Hellhole

by Kevin J. Anderson

  35

  Tanja Hu returned to Candela from her secret meeting with General Adolphus just in time for the major rains to start.

  She had been through monsoon seasons all her life, but this was different. Worse. In previous years, the people always had a day or two between major storms, a brief respite to gather themselves for the next onslaught. Now, however, it had rained every single day since she came back from Hellhole. It was a torrent, hour after hour, day after day.

  She heard the rain thrumming on the metal roof of her floating home, saw the harbor’s water level rising as streams and rivers overflowed their banks. The surge had caused a mechanical problem with the locks leading from Saporo harbor out to sea, and her tugboat captains and engineers were struggling in the downpour, thus far to no avail. Trees and manmade structures careened down the steep slopes as the waterlogged hillsides slipped. The harbor water was a brown, silty soup.

  Her house staff took shifts manually ejecting water from the pontoons to keep her buoyant dwelling stable. Though it was well past midnight, she heard the workers pumping, felt her home continue to heel to one side, out of balance. Tanja had worked the pumps herself, and now she was miserable from warm rain and sweat.

  Throughout the harbor, the floating town buildings were in similar distress. Bebe Nax maintained a detailed and ever-growing list of emergencies that needed to be taken care of. Tanja doubted that the Council of Lords back on comfortable Sonjeera had any idea about the difficulties the DZ worlds faced every day.

  Through her rain-streaked window, she watched flickering emergency lights and the dark shadows of high buildings that leaned in the wind. Despite the breakwaters, locks, and other engineering stopgaps installed to protect the harbor, more than a hundred people were confirmed dead in this evening’s report. As Candela’s planetary administrator, Tanja could not stop worrying about the loss of life and the high costs of repairs.

  The Constellation was not likely to send aid or relief workers; in fact, they wouldn’t even offer amnesty on the next tribute payment. Out in the hills, the workers were forced to continue their long shifts, despite the oppressive rain. In the open-pit excavations many kilometers to the southeast, Uncle Quinn and the rest of Tanja’s relatives would be facing an even worse situation.

  At noon the following day, the rain paused, as if gathering its energy for another outburst. The silence and the clearing skies were startling at first. Standing on her deck in dry clothes and a water-repellent coat, Tanja braced herself against a steady wind that made the harbor waters choppy. Above, workers hammered on her roof to secure waterproof slats. Emergency craft sped about the water with lights flashing, responding to a constant string of calls.

  From the deck of her floating home, she waved as a private aero-copter taxied towards her, bouncing on the waves. With communication cut off for days, Tanja had arranged to take a rescue craft out to Puhau and the surrounding mountain villages. She would lead the expedition herself.

  As Tanja climbed into the copter’s passenger compartment, she saw Bebe Nax waiting for her with five volunteer nurses from the Merciful order and a doctor, all of whom wore rain gear and carried medical packs. She knew Uncle Quinn could handle an emergency and keep his mining villages secure, but he might need help. The underground tunnels of the covert iperion mines would be protected from the deluge, but the stripped hillsides and open-pit excavations would be a mess.

  The pilot took off, and Tanja looked down upon her battered and drenched city. Bebe gazed out the opposite window, her brow furrowed as she mentally took notes. As the craft skimmed inland over the rugged hills, Tanja tried to see past the low-lying fog banks. Swollen creeks careened through the steep valleys; she had never imagined so many gushing waterfalls. An impractical person might have found them beautiful.

  When the pilot announced that they were over Puhau, Bebe shook her head. “You must be mistaken. There’s nothing down there.”

  Tanja peered down, but could find no words through the lump in her throat. As the craft circled, she saw scars and swaths and streaks of mud on the hillsides, entire forests sheared away from steep slopes and a water-filled open pit. But no sign of the mining village at the bottom, only a horrific brownish expanse where all the structures had been.

  She put her hands against the aircraft window. “No!” Quinn had been down there, most of her relatives, all those villagers, the miners – gone!

  Bebe got on the codecall and transmitted an order for emergency equipment, first-aid vehicles, mobile hospitals, and excavating machinery. When the voice on the other end of the circuit complained, the assistant snapped, “It’s the order of the administrator. If you’ve got a problem, come out here, stand in the mud, and argue about it face to face. Once you’re up to your neck in goo, you’ll change your mind.”

  Tanja nodded a numb thanks, but couldn’t tear her gaze away: all that remained of Puhau was a thick blanket of mud. What looked like the dome roof of the mine headquarters building poked through the mud at the perimeter of the flow; here and there, broken, uprooted trees stuck out of the muck.

  When the pilot kept circling, Tanja demanded, “Take us down there!” Her voice cracked as she shouted the order. When she spotted a few refugees sitting on the moist ground in shock, her heart surged with hope.

  “We need a stable place to set down, Administrator.” The pilot altered course to the edge of the muddy lake and landed with a brown splash across the fuselage. The aircraft shifted drunkenly as its weight settled into the loose mud, but Tanja popped the door open before they came to a rest. She scrambled out with Bebe following close behind; the doctor, nurses, and pilot gathered up the supplies and emerged. They all sank up to their calves in the slurry.

  The survivors stared at them. Some slogged forward. Tanja recognized one of her male cousins seated on the ground by the exposed roof of the town hall tower, and she forced her way toward him. Her boots made sucking sounds as she pulled them out of the mud. Moving only a few meters sapped her energy.

  “Gavo!” she called out. He looked at her, his eyes dull; he didn’t respond. She dreaded what else she might hear or see, but she had to know. “Where are the others?” The whole village . . . thousands of people. And Uncle Quinn. She didn’t want to hear the answer.

  Gavo rose slowly to his feet. “Dead.” He looked around at the heavy layer of mud that had erased the town. “Down there, buried in the damn mud.” A notorious drunk, Gavo had been one of the family members who had embarrassed her with his antics in Saporo; she had sent him to live in the hills where he wouldn’t cause any further embarrassment. Now he looked completely sober.

  “I set up this town, Bebe,” Tanja said. “I sent my cousins out here, built the village, told them to work on the stripmine so they could help me out . . . and also stay out of my hair.” She dashed her tears away with the back of her hand.

  Bebe leaned forward to rub Tanja’s cheek. “You’ve got mud on your face.”

  Tanja laughed bitterly at the absurd concern, then sloshed out into the muck to do something, anything, to look for survivors. The rescue workers fanned out, tending the handful of villagers who had escaped the disaster.

  After her urgent summons, more rescue aircraft arrived, and workers established a triage zone and refugee camp on a stable rocky area. Using sophisticated detection equipment, emergency workers extracted a dozen more survivors buried under the tons of mud that had swallowed the mining operations. For the rest of the afternoon and into the early evening, aerocopters flew back and forth, ferrying distraught villagers to Saporo. Almost the entire population of Puhau had been lost.

  As her grief and shock mounted, so did her anger. Bebe followed her, taking care of every detail she could think of, but Tanja was thinking of the broader picture. “These hillsides were unstable because I forced the miners to excavate so quickly. No time for planning, no proper safety embankments, or drainage control – all because of the Constellation’s tribute demands.”

  “Your U
ncle Quinn was a careful and sensible man, Administrator. I’m sure he did everything he could.”

  “Even a sensible man couldn’t plan for this. It wasn’t his fault.”

  “Or yours, Administrator. You know that.”

  Tanja did know it. The blame for all these deaths lay with Diadem Michella and her greedy pack of noble families. Nobles? Those vultures were anything but noble.

  Tanja stayed another night in the disaster area, sleeping inside the aerocopter. Bebe brought her a blanket. Blessedly, the rain held off for a time. The muddy graveyard was pockmarked with holes where rescuers had worked.

  People poured in from nearby villages to help and they worked tirelessly. In a miracle, two more residents were found in an air pocket, in the wreckage of their home, under five meters of mud. But when the monsoons resumed their onslaught with a vengeance two days later, the mudslide area became too treacherous to continue operations.

  With a heavy heart, Tanja called off the search for survivors and prepared to depart for Saporo. She would never see her beloved Uncle Quinn again.

  Just before leaving, she watched neighboring villagers complete a path up the mudslide area to the highest remaining slope, marking it with stones on either side, a pathway to heaven for the souls of the dead. As Tanja boarded the aerocopter to leave, she saw beautiful red and yellow flowers sprouting up from the mud, fast-growing blossoms already venturing into new territory.

  36

  The General imposed strict security at the Ankor industrial outpost on the other side of the continent from Michella Town, though not for the obvious reasons.

  An out-of-the-way mining and fabrication complex, Ankor produced large amounts of necessary metals such as iron, copper, and tin, which helped build the scattered colony towns and support infrastructure on Hallholme. The industrial outpost produced nothing interesting enough to be included in the Diadem’s required tribute, since costs prohibited shipping such mundane metals to the Crown Jewels. The site was difficult to reach, and it offered no amenities for visitors. The Diadem’s officials had no desire whatsoever to visit the dirty, noisy place.

  The General liked it that way.

  The bulk of Ankor’s labor force consisted of exiled convicts, which justified heavier security, though the workers did not, in fact, require such measures. Over the years, a handful of hard-bitten murderers and kidnappers had escaped from the compound and fled out into the wilds, but such attempts were never well planned; some escapees came crawling back and begged to be taken in, while others left only desiccating corpses on the inhospitable terrain.

  Truly antisocial misfits who could never be rehabilitated were dispatched to projects that required much harder labor where they could cause little harm. The Ankor project was far too important for Adolphus to allow troublemakers.

  After determining a safe window in the weather patterns, Adolphus flew a swift aircraft across the continent to the isolated site. He called ahead to inform Tel and Renny Clovis, the couple who managed the compound, and they offered to prepare the facilities for inspection, but Adolphus told them not to delay work on his account. “I don’t want to disrupt your operations.”

  “Good, because we’re right on schedule – your schedule.” The voice on the codecall line was Renny’s, though the two men sounded very much alike. His aircraft crossed a line of recently uplifted cliffs and flew over a sparkling salt bed that had once been an inland sea.

  Colored bands of ore striped the fresh cliffs. Excavation machinery laid open the mountainside to get at the various metals, and dust and smoke wafted in circles from breezes trapped in the valley, creating a gritty, noisy work environment. While these mines and mills were necessary to the colonists on Hallholme, the operation was just a front for Ankor’s true purpose.

  This was General Adolphus’s own spaceport launch complex.

  From here, the Clovises orbited regular loads of equipment, satellites, and materials, entirely without the Constellation’s knowledge. While landing his aircraft, Adolphus spotted a bullet-shaped carrier vessel riding a finger of white fire and exhaust, climbing toward the large, undocumented complex in orbit.

  The General longed to go up to the orbital station, but he contented himself with second-hand reports. Even though the Diadem would never know he had left the planet’s surface, he would know. Tiber Maximillian Adolphus would maintain his honor and his promises – at least until Destination Day, when he would jettison all ties and commitments to the Crown Jewels.

  Stiff from the long flight, he climbed out of the aircraft and saw the two men coming toward him hand-in-hand. Adolphus had always disapproved of public displays of affection, even his own, believing that a casual environment affected discipline. However, a light management touch had proved effective here. Tel and Renny Clovis were adhering to the schedule, and they ran the project as a model of efficiency. Adolphus knew better than to meddle with success.

  The two had fallen in love in a prison on Fleer, the original home-world of the Duchenets. Though Renny was due to be paroled in less than a year, both men had signed up for the Deep Zone colony option. Tel and Renny left Fleer together, finding themselves on Hallholme and perfectly happy about it.

  First assigned to Ankor as convict workers, Tel and Renny had excelled in their work, demonstrating their leadership abilities. After completing a year of public service on Hallholme, they had chosen to stay on, and General Adolphus promoted them into management positions.

  Tel – the thinner of the two – always saluted when he saw the General, while his partner came forward to shake Adolphus’s hand. Either gesture of respect was acceptable. “Good to see you, gentlemen.” He pointed to the still-fading vapor trail; the delivery vehicle had dwindled to a bright pinpoint of light high overhead. “What was that cargo?”

  Tel shrugged. “I can’t remember exactly. Renny, what was on the launch docket for today?”

  “Another docking clamp for the orbital ring. Once it’s installed and online, we’ll be able to handle four stringline arrivals simultaneously.”

  Adolphus nodded at the excellent news. “Don’t slow down. D-Day is in eleven months, and we have to make sure all twelve stations are ready. Our ring needs to be a genuine stringline hub, not just an amateur effort.”

  Ankor’s busy landing field – with its warehouses, hangars, and repair/refueling facilities – reminded Adolphus of the Lubis Plain shipyards on Qiorfu. But he intended to make this much more than that.

  Tel gestured. “Come with me to the office shack, General. We’ve got real-time images being transmitted from orbit. I have the full work record for your perusal. You can even link up and speak to the construction team if you like.”

  “I prefer to maintain radio silence. No matter how secure the channel is, someone could be listening in.” Far too many Constellation people snooped around the General’s planet. “You two are doing a fine job managing this. I won’t interfere. I’ll just look at the images.”

  Leaving Tel with the General, Renny pulled on a pair of gloves. “I’m off to run one of the clearing dozers. We’re going to lay the foundation for a big new reception building. Gotta be ready when passengers begin arriving from the Deep Zone. We’ll need to accommodate a much larger number of people.”

  “I want a fancy hotel, just like the ones on Sonjeera.” Tel wore a wistful smile.

  “Basic lodgings first. We can always expand.” Renny gave Tel a quick peck on the cheek, then headed off to the parked construction machinery.

  Adolphus knew Sophie would have considered the pair adorable, but he had never gotten used to dreamy-eyed couples. Maybe if he hadn’t been thrust into a harsh reality at such an early age, he wouldn’t be so jaded. The death of his brother and the loss of his inheritance . . . being crushed by the Constellation’s corrupt legal system . . . targeted for assassination with a shipful of other second-string nobles . . . all had driven him to launch his bloody rebellion. No, Tiber Adolphus had not lived a life that engendered a romantic minds
et.

  Neither had Sophie Vence, however, and she hadn’t given up hope. She made no secret of the fact that she intended to soften him up. He said she was welcome to try.

  Inside the headquarters shack – which had been reinforced and expanded so that it was now a far cry from a “shack” – Tel displayed images of the large orbital construction, where units were being assembled into the new stringline hub. Because Constellation haulers came only at set intervals, the General’s secret work could be scheduled when there was no risk of the activities being seen. Since the next stringline ship was not due for three more days, the work above Hallholme continued at a frenetic pace.

  The General’s need for an extensive network of satellites to monitor the planet’s tortured weather was a perfectly reasonable cover story. The satellites gave Adolphus an excuse to launch the equipment he needed to build his own stringline hub on the opposite side of the world from the Sonjeera-linked terminus. Whenever a Constellation ship was due to arrive, the Clovises shut down orbital construction operations and switched off power to the half-finished hub. If anyone bothered to scan (which they sometimes did), they would see only small blips that looked like nothing more than orbiting monitors.

  Satisfied with the progress, Adolphus and Tel stepped outside to the sun-washed construction site. At the edge of the dry lakebed, Renny Clovis operated an enormous dozer, scraping up rocks and a crumbling layer of salt. He had already cleared a foundation area for a new building far from the landing field. If the future unfolded as the General hoped, and new stringlines linked all the Deep Zone worlds, Hallholme would need extensive accommodations for the influx of travelers, including the fancy hotel Tel Clovis wanted to run.

  Adolphus felt a sharp jolt beneath his feet, and the ground began to shake. Construction workers scrambled away from the swaying crane girders. The launch gantries rattled and rocked from side to side.