Mining the Oort (39 page)

Rima looked complacent. "We had the time, so I thought we might as well get relaxed." Then, more sharply, "What's the matter?"

Ven Kupferfeld shook her head. "We had some trouble," she said, and didn't expand on the theme. Didn't have the chance, if she had intended to anyway, because Dekker had worked through a chain of reasoning and didn't like where it led him.

"Christ," he said prayerfully, "you two planned all this, didn't you?"

Ven opened her mouth, but Rima Consalvo forestalled her. "Of course we did, Dekker. Ven and I wanted to talk to you about something important—but, believe me, the other part was for fun. I do like you, Dekker."

"
Everybody
likes you, Dekker," Ven said savagely. "You and your mother. That's why we wanted to talk to you, one more time."

"What about my mother?" he demanded, still off balance.

Ven said, "She's a symptom of what's wrong with you people. She's a big wheel on Mars, isn't she? But right now she's down on her knees to the Japs, begging for crumbs. What's the matter with you Martians, Dekker? Don't you care that your planet's being stolen away from you?"

He was having trouble keeping up with her quick changes. He looked at Rima, who smiled politely but was no help. He said, "Mars isn't being stolen. It's a business deal; you people put up the money we needed, so of course we owe you something—"

"Christ!" Ven sounded disgusted.

"Hey," Dekker said, nettled, "which side are you on? You're an Earthie yourself!"

"I'm an
American
, Dekker," she said dangerously, "and don't you forget it. We're getting screwed, too. The Japs and the Europeans—but mostly the damned Japs—they've been selling off their Oort bonds all along, and we poor American suckers were left holding the bag, and your mother—" She paused, shaking her head in contempt. "She's getting raped, and all she wants is a pillow under her head."

"Now, listen—" Dekker began.

"No, Dekker, you listen. It's not just that my family's pretty near ruined, it's my
country
. Do you know that if the farm habitats go through, we Americans are going to have to buy food from the Japs? My grandfather would turn over in his grave, but he'd know what to do."

"Oh, hell," Dekker said, angry at last, "your grandfather was a
soldier
. He
killed
people."

She looked suddenly distracted, but kept on. "Right, he killed. There are times when killing's necessary."

"Or fun," he said bitterly. "Like your lion."

"Why not? Haven't you ever killed anything?"

"Of course not. For one thing, there isn't anything on Mars to kill—well, the fish and the meat animals, but nobody does it for pleasure."

Rima Consalvo stirred. "Ven," she said warningly. "Knock off that killing talk. Nobody's going to get killed."

Ven seemed to collect herself. "No, of course not," she agreed. "Dekker, do you remember—"

She had to stop there, because the comm system rattled into life. There was no picture on the screen, but Simantony Parker's voice came through, sounding tense.

"All personnel," the chief of station's voice said. "This is Parker. We have received relayed warning of a solar flare. The information was delayed, and the particles will arrive in about forty-five minutes. Safe all equipment, and everyone go to the flare shelter now."

"Hell," Dekker said wonderingly. "Listen, I'd better report to Jared Clyne—"

"No, you shouldn't," Rima Consalvo contradicted him. "You just go to the shelter, like everyone else, only you've got plenty of time. All the same, Ven, speed it up, will you?"

Ven nodded, her face grim. "What I'm asking you, Dekker, is do you remember the virt I showed you? The Battle of Seven Pines?"

"How could I forget it?" he demanded bitterly.

"I'm not talking about the killing; I know that upset your silly Martian conscience. What I'm talking about is the
strategy
. Lee
bluffed
the Yankees. He made a threat, and they fell for it."

"And a lot of people got killed," Dekker reminded her.

"Fuck the people who got killed! That was only a detail! Nobody
has
to get killed in a situation like that; if you deploy your forces right, the other side gives up. No bloodshed. So suppose there was a chance like that for Mars. Suppose—no, damn it, don't interrupt me! Suppose somebody could show you how you could use the
threat
of force to make the Japs and everybody else stick to the terms of the original agreement. What would you say?"

Dekker looked at her as he might at a staggering drunk or raving madwoman, but he considered her question. "All it would take would be a threat?"

"Right."

"But backed up by the possibility of actually doing some killing?"

"Well, of course, Dekker. What would you do?"

He nodded. "What I would do," he said, "is call up Dr. Rosa McCune and have that person certified and sent down. Right away."

Ven looked at him for a moment in silent revulsion. Then, shaking her head, she turned to Rima Consalvo. "I told you this would be a waste of time," she said.

Rima, surprisingly, looked smug. "Not for Dekker and me," she said complacently. "Anyway, Dekker, I guess you'd better get on down to the shelter—"

"No," Ven said.

"
Yes
, Ven. I'm sorry about the way this looked to you, Dekker, but I'm not sorry about anything we did. I hope we can do it again sometime—and we'll talk about it later."

In a space station where nothing is more than a couple hundred meters from anything else, forty-five minutes is a lot of time. Evidently Ven Kupferfeld and Rima Consalvo thought so, because they stayed behind when Dekker left them. Dekker thought so himself. It crossed his mind that he had time even to jump into a splash chamber and rinse himself off before going to the shelter; they would be in close quarters there for some time, and he didn't particularly want to advertise what he and Rima had been doing.

On the other hand, he needed all that time, because he needed to think.

He wondered if he actually should talk to Dr. Rosa McCune—or, perhaps even better, to the station chief himself.

The more he thought, the more that seemed his most practical option. His mind made up, he pulled himself rapidly along toward the logical place to find them, or anyone: the flare shelter. The difficulty, he told himself as he hurried along, was that he didn't know exactly what he would say when he found them. There was no doubt in his mind that Ven and Rima had been acting peculiarly—no,
ominously
, he corrected himself. But in Dekker's view Earthies always acted fairly oddly—not that such Earthified Martians as Jay-John Belster were much better; and what did that prove?

The problem disappeared when he reached the shelter. Neither Parker nor the psychologist was there.

As a matter of fact, less than half the station's complement was inside the shelter. Obviously a flare warning was old stuff to the personnel of Co-Mars Two. Dekker had passed more than a dozen others on the way to the shelter, none of them seeming particularly panicky, or even greatly concerned. He looked around for someone else to talk to, and found no one. Shiaopin Ye wasn't there, nor Toro Tanabe. Neither was his boss, Jared Clyne. Neither was Annetta Bancroft, Jay-John Belster, or the head of the communications section, Toby Mory; in fact, the only familiar face in sight belonged to Dzhowen Wang, idly playing with an unresponding screen on the wall.

The trouble was that Dekker really had nothing to say to Dzhowen Wang, and the people he most wanted to talk to were still outside somewhere.

The solution to that problem was clear enough. Dekker turned around to leave the flare shelter to look for them. The count-keeper at the door didn't like that. "You're supposed to stay inside," he told Dekker, sounding angry.

"I forgot something," Dekker said, pushing past him.

"Well, find it and get back here!" the man shouted after him. "You've got fifteen minutes, no more!"

Dekker waved to show that he understood. It occurred to him that what he was doing was not entirely sensible. Surely everybody on the station would sooner or later arrive in the shelter—well, all but the handful who would stay on duty at the control boards in the flare shadow—certainly
someone
he needed to talk to would. And if he failed to get back to the shelter in time—

He had a quick vision of those heavy ionized particles from the Sun sleeting through the station. Through
him
. He almost winced as he contemplated the storm of flare particles striking his internal organs, his eyes, his brain—striking a million individual cells and doing harm to each one.

It was not a cheering thought. He pushed it out of his mind and began a systematic patrol of the corridors leading to the shelter. A few more individuals and small groups were leisurely pushing themselves toward the shelter, taking their own sweet time about responding to the alarm. They looked at him curiously as he passed, but none of those faces were the faces he was looking for. He peered into a rec room, with its magnetic game tables and virtual bodysuits; no one there. No one in the dimmed-down private rooms whose doors stood open, either. The number of people still moving toward the shelter was getting sparser, too; time was passing.

When he finally did see two people he knew, they were only Ven Kupferfeld and Jay-John Belster, talking in low voices at a junction of red and yellow corridors. They were not the ones he wanted to see. He had nothing to say—yet—to the woman who had interrupted his rendezvous with Rima Consalvo, and nothing for Jay-John Belster, ever. He turned around and kicked himself down the yellow corridor.

As he passed the kitchens a face he did know popped out, peered at him, then pulled quickly back inside.

"Tanabe!" he called. The face cautiously reappeared as Dekker moved closer.

Tanabe looked worriedly up and down the hall. "Come inside quickly, DeWoe," he begged. "I don't want anyone else coming here."

Dekker did. As Tanabe was closing the door, he demanded: "Why aren't you in the flare shelter?"

"I will be," Tanabe said, "oh, yes, believe me; I will be there. But there is something I must do first. Can you help me?"

"Help you do what?"

"Open this freezer." Tanabe was tugging him over to the food-storage bins. One hatch had a seal on it, the kind that was used to protect valuable supplies; but it was strangely battered and scratched. "I want to see what's inside there. That asshole Belster came in with Chief Parker a while ago and chased everyone out of the kitchens; then when they let us back in my main freezer was sealed. I want to know what they put in it, so take that cleaver and help me get it open."

"Hold it! That's the station chiefs seal!"

"I do not care whose seal it is. If you won't help me, then just go on to the shelter."

Dekker looked at the man, then at his watch. It was really about time to do that. And he certainly had more important things on his mind than Tanabe's curiosity. But still—

He surrendered. "I didn't say I wouldn't help you. You don't need to break it open, anyway—unless you've wrecked the lock already."

He was pulling his emergency override key out. "Ah, so," Tanabe said, thawing. "Yes, please, DeWoe, that would be much better! Then we can get out of here. Is the key working?"

It was—just barely. Tanabe's assaults had cracked the edge of the slot, but Dekker managed to slide his key in. On the third try the magnetic code caught and the seal opened.

Tanabe pulled it off, and grasped the freezer door handle. It slid wide. A dozen meal packets came floating out, evidently thrust in loose instead of being properly stored. And behind them was something that didn't belong there.

It was a human body, small, curled upon itself. Dead.

"Jesus," Tanabe breathed, appalled. "That's Shiaopin Ye!"

From the door Jay-John Belster's voice said, sharp and nasty, "What the hell are you doing here?" He was holding himself by the door frame, Ven Kupferfeld looking hostile beside him. He glanced at her. "I thought everybody would be in the shelter," he complained.

Dekker straightened to confront them. "What happened to Ye?" he demanded, a moment before he observed that Belster was holding in his hand something that appeared to be—yes, definitely, incredibly, was—a
gun
.

Dekker faced an unbelievable fact. "You killed her," he said.

"No!" Ven cried. "Not on purpose; it was an accident."

"But," said Belster, grinning, "There may have to be a couple more accidents."

Ven turned and put her hand on his arm. "Damn you,
no
. We'll put them away somewhere—maybe up by the boards, so somebody can keep an eye on them."

"Why go to that trouble?" Belster asked in a reasonable tone. "Everybody else is safely tucked away in the shelter by now, so nobody's going to interfere. And we've already got one death."

"Because I say so!" Ven said harshly. They were paying more attention to each other than to their prisoners. Beside him Dekker heard a quick intake of breath from Toro Tanabe, and then the Japanese had launched himself, fast and hard, at Belster. The onetime Martian looked around a moment too late; Tanabe's head had driven into his belly. The gun went flying; Belster's knee came up as he squawked in surprise, and it caught Tanabe under the chin. The Japanese was knocked against the wall. He gasped once, and then floated limply away, unmoving.

The gun was drifting toward Dekker DeWoe.

Dekker didn't think about it. He simply pushed himself toward it, grabbed it, held it in his hand, loosely pointed toward Belster and the woman. He had never held a killing weapon before. It felt cold, hard, and unpleasant; the idea of touching it, much less using it, disgusted him.

Belster was slowly untangling himself, clutching his groin. Then he managed a wheezing laugh. "Hey, DeWoe," he said, sounding almost playful, "what the hell do you think you're going to do with that?"

"Stay away from me," Dekker said warningly.

"Now, why would I do that?" Belster was pulling himself along the wall, coming closer. "You know you won't shoot me, don't you? Just hand it over."