Outland

by Alan Dean Foster

  Her clothing was less disciplined than her hair. She looked sloppy in her hospital fatigues. Somehow she gave the impression that nothing ever excited her.

  Her own personal bailiwick was located at the back of the hospital section. Despite the inherent efficiency of the built-in equipment and self-contained beds, she'd managed to personalize her area with bits and pieces of what could be described as medicated rubble. Garbage traditionally is one of the anthropologist's most useful tools for telling us what the people of a particular culture were like. Lazarus's lab table and the area immediately around it were very descriptive.

  O'Niel walked into the hospital, past the admiring stare of the admitting nurse. His gaze flicked left and right, taking note of the state of the equipment and the other workers, a sick man in a bed, and the fact that the area was at least clean.

  He had a special interest in hospitals, having had occasion in the course of his work to make use of their facilities. Sometimes personally, far more often because recalcitrant visitors to his own section usually spent some time making use of medical services prior to extended stays as his guests.

  The equipment, insofar as he could tell, was up to date and reasonably well maintained. There was plenty of it, expensive and hard to ship. Pity the Company didn't devote as much care to its employees before they got hurt, he thought.

  He found Lazarus at her private station, hunched over a stack of acrylic readout boards and a computer screen full of graphs and chemical symbols. At that moment, she was dividing her attention between the screen and a nearby nurse who appeared upset.

  "Who the hell ordered all these pressure packs?" the doctor demanded irately. "Doesn't anybody have any sense around here? This is a mine we're responsible for, not a war."

  "You did, Doctor." The nurse tried and failed to keep the irritation out of her voice.

  "I said one hundred, not one thousand."

  "You said one thou . . ."

  "I said one hundred." There was enough acid in her voice to cut through stainless. "Which can't be mistaken for anything except one hundred. It doesn't sound remotely like one thousand." She looked up from the screen, slowed her words to a sarcastic drawl.

  "Listen, you'll see what I mean. One thouuuusssaaaand. One huuuundrrrreeedd. They're totally different, aren't they? Not even close." She looked over a shoulder, saw O'Niel standing patiently behind her.

  "You think they sound the same?" Then she frowned. "Who are you, anyway?"

  "Are you Dr. Lazarus?"

  "Yes. Take two aspirin and call me in the morning. That's a medical joke." Her eyes roved over him, noting the insignia on his jacket and the bars on his collar. "You're the new Marshal, whatsisname."

  "Yes, I'm whatsisname. I'd like to talk to you for a few minutes."

  "I got an alibi. I got four people who will swear they were playing poker with me." She didn't smile as she rose from the seat facing the screen and started for the small laboratory, having forgotten the nurse and the pressure packs. O'Niel moved around the computer terminal, smiled slightly at the put-upon nurse's see-what-you're-going-to-have-to-deal-with look, and followed the doctor as she made her way past tables and wall benches.

  "I've never heard that one before," he murmured. "That's really funny."

  "Sorry." Lazarus didn't sound like she was.

  "Yesterday a man deliberately went into Outside without a pressure suit."

  She lifted a bottle, checked the contents, set it back on the table. "Yeah, I know."

  She was taking an inventory as she walked, matching readings on her board with various items in racks and cabinets. O'Niel didn't enjoy trailing after her as he talked. He didn't like conversing with somebody's back.

  "A couple of days before that," he continued, "another man cut open his suit while working Outside. On purpose, it would seem."

  Lazarus shrugged, didn't turn to look back at him. "It happens here."

  "How often?"

  "I don't know." She was starting to sound irritated, obviously wishing he'd go elsewhere with his questions. "It just happens here."

  "Why?"

  "I'm not a psychiatrist. I've got enough trouble trying to keep peoples' bodies intact without worrying about their heads. I can't tell you why. I suppose some people just can't take it here after a while." She grinned humorlessly. "Can't imagine why not. Io in the Spring is such a lovely place. If you want a preview of Hell. Never thought you'd be offered a chance to work there. I always thought Hell was a permanent sign-up."

  "The two suicides. Did you do autopsies?"

  "Why not?"

  She finally stopped and turned to face him, gave him a disbelieving glance. When she saw that he was serious, she explained, speaking slowly and carefully as if to a child.

  "In the first place, the Company wanted the bodies shipped out quickly. They don't tell me why. I guess because they feel that having the corpses of a lot of suicided folks hanging around might be bad for morale.

  "Secondly when somebody exposes themselves to near zero-pressure atmosphere there isn't a lot to inspect. You can't run an autopsy through a food processor. And in the third place, you're becoming a nuisance."

  O'Niel reached out and yanked open a drawer, blocking her intended path.

  "I know. It's a bad habit."

  She sighed, looked boredly up at him, and waited for him to finish.

  "I would like," he continued pleasantly, "a record of all incidents like these last two that have happened during the past six months. I would like it real soon, or I just might kick your nasty ass all over this room." He smiled thinly, pushed the drawer back in. "That's a Marshal joke."

  He spun on his heel and marched out of the hospital. She watched him leave, then turned back to her work.

  Sagan was looking forward to the night. His shift had gone well: no glitches, no problems, no arguments. No breakdowns requiring anything more than the usual amount of sweat.

  Even the foreman had managed an occasional kind word, and his assistant LaVille had finally conquered his damnable cold to the point where he no longer shattered everyone's eardrums by sneezing through the suit coms.

  The exchange in the locker room had gone smoothly, as always. Around him in the lavatory his co-workers were likewise preparing themselves to go off duty or on, as their shift schedules dictated.

  He finished smoothing the depilatory cream on his face, waited a moment before wiping it and whiskers off with a clean towel. He followed this treatment by applying an aftershave with a heavy aroma and erotic name.

  The final result he admired in the mirror. Not bad, he told himself. He joked with a passing friend on the way to the showers, exchanged comments on the day's work with another, then strolled back to the bunkroom. He wore only undershorts.

  The aisles were relatively deserted, though the dormitory was never what could be called dead silent. Dim sounds from the video players at the far end of the aisle reached him, while the noise of individual viewers whispered faintly from open or sealed bunks.

  Sagan's private little world was on Level Two of Aisle Seven. Its location was a reflection of his comparatively short tenure at the mine.

  The most experienced workers, those who'd been longest on Io, occupied the topmost bunks of Level Four, which were the quietest and offered the greatest amount of privacy. A man on Level Four could lie in bed and gaze upward in the knowledge that no one else was tossing and turning above him. This system was not instituted by the Company but by the workers themselves, though it was as thoroughly enforced as any of the more formal regulations.

  The multiple tour men, the Jove-jockies, had the bunks in the corners near the back of the dormitory. These were away from the video screens and much of the noise from the bathroom. They were almost peaceful.

  Sagan often envied the old-timers their nearly private quarters, but he had no intention of sticking around long enough to qualify for one. The moment his single-year tour was up, he'd cash in his bonus and head home.

  Tha
t was still in the future. For now there was tonight.

  He climbed into his bunk with the ease of practice, flipped on his reading lamp. At a touch the privacy screens slid shut. He reached into one of the drawers set into the foot of the bed and fumbled under the clothing inside.

  The vaccination gun he withdrew was compact, a blunt gun-shape that was mostly nozzle and trigger. The gun was not illegal. Most of the workers had authorizations permitting their ownership. It made the distribution of medicines much simpler when the dispensary could ship capsules to each worker's bunk instead of having to call them into the hospital one at time. Such trips wasted work time.

  The tiny half-transparent vial that Sagan excavated from behind the drawer was smaller than his thumbnail. He slid back the breech and slipped the vial into the gun's receiving chamber. A quick check showed that the gun's air cylinder was appropriately charged.

  Pressing the nozzle hard against his inner thigh, he pulled the trigger. A burst of air forced the vial's contents into his leg.

  He leaned back and inhaled deeply, closing his eyes. After a few minutes he returned the gun to its drawer and slid the compartment shut.

  Opening another compartment he selected a shirt. Whistling blithely, he began to get dressed.

  It was night in O'Niel's quarters. It was also quiet. He liked the night, a familiar old friend who never surprised him no matter where he was stationed. The quiet was different, a reflection of the hole in his heart.

  He was sitting on the couch, which obediently gave support in the right places to his slightly softening frame. I'm a lot like the couch, he thought. Tough framework, flexible, fully capable of handling several people simultaneously, yet getting soft around the middle.

  The analogy was not unique. O'Niel was a man used to regarding people as furniture, objects that occupied space in rooms and chambers.

  He considered some of his newer acquaintances, diverting his mind from other, less pleasant thoughts in the silent room to an old mental game.

  Montone, his first Sergeant: now there was a man a lot like a newly refurbished chair. Bright and shiny, very efficient tool yet untested. Paint could hide a lot. Eventually he'd have to dig a little or he'd never know just how dependable Montone was.

  Sheppard . . . Sheppard reminded him of a big desk. One that looked like sturdy old oak. Solid and immovable, ready to take whatever was dumped on it. Only he suspected that a lot of Sheppard was veneer. Strip that away and you were likely to find not oak underneath, but wood pulp held together with glue. Cheap.

  Dr. Lazarus . . . now there was a real antique, and no veneer. Beaten up, a little worm-eaten, unattractive on the outside, but well-made. Maybe. Furniture like that was hard to figure from a single look. It might hold a horse, might collapse under the slightest real pressure. And the nails stuck out of the woodwork at odd angles. If you weren't careful, you might get jabbed.

  A knock sounded at the door. He shifted his feet on the small, shiny coffee table and tried to rouse himself from his self-imposed lethargy, with little success.

  Hell with it, he thought disconsolately. There was no one in the apartment to be polite for.

  "It's open."

  Montone entered, carrying a large tray filled with covered plates. He set the tray down on the coffee table, forcing O'Niel to move his feet.

  "I don't know what you like to eat, so I brought a little of everything. Some of it actually tastes different from the rest."

  O'Niel looked at the food containers and tried to smile thankfully at the sergeant. The expression that resulted was not as encouraging as he'd intended.

  Montone sounded honestly concerned as he sat down in the chair across from O'Niel.

  "Listen, you have to eat something. If nothing else, it helps kill the monotony. I'm an expert on that. Always got ribbed, about my name. Mind if I join you? Thanks," he finished before O'Niel had a chance to reply.

  Montone rose, walked into the kitchenette area and hunted through the cabinets until he found a glass which might have seemed like an unwarranted luxury to a stranger. It wasn't.

  A couple of the first engineers sent to build the mine had spent their spare time working up a small, automated glass-making facility. Io had plenty of raw material. The glass was one of the few items of household use that was produced locally.

  Returning, Montone sat down opposite O'Niel again and started taking the covers off the food.

  "There's chocolate cake for dessert, except you can't have any until you finish all your meat."

  O'Niel smiled in spite of himself. He knew that Montone was on his own off-time. He didn't have to be here.

  "I know how you feel," the sergeant was telling him sincerely. "I do."

  O'Niel just stared at him.

  "Think I'm just saying that?" He leaned forward, picked at the food as he spoke. "The second time I did a tour, I came home and found that my wife had skipped off with some guy who's a computer programmer. Little fishy-looking twit who's losing his hair." O'Niel studied him.

  "I have two daughters," Montone went on, chewing a piece of real steak. "They call the programmer 'daddy.' My wife said she was happy. The guy looks so boring! She said he may not be Mr. Excitement, but he was home all the time." He hesitated, looked down toward the floor.

  "Can't argue with that." He pushed the big tray toward O'Niel. "Try the food . . . it's not that bad. The Admin kitchen here is pretty good. A lot better than some I've tried. Sometimes they even get real meat." He gestured at the plates. "Sheppard busts his butt to get the top people the best. You can say that for him." If he was waiting for a reaction from O'Niel he was disappointed.

  "The steak's real. Give it a shot."

  "I will."

  Montone continued to speak without meeting O'Niel's eyes. "You know, the hookers here are nice. Io's got a tough rep for duty but a good one for off-time. Sometimes when you're lonely, they can help. Most of them are good at what they do, and they're all Company okay'd."

  "I'm sure."

  There was a period of quiet while Montone nibbled at his portion. After a while he looked up.

  "You want to play cards?" He grinned. "I cheat. Except I cheat so badly you can catch me."

  "No, thank you."

  Montone looked disappointed. "I get the feeling I'm bombing."

  "No." O'Niel tried to sound grateful. "I really appreciate what you're doing. I really do. It's just . . . it's just that I would like to be alone right now."

  Montone rose from the chair. "I understand, Marshal." He started for the door. "I'll handle the next shift reports and make up the duty roster. You want to check it? I can put a copy through your monitor." He gestured toward the computer console in the corner. O'Niel simply shook his head.

  "Not necessary, Sargeant."

  "All right. If you need anything. If you just want to talk . . . please call me." He smiled. "My rates are pretty reasonable."

  "Thank you. I mean it."

  "Screw it." He nodded toward the still steaming tray of food. "You can have the chocolate Cake. I'm on a diet." He dosed the door quietly as he left.

  O'Niel was smiling as his subordinate departed. The smile was for the benefit of a concerned friend, however, and was less than genuine. It faded rapidly once Montone was gone.

  His gaze traveled down to the table and the food waiting there. Montone had gone out of his way to make the meal sound appetizing, but O'Niel didn't want to touch it.

  Like a wind-up toy he stood, moved to the console, switched on one of the monitors, and entered a command.

  O'NIEL, W.T. PLAYBACK WEDNESDAY TRANSMISSIONS

  The screen flickered. The message request vanished to be replaced by the mechanical reply.

  O'NIEL, W.T. AFFIRMATIVE. REPLAY WEDNESDAY TRANSMISSIONS

  An image solidified on the screen, became Montone.

  "Marshal, we got a response on your request . . ."

  O'Niel touched another control. The picture speeded into comedy, the sound turning to high-pitched
gibberish. The squeaky wail slowed as a tone sounded and O'Niel's finger moved across another control.

  A new face appeared. "Marshal," the portrait said, "it's Caldwell in West Security. We got a small problem here, nothing serious, but I just wanted to get your opinion on it before we proc . . ."

  Again the previous stud cut off the chatter in midsentence, again the recording fast-forwarded to finish with a signaling tone. Down went the second control.

  Carol's face appeared. "I . . . I'm trying to keep my composure and . . . and like everything else I do . . . I think I'm messing this up."

  O'Niel sat down in the chair and stared fixedly at the screen, as attentive as though he were seeing it for the first time.

  "I despise these message things," Carol was saying, the words bouncing around inside O'Niel's skull. "I . . . I'm just such a coward. I couldn't stand there in person face to face with you and say what I'm about to say. I just couldn't.

  "If you were in front of me right now, I would change my mind. And I don't want to change my mind."

  A yellow light winked above the screen, accompanied by a high-pitched beep. O'Niel picked up the closed-channel audio receiver nearby, automatically activating it. His eyes never left the monitor.

  "O'Niel here." He listened. "What? How bad?" At the other end of the thin glass thread a voice was talking too fast. "I'll be right there."

  He let the receiver slip back into its socket, moving rapidly now. Near the door a small riot gun hung in a loop support. It looked a lot like an old sawed-off shotgun save for much smoother lines and some complex instrumentation. Automatically he checked the velocity setting, made sure it read INDOOR—CLOSE QUARTERS, then opened the door and rushed out of the apartment.

  Behind him the video screen, left unattended, continued to spill its recorded trauma.

  "I love you. Please know that." Pause. "Look at me. I'm asking for your approval."

  The voice rambled on, alternately crying and declaiming, pleading to an empty room . . .