by Diann Read
Suddenly self-conscious, he made himself let go of the chair’s arms. “When I was small,” he said.
“A pity,” the governor said. “Your father was already an accomplished pilot at your age.”
Tristan eyed him. His features appeared neutral but his voice held the barest suggestion of mockery. Tristan didn’t answer.
Still eyeing Tristan, the governor released his straps, pushed against his seat, and shot toward the overhead, leaving the deck completely. Tristan stared.
The governor caught a handhold and pulled himself up. “Feel free to move around the cabin,” he said, ignoring Tristan’s surprise. “Just do so with care until you’re comfortable with zero gravity.” Using the handholds, his body drifting parallel to the overhead, he made his way forward with less effort than if he were swimming and disappeared through the forward hatch.
Tristan didn’t move. His stomach felt as if a large stone slowly rotated inside it. He closed his eyes and breathed through his mouth to ease the discomfort, keeping his face turned away from Larielle and the servants.
Some time later, looking out on unfamiliar constellations, a glitter against the starfield caught his eye. He unfastened his straps and tried to stand, and found himself falling toward the overhead. His hands shot out to catch himself, grasped for anything to save himself, but he couldn’t reach the handholds.
One foot struck the back of his chair, sending him into a somersault. He flailed, expecting to strike the deck on his shoulder. Seizing the chair’s back as his roll brought it within reach, he pulled himself down and struggled to bring his feet back to the deck.
More upright than not, he held onto the chair, gulping for breath, and glimpsed Pulou staring at him with eyes wider than lomo’s eggs.
“Are you all right, Tristan?” Larielle asked. Her features showed genuine concern, but he saw Rajak and Avuse laughing behind her.
Tristan tightened his jaw. “Yes,” he said. His face burned with humiliation.
He didn’t move for several minutes, until he found he could reach the rail that ran along beside the viewpanes. He let go of the chair with one hand, stretched, locked it hard around the rail. Holding his breath, he tried to step up to the pane. His feet left the deck again. His other hand clamped onto the rail, too. Reorienting himself, he spotted what looked like more handholds on the deck below the rail, and he shoved the toes of his boots under two of them to keep his feet planted.
The cluster of lights had brightened by now, taking on shape and dimension: a structure adrift in space. Tristan studied it, brows knitted; and when the governor unexpectedly joined him, he asked, “What’s that?”
“Our main orbital station,” Renier said. He floated between overhead and deck, anchored with a single handhold. “It’s the port of entry to the Issel system. We’ll pass close by it on our way to the moon.”
A few more minutes cast the station into silhouette against Issel’s bright globe. It appeared as fragile as spider’s webbing, a scaffolding of girders and gantries about a rotating cylinder, festive with red warning lights and green guidance beacons. Tramcars glided between the cylinder and spacecraft as massive as mountains, caught like flies by docking umbilicals.
“What are those?” Tristan asked, daring to let go with one hand long enough to point.
“Freighters,” Renier said. “They’re part of our trade fleet.”
The shuttle slid over a long line of berths, and Tristan pointed at three ships docked in a row, bristled as hedgehogs. “Are those freighters, too?”
“No, they’re destroyers. They’re being refitted for return to service.”
“Destroyers?” Tristan cocked his head.
“Warships,” the governor said.
Tristan studied his narrowed eyes for a moment and didn’t ask anything else.
In another half hour the orbital station slipped from view in the shuttle’s wake and Tristan pulled himself back to his seat.
He had sunk into a doze when the voice from the overhead speaker roused him: “We are now on approach for landing. Please secure your harnesses and remain in your seats until landing and pressurization are complete.” Blinking awake, he pushed himself up in his seat and looked out through the viewpane.
The shuttle glided over a black desert, craggy and cratered and lifeless, its features finally fading into a bowed horizon. Only red pulses of light from occasional manmade towers and the reflected flash from scattered metallic domes—like shelled water creatures half submerged in silt —he thought, indicated human habitation of the moon.
Tristan watched the descent, felt the trembling roar of the retro rockets illuminating the terrain below and turning it ruddy, until billows of dust and vapor obscured the view. He glimpsed only a moment’s flash of lights encircling the dome over which they hovered, then saw the dome spiral open like an alien mouth to swallow them. He curled his hands around the chair arms as the craft sank into the opening.
As they settled, the roar subsided and billows of firelit steam dissolved. Tristan looked out on launch bay walls like the ones on Ganwold—had that been only three weeks ago?—and watched the dome, above them now, spiral closed before a noise of wind surrounded the shuttle.
Several minutes later, lights came on in the bay and doors in its walls opened, admitting a number of men, some wearing uniforms and others in coveralls.
The weight of his own body, like carrying a peimu across his shoulders, pushed Tristan down the ramp after the governor and Larielle. At the bottom, Renier conversed briefly with the men in uniform. They eyed Tristan with masked expressions. He met their looks.
They left the launch bay through an airlock with shield doors as thick as his body, and strode down a passage bored from dark stone. Tristan saw how Pulou wrinkled his nose, sniffing. His pupils widened, cat-like, in the dimness. Following, he trailed his hand along the wall, feeling its cragginess, brushing off loose bits with his fingers, and realized he could have trailed his hand along the low ceiling, too. A grating of hard plastic underfoot muffled the noise of their footfalls.
They passed through another airlock into a lift the size of a small room, and when a new masculine voice said, “Level, please,” the governor answered, “Command Section.”
The lift dropped swiftly. Tristan watched a light blink its way down a graph on the wall, passing levels identified as Flightline, Shuttle Maintenance, Supply & Storage, Personnel Maintenance & Quarters, Mine & Life Support Offices.
Shield doors opened, two levels from the bottom of the shaft, into a corridor with a carpeted floor. These walls had been hewn smooth, covered in a neutral tan color, and lit with hidden illuminants.
“The residence here is two miles below the surface,” the governor said.
Tristan stared at him. “Two miles?” He remembered how his mother had measured gan migrations, tried to imagine those distances turned on end underground, and shook his head. “That can’t be right! It can’t be that far!”
Renier smiled. “There’s a stairwell at the far end of this hallway for emergencies. If you doubt me, you have my permission to climb it.”
Tristan surveyed the corridor, and its low ceiling seemed to settle on him. “Why?” he asked. “Why do you live under the ground?”
“You saw the surface,” the governor said. “It can’t support life. There’s no atmosphere or light, and no protection from radiation and meteors. Our survival depends on putting solid rock and shield doors between ourselves and the outside.” He turned to the servants. “Show Larielle and Tristan to their rooms. Avuse, we’ll dine in my suite for the duration of our stay.”
Avuse, carrying the travel bags, acknowledged with a stiff nod, and Rajak said, “This way, Tristan.”
His room was smaller than the one he’d had on the planet, and its latrine connected with another room: Rajak’s. Tristan wrinkled his nose at the musty smell of the place, almost willing to believe it was a cave, except for its dry walls and even floor.
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A white screen covered most of one wall. A holoscreen, Tristan realized. He found the sensor that activated it and flicked through the choices of scenery twice. This one had no forest; he settled for a fishing stream tumbling through a meadow, and sat on the floor to pull off his boots and shirt.
From his place he spotted three small openings in the floor spaced along the base of the wall, each about as long as the width of his hand and two fingers wide. He slipped his hand cautiously into the nearest one and felt warm air blowing up around his fingers. Reaching as far as he could, he felt moisture on the sides of the duct, but he couldn’t feel its bottom. He withdrew his hand and peered into the duct. He couldn’t see anything besides darkness, but the air brushing his face bore the moist odor of a cave. He sat back, grimacing.
Pulou watched him, head cocked. “You find what, little brother?”
“Where air comes in,” Tristan said. “It smells like cave.”
Pulou only blinked, clearly as puzzled as Tristan.
He hadn’t even taken his seat at the dinner table that evening before he asked, “Why did people come here if it isn’t safe to live on the outside?”
“Because this moon is one of the richest sources of carmite ore in the known galaxy,” the governor said. “It’s a mining colony.”
“Ore?” Tristan cocked his head. “Mining? What are those?”
“Mining is the method of collecting ore,” Renier said. “This ore looks like red rock when it’s first brought from the ground. But when it’s refined it produces a red metal which is heat-resistance, a nonconductor, valuable for the construction of starcraft and high-powered weapons. It was a great asset during the Great War. It still is.”
“Who brings it from the ground?” Tristan asked.
“We have workers for that.”
“Where are they?”
“At the various mine complexes.” The governor studied him briefly. “Perhaps you would like to go with me when I begin the inspections tomorrow. It’s often easier to understand a thing if you can see it for yourself.”
Larielle looked up, shaking her head. “No, Papa. Tris, you don’t—”
“I want to go,” Tristan said.
* *
They rode the lift up only to the level marked Mine & Life Support Offices and emerged, Tristan and Pulou and the governor, into another carpeted corridor with doors on either side. Lettering identified them: Oxygen & Water Development, Laborer Control & Maintenance, Power Production, Ore Assessment, Mine Production Records. Tristan looked around, suddenly self-conscious, from trying to sound out the words when he sensed the governor watching him.
“I didn’t know you could read,” Renier said.
“A little.” Tristan ducked his head. “My mother taught me when I was small.”
“She is a remarkable woman,” the governor said. “I hope you appreciate her.”
Tristan’s vision locked on those dark hawk’s eyes. “You won’t let me help her!”
“I told you at the first it would take time.” The governor leaned on his walking stick and started back up the corridor. “At the moment I have more pressing concerns. Come now.”
Tristan glanced at Pulou and followed, glaring at the governor’s back.
The door at the end of the hall read Control Center. Beyond it lay blackness broken only by the minimal glow of monitors, and the heat and scents of people and machines working together in close quarters.
“Sir!” said someone at Tristan’s right. He jumped, and as his eyes adjusted he made out the form of a man with a paunch standing before the governor. “We weren’t expecting you so early in the day.”
“Will that disadvantage your presentation?” the governor asked.
“No, sir,” the other said at once. “Not at all. Follow me, please.”
The man guided them through the monitor room, talking too rapidly of things Tristan didn’t understand—‘tonnage’ and ‘labor lines’—and pointing at screens with red lights scattered at random among green lines that twisted like a river seen from the rim of a canyon.
Tristan followed them down a close aisle between terminals and illuminated maps, past people who seemed to be only shadows seated at the keyboards, except for their faces, tinted garish colors by the displays on their screens.
“I received a message from Production Records,” the governor said, “stating that for the past two periods the Malin Point mine’s production has dropped to less than fifty percent of its quota. What do you know about this?”
Tristan saw the man’s face contort as if he’d been struck. “Only the most sketchy facts, sir. Come over here.” He led them to a terminal across the room and said, “Put the Malin Point map on screen.”
The young man seated there bent over his keyboard.
A shape that resembled a spread hand with one of its fingers colored red appeared on the monitor and the man began rubbing nervous hands together. “There was no explanation given for closing the shaft, sir. The officer in charge said only that it was an emergency.”
“I want an explanation.” The governor narrowed his gaze on the other. “Contact the OIC. He will report to my office at thirteen hundred tomorrow.”
“Yes, sir.”
The governor asked, “What about terrarium development in the Beta segment?”
The man visibly relaxed. “Ahead of schedule, sir.”
“Good.” Renier turned away, seeming to remember only then that Tristan had accompanied him. “What do you think, Tristan?” he asked.
Tristan pointed at a screen full of illuminated dots and lines. “What are these for?”
“They’re maps. Each red light marks a mine complex.” The governor tapped one. “This is Malin Point.”
“Where are we?”
“Here.” Renier indicated an amber light near the map’s center.
Tristan traced a green line with his finger. “What’s that?”
“One of the terrarium caverns, the moon’s life support system,” said the governor. “They run for miles among the mine complexes. We’ll see one in a little while.”
Tristan leaned closer to study markings, names, notations, and the way the red lights seemed to be linked by the twisting green lines. He didn’t touch the screen, just glanced over at Pulou.
In a moment he asked the governor, “Will we see a mine, too?”
“Not today. Each complex can be reached only by flight to its own shuttle bays.”
“But you said those green lines—” he began.
“No, Tristan,” the governor said. “Those are connected to the mines only by shielded ventilation shafts and water lines, to ensure against depressurization accidents. If you want to see a mine, look at the patrol monitors.” He gestured at a bank of screens tucked up next to the ceiling.
Tristan studied rows of narrow wire cages enclosing huddled, dusky figures on one screen; figures in coveralls and oxygen masks wielding laser boring tools and loading reddish rock and soil into pneumatic transport tubes on another; shadows shuffling single file through a ragged tunnel on a third. Expressionless eyes stared out of faces thin as death and caked with grime. They marched stiffly, slowly, as Tristan had seen only the very old and feeble move.
He recoiled. “What’s wrong with them? Why are they in those cages?”
He noticed the silence, the shock in the stares of the people around him, before the governor said, “They’re criminals, Tristan. They’re dangerous, both to other people and to the security of their motherworld.”
Tristan shuddered. He didn’t want to look at the screens any longer but he couldn’t tear his vision away.
“Come now,” the governor said behind him, his tone taut.
The lift took them down past the Command Section to a level that said Life Support Facilities, and opened onto a passage as bleak as the one from the shuttle bays. It had little lighting. Glowpainted arrows on the wall pointed toward Utility Plants 1-5 on the left, Ut
ility Plant 6 and Terrarium Main Access on the right. Tristan mouthed the words to remember them.
A worker in coveralls emerged from the dim office of Plant 6 to lead them down a clanging metal stairwell guarded by shield doors and through the hot near-dark to another door with a cipher code box. The man punched in the sequence. Electronic locks clicked, an unseen bolt grated back; the door swung inward at his push.
They stepped from black into teal green.
It might have been a canyon without a sky above its walls, Tristan thought. Walls and ceiling glowed turquoise under ultraviolet globes floating like small suns at regular intervals. The air lay warm and heavy with the scent of mildew, and vapor rolled along the floor in clouds.
“Our life support system,” Renier said. He moved out onto a walkway of plastic grating, planting his walking stick with care. “We’ve cultivated the indigenous lichens with imported light and water until they can provide enough oxygen to support the entire population. We’re even experimenting with growing edible plants in some of the caverns.”
Tristan wrinkled his nose at the odor, the same musty scent that came up through the ducts in his room. He scrutinized boulders and walls layered with blue fuzz and sparkling with crystal humidity. Behind his back he signaled “Go” to Pulou, and asked the governor, “How does the air get up to my room from down here?”
Renier described collector vents which drew oxygen into personnel areas or into condensation systems that infused hydrogen to create water. He explained power plants supported by their own production, and elaborated on recycling systems and rationing. “It’s a most delicate balance,” he said. “We could have water brought from the primary in an emergency, but not sufficient oxygen to sustain life here.”
Tristan understood almost none of it, but he nodded in response to the explanation. When knuckles nudged his shoulder, he glanced around.
Pulou wore a smug expression. “We talk at night,” he said.
When the lift stopped at the Command Section, the governor said, “There’s one more visit to make, at the Command Post.”
The lift’s back wall retracted. They stepped through another shield door into an office area where a man in uniform rose sharply from his desk. “The troops are waiting for your inspection, sir,” he said.