Anthony, Piers - Tyrant 1 - Refugee

by Anthony, Piers

  Was this an analogy of the human condition, I wondered? Every individual traveling alone, going his own way—yet caught in the gravity well of some huge primary. Each person thought he was unique, and perhaps he was, differing as much from his neighbors as each particle differed in outline from other particles. Yet in the aggregate we were indistinguishable. Did it really matter which of us survived and which did not? No single particle made a perceptible difference to the ring.

  Helse came up beside me and touched my shoulder. She never did more than that when in her boy disguise, but it was enough. It carried the implication of all she was when we were alone.

  "We can't go on this way," she said.

  I looked at her, startled. "We can't?"

  She smiled. "Not we you/me. We the-whole-bubble. The food is almost gone."

  I was foolishly relieved. I had come to depend on Helse's love, whether real or feigned. It was like a beneficial drug to which I was addicted. But of course the problem of the food was critical. We had all known a crisis was coming—but none of us had any solution except to hope that we would be spotted by some random swing of the Jove Patrol and rescued. Woe betide the pirate ship that got in our way this time! We would not again allow our rescue to be balked that way. But we knew we weren't far enough in yet. Space is huge, and Jupiter is huge, and we were a mote among motes, lost. We still had to clear the outer ring, pass the orbit of Amalthea, and reach the primary ring, the territorial limit. At the rate we were proceeding that would be at least another week—and we had food, at quarter rations, for two more days.

  Spirit arrived. "Another head's clogged," she announced brightly. She looked drawn, as we all did, from slow undernourishment, but her spirits remained reasonably high. She had always been that way, venting her angers and griefs rapidly and stabilizing at an optimistic level, and I had always liked her for it. She was generally good company. Most brothers and sisters fight a lot, but we fought less than most, and now not at all.

  "That cuts us down to three heads," I said. "The tanks are full, probably. If we'd had full rations, there'd be no heads left working now."

  "Why not change the tanks?" she asked.

  "We have no replacements. It's usually done planetside. The full tank gets traded for an empty one, and the contents go to the organic soil bank. Valuable stuff, you know; you don't find fertilizer like that floating around in space."

  She wrinkled her nose. "I should hope not! But we ought to do something about—"

  She broke off as if realizing something, then elevated a finger. "Floating in space! Why not?"

  "What are you talking about?" I demanded. Spirit's foolish notions were likely to have some sense to them.

  "Why not just dump the stuff into space? Then the tanks'd be empty, and the head'd work again, and we wouldn't have to double up."

  "Sure," I said. "Why don't you just volunteer to suit up and do that?"

  "Okay, I will!" she said defiantly, and pushed off.

  "She will, too," Helse said.

  "Don't I know it!" I headed off after my impetuous sister. Sarcasm can be dangerous with Spirit.

  In this manner all three of us ended up volunteering for the tank-evacuation detail. We suited up, and Helse handled the safety ropes while Spirit and I went out onto the hull. You see, the bubble was spinning, one revolution every ten seconds or so, so what was partial gravity inside was like partial repulsion outside, as the same centrifugal force tried to hurl us away at a tangent. So we had to be guyed, and that meant someone had to pay out the rope, or take in the slack when necessary, so we could operate without snagging or tangling. It was the sort of job the regular crewmen would have been good at—but of course there were no experienced people among our remaining number.

  We used the front lock, since the merchant-pirates had cleared it out. I carried a bag of tools from the bubble toolshed, while Spirit clambered out with juvenile agility to catch the first rope in the question-mark-shaped eyelet provided for it. Bubbles have sets of such projections for just such emergencies; now I appreciated the foresight of the design. Even a child could figure out these things—and that was a good thing for us! We were actually better fitted to come out here than the women were, because of our size and alertness, which was part of why we were permitted to do it. My mother's natural protectiveness had to yield to expedience, as it had in other cases.

  Once the line was secure, Spirit waved me on, and I handed myself along to join her. It was a bit like mountain climbing in my fancy—naturally, I have never climbed a mountain, there being none on Callisto—for the moment I left the null-gee region of the lock the outward pull began. The farther I progressed toward the bubble's equator the stronger it got, tugging me at an angle. Of course it was slight, even at its worst, but I was not at peak strength because of the reduced food, and the psychological effect was considerable. The whole universe was down and turning; that made my perch seem precarious indeed.

  I paused at the first eyelet, hanging on and looking out. First I saw the bright distant sun, really a super-brilliant star I could readily block out with my smallest finger at arm's length. Still, it emitted enough light to make it day in space. That light might be only one twenty-seventh as intense here as it was at Earth, but we were used to it the way we saw it, and it was quite enough for all normal purposes.

  Then there was Jupiter, so vast my whole spread hand could not block it out. Yet I knew that the enormous planet was subservient to the little star. I could hardly blame my primitive ancestors, thousands of years ago on Earth, for believing otherwise. I understood that from Earth, Earth's nameless moon looked the same size as the sun. That meant that each looked, very roughly, half again as big in diameter as Ganymede looked from Callisto. The moon I could understand, but I had no mental picture of the sun seeming that size. What a brilliantly blazing ball it must be!

  Spirit nudged me out of my reverie. I get that way sometimes, thinking too much at a time, and have to be corrected. I nodded, and she scampered on around to the next eyelet, while I made sure the rope did not snag. Now the curve of the bubble concealed Spirit from Helse, though I could see both. I waved to Helse, who waved back; then I followed the rope to Spirit.

  The location of the refuse tanks was clear enough, as they were intended to be serviced from the outside. There was an effective airlock-type mechanism in each that prevented any direct aperture through the hull from being opened. All I had to do was release the pressure of the tank-enclosure chamber, then unbar the tank itself and slide it out. It seemed simple enough. Yet I knew that things were seldom as simple in practice as they were represented to be in the instruction manuals.

  I hooked my toes—that reminded me, for no obscure reason, of the manner I used the head inside—and got to work on the first one. It didn't matter whether it was one of the working ones or one of the clogged ones; they all would need cleaning out soon enough. I brought out the big wrench, hooked its safety line around my wrist—everything had its own safety line out here!—and adjusted it to the pressure-release valve. You see, the matter in the tanks is deposited at close to the same pressure as the interior atmosphere; the suction of the tubes is mainly forced ventilation. That pressure can't be released from inside; even if the bubble were opened to space and all its air puffed out, the toilet-locks would prevent the tanks from exploding into the interior. That's a necessary safeguard, for an obvious reason. These bubbles are pretty sophisticated devices, when you think about it, safety-rigged in so many ways that it is, literally, possible for a crew of ignorant refugees to sail in space for some time with little to fear from error. Of course their ineffective piloting could lead to an extended trip and starvation, and they could be at the mercy of merciless pirates, but the bubble itself was pretty safe.

  Suddenly the valve let go. These things were corrosion-proof, of course, and reliable; they worked as they were supposed to work, even on an ancient bubble like this. A jet of vapor shot out, catching me in the chest and shoving me away from t
he hull. Even a small shove is effective when you're not braced for it! I sailed out, turning end over end until my safety rope brought me up short.

  Helse reeled me in; that was what she was there for. But though I had been in no actual danger, I was shaken. Had I not had the rope, I would have been flung into deep space and no one could have recovered me. Outside space was dangerous, in its completely passive way, and now I experienced the fear of it. This did not incapacitate me; I shoved it into that corner of my mind required for unpleasant refuse, my emotional toilet tank, and proceeded with my job. But the new, enhanced awareness of space remained with me, and now I felt vulnerable. I think, in retrospect, that this was more significant than I was aware of at the time.

  Helse brought me to her, reeling me in hand over hand, put her helmet against mine, and made a kissing expression. Then she hugged me clumsily in the suits, spanked me, and sent me back to finish the job.

  I got back to my location. The pressure had been depleted; now the tank was conveniently loose in its socket. I slid aside the retaining bars and drew it out. Spirit helped, for the thing was large and awkward. I held it pointed at space, while she took the wrench and loosened the emptying lid. This was a matter of turning a nut, then swinging out a bar; nothing came all the way free, because of the danger of losing it in space. The tank itself had a tether chain, long enough to give us sufficient freedom to operate. Perhaps the designers had anticipated this need to dump in space also.

  When we had the lid off, we had tp get the refuse out. This was a dense brown mass. There are chemicals or enzymes in the tanks that commence the processing of the matter the moment it enters, so this was already part of the way composted, but it remained fecal matter. I saw Spirit wrinkling her nose inside her helmet, though of course there was no smell here in the vacuum. Odor, like sound, requires atmosphere or some other direct conduit.

  Now, how were we to get it out of the tank? We had no tool for this, and neither of us was inclined to reach in with our hands.

  But the problem solved itself. As I clung to the tank by its base, the far end of it swung out centrifugally, and the matter in it was drawn by that same force into space. I almost thought I heard a sucking sound as it escaped the tank, but of course that was illusion. Such a sound could have been transmitted to me via metal and suit, but no sound existed. Vacuum does not have to move about the way air does; vacuum is—or perhaps it is more correct to say vacuum is not. I can picture someone reading this and protesting, "But how did the vacuum squeeze in from space?" That person is a fool.

  As soon as the mass emerged, it fragmented. Tiny bubbles of gas shoved it apart. The large chunks sundered into small ones, which in turn broke into smaller ones. In moments it became a cloud of particles, drifting slowly away from us. Even if there had not been some remaining internal pressure, it would have fragmented because of the tidal force of this orbit, causing that portion of it closer to Jupiter to move marginally faster than the portion more distant. The tide—it was the same thing we experienced within the bubble, I think, in reverse, our feet being carried around faster than our heads.

  Spirit put her helmet against mine. "Jupiter rings!" she exclaimed.

  And of course it was so. We had initiated a new ring system—of base material. Very base. That might be a real surprise for some party scavenging for ice or minerals in space! Just let him bring it into warmth and atmosphere...

  We reloaded the empty tank and bolted it tight, then went on to the next one. The job was easier and faster, now that we were familiar with it.

  The eight tanks made a double circle beside the equator, four to the north (whichever pole that was), four to the south. As we worked on the ones farthest from our air lock, we could see the bags containing the bodies of our men. Nothing showed, for the bags were tied, but even that much instilled in me a certain quality of dread. We were alone with our dead!

  We kept on working, for there was nothing else to do. We dumped a second tank, and a third and a fourth. But the awareness of those bagged bodies was on me. I wondered which one was my father. Sadness welled up in me, the realization that Major Hubris was gone, that I would never see him again. He had been my bastion against the uncertainties of life, the backbone of our family; without him we were largely formless. There was now a void in my life, an emptiness in the physical and spiritual form of my father, and out here it seemed as intense as the void of space around me. Major Hubris would have known what to do about the squeeze between travel and food.

  I saw Spirit clinging to the hull, and knew by the attitude of her body that she felt it too, and that she was crying. She might have bounced back readily, but the onus of loss had not forsaken her. I climbed across and put my suited arm around her suited shoulders, squeezing her comfortingly. We had lost our father and our sister, but we still had each other. And our mother.

  Then we went back to work, doing tanks 5 and 6, watching their contents merge with the ring system of Jupiter. Some of those particles we had sown might remain in orbit for a billion years! It was slightly awesome to realize that my frozen refuse might outlive me by that length of time. It reminded me of a facsimile exhibit I had seen in the Maraud Museum, of the fecal deposit of a dinosaur that had been ossified or petrified or whatever and preserved intact for eternity while the reptile that made it was gone. A fecal fossil. Maybe eventually some creature from galaxy Andromeda would come and take a soil sample from this ring, run it through his alien laboratory, and draw conclusions about my nature. Would he assume I was nothing but a big chunk of fecal matter?

  My gaze came to rest again on the bagged bodies, as if drawn by some spiritual gravity. The women had strapped the bags to the hull irregularly, using the same eyelets we were using. We had to reset our ropes for each pair of tanks, and for the last set we had to route the ropes past the field of bags. I did it, leaving Spirit clinging to the equator.

  As I brushed by one of the bags, my equilibrium suffered. Maybe it was the vertigo of shifting weight and torque as I rounded the hull toward the pole, the air lock where Helse waited. Most of the bags were near the rear air lock, but some were here. I paused to let the sensation pass—but it did not pass.

  The feeling intensified until the whole universe seemed to spin crazily about me, and I was spinning too, opposite it and opposite myself. My head and feet were curving through each other, moving without motion. I realize that doesn't seem to make much sense, but that's the way it was. My head seemed to be orbiting one way and my feet another, and the separate portions of my body each traveled different and mutually incompatible ways. In retrospect I conjecture that my days on half and quarter rations were taking their toll, as well as the shifting forces of rotation I was being subjected to. I was nearer breakdown than I thought at the time. But maybe it was other than that.

  For a moment this disorientation was pleasant, but then it frightened me, for I was afraid I would fling loose of the bubble with such force the rope would snap and I would be forever lost. I was losing what little control I had over my destiny, and that was frightening. A person can bear up under a lot more stress if he believes he has reasonable control than he can if he feels completely subject to the uncaring whim of fate. I screamed in my helmet and clung to the nearest solid thing.

  It was the body in the bag. I felt its human contour. I reacted with horror, but my clutching fingers would not let go. I felt the tears of grief and terror on my face, and was ashamed for them, but it was as if none of my body was subject to my mind anymore.

  Then the bag moved. I was so far gone I did not even scream again. I clung to it, wrestling it, perhaps trying to put it back flat against the hull where it belonged. If there is one thing more appalling than death, it is undeath—the revival of a corpse.

  But the thing pushed back against me, and got me clear, and sat up—except that up was down, here, or at least sort of sideways—and shed the bag. The frozen head turned to face me—and it was my father, Major Hubris.

  "Son, you are starv
ing," he reproved me. "You must not go on this way."

  I had to answer him. "We are out of food," I explained. His remark was so reasonable, as my father's remarks had always been, in life.

  He shook his head. "No, Hope. You have food, if only you will use it. Shed the scales from your eyes and eat."

  "What food?" I asked, bewildered, much as I had been as a child when he was instructing me in some new thing. "We have searched the whole bubble! There is nothing!"

  "I will not permit your mother and sister to starve because of your ignorance," he said firmly. "You are now the man of the family, and so it is your responsibility to see to their welfare. You will provide food for your mother and your sister and that lovely girl of yours—and yourself. You must all eat well, to restore your strength for the ordeal to come. The worst has not yet passed. You will do what is necessary."

  "But there is no food!" I wailed.

  "Son, you know better than that," he reproved me, becoming mildly annoyed at my obtuseness. He had always encouraged me to be intelligent, not in the sense of remembering long series of numbers, but in the sense of perceiving the obvious. "There is plenty of food. You must make a fire, of course, to cook it. You can handle that."

  "Cook it?" I asked, bewildered. "What food? Where?"

  "Here," he said, and extended his hand to me. But the hand was empty.

  I thought about that for a long time, but could make no sense of it. Surely my father would not suggest we feed on vacuum! Then I heard a screaming in the background; it went on and on. Then slowly the whole scene faded out, and I was blank.

  When I recovered awareness I was back inside the bubble. My mother was tending me. "Thank God!" she breathed when she saw my eyelids flicker. "He wakes!"