Trojan Orbit

by Mack Reynolds

  Bruce looked up. “I’ll be damned,” he complained. “Pete Kapitz, the last of the G-Men.”

  The newcomer, an unpretentious type, looked surprised. “Well,” he said mildly. “Carter. The hack to end all hack writers.”

  Bruce pretended to wince. “Being illiterate, you don’t know deathless prose when you see it,” he said. “Sit down, Pete. Don’t tell me your gumshoeing takes you to Island One. Pete Kapitz, Rick Venner. Pete’s an IABI agent, Rick; Rick’s an engineer on his way to L5 on a contract, Pete.”

  Pete Kapitz sat, after shaking hands with Rick. “You two just get here?” he said. “I’ve been in this goddamned block of cells for three days. If we stuck convicted grifters in a place like this back Earthside, a reformist howl would go up that’d raise the undead, Dracula and all.” He looked at Rick. “What do the chips cost?”

  Bruce said, “We just decided not to play. The hell with it. Come on, Pete. What sends you to Island One?” Wryly: “Would you believe wanderlust?” He searched the writer’s face as if looking for credibility, then shrugged. “Or I could tell you the truth. You wouldn’t believe me, of course, and if you did it wouldn’t matter much…”

  “Are you trying to be mysterious?”

  “Off the record?”

  “If you insist,” Bruce answered.

  “I’m following a hunch; a certain international jewel thief seems to’ve dropped off the face of the Earth. Matter of fact he’s the classic jewel thief, and maybe he has left the face of the Earth.”

  The freelancer stared. “Be damn. You must mean Weil.” He paused in thought. “But I thought I read that Rocks Weil had caught a Sureté bullet somewhere in the South of France.”

  “Who did?” Rick said it as though mystified.

  Pete looked over at him. “Rocks Weil. He’s found some new wrinkles in an old trade, and it’s made him a legend before he’s forty.”

  Bruce put in, “With universal credit cards, there’s so little cash and so many records that old-style heists don’t seem to be popular anymore. So Weil’s a computer thief?”

  “Nope. He’s a thief by contract. He locates some rich sonofabitch, Arab or Indian, whatever, who’s willing to make a credit transfer or to pay gold for some gems that belong to someone else. Sometimes they tell him exactly what it is they want. It’s up to Rocks to pull off the romp and deliver the goods.”

  “And everybody’s happy but the owner of the stones—and the insurance company,” Bruce said. “Now then: what makes you think he’s on Island One?”

  “Sorry,” Pete said; “trade secret.”

  “Well, it’s an interesting yarn,” said Rick. “But it has to be cover story number one, right?”

  “That thought had crossed my mind too,” said Bruce, smiling. “If it were true you wouldn’t be telling a professional blabbermouth about it.”

  Pete smiled at some inward joke. “You don’t understand, gentlemen; this operation is no more secret than a police barricade. If our Mr. Rocks Weil has come to Island One, he has checked into prison.”

  “It doesn’t have a prison,” said Bruce.

  “It is a prison,” said Pete. “Weil, if he’s out here, is in a trap. He can’t get out without retina and fingerprints, and it’s only a matter of time before we’ve checked every last mother’s son in the colony. Ours is a big net, but it’s narrowing.”

  “Could be a hell of a story,” Bruce murmured.

  “Rocks Weil; Rocks Weil,” Rick repeated, rolling the name over his tongue. “Never heard of him…”

  Chapter Five

  “The very idea of Space Colonies carries to a logical—and horrifying—conclusion processes of dehumanization and depersonalization that have already gone much too far on the Earth. In a way, we’ve gotten ready for Space Platforms by a systematic degradation of human ways of life on the Earth... Walter Gropius designed a major living space for students (at Harvard). Every room was a unit space for a unit student, small and forbidding, lined with cinder block. One couldn’t even drive a nail to hang a picture. In the open space outside is a Bauhaus object d’art: a stainless steel Tree of Life. It looks like an umbrella stand. A young woman student once said to me, ‘On moonlit nights in the spring, Radcliffe girls dance around it, dropping ball bearings!’ “

  —George Wald, biologist, pacifist, Nobel Laureate.

  *

  The arrival of the passenger freighter Tsiolkowsky at the docking bay of Island One was a bit on the confusing side for Bruce Carter. Among other things, he was expecting to be met by Doctor Solomon Ryan, or at least by someone in the higher ranks of his organization. However, it turned out that the passenger list of the Tsiolkowsky boasted the names of various VIPs carrying considerably more prestige than that of a freelance writer. Among them were Prince Abou ben Abel, of the Arab Union, Academician Leonard Suvorov, of course, and even Mary Beth Houston, secretary of the Friends of Lagrange Five. The greeting of incoming celebrities in a space island docking compartment, in free fall, has its aspects, particularly when the VIPs in question are space tyros unused to zero gravity. The flowing robes of the Arab, for instance, had their disadvantages. He had evidently refused to wear the standard space coveralls, worn by both men and women. Money gave him that power of refusal; the prince was the only VIP among them who could have bought the Tsiolkowsky outright.

  Bruce Carter had managed to get to a rail where he supported himself as best he could while the receiving committee was milling around those who really mattered.

  Eventually a young fellow, managing to look natty even in coveralls, pulled himself over to Bruce and said, with a pleasant enough smile, “Bruce Carter?” His name was stitched over his breast pocket: Carl Gatena.

  “That’s right,” Bruce said.

  “I’m Carl Gatena. Ron Rich sent me over to take you to the L5 Hilton and get you organized. He’ll see you as soon as he can. He’s ass-deep in some of these new arrivals.”

  Gatena, somewhere in his mid-twenties, was the Madison Avenue type. Slight of build, clean cut, obviously anxious to please, obviously a flunky of some sort or another. He was darkish of complexion, brown of eyes, and his hair, worn slightly longer than was fashionable these days, was very black and straight. Probably Greek or Italian background, Bruce thought. Perhaps Spanish.

  Bruce said, “Who’s Ron Rich?”

  The other smiled again. “He’s our public relations chief. You’d be surprised how much PR routine we have to go through. I’m one of his staff.”

  “Wizard,” Bruce said. “Let’s go. Look, I thought Island One already had gravity. Don’t tell me that I’m going to have to float around like this for my whole stay. What’s this about the L5 Hilton?”

  “Follow along behind me,” the other man told him. “There’s a monorail over here to take us into the colony proper. Yes, we’ve got simulated gravity in Island One, but not much of it here at the docking bay. This is at the axis. It has its advantages; nearly zero gravity for loading and unloading. We call it the L5 Hilton as kind of a gag. It’s the only hotel in the Island. Pretty nice, too.”

  The docking bay was sizable. In it were parked several small spacecraft and endless piles of boxes, machinery, sheet metal, and whatnot. Bruce was taken aback to see a nonchalant worker, using his rocket harness to shove around a chunk of machinery that must have weighed several tons. But then, of course, here it didn’t weigh anything at all. The longshoreman’s job was a natural in a place like the docking bay: no heavy cranes necessary. Bruce noted, though, that massive cargo got moved very slowly because, once nudged into motion, it had to be stopped again.

  As they progressed along the rail, he could see what was obviously the Arab’s luggage coming off the passenger freighter. Seemingly, the Prince had brought everything but his tent, camels, and harem with him. Bitterly, the freelancer recalled his own limited luggage.

  They reached the monorail, which looked like nothing so much as some ride in an amusement park back Earthside. As a matter of fact, now that he t
hought of it, it was probably where they had gotten the idea.

  The vehicles were of varying sizes; in fact, some were obviously for freight, rather than human transportation. He and Carl Gatena got into a two-seater.

  Gatena said politely, “Have a nice trip up?”

  “Let’s say interesting.”

  The younger man sighed. “I haven’t had a vacation for six months. I’ve got a fiancée in Philadelphia. I wonder if she remembers me.”

  Their little vehicle started. They held onto a brace before them. Zero gravity was still in full effect.

  Bruce said, “If she’s an average American girl, she’s thrilled to death being engaged to a spaceman. She could no more forget you than if you were currently the top-ranking Tri-Di star, or, say, the current mafia Capo di tutti capi, assuming there still is one.”

  The public relations man looked over at him. “What do you mean by that?”

  Bruce frowned, not getting it. “I just meant that you’re a celebrity, Earthside. Anybody in space is a celebrity. I imagine that when you go down on vacation, the girls swarm all over you.”

  The other’s smile returned. “Not with Alicia around. She’d cut their hearts out.”

  Gravity was beginning to evince itself, to Bruce Carter’s relief. The passenger freighter that had brought them up from the Space Platform Goddard had spun, making existence normal. He wondered how in the hell those early astronauts and Russian cosmonauts had ever existed in their zero-gravity, months-long manning of the Skylabs and—what had the Soviets called their equivalent—the Soyuz?

  He said to the publicity man, “How often do you colonists rotate?”

  The other’s eyes shifted as they approached a station. “Not very often,” he said. And then, as though that was inadequate, added, “Too damned expensive.”

  “But you said six months ago.”

  “Yeah. Well, here we are.”

  The terminal where they left the monorail resembled in many respects a subway station. There were a few people coming and going, all dressed in the standard coveralls, names stitched over the right chest pocket, serial number stenciled on the back.

  The PR man led the way toward a corridor.

  Bruce said, “Everybody in the Island dresses the same?”

  The other looked over at him. “Mostly. You see, thus far we have no textile industry up here. It’d involve too much; we’d have to grow the cotton…”

  “Why no synthetics or wool?”

  Carl Gatena said in deprecation, “You’re not thinking it through. Most synthetics are based on petroleum or coal. We’d have to bring them up from Earth. We don’t have sheep. The only animals we have, so far, are rabbits and chickens; per pound of feed, they’re the most efficient there are. Anyway, we’d have to grow the cotton, or linen; then gin it, make thread, weave cloth, dye it, then sew it up into clothing. There’s a project to spin glass filaments from lunar ore. But in any case, it takes one helluva factory and employs people we need elsewhere. So we have to bring our own textiles up from Earth. Very expensive, of course. So we standardize clothing and use the most durable available. These coveralls wear like iron.”

  Bruce had never thought of that angle. “Must apply to shoes, too.”

  “Of course. We have no leather, or anything else suitable, and no shoemaking machinery.”

  They came to a door before which stood a husky young man whose overalls were a dark green, rather than the usual faded blue.

  Gatena said, “Hello, Joe. This is Mr. Bruce Carter. He’s going to be staying at the hotel. Special guest.”

  Joe took the newcomer in. “Yes, sir, Mr. Gatena.” He touched a finger to his cap, which resembled that of a railroad engineer Earthside. “Good morning, Mr. Carter.” He opened the door for them.

  They went through and into what would pass for the lobby of a moderate-sized hotel on Earth. Bruce was somewhat surprised that the hotel had an entry directly into the subway station.

  He said to his guide, “Who was that?”

  “Joe? One of the security men.”

  “Security men? What in the world do you need security men for?”

  The other hesitated, almost as though irritated, but then said, “The L5 Hilton is restricted. If we allowed everyone into it, the place would be jammed, and the guests, and those who work here, such as Professor Ryan and his top aides, wouldn’t be able to get anything done.” He hesitated again, then added, reasonably, “The bar and the dining room would be overflowing and visiting VIPs such as yourself would have their work cut out getting anything to eat or drink.”

  “I see. So you haven’t exactly established the classless society here in Island One.”

  Gatena shrugged at that.

  The sparsely-peopled lobby of the L5 Hilton was obviously meant to look as much like an Earthside establishment as possible. But there were some aspects that didn’t come off. There were no rugs on the floor, no paintings or other decorations on the walls, no drapes at the windows. The furniture was all metallic, with rubbery plastic seats and no signs of wood. There were no cushions, leather or otherwise. It gave an antiseptic effect, something like that of a hospital. To Bruce’s surprise, after what his guide had said about textiles, the few people in the lobby wore ordinary Earthside clothing, rather than overalls.

  There was no reception desk, in the ordinary sense of the word. Only a girl who sat at an ordinary metallic office desk, with the usual office equipment, including a voco-typer and a TV phone, before her.

  She looked up smartly at their approach.

  Carl Gatena said, “Maggie, this is Mr. Bruce Carter, the noted writer. I believe Mr. Rich has already gotten in touch with you.”

  She smiled a standard receptionist’s smile at Bruce and said, “Welcome to Island One, Mr. Carter. Please call on me if there’s anything you need, or need to know. If I’m not here, one of the other girls will be.” She looked at the PR man. “Mr. Carter has been assigned to Room 114.”

  “Wizard,” Gatena said. “This way, Bruce.” He led his charge toward the stairs.

  “No elevator?” Bruce said.

  The other looked at him in deprecation again. “Can you imagine the weight and space involved in shipping an elevator up all the way from the New Albuquerque shuttleport?”

  They started to mount.

  “Why not make it here?”

  The other shrugged. “This is the only building high enough in Island One to call for it. To build just one elevator from scratch would involve one hell of a lot of time and material. And a lot of the things that’d go into it aren’t available in Lagrange Five, so they’d have to be shipped up.”

  “I guess that makes sense,” Bruce admitted.

  His room, though neat enough and spacious enough, carried on the sterile motif of the lobby and halls. The inflated bed looked comfortable, however, and the bedding had obviously been chosen for quality. As in the lobby, there were no rugs and the furniture was of metal. The bath had standard fixtures and its towels were the only other textiles besides the bedding that the room afforded. Taking up a considerable section of one end of the room was a TV screen, a Tri-Di, and a surprisingly large file of video-cassettes. At the other end of the room was a small bar.

  Bruce’s guide smiled wryly. “Kind of spartan, eh? The amenities are on the sparse side, I’m afraid. They all take up precious space in the shuttles or the heavy lift launch vehicles from Earth up to orbit and then in the passenger freighters from the Goddard to here. They’ll all come in time, of course. Or, later, we’ll make some of them here. As a matter of fact, I understand there’s a shipment of art materials scheduled. Some of the colonists have gobs of talent. There’s no reason why they can’t start doing paintings in their spare time to hang on some of these bare walls.”

  Bruce nodded. “I can see there are a lot of ramifications to the Lagrange Five Project that have never occurred to me,” he said. “However, in all the various Tri-Di programs, TV and movies, I never quite got the picture of things be
ing so…spartan, as you put it.” The other made a gesture with one hand. “That’s the way public relations goes. Those people down below who have the dream don’t want to see anything but the brightest side of it all. So that’s what we give them.”

  “You sure do,” Bruce said, remembering some of the programs in question.

  The other said briskly, “Make yourself at home, Bruce. Your bag should be along at any time. There’s guzzle over there on the bar, if this isn’t too early for you. And I assume that you’re familiar with the workings of the entertainment equipment. Ron said he’d work you in as soon as possible. Probably an hour or so.”

  Bruce said, “Isn’t there anything I could be doing until then?”

  The PR man looked at him. “I think that Ron would rather check you out first. Let you know what the drill is. Assign you a guide.”

  “I’m not much for guided tours. I like to wander around on my own.”

  Carl Gatena frowned. He said, “Well, that’s up to Ron. But some places, where construction’s going on, can be dangerous if you’re a greenhorn. And other places you could get in the way of busy workers.”

  Bruce said in irritation, “Damn it, I’m not the type that goes tripping over electric cables on some movie set, or getting himself shot in one of those African bush wars, or having a wall cave in on him in some earthquake. I’ve been around.”

  The other said placatingly, “I’m sure you have, Bruce. But just let us play it Ron’s way, at least at first, eh? So long, I’ll be seeing you later.” He hesitated. “Oh, if you get hungry, just go on down to the dining room. They’ll do you up proud.”

  “So long,” Bruce said sourly.

  The publicity man left and Bruce went over to the window and stared out. And then really stared.

  He’d gotten the impression, in researching the Lagrange Five Project, that the idea was to make the interiors of these Islands as much like Mother Earth as possible. If that’s what they had attempted, it evidently wasn’t very possible.