The Venus Belt (36 page)

“
Cowardice
, from my Supreme Guru in Chief?” Koko ricocheted into the room behind her uncle, a jaunty yachting cap perched on her head.

“Simple caution, O Formerly Fired Flunky, that’s a dangerous toy down there.”

“Not near as dangerous,” Lucy observed, “as th’ toy that’s on its way. Sure wish you’d filled us in sooner, O Prime Pongid—(Shucks, now they got
me
doin’ it!)—I’d like to’ve checked yer ‘rithmetic.”

The ex-President thrust a stubby finger toward the physicists. “
Their
arithmetic, er...O Former Funnel. That’s why Ooloorie was stationed here so long, to make sure we had every motion, force, and vector nailed down. Consequently, in approximately...twenty-three minutes, we’ll each be several billion ounces richer—a cheerful prospect, and one, I trow, that merits a libation. Koko?”

“Not my department, Uncle Has-been, I’m a spitsole, now!”

“That’s
‘gumshoe’
”
Koko, and
I’ll
get the champagne, okay?”

“You’re the boss, Boss.” Puzzled, she inspected the bottoms of her feet.

“Also the waiter, it appears. Drinks for everyone?” Enthusiastic nods, even from the cetacean delegate.
That
should be interesting to watch. Lucille burbled and started nodding, too.

“Gets her alcoholic tendencies from her daddy,” Clarissa contributed. I stuck my tongue out, and started nursing gigglewater from a wall-tap. Other crewfolk joined us and the observation lounge began to fill as champagne baggies were quickly emptied and replenished.

Five minutes to Zero.

Acceleration warnings sounded as the station began backing gently away from the planet. Windows became floors, tickling my acrophobia a little, but I couldn’t help staring down between my feet anyway.

Suddenly, the solitary globe below was joined by an intruder, rocketing from nowhere—though all of us knew where it had started, months ago. Now, at a carefully calculated fraction of lightspeed, the asteroid Bester, driven by ravening, matter-annihilating giant Broaches on its “stern,” was r
a
pidly closing on Venus.

Venus: a world satisfactorily as close to hell as places ever get. The most inhospitable, desolate, useless, impossible planet in the System.

Venus: mass approximating Earth’s, probably quite close to that of whatever primordial body became the Asteroid Belt (or never quite b
e
came a planet), the same potential goldmine, a hundred times as rich.

Bester swelled with proximity, uninhabited now except for mecha
n
isms maintaining its course, the glaring, pulsing drives still consuming mass as they had nearly half-devoured the asteroid already. With majestic, inexor
a
ble grace, it plunged into the planet. Even through the clouds, we watched the crust bulge upward, spewing magma, erupting outward at velocity suff
i
cient to spread the worthless planet’s fragments out along its orbit, slowly coo
l
ing, hardening. A second Asteroid Belt, one that wouldn’t spend its wealth profligately gouging-raters from the moons and surfaces of other pl
a
nets, or fling it wastefully toward the stars.

Out there, somewhere, a thousand souped-up, toughened little fighting flivvers—Olongo’s “debris patrol,” an accidental parting gift from the Ha
m
iltonians—were making sure nobody else’s territory got splashed. Othe
r
wise, the lawsuits would eat up any profit this venture might show for the next couple of millennia. Koko had wanted to fly with the squadron—until Lucy pointed out that “ace” can be spelled and pronounced a couple of di
f
ferent ways.

“Listen, you guys,” I broke the utter silence aboard the outbound st
a
tion. “I didn’t want to ask before, but—well, won’t this slop the whole gravitic balance of the Solar System out of kilter or something?”

“Oh, that,” muttered Lucy. “You want us to file EPA forms in tripl
i
cate? Only folks who’re interested in that kinda ritual are gone now with Malaise!”

“But you’ve got to admit,” I persisted, “it was one hell of an enviro
n
mental impact!” Outside, Venus swelled into a cloud of glowing debris, a trillion tons of popcorn going off inside a nuclear explosion. Or, I reme
m
bered suddenly, like those high-speed photos Remington used to publish, of a high-velocity bullet hitting an orange.
Splat
.

And three-tenths of one percent of it (Olongo had insisted on a b
e
lated birthday present for Lucille) belonged to my family. Well,
let
the authoritar
i
ans have the stars a little while. Both systems were well rid of them; the progress of liberty back home would accelerate a thousandfold—a millio
n
fold—without them in the way, breathing down everybody’s necks. Mea
n
time, we’d have the Belts, half a million little worlds, to Malaise’s two hu
n
dred and thirty.

Lucy contemplated the Wagnerian scene below—or maybe “Krypton
i
an” is a better adjective. “Tell y’ what, Winnie. Haul th’ family out to th’ Old Belt agin while things’re coolin’ off down here. Planets’re obsolete. Shucks, we might’s well leave the Earth— it’s a water world, after all—to th’ po
r
poises!”

“Oh, no you don’t.” Ooloorie chuckled. “You seem to forget this whole thing began with cetaceans reaching for the stars. We’re
built
to live in fre
e
fall; you’re not going to stick us with a worn-out second-hand planet!”

I squished a little champagne out of my baggie, swirled it around in my mouth, and swallowed. “You still haven’t answered my question: aren’t we screwing up the Solar System?”

She turned to look at me. “Well, if it’ll make y’feel better, sonny, Mr. Tormount over there’s finally taken me on as an engineer. Next year, just t’ balance things out,
we’re gonna blow up Neptune!
”

Neptune? Well, raise the ante, then: a
million
little worlds, give or take, one for each and every man, woman, child—of whatever species—who wants one. I wondered how I’d like it, being sovereign of my own tiny pla
n
et.

The preservationists back home—what few hadn’t gone with M
a
laise—wouldn’t like it much. Once they found out: funny to think that stepping through a Broach out here would “bring” a solid, useless planet back into existence. But hell,
all
life has environmental impact, just by virtue of its
being
.
Intelligence
manipulates
its environment, purposefully, instead of the other way around. The Ehrlichs, Commoners, Naders, and Gores to the contrary, to do less is to resign from being sentient. To d
e
nounce it is to renounce intelligence.

Which, I suspect, was their point all along. To hell with them; let the bastards freeze in the dark.

My daughter wanted down to see the pretty fireworks. Clarissa set her gently on the transparent floor. She reached out, trying to hold the glittering fragments in her hand.

She wouldn’t know it for a few years yet, but they were hers already.

*********

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