Periphery (17 page)
At last she came to the massive statue of Gates. She jumped and caught the edge of the hard composite plastic, then climbed up and claimed a seat at the feet of the great man. A few feet away a coppery-skinned Mongolian was eating what looked like cinnamon dusted yams wrapped in a savory pastry crust. He glanced over, then turned his shoulder to her, as if she meant to rob him of his treat. Rolling her eyes, Hoyt swung her head the opposite way. On the other side of her was a slender blonde wearing clothes too big for her and a red wagoneer’s cap.
Hoyt recognized her at once; Anne Hutchinson had driven the wagon that picked up ore from Hoyt’s work crew several years back, before Hoyt’s forced promotion to carving crystal. Hoyt had often waved to the girl from the cabin of her tunneling bot.
“What a nice surprise. Hello, Miss Hutchinson,” Hoyt said.
Anne Hutchinson’s astonished blue eyes stared back at her.
Hoyt couldn’t help noticing the Kuan Yin Spaceport map sticking out of the young woman’s jacket pocket, and the over-stuffed bag that was slung across her chest and resting by her hip. “Taking a flight out today?” Hoyt asked politely, remembering to smile a little.
The girl blushed a delightful rose-color, opened her mouth as if to reply, then appeared to think better of it. She dropped her gaze, and the fingers of one hand played with the strap of her cloth bag. Hoyt wondered if Anne Hutchinson had been warned not to talk to miners. Hoyt sat for a moment, trying to work up the nerve to say something more to her, when the girl suddenly blurted, “Excuse me.”
With that, Anne Hutchinson quickly slipped from the statue’s base, dropping down into the surging wave of people jostling by below. She landed beside two laundry peddlers who were muscling a little two-wheel cart ahead of them, and followed in the wake of the block they created. About twenty meters later, she glanced back over a shoulder, saw Hoyt watching her, and then separated from the peddlers. Hoyt watched the girl thread effortlessly through the shifting tides of humanity, until the red cap disappeared behind a booth with a sign that read Mutant Electronics.
“Well it ain’t like I was gonna bite you,” Hoyt commented to herself, remembering that, though she had tried to be friendly, she had never gotten the girl to speak to her when Anne used to pick up product from Hoyt’s work crew. Feeling disappointed, Hoyt scratched her jaw.
She gave the other statue sitters a practiced, cursory evaluation, and then sighed, relaxing a bit. From her perch on the statue base, above the market crowds, she settled into watching the glowing newsboard that made up the third-to-sixth stories of the building on the other side of the vast square.
Above the market, accompanied by lively pop tunes and one smooth announcer voice after another, the newsboard was alive with light, color and movement. Continuous streams of information ran across the bottom of the rectangular surface, posting news items in the three major languages—Chinese, English, and Geek-Speak. Above the banner strips, scantily clad images cavorted in decidedly erotic dances.
Soft porn. What a waste of crystals, Hoyt thought mirthlessly.
With effort, she kept her eyes on the feed-streams, finding the latest updates on flight arrivals and departures at Kuan Yin Spaceport. After she was sure that all the day’s flights were running on schedule, she continued to read the latest stock quotes and the top news stories from Earth, the Moon, Devulba and the twenty-six space stations.
Above the flow of hard data, lithe men and women embraced surreally, rolling sinuously against one another. Hoyt frowned, knowing no one could ever look that good and be real. Those bodies were obviously computer-generated. It galled her that, even as she told herself she hated porn-ads, her body stirred with arousal.
It had been a long time since she had made love the way she liked—with a woman. After the first few years in Devulba, Hoyt had come to understand that she wanted more than just a casual fuck-buddy; she wanted to build a relationship with another lesbian. The problem was that there were few lesbians in Devulba, and among those few there was no one she wanted to spend her life with. Visits to the recreation center and renting a computer-mod cubicle for an afternoon with some interactive erotica programs might take the edge off for awhile, but for the most part they left her feeling sadly diminished. Men, though they made up seventy percent of the bodies available on this planet, were simply not satisfying, even with the help of a THC-patch or a bottle of good scotch. Feeling like a hibernating bear, she had ended up increasingly going without.
Ignoring the cinematic pornography on display above the free market, Hoyt continued to concentrate on the feed-streams. As a member of a mixed-group work crew she had learned to read all three languages within a year of planet-fall. She found herself following her home language, Chinese, and entering an almost wistful nostalgic haze. Pay attention, she warned herself.
She had good reason for being vigilant. Hoyt’s last flight had been cancelled a half hour before boarding, the announcement made in a seven or eight word blurb sent across the feed-stream while she was shopping for last minute souvenirs. Grimly, Hoyt remembered how shocked she had been to discover that she was suddenly stuck on-planet without a job or a place to stay. She had ended up hastily negotiating a new contract with the Devulba Corporation because they had filled her job driving a mammoth tunneling-bot roughly four hours after she’d resigned. Her new contract had her working at non-union scale these past two years as a slab-carver. The compulsory overtime that came with the job had the added benefit of honing her skill; as a result she’d made more in finder’s fees in the deep-depth quarries than she had ever made during all those years of running a t-bot. True, slab-carving was life-threatening work, but she seemed to have an instinct for avoiding slicing into gas pits or freeze caves, and she had somehow avoided the other all too common fate of triggering a cave-in and being crushed beneath a ton of gleaming energy-jewels. Instead she had found enough new crystal seams to earn a nickname: Lucky Hoyt.
Lucky, Hoyt thought, then shook her head, irritated. She had made a fortune, but in exchange she had given away another two years of her life to Devulba. It had taken precisely that long to get another berth on an Earth-bound freighter.
Since the Repatriation Acts had been passed in China, once you had left Earth on a work visa returning home was difficult. “We want to discourage immigration where possible,” a series of government stooges parroted on the news spots, as if repeating that phrase over and over would make everyone forget that according to ancient space law a born Earth citizen was free to return home after working off-world.
Coming home is hardly the same thing as being an immigrant. Besides, who are they kidding? Hoyt asked herself. Everyone knows they’ll say anything they can to avoid admitting there are just too many people on Earth now.
Religious convictions and traditionalist dogma had prevented scientists and human rights advocates from delivering the reality check centuries ago, when the crisis could have been averted. Now overpopulation was an out-of-control monster, gorging itself on ignorance and selfishness.
For decades now, politicians in every country had been completely consumed with maintaining the status quo. They had decided that if someone gave up their place by going off-world on a job, it was better for all concerned if that person did not come back, especially if the worker had become wealthy. Most corporate-countries had had enough of Capitalist workaholics retiring in their Thirties, and then ensconcing themselves in their census origin villages like Rajas of olden times. The Marxist worker bees that had stayed safely home, employed in low paying government jobs, now found themselves facing decades of grueling labor and couldn’t help the grim insight into how things had turned out for them. Most Earth citizens wanted to take no risks, and gain the reward of those who did. Leaders wanted everyone to be the same, so that no one noticed they were little more than serfs.
Politics. Hoyt grimaced. She muttered aloud, “Like my father always said, once the middle class was gone, the haves crushed the have-nots, and there’s been no hope for us ever since.”
The Mongolian next to her pulled another yam pie from his cloth bag. Obviously overhearing her, he glanced up at the newsboard and nodded. “Damn corporations. Fuck old man Devulba and the lot of ’em.”
Hoyt eyed him for a moment, wondering if he was a renegade. Then she saw the Devulban tattoo on his right hand and realized he was an indentured servant. The lowest of the low. No wonder he dares to curse them in an open crowd. He has nothing left to lose.
Looking around, sighing, Hoyt felt her twelve years on Devulba pressing down of her. When she had left home at age fourteen, Devulba was brand new, an off-world experiment. It had been a great, patriotic adventure, flying through space to mine energy ore on a small world four light-years away. The planet had a small populace, less than ten thousand, when she’d first arrived. Now there had to be over three hundred thousand people here. The dome was a sprawling structure that was being added onto each year, like a house that would never be finished. In the square before her, several thousand coworkers were bartering busily for their next week of meals, their next drugs of choice, their next piece of bot-ware to make their ten-by-ten meter allotted house space more endurable. Most of these people were primarily interested in relieving the oppressive boredom of life beneath a dome, of life in the hamster-like plastic hutches that rose up in tier’s along the edges of the dome like Pueblo Indian structures on a New Mexico ridge. The fact that Devulba was so much more crowded now than it had been when she had arrived signaled that life on Earth was even worse. For people to be willing to come all this way to escape, it had to be. Still, she found that didn’t deter her dreams of returning home.
Hoyt lifted her chin stubbornly. Makes no difference. I’d rather feel crowded on Earth, with a real sky and real weather, no matter how harsh, than spend the rest of my days taking my chances underground and my nights sleeping sealed in my quarters. There’s gotta be some unpolluted land left someplace. Some mountain valley in China or Canada or Alaska…some place with trees and birds that sing.
Gaining access to one of the infrequent Earth flights had been difficult the first time. Now it was nearly impossible. It had meant bribing three mid-level officials, but she had procured the code card she needed. The captain of the space freighter had been lured by the two bottles of expensive fourteen-year-old single malt in her backpack. Yesterday, her vast holdings in pay credits and stock market profits had been downloaded from Devulba First National to Beijing Mutual. This time tomorrow, she would be flying through darkness, sleeping a miner’s sleep while tucked into the tiny confines of a freighter berth. Or more likely, pacing restlessly through the maze of corridors that bordered cargo holds filled with crystal. It would be a long trip, made longer by the fact that they’d be stopping along the way to deliver crystal at space stations and the big Vegas 2 colony on Earth’s moon. Eventually, though, the freighter would drop through a re-entry burn to the blue-white marble and Mao Zedong Spaceport.
Hoyt dropped her gaze from another quick check on the feed-streams and caught a glimpse of red about a hundred meters away. Tucked into a jumble of peddler’s booths selling designer ale, pot stickers and junk of all kinds, Hoyt saw the red cap lingering before a black and yellow sign that read, Luck Shop. Squinting, Hoyt recognized the slim form in the too-big clothes. Anne Hutchinson was leaning forward, listening avidly as the man behind the counter began some spiel, handing her a bauble.
Probably superstitious about lift-off, Hoyt thought, laughing a little.
Then Hoyt saw an old woman emerging from the shadowed recesses of a tent at the back of the stall, the artificial sunlight highlighting her ancient face. Her silvered hair was pulled back and gathered in a tight bun. Gently, but firmly, the old woman pushed her way in front of the man. The shopkeeper protested, and the woman shushed him. Looking disgruntled, the man lifted a counter gate and moved out of the stall. He gestured angrily and said something more to the woman. The old woman merely stared back at him and he stomped off into the crowd. The old woman turned back to Anne, removing the object from the girl’s hand and dropping it into a basket. Abruptly, the old woman reached out and snatched the youngster’s cap from her head. Long, golden-blond hair tumbled down around the girl’s shoulders. The light in the square seemed to gather around her, like a miniature halo. Hoyt was enchanted. For a long moment, the woman studied the girl, who in turn gazed back at her, looking anxious and puzzled.
Then the old woman abruptly turned and looked over the heads of the crowd, searching, until her eyes landed on Hoyt. Even from the distance of a hundred odd meters, Hoyt felt the power in the black-black eyes that met her own. “Come.” The woman mouthed, and Hoyt could have sworn she heard the commanding tone. “Come.” The woman made a summons with one clawlike hand.
Hoyt found that she had been holding her breath. She exhaled sharply, straightening. I’m not some voice-imprinted miner’s cart, coming when I’m called. The woman across the square scowled. “You will miss your chance,” the old woman said. Nonplussed, Hoyt scrutinized the leathery, brown face, knowing that the woman had said those words, and aware at the same time that she could not possibly have heard that voice from so far away.
Despite her misgivings, Hoyt shifted her hips to the edge of the statue’s base, then gripped the rim and gracefully swung down. She landed with a hop, clutching her backpack tightly as she set off in a jog through the constantly moving crowd. Her boots came to a shuffling stop as she pushed by several shorter men and finally reached the two women at the Luck Shop. Not quite sure of what she was doing there, Hoyt shook her shaggy dark bangs out of her eyes.
While the blonde surveyed her, the blue eyes looking her up and down, the old woman folded her hands together and gave a slight bow. “Brave travelers, I believe you have already met,” the elderly lady pronounced.