April 6: And What Goes Around (4 page)

Chao-xing looked
even angrier, which surprised Annette. She'd thought her face was already as
contorted as was possible. She opened her mouth and then hesitated looking at
Annette, as Annette didn't seem angry, or even look
interested
. It broke
Chao-xing's theatrical self righteousness and made her close her mouth back up.
"What sort of Chinese?" the woman finally asked, thinking again after
a pause. "If they are traitors, there then you are sending me to be
arrested or worse."

"I don't
know," Annette admitted. "Just as you said,
I
am not concerned
with the details of
your
politics. I suggest, if you wish them to
repatriate you to Earth from ISSII and avoid arrest, try to control your mouth.
You'll be unescorted from Home and what you tell them is up to you. If you
speak to them as rudely as you did me they may not deny themselves the pleasure
of putting you against a wall and shooting you.

"When you
agreed to stay here you forfeited your Chinese citizenship but I won't advise
them of that. I doubt they'll be aware. I assume you kept your identity
documents. Just be happy I didn't shoot you out of hand for treason to Queen
Heather. I thought everybody understood that, but I can see the only safe
course now is to ask everyone to swear a formal oath to Heather or face
expulsion."

"As if I'd
swear to obey a barbarian," Chao-xing sneered. "One who sends a woman
to govern us."

"Get this
woman out of my sight before I do something I regret later," Annette
ordered Feng. "Call Central and ask them to send a hopper to take her and
Wo away. If there's anybody else who wants a second chance to leave you best go
with them now. I won't have any patience with repetitions of this
stupidity."

"Come
along," Feng told Chao-xing and laid his hand flat on her shoulder. She turned
her head and spat in his face.

In low gravity
it's hard to get the traction to strike. You tend to bounce apart instead of
delivering much force. That's why Feng shifted from a light touch to direct her
to a hard grip on her arm. When he struck with his fist he pulled her to the
strike with his other hand. She twisted but couldn't get away and the hit was
devastating with no block at all.

Annette was
shocked. She'd never seen this sort of direct violence before and she was ready
to tell Feng to stop even though she had just visualized and spoke of shooting
the woman dead herself. That was somehow... different. It was obvious he didn't
intend to continue even before she could say anything. He gave a come-here jerk
of his head to one of the other observers, and in the low gravity the limp
Chao-xing was easy to carry out.
'She asked for it.'
was her immediate
thought, but it still rattled her. She hadn't seen it coming at all.

The remaining four looked frightened, and she realized they weren't
afraid of Feng, they were looking at
her
fearfully. Then she realized
her hand was around the grip of the laser Heather had given her. She didn't
remember consciously reaching for it. "That concludes this business for
tonight," she told them forcing a frown and turned away before they could
read the shock on her face. She couldn't afford to show anything that might be
taken as weakness now.

* * *

Full and
contented, April wanted something less stressful than reports about Earth. It
was always good to keep track of what was happening locally too, and usually
much more understandable. There was an official Mitsubishi web site for the
habitat. It announced such corporate news and numbers as was appropriate to a
publicly traded company, construction news and changes to services and
utilities. Sometimes it noted changes to standards such as the certification of
private airlocks, modification to viewports, how much hab supplied water could
be retained in residential cubic and what was acceptable in the return
discharge. Even what sort of wall coverings met flammability standards. On rare
occasions they posted job openings.

What they did not
concern themselves with at all was the residents' political or social life.
Indeed they always carefully spoke of Mitsubishi 3 and never the political
entity of Home. The people had pretty much dropped the distinction between the
two in everyday speech unless they were addressing the Assembly of Home in
session or supplying an address to an Earthside supplier.

There were a few
gossip boards, which April despised, not much different than the same sort on
Earth, except the renewal of the duel on Home had created a new level of
civility for plain statements and renewed the art of innuendo. Too blunt a slur
could result in an invitation to meet in the north corridors before breakfast. In
fact, if you didn't know the story already it could be hard to be sure who the
boards were talking about.

April was sure at
least one of the more pleasant social sites was written by a very young girl by
the sort of slang she used and limited subjects. There were a couple boards and
newsletters dealing with business. One about onboard manufacturing and one
about ship building and construction, with only a little overlap between them.

There was a recent
and anonymous board that dealt with adult social issues, much classier than the
gossip boards. That's what April was looking at tonight. You could subscribe to
just article titles if you wished. April thought she knew who the writer was
but had no desire to out her. She'd seen her eat at the nightclub in which
April owned a small interest and then a day later there would be a review of
that same dish she'd had in the newsletter. There were so few restaurants to
review on Home she was going through the menus dish by dish.

President Wiggen
had been through enough with the coup in North America and fleeing to Home. She
didn't need the nasty comments April was sure she'd get on the gossip boards just
because of
who
she was, even if she avoided local politics, which so far
she had. Not even commenting on less sensitive Earth news that didn't involve
North America or Home. April was pretty sure the board was Wiggen's.

The title banner to
this site simply said "What's Happening" and April noticed there
wasn't even a reference to Home on the first page. You had to know something
about Home, or recognize some of the names, to even know it wasn't about a
small town in North America most of the time. April was surprised one day to
see a lengthy obituary. Wiggen posted local announcements free and took small
ads for Home businesses and even other habs. Occasionally there was a small
banner for Cheesy's, a burger place outside spin on ISSII that April favored.

April had no idea
before reading about them that there was a bridge club, an Elks club, and
several veterans associations. There were three groups holding regular
religious services, a group offering charity and services to those ill or
underemployed. Home was expensive. Some new arrivals had spent most of their
funds to get to Home and underestimated how much it would cost to live.
Fortunately there was a labor shortage and most didn't stay broke. There were
just a few who couldn't make a go of it and were forced to return to Earth. For
one person a local charity fund bought a ticket home and for another two the
Head of Security, Jon Davis, considered the price of a return ticket from his
budget a bargain to be rid of them.

There were several
announcements of marriages and births, although Mr. Muños always appended those
to the minutes of the Assembly, but that could be a wait. The one that caught
her eye was, "Benjamin Patsitsas and Martha Wiggen wish to announce to the
community that they have wed and are making a life together." Well, that
was interesting. Hardly surprising since she hadn't seen one without the other
for months. She needed to send some sort of gift. Perhaps one of Lindsey's
prints.

April checked her messages looking for something from Barak. His
expedition would be starting back from near Jupiter soon with an ice ball. That
was the longer part of the trip. This was the second investment group seeking
to bring volatiles back. They couldn't talk real-time with the long speed of
light lag, but he left messages every three or four days. She missed him more
than she expected. He had just been Heather's kid brother for so long and then
after he got big enough to be interesting and part of her life on his own –
zoom – he took off on this long trip. She hoped he was doing OK.

The lighting was
dim, the disc of the sun noticeably smaller but still too bright to stare at
directly. It was sufficient illumination to work once your eyes adjusted. If
they had been back at Home the glare off the ice would have required him to
drop the polarizing filter and gold coated glare screen that rode clipped back
from his clear faceplate. Here he'd only used it once, when he's used it as an
expedient welding mask. He'd never welded anything before. It wasn't the first
specialized skill he'd had to fake and probably wouldn't be the last. At least
they'd requested a short video demonstrating vacuum welding for him to watch
first.

The result wasn't
anything of which Barak was especially proud. It looked more like a keloidian
scar than an even expertly laid weld. He'd laid two more overlapping beads on
top of the first line so he was pretty sure it was strong enough, if not
pretty. The brace wouldn't have been bent and cracked if his boss, Harold
Hanson, hadn't tried to force it into the ice instead of waiting patiently for
the heater to do its work. He found he was spending a great deal of his
attention anticipating his boss doing something stupid, and staying out of the
way so he wouldn't get killed too.

Barak tried to
tell Harold to slow down and think through every move working in vacuum, but
the man rejected his suggestions and was easily irritated with him. Barak would
love to ask April's grandfather what to do. Happy had taught him so much about
working in vacuum, and he had years of experience dealing with difficult people
too. But Barak didn't want that question on his com stream.

He just couldn't
trust the security of com to send such sensitive traffic back and forth to
Home. He had memory with some one time encryption pads from Jeff, but they were
clearly for an emergency, and he'd have to have Jeff relay the message to
April's grandfather and back. He hated feeling he was the green, inexperienced
guy. All he could safely do was explain his problem to his friend Deloris in
the privacy of his cabin. She hadn't been the least surprised.

"You don't
owe Hanson any instruction.
He's
supposed to be supervising
you
,
not the other way around. If you keep irritating him I predict he'll complain
to the captain that you are insubordinate. I know you plan to work for your
close friends in the future, but a bad report in your job file may be a problem
fifty years from now. You just have no idea what may come back on you, so let
it go. You didn't hear it here... but jackasses take care of each other, so if
he complains to the captain guess who is going to get the blame? Just... stifle
it."

"It's
surprising," Barak said. "The man is so meticulous and careful in the
lab. Showing me how to help him there he is methodical and cautious. But when
we get outside he is anxious to get it
done
and back inside. I suspect
he thinks it is beneath him to do manual labor, but it certainly isn't
menial
.
You'd think he's being asked to wipe down corridor walls and scrub out the
toilets."

"Uh
huh," was all she said, indicating to him she was done talking about it
and had said all she intended to for now. Barak took the hint.

Today they were
finishing up anchoring the last ion drive. There were eight of them in a circle
around their ship, the
Yuki-onna
, which was anchored nose first into the
center of the circle. Three guy lines from the tail braced it in place. Each
engine in the circle had a feed line and controls frozen in a shallow trench
radiating from the ship. They were each marked with a sprayed line of bright
yellow paint to make them safer from accidental damage.

Barak pushed the
data cable in the frame holding the last motor until it locked with a snap he
could feel even with double gloves hands and he tugged on it to make sure it
was seated. Lastly Barak inserted the insulated water feed line in the port for
it, and twisted it to lock. He'd made sure his camera documented that the port
was clean and the line had no ice or debris in the end fitting. A big cotter
pin went through the flange to made sure it wouldn't work loose.

He spread and bent
the end of the pin over and put the pliers back in the proper clamps, checking
that no other tools were missing. Then he folded the tool box closed clipping
it to his suit.

"And...
done," Barak said. "If they all run smoothly we shouldn't have to
come back out here until we are back in the Moon's shadow," he said,
satisfied and a little relieved they were done and Harold hadn't busted
anything new today.

"They're such
simple reliable engines," Harold said. "I'll be surprised if any
fail."

That was true, but
Harold was far more trusting of equipment than he was. April's grandfather,
Happy Lewis, had coached him on working in vacuum back when Jeff and Happy were
working on a ship together in the Lewis cubic. Happy didn't trust
anything
.
He
always
asked, "And what do we do if it fails?" Barak
intended to live a long time and keep all his extremities just like Happy.

Harold held on to
the post for the safety line that ran back to the ship's lock and kicked it
with one boot and then the other. Ice tended to build up on the boots. They
were insulated but still warmer than the ice and it melted when compressed.
Barak chipped his accumulation off carefully with a screwdriver. It might not
be a lethal event, but if the mooring post for the safety line Harold was
kicking cracked off and sailed away from being repeatedly kicked it would make
it that much riskier to get back to the ship and they'd have to retrieve it and
reset it in the ice next to the motor.

The slight gravity
of the ice moon could be harder to work in than zero G. Things stayed put if
you didn't push on them in zero G, but fell but here in slow motion. You
couldn't get enough traction to really walk or even hop well. It was borderline
whether you could jump off the ice ball, but for sure you could throw something
over the escape velocity.

Harold unclipped
his safety line from the closest brace that ran down into the ice for the ion
engine mount. It should have then been clipped over the line to the ship, but
he elected instead to clip the end to his suit and let it trail behind him. You
had to pay attention and keep it sliding freely on the line or it jammed and
brought you up short now and then. Harold started back to the ship along the
line hand over hand. It wasn't that dangerous but it wasn't by the book either.

Barak stopped and
let Harold get ahead a bit, taking the moment to look at Jupiter. It still took
his breath away filling half the sky. He didn't hink he'd ever get used to it.
Then he reclipped his tether on the line and followed Harold. Barak said
nothing about Harold's tether, following Deloris' advice.

When they got to
the ship Harold waved him past. It was a work rule the supervisor came in last,
responsible for knowing he'd brought all his crew in. Harold had ignored the
rule as silly for just a two man crew, feeling it was intended for a group big
enough to require a head count, but been reminded of it by the captain, so he
was diligent about that one point now. He'd accept instruction from Captain
Jaabir, if not graciously.

Harold grabbed the
line post below the lock again to knock the last of the ice off his boots. It
had a bit of ammonia and other compounds dissolved in it, which was a bonus for
value, but when it melted in the lock it stank like a wet dog and Harold hated
it.

Barak leaned
around him and got a good grip on the line strung down from the lock to the
first post before unclipping and reattaching to it. He had to push off crooked
to get around Harold and then pulled himself back on course for the lock with
the taut line. The hatch was open to facilitate quick entry from their side if
there was an emergency. He grabbed the take-hold beside the opening where the
line terminated and twisted to rotate in. There was a brief loud noise on the
radio like somebody blowing on a microphone to test it. He transferred his grip
to the inside take-hold and leaned out to unfasten the safety line so Harold
could follow him in and they could close the hatch. When he looked down Harold
wasn't there.

He looked along
the safety line running back to the engine they'd just finished working on,
thinking maybe he went back alone to retrieve something forgotten. That would
be stupid to do without telling Barak, but only too believable. The line was
visible and taut, the posts on both ends secure. There was no sign of him along
the line or at the engine sixty meters away. He leaned out and looked to each
side... nothing. He called on his suit radio. "Harold? Where are you? What
are you doing?"

The bridge
monitored  their suit radios, so Captain Jaabir came on com and inquired,
"Is there a problem?"

"Possibly. We
returned to the airlock and I entered. When I turned around and looked back out
Mr. Hanson is not in sight, and he doesn't answer a radio call either."

"Well then I
suggest you go back out and look for him," the man said, like it was
obvious.

"I will, when
somebody suits up to go back out with me. You don't send somebody out alone if
there is anybody at all available to partner with them. That's basic rule
number one."

"Yes, but Mr.
Hanson is partnering with you," Jaabir insisted.

"Not any more
he isn't since he disappeared. I have no idea where the hell he went, but I'm
not going to descend to the ice without a partner in the airlock ready to drag
me back in on the end of a safety line if whatever befell him gets me."

"Why isn't
Mr. Hanson on a safety line for you to pull back inside?"

"Because he
unclips himself any old time he feels like it and flaunts the rules. He
unclipped at the engine a few minutes ago and came back to the ship hand over
hand untethered. He does it all the time and I gave up telling him about it
because he's the supervisor and he got all crappy about me telling him what to
do. When he started saying 'Yes, Mother' in a sarcastic voice I stopped telling
him anything."

Jaabir didn't say
anything for a moment. Barak was waiting to hear him challenge that, but he
didn't. "Nevertheless, I'd like you to go back out and look," he
insisted. "I don't have a camera that can see in close to the anchored
nose of the ship."

And why didn't
you set one up on one of the drives looking back at the ship?
Barak
wondered, but didn't say it.

"I'm sure
tormented souls in hell would like raspberry ice cream too, but they're not
going to get it."

"Are you
refusing my direct order?" Jaabir asked.

"Damn right.
You are master, but we're not under military discipline. Nor are we underway.
You are ordering me to take actions off your vessel and in violation of
established safety rules. You can order me to take my helmet off and breath
vacuum right now too, with as much chance I'll do it."

"Some would
argue the entire snowball became my vessel when we outfitted it with the means
to move it."

"Then fire it
up and move it," Barak challenged. "Demonstrate you are underway and
declare an emergency and I'll consider it." It wasn't actually ready just
yet and Jaabir damn well knew it. His silence spoke volumes. Also if they were
accelerating outside the hatch would be
up
to the surface. The ship
would have to fire it's engines when they left to keep it nose to the ice.
There was nothing rigged to climb back to the ice under thrust and if Hanson
was loose out there he'd fall off. Jaabir was silent.

"If there is
an inquiry later and you are asked if you know the safety rules for vacuum work
and why you failed to monitor and see they were followed it will be bad enough.
If you actually
order
them to be ignored it isn't just passive neglect,
it's actual felonious breach of duty. I'm not going to give them
two
dead crewmen to charge you over. One is quite sufficient."

"You... do
not know Mr. Hanson is dead," Jaabir said. But his voice was very
unsteady.

"Missing in
vacuum and doesn't answer the radio? I'll bet you three Solars at even odds
he's dead."

"It's
unseemly to make bets over a man's life," Jaabir protested. "I have
the watch and can't leave to suit up. I'll have Ms. Keynes suit up and join
you," he said, singing a different tune now.

"Do you have
somebody to run a suit check on her?" Barak asked, knowing the answer
coming.

"No, everyone
has vital duty." He didn't reveal what his XO was doing or why he didn't
pick Deloris.

"Then tell
Alice I'm going to pressurize the lock and she can join me. I'll do an external
suit inspection on her while we are pumping down and then I'll go out."

"She's on her
way," Jaabir said.

Barak used the
time waiting for her to unclip the line hanging out the hatch, flood the
airlock at a normal pace and record his radio log for the whole shift on a
private memory stick. He had his whole log on it from day one. He didn't trust
the ship's log and archives wouldn't have a catastrophic failure. Happy Lewis
had told him that beam dogs knew from long experience that official video and
radio logs seemed to be subject to sudden failure. "Probably due to being
provided by the low bidder," he'd said with a very insincere wink.

Alice looked grim
when she came in the lock. She went through the check list with him confirming
air and battery charge and turned and twisted in the cramped lock to let him
examine every joint, seal and pressure port, skipping nothing.

"You check out,"
Barak verbally confirmed. They were done well before the pressure pumped down
to a dangerous level. That was technically a violation right there, but a
common one.

"What
happened?" she asked. "The Captain informed me Harold is
missing
.
Where the hell can you
go
missing on a snowball no bigger than some
buildings back home?"