Exiled to the Stars

by Zellmann, William

  Ken frowned. "So, you both agree that the deposits are extensive enough to be exploitable? We'll get enough metals to justify the effort?"

  "Oh, yar," Jorge said dismissively. "We'll be diggin' iron for years. Maybe other stuff, too." Frank just nodded.

  Ken sat back, frowning. He had almost a week before the next Council meeting, plenty of time for Frank to complete his formal report. But honestly, Ken hadn't expected such positive results from the 'interim' expedition. He'd been certain it would take the R65C to locate exploitable deposits. But this was definitely good news. The sites they'd explored were within five klicks of the Castle, a distance that could be easily covered by horse- or carabao-powered vehicles. In fact, it had been debated whether the party should camp on site or simply commute by airship. Still, the conservatives wouldn't like sending people to live semi-permanently away from the protection of the Castle.

  "Okay" he said. "The next Council meeting will be next week. Frank, you're going to be busy with your formal report. Jorge, we've got the R65C fueled, and it needs a trial run. Take a couple of days off to relax, and then I'd like you to take the R65C out on a sort of shakedown over the same area. It'll give us a chance to see what the thing can do. We already know what it should find, but its penetrating beams can image the ground to ten meters depth. It'll be a test run, but it'll also give us confirmation of your observations, and It'll give those kids operating it real-world, hands-on experience. If I'm going to be able to sell setting up a mining camp five klicks from the Castle, I'll need all the information I can get."

  Jorge shrugged. "Sure. I can leave in the morning."

  Ken shook his head. "That won't be necessary. From what I've been told it shouldn't take more than a day or so to survey the areas you've scouted."

  "Yar," Frank put in, "besides, I want to go. I want to see what that thing can do."

  Ken nodded. "Let's see. The Council meets next Wednesday. Subtract a day for you to compile your reports…No, on second thought, better allow two days…"

  Frank was shaking his head. "The R65C writes its own reports," he said. "Digital or hard copy. According to the manual, it takes about two hours."

  Ken nodded again. "Okay, make that one day. I'd like to allow two days for the survey. You may not need them, but this is important, and I'd like you to take your time. So, you should be ready to go by Saturday." He smiled at Jorge. "That'll leave three days for your wife to nag you about always running off."

  Jorge nodded. "No problem." He stood up to leave. Halfway to the door, he spun around to again face Ken. "Ken," he said, in a determined tone, "I have to say this. You were right. This is what I needed. I'll run your mine for you, if I can, or work with whoever you want to run it." He spun back on his heel and swept out the door.

  The R65C sweep did confirm all of Frank's conclusions, but Jorge was pleased with the additional information it gleaned. "The ground is good enough at all the sites to sink mineshafts," he reported. "We still recommend Site 4, but we wouldn't have to worry about unstable ground at any of them. So, when can we start?"

  Ken shook his head. "When we can get Council approval, which may not be easy. I'd like you to join me for dinner tomorrow, if you can, so we can discuss ideas for the Council meeting."

  The next evening was a long one. Ken, Jorge, and Vlad, of course, discussed strategy for getting Council approval to establish a mine, and, more importantly, a mining camp.

  "Even I have talked about the miners commuting by airship," Ken said, "but even as I said it, I knew it wouldn't work. The airship would have to be dedicated completely to running back and forth to the mine, and we simply can't afford it." He shook his head. "We've already lost the services of our largest airship, since it will be dedicated to survey for the foreseeable future…"

  "We hope," Vlad put in.

  Ken grinned. "Fervently. Now that we've got our foot in the door, there's no way I'll let them close it on us. But that means we need the medium airship for much more than just shuttling five klicks back and forth."

  "What about the small one?" Jorge asked.

  Ken frowned. "I have plans for that one, Jorge"

  Jorge smiled at Ken's vagueness. "I understand, Ken. "Y'know, maybe it's the mining stuff, or maybe it's working with the Planetborns so much, or maybe just watching you in action. But I'm beginning to think Jim Peters and his boys are wrong, and you guys have been right all along. So, whatever plans you've got for that airship are fine with me."

  Ken's smile was wide and genuine. "Glad to hear it, Jorge. We can use all the support we can get, especially from Earthborns. Now," he continued briskly, "Do you agree that we're going to need to establish at least a mining camp at Site 4?"

  Jorge snorted. "Oh, yar. We couldn't run a serious mine if everyone had to commute every day. Since mine work is mostly underground, 'day' and 'night' don't have a lot of meaning. Before long, we'll be wanting to run shifts. We'd have to completely take over that airship. We don't have enough trucks or tractors now, and commuting by carabao-drawn wagon would take over an hour each way. Commuting by either airship or carabao wagon would be stupid. No, we would definitely need to set up a camp. Maybe rotate the people back to the Castle on weekends, or something."

  Ken nodded. "That's what I thought. Actually, I'm rather hoping your 'camp' eventually becomes a town. And the same for a fishing village on the ocean someday. I want to break us out of this 'Castle'. It's become our prison. Or our womb. More and more people are becoming more and more reluctant to leave it. And we can't develop a planet that way."

  He waved a dismissal. "Anyway, we need to be able to sell the Council on the idea of at least a 'temporary' camp up there, instead of making all the workers commute every day.

  "Well," Vlad said doubtfully, "We still have a bunch of those emergency dome kits. Even with having to level the site, we could have a camp set up in a couple of days.

  "Don't forget, though," he continued, "that's 'native' country up there. Remember what happened to Wen Ho Jackson? It may be too barren for wolf lizards up there, but there are jelly monsters, and who knows what other nasties?"

  Ken frowned. "You're right. And that spray the Explorers use won't be enough. We need a way to clear a large area and keep it clear. Could you talk to Susan, and see if she has any ideas? If she does, please have her bring them to me. If we can ram this through the Council, I'll want to get started on it before they can change their minds."

  Vlad nodded and pulled out his tablet. While he called Susan, Ken and Jorge discussed strategies for getting Council approval to establish a mining camp.

  Despite all their efforts and planning, though, the Council was reluctant to authorize even temporary occupation of the mine site. Mostly, this was due to the lack of a method for treating the area to prevent the growth or presence of local plants and animals, but there was also a reluctance to put people at risk by separating them from the Castle.

  Ken noticed that nearly all the resistance came from James Peters and his Earthborns; the Council's Planetborns, now numbering four, seemed united in their enthusiastic support of the proposal. But the ground treatment issue was a genuine concern, and Susan had not yet come up with a solution, so Ken retreated to his fall-back position, and was able to get the matter tabled instead of refused.

  "Once we get a solution to that problem," he told Jorge, "I'm sure, now, that we can get the proposal approved. I hadn't really expected all the Planetborn to be so enthusiastic. So, go on with your planning, just as though it had been approved. When Susan comes up with a solution, we'll want to be ready to move quickly, before Messer Peters can mount a defense."

  But Susan was not as confident of a quick solution to the problem. "The spray only lasts a few days, at most. Less if it rains. But you want something permanent." She shook her head. "Oh, I’m sure I can come up with an effective poison, but we need something that will kill the local life, but not harm the symbiont inside us, even with prolonged exposure. I'm not willing to admit that is even poss
ible, much less that I would be able to find such a poison without years of testing. I think you'd better be looking for another solution."

  Some type of fence was another obvious solution, but again, it was not as easy as it seemed. Creatures the size of wolf lizards would be fairly easy to block; but the jelly monsters were only a few cems across, and boneless. They could electrify the fence, but they still would have to deal with burrowers, who would simply tunnel beneath the charged fence. And Ken rejected the idea of a wall extending below ground as well as above, except as a last resort. "The last thing we want is another damned fortress," he said. "I'm trying to break us out of the fortress mindset!"

  It was when Tara and Ron Creding were having dinner with the Renkos that Tara proposed a possible solution.

  It had been a tense dinner. Vlad was feeling pressured to get the mining camp underway, and Susan was feeling pressured to produce a miracle on short notice. So it was a struggle for them not to snap at each other. It didn't take long for Tara to learn about the problem.

  Tara had taken her responsibility as one of the few colonists with 'modern' farming experience very seriously. In fact, farming had become something of an obsession with her over the years, a way to avoid thinking about the loss of her beloved husband so many years before. Now, over twenty years later, Tara had devoured nearly every course on the subject the computer contained, and was easily 'PhD equivalent'. She was also the colony's top agronomist The Renkos had been her closest friends since before the crash, and she and Ron were frequent visitors.

  It didn't take long for her to learn the cause of the tension. "Okay," she said after hearing an explanation, "the ground is too barren to use Earth-descended plants to keep the local life away. But I think there's still a solution. Susan, I think you're looking in the wrong direction. Okay, so you're not going to come up with a magic bug. Well, stop looking for one. It sounds to me like you need to be looking at sonics, not poisons."

  Susan frowned. "Sonics?"

  Tara nodded. "Sonics. Or supersonics. Sound waves. Tablet 'mole repeller' in the comp. We had burrowing animals on Earth. Quite destructive. Poisons and traps worked, but had other problems. Mole repellers were meter-long spikes you sank into the ground. Every few seconds they sent sound waves, as vibrations, through the soil. The vibrations irritate the burrowers, and make them go away.

  "If you can isolate a sound frequency that bothers the local wildlife, we can probably make up some repellers. Then all you'll have to do is put charged fences above ground, with repellers below. If you don't want to use the broadcast power from the Cobb drive, you can even make them solar powered; they did on Earth."

  Vlad had to grab Susan to keep her from jumping up and running to her lab. "It'll keep, honey," He said gently. "We have guests; you can obsess over this tomorrow."

  It took Susan two days to find a supersonic frequency that agitated the burrowers in her collection of local fauna. "No," she replied when Ken questioned her, "We can't use the same idea above ground. Humans wouldn't be able to hear the sound, but some of our livestock would. We want to drive the local creatures away, not our own horses and mules."

  It took another three days to produce the first of the spikes, and two more days to test them. Ken had decided they should be solar powered. He explained that they had only a limited supply of receptors for the broadcast energy, but actually, he wanted to wean them from dependence on the Cobb drive, since its energy broadcast would not be available once they moved more than a day's travel from the Castle.

  The rocky ground interfered with propagation of the sound waves, so they found that they would need to plant a spike every few meters around the perimeter of the mining camp. Above ground, a closely-spaced-mesh fence carried a charge guaranteed to discourage feral visitors. They fenced off a hectare, but before they turned on the fence and the spikes, Explorers with tanks of spray spread out from the center of the site, killing all the native vegetation, followed by space-suited volunteers spreading a poison that would quickly soak into the rocky ground. The poison would only be effective for two days, but they were confident that the combination of spray and poison, followed by activation of the barrier fence and spikes, would eliminate threats already present at the site and prevent the incursion of new ones.

  Finally, Ken was able to assure the Council that the site was as safe as it could be. "Of course the people will have to be watchful," he said, "But that's true here, as well. But the point is that Site 4 is safe enough to begin operations."

  The arguments in the Council meeting were loud and long, but with Jorge insisting that transporting mine workers back and forth for every shift was impractical, and with Ken insisting that they not deny the colony the use of the medium airship for the task, establishment of a 'temporary' mining camp was approved.

  Both the medium and the small airship were busy for the next week, shuttling people, equipment, and supplies to Site 4, where an excited Jorge was a whirlwind of frenetic activity. In less than a month, the first excavations had begun.

  At first, of course, there was only one shift of workers, and the mine shut down on weekends, while the workers returned to the Castle and their families. But Ken was patient. He knew that if the mine proved productive, it would soon be in around-the-clock operation.

  Ken had also been pleased when the Council approved Jorge's request to build a fusactor at Site 4. Ken took Big Lars and Jana aside.

  "Okay," he began, "you two will be designing and installing the fusactor. I would like it to have a capacity well above current requirements; we expect the camp to expand as the mine grows. Can you give me an estimate of the time you'll need? Will we need to expand the fenced area?"

  Lars shrugged. "Naw, there's plenty of room. We can put up a hundred megawatt reactor in, oh, about a month."

  "What?" Ken was mouth dropped open. "I expected you to say a year or so, and another year for testing before it could go online."

  Lars' wide grin was matched by Jana's. "Lotta people make that mistake," he said calmly. "You're thinkin' of the old fission reactors. We haven't used those things in over a century. Too dangerous. Naw, A fusactor is a fusion reactor. A Low Energy Nuclear Reactor. A whole different animal. Safe as church. 'Course, we'll need Palladium and nickel from the ship's store, but EarthGov gave us plenty, as well as three reactors, in pieces."

  Jana nodded. "This is just an assembly job, Messer Terhoe. No problem."

  During the activation celebration, Big Lars winked at Ken. "There's enough capacity there for a small city," he reported. "I'm sure the mine will not be having energy problems." He gave Ken a significant look. "And we know how, now. The next one will be quicker." He strode away before Ken could form a reply.

  Ken was beginning to feel he was riding a runaway train. Yes, he'd set everything in motion. But with Lars and Jana training fusactor operators, and Jorge's mining operation becoming more and more a focus of the colony, he was feeling less and less in control. He smiled sourly to himself. He was becoming less and less a small-town mayor, with a finger in every pie, and more and more a manager, delegating responsibilities and depending on others for day-to-day operations.

  It was a classic case of mixed emotions. He relished the challenges of the growing colony and its increasing resemblance to his position in SanFran, but he was coming to regret losing the one-on-one intimacy of the small-town.

  Chapter 21

  Eighthmonth 14, Year 25 A.L.

  There was satisfaction, though, in the sudden surge of growth and development after years of stagnation. The new supply of metals, for instance, had finally let them move from a currency based on ship scrip and beer to one based on metals.

  The conversion had been swift and smooth, since the colony Administration had control of both the metal supply and the fiat 'money' of the ship. Once the currency had been designed and minted, the Council had established an official exchange rate, and begun issuing the new money in place of the old. Within a few weeks, nearly all the ship scrip ha
d been exchanged for the new 'credits', and beer was once again simply a commodity, and not the basis for a currency.

  A stable currency had been the basis for Ken's drive to convert the colony from a ship-style socialism to a form he considered more suitable for a growing colony. It was his most ambitious goal yet. He called it the "revolution," and that turned out to be an apt description.

  With its increasing development, the colony now faced a chronic shortage of labor, despite the fact that in the 25 years since the landing, the population had grown to over 7,000.

  Ken was convinced that at least part of the problem was the "communistic" organization required by shipboard life, which had simply continued unchanged in the colony. The Captain's "Residents's Council" had simply changed to the "Colony Council," and its Chairman had become the Colony Administrator.

  Every colonist got the same allocation of food and other products, whether they were productive or not, whether doctor or farm worker. There was a permanent underclass always to be seen congregating in the colony's streets, unemployed and unemployable, unwilling to work because it wasn't necessary in order to live. Ken considered these highly visible loiterers a threat to the development of the colony.

  Of course, EarthGov hadn't expected the ship's perfect example of authoritarian communism to survive the voyage; it was considered counterproductive in the labor-intensive environment of a colony. An important part of a Colony Program Captain's training had been in colonial governmental organization and managing the transition. But of course, Captain Angelo had not survived the crash, and his training had died with him.

  Raised in the NorAm political traditions, Ken was certain that a version of a capitalist system should have been adopted in the colony, and coupled with the Council's concern with the never-ending labor shortages, the currency changeover gave him a chance to implement the change, though it was a difficult fight.