Brute Orbits

by George Zebrowski

  As he finished eating, Tasarov remembered that he had arrived in a vehicle. There had to be a road, and since there was no weather here, there had to be tracks in the mud leading to the hidden entrance. No one had been looking for tracks.

  He got up and left the hall. Few noticed his going, indicating the degree to which they were losing interest in his scheme. He had to deliver, and very soon.

  Outside, he started to walk toward the sunplate, searching the muddy ground ahead of him for tracks. As the light faded into its bright moonless nightglow, he kept walking, bending over to make sure he wasn’t missing anything. He knew that the docking area had to be outside the ends of the hollow asteroid, so it made sense to think that major vehicle access to the interior might also be somewhere just before the light source, or at the opposite end, at some point on a circle.

  The mess domes and living quarters were in the middle, so it was about three kilometers to one end. He might find tracks off the center line that ran through the living quarters and mess halls.

  Tracks. He stopped. No effort had been made to hide them. Just left of the barracks area, beyond the mess domes. That told him that the jailers had no longer cared, because they knew that the timed orbits policy was about to go into effect. That meant they didn’t care whether the men got into the engineering area or not; and that suggested there was nothing there for them. Certainly no shuttles, food, or luxuries. They could only do damage to themselves if they tampered with equipment, and no one would care if they did.

  Tasarov started to march, realizing that the hidden entrance must be closer to the sunplate. After a few moments he turned and looked back at the barracks. Lights were going on as men returned from mess, and he thought of them as sea lion bull males, washed up on a barren shore. Fellow creature feelings welled up inside him, and his pride spurred him to turn around and resume his search. He would do something for them; however small, it would be better than this.

  Some two kilometers out, still one short of the sunplate, the tracks came to an end, and he knew that he had found the entrance. Now how to open it? He began to shuffle around in the mud, starting at his right, looking for a triggering control, and found it easily enough, right in the middle of the dirt road. But when he touched it with his foot, nothing happened.

  He thought about it, and realized that the control was meant to be triggered by the heavy weight of a vehicle. Worse, it might open only from the inside, when vehicles came out, to stay open and close when they returned.

  He got down on all fours and began to clear the sensing plate. When its black surface was clean, he got up and stepped on it with his boot.

  Nothing happened. He stepped on it harder, but still nothing. He stepped on it with both feet, then jumped up and down once, still with no result. He jumped again, higher this time, making greater use of his weight, and heard a rumble.

  He jumped back as the massive cover came up, revealing a ramp leading down to the level below. The cover stopped at sixty degrees, like the shell of a giant clam.

  He went inside, peering ahead. At the bottom of the ramp he came out into a flat area. To his left and right there were two large arches, and just beyond each there were jeeplike vehicles.

  He looked back up the ramp. It was still open, but he decided not to chance it. He chose the garage at his right, climbed into a jeep, and started the electric motor.

  The jeep steered easily out of the garage and up the ramp. When he drove out from under the cover, he hit the sensor plate and came to a stop just beyond. He turned around in time to see the plate close. Some more of the dry dirt had been cleared away, so he would be able to spot the cover easily when he returned.

  He raced the jeep down toward the barracks, listening to the quiet whir of the electric motor, preparing what he would say to the men.

  ■

  He took three men with him into the engineering level. Harry Howes was one, just to get him away from Polau for a while and see what he was like on his own. Ruskin and Wood, both of whom had some technical background that would be of use, also came.

  A crowd gathered around the jeep as they prepared to leave. Tasarov saw hope in many of the men’s eyes as well as confused, questioning looks. “What will this get us, even if you find a communications room?” one had asked. It was a good question. He had tried to answer it; and the only answer now was that they would have to try it and see what talking to Earth might get them.

  ■

  It did not take long to find a communications room, since most of the engineering level was accessible to the jeep. When they stopped at the clearly labeled suite of rooms, Tasarov knew that no one had cared whether anyone would come here. What good would it do anyone once the asteroid had been inserted into its long orbit? But if he had his way, the answer to that question would become more problematic.

  There were several stations, for computer access and communications.

  “This is all pretty straightforward,” Wood said, bending his tall gaunt frame down for a look.

  “Radio gear looks like somebody just went off for some coffee,” Ruskin added with a laugh.

  “They didn’t think we’d try to get in here,” Tasarov said, glancing at Howes, who still seemed bewildered. “I’ll tell you what we’re going to do here, son,” Tasarov continued. “We’re going to put on a radio show—the most violent, filthy, reproachful parade of agony we can send back. And we won’t quit.”

  Howes gave him a puzzled look. “What good will that do?”

  “We’ll see, we’ll see,” Tasarov said, smiling. “It depends on what we say to them. I say the talent we have will serve us well.”

  But then a black mood seized Tasarov, as he realized that he could not see beyond this effort. Howes was right. It might accomplish nothing at all—but it had to be tried.

  6

  …and They Will March Home One Day

  Wood and Ruskin set transmissions to break in on a dozen audio and visual stations, an hour at a time, seven days a week. Tasarov made the first broadcast marching back and forth inside the holo settings that Ruskin had managed to jury-rig, looking out at the audience as if fixing on individuals whom he would hold accountable.

  He began softly, saying, “Many of you don’t know who I am, and there’s no reason you should. My name is not important. Most of you don’t know about the timed orbit into which my prison has been inserted. We’re not that far away yet, not even past the orbit of Jupiter, but I can’t say in which direction to the plane of the ecliptic we’re moving. In the weeks and months ahead, you will hear from many of us out here, to help you find out how you feel about this kind of punishment. We ask that you listen to us, and make up your own minds. We will try to set up mobile cameras to take you inside this hollow rock which many of us helped mine, and you will see how we live. For those of you who can’t see me, I will describe what I can. That’s all for now. Good-bye.”

  He held a serious, unsmiling look for a few moments.

  “Fine,” Ruskin said from his station, and Tasarov relaxed. “It will go all this week, twenty-four hours a day.”

  “What else do we have?” Tasarov asked, sitting down at one of the steel desks.

  “A dozen script proposals already,” Wood said, coming in through the door from the adjoining room. “You may want to check them.”

  “Oh—why?” Tasarov asked.

  “A few are pretty extreme?” Wood said.

  Tasarov sat back and laughed. “Really? Is that possible in our circumstances? We’re not about to become censors!”

  “Well, it is important if we’re looking to get concessions from Earth, or to convince them of something.”

  “What can they do for us?” Ruskin asked. “Nothing. And they won’t do a thing. They don’t have to. All they can do is listen, so we should say whatever we please.”

  Tasarov considered, feeling the darkness pressing in on his mind. This project had little chance of being anything more than a way to keep the men’s minds occupied, d
istracted, and if it did only that, it would be enough. But Ruskin had reminded him that the men would be expecting a result. Tasarov wondered how long and complicated he could make it before the game collapsed.

  Harry Howes came into the room and said, “Jay Polau is here. He wants to talk to you.”

  Tasarov sat up, shrugging off his mood. “Let him in.”

  Polau came in, looking unlike himself. Gone was the usual contempt in his expression as he sat down before Tasarov’s desk and said, “You’ve got to put me on. I have things to say.”

  “Like what?”

  “Things. I got things to say.”

  “Tell me?”

  “What’s it to you? We can all go on. Do you have a problem with that?”

  “No.”

  “It’s not like we can say anything that will hurt us, is there?”

  The little thief was well aware that the broadcasts might come to nothing. “Probably not,” said Tasarov. “What is it that you want to say?”

  “I’ll say it when I go on, not before.”

  Tasarov looked directly at him for a few moments. The man’s show of determination intrigued him.

  “What is it?” Polau asked. “Do you want to put words in our mouths? What do you want out of this, anyway?” Polau fixed him with his black eyes, pointed a finger, and said, “What’s it that you don’t want us to know about? What aren’t you telling us?”

  Tasarov was almost impressed by the man’s probing.

  “Of course you can go on,” Tasarov said with a smile, “and so can anyone else. I’ll be interested in what you have to say.”

  For an instant Polau looked at him as if he were grateful, and Tasarov realized with a small shock that it was genuine. “Thank you,” the thief said.

  “Did you think I wouldn’t let you?” Tasarov asked, still wondering what the man had in mind, what had suddenly filled him with gratitude.

  “Well…we didn’t ever get along…”

  “And you thought I’d take it out on you with this, too?”

  Polau nodded, and Tasarov saw his chance to be manipulative in a good cause by making an ally out of an opponent. Maybe. He couldn’t think of the thief as a credible enemy; the man was not up to being an effective one; he was too transparent for that; but it would be better to calm him down, if only for a short time.

  “You’ll have the mike when you want it,” Tasarov said, still wondering if he was somehow missing something. Maybe Polau was plotting. Tasarov tried to imagine what that might be, but it just didn’t seem to be there. Whatever had sent even this fleeting eruption of gratitude into Polau’s face might be real enough to be grounds for a hope of some kind.

  They both stood up at the same time, and Tasarov offered the man his hand. Polau took it. “I’ll be ready,” he said, turned and left the room.

  As he sat down again, Tasarov looked around at Wood, Ruskin, and Howes, hoping to catch something in their expressions about what had just happened.

  Finally he asked them. “What do you think? Howes? You know him better than I do.”

  “He seems sincere,” Howes said. “I can’t tell. I think he means what he’s saying. I can’t see what’s in it for him, I mean aside from doing it. What harm can he do?”

  “I agree,” Ruskin said. Wood nodded in agreement.

  “We won’t be able to stop anything they say,” Tasarov said, “and we don’t really want to. That’s the whole point. If any of this can do us some good, it has to be in getting a rise out of Earth.”

  But he couldn’t rid himself of the suspicion that Polau had something else in mind.

  ■

  The men’s mood brightened as the broadcasts began. As Tasarov watched them in the mess—he went to a different one each evening—he saw that they had developed a solidarity of striking back, of not simply taking what had been handed to them and showing the authorities their stoicism. How long would this courage last? Not long, Tasarov feared. Certainly not thirty years.

  The first man who went on read a long love letter to his dead wife, and demanded that it be recorded and delivered to his daughter…

  The second confessed his crimes of murder and rape, embellishing the details and addressing his victims’ relatives directly, implicating them in crimes of their own by announcing that his victims had revealed them to him before he killed them. He claimed that he was reporting all his conversations with his victims before he killed them, then mocked the authorities for getting him for such a small number of crimes…

  The third one began softly, then worked himself up to a fever pitch, announced his coming death, and stabbed himself in the heart with a long needle. Tasarov confirmed the man’s death on the air and signed off for the day.

  This was just what he wanted. No restrictions, no censorship. He wondered just how far it would go, and how it would affect the authorities on Earth.

  On the second day a man named Uri Perrin came in and demanded to have a two-way conversation with a priest, to confess his sins. There was no answer. Perrin began to declaim his sins, from the first ones of his life, one by one. As he reached his later years, he began to annotate his sins, justifying this one, condemning that one, as if he were both sinner and confessor. His descriptions grew longer, more detailed and vile. Finally, he stopped and sat silently before the transmitter, nodding his head repeatedly.

  Tasarov came in and sat down opposite him. At last, Perrin noticed him and shouted, “They listened! The Holy Father himself listened and gave me absolution for my sins!”

  “And the penance?” asked Tasarov solemnly.

  “Eat shit and drink piss once a week,” the man said, nodding happily.

  “Your own?” asked Tasarov.

  “Doesn’t matter, doesn’t matter!” the man cried out. “I can do that, I can do it. It’s just, it’s just!”

  He got up and left, sighing with relief, his face glowing with the beatific vision that beyond his penance, which he would perform for the remainder of his life and in the centuries of Purgatory that he would gladly endure, lay Paradise and Redemption.

  By the time Polau came in, Tasarov was somewhat curious to hear how the thief would bleed into the microphones. By now Tasarov was fairly sure that Polau had something to say to the people who had exiled him, maybe to someone in particular. It had to be something like that, maybe something very private, something very simple, even sentimental. Maybe he was even ashamed of it.

  Polau came in and stood by the door, looking around at the facilities. Tasarov sat in a chair just to the right of the waiting microphones. Polau looked at him, and Tasarov noticed that the man’s eyes were moving back and forth rapidly. Was he that afraid of what was in him? Whom was he planning to address?

  Tasarov felt generous for a moment, and sat back, determined to put Polau at ease. Polau reached behind himself, brought out a long pointed metal rod about two feet long, and lunged at Tasarov. The point found flesh, but Tasarov managed to turn slightly as the sharp metal pierced the muscle of his left shoulder and struck the metal wall with a burst of sparks.

  Polau grunted and knew that he had botched it. Cursing, he jerked the rod back, giving Tasarov enough time to stand up. Before the little thief could step into his second thrust, Tasarov kicked him under the chin. The bar fell from his hands and clattered on the floor as the blow lifted Polau and threw him on his back.

  As he lay there stunned, Tasarov picked up the bar, turned it to the blunt end, and struck him across his right knee cap. Polau let out a feeble cry.

  “Why?” Tasarov demanded of the dazed man.

  Polau tried to speak, but it was all mumbles. Finally, he managed to say, “Gotta kill…you!” and tried to sit up. Tasarov hit the other knee. “Big sonnabitch think you’re God,” Polau muttered. “Show you who’s in charge.”

  The door opened. Ruskin and Wood came in, followed by Howes.

  “He tried to kill me,” Tasarov said angrily, stepping back, startled that he hadn’t killed Polau by now. “With this! H
owes, do you know what this is about?”

  Howes seemed reluctant to speak.

  “You’d better tell me what you know, kid!”

  Polau lay on the floor, breathing hard, still trying to speak. “Goddamned big fuck left us all to die in that stupid town. They massacred most of us, then beat the shit out of those who were left.” He pointed a finger. “He was gone by then!”

  “What’s he talking about?” Ruskin asked.

  Tasarov looked at Howes, then at Wood, and tried to remember. A lot was still missing inside him. It was there somewhere, if he could just turn a corner and catch it.

  Howes said suddenly, “He was jealous of you…and me.”

  Tasarov looked at him with surprise. “But there is no you and me.”

  “You couldn’t tell him that. He bragged how he’d be the boss once he killed you. You were the one to kill. He always wanted to impress me, ever since he brought me along on that job we got caught for. Thought he’d get me that way.” Howes gave a futile laugh. “I think he really wanted you, one way or another,” he said, looking directly at Tasarov. “But there was more, wasn’t there?”

  Tasarov did not remember Polau from the Dannemora break. Maybe it was a friend or relative of Polau’s that died. He looked at the man on the floor and tried to remember—and the massacre in the resort town came back to him. By the time it happened he was long gone, leaving those who had not escaped to face an army division. He had heard about it later. There was nothing he could have done. The break and the taking of that town had given him and many others a chance to disappear, even though later he had been captured as someone else. In the end, it was every man for himself. Some did better than others.

  “What do we do with him?” Wood asked.

  “You stupid assholes,” Polau rasped from the floor, struggling to raise himself up on his elbows. “All this shit about talking back to the folks at home—it’s all his way of keeping you busy, with him on top!”