Outland (19 page)

"What about you?"

Ballard said nothing. After awhile O'Niel's gaze dropped, locked on the sergeant.

"Most of us," Ballard said hurriedly, "most are . . . we're young. We have families."

"I have a family," O'Niel quietly reminded him.

"I know, Sir. Except your family is . . ." He broke off at the expression on the Marshal's face. "I'm sorry, Sir."

"That's okay." For a moment O'Niel's gaze was elsewhere. Then he was staring unaccusingly back at the sergeant. "It's true." There was another pause. Ballard was the best of the bunch, the biggest, and maybe the toughest. That was why he'd made him sergeant after Montone. Of all the deputies only Ballard didn't seem to tremble every time Sheppard's name was mentioned.

But if he wouldn't stand up now, then O'Niel knew the rest were useless. His tone changed to one of curiosity as he watched the sergeant.

"Tell me something. Think about it a minute. Do you," he gestured toward the half-filled squad room where arriving deputies were filing in, chatting and joking with each other, "do any of you care if the bad guys win?"

Whatever Ballard's reactions were he didn't . . . or couldn't . . . voice them. He looked away and said nothing, keeping his eyes on the floor. O'Niel found himself nodding slowly.

"Well . . . at least we all know where we stand. Thank you, Sergeant. You can return to your regular duties. You have a shift roster to announce. That will be all."

Ballard rose, mumbled something incoherent as he retreated from the office. His eyes never rose to meet O'Niel's and he forgot to salute.

Out in the squad room he moved quickly to his desk and picked up the acrylic announcement board. Then he was reading out the posts for the next shift. The deputies listened attentively. There were none of the usual moans or wisecracks about individual assignments.

Most of the deputies kept their attention resolutely on the droning Ballard. A few found theirs' drawn to the steadily changing readout high up on the far wall. One or two sneaked hurried glances at the Marshal's office.

All were relieved when the last assignment had been handed out and they were able to escape from the confines of the squad room . . .

Morning arrived weak but welcome. Distant sunlight outlined the mountains and sulfurous volcanoes, throwing the skeletal framework of the mine complex into sharp relief. Photons fell on the high-efficiency solar collectors. Generators began to hum, drawing and storing power.

On the wall above the shuttle dock access hatch a readout announced silently: SHUTTLE—IN TRANSIT. ARRIVAL—40 HOURS 18 MINUTES.

O'Niel was alone in the white canyon of the court. He bounced the ball against the floor. The sound of it ricocheting off the hard wall accentuated his isolation. He slammed it back, held up his racket to backhand the return, and managed to miss it. His swing, listless and indifferent, allowed the ball to bounce past him.

It rolled to the back end of the court, dribbled off into a corner. He watched it, making no attempt to retrieve it even after it came to a stop.

"That's pretty good," observed a sharp voice. "Playing by yourself and losing. That takes a considerable amount of concentration."

Lazarus closed the court entryway behind her and strolled out onto the floor. O'Niel didn't acknowledge her presence, didn't turn to look at her.

She stopped and studied him, her forehead wrinkling. "Looks like you'd benefit by a partner." She smiled hesitantly and gestured toward the ball. "I'd join you in this dumb game, if I could play sitting down."

Whereupon she chose a relatively clean section of floor and sat down, crossing her legs as she did so. O'Niel walked past her to retrieve the ball. She watched him return to the serve mark and stand there, considering his next move.

"I've been well, thank you," she said in response to the unasked question. "Pretty busy, too. Seems like there's some kind of flu going around. That's a mighty rare occurrence in this canned atmosphere because the samplers are supposed to constantly monitor the junk and suck out any dangerous germs or impurities. But I guess some kind of bug's finally managed to slip past them." She paused a moment. Still O'Niel didn't speak, but he didn't serve the ball, either.

"I have no idea how many workers are going to be sick by Sunday," she continued in mock amazement. "Extraordinary symptoms. Nothing like them in my reference library." She shifted her backside on the hard floor.

"No fevers, no stuffy noses, no aches and pains. Lots of eye trouble though. People seem unable to control their ocular muscles. They're able to look every which way except straight at you.

"There's also a lot of shortness of breath and heightened coloring, followed by a frantic desire to leave the infirmary once the disease has been recorded. Oh yes, lots of weakness-in-the-knees, too. Sometimes runs all the way up the spine." She scratched at her forehead, grinned humorlessly up at O'Niel.

"Yeah, it's your regular epidemic. First one I've run up against here on Io. No one seems immune. I've never seen anything spread so fast."

O'Niel used one shoe to rub at a scuff mark disgracing the highly polished floor. The scuff mark wouldn't come out but he kept at it as he spoke.

"What about you? Are you going to be sick this Sunday?"

Lazarus sucked in a deep breath, let the air out in a single whoosh. When she resumed talking the words came out in a flood. It was as if O'Niel had somehow turned a key inside her.

"You know, I was married once. I know that's hard to believe, but I was. A terrific guy. Gorgeous. Smart, clean, witty, just rakish enough in his personal likes and dislikes to keep you from getting bored.

"Eight years. We were really happy for about four, neutral for the next two, and genuinely miserable for the last couple." Her gaze rose to the ceiling and she stared reminiscently at the white enameled sky.

"I remember when we decided to get a divorce. It was a Saturday. The weather was beautiful. We went to a party. Really interesting people were there, which was unusual enough. Generally I hated parties. Still do, but this one was different, this one was decent.

"We had drinks and a fabulous dinner. Even the dessert was good. He looked over at me and I looked at him and we both knew it was over. Over cognac." She tried to smile but couldn't. "Our marriage was civilized, but over.

"He said, 'You know, I will always love you. I want you always to be happy. I hope you find someone else.' " She laughed lightly in remembrance.

"Class. That guy had what it takes in all departments, let me tell you. When you really care for somebody, you want them to be happy." She traced an invisible design on the floor.

"I looked back at him, smiled, and said, 'I hope you're miserable, and I hope your nose falls right off your face!' Then I got drunk."

"Does all that have a point?" O'Niel eventually inquired gently.

"Sure it does. You think I'm just wasting air? You see, if I really had what it takes, I would have said the right thing. If I really had what it takes, I would never have wound up in this god-forsaken place. I'd be working on Luna, off-Earth but in luxury.

"What I'm trying to say is that if you're looking for sterling character you're in the wrong place. I don't qualify." He didn't say anything.

She leaned forward, spoke earnestly. "Listen, if you're the kind of man you're supposed to be you wouldn't stick around either. That's why they sent you here."

O'Niel said softly, "They made a mistake."

Lazarus shook her head again, her voice full of disappointment. "I was afraid you'd say something like that." She tried to peer beyond the quiet mask, past the beard and the dark eyes, but she couldn't find it, couldn't see what was driving him.

"You think you're making a difference by doing what you're doing here?"

He shrugged, bounced the ball a couple of times and considered the wall.

"Then why, for God's sake?"

O'Niel hesitated, then looked over at her. His whole manner was solemn. "Because maybe they're right. They sent me here to this pile of shit because they think I belong here. I've got to find out if they're right." He stopped bouncing the ball. When he spoke again there was more emotion in his face than she'd thought possible.

"Lazarus, there's a whole machine, a whole rotten stinking machine that works only because everybody connected with it does what they're supposed to. I found out I'm supposed to be a part of that. I'm supposed to be something I don't like. That's what it says in the program. That's my rotten little part in the rotten machine." He caught his breath, looked away.

"Well I don't like it. I don't like the machine and I don't like the part I'm supposed to play in it. So I'm going to find out if they're right." He turned on her.

"What do you think of that?"

She stared appraisingly back at him. "I think your wife is one stupid lady."

O'Niel tried to smile but only made it halfway. It was a triumph, of sorts.

"You want to go get drunk?" she asked him. She pointed at the racket. "Or you want to stay here and beat the hell out of a rubber ball?"

He didn't hesitate and tossed the racket and ball into a corner.

She struggled to her feet and headed for the exit, feeling good without really knowing why.

"At least you still have
some
sense left."

"Is that your professional opinion, doctor?"

"Are you kidding?" She broke into a twisted grin. "Professionally, you're mad as a March Hare. The other opinion, that's personal."

"Personally," he said as they left the court, "I tend to agree with the first . . ."

Time passed slowly at the mine. It was as if someone had jimmied the clocks. They continued their relentless march toward tomorrows, but the minutes now seemed like hours, the seconds stretched into minutes.

The jokes and complaints and arguments the miners indulged in acquired a forced air. Once in a while some wit would venture a joke about the cause of the strain, get pained or angry looks instead of the expected laughs, and slink quietly back to work.

It wasn't just the miners. Everyone in the mine was on edge, from Adinin down to Sanitation. There was a charge in the atmosphere that didn't come from a leak in the storage batteries.

When the Marshal walked through a crowded area, the tension fairly crackled.

Off in the distance on the western horizon an enormous volcano, a dark yellowish growth, suddenly became active. It heaved a blue white cloud into the black sky. There was a momentary crack in the psychological web that had enveloped the mine as this new concern took precedence.

Seismologists checked to make sure the tectonic activity was localized and that it presented no danger to the mine or its inhabitants. Everyone took time to watch the distant, silent eruption, the newcomers nervous, the old-timers lazily leaning against the quivering mine scaffolding or catching a quick nap inside their suits.

Though spectacularly violent, the eruption lasted only a few hours. Then Io's internal instability shifted and the activity moved a hundred miles southwestward. The all-clear sounded and everyone returned to work.

They were not particularly grateful for the respite. It was worse to stand around Outside with no work to do, more unsettling to consider Io's explosive innards, the nearness of space and the looming presence of Jupiter overhead than to grumble over a job. Work focused the mind and kept nervous threads of introspection from probing unpleasant regions.

For the next couple of days especially, it would be better not to do much thinking.

O'Niel tried to do the same, but there were no breaks in his routine to take his mind off the inexorable countdown of the clocks.

If anything, there was less trouble than normal. Fewer drunks and almost no fights. For whatever reasons it was as if there was an unspoken conspiracy among the workers not to cause trouble. Trouble would require the attention of the Marshal, and nobody wanted to make his acquaintance just then.

Involuntarily, O'Niel found himself looking up from his desk, out across the squad room at the readout set in the opposite wall. SHUTTLE—IN TRANSIT it read. ARRIVAL—22 HOURS 15 MINUTES.

He reminded himself that he wasn't going to do that anymore. Irritated, he bent back to his work.

There were compartments to inspect, lock-seals to check, small complaints to be processed and minor arrests to make out reports on. Each passed a little more time, caused it to slump forward a little faster. He checked out every surveillance camera in the complex personally, and then did it a second time. He filed reports and scanned personnel files, looking for clues to the identities of those coming to do Sheppard's dirty work.

But no matter how hard he tried, no matter how assiduously he buried himself in busy-work, he still found himself glancing from time to time at the nearest readout.

It was the end of another shift and the deputies were filing out of the squad room. O'Niel sat at his desk, ignoring their by now open stares. He was eating a sandwich that had been left sitting too long. It had a consistency flattering to a fencepost, not digestion. The sawdust taste carried the analogy still further.

He rubbed his eyes and stared at the computer readout. All the names were running together, an endless chain of imponderables. The list was drawn from the personnel files of Station Green. Somewhere on the list was the name of one professional hitperson, probably more.

He didn't really expect to identify them by scanning the lists. A professional assassin would carry professional cover. But it was something to do.

Nuts. The names had melted into a single blur. It was time to rest, whether his brain wanted to or not. His body insisted.

The digital readout in his apartment was flashing steadily as he entered and turned on the lights. SHUTTLE—IN TRANSIT. ARRIVAL—9 HOURS 37 MINUTES.

Long day, long hours. He was so damn tired and the room was so empty. It was so quiet he could hear the couch fabric squeak when he sat down.

The beeping of the communicator was the last thing he expected to hear. A red light started flashing above the monitor. In the room's silence the erratic sound was startlingly loud.