by J. F. Holmes
***
Corwin couldn’t decide if he wanted to fall asleep where he was, or if he wanted to keep going for an entire extra day cycle. He felt mentally exhausted, but was actually unable to sleep whenever he laid down.
So much was happening all at once. It was one level of illegal to be involved with the resistance, and that got you jailed, but an unlicensed genetic replicator was a great way to get yourself stuck in a reeducation camp with regular special attention paid to you by the guards.
What was it his grandfather would always say? “In for a penny, in for a pound.”
Oh well.
***
Dinner had been wonderful. For such a small colony out on the edge of nowhere, it had some surprisingly excellent restaurants. Apparently being able to attract competent mining personnel was difficult at best, and especially being able to attract competent mining personnel who were willing to work at the edge of civilization mining starship fuel. The corporate conglomerate that owned Heck would actually subsidize, fairly heavily, any business it deemed to be a “notable luxury”. Which was part of why a pet shop that specialized in exotic pets had actually been able to stay in business on such a small mining colony. There couldn’t be more than 150,000 people across the entire moon and gas giants. It actually provided enough luxury accommodations that people would come in from out of system in order to enjoy the things offered. About the only thing you could get on Earth that was difficult to find on Heck was tobacco, and even then it was possible, just very expensive.
As it turned out, having someone else subsidize 80% of your lot rent in the station, as well as your life-support fees, made a substantial difference in being able to provide luxury goods and services.
Arwen had greeted the proprietor of the establishment as an old friend. He appeared to be ethnically Indian, but spoke with a Russian accent in standard English. He gestured them inside, and they were greeted again by a woman behind a podium.
As Corwin looked around him at the entryway of the restaurant, he was floored. There were absolutely beautiful tapestries all around him, depicting life in the Soviet Union, Czarist Russia, and for some reason, the American Wild West. A little further in, he could see other tapestries, portraits, and even photographs of slightly less ancient times – depictions of some of the first colonies, terraforming and onward – there were even a couple of still tank holograms of this colony.
The hostess smiled at them as they entered, and even winked at Julian. It was difficult to see his blush under his darkly-tanned skin, but it was clearly there, rising all the way to the tops of his ears.
“We have a variety of options for you. Do you know what you want to eat?”
Arwen rattled off an order that sounded as if she had it memorized. She turned to Corwin and raise her brows, and he made a go-ahead gesture in response. She nodded, turned to the hostess, and said something else. It all sounded as if it was in some Slavic language he couldn’t quite identify.
The hostess gestured for them to sit down in the waiting area, told them it would be a few minutes before their order was ready, and that they would be seated then.
He almost couldn’t help it, looking wide-eyed at everything. There was just an old-time feel to the entire place, and it felt almost as if somebody had taken an antique restaurant and dropped it into the mining colony, complete with antique decorations.
Arwen got up and walked over toward the decorations, grabbing a mug off of it. It looked like a giant teakettle, but with the spigot on the side. It was supported by elephants at the base made out of silver and bronze. As the decorations went from the base of it to the top, they went through various jungle scenes, complete with giraffes, lions, tigers, some sort of large snake, and what appeared to be an adolescent boy in a loincloth.
She twisted the knob on the side of the giant kettle thing, and what appeared to be steaming hot water came out. She pressed down on the tongue of one of the elephants, and a prepackaged teabag came out of the mouth.
She brought them over to Corwin. “Here, they have a house blend I’m quite fond of.”
Sipping his tea, which really was surprisingly good, even if it did taste slightly of pine needles, Corwin weighed his options. It’s not like he had a good option to back out of all this, so he was probably best off just going with it, at least for the time being. Well, there were worse options.
When they were seated, he noticed that the decorations were just as nice in the seating area, but seemed to be more focused on European history. Giant dirigibles seemed to be in competition with steamships, and all around them there was a theme of jungles depicted in the various tapestries.
In a surprisingly short amount of time, the food arrived. It looked like it was beef stroganoff at first, with pancakes to the side, and some sort of dipping sauce, but as Corwin bit into, it he could tell it was actually some sort of pork. The pancakes had a small container of heavy cream with them that was apparently for dipping, and they made a very pleasant change after he made the mistake of ladling on the sauce that came to the side. It appeared to be made of some sort of paint stripper combined with essence of fire. His eyes were watering within seconds of consuming it, and he had some small, genuine amount of fear that he’d actually melt.
With the food came some sort of brown, bubbly liquid in large glass steins. He thought it was beer at first, until Julian drink some. Carefully sniffing at it, he took a sip. It was like a cross between rye bread and soda.
As the meal progressed, he was able to ask a few generally social questions about the station – nothing too specific or personal, just enough to keep things going, and allowing him to pick up some information about his new home. He didn’t want to get too specific, if for no other reason than he was worried about anyone listening in. You never knew when the police would listen unexpectedly.
Apparently this colony had originally been a commercial colony, and when the colonial revolution came, it had stayed fairly neutral. The UN had more or less ignored it since then. There was a fair-sized entertainment complex in order to attract capable personnel, but that was as much as anything a matter of building up the life-support system with extra parks and so on.
The moon, Heck, was an airless void, and only valuable because it orbited a gas giant that was rich in the compounds used for starship fuel. There were two other gas giants in the system, and both of them produced at least some valuable resources, which made them marginally worthwhile to mine, but not enough to set up full-time colonies.
There was even a fairly extensive school system that went all the way to university level – even if you did have to order in courses at that point. It was cheaper than traveling, and it was a study-by-mail degree, but it was much better than nothing. Apparently the youth of the colony would use it to get undergrad college credits, and then move off to an actual university if they so desired.
Part way through the meal, just as they were starting to get into the swing of conversation, a large brown-haired man with a blonde beard stepped up to the table. He grinned a toothy grin, and Corwin, assuming that this was just another friend of Arwen, smiled politely back.
“Hello, Arwen.” The man spoke with a thick Slavic accent strong enough to slice bread, and as he spoke, Corwin got the distinct impression that, even if his demeanor was generally friendly, this man was not Arwen’s friend.
“Hello, Herman.”
Corwin got that puckering-in-the-guts feeling that he’d had before, and began again to wonder what he’d gotten himself into. From her facial expression, Arwen didn’t just dislike this man, she thought of him as something slightly lower than intestinal parasites.
The man extended his hand toward Corwin, still grinning broadly. “My name is Herman Kravechenko. It is nice to meet you.” Corwin gingerly took his hand and shook it. That finished, Herman turned back to address Arwen.
“Your payment is not due for a month.”
The man grinned as if what she’d said was funny or she’d told a joke.
“There is new boss on station. He wants to meet with you for arranging alternate payment.”
Corwin’s eyes flipped back between Arwen, Julian, and Herman. Julian just looked uncomfortable, where Arwen looked mad enough that she must be channeling whatever ingredient they used for that dipping sauce to make her look that red.
“Tell your new boss that when I meet him, it will be on my terms and when I’m ready.” She gestured to Corwin. “And with my new business partner.” She put emphasis on the word “my” as she pointed to Corwin.
Herman just smiled more broadly, somewhat surprisingly, since Corwin hadn’t thought it was possible. It was like watching a beard grow cartoonishly. He had oversized white teeth, like one of those sock puppets they used to teach children to brush their teeth or cross the road safely.
Herman nodded at each of them in turn. “It is good to meet you,” he said, directly addressing Corwin. “I will see you soon.” He turned around and left without another word.
Corwin turned to Arwen, and raising one hand slightly pointed to the departing man while raising his eyebrows.
“We shouldn’t talk about this in public,” she said, nodding her head at Herman, “but that’s how I got my equipment.”
“Oh.”
***
The rest of the meal passed in a much more subdued manner.
Corwin found himself wondering what he’d gotten himself into at an even deeper level. This wasn’t going to be the simplest thing he’d ever done, by a long shot. Nor would it be the most emotionally uninvolved.
In for a penny, in for a pound. He’d made that decision already, and the best option was simply to ride it out.
The walk home was fairly uneventful. Despite all the excitement, as far as Corwin could tell, this colony was fairly boring over all – no crime to speak of, tucked off in the corner of civilization, and with almost nothing to do. The local teenagers apparently had a habit of printing sculptures out of reprocessed rock remnants and leaving them in public spaces. They even left some fairly obscene ones, and it was an intriguing form of vandalism and artwork, but it was by no means dangerous, unless you tripped over one or were easily offended.
Some of the art was, admittedly, quite impressive. Knowing teenagers, they’d probably never experienced some of the things depicted in that artwork, but they looked possible enough. He took notes for possible future reference, and remembered his own frat parties. Graffiti with spray paint would never seem as impressive as it had once been.
The colony was generally divided into three levels, with most shops and commercial areas being on the main floor, residences being on the upper floor, and life support and maintenance being on the bottom floor. This meant that a great many shopkeepers actually lived above their shops, and it led to an interesting dynamic for neighbors. Each level was actually tall enough to have fairly high ceilings, but for some people, such as Arwen and Julian, they’d paid to have an additional level put on the living area. It meant a relatively cheap addition to living space, since they just needed to dig upward.
Most of the colony was actually around 300 feet below surface level, adjacent to a canyon where starships could come and land. It was easier to build landing gantries that way, and the colony had quite a bit of room to expand before it ran into problems, without having to put up domes or anything similar. Since it was a mining colony, they just used some of the machinery that wasn’t currently in rotation and expanded as needed. There were actually several areas they’d expanded into existing natural cave networks, and just sealed the life-support-critical areas as needed.
Because of this, the colony actually sprawled a surprising amount. If this had been on Earth, they could have fit everybody in to a single archaeology without too much trouble, and more or less ignored any need for things like roads. As it was, instead, the colony had a single “highway” with its own dedicated bus system that ran off of electrical cables embedded in the ground and in the ceiling. It actually only ran on the commercial level, but had regular stops going “up” or “down” at major junctions for the other levels, with elevators for the people.
Which was why it took them over an hour to get home, even given the relatively small size of the colony.
Unfortunately, this gave them plenty of time to talk.
“Wait, you’ve been dealing with these guys for how long?”
Arwen inhaled and slowly sighed. Her hands rotated from being in her pockets to being crossed in front of her and back in an irritated parallel of the body language from earlier.
“For nearly a year and a half now.” She looked like she was trying not to get defensive over it. “The resistance doesn’t have much money, and I had to take out a loan. It ended up being from the only people who would give somebody who was on the run from the law a loan.”
Corwin’s eyes nearly bugged out of their sockets. “So you took out a loan from the mob?”
“Look, the resistance has almost no liquid assets. Whenever any are found, they’re seized, and what’s not seized is generally used to help people like you,” she pointed a finger at my chest, “escape from various prisons.”
She glared up at me, daring me to respond and tell her she was wrong.
“Or in your case, avoid being imprisoned in the first place. Besides that, I don’t think you have any idea how hard it is to secure operating funds for a resistance movement to get something that costs several times the yearly salary of most CEOs.”
Corwin stared at her. They were actually stopped in the street, but that didn’t matter all that much, since it was the middle of local night. Anyone they were likely to run into they’d see coming from a number of yards away. Despite the hard pavement reflecting noise, the moss growing on the walls did a dandy job of damping sound, as well as converting carbon dioxide into oxygen and providing faint illumination.
She looked down, and her hands rotated back into her pockets. “And besides that,” if anything her head actually got lower, “I was promised reimbursement that never came. I wasn’t planning on paying on it for this long.”
He suddenly gained an understanding of what Arwen and her son were going through. It wasn’t that they’d wanted to be stuck, she was just in a position she couldn’t get out of and was doing her best.
Like himself.
“Hey, I’m sorry for getting mad earlier. I should’ve kept my calm.” Corwin extended a hand in truce.
Arwen reached hers out and shook it. It was almost comical to see the difference in size – he’d always had oversized hands, and Arwen’s were fairly small even for a woman of her size – but at least for the moment, it signified clearly to both of them that there was a peace and that they were working together.
“So have you been waiting for me to arrive this entire time?” Corwin asked, pointing to himself.
Arwen nodded. “You, or someone like you. Julian and I have been stuck on some things that are probably fairly simple for someone with your skill set, but the cell I’m a member of hasn’t had access to anyone with the knowledge.”
Julian made a wry expression and waved at Corwin.
Corwin remembered his audience, and pointed to Julian. “How involved is he in this?”
Julian looked Corwin directly in the eyes. “Right now, I’m one of the three members of this resistance cell, and I’m officially as up to my neck in it as any of you. I’m old enough to go to prison or for them to kill me if something goes wrong. And it was my choice.”
Corwin raised his eyebrows. “How many people are there in the cell?”
Julian and Arwen exchanged a glance. Julian spoke. “Three. Myself, my mother, and now you.”
It was Corwin’s turn to inhale slowly and extend his fingers outward before balling them into a fist. “So you’re telling me that we have three people,” he pointed each of them in turn, “to accomplish the Holy Grail mission the resistance has been fighting for longer than I’ve been alive, and these three people are a pet shop owner, a college student,
and a teenager?”
Julian nodded. “That sounds right.”
Corwin nodded slowly, thinking to himself.
“So what’s the plan?”
***
Corwin fidgeted in his new dress shirt.
Arwen adjusted his tie. “Stop fidgeting.”
“It itches.”
She’d been right. It really hadn’t been that hard to fix what had been wrong with the editor. They hadn’t actually needed an engineer for any of it, a competent electrician could probably have done most of the work, but she’d really had no way of knowing that until somebody who knew what they were doing had looked at it.
To add to the fun, there was apparently a colony already out there somewhere. The resistance was supplying it with as much as it could, and almost all the colonists were freed political prisoners, or people who would have been “disappeared” if the resistance hadn’t gotten there first.
Apparently, there were some hungry people somewhere out there, living on starvation rations, and hollowing out an asteroid. The last Arwen had heard, they’d have around six more months at most, given current rates of growth and supply drops.
No pressure.
The problem hadn’t been with the editor, but the consumables. They were closely watched by the UN, and even though she had a pet shop, and so was expected to consume at least some of them, she had to keep very careful paperwork on all of it. Even the little things, like the vials and test tubes she bought, were watched surprisingly carefully.
It turned out the other reason that she’d gone to organized crime for a loan was she’d already done business with them. When she and her husband had fled from Earth, they’d procured fictional identities. She’d wanted to avoid getting a loan using that fictional identity, especially for such a large amount, to avoid scrutiny, since it turned out that as long as you paid your taxes and didn’t raise a fuss, you tended not to get noticed this far out from civilization.