Island Worlds (13 page)

"You're a man with a future, Taggart, if you live. Once you drop your silly Earthie notions and gain a little experience, you could become a real power out in the outerworlds."

Moore had said much the same thing, back in Armstrong. What did others see in him that he himself didn't? It was time for a change of subject. "Why did you let those thugs off so easy? They attacked the captain of the ship, didn't they? Aren't you going to clap them in irons or make them walk the plank or something?"

Shaw clapped him on the shoulder, an odd gesture in their contorted bodily juxtaposition. "You have a lot to learn, Thor. That which happens at the card table occupies a frame outside most law and custom. Put briefly, if you can't handle the situation, don't sit down to play. If they'd attacked me under any other circumstances, or acted insubordinate or rebellious to my position as captain, I'd have put them on the vacuum diet. When I took a place at the table, I became simply another gambler."

"But they were cheating!" Thor said.

"Out here, cardsharping is damn near a respectable occupation. The disgrace isn't in cheating, it's in getting caught. Those three were so obvious it was laughable. Even you caught on after a while."

"I have my moments," Thor said, stiffly.

"Come on, let's play something less demanding. Can you play
Go
?"

That "evening," after having been soundly and expensively beaten at
Go
, Thor retired to his plastic-screened cubicle with a stack of Shaw's political and economic monographs. They had been written in a mixture of Chinese characters and phonetics, the standard written language of Singapore, but Thor's translator handled them readily. Within minutes he was engrossed. The mystery of Martin Shaw was beginning to unravel. He was a largely self-educated man, as his writing showed plainly, out he was also a brilliant and decidedly revolutionary political thinker, and he systematically exposed the bankruptcy of all the current Earth economic systems along with the corruption and obsolescence of their space settlement policies.

McNaughton came in for particular dissection. Like the British East India Company, McNaughton's Earth ownership had become a mere corps of directors who had no direct connection with their activities in space. More and more, they had left the actual work of the company in the hands of space-based subcontractors and contributed nothing to the running of the company while demanding ever-higher quotas from those who did the work. From being a developmental power in space settlement, McNaughton had become purely extractive and exploitative, a mere leech on the organism of space colonization. The space subcontractors were rebelling against McNaughton control. Thor began to understand why the corporation was backing a government crackdown on space activities. They were going to use government power to protect their profits and bring the rebellious colonists to heel.

For two months, Thor studied hard. Yes, indeed, Martin Shaw was a very, very dangerous man.

SIX

The average Earthie, confronted with the expression "Asteroid Belt," conjures up a picture of a densely-crowded ring of planetoidal rock. Thor had actually seen it pictured that way in many holos. In reality the Belt is mostly empty space, the asteroids widely separated, and only a few tens of thousands of them larger than a couple of kilometers in diameter. Spread over a volume of space with a mean heliocentric radius of about four hundred million kilometers and a width of tens of millions of kilometers, the mean distance among such asteroids is greater than the separation of the Moon and the Earth. Given the small size of the asteroids, it is rare for one even to be visible from another without instruments. Of course, for purposes of exploitation, some of the smaller asteroids had been moved closer to one another.

Avalon was not the largest of asteroids, but it was certainly among the larger ones, with a roughly spherical shape and a diameter of a little more than 100 kilometers. It had once been known by the name of an obscure Greek goddess, but it had become customary to give the permanently-settled worldlets the names of real or mythical islands, and no resident would call it anything but Avalon, legendary resting-place of King Arthur.

As Thor studied Avalon through the viewport, it had little of legendary glamour about it. In fact, it looked decidedly unpromising. It was a hunk of black rock hung against a bleak starscape, as austere and forbidding as an armored fortress. Bits of it were illuminated, and from time to time he saw brilliant flashes from its surface, as if the little world were under attack, but he knew that these were the flares of lasers and arc torches. Mining, tunneling and surface-altering operations went on around the clock on Avalon, most populous of the island worlds.

Avalon had been one of the first-settled asteroids, by virtue of its size and its location in a relatively crowded sector of the Belt. In recent decades, a number of smaller asteroids had been moved closer to Avalon, to have their mineral resources stripped more conveniently. It was a slow but cheap process, and Avalon was now the Belt s major center of economic activities. The nearest asteroids were rich in minerals and hydrocarbons, including unusually rich concentrations of uranium isotope 235.

Several years previously, a periodic comet with a large perihelion distance had been snagged from its old orbit and enticed to settle near Avalon, providing the all-important water. There had once been a plan to snatch Halley's Comet at the time of its perihelion approach in 2062 but the proposal had met with violent protest as an act of space vandalism and historical sacrilege. No matter, there were plenty of other comets.

Just now, that comet and its water meant one thing to Thor: a bath. The chemical bathing facilities aboard Spartacus had proven every bit as unsatisfactory as advertised. He was bearded and felt utterly filthy. His coverall was shabby and stained. It had been disinfected every few days by spending a few minutes of vacuum-time in the airlock, but that did nothing to improve its appearance. He had pictured himself stepping triumphantly from a luxury liner into one of the island worlds, immaculate and loaded with the prestige of his wealth and professional qualifications. Instead, he was sneaking anonymously from a smuggler's ship, a filthy tramp with no prestige and few friends.

The trip had been uneventful after the fight. Oddly, Jake and his cronies had been perfectly friendly after the altercation, and had even continued to play poker with Thor and Shaw, but with no cheating. The odd morality of space customs allowed such compartmentalization, just as mercenary soldiers could fight a vicious battle on opposite sides of a conflict, then sit and drink together afterwards with no hard feelings.

Shaw joined Thor at the viewport. "Here's where you get off," he said.

"What will you be doing?" Thor asked.

"Organizing. Rebuilding my business after the move from the Moon. I have cargo to deliver and I'll have to arrange for more. I'll be back to Avalon pretty frequently from now on. Keep thinking about what you've read on this trip, Thor. The time for action is coming soon and it's going to catch most people unaware."

"I'll be thinking about it." He stuck out his hand and Shaw grasped it. Actual hand-shaking was not practiced in freefall, as it could result in injury.

Spartacus
settled slowly to the surface of Avalon, the one-hundredth-g gravitation of the little planet providing a scarcely perceptible landing shock. Many years before, Avalon had been provided with a spin to give it artificial gravity in the interior, so ships landed at the poles where the centrifugal effect of rotation was negligible. An umbilical tube extruded from the surface and latched onto the passenger lock and the passengers prepared to debark.

From the viewport, Thor could see other ships. Most of them, like
Spartacus
, could never land in any kind of real gravity, but "landing" on a planetoid like Avalon was more a matter of making physical contact, then anchoring down to keep from flying away. Enviously, he saw a luxury passenger liner moored nearby. Its hydrogen-ion engines had allowed a passage from Earth in a fraction of the time Spartacus had required, and the wealthy passengers had made the trip in comfort. Through the envy, though, he felt a prideful contempt. What kind of
real
spacer needed such amenities?

Spartacus
was docked at the north pole. The passengers pulled themselves along the umbilicus and through two airtight doors to a large room labeled "health check." A woman in a nondescript coverall directed each passenger to thrust an arm into a diagnostic instrument while she watched its display screen. Thor stuck his arm in and felt a slight stinging sensation.

"Okay, you're clean," the woman said. "Next."

"Don't you want to see any ID?" Thor asked.

"What for? What you call yourself is your business. We just want to know if you're carrying anything that's contagious. Your blood's just been checked and cleared. You also have a UV tattoo on the inside of your wrist. It'll show up on a health check."

"Which way is Customs and Immigration?" he asked.

"No such thing. There's a reception hall past that hatch." She pointed to a large door in a far wall. Bemused, Thor passed through it. In the large room beyond, people milled about in the negligible gravity like bubbles in champagne. Elated at having a large space to play in for the first time in weeks, a group of children had improvised a frantic game of tag, darting from wall to wall with blinding speed. In the immemorial fashion of children, they had fully adapted to low-to-no-g and performed their acrobatics without jostling their elders, most of whom were still uncomfortable in zero-g. Some of them would never adjust.

Near the equator of Avalon, the artificial gravity was near Earth-normal. It was there that most of the travelers who expected to return to Earth would be staying. The nearest thing to "up" in Avalon was the direction of the axis of rotation. The closer one got to the axis, the lighter the gravity was. The same occurred when approaching the poles. After the last of the passengers from
Spartacus
had passed health check, a man entered wearing a plain coverall with some kind of shoulder patch.

"Welcome to Avalon," he said. "I'm with the Avalon North Pole Port Company. This isn't customs, this is orientation of a sort. How many here have jobs waiting for them?" About half the adults raised their hands. "You people go in there," he pointed to a hatch in one wall. "There's a vacuum tube station through there. Take the train marked 'Fingal's Cave.' When you get to the end of the line, you'll be met by representatives of your employers. They're picking up the tab for your transportation." Those who had jobs left through the designated door. The man turned to the rest.

"How many want to work?" All the other adult hands went up, including Thor's. "Good. Not much of a life out here for those who won't work. You people head for the tube station, too. Catch the train marked 'HMK.' That'll take you where you can find work. I'd advise you not to be too picky about that first job. The air here is free, but that's about it. Everything else, water, food, lodging, entertainment, education for the kids, it all costs."

"What does HMK mean?" somebody asked.

"Hall of the Mountain King. Don't ask me why. It's the main commercial center of Avalon. All the hiring offices are there, along with entertainment and other facilities. You'll be needing some of those, after coming out here in steerage."

"Baths?" somebody said hopefully.

"With real water. The train should be arriving in a few minutes. Good luck. I hope you all make it. Work hard and you will."

No Statue of Liberty, Thor thought, but no Ellis Island either. He could do without the first if it meant being spared the second. The train station was a cavernous, rough-walled chamber with a metal-mesh tube through its center. A rush of displaced air announced the arrival of the latest train, which turned out to be a string of cylindrical gondolas connected by mechanical links. A door in the mesh tube opened flush with the sliding door of each gondola. Thor filed into one of the gondolas and saw that one surface was flat and marked "floor" in giant letters. There were rows of footprint-shaped depressions in the floor, and several passengers from previous stops were standing in some of them. Thor placed his feet in a pair and felt them gripped gently by some sort of hydraulic tubing. There were spaces for ten passengers in each car.

The car started up slowly but swiftly gained speed. It was powered by magnetic repulsion and operated in perfect silence. Idly, Thor studied the interior. Holographic advertisements covered the walls, but he could understand little of their content. Most seemed to be concerned with mining equipment, ship hardware, electronic supplies and other such pragmatic goods. There were a few ads for entertainment facilities and a listing of Avalonian churches. Mercifully, there was no canned music being broadcast over the PA system. Avalon was a no-frills society.

The car drew to a stop at a station where a sign flashed "HMK" repeatedly. Thor stepped out and passed through a low, arched hallway. The gravity here was about one-sixth-g, roughly lunar. It wasn't a great deal, but for the first time in two months Thor could feel his weight. It felt good. Extended zero-g wasn't as pleasant as it looked in holographs.

The Hall of the Mountain King was an immense, domed chamber, much like the sublunar cities, but with even less sense of up and down. The tiers of balconies were draped with plant growth. The majority of the architecture seemed to be devoted to commercial enterprises. Just before the tube-station entrance was a directory and Thor found a hotel listing. Not wanting to show a high profile, he chose one in the mid-price range called the Hotel Trier.

The attendant behind the desk was a young, hairless man who wore only a pair of briefs. His arms and chest were lavishly ornamented with gold chains and he pushed himself back slightly as Thor entered the minuscule lobby. "Just off the boat?" he asked as Thor keyed in his name.

"That's right," Thor mumbled, feeling like a wino in a soup kitchen.

"Well, you're welcome to a room, but we don't have private bath facilities. No offense, friend, but I have to ask you to pay a call at the public bath across the square before you claim your room."

"Just point me in the right direction."

Two hours later, feeling infinitely better, Thor stood in his cubicle. "Room" seemed too grand a word. It was tiny and cramped, little more than a closet with a cot. Well, he didn't plan to be here long. One wall had a holoscreen featuring a seascape to combat the inevitable claustrophobia of the surroundings. He keyed the holoscreen to mirror mode and studied himself. He was clean-shaven once again. He was not yet ready to shave his head, but he had had his hair cropped to about a centimeter, little more than a stubble. He had been in good physical condition when he left Earth, but the combination of Spartacus' gymnasium and iron-ration diet had pared away the last traces of body fat. He felt he was beginning to look like a spacer.

He drew on his new coverall, one with integral boots and replete with rings and snap-hooks. At his waist hung another spacer's standby: a sort of super boyscout knife which contained dozens of miniature tools. It was time to look for a job. He had come out here to work and it was time to get at it.

He drew a fat zero on his first round of potential employers. The scientific stations were those with most demand for his skills, but they worked closely with Earth authorities and were unwilling to take on anyone with Thor's alleged qualifications and shady circumstances. So much for starting at the top.

Pondering his next move, Thor had lunch at an open food stand. The Chinese owner served up shrimp grown in Avalon's tanks along with a tofu concoction made from gene-altered soybeans. There was no seating and none was needed in an environment where feet and backs seldom got tired.

As Thor raised his plastic chopsticks, a sign across from him caught his eye. It bore no lettering but in its center was a design that looked familiar. It was circular, with three stylized plum blossoms arranged in a triangle in the center. It was a Japanese family
mon
and he tried to remember where he had seen it before. Then he had it. It had been on the ceremonial kimono worn by old Goro Kuroda in the portrait that had once hung above the fireplace in the McNaughton mansion.

As he considered giving the mysterious sign a try, he studied the scene around him. A high proportion of the people here were Chinese or other East Asians. The majority looked to be of European descent, and there were many who appeared to be a mixture of every Earth racial type. He saw nothing that looked like police, but nobody was obviously armed except an occasional person in the uniform of Sálamis. He suspected that their holstered pistols had not been deactivated here. Everything seemed quiet and extremely busy. There was none of the idleness and rowdy activity he was used to in any Earthly urban environment. No desperation, either.

The sign was set above a door in a wall that was utterly shapeless. It was in a side-tunnel fifty meters high that branched off the main chamber. The wall was a sort of hillside made of an extruded foam hydrocarbon. It looked as if a machine making the stuff had been started and somebody had forgotten to turn it off. The hardened foam was translucent and chambers and doorways of every conceivable size and shape had been hollowed out of it. Thor brushed aside a hanging-bead curtain and walked inside.