“There’s a screen,” Ro said, pointing to the large oval plate bolted to the floor between two closets; a long cable snaked out from under it and disappeared into a utility conduit in the wall. We went over and turned it on.
The L-5 sector was a black nest filled with diamonds, emeralds, and rubies. I could see over a hundred objects—factories, research spheres, construction shacks, ship-frame docks, and solar generating plants.
I felt dizzy. The press of steady acceleration gave a sense of weight that seemed different from Bernal’s spin force—no coriolis, for one thing—and I imagined that my inner ear had somehow noticed and was adjusting.
Rosalie pulled over two airbags, and we sat down. As the deck filled up with people, I gazed at the screen, wondering when we would return to L-5.
“You okay?” Ro asked.
“It’s passing.”
I felt a bit cynical as I looked around. Sure, many of the people on board probably cared about what they were going to do, but others were going for the money, to help their work records, or to get away from various personal problems, or because recruiters had talked them into it. I wondered how certain I could be of my own motives.
Yellow-white sunlight flooded the room with an electric glare, giving us all black shadows.
“Turn down that screen!” someone shouted.
Jake approached the screen and cast a winged creature with his hands, making the shadow flap around, but I was suddenly in no mood to enjoy it. This was a bigger step than coming to Bernal. Some of my old doubts seemed to be stirring, and again I felt like a stranger to myself.
Pieces of my face broke free and floated away. I tried desperately to catch them, but there were too many …
The dream pressed in tightly. I heard a whisper.
“Joe!” It was Rosalie.
I opened my eyes and sat up, listening to the ship’s distant growl.
“Go back to sleep,” I said.
“Shut up, Sorby,” a male voice said behind me.
I lay back and dozed, feeling shut in. I would be locked up with these people for two weeks, and then I would have to work with them on Mercury for at least a year—in the space around Mercury, to be accurate.
I turned my head and saw Rosalie looking at me, and it seemed wondrous that she could know how I felt about anything. I touched her cheek, realizing that I loved her without a doubt, and that I would have come with her even if there had been no other good reason.
I was falling, my stomach told me suddenly.
Then I bumped my head.
People were laughing and talking loudly.
I opened my eyes. The ceiling was only a few inches in front of me. I pushed away and turned to see the whole chamber filled with floaters. Rosalie drifted below me.
I grasped a rail and pulled myself to her.
“They shut the drive down for minor repair,” she said.
“Who undid my strap?”
“You were floating when I woke up.”
I looked around, trying to catch the prankster’s eye.
“Strap in,” the captain ordered. “Boost will resume in three minutes.”
Ro and I pulled ourselves into our couches and fastened up. I yawned. She smiled at me. We waited.
I felt the soft vibration in my stomach. It seemed slightly different, less of a growl, smoother. Weight crept into my body.
When the green light went on, I unstrapped and stood up, hoping to make the toilet before the line got too long.
“Feel better today?” Ro asked, stretching appealingly.
“I’ll be okay.”
The toilets were just off the main chamber. I walked over and stood on line behind some ten people.
“How’s it going, pal?” Jake asked from behind me.
“Fine,” I said.
Jake looked sulky.
“What is it?” I asked.
He shook his head. “This ship is not in the best shape. Even the captain sounds nervous.”
“Do you think it’s dangerous?”
“Who knows?” he said softly. “Junk heaps have been known to hold together. We’ll only know if it doesn’t.”
My turn came. I went inside and brushed my teeth, then stripped and took a shower while my clothes were cleaned.
“Hey, kid!” Jake called from the next stall. “Imagine we lose our g force now. Hah, hah!”
“Hurry up in there!” someone shouted.
Breakfast was served three decks down. The floor was white. We sat ten-a-table. A large wall screen showed the stars, Earth/Moon, and a small sliver of the Sun. I had eggs, oatmeal, juice, and coffee. Rosalie sat across from me, but we didn’t feel much like talking. Not enough privacy.
I thought of Dad as I ate. Old problems, drawing farther away. New problems drive out old ones, whether you’ve solved them or not; that was the only way it was ever going to be …
I noticed Linda and Kik. They were not aware of anyone as they talked.
Rosalie and I began to feel more at ease in the group. We didn’t care who was listening after a few days. We were all on the ship together, and that was all there was to it. People grow less impressed with each other through familiarity, even if you’re very special. Some people will say anything in front of you after a while.
“You’d be good-looking if your ears weren’t so big,” I heard a girl say, and she was not joking; it was true, I saw, when I looked at the boy.
Dinner on the third day was some kind of beefy stuff with leafy greens in a gooey sauce. It was a shock after the better meals. The cook apologized, promising that if we ate this batch it would not happen again; it sounded like blackmail.
The air smelled of the stuff that night, making it hard to sleep. Most of us woke up looking glum, wondering if this shabbiness was a sign of worse things to come.
We got used to the routine: three meals, sitting around in the rec area staring out into space; exercising in the gym; reading, watching broadcasts from Earth. A few couples managed to steal some privacy in the showers from time to time.
Earth was very proud of itself. From the broadcasts, you could almost feel like thanking it for creating such a bad situation on Merk, just so Earth Authority could do something noble about it.
“What a load of slag!”
I turned and saw a short, stocky guy with white hair and pale complexion—the kid with the big ears—sitting with Kik. Everyone in the rec room looked bored.
“Don’t knock slag shielding,” said a tall, thin girl with closely cropped red hair. “It keeps you from growing funny critters on your skin when the Sun smiles at you,” she added with obvious perversity. I wondered if she meant that Earth had to shield itself from the pain of truth, or was simply babbling.
“Did you ever notice,” the white-haired boy continued, “how people care for their health, clothes, underwear, but not for what’s in their heads? Probably the dumbest species in the universe.”
“We’ve still got you,” the girl said.
There was some feeble laughter. I wondered what it would be like to see myself from outside. Would I like myself? Would I think that I would ever be anything? Maybe I was the villain in someone else’s story? Who was the hero? Maybe there are no heroes or villains, and we’re all stuck somewhere between beast and angel.
Things could be dumber and harder than I thought—too hard for the kind of human being I knew. Life was simple and complicated at different times, even at the same time.
What are you anyway? You look into your eyes and imagine the grayness in your skull, and you feel alien. You might easily not have existed, but here you are, gazing out of soft gray matter with watery eyes, examining yourself and the stars, wondering at the darkness, which would be complete if there were no eyes …
I got up, deciding to visit Bernie on the engineers’ deck.
Mercury
The
Wells
reached maximum speed, eating up the light minutes toward the center of the solar system. The Sun grew larger on our screens. As we crossed the orbit of Venus, the shrouded planet was a half-disk mirror catching the Sun. Human beings were on Venus also, probing from orbital stations, living in its clouds aboard high-atmospheric islands, exploring the hostile surface. Venus was a place of new dreams, constructive wishes that would one day change the planet into another Earth—if human beings could ever decide where they best liked to live, on planets or in free space habitats. I didn’t think they would ever decide, and why should they? Life would always make a niche for itself, as it always had, wherever and whenever possible. Human beings would live inside the Sun if they could.
Mercury was just swinging in front of the Sun, becoming a dark spot as it crept across the solar face. Planetfall was still days away, but I felt a rising sense of expectation as Mercury grew on our screens. There were fewer fights among us, less bickering. We were looking forward to getting there and starting work.
On the day before arrival, one hundred fifty of us crowded into the rec room. Ro and I found ourselves in the middle, sitting on the deck. The chatter grew louder as we waited for the meeting to start. I looked around and saw Bernie standing with some of the engineers near the spiral stair. Something was very wrong, and we were going to be told about it.
“What could it be?” Rosalie whispered.
There was a sudden lull. A small, thin woman in a white uniform was making her way to the screen. Her hair was gray, short, but her face was youthful, with high cheekbones and a small nose. Captain Maria Vinov seemed to be holding her anger in check.
She turned by the screen, and her gray eyes searched the room. “I don’t know quite how to tell you this,” she said in a low, slightly hoarse voice, as if she’d just come from a shouting match, “but I will have to leave you off at the mining complex on Mercury’s surface. The hollow asteroid has not arrived and is not expected to arrive in Mercury’s space for at least three more weeks, due to delays and course corrections.”
“And the construction sphere?” one of the engineers called out.
“Those quarters are with the asteroid. I’ve been told that the hollow is in the fastest possible powered orbit, but I have no way to check. In any case, I can’t stay here just to provide living quarters, because I have to pick up the next load of workers. The housing at the mining sites is adequate for the short time you’ll be there. You’ll get to see why you’re here. But if anyone wants out, you can return with this ship and come back on a later one, assuming you’re not breaking your contract. That ticket will come out of your pay, of course, since Earth Authority is picking up one round trip tab per contract. I don’t need to remind you that a broken contract will mean an exorbitant fine.” She was trying to discourage us, but I could see she didn’t like it.
Kik stood up and said, “You clearly don’t approve of leaving us on the surface.”
“Yeah!” a male voice shouted. “The contract
said
living quarters off the surface.”
Sure, I thought, but they didn’t say
when
those quarters would be available.
“I have no choice,” Vinov said. “You can file a case for contract violation against Earth Authority, but you’ll probably have your quarters before it’s settled. Returning with me may cost you more than the fine, even if you win.” She looked around the deck, locking eyes with me for an instant, and I saw that she knew what this foul-up could mean. “Anyone coming back?”
We’re stuck, I thought in the silence.
“One of the engineers, Mr. Denny Studdy, will give you a brief orientation.” She nodded to us and made her way out, leaving us uneasy. The truth was being fed to us in small doses, I realized.
A short, slightly overweight man stepped in front of the dark screen and gave us a strained smile.
“I expect we’ll manage,” he said in a booming voice. “A few basics, so you’ll picture the place and it won’t all be news to you. Mercury rotates in about fifty-nine Earth days. The mining complex is on the equator. As the planet reaches its closest point to the Sun, the Sun comes up over the horizon and stays there for two Earth days, then sets again. It pops up again a few days later, by Earth clocks, and moves high into the sky. Mercury is now moving toward its farthest point from the Sun again, so the Sun seems to shrink and move faster in the sky.”
I had the feeling that he was trying to distract us from the real problems ahead.
“Forty-four days later along the orbit, the Sun is directly overhead. Then all this repeats itself, but backward.” Someone sighed heavily behind me. “The Sun grows larger, drops down toward the west, slowing, sets, rises, and sets again. A Merk day is eighty-eight Earth days, and so is the night, almost. Its day is the same length as its year.” Studdy was getting it across. Dull but accurate. I listened more closely. “It’s the shape of Mercury’s orbit, a flattened circle, that keeps the planet from complete tide lock with Sol, where one side would be light, the other dark. Tidal friction brakes by a factor of four, depending on where the planet is in its orbit, close in traveling fast or far out and moving slower. So it keeps one hemisphere facing the Sun when close in, but continues to rotate when far out, and the gravitational bonds grow more elastic, getting more and more out of lock with the Sun. Afternoons can reach over two hundred degrees Celsius, and it can drop to minus a hundred and thirty at night. What all this means is that miners go out on the surface and work like hell for most of the night, but when the Sun rises all labor is confined to below-surface operations. Staying out, even in a suit or protective vehicle, would be the same as sunbathing in the light of billions of hydrogen-bomb explosions.” He paused. “But they need the Sun to fill the solar-power collectors, to run the digging, smelting, and refining robots. There’s more power than they could ever use, in fact. The various refined metals are cut into huge blocks and launched on the mass driver toward Earth Orbit. Some of you may have seen similar catapults on the Moon.”
“What about the quakes!” someone shouted.
“Mercury’s surface is still elastic, and the core is still shrinking. Temperature changes between night and day help trigger quakes. It can’t be helped. Don’t look at me that way—I’ll be there too.”
Linda stood up. “What about the underground quarters?”