Toward nightfall he reached the road. He saw to his surprise that there were no trees on the other side of it; then he realized that it was a logging road and the area on that side had been clear cut, leaving a vast expanse of debris and stumps barely softened by the snow. There was no traffic, and there might not be any until the trees on his side were mature enough to harvest. It would be some distance yet before he encountered people, so there was no reason to push forward any farther before making camp for the night.
The absence of people ought not to be bothering him, Terry reflected. He had gone camping alone in the past and had enjoyed it. But that was before he had known what it was like to communicate telepathically. Now, he realized, he would be lonely whether or not in the company of others, for they wouldn’t be telepathic; even those who were potentially psi-gifted wouldn’t know how to connect. How could he endure going back to the isolation he had felt before meeting Aldren?
Aldren. Oh, God, whatever destiny Aldren had foreseen for him could scarcely have been this. Why? he thought in despair. If he had been meant to play some extraordinary part in furthering Maclairn’s cause, why had fate taken away the opportunity? He hadn’t retreated from it—on the contrary, he had committed himself irrevocably and risked his life to pursue what had appeared to be a threat to that cause, only to find that doing so had deprived him of the power to contribute to it in the future. Precognition wasn’t predestination, Corwin had said, so Aldren’s vision might not have been true; still he had assumed his own actions would have some positive effect on the outcome. He hadn’t thought it would be better not to act.
After spreading out his tarp and boiling more water, he again attempted to eat, for he had been expending stored energy through volitional control of his metabolism, and he knew this would not be possible for much longer. He found that volitional control could also manage intestinal functions, which he had not thought to try earlier; Tristan had once said this was a form of advanced training he would be wise to go through. Necessity forced him to learn on his own, and by morning he was able to absorb enough nourishment to get through the coming day.
Until now he had given no thought to what awaited him in the city, but before setting out along the road, he took time to investigate some of the information about it on the local Net. It was not promising. The city was large and starkly modern. He would be able to find his way around and to buy food, but where would he get shelter? He had no idea what the colony’s custom was, but few allowed camping on public streets and it would be too cold to lie down without the sleeping bag. Presumably, the funds with which he had been provided could be accessed in the normal way, via his identity chip; if not, Laesara would have warned him. But it would be nearly dark before he arrived, and were there any hostels for vagrants? The people of most colonial cities, unlike those of Earth, were well settled in permanent quarters.
There was no use worrying, he decided, as he trudged along the deserted road. Why worry about anything, ever again? The worst had already happened to him. Assuming that they didn’t shoot strangers, he had nothing left to lose.
Late in the day he came to the city’s outskirts, where there was a crossroads with a few scattered small buildings. The other road must lead to the settlement from which he had supposedly come; it would be well to know something about what sort of place it was, so he zoomed out the map until he saw it, a mere dot labeled “Sawmill.” There was only one city in the colony, which shared the name Ciencia with the planet, a fairly common arrangement among those he had visited that didn’t yet have large populations. Outlying settlements often bore the names of their functions. so he judged that this one included not only the lumber mill to which the harvested logs were taken, but the homes of the people who worked there and the small businesses that served them. It would of course have a large power station to serve mill operations and wood-drying kilns, so there was no reason to think living conditions there would be primitive. Nevertheless, the bleakness of the land around him made him think of it as a cold, desolate place.
As he was about to click away from the map he caught a glimpse of another dot on the opposite side of the large patch representing the city. Terry heart jumped as he saw that it was labeled “Spaceport.”
Of course the planet had a spaceport; he had known that. As no starships were allowed to approach, there would be no shuttles; but Laesara had said that there was mining activity within the solar system. Even if its other planets weren’t used, the asteroids would be mined, and in fact that would be more efficient than trying to extract scarce minerals from an inhospitable world such as this. If there was extensive asteroid mining, there would be a need for pilots—and he had plenty of skill in landing on asteroids.
Why, he wondered, had she overlooked this fact, letting him believe he would be forever confined to Ciencia’s surface? To be sure, he could not escape from its solar system if there were no starships. He could not regain any of what he had lost. But he could at least be in space, doing work he had always liked, and the stars would be visible if not attainable.
The realization gave him a burst of energy, and he suddenly found he was hungry. The concentrated food was nearly gone—most of it wasted through sickness—and noticing a brightly-colored sign on one of the buildings he passed, he decided to test his credit. He went in and ordered a sandwich and soda, holding out his forearm confidently for his chip to be swiped. To his relief, the transaction went through.
After that, the hike into the city took less than two hours. Though it was nearly dark when he left the restaurant, the sky got brighter and brighter as he approached the urban area until it was illuminated by a reddish glow. The air, too, seemed warmer than it had further out. Skyglow, he realized: caused by the brilliant lighting of the streets and buildings, intensified by reflection from the low cloud cover and the snow at the city’s perimeter. On Earth skyglow was considered pollution and efforts, not always successful, were made to reduce it; but here on this dark, cold world it was evidently embraced as comforting. They did not skimp on power.
He wondered what the colony’s power source was. Not solar, obviously, nor could it be wind. Possibly hydroelectric or geothermal; but more likely they used fusion power. There were certainly plenty of uninhabited areas where they could put nuclear power plants, and they had no aversion to reliance on high technology.
Now sure of his credit, he was ready to seek lodging, but the smartphone had no listings for anything like a hotel. Since there were no other cities on the planet and no starships came, there would be no travelers. The streets were clean and uncluttered; there was plenty of groundcar traffic but no sign of pedestrians. He was conspicuous, he realized, and that was not good—he must find shelter soon. All the buildings were tall, not skyscrapers, but with enough stories for effective conservation of heat; there appeared to be no single-family residential district. Light sparkled on their many-windowed walls, which must be of some synthetic material providing better insulation than glass. Understandably, the builders had wanted to let in as much light as possible.
Terry hesitated. The information on the Net revealed that Ciencia had no slum district, and therefore no flophouses—which was the case in virtually all colonies, he knew; the knowledge of cities he had formed on Earth was not applicable here. Finally he looked under “rentals.” He found he could check his credit balance through the smartphone, but comparing it with the amount deducted for the sandwich he had eaten, he could see that his funds would not cover many weeks of rent, not even the required minimum down payment.
Where did the asteroid miners stay when onworld? he wondered. They wouldn’t rent permanent quarters; there must be temporary ones at the spaceport. And there must be a late bus from the city, because spacers on shore leave always took full advantage of local nightlife. The spaceport was where he wanted to go in any case, so that the first thing in the morning he could start seeking employment. He took the first bus he saw marked “Terminal” and from there, after a three-hour wait, h
ad no trouble getting onto the one headed for the port. His clothes and pack attracted some strange looks from the other passengers, who were a rougher lot than the Fleet crews he’d known and some of whom were drunk; but he was past caring. By tomorrow night he would be a pilot again, and at least part of the nightmare would be over.
~ 49 ~
The clerk at the spaceport hotel asked no questions, payment in advance being the only requirement for admission. Terry had thought he could never take pleasure in anything again, but his expectations had been lowered to the point where a hot shower and a real bed were cause for rejoicing. He went to sleep almost immediately, and slept soundly.
But in the morning, while eating an exorbitantly-priced breakfast in the hotel’s cafeteria, he began giving thought to reality. How was he going to prove that he was a qualified pilot? He didn’t have a local license. He’d been informed that his identity record listed him as a computer programmer, and it certainly wouldn’t say anything about piloting experience. He could not mention that he’d been a Fleet officer; they would check on that and be told he was lying. Moreover, he was identified as a native citizen of Ciencia who had never left the planet.
Maybe he was in too much of a hurry to get it settled. It would be better to wait until he could hack his record, which he was surely capable of doing. But he couldn’t do it with a smartphone; he’d need a more powerful computer than that. He could get a high-end tablet—but no, assuming that he had enough credits to buy it, which was unlikely, he wouldn’t have any left to rent quarters. The wise course would be to get a programming job and use a company computer; he knew how to cover his traces—but he could not bear the thought of such a long delay.
He sat toying with his food, trying to think of some way around the obstacles. It was not to be borne that a mere identity chip stood between him and the work he was best qualified for! A simple chip, tied to the central records at League headquarters . . . oh, God. The identity records, unlike credit accounts, were at Headquarters. Ciencia’s government merely accessed them through its one ansible; whatever updates there were would be sent back in message form, not incorporated. The ID database was not on the local Net, and therefore could not be hacked. Altering the local mirror file would not do any good, since it would be frequently refreshed.
Well, Terry decided, he would just have to brazen it out somehow, and hope they wouldn’t bother to check his credentials. He had no other choice.
He went out into the gloomy weather and surveyed the spaceport. He had never seen such a collection of dilapidated-looking ships—but of course he had never been to a civilian port other than major commercial ones. Asteroid miners could hardly be expected to keep their ships up to Fleet standards. Presumably they were spaceworthy; if they weren’t, a sizeable percentage of them would be newer. As he watched, a large one streaked in, hovered, and settled onto one of the empty pads. Terry’s heart raced. In spite of the pain that would always be with him now, the mere sight of a ship in flight excited him.
Around the edges of the port were offices of the mining companies. Under the assumption that a large company would be the most likely to need more pilots, he entered the biggest and most impressive nearby building, Astra Rare Minerals, and approached its reception desk. ”Where do I apply for a piloting job?” he asked.
“You don’t,” stated the woman at the desk flatly. “We’re not hiring.”
“Will you have any openings soon?”
“You can’t know much about mining, or you wouldn’t ask. We have a waiting list of flight training applicants years ahead, and you’re too old to get on it—you should have signed up when you were fifteen like everybody else who wants to fly.”
“I’m not a trainee—I’ve got a lot of experience landing on asteroids.”
She regarded him in amazement. “Crashed your ship, did you? You should know better than to think any company is going to hire you after that. Don’t waste my time.”
Deflated, Terry turned and stalked out to the field. It was logical, now that he thought about it, for her to assume that an experienced pilot looking for a job must have been fired from his previous one. All the pilots in Ciencia’s solar system worked at this spaceport—there was nowhere else an applicant could have come from.
Though he knew he would get the same reaction everywhere, he tried several more mining companies, and then began to notice that there were a lot more ships in evidence than appeared to belong to them. Many were prominently marked with company names, but most of those on the ground were smaller, unmarked, and in worse shape. He walked out to one on which some exterior maintenance was being done and greeted the mechanic.
“Nice ship you’ve got here,” he said. It didn’t look at all nice, but it would no doubt perform well enough in flight. “Is one of the pilots around?”
“I’m the pilot,” the man replied. “I own it, I fly it. I’d hardly be trusted to work on it if I didn’t.”
“But you must have a crew.”
“Miners, yes. You looking for a job?”
“Doing what?” Terry asked, sensing that to get an offer from the first ship owner he approached would be too good to be true.
“Digging out rock, of course, and loading it. What else would I be hiring for?”
“Actually,” Terry said, “I hoped you might need a copilot. It’s not really safe to fly without one, you know.”
The pilot stared at him. “Well, that’s an original approach. You suppose maybe I’m rich like the big companies, or the police? You can’t have been in the business long if you think that.”
“I’ve got a lot of flight experience.”
“But not enough to keep from losing your ship, evidently.”
On the verge of a question, Terry saw that it was stupid. The reason everyone assumed he was a failure seemed to be that pilots not employed by the big companies owned their ships. They were freelancers, small operators who couldn’t afford to hire anyone but the laborers needed for mining. If a ship was destroyed in an accident its pilot, lacking cash to replace it, might hope to work for someone else—but such opportunities were apparently rare.
“It was a while back,” he said, realizing that any recent losses would be common knowledge, “and it wasn’t my fault, just a bad break. You know anybody who needs help?”
“As a matter of fact I do,” the pilot said. “Renssalaer’s relief pilot got injured last week and he’s looking for a temporary replacement. He’s due in later today, if you want to stick around.”
It was better than nothing. Terry spent the interminable wait time taking a closer look at the ships on the ground, assessing the differences from Fleet ships and realizing that he would have quite a lot to get used to. It also dawned on him that asteroid mining was hard physical work and pilots would undoubtedly be expected to do their share of it when not actually flying. It was a step down from being captain of a starship, but at least he would be in space. He couldn’t face life on this world without that. If the piloting job didn’t last he would sign on as a miner rather than be grounded.
Renssalaer proved happy to see him and showed off his ship proudly, taking note of Terry’s obvious familiarity with spacecraft. “I don’t want it sitting idle while I’m onworld,” he said. “The only way to survive in this business is to keep bringing in ore, but I’ve got a family and I want some time with them. We’ll make a few trips together so I can check you out, and then if I like what I see, you can go out on your own when my next kid’s due.”
Surprisingly, he had not asked for details about Terry’s experience. He seemed willing to dispense with formality, no doubt because it turned out that he couldn’t afford to pay him and expected him to work for a share of the profits. As Terry would have been glad to work for food and shelter alone, this was not a problem. As they were signing the agreement, however, Renssalaer said, “I’ll just have to swipe your ID for my log, it’s the law, you know.”
Drawing a deep breath, Terry offered his arm. Maybe the chip wa
sn’t supposed to contain any actual employment history. . . .
“What the hell—” Renssalaer was staring at the screen of his smartphone. “You’ve got your nerve,” he said in a cold voice. “Did you think you could get away with talking your way onto a ship without anybody seeing your record?”
“Look, I know it doesn’t say I’m a pilot,” Terry said. “I don’t have a current license, but I’m as good as anyone who does have. The fact that I’m qualified as a programmer doesn’t change that, and I can even do some AI maintenance, which would be an asset to you—”
“It doesn’t matter what you can do,” Renssalaer said angrily. “No one’s going to let you anywhere near a mining ship, which you know perfectly well. Now get off mine, before I call the police and have you arrested for fraud.”
“What fraud?” Terry protested. “I never said I was licensed, only that I’m experienced, which is true.” But he couldn’t prove it was true, he thought in dismay.
“It is fraud to conceal a relevant criminal charge,” Renssalaer declared.
“Criminal charge? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Yes, you do. You’re too intelligent not to be aware that no mining operator will hire or even carry a man who has stolen cargo, despite the charge having been dropped for lack of enough evidence. If you weren’t guilty you’d have invoked your right to a trial.”
Terry reached for the smartphone. “Let me see that! There’s got to be a mistake.”
“No mistake. ID records don’t contain mistakes. Take a look.”
The Rising Flame: Box Set: Defender of the Flame + Herald of the Flame Page 30