by neetha Napew
Aygar shot the medic such a keen look that Sassinak damned her own lapse - that’d teach her to look at the exterior of a man and forget what made him tick.
“You might say I do at that,” he replied in much too mild a tone.
“In that case,” Sassinak said, glancing for approval at Lunzie, “I think we could actually take you on as a ... mmm . . . special advisor?”
“I’ve just signed on in a similar capacity,” Lunzie said when she saw Aygar hesitate. “Special duties. Special training.”
“Not in the usual chain of command,” Sassinak gave him a look that had melted scores of junior officers.
“And who do I have to take orders from?” he asked, looking from Sassinak to Lunzie with the blandest of expressions on his handsome face.
“I’m still the captain,” Sassinak said firmly, with a glare for her great-great-great-grandmother, who only grinned.
“You may be a lightweight, captain, but I think I can endure it,” he said in a drawl, holding her gaze with his twinkling eyes.
“Welcome aboard, specialist Aygar!” And Sassinak extended her hand to take his in a firm shake of commitment.
Lunzie chuckled wickedly. “I think this is going to be a most ...” her pause was pregnant “... instructive voyage, granddaughter. Shall we toss for it?”
Just for a moment, Aygar looked from one to the other, with the expression of someone who suspects he hasn’t quite caught a hidden meaning.
“We specialists should stick together,” she added, offering him a glass of the amber brandy. “You’ll drink to that, won’t you. Commander?”
‘That, and other things! Like ‘down with planet piracy!’ “ She pinned Lunzie with a meaningful stare, wondering just what she’d got herself in for this trip.
“Hear, hear!” Lunzie lustily agreed.
BOOK ONE
Chapter One
The single engaged engine of the empty spherical ore carrier thrummed hollowly through the hull. It set the decks and bulkheads of the personnel quarters vibrating at a frequency which at first, depending on one’s mood, could be soothing or irritating. After four weeks aboard the Tau Ceti registered mining vessel Nellie Mine, Lunzie Mespil had to think about it to remember that the hum was there at all. When she first boarded, as the newly hired doctor for the Descartes Mining Platform Number 6, the sound drove her halfway to distraction. There wasn’t much to do except read and sleep and listen, or rather, feel the engine noise. Later, she discovered that the sound was conducive to easy sleep and relaxation, like being aboard a gently swaying monorail passenger carrier. Whether her fellow employees knew it or not, one of the chief reasons that the Descartes Mining Corporation had so few duels and mutinies on delivery runs was due to the peace-inducing hum of the engines.
The first few days she spent in the tiny, plain-walled cubicle which doubled as her sleeping quarters and office were a trifle lonely. Lunzie had too many hours to think of her daughter Fiona. Fiona, fourteen, lovely and precocious in Lunzie’s unbiased opinion, had been left behind in the care of a friend who was the chief medical officer on the newly colonized planet of Tau Ceti. The settlement was surprisingly comfortable for one so recently established. It had a good climate, a biosphere reasonably friendly toward humankind, marked seasons, and plenty of arable land that allowed both Earth-type and hybrid seeds to prosper. Lunzie hoped to settle down there herself when she finished her tour of duty on the Platform, but she wasn’t independently wealthy. Even a commodity as precious as medical expertise wasn’t sufficient to buy into the Tau Ceti association. She needed to earn a stake, and there was little call on an atmosphere-and-gravity world for her to practice her specialty of psychological space-incurred trauma. There was no help for it: she was compelled to go off-planet to earn money. To her great dismay, all of the posts which were best suited to her profession and experience - and paid the most - were on isolated facilities. She would not be able to take Fiona with her. After much negotiation, Lunzie signed on with Descartes for a stint on a remote mining platform.
Fiona had been angry that she couldn’t accompany her mother to the Descartes Platform, and had refused to accept the fact. In the last days before Lunzie’s departure, Fiona had avoided speaking to her, and stubbornly unpacked Lunzie’s two five-kilo duffels as often as her mother filled them up. It was an adolescent prank, but one that showed Lunzie how hurt Fiona felt to be abandoned. Since she was born, they had never been apart more than a day or so. Lunzie herself was aching at the impending separation, but she understood, as Fiona would not, the economic necessity that caused her to take a medical berth so far away and leave Fiona behind.
Their spacefare to Tau Ceti had been paid on speculation by the science council, who were testing the viability of a clone breeding center on the newly colonized planet. Lunzie had been approached by the ethics council to join them, their interest stemming from her involvement as the student advisor on a similar panel during her days in medical school which had resulted in an experimental colony. Surprisingly, the data on that earlier effort was unavailable even to the participants on the panel. Her former term-husband Sion had also given her his recommendation. He was becoming very well known and respected in genetic studies, mainly involved in working on controlling the heavyworld human mutations.
There were four or five meetings of the ethics council, which quickly determined that even so altruistic a project as fostering a survival-oriented genome was self-defeating in just a few generations, and no further action was taken. Lunzie was out of work in a colony that didn’t need her. Because of the classified nature of the study, she was unable even to explain to her daughter why she wasn’t employed in the job which they had traveled to Tau Ceti to take.
After the fifth or sixth time she had to repack her case, Lunzie knew by heart the few possessions she was taking with her, and locked her luggage up in the poisons cabinet in the Tau Ceti medical center to keep Fiona away from it.
By then, the protests had degenerated into a mere sulk. With love, Lunzie watched Fiona patiently, waiting for her to accept their parting, placing herself where she would be available to the troubled youngster when she decided she was ready to talk. Lunzie knew from experience that it was no good chasing Fiona down. She had to let Fiona come to her in her own time. They were too much alike. To force an early confrontation would be like forcing a nuclear pile to overload. She went about her business in the medical center, assisting other medical personnel with ongoing research which the colony had approved. At last, Fiona met her coming out of the medical center one sunny day after work, and presented her with a small wrapped package. It was a hard triangular cylinder. Lunzie smiled, recognizing the shape. Under the paper was a brand new studio hologram of Fiona, dressed in her feastday best, an outfit in the latest style for which she had begged and plagued her mother to supplement the amount she’d saved to buy it from her allowance on their last planetary home. Lunzie could see how much of her own looks were reflected in Fiona: the prominent cheekbones, the high forehead, the warm mouth. The waves of smooth hair were much darker than hers, nearer black than Lunzie’s golden brown. Fiona had long, sleepy eyes and a strong chin she inherited from her father that made her look determined, if not downright stubborn, even as a baby. The ruby-colored frock enhanced the girl’s light skin, making her exotic and lovely as a flower. The translucent flowing cape which fell from between the shoulders was in the very height of fashion, a field of stars in pinpoint lights which swirled like a comet’s tail around Fiona’s calves. Lunzie looked up from the gift into her daughter’s eyes, which were watching her warily, wondering what she would say. “I love it, darling,” Lunzie told her, gathering her close and tucking the hologram safely into her zip pouch. “I’ll miss you so much.”
“Don’t forget me.” A broken whimper was muffled against Lunzie’s tunic front.
Lunzie drew back and took her daughter’s tear-stained face between her hands, studying it, learning it by heart. “I never could,” Lunzie promised her. “I
never will. And I’ll be back before you know it.”
During her remaining days planetside, she had turned over her laboratory work to a co-worker so she could spend all her time with Fiona. They visited favorite spots, and together moved Fiona’s belongings and the rest of her own from their temporary quarters to the home of the friend who would be fostering the girl. They asked each other, ‘Do you remember this? Do you remember that?’, sharing precious memories as they had shared the events themselves. It was a glowing, warm time for both of them, too soon over for Lunzie’s taste.
A silent Fiona walked her to the landing bay where the shuttle waited to transport her to the Nellie Mine. Tau Ceti’s pale lavender-blue sky was over-cast. When the sky was clear, Lunzie could often see the sun glint off the sides of visiting ships high above Tau Ceti in parking orbit, but she was just as happy that she could not now. She was holding back on her emotions. If there was any way to spare Fiona her own misery, she would do it. Lunzie promised herself a really good cry once she was shipside. For one moment, she felt like ripping up her contract and running away, telling Descartes to chuck it, and pleading with the Tau Ceti authorities that she would work at any job, however menial, to stay here with Fiona. But then, good sense took over. Lunzie remembered crude financial matters like making a living, and assured herself that it wouldn’t be that long before she could return, and they would have a comfortable life thereafter with what she’d earned.
“I’ll negotiate for an asteroid miner as soon as I can afford it,” Lunzie offered, breaking the silence. “Maybe I’ll stake a few.” Her words echoed among the corrugated metal walls of the spaceport. There seemed to be no one there but themselves. “We’ll strike it rich, you’ll see. You’ll be able to go to any university you like, or go for officer training in Fleet, like my brother. Whatever you want.”
“Mm,” was Fiona’s only comment. Her face was drawn into a mask so tragic that Lunzie wanted to laugh and cry. Fiona hadn’t used any makeup that morning, so she looked more childlike than her usual careful teenaged self.
It’s manipulation, I know it, Lunzie told herself severely. I’ve got to make a living, or where’s our future? I know she’s grieving, but I’ll only be gone two years, five at the most! The girl’s nose was turning red, and her lips were white and pressed tightly closed. Lunzie started to offer another pleasantry, and then realized that she was trying to manipulate her daughter into foregoing her legitimate feelings. I don’t want to make a scene, so I’m trying to keep her from acting unhappy. She pressed her own lips shut. We’re too much alike, that’s the trouble, Lunzie decided, shaking her head. She squeezed Fiona’s hand tighter. They walked in silence to the landing bay.
Landing Bay Six contained a big cargo shuttle of the type used by shippers who hauled more freight than passengers. This craft, once nattily painted white with a broad red band from its nose to tail, was dinged and dented. The ceramic coating along the nose showed scorching from making descents through planetary atmospheres, but the vehicle seemed otherwise in good shape and well cared for. A broad-shouldered man with black curly hair stood in the middle of the bay, waving a clipboard and dispensing orders to a handful of coveralled workers. Sealed containers were being forklifted into the open top hatch of the shuttle.
The black-haired man noticed them and came over, hand out in greeting.
“You’re the new doctor?” he asked, seizing Lunzie’s free hand and wringing it companionably. “Captain Cosimo, Descartes Mining. Glad to have you with us. Hello, little lady,” Cosimo ducked his head to Fiona, a cross between a nod and a bow. “Are those your bags. Doctor? Marcus! Take the doctor’s bags on board!” Lunzie offered Cosimo the small cube containing her contract and orders, which he slotted into the clipboard. “All’s well,” he said, scanning the readout on his screen. “We’ve got about twenty minutes before we lift off. Hatch shuts at T-minus two. Until then, your time’s your own.” With another smile for Fiona, he went back to shouting at one of his employees. “See here, Nelhen, that’s a forklift, not a wee little toy!”
Lunzie turned to Fiona. Her throat began to tighten. All the things she wanted to say seemed so trivial when compared to what she felt. She cleared her throat, trying not to cry. Fiona’s eyes were aswim with tears. “There’s not much time.”
“Oh, Mama,” Fiona burst out in a huge sob. “I’ll miss you so!” The almost-grown Fiona, who eschewed all juvenile things and had called her mother Lunzie since early childhood, reverted all at once to the baby name she hadn’t used in years. “I’ll miss you, too. Fee,” Lunzie admitted, more touched than she realized. They clutched each other close and shed honest tears. Lunzie let it all out, and felt better for it. In the end, neither Lunzie nor any member of her family could be dishonest.
When the klaxon sounded, Fiona let her go with one more moist kiss, and stood back to watch the launch. Lunzie felt closer to her than she ever had. She kept Fiona in her mind, picturing her waving as the shuttle lifted and swept away through the violet- blue sky of Tau Ceti.
Now, with the exception of today’s uniform, one music disk, and the hologram, her baggage was secured in the small storage chamber behind the shower unit with everyone else’s. Lunzie had cropped her hair practically short as most crew members did. She missed the warm, fresh wind, cooking her own food from the indigenous plant life, and Fiona.
Without other set duties to occupy her, Lunzie spent the days studying the medical files of her future co-workers and medical texts on the typical injuries and ailments that befall asteroid miners. She was looking forward to her new post. Space-incurred traumas interested her. Agoraphobia and claustrophobia were the most common in space-station life, followed by paranoid disorders. Strangely enough, frequently more than one occurred in the same patient at the same time. She was curious about the causes, and wanted to amass field research to prove or disprove her professors’ statements about the possibility of cures.
She’d used her observations from the medical files to facilitate getting to know her fifteen shipmates. Miners were a hearty lot, sharing genuine good fellowship among themselves, but they took slowly to most strangers. Tragedy, suffered on the job and in personal lives, kept them clannish. But Lunzie wasn’t a stranger long. They soon discovered that she cared deeply about the well-being of each of them, and that she was a good listener. After that, each of the others claimed time with her in the common dining recreation room, and filtered through her office, to pass the time between shifts, making her feel very welcome. With time, they began to open up to her. Lunzie heard about this crewman’s broken romance, and that crewwoman’s plan to open a satellite-based saloon with her savings, and the impending eggs of a mated pair of avians called Ryxi, who were specialists temporarily employed by the Platform. And they learned about her early life, her medical training, and her daughter.
The triangular hologram of Fiona was in her hand as she sat behind the desk in her office and listened to a human miner named Jilet. According to his file, Jilet had spent twelve years in cryogenic deepsleep after asteroids destroyed the drive on an ore carrier on which he and four other crewmen had been travelling. They’d been forced to evacuate from their posts, Jilet in one escape capsule near the cargo hold, the others in a second by the engine section. The other four men were recovered quickly, but Jilet was not found for over a decade more because of a malfunction in the signal beacon on his capsule. Not surprisingly, he was angry, afraid, and resentful. Three of the other crew presently on the Nellie Mine had been in cold sleep at least once, but Jilet’s stint had been the longest. Lunzie sympathized with him.
“The truth is that I know those years passed while I was in cold sleep. Doctor, but it is killing me that I can’t remember them. I’ve lost so much - my friends, my family. The world’s gone round without me, and I don’t know how to take up where I’ve left off.” The burly, black-haired miner shifted in the deep impact lounger which Lunzie used as a psychoanalyst’s couch. “I feel I’ve lost parts of myself as well.”
“Well, you know that’s not true, Jilet,” Lunzie corrected him, leaning forward on her elbows attentively. “The brain is very protective of its memory centers. What you know is still locked up in there.” She tapped his forehead with a slender, square-tipped finger. “Research has proved that there is no degeneration of memory over the time spent in cold sleep. You have to rely upon what you are, who you are, not what your surroundings tell you you are. I know it’s disorienting - no, I’ve never been through it myself, but I’ve taken care of many patients who have, What you must do is accept that you’ve suffered a trauma, and learn to live your life again.”
Jilet grimaced. “When I was younger, my mates and I wanted to live in space, away from all the crowds and noise. Hah! Catch me saying that now. All I want to do is settle down on one of the permanent colonies and maybe fix jets or industrial robots for a living. Can’t do that yet without my Oh-Two money, not even including the extra if I want to have a family - a new family - so I’ve got to keep mining. It’s all I know.”
Lunzie nodded. Oh-Two was the cant term for the set-up costs it took to add each person to the biosphere of an ongoing oxygen-breathing colony on a non-atmosphered site. It was expensive: the containment domes had to be expanded, and studies needed to be done to determine whether the other support systems could handle the presence of another life. Besides air, a human being needed water, sanitary facilities, a certain amount of space for living quarters and food synthesis or farming acreage to support him. She had considered one herself, but the safety margins were not yet acceptable, to her way of thinking, for the raising of a child.
“What about a planetside community?” Lunzie asked. “My daughter’s happy on Tau Ceti. It has a healthy atmosphere, and community centers or farmland available, whichever you prefer to inhabit. I want to buy in on an asteroid strike, so that Fiona and I can have a comfortable home.” It was a common practice for the mining companies to allow freelancing by non-competitive consortia from their own platforms, so long as it didn’t interfere with their primary business. Lunzie calculated that two or three years worth of her disposable income would be enough for a tidy share of a miner’s time.