View from Ararat (3 page)

He looked around the cabin. It was something they had all thought of. You could see it written in their eyes.

And Cox wasn't blind to the fact. He continued. ‘Come on, guys. The
lo Trader
's been missing for twenty years. The company's written it off. They've already spent the insurance from the ship, and they've paid the blood money to the widows. So what if they do pay a bit more than they should for a shipment of really high-grade ore? It's still a bargain. Do you think they're ever going to lose on the deal? Anyway, who takes all the risks? Who does all the freaking slave-work? The
share
holders? This is
our
chance, people. Once in a lifetime.'

There was a short pause. No one spoke to fill the silence, so he continued.

‘Take a look at it.' A single finger pointed towards the image of the dead ship on the view-screen, but his eyes held Mac's. There was only one person on board he really had to convince, and Elroy Cox knew it.

‘That could have been
us
, Mac. And you know it. You more than anyone else here.' There was far more in the look that passed between them than I could read.

He closed for the kill. ‘One shitty little piece of flying rock and it's “sayonara baby”. And would
they
care? Not a chance. Not about us, at least. To them, the cargo's gold.
We're
expendable. We're . . . scum.'

I was watching Mac as he looked around at the faces in the cabin. The argument was convincing and he was weakening.

It wasn't hard to work out why.

He was thirty-two next birthday – I'd checked. That meant he'd spent over thirteen years digging for ore on the moons of Jupiter. Which could, of course, make you very rich if you were one of the lucky few. But with five bad years for every good one, on average, and with the company manipulating the ore prices to suit the share price . . .

Put it this way: you never got to see many ex-miners in the society pages on the 'net.

Mac looked at the view-screen, then at the others. Thirteen years of breathing recycled air and drinking recycled waste, of living and working inside the metal coffin of the mining drone. Of sweating blood to fill the pockets of the faceless rich . . .

I watched his eyes. Yes, the argument was convincing.

But futile. At least as far as Mac was concerned.

And it had nothing to do with some kind of misplaced loyalty to the company. The ‘boss' might have been dedicated to his work, but he wasn't totally insane. As usual, his objection was purely practical.

‘Forget it, Cox,' he said. ‘Do you think you're the first person ever to think up that particular scam? Why do you think they have the log? One look at the records and they'll work out we didn't mine that ore ourselves. After the fines and the legals, we'd be lucky not to be paying
them
thirty per cent. They own the game. And the umpires. Forget it.'

But Cox just smiled and looked across the cabin to where I was sitting. And in that instant, reading the look on his face, I knew I wasn't the only one who'd accessed the confidential personnel files.

When he spoke again, it was to me. ‘Do you want to tell him, Cindy, or will I?'

I just shrugged and nodded for him to continue. Either way I was ‘outed', so why spoil his fun?

‘You're a smart man, Boss. Didn't it ever strike you as a bit odd that your newest crew-member knew so much about communications, computers and navigation – and just about everything else – but she'd signed on as a common hand?'

I knew it had crossed Mac's mind. I'd seen him watching me on occasions. And not the way Stevens and Chandrasingh, or that sleaze Avram, watched me, either.

‘Would it surprise you overly to learn that she's a certified genius? Funded for Research at the age of twelve. Computers and technology, wasn't it?' He looked at me again, but not for confirmation. ‘Four years, with the whole world in front of her, but she blew it. What'd you do, Cindy, crash the company mainframe or something?'

‘Something like that.' I held his gaze, giving nothing away. The details weren't important.

‘Point is, Fearless Leader, for someone with Cindy's background, a little thing like altering the company log is' – he smiled again – ‘child's play.'

So it was settled.

Hacking into the ship's log was a breeze. I had it changed in a couple of hours. But if I'd been as smart as Cox claimed – or as lazy as Avram – I would have pretended it took a couple of days. Because that was how long it took to organise the transfer of the ore from the hold of the
lo Trader
to our own. A couple of days of no sleep and really heavy work.

And, of course, there are no distinctions in space. Male or female, young or old, rookie or ‘boss', everybody pulls equal duty.

Then finally it was done. The ore was transferred and the hold secured.

We sent the shell of the
lo Trader
off on its final one-way journey to burn up in the atmosphere of the giant planet, then we prepared for the trip back to Earth.

JMMC Ore-Processing Plant

Puerto Limon, Costa Rica

Caribbean/Southwest Sector, Old Earth

April 30, 2332
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ÉLITA

The girl sits on a pile of ore, rubbing the bruise that is already growing on the side of her shin. On the far side of the battlefield the boy raises his head from behind his own pile of rubble.

‘'Lita . . .?
Qué pasa
?' He sounds concerned, which almost makes her smile in spite of the pain. For Ramón to even acknowledge her existence is a breakthrough, but concern . . .

‘I'm OK,
hermano
. Just a bruise.'

Rule number one for playing with boys:
Never show that it hurts.

He crosses the space between them, and sits down next to her. He is ten years old next week. Her big brother. Her only brother, since the accident. Her only family.

‘Show me,' he orders, and she obliges, lifting her leg onto his lap. He rubs the reddening mark gently. ‘It was an accident. I didn't mean to . . .'

‘I know.' He looks so funny when he is guilty that she can't help smiling, even though the bruise is beginning to throb. ‘It doesn't hurt, Ramón. Really.'

He looks at her for a moment, then at the distant fence.

‘Anyway,' he says, removing her leg from his knees and standing up, ‘it's time to go home.'

The moment of closeness is over. He is big brother again. And big brothers are too cool to pay any attention to their little sisters.

He probably won't bring me here again
, she thinks angrily. She knows her brother's protective instincts too well.

In frustration she picks up a jagged piece of ore and throws it as hard as she can towards a nearby pile. It bounces off the side and rolls away, but her eyes don't follow it. They are captured by the small object lying at the base of the pile where it tumbled when the rock struck.

It is different from anything else she has seen in the ore-yard. Black and smooth, it shines in the late-afternoon sunlight like a huge jewel, and she moves towards it, the throbbing in her leg forgotten momentarily.

‘'Lita, come on!' Ramón sounds impatient, but he will have to wait. She moves closer.

‘Hey! You two. What are you doing there?'

When the shout comes she is about to reach for the glowing treasure. She looks up and sees the security guard. He runs towards them, drawing his gun.

She looks back at the strange stone, but before she can move to pick it up, Ramón's strong grip is around her arm and he is dragging her away towards the fence.

‘Ramón!' The sudden thought might have stopped her, but for her brother's greater strength. ‘My coat. I left it on the pile.'

The coat was the last present from her parents. It was her birthday a week before the accident took them. Sudden tears swell in her eyes, but her brother refuses to slow his pace.

‘I'll come back for it later, when the coast's clear. I promise.'

She protests, but weakly. The sight of a uniform is enough to ensure obedience to her brother's will.

They turn and run. Sliding in the red dust, they make it to the place where the wire of the fence has been cut away from the support-post. Ramón holds it clear while she wriggles through, then he follows her.

They sprint up the shallow slope, and don't slow their pace until they reach the streets of drab, run-down houses which form the company suburb of Callas.

There they slow to a walk.

And as they walk, Ramón puts an arm around his sister's shoulder, drawing her close. Only for a moment, but his touch is warm.

Her breathing settles and her heart rate slows. She feels safe.

But still, as they walk she looks back towards the battleground, recalling how the strange stone shone, black and beautiful in the dying sun.

And imagining how it would have felt to hold it.

JMMC Ore-Processing Plant

Puerto Limon, Costa Rica

Caribbean/Southwest Sector, Old Earth

April 30, 2332
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CARLOS

Carlos Ruiz smiles to himself and slides the safety-locked pistol back into its holster.

Kids
. . .

They never seem to learn. The storage yards are dangerous places. Even apart from the giant machinery that moves around between the piles of ore, there is the ore itself. Cut and roughly crushed on the moons of Jupiter, and shipped back in sub-light ore-shuttles, it is sharp-edged and irregular, and the huge piles are dangerously unstable.

But you just can't keep the kids out.

Not that you can really blame them. At least there is adventure in the yards. And what is there for them to do in the cramped rat-holes the company calls houses? Callas is a cesspit. A pool of cheap labour that can be drawn upon when required, and left to fester if the market is slow.

He runs his hands down the neat lines of his uniform. What most of them out there would give for his job. No sweating their souls away in the deafening roar of the crushing mills or the murderous heat of the separation plant. No sleepless nights wondering when they might get the call for a day's work, or where they are going to find food for the next day's meal.

He stands in the alley between the towering piles of alien rock and watches the sun dropping behind the huge buildings of the separation plant.

And in the orange glow that lights the yard he catches the reflection at the base of a pile a few metres away.

Slowly he makes his way across to where it lies, shining among the jagged fragments of ore like a nugget of black glass, and bends to pick it up. It feels strangely cool in his hand, and when he holds it up to the dying sun the orange light shines faintly through it. Blood-red . . .

Suddenly the two-way on his belt crackles into life. He slips the strange rock into his hip pocket and unclips the communicator.

Holding the view-screen up to his face, he thumbs the switch.

Rodriguez's face appears. He is eating, as usual, and he speaks a single word through a mouthful of what looks like some kind of half-chewed pasta.

‘Well?'

‘Well what?' Carlos dislikes his superior's abrupt tone almost as much as his lack of manners.

‘Well, are we being attacked by ore-pirates or urban terrorists, or are the rats just getting bigger?'

‘Just kids. Nothing to worry about. They were playing wargames in the new
Ganymede Horizon
stockpile. I'm heading back now.'

He thumbs the communicator switch without bothering with the formal sign-off. The fat toad will probably say something when he gets back to the Security office, but Carlos is past caring what Rodriguez thinks.

Two more months and he will be gone. Four years of saving every credit, and he has built up enough for the passage. His mind is made up. His place on the C-ship is booked. Deucalion is the future. There is nothing on Earth worth sticking around for.

He smiles as he walks back towards the main complex, planning what he will say to Rodriguez on the day he finally quits.

It is then that he catches sight of the coat. It is red, with a collar of black satin . . . Obviously a cast-off from one of the richer families in Puerto Limon proper. Many of the women from the company precinct help keep food on the table by cleaning the houses of the company execs in suburbs like Medina or Serena. Sometimes as a bonus they might be given outgrown or out-of-fashion clothing, for themselves or their children.

It is not uncommon to see a child of Callas playing in the street in a pair of designer leggings or a coat like this one – which seems so laughably out of place in the grinding poverty of the place, until you realise how important it is to its young owner.

He picks up the coat thoughtfully and walks towards the break in the fence where the two young children disappeared.

Once there, he folds the coat carefully, smoothing the black collar with the palm of his hand. Then he places it gently on the ground outside the fence and turns back towards the Security compound.

In his pocket he can feel the weight of the strange stone, and the coolness he felt earlier lies against his thigh. But he does not take it out. He whistles softly to himself as he walks towards the sunset, and scratches the slight itch that is beginning on his right palm.

He remembers his old grandmother's superstition. An itching palm means money. One hand predicts wealth, the other loss.

Which hand means wealth? He can't remember.

It doesn't matter. In two months' time nothing on Earth will matter. Ever again.

He resumes his whistling. He is happy. For the first time in his twenty-eight years of life he has hope. That much he knows for certain.

What he does not know, cannot know, as he scratches his palm again, is that he will never see Deucalion. Nor will he even see the ship.