Beltrunner

by O’Brien, Sean

  “We can’t force a corporation to reveal one, no.” She placed a faint stress on the word “corporation.” She paused for a moment and continued to stare at him. When she spoke again, her voice was clipped. “Did you steal it?”

  “No,” Collier said calmly and quickly.

  “Is it from somewhere in the Jovian system?”

  “No.”

  Fletcher moved back a few inches. “I’m going to summarize what you have said so far. Correct me if I am wrong in any important way.”

  “Okay.” Despite himself, Collier was coming to respect the woman.

  “You sold ten kilograms of completely pure platinum to a broker. You didn’t use an extractor to get it. You didn’t jack it, and it’s not something from the Jovian labs. You claim to have some secret process of making pure platinum. Is all of that right?”

  “That’s right.”

  Fletcher tilted her head slightly. “Why not sell the process to a corporation? I can only imagine what they’d pay for such a thing.”

  “I don’t want a corporation to have it. It’s mine.” Collier said, biting his lip after the last word. He had been dangerously close to revealing too much. As it was, Fletcher must have seen him stop himself.

  If she had, she made no mention of it. “Well, that’s about all I can do here. I very much hope, for your sake, you are telling me the truth.”

  “Why? Why do you care about how I got the P?”

  “Me, or the Authority?” Fletcher said, her eyes smiling again.

  “You, I guess.”

  “It matters to me.”

  “That’s not much of an answer.”

  “Neither was yours about why you won’t sell your process.”

  Collier chuckled once. “Fair enough. Are you through with me?”

  “For the time being, yes. I think, though, that we will cross paths again, Captain.”

  Collier felt his eyes widen at the iron in Fletcher’s voice. She hadn’t changed her facial expression from the vaguely pleasant one she had been wearing, but her voice had dropped half an octave and her head had tilted down a few degrees. The overall effect told Collier that her casual, faintly motherly demeanor was simply a cover for the tough professional beneath.

  He left the Authority office as calmly as he could, though once out of earshot he called Sancho.

  “Sancho, still nothing to report?”

  “Nothing new, Skipper. Just been hovering up here, running some tests on the magic wand.”

  “Tests? How?”

  “Still subjecting it to gamma ray bombardment. Got the beetle to maneuver it into the assay box.”

  “Any new results?”

  “Of course not,” Sancho said, his irritation clear. “The damn thing is still impenetrable. And besides, I’d have called you.”

  “Right. Listen, I just got done talking to the Authority.”

  “Yeah? What about?”

  Collier looked around before answering, pushed off the floor and away from the Authority office. “They were called by Go to examine the P sale. They had some questions as to how I got so much pure platinum.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  Collier lowered his voice and continued moving away from the Authority office, toward the open quadrangle’s ground level. “For such a smart computer, you don’t take in much, do you? We didn’t use any of the extractors, and we float in here with ten kilos of completely pure platinum? Of course there is going to be suspicion. I should have thought about that myself. We’ll have to be more careful next time. Mix in some other materials.”

  “I don’t know how. I don’t know if we’re going to be able to program the wand to make anything less than pure.”

  “Still, we need to think this through better. I’ll be in touch,” Collier added after a pause. “Let me know if anything happens. And I mean anything.”

  “Aye aye, Skipper.”

  Collier was about to sign off, but he thought better of it. “Sancho, I don’t mean if anything at all happens. Don’t call to tell me to tell me you needed to fire the attitude jets to maintain orbit, or that somebody on an outbound liner farted. You get me? Just tell me if anything new happens regarding the magic wand, or some ship operations matter comes up that you can’t handle.”

  “Of course, Skipper. How dumb do you think I am? I knew what you meant.”

  “Right,” Collier said uncertainly. He had always trusted the computer before, and it had never let him down in any serious manner before. Why now did he act as if he had only recently purchased the machine?

  The whole affair with the Authority had made him unusually touchy, he decided. Plus the Tank Eight swilling around in him didn’t help. He hadn’t been thinking clearly about his discovery — there was much more to it than just an endless supply of metal. He found his mind returning to the question of the wand’s origin, as if desperate to find any other answer besides the alien artifact one. Where had it come from? Everything about it said it couldn’t have been human manufacture, though Collier had to admit, he was as much in the dark about what went on in the Jovian labs as anyone else was. Could they have made the wand? He had rejected the hypothesis on board the Dulcinea when Sancho had brought it up, and saw no new data to lend it credence. If the scientists in the Jovian system had indeed created this device, why and how would they have buried it on a rogue asteroid?

  No, the Jovian hypothesis did not work.

  Could it have been part of a secret corporate project? Again, the same questions that couldn’t be answered by the Jovian theory applied here.

  That didn’t leave too many other theories. The only one — still — that answered the question of the wand’s origin and function was a non-human intelligence had designed it. How it came to be on a rogue asteroid was still a mystery. Had the aliens planted it there, or was it a relic of a long-dead civilization, perhaps even a mining tool?

  And where there was one such device, couldn’t there be others? His search on the Wild Goose had been thorough, he thought, but it might be worthwhile to buy the best surveying equipment available and go back to it and spend a long time going over the whole rock centimeter by centimeter. Might even be worthwhile attaching engines to the rock to check its flight away from Ceres. If he could sell more metal (buying up the cheapest raw materials he could to convert) and show Starcher he was consistently making a profit, maybe he could get him to finance the enterprise.

  So deep were his thoughts that he had drifted into the chaotic traffic of the open quadrangle without realizing it. His eyes focused on the dizzying array of colors and people landing and taking off from the lowest level and only had the barest of seconds to register the collision before it happened.

  A woman clad in the midnight blue of the Ad Astra Corporation landed almost squarely on top of him and both crumpled slowly to the floor, unhurt but awkwardly tangled.

  “Sorry, that’s my fault,” Collier began, slithering out from under the woman and reaching unnecessarily to help her up. “I wasn’t—” he stopped.

  “Hello, Col,” Isa said. She had smoothly risen to her feet and hovered lightly before him. Her raven hair was tied back in a corporate braid, adorned by four cobalt ribbons. Her eyes still had the piercing quality they used to, though the slight discoloration in her right eye betrayed her implant.

  “Isa,” Collier said after a moment to collect himself. His voice was calm enough. “Back from my discovery? All through with it?” He did not need to summon up bitterness — despite his possession of the magic wand, he had not yet recovered from the sting of her theft.

  “Come on, Col,” Isa said, sighing. “You can’t be still pissed off about that.”

  “Why not?”

  Isa looked at him for a beat, as if expecting him to elaborate. When he didn’t she shook her head slightly in that way she had when she was both amused and irri
tated by something he had done and said, “Because I hear you’ve made it big in another way.”

  Collier’s eyes widened and he instinctively looked around the lower level walkway. There was no one about — the lower levels were administrative rather than commercial — but he nevertheless didn’t want to advertise his discovery.

  “How do you know? What do you know?” he said.

  Isa cocked her head and raised an eyebrow. “So, you have found something. I wasn’t completely sold. I thought maybe you had just cooked up another story to convince Starcher to lend you more metal. What did you find?”

  Collier swore under his breath. He might have been able to lie his way out if he hadn’t reacted so obviously. Now Isa was on him, and she wouldn’t be shaken off so easily.

  “Listen,” he said, his tone changing from anxious to suggestive. “I can’t tell you everything, but I can give you some details. But not here. Let’s go back to the Dulcinea. I’ll fill you in there.”

  Isa pursed her lips. “I don’t think so. I’ve got an hourly at Demeter’s that’s still good. Not too small, either. Let’s go there.”

  “You don’t trust me in the Dulcinea?” Collier tried to smile.

  Isa sighed again. “No, that’s not it. At least,” she said, trying to smile herself, “that’s not all of it. It’s on the top level, next to—”

  “I know where Demeter’s is,” he snapped. “I still don’t see why you don’t want to go to Dulcinea. Oh, of course,” he said, snapping his fingers in a mock epiphany. “You want to be able to make an exit on your terms. You can’t do that on board my ship.”

  “Stop it, Col.”

  He realized he was being childish. “Yeah, yeah,” he murmured. “Let’s go,” he said, and leapt upward toward the top level of the quadrangle. A part of his brain screamed at him that he was being manipulated — he had revealed that he had made a discovery, and now he was giving in to her choice of venue to discuss it. Why did this woman have such sway over him?

  He tried to reject the thought that kept recurring: maybe if she knows what I have found, that’ll be the stability she’s been needing for so long. And maybe she’ll come back to me. As he rose through the levels of the quadrangle, he fought to keep such thoughts out of his mind.

  *

  The Demeter was the closest thing to a hotel Ceres had. Most Belters simply stayed aboard whatever ship they were crewing most of the time rather than use up their metal on Ceresian accommodations, but the establishment did have its advantages. Low-ranking crew could find private rooms while their ship was offloading, selling, or undergoing maintenance and resupply. Such private rooms allowed for all manner of activities that would have been difficult to ignore on board ship. Isa, however, would have rated a private stateroom on her ship, so her use of the Demeter was unusual. Collier pondered this even as the pair of them made their way to her bungalow in silence.

  The room would not have been called spacious on Earth or Mars, but on Ceres where pressurized cubic meters were precious, Isa had secured a luxurious suite. Collier couldn’t help but be impressed despite himself as he followed her inside.

  Isa closed the door behind him and said proudly, “One hundred and eight a night. To answer your unasked question.”

  “Hm. Still not bigger than my space on the Dulcinea.”

  Isa sighed again. “Right. You want anything?” She gestured to the automat.

  Collier grinned. “On the Ad Astra account? Or yours?”

  Isa put her right hand to her hip. “Why? Does that matter?”

  “Now that you mention it, I guess not. You’re both the same. I’ll take whatever the most expensive thing on there is,” he said, making sure not to look at the automat’s menu.

  “You’re a child,” Isa said, turning to the machine and selecting an item. It vended two plastic flasks of faintly amber liquid, one of which Isa tossed to Collier.

  “Yeastwine,” Collier snorted. “That’s the most expensive thing it’s got?”

  Isa said firmly, “No, it’s what I punched up. Drink it or not. You want something else, you pay it. From what I hear, you can afford it. Now take that damn stupid vacc suit off and let’s talk.”

  Collier grinned. Her captaincy had honed the edge she had only hinted at when they had been together. “Yes, ma’am.” He wriggled out of the still-moist suit and hung it near the door. “So, aside from some shitty yeastwine, what am I going to get out of this talk?”

  “Being with me isn’t enough?” Isa said, her tone mysterious.

  Collier grunted. “You’re not seriously trying that, are you?”

  “Why not?” she said. She took a squeeze from her flask and floated toward him. “I think we have unfinished business, don’t you?”

  “I thought it was over. You certainly made that clear enough.”

  “Maybe I was wrong,” she said, her hand moving to the fastening clasps that held her coveralls on.

  “Hold on,” Collier said, feeling a faint stirring in his loins despite the spinning of his head. “You can’t just try to restart everything as if nothing has happened.”

  Isa had closed the distance between them and collided gently with him. “Let’s try,” she said, and before he could react, she grasped his head and kissed him suddenly.

  He felt as if he were seeing the scene from the outside. For so long, his unmoored desire had been half-fantasy — a fantasy he wasn’t even sure he wanted. Now that he saw his idle dreams translated into reality, he did not know if he should reject or accept them.

  His body responded to Isa’s kiss, and he found himself embracing her, tilting his head to the left slightly and returning her kiss.

  Presently, Isa backed away slightly, still in his arms, and said, “Wait. I don’t think they have a right to see this.” She wriggled out of his grasp, which he loosened once he determined she wanted to be free, and seized her right eye.

  Even as he watched, she twisted and detached the cybernetic eye from her socket, leaving a clean but grotesque depression with a single silver socket in the center. She examined the implant with her natural eye, found what she was looking for, and made a tiny adjustment. She then carefully placed the cybernetic eye back into its socket, blinked a few times, and looked back at him. “There. It’s off now.” Her voice had completely lost its seductive quality.

  Collier let his hands fall. “Corporate implant?”

  “Yes. Part of the captain’s rank,” she said in her businesslike voice. “They don’t like me turning it off, but I think I can justify doing so now, especially what with the stupid seduction moves I was putting on you. The contract is a bit loose in this regard.”

  “I’ll bet it is. So, now what?” He folded his arms and tried to keep the frustration he was feeling out of his voice.

  “Like I said, now let’s talk.”

  “Oh, I see,” Collier said. “You make a big show about turning off one recorder, but you’ve got another running in here somewhere.”

  Isa tossed her head back. “Jesus, for one goddamn second, act like an adult, would you, Col?” She looked back at him and lowered her voice. “If you’ve got something to tell me, then I hope you will, and I can decide if I want to kick it upstairs to my bosses or not. But with a recorder on, I don’t have that option — they’ll know what I know. I want to keep some upper hand with them, tell them what I want them to know. So now, can we talk?”

  “You’re playing me and your bosses at the same time. I have to hand it to you, Isa — that’s shrewd even for you.”

  “I’m not playing you.”

  Collier snorted. “I enjoy games just like the next guy, but I think this one is getting a little bit boring, Isa. I still don’t see why I should tell you anything. Or are you still willing to trade a ride on the bed for some information?”

  Isa looked at him for a moment, then brought her right hand up sw
iftly — though not so swiftly that Collier couldn’t have deflected it — and slapped his cheek.

  Collier spun to his right with the blow, his face stinging, but did not cry out. When he turned back to Isa, he rubbed his face and growled, “You sure go from hot to cold quick. A minute ago you were kissing me.”

  “That was an act for the corporation and you damn well know it.” Isa said firmly, staring at him for a long moment then turning her back to him and reaching for her yeastwine flask.

  “Yeah, I guess I did. Still, you haven’t told me why I should tell you anything.” He continued to rub his cheek.

  Isa kept her back to him as she spoke. Her voice was shaky. “I suppose asking you as a friend is out?”

  “How are you my friend?” Collier snapped. “You stole my strike a few weeks ago, you slapped me just now, and you left—” He stopped himself with a sharp intake of breath. “You’ve proven we’re not friends, Isa.”

  “You know why I left, Col.” Isa still hadn’t turned around. Her voice wavered.

  “You couldn’t handle my life. Yeah, I know.”

  Now she spun around, her face angry. “Yeah, that’s it. That’s exactly it. I couldn’t handle your life. It was never our life, Col. You weren’t gonna make it ours.”

  Collier chuckled casually. “That’s cometshit. I had it all figured out, how we were going to live on the Dulcinea, split the mining duties—”

  “I didn’t want that!” Isa was now shouting. “Jesus, you still don’t get it? I didn’t want to be a part of your life, Col. I wanted us to make a new one.”

  “No, you didn’t,” he said, matching her icy intensity with calm fire. “You wanted to change me into what you needed. Wanted me to join up with the corps, so I could be ‘stable.’ Fuck that.”