by Corey Ostman
“A new slush vein.”
“But don’t they work in shifts?”
“Yes,” Kyran said, “but new slush requires them to establish a well head quickly before the vein loses too much heat. So they stay on-site for multiple shifts.”
As they neared the mess, Grace spotted Charlie loitering outside. The roider waved.
“Hey, Charlie!” Grace said, gliding up to him. “Missing on the slush, I hear. Sure you don’t want to go out?”
“I’ll go out later,” Charlie said. “It’s just that—”
“What’s wrong? Is it your grafty?” Kyran asked.
Charlie shook his head. “There,” he said, motioning inside the mess with his thumb. “Trouble.”
Grace looked inside and saw Lee in a shoving argument with another roider.
“Maybe we should come back later,” Charlie said.
“Pfft,” said Grace. She put her hand over her phasewave.
Kyran regarded her suspiciously. “Charlie has a point, Grace. It’s a small colony. Best to not add unnecessary tension.”
“Leave me hungry, and I’ll show you tension.” Grace grabbed each man by the back of the collar. She lifted them up and stepped forward into the mess.
“Hey!” Charlie yelped, squirming.
“We’re just going to eat,” Grace said, lurching to her right for balance. A child sitting at a table pointed and laughed. Some older roiders shook their heads, grinning.
“You can let us down now,” Kyran said. “It’s undignified. Besides, you’re about to topple over.”
“Are we gonna eat, then?” She put the men down, relishing the feeling of strength in low gravity.
“If you’re going to be violent about it, yes,” sniffed Kyran.
Charlie laughed. “First time I been picked up by someone smaller’n me.”
There were seven people in line, all of them ignoring Lee’s escalating argument. Grace followed their example, looking over the menu. She settled on pork-flavored protein, spinach, and a saffron rice derivative, then snagged a couple bulbs of coffee.
As Kyran and Charlie selected their food, Grace checked the total cost on her ptenda. She whistled. There had already been a price increase from the previous visit.
“I can see why you try to eat at home,” she said to Kyran as they threaded their way to the center of the mess. Lee’s argument was finally over, the other roider having left. Lee bounced over to a table near the entrance where a few of his cronies were sitting.
“Let’s sit here,” Kyran said, pulling out a chair. They were beneath a vast skylight, the bright points of the belt clearly visible.
“Sure,” Grace said. She chose a seat with an unobstructed view of Lee. Charlie sat next to her.
“What’s that one?” Charlie asked, pointing up at the skylight.
“The bright one? It’s Jupiter,” said Kyran.
Grace looked up. The dark sky was brilliant, bereft of the distant sun, which had set some time before. Ceres had a nine hour day. Apparently, staying awake for two sunrises followed by one sunrise of sleep approximated a circadian rhythm. She wasn’t sure she could convince her body of that.
The smell of the pucks drew Grace’s attention back to the table and her friends. She layered the pork and green between two starch and took a bite, sandwich-style.
“Try the red,” Kyran said, forking over a mystery puck to each of them.
Charlie probed his experimentally. “What’s in it?”
Grace took a bite and smiled. “Beets? Nice flavor.”
“One of the easiest to synthesize. I gave the mess the formulation about five years ago,” Kyran said. “Remind you of home?”
“Mmm,” she said, finishing off the puck. “For your next project, try working on some kind of gravy.”
“Gravy would be better than beets,” said Charlie.
As Grace dove into her second pork, she glanced in Lee’s direction. He was still in the same spot, but he was angled away from her now.
“When’s Plate due back?” Grace asked between bites.
“The Toshiro gang works a full day, new slush or not, so it’ll be later,” said Charlie. “And then he’s still gotta set up our pill.”
“Pill?” Grace asked.
Charlie nodded. “A hab with cargo bins for slush and ore.”
She tried to visualize it, and kept thinking of an ancient railway car.
“How big are the cargo bins?”
“Most here are five hundred meters in length,” said Kyran. “Iron and nickel operations use much bigger containers. Up to a thousand meters.”
“Unless you’re on Vesta,” said Charlie. “They have all kinds of bad pill laws, and I hear it’s coming here, too.”
“Blame Mars,” said Kyran. “They don’t want to be out-produced.”
“Restricting trade?” asked Grace.
“Yep. And you know what that’ll get us?” Kyran took a bite of puck. “Our first asteroid revolution.”
“Hope not,” said Charlie. “I aim to make a living out here, not pawn myself out to some kinda space war.”
They chewed in silence for a bit.
“So how does the pill thing work?” Grace asked Charlie.
Charlie finished off a bulb of soy milk and wiped his face with his sleeve.
“Cruiser drops you off at a pre-loaded pill, or little tyke of a ‘roid. Ten ore bins, each with thrust and guidance, a hab to live in, equipment. Most of us work alone—I’m lucky I got Plate.” He finished up his last puck. “You find the stuff they think is there, load a bin full, and set it adrift. A kilometer out, you activate it, and it heads off to the processor.”
“Where do they process?”
“Depends,” said Charlie. “Vesta has the largest, run by ITB. There are two smaller processors on Pallas. Some bodes on Ceres do their own processing.”
“So is it like they did with the Moon, back when they were mining it? Canisters parachuting through the atmosphere?” Grace asked.
“In a way,” said Charlie, “but most of ‘em don’t have to worry about an atmosphere thick as Earth’s.”
“There are other hazards,” Kyran said. “Asteroids, for one. And because of fuel costs, bins don’t have much thrust. They can take a long time to get where they’re going. The owners keep the bins on the books as assets, and you can buy shares in the material. There is certification as proof that the ore is good and trackable, but no guarantee. News of incoming bins drives the value up, so you can make a margin before it is processed, or even—”
“Yup,” Charlie interrupted. “If you invest in the right pills and their bins make processor, you score profits before they even crack it.”
“Sounds like gambling,” Grace said.
“The way of the frontier,” said Kyran. “Cloisters pretend they’re frontier, but it isn’t there. It’s here, in the asteroid belt.”
This new world tugged at Grace’s imagination: the excitement of working alone on an asteroid, surviving a rough job. Just stars and rations and good honest slush.
“How long do roiders live on those pills?” Grace asked.
“When the pill’s empty, they come get you,” Charlie said. “Plate told me his first time was about a year. His second tour was two years. He put out twenty bins. None of them have arrived yet.”
“I don’t get it,” said Grace. “Don’t they have trackers on those canisters? Even the most basic probes—”
“They stopped using trackers years ago,” said Kyran.
“Right,” said Charlie. “Problem is, if you can track ‘em, so can pirates.”
“Then how do roiders get paid?”
“They get paid well just working the pills,” Kyran said. “It’s how all the heavy ones like Plate earned their stakes. Working a pill is guaranteed heavy credits.”
“Plate has a motto,” Charlie said. “Pills to pay dirt.”
Grace smiled. That sounded like Plate. Her eyes wandered to her own plate—empty—and then over to Lee
again. Or where Lee had been. The table was empty. He had pushed aside his food and was standing, leaning against the wall near his table. Watching her.
Grace considered, then began stacking their plates. They’d made their point: they weren’t afraid. Now it was time to leave before it got ugly.
“Hey—wanna come over for some cards when Plate gets back?” she asked Charlie. “Taisia’s gone, but I might convince Kyran to be our fourth.”
“Sure,” said Charlie.
“Which game?” Kyran asked.
“What game are you bad at?”
“Most of them.” He laughed.
Grace nudged Kyran playfully. “Thanks for volunteering. Maybe I’ve found a new way to earn credits.”
Kyran’s ptenda bleeped. The doctor looked at the display, wolfed down his last puck, and stood up. “I just received a medical alert. Gotta go.”
“You want help?” Grace asked.
“No,” Kyran said. “It wasn’t tagged Priority, but I still want to respond quickly.”
She was so busy watching Kyran bounce effortlessly away that she didn’t notice a large roider had walked up behind Charlie. It was a woman: tall, with a partial exoskeleton and a mechflesh skull. She put her beefy hands on Charlie’s shoulders.
“Hey, pill bug,” the woman said. “Got somethin’ that don’t belong to you?”
“Get offa me.” Charlie moved to get up, swiping one of the roider’s hands off his shoulder, but Skullhead just pressed him back into the seat.
Grace shot a glance across the room. Yes, Lee was coming toward them.
“Got a problem, Lee?” she asked, loud enough that people at tables nearby turned their heads.
He still hadn’t shaved, but he was wearing a clean green jumpsuit. “Where’s my cannon?” he hissed.
“Did you try the lost and found?” Grace said.
Lee started a slow arc around their table. She knew she could take him out with a well-flung chair.
“Stay out of roider business,” Lee said.
“Yeah,” Skullhead added.
Grace crossed her arms over her chest. “I’m a protector. Disputes are my business.”
“We already have a protector.”
“So why are you bothering us?” Grace said, shrugging. “Why not take your grievance to the protector?”
“Because we know this pill bug’s got the cannon,” Skullhead said, mussing Charlie’s hair.
“And if you don’t want trouble—” Lee began.
“I—I can get it for you by firstrise,” Charlie said.
“You’d better…” Lee trailed off. He narrowed his eyes, peering at Charlie.
“What’s on your head?” he asked through his teeth. His hands curled into fists. “Is that one of mine? Yeah, that’s one of mine!”
Charlie put his hand over his grafty. “It is not! The doc gave it to me!”
“Which means it’s mine.”
“Grafty’s his, fair and square,” said Grace. “Doctors can requisition them, which you know very well.”
“Chanho’s a freeloader, skimming off the top,” spat Lee. “This pill bug didn’t get a req.”
“So what now? You gonna get your twisted protector to enforce it?” Grace asked.
“No.” Lee nodded at Skullhead.
The giant roider unhooked a large slushing hammer from her belt. The gleam of menace was in her eyes. Grace smirked and pulled out her phasewave, leveling it at her. The laser rangefinder flared and painted a dot on Skullhead’s face. The woman froze, hammer hovering in the air.
That didn’t stop Charlie. Terrified, he propelled himself forward, toward the mess exit. When Lee got in the way, he swung, managing to connect with the other man’s jaw. Both spun backwards. Charlie flew into Grace, and she bounded across a table. Lee splayed his hands until he grabbed hold of a chair. It scraped loudly against the floor.
“Lee!” Skullhead shouted, tossing her hammer to him.
Grace’s gut clenched. She struggled to right herself and bring Marty to bear on Lee. Too late—Lee descended on Charlie, hammer striking the side of the roider’s head. Grace heard a wet splatter. Lee was grinning, eyes wide.
“Charlie!” Grace shouted.
Blood poured from the side of his head. She saw a glint of the grafty through his spurting blood. Charlie’s irises vanished behind quavering lids.
Her rage peaked. Grace stood tall, aiming Marty at Lee. He was already bounding toward the door. She thumbed the dial to maximum, cold trigger against her finger. A clear shot.
Charlie cried out, an incoherent spatter of syllables.
Lee has nowhere to go, she thought, holstering Marty.
“Kyran—” she choked, subvocally activating her ptenda.
“Grace? What’s wrong?”
She kneeled and gently put her arms under Charlie, lifting him from the floor. His blood trailed down her arms. The room began to shimmer with tears.
Chapter 9
A dull throb beat behind Grace’s eyes. The room felt too hot. And she felt too confined, trapped behind a cascade of events that had started when she insisted on Charlie having his grafty replaced. She pressed her fingers to her forehead and tried again.
“He murdered Charlie,” Grace said. She tried to show her temper, give her words the force of anger, but it didn’t work. She was too tired.
Charlie was dead. Dead before she made it halfway back to Kyran’s lab. He’d convulsed in the hall, blood splattering in slow motion against the walls. Then a stillness that made her sick.
She’d gone after Lee then, swift and murderous. She’d gone after him for six sunrises, her rage shaking the bode corridors. But he’d disappeared. No one talked. She could open no doors. While she was a certified protector, only the Ceres protector had the authority that mattered here.
And the Ceres protector refused to see her.
“Grace, sit down. Please.” Mhau’s tranquil expression said it all. The engineer was about to repeat what had already been said: There’s nothing that can be done.
“Why is he getting away with this, Mhau? What kind of place is this, where you can kill at will? With no repercussions—no investigation?” She balled her fists, but they felt weak, impotent. “Why won’t the protector see me?”
“Please, Grace,” Mhau locked a tether to her chair and gestured to a seat near her desk.
Grace looked at the chair, at the suggestion of comfort. She didn’t want to be comfortable.
Did it hurt? Grace had asked. Yes, said Kyran. The autopsy scan showed neural damage associated with the worst kind of pain.
“Lee’s father, Renken Larchmont, has been here since day one,” Mhau said quietly. “He runs the dock and shipping concession. Control of what comes in, control of what goes out. He holds complete sway here.”
“Is he a thief, too?” Grace said. “How come no one has talked about him before?”
“Renken prefers the machinations of Bode-6 to work in his favor. It’s in his best interest to protect the status quo. And he will protect his son.”
“Is he the protector’s boss, too? Is he a boss in the compstate? Where’s the accountability, Mhau?”
The engineer’s gaze dropped to the desk. She pressed two fingers to her lips and took a deep breath. She lifted her eyes.
“I’ll tell you this, Grace. If Bode-6 disappeared into a big slush pit today, it might take weeks before Mars or Earth figured it out. And even longer before the loss would ripple through the balance sheets of the compstate shareholders, whoever they are.” Mhau shook her head. “You think this is big? There have been skirmishes between whole bodes resulting in damage, injury, and death. I’m told fighting got so bad once that cruisers boycotted our little ball of ice for nearly two hundred rotations. We are on our own. Isolated from things planetsiders take for granted.”
“I doubt very much that any bode opened on Ceres without a crime plan from day one.” Grace straightened in her seat and leaned forward. “You’re in charge of operation
s, Renken is the harbor master, Kyran is disease control. Lee has claimed a bully kingdom in the slushers. Where’s your security?”
Mhau didn’t answer immediately. She reached for a drink bulb, took a sip, then thumbed the spout closed. Grace caught the scent of mangoes.
“In the mess, you said Lee approached you with a roider for backup?”
Grace nodded.
“You were there with a roider—”
“A friend,” Grace corrected angrily. “Charlie.”
“Charlie. And Kyran?”
“Yes. No—Kyran left before Lee approached us.”
Mhau nodded. “And the roider with you, during a tussle, died because his new grafty was damaged during the fight?”
“It’s not that simple, Mhau! You’re making it sound like an argument that got out of hand.”
Mhau held up her hands, palms out. “I’m making it sound like that for a reason. Lee can find a dozen people to swear they were there and they saw it another way.”
“Don’t you have surveillance? The mess hall is public!”
“Surveillance is only for critical systems,” Mhau said. “Roiders fighting in the mess do not constitute a threat. It’s commonplace.”
“Surely you have situations that warrant surveillance?” Grace asked.
Mhau leaned back in her chair. “A month ago, there was an incident,” she said, taking another sip from her bulb. “A roider was killed in one of the old storage bays off Spiral-2.”
“Murdered?”
“Probably.”
“What was he doing there?”
“She. Decommissioned areas in transition attract illicit activity. We have a pretty useful black market that’s interwoven with the other bodes: programs, chemicals, credit forgeries, smuggling—that sort of thing.” Mhau held up her bulb. “I’m pretty sure I can’t afford real mango, yet here it is. And I paid a legitimate bode tax on it.”
“Most people call that crime, Mhau,” said Grace.
Mhau shrugged. “Semantics. Sometimes crime is horrific and destructive. Sometimes it’s a little white lie you buy on the cheap. Can I finish?”
“As long as you’re not justifying murder,” Grace snapped.
“I’m giving you the legal precedent,” said Mhau, her eyes narrowing.