It might have been a mistake on my part.”

  Art floated closer to me. I smelled fear on him. “Chair . . . please.”

  “I think I know what they’re here.”

  Pam was first. “Why?”

  “They’re looking for a weapon.”

  Art said, “A weapon? Everybody knows there are no weapons here. Are you nuts?”

  “I wish I was nuts,” I said. “I heard the other guy say something to Jakub. A word. A place name. Chelyabinsk. That mean anything to you?”

  Blank looks. “Christ, what they don’t teach in history nowadays . . . Chelyabinsk. City in southwest Russia. About fifty years ago, one of our local NEO’s paid an unexpected visit and exploded over the city. Injured about a thousand, broke a lot of glass. Force of the explosion equal to twenty or thirty times more than the Hiroshima bomb. If it had come in at a different angle, it could have killed tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands.”

  Art looked like he was desperately trying not to vomit. Pam crossed her arms. “That’s why they’re here. That’s why they’re pretending to be Poles, working for the UN.”

  “Yeah.”

  “But . . . why?”

  “Shit, don’t any of you listen to the news any more?”

  Art said, “Too busy keeping this place running.”

  Pam said, “Don’t give a shit what the groundhogs are up to.”

  “Well somebody needs to,” I said. “Ever since the Treaty of Magadan and the fissionable material confiscation, Russia’s been threatening, sulking, seeking revenge.” I patted the smooth rock surface of our home.

  “We’re the weapon.”

  Art said, “Chair . . . what are we gonna do?”

  “We need to get them off of Geographos, back to their ship,” I said. “We can screw them up by playing with our maneuvering jets if we can get them back online, but we’ve got to get them undocked and moving. Otherwise they’re going to be a space tug, sending us wherever they want.”

  Pam said, “But . . . do they have enough delta-V to do it?”

  I offered a cranky smile. “Does it matter? All they have to do is tell the U.K. that if they don’t renegotiate the treaty, they’ll drop us in the Thames. Or tell Tokyo they’ll drop us in Tokyo harbor.” I slapped the stone surface again.
“The bastards got the perfect weapon. Just a chunk of dumb space rock that will go where they point it. And for the folks living inside, just collateral damage.”

  Pam was angry. “Then let’s disarm them. Get them out of here.”

  Art said, “You got any ideas? You feel like going against those two thugs? Plus, there’s only one way in and out of Geographos, and they’re currently docked to it.”

  I said, “You sure? I mean, are you really, really sure?”

  Then it dawned on him. “Shit . . . you don’t think . . .”

  “No more time for thinking,” I said. “Let’s roll . . . and Art, no offense, if we run into anybody along the way, distract them.”

  Then as one, we slipped out of our dining facility.

  We moved fast, past the hatch to the emergency shelter, where one of the pretend Poles was keeping guard, floating next to Maria. He shouted out a “hey” as we went by, but we ignored him, and I had a nasty chill, knowing why the Russians had come in like they did: they wanted the bulk of the population in the shelter so they could control them.

  At a bend in the tube, Jakub was moving slowly, and Art said, “Christ, there you are!”

  “What’s wrong?” he said, looking surprised. I don’t think he liked being surprised.

  Art said, “We’ve been looking for you, bud. Something’s wrong with your ship. We thought we smelled smoke coming from your side of the docking port. C’mon, I’ll take you up there.”

  Jakub moved as fast as he could, talking into his comm set, and Pam and I raced on, deeper into our home.

  The hatch was like any other hatch, except this one was painted dark brown and had green trees and plants stenciled on its surface. I cycled it open and was hit hard with the scent of water, soil, and the sensation of lots of things growing. It made me stop for a moment, by God, that atavistic part of me that just wanted to soak it all in.

  But we didn’t have enough time.

  “Herb!” I called out. “Herb!”

  “Just a sec,” came a voice.

  There was a dimly lit jungle stretching out before us, with soil and water tanks, lots and lots of plants growing, hoses and tubes and numerous of overhanging lights. Movement and then Herb Zubrin emerged from behind some of the heavy growth. He was tall, gangly, wearing a dirty and much-repaired jumpsuit whose sleeves came down mid-wrist and whose pant legs came down mid-shin, and his feet were bare. His hands were dark with dirt, and he had a thick, bushy beard and a long ponytail that floated behind him.