Shin studied the waves with shining eyes. “You’re right. Once we start exploring, get the subs and UUVs out, I think the nightmares and fears will fade away. It’s just knowing that if anything goes wrong, there’s no Corporation a com call away. No Coast Guard. No other ships. No search and rescue.”
A large swell—one that almost reached the deck—swept beneath them, crashing on the Pod’s duraplast pilings. To Michaela’s relief, she didn’t even feel its impact. The Pod was solid. Dreams of drowning in the darkness were just plain silly.
Then, as if spiraling out of the back of her mind, the words of Wejee Tolland—who’d been on guard at the Mine Gate back in Port Authority—repeated in her head: “But if an old hand can give you any advice, Dr. Hailwood, you’ll live a lot longer if you’ll take for granted that everything on this planet is trying to kill you.”
Damn it, they had to get out there, start cataloging. Of course, it would be different than being on Earth, but if they couldn’t figure out Donovan’s oceans, no one could. They’d be careful; they’d been dealing with sharks, rays, eels, sea snakes; and they had the best technology available.
“What’s that look?” Shin asked, fixing on her expression.
“Nothing.” She pointed where the colorful seaskimmers were tacking against the stiffening wind. They’d passed over the horizon now, their triangular sails fading behind the line of rising and falling swells. “No matter what Supervisor Aguila tells us, how could something that beautiful be dangerous?”
“Michaela,” Shin chided, “the situation here, it’s not like life on the mainland. We’re in the Pod. Not directly exposed to the wildlife. In the sub—which is a pretty tough piece of equipment—we’ll be perfectly safe. It’s made to withstand pressures down to thirty thousand feet. Nothing on this planet could crush it. And most of our work is going to be with the UUVs.” UUV stood for unmanned underwater vehicle, the AI and remote-controlled drones that would be doing the majority of the underwater survey and exploration.
As her gaze fixed on the water, a gap in the high cirrus let Capella’s light fully illuminate the shallows. It could have been a trick, an illusion created by the pattern of the waves and the undulating vegetation beneath, but something large seemed to flit away with remarkable speed, as if it had suddenly determined she was looking at it.
“Now what’s wrong?” Shin asked.
“I keep thinking of something Wejee once told me. He works gate security in Port Authority. He said, ‘Nobody has ever died of old age on Donovan.’”
2
Water ran around Corporate Supervisor Kalico Aguila’s boots as she sloshed up the inclined adit. They called the sloping tunnel the Number Three. It had been driven into the base of the mountain three hundred meters below Corporate Mine’s fenced compound.
Her muscles ached. She still hurt from her frantic escape from the Unreconciled. Now, barely having time to catch her breath, her engineers had asked her to take a look at the Number Three. Damn it, she had too much to do. And Michaela Hailwood kept asking when she’d be out to inspect the Maritime Unit, said she had issues that needed to be dealt with.
Issues? Who the hell on Donovan didn’t have issues?
Around Kalico, the rock walls had been intricately shored with timbers that supported zones of shattered rock. In principle, the adit had been a good idea. Drive a tunnel at an inclined angle from the base of the mountain to just below the expanding stope in the Number One mine. In the stope, water had become an increasing problem, one that was rapidly overwhelming the Number One’s single-pump capacity. Better to use gravity as a drain than to keep building pumps, pipes, and hoses. Additionally, instead of hauling ore out in the skip, winching it to the surface, and transporting it by tram, her crew could dump ore into a hopper and drop it down a vertical shaft into a waiting ore car. The ore car would unload it into a tipple that would fill a hauler at the adit’s mouth, or portal. From there it could be driven to the smelter for processing. And finally, the adit would give her people another egress in the event of a disaster as well as improve ventilation now that they were working deeper and deeper into the mine.
A simple solution to a lot of problems, all of which had proved to be an incredible headache.
She and her engineers had understood that opening a haul road between the adit mouth and the smelter would be a battle. On Donovan, trees moved. And this was deep forest. Kalico and her people had barely won the fight to keep the relentless forest from overrunning her measly seven acres of farmland and its contiguous smelter. Fortunately, she had been able to secure enough terrestrial pine trees from Mundo Base to establish a line. Something about the chemistry in pines repelled Donovanian plant life. Her road would have to be lined with pines, which meant she was harvesting every cone that matured down at Mundo Base. Once sprouted, the seedlings were nurtured with extra care. Armed patrols planted the seedlings where aquajade, chabacho, and ironwood was cut for shoring. Meter by meter, the haul road was being established. Might be another three years before enough pines could be grown to line the entire route.
Next came the problem of the adit. Her engineers, Desch Ituri and Aurobindo Ghosh, had carefully surveyed the slope, determined the angle and distance, and begun driving the Number Three adit. What they hadn’t counted on was the zone of shattered rock they hit two hundred meters into the mountain. This was, after all, the edge of a crater. One caused by an asteroid impact powerful enough to penetrate the planet’s crust. Shattered rock wasn’t a big surprise. And it was remarkably rich in valuable metals, so it was profitable to extract. On the downside, it also crumbled the moment it was undercut. The technical term for the roof collapse was goafing. Problem was, once excavated, the tunnel roof just kept goafing its way up through the shattered rock zone. What Ghosh called “void migration.” Like hollow rot eating its way up through the mountain’s guts, or a bubble of empty space rising through ever-collapsing rock. Leave it go for long enough, and the whole volume above the adit would consist of loose fill that had to be supported.
The solution was that shoring had to be built bit by bit as the adit was drifted into the mountain. They fought a constant battle to keep the adit roof, or head rock, supported.
Structural stability wasn’t the only problem with shattered rock. Unlike higher in the Number One and Number Two mines, the shattered rock in the Number Three had the porosity of a sponge. Water trickled out of it by the bucketful. Because of the incline, Ituri had cut a ricket, or gutter, into the floor that now ran a full stream of toxic heavy-metal-rich water. What Ituri called the “water-make” was now just over one hundred and twenty gallons a minute.
For the time being, they let it drain into the forest. Didn’t seem to hurt the trees. But eventually Kalico was going to have to do something with it. Figure some way of processing it for the metals. She didn’t want it contaminating her farmland, toward which it would eventually drain. Heavy metals in their diet were already a problem that required constant vigilance and chelation therapy.
Kalico nodded to Tappan Mullony where he was fixing a jury-rigged light as she climbed up to the mucking machine with its waiting crew. Ahead of her, she could hear the clattering of the pneumatic hammers as they drove a length of steel rod into the brittle head rock at the top of the working face. The steel would stabilize the roof while fragmented rock was removed and shoring built. Once the shoring was extended, and the potential for cave-in was stopped, the pipe would be withdrawn and carried forward to be driven into the ceiling rock for the next length.
Five foot four in height, and built like a black-haired block of a man, Aurobindo Ghosh stood in the center of the tunnel, lights silhouetting his hazard-suited body. He had his hands propped on his hips, helmeted head cocked as he watched Jin Philon and Bill Masters run the pneumatic hammer. The two men were perched atop a scaffold, each bracing the heavy piece of machinery. Kalico stuffed her fingers in her ears, deafened by the noise. Th
e others all wore hearing muffs with integral com.
“That’s it,” Ghosh called as the rod was driven even with the last length of chabacho-wood shoring. The sudden silence left Kalico’s ears ringing. She lowered her hands, calling, “How’s it going?”
Ghosh turned. “Hey, Supervisor. We’re making ten feet a day through this rotten stuff. Talovich is out with the sawyers dropping trees along the haul road. We’re shaping every timber and fitting it before hauling it in to be placed.” He pointed. “Got to shore along the top as we muck out the ore. Sort of like extending a ceiling before building the room. Then we pull back, muck another meter or so, back the machine out, set more timbers, and do the whole thing over.”
“Monotonous,” Jin called, a smile on his wide lips. He had an arm slung over the top of the large pneumatic jackhammer as if it were his best pal.
“What the hell else you got to do?” Kalico asked ironically. “Go gamble at Port Authority?”
“Naw,” Masters called derisively, “Ol’ Jin here, all his plunder goes to keeping his man-part vertical while the rest of him is horizontal at Betty Able’s.”
“Don’t be jealous, Billy Boy,” Jin chided. “At least I got something that will go vertical. Bet you wish yours did.”
Kalico shook her head. “You’re both what I’d call hard luck cases.”
They laughed at that, jabbing each other in the ribs before muscling the heavy pneumatic hammer off of its platform and easing it down onto the broken rock on the tunnel floor.
Ghosh had an amused look on his face.
“What?” Kalico asked. She stepped aside so Jin and Masters could maneuver the bulky hammer past. It was a makeshift thing that they’d had Tyrel Lawson up in Port Authority cobble together out of parts scavenged from who knew where. Water dripped and spattered on her helmet as she squinted against the bright lights to inspect the mazework of cracks crisscrossing the ceiling.
Ghosh waited until the two miners were out of hearing. “Long way from Turalon, aren’t we?” A beat. “Listening to you bantering with the guys, I wonder if we’re even the same people.”
“A long way.” Kalico agreed, stepping forward to get a better look at the metallic shine that reflected from the cracked stone: gold, silver, lead, antimony, maybe some copper, and a host of the rare Earth elements like rhodium, beryllium, scandiums and the like. Those took a better eye than hers to identify with the casual glance. “Why do you bring that up?”
Ghosh indicated the departing miners with a jerk of his head. “They’d crawl through hell for you, you know. We all would. Watching you just now, you’re a million years away from that woman who came here on Turalon figuring she was going to whip the whole planet.”
She snorted in a half laugh. “Just because I’ll engage in ribald banter with my people?” A pause. “Yeah, I know. Donovan does that. Knocks you down, beats you into the mud, and waits to see if you’ll get up or be eaten by a slug.”
“No slug’s gotten you yet.”
Though the mobbers had come close once. The four-winged fliers traveled in colorful hoards; they had come within a couple of seconds of slicing Kalico into ribbons while she stood in the supposed safety of her fenced compound. She fought the urge to reach up and run a finger along the scar that ran the length of her jaw. It was one of many that crisscrossed her skin, this way and that, in a pattern not so different from the cracks in the shattered rock that surrounded her. The miracle was that she was still alive.
“Tell me about this.” She pointed at the face where water seeped from the colorful rock to drain down the stone in silver trickles. “We’re way behind schedule. By now we were supposed to be driving a manway and chute up into the Number One. The pump up there is running twenty-five hours a day, and the stope is filling. How far do we have to go?”
“Depends, Supervisor.” Ghosh stepped forward, plucked an angular yellow rock from the working face. “If this rotten rock keeps going, it might take a whole lot longer. When we drift our way under the Number One, we’ll have to crib our way up as we go. We hit stable rock again, it’s just a matter of drilling, shooting, and mucking. We’ll be making twenty-five feet a shift.” He paused meaningfully. “If we hit good rock.”
Absently she ran a finger along the scar in her cheek. “Didn’t figure it would take this long.”
He gave her a knowing squint. “What’s your hurry? Got a shipment going out to Solar System that I don’t know about? Ituri’s making metal down at the smelter, and we’re shipping it up to orbit for holding in vacuum. Didn’t know we were behind on tonnage. Uh . . . assuming we ever see another ship from Solar System.”
She grinned back, amused with herself. “Maybe part of me is still that same woman who stepped off Turalon. You’re right. Ashanti couldn’t take everything we had to ship as it was.”
Ghosh slipped his glove off, wiped a drip from the end of his nose. “Do the math. Turalon spaced for Solar System five years ago. If everything worked, if she inverted symmetry and ran the equations backwards, she would have popped back inside right on cue three years ago. Would have taken her a couple of months to make the transit from Neptune orbit to Transluna. Wouldn’t have needed more than a couple of weeks to unload her. Meanwhile, all of Solar System is hearing about the missing ships. They still think seven of the big cargo vessels have vanished. They won’t have a clue that Ashanti or Vixen made it. The stories will be running wild about Freelander showing up as a ghost ship. The powers that be will be watching the holographic record of the temple of bones, seeing that spooky hallway with all the weird writing, and Jem Orten and Tyne Sakihara’s corpses in the welded-up A.C.”
“That ought to send shivers through the Board. Almost wish I could be there to see their faces,” Kalico told him. “They’ll control a lot of the images. Keep a lid on most of the more gruesome details, like the fact that the crew murdered all the transportees.”
“What about the returning contractees?” Ghosh lifted an eyebrow. “Marston and his bunch with all their plunder. That’s going to make a splash. And they’ll tell the whole story.”
“Oh, you innocent babe in the woods,” she chided him. “We’re talking about The Corporation. What principle was it founded on?”
“Control, distribution, and management for the good of all.”
“Key words: control and management.” Kalico winced as a large drop of water spattered on her helmet and exploded into silver mist under the harsh lights. “All the returning transportees will be handled with total efficiency, and believe me, the Boardmembers will be on top of any rumors as soon as they get a hint of trouble. By the time the first of the transportees step off Turalon, they’ll have been completely versed in what to say and what not to say. Not to mention the consequences to themselves and their families if they go telling tales that are not officially sanctioned by the Board. What The Corporation won’t be able to squelch is that something’s wrong with the way we’re inverting symmetry, that seven ships are missing and presumed lost. That Freelander suffered some catastrophe, and everyone died. And finally, that the colony has survived, if not prospered. But most of all, they can’t stop the knowledge that Donovan is a treasure chest of potential wealth.”
Ghosh pulled on his glove. “You think it’s enough to make the Board turn Turalon around, put another crew on her, and send her back?”
“I don’t know.” Kalico watched a loose piece of rock break loose from the ceiling and clatter to the floor. It shattered into pieces when it hit. Rotten, indeed. “They’d be running the figures. Seven ships? That’s a huge capital loss to write off. Turalon’s cargo? Most of it was clay. Remarkable clay, and enough to build two starships to be sure. And then there was the plunder. That, along with the geological reports, will have the Board intrigued. Of course, they’ll trickle the gemstones and precious metals into the economy slowly so as not to disturb the markets.”
“Oh, yes. Mustn�
�t disturb the markets,” Ghosh growled.
“But whether they’ll turn Turalon around? I really can’t say, and I’ve given it a lot of thought. Depends on the politics and backstabbing. On who has the power on the Board these days and what their agenda is. Who has the most to gain or lose? What’s the political situation out among the stations? Social unrest? If so, it’s a lot more likely they’ll make the most out of Turalon’s arrival. Use the wealth as a distraction, disseminate glowing reports, and hope to ship as many radicals off to Donovan as they can manage to cram aboard. So, it’s a tossup.”
“Until Ashanti arrives,” Ghosh added.
She gave him a conspiratorial wink. “If Ashanti arrives.”
He shifted uncomfortably, gaze fixed on the crumbling rock. “All this speculation about what the Board would do? It’s just wishful thinking, Supervisor. For all we know, Turalon never made it back. Maybe she’s lost somewhere in some other universe. Like Freelander, all of her passengers and crew are dead, and all that wealth is floating somewhere in blackness.”
Kalico could well imagine. She could see it. The image of Turalon’s familiar decks. Dark. Cold. Rimed with ice crystals. Corpses, frozen for eternity, lay sprawled; or if the ship were totally dead, the bodies floated in free fall. And Turalon, hurtling through some dimensionless universe where the laws of time and space didn’t exist. And she’d do it forever.
“Supervisor?” Ghosh prompted.
“Sorry.” She shivered. “Take as long as you want. Do it right. Suddenly schedules aren’t quite as important as I thought they were.” Except for getting her butt out to the Maritime Unit. She should have been there a week ago, but for being up to her neck in cannibals, treetop terrors, and mayhem.
As she turned to walk away, the overhead rock gave off a loud crack, and another couple of angular pieces fell to clatter on the floor.
Adrift Page 2