Exiled to the Stars (27 page)

"Excuse me, sire," the man began diffidently. "I'm Tran Vong, from Dorm 4. I just received a call from a man who was in my dorm, until he was moved into a storeroom because of the crowding. He didn't know whom to call. You see, he's Euro, and transferred to Dorm 4 before the crash. So, he's something of an outsider. He says he's been building roads in South America. Would you like to talk to him?"

Cesar's eyes widened. "Yes!" he replied excitedly. "Please send him or bring him to the Dorm 7 training room as soon as possible. And thank you, Messer Vong."

Cesar hurried back to the training room. "Vlad, call Tom Abbott, would you? He's the one best equipped to judge a contractor."

Vlad snorted. "Tom? Tom's a machinist. What does he know about heavy construction?"

Cesar smiled. "Tom's a tinkerer. He's a builder by nature, if not by training. I'm hoping he'll be able to recognize another builder." He shrugged. "It's certainly outside
our
areas of expertise."

Vlad shrugged. "If you say so. But I'm sure there are people aboard better qualified to judge than Tom."

"I'm sure there are," Cesar agreed. "But we don't know them, so how can we trust them? I know Tom, and I trust his judgment."

Vlad grinned. "Okay, boss, you got it." He headed for the door.

He returned with Tom a few minutes before a quiet knock announced the arrival of Messer Vong. A short, but burly man with black hair and an olive skin accompanied him. His brusque assertiveness was a marked contrast to Vong's self-effacing manner.

He strode confidently up to Cesar without waiting for an introduction. "You're Filipino, right? You speak English, right?" His accent was a strange mix of NorAm and Anglo. Cesar smiled and nodded. "Yes, and yes," Cesar replied. "And you are?"

"Vincent Wojewicz. Call me Vince. I hear you got a construction project that needs running."

Cesar's smile threatened to become a grin. "All right, Vince, I'm Cesar."

Vince nodded. "Proud to meet you, sir. You been doin' a helluva job. I think I can help. You'll want to know about me, so here goes.

"I am, or was, a Euro citizen, but I haven't spent any time there in years. I'd just finished a bridge in Venezuela, and decided to come home for a visit. My first in about twenty years. I had just enough time to drink up my ready cash when the sweep came through. They wouldn't listen to me, of course, but I figured I'd get to talk to somebody at the Classification Center. I did, too. I told him I had half a mil in an account in Venezuela, and like a fool, I gave him my account card to verify it.

"The bastard started yellin' for security, claimin' I was trying to bribe him. A couple of goons with sticks came in, and I woke up on a shuttle. Without my ID or account cards, of course.”

He shook his head, grinning sourly. "But you don't wanna know about that. I've been a foreman or job boss on road, dam, and bridge contracts for over twenty years, all over the world."

Tom stepped forward. "Ever done an earthen dam?" He asked.

"Only one," Van replied. "In Africa. Earthen dams can be tricky. If they don't have a good foundation and lots of stabilizer, they're only good for a few years"

Cesar threw a glance at Tom, who was smiling and nodding. "Well, Vince," He said, "It seems we may need one. It's one option the Council is considering."

He went on to explain the problem, using the computer to display Vlad and Tara's footage.

"We've pretty much narrowed the choices to emptying out the lower decks, and taking the machinery and vehicles up to ground level. Of course, that means building a road, of sorts, and a bunch of equipment sheds before we can even
start
on housing.”

Van shook his head. "I don't care for that one. Yeah, you'll get your equipment out, but you'll cause big headaches down the road a bit.”

He waved at the image of The Gouge that was still displayed on the main monitor. "Whatever you do, that's going to become a lake. A
big
lake, and a deep one. That means that the ship essentially becomes a stilt house, supported by the lower deck framework.

“Now, that could work, for a few years. But no matter how you try, you're going to have humidity, mold and all kinds of pest troubles." He shook his head. "It'd be like living in a house with a flooded basement. And I don't think it would take long to begin damaging delicate equipment. Like that, for instance." He waved at the monitor.

"Could we fill in the Gouge?" Vlad asked.

Van shrugged. "It's been done, Lakes have been filled in before, and in the old Netherlands, they were even reclaiming ocean bottom. But they had work crews larger than our entire population, and an equipment budget equal to billions of credits. And it took years. We don't have years. Forget about filling it in. Was that your other option?"

Cesar shook his head. "The only other practical option seems to be building a dike or dam in front of the ship."

Vince nodded. "Yeah. I'd want to check the ground first, examine the site. Working without an Engineer on a project like this, I'd want everything rock solid before I start. But I think that's your best option. Of course, we'll still have to build the road ramp and the equipment sheds." He paused and threw a hard glance at Cesar before continuing, "
before
we build any housing, or anything else."

Cesar nodded soberly. "I know. That's going to be a hard sell, once we're cleared to leave the ship."

"
If
we're cleared to leave the ship," Vlad corrected quietly.

Cesar ignored him. "All right, Vince, We'll have to run it through the Council, but as far as I'm concerned, you've got a job. Have you ever worn a space suit?"

Van nodded. "Yep. Did an orbital job once. So, when do I start?"

Cesar looked at him quizzically. "What, you're still here?"

A broad grin and a jaunty half-salute accompanied his reply: "No, sir. What you're looking at is the hole I left in the air!" He turned and strode out, trailed by the rather scandalized Vong.

"It's going to be hard to get anything done in space suits," Vlad said.

Cesar shrugged. "I know. I’m afraid we’ll just have to pressure Susan.”

“Hey, Susan’s already working around the clock. Give the poor girl a break!”

Cesar shook his head. “I wish I could, Vlad. But you know the situation. We have to get a lot of work done before we get rained out. I need you to remind her that we really have no choice. We will have to leave the ship to establish a colony, and we will have to do it very soon. And as you noted, we can’t expect men to do heavy work in space suits. All Susan can do is try to identify and minimize the threats we will inevitably face. Sooner or later, though, we will have to take our chances, and I’m afraid it will be sooner. At the moment we can use the threat of native disease to keep people aboard; but that will not last very long. So, we need a ‘quick and dirty’ survey, as the saying goes. We cannot afford a detailed study.

“We are between the proverbial rock and hard place,” he continued. “We need to get the workers out of those spacesuits if they are to get the dam built by the next rain, and as soon as we do that, people will begin demanding to move off the ship, and that will draw men and resources away from the dam project. And I do not see any simple solutions.”

Fortunately, Vince was able to report to the Council only a week later.

“It’s doable with our equipment and untrained workers,” he reported. “But it’s not going to be easy, especially in spacesuits.”

Cesar sighed. “How long?”

Vince grinned. “How long before we can start, or how long to finish?” He waved a dismissal. “Never mind, just teasing. The first job is a major recruiting drive. We need anyone with any experience in construction. Sheol, we need anyone with experience in working outdoors. But the limiting factor will be the limited number of suits. I’m told we have seventy space suits and a couple of dozen isolation suits of various types. Those isolation suits have a risk of puncture, so they can only be used for people like equipment operators, technicians, and foremen. That means seventy laborers at a time, at most. And even with the equipment we have, that means months.”

He shrugged. “Get us out of the suits, and I think we can build a fifteen-meter earthen dam using our equipment in a few weeks, less if I can use more men. By the way, I’ll need anyone you can find with construction foreman experience.”

Cesar and Vlad exchanged significant glances, and Vlad nodded soberly.

Cesar went on the shipwide again, requesting volunteers for the dam project. Despite the computer and its limitless training resources, one of the main sources of problems aboard the crippled ship was boredom. Vince had his choice of hundreds of volunteers.

Susan and her staff, supplemented by Koumanides’ medical techs, were working nearly twenty-three hours a day, snatching quick naps and wolfing down sandwiches brought to them. Even so, it was nearly another three weeks before she scowlingly admitted to Cesar that she had exhausted her samples, and found no indications of creatures or diseases inimical to humans.

“But you know very well, Cesar, that my research is incomplete.” She sighed deeply. “And I know that we can’t delay any longer. I guess we’ll just have to confront the planet and take our chances.”

Susan’s release caused a sensation aboard the crowded derelict, and touched off another round of demands for permission to leave the ship. The end of Dorm 10’s quarantine reopened Dorm 9 for occupation, and Cesar tried to use it to delay the inevitable.

By now, conditions aboard the wreck had seriously deteriorated. The stench of decaying bodies permeated the entire vessel, and the crowding had produced its own range of problems. The Council’s control was slipping every day, though Doug Ryles’ influence was steadily growing.

Even working in spacesuits, the workers had managed to nearly complete the ramp to transport the equipment and supplies to ground level by the time of the release. Alarms had been placed in ‘the gouge’, and Tara and Boyet had moved the armed guards up to ground level. A few prefabricated sheds had been built, and supplemented by shelters improvised from wreckage from the ship.

Once the crews were cleared to unsuit, the work spurted ahead. The ramp was complete, and an endless parade of vehicles laden with essential supplies was proceeding up it.

But it only increased the already strong pressure to move out of the crowded ship. The work crews luxuriated in the warm sunlight, and returned to the ship only for meals and other necessities. Evenings were balmy and pleasant, especially after almost four years aboard a ship that was becoming increasingly unpleasant, and more and more of the workers were using crash debris to build ugly squatter shacks near the top of the ramp.

Council meetings had become contentious. A small majority wanted to wait until the dam was complete before planning or building housing for the colony, but an increasingly vocal minority argued for simultaneous construction of housing and food preparation facilities.

A third group, headed by Doug Ryles and Abdul Arheed, demanded that the first construction be defenses with armed guard posts and that the militia be formalized into a colony defense force, and tasked with security patrols and exploration.

Ryles and Arheed were becoming a serious problem for Cesar. They nearly always united in opposition to nearly anything he supported, and they seemed focused on organizing a sizable armed force, which raised Cesar’s suspicions. But Ryles, at least, was an eloquent and charismatic man, and seemed to be gaining support.

Still, a large earthen dam was coming into existence under Vince’s capable direction. It was nearly fifteen meters thick at its base, and would taper to three meters at its top, which would feature a maintenance road. It was located some nine meters from the ship, leaving space for maintenance on the damaged ship and movement of vehicles and supplies. Crash debris had been mounted to the ship’s bulging hull as a sort of rain roof, and pumps would take care of any water that reached the ground.

But even with the machinery, the job was slow, and the peoples’ impatience was approaching critical. This was complicated by Doug Ryles’ rabble-rousing, blaming the council in general, and Cesar in particular, for ‘denying the people their freedom’ to leave the ship.

More and more squatter shacks were appearing, and the Council was getting desperate when Crewman Cordes came up with the solution.

He had heard Cesar and Vlad bemoaning the situation of the squatters. The Council was working on a design for the layout of the new colony, centered around the ship, of course. But everyone quickly realized that the squatters would soon come to identify their shanties as “home”, and would resist efforts to destroy them for some theoretical layout. And the more shacks that arose, the worse the problem became.

“I’ve been wondering why people are building those things,” Cordes put in. “I mean, if we really need housing that badly, let’s crack into the emergency supplies and set up the domes.”

“What domes?” Cesar asked.

“Oh!” Cordes replied, “I didn’t realize you didn’t know. They’re emergency housing in case the ship became uninhabitable for some reason. We have a bunch of inflatable forms in several sizes, and prefabbed plumbing and wiring sets. You lay out your circle, set up the plumbing and wiring set, lay a plascrete floor, inflate the form, and then spray it with releaser followed by more plascrete. Once the plascrete sets, you deflate the form and move to the next spot. One crew can do two a day, and we’ve got equipment for four crews.”

Cesar had snapped to attention. “Do these crews need to be skilled or trained?”

Cordes shook his head. “No, sir. As I said, they’re emergency supplies, and are designed to be set up by ill or injured people. Women, and even older children could do it.”

Doug Ryles wanted to limit use of the domes to public buildings and Council members, but was loudly shouted down. He then proposed that the colony
sell
the domes to the colonists, and use the proceeds for a ‘colony budget’. That too was rejected. The Council quickly approved the use of the domes, and hurried to finalize the colony design layout they had been wrangling over.