The Year’s Best Military SF & Space Opera (33 page)

STEALING ARTURO

by William Ledbetter

In the no man’s land of the asteroid belt, free from the laws governing both Earth and Mars, workers on board the space station
Arturo
are little more than slave labor. Kept docile with a drug called Canker, generations are born and die without hope of escape. But ice miner Clarke Kooper has a plan—and the engineering know-how to make a break for it.

I TRIED TO STAY AWAKE
and upright as the elevator bucked and jerked its way down the spoke into the Earth-normal gravity of Ring One’s sleeping level. The lights flickered as the weight settled over me, pushing my exhaustion deep into every cell. I didn’t know how much longer I could take it. If the power failed and left me stuck in the elevator again, I might turn into a raving madman. Would I really ever escape this station? Were the months of covert effort wasted?

Felicia spoke, but her voice was there and not there, a feathery touch that revived memories of her fingers brushing back my hair. “You can do this. I believe in you, but you need sleep. And a shower.”

I snorted and hugged her canister to my chest with one hand and scratched my two-day-old beard with the other. She was right. It had been nearly as long since I’d showered or slept. Extended periods working in the hub’s microgravity always did this to me, but I had little choice, time was running out.

A hand appeared before the lift door had even opened halfway, grabbed the front of my shirt and yanked me out into the corridor. Since I didn’t have my gravity legs yet, I fell directly to my knees. The two Security “officers” laughed, and the one with red hair—whom I had long ago assigned the name Meathead—gave me a little shove with a highly polished boot and I further lost my balance. I had enough warning to at least tuck Felicia’s canister against my chest before I toppled over like a crippled old grandpa.

A foot pressed on the back of my head, trying to shove my face into the thick grime that had accumulated in the corner over the decades. Dust and debris were sucked into the air filtration system on low gravity levels, but down here, where the poor people lived, filth collected like it had throughout human history. Bits of plastic and a rusted screw decorated the black gunk only inches from my mouth, but I pushed back and rolled over quickly, causing Meathead to lose his balance and stumble backward.

I fought the centrifugal gravity and struggled to my feet, ready to kill the crisply uniformed bastard. As I braced to head-butt him, before he regained his balance, I heard Felicia’s voice in my head.

“Don’t be stupid, Clarke. You’re only weeks away from your escape. You can’t to be arrested now.”

She was right, but I had to at least put up a token fight or they’d get suspicious. I gave the two goons a withering glare, tucked Felicia under my arm and tried to push past them. They grabbed my arms and shoved me against a bulkhead.

“Lieutenant Eisenhower sent us to ask about your ice production quota. He thinks you’re holding out.”

“I don’t give a shit what Eisenhower thinks. I don’t answer to him. I was hired by the station management.”

The goon shoved me again, making my head bang against the wall.

“That’s 
Lieutenant
 Eisenhower. You need to show some respect.”

“Lieutenant is a rank that implies either training or experience, and he has neither. He’s just the head guard dog and that doesn’t demand respect in my book.”

The second goon—the one with dark hair and beady eyes—took a swing at me, intending to pin my face between his fist and the bulkhead. I dodged, but not quite fast enough, and his punch glanced hard off of my cheekbone, then scraped my cheek with his wrist comm as it continued into the wall.

He cursed, and punches from both assailants rained down on me in a flurry. I bent low, intending to take a few hits and then try to dart between them, when someone yelled.

“Stop hitting him, you big turds!”

Everyone stopped and turned to see a scruffy young girl in patched clothes standing just behind Meathead. She looked to be around eight or nine, and I recognized her as the girl who lived with her mother two doors down from my cabin.

“Get lost, kid!” the dark-haired guy said and made a half-hearted swipe at her.

She didn’t budge, just glared back at the man.

Both officers laughed, but threw no more punches. Instead, in an unexpected snatch, Meathead grabbed Felicia’s canister from my grasp.

I straightened abruptly, shoved them both backward and grabbed for her can, but missed.

Meathead hefted it like a school yard bully playing keep away. “I think we’ll have to confiscate this.”

“No, you won’t,” I said.

They glanced at each other and grinned. “We already have, Kooper.”

I shook my head slowly. “I don’t think you understand. If you decide to keep my property, then you’ll have to kill me or imprison me. And in either of those cases, you and everyone on this station will die within a couple of weeks after the water runs out. As your boss already mentioned, my production level is way down. We have about a week’s worth of water in reserve. My predecessor already picked the local area clean of icy rocks and they’re getting tough to find. Without me, you won’t find any ice. Nor will you be able to bring a new ice miner in from Mars or Earth quick enough to stave off that rather ugly death. Of course the managers and your boss will probably hoard plenty for themselves, but do you think 
you’ll
 get any?”

Meathead shifted his stance and glanced at his partner.

“And if you let me go, but still keep my property, then I have at my disposal forty-nine mining robots, each with a laser capable of burning right through the hull of this station. I wouldn’t have a bit of trouble finding your cabin and I don’t even have to hit you with the beam. I’d just wait until you were asleep and open a hole in the hull. Then 
pfffftttt,
you’d squirt into vacuum like a long string of goober paste.”

The kid laughed and Meathead’s face flushed red.

“Or you can give that back to me and we’ll pretend this never happened.”

“Give it back to him!” the little girl said. “Are you morons trying to get us all killed?”

Meathead’s buddy poked him in the arm. “Just give him the damned can and let’s go get some grub. Eisenhower didn’t tell you to take his stuff anyway.”

I smiled and nodded, then winced at the pain in my jaw.

Meathead tossed Felicia’s canister in my direction. It tumbled and I did some silly juggling to keep it from hitting the floor. The goons laughed, and by the time I had it tucked it safely under my arm, they were strutting down the corridor with their backs to the girl and me.

I took a deep breath and dabbed at the blood trickling down my cheek.

“You’re a dumbass,” she said.

I shrugged and slipped past her. “And you have a foul mouth. Go home before you get into trouble.”

She followed me. “Me get into trouble? I saved your ass! If I hadn’t come along they would have beat you into pudding.”

“I guess I do owe you some thanks, but you shouldn’t have done that. Those guys wouldn’t hesitate to hit a kid.”

I palmed the lock plate on my door. It slid open and I nearly dropped Felicia as the kid slipped past me into my dark cabin.

“What the f—” I growled then heard Felicia again.

“Don’t yell at her, Clarke.”

I took a deep breath and paused just inside the door. “Let’s have some lights, Calvin.”

The cabin computer turned on the lights and I could see her sitting in my only chair, legs dangling as she examined a power regulator module from one of my mining robots.

“You have an AI!”

“Just a smart computer,” I said. “I spliced it into the cabin electronics. I do a lot of stuff like that. Now go home.”

“My mom says you’re crazy.”

I glowered at her. “Does she also say that you’re rude?”

The girl laughed. “All the time.”

“Look, kid, you can’t be in here. I could get in a lot of trouble.” The door started to close, but I grabbed it and held it open. “Go home.”

“Why would 
you
 get in trouble?”

“I’m sure your mom has warned you about being alone with strange men.”

She reached for a paper book I had laying on the table, then stopped and looked at me with a perplexed expression. “You talk funny. You weren’t born on the station?”

“No. I was born on Earth. In Chicago. Now, you really need to leave.”

With a slow shake of her head, she crossed her arms and grinned. “You’ll have to throw me out and if you do, I’ll start screaming that you touched me in the naughty place.”

Anger flared and I activated my wrist unit—ready to call security to come remove her—then stopped. Had I really just considered calling Security?

“Calvin? Lock the door open and keep a video record until this kid leaves.”

“Understood,” Calvin said.

The kid shrugged. “My name is Nora, not kid.”

I leaned against the wall next to the door and hoped I hadn’t already attracted more attention from Security. The girl twisted her mouth into an odd slant as she looked around again. She had a squarish face and the same dark hair with pale skin that seemed to dominate the station’s worker population, but her eyes were bright and inquisitive, which made her stand out from most of the drug addled adults.

“So how old are you? And why does your mother let you run around alone?”

“I’m nine. And my mom has to do double shifts until I’m old enough to work in the factory. Food and space for two she always says.”

I nodded, but hadn’t ever thought about how people managed to raise kids on the station.

“Mom won’t let go to the factory yet, but I used to help out when I got paid for scrubbing air ducts. I used to be small enough to crawl inside, but I think they found a smaller kid.”

My stomach tightened and I suddenly felt very ignorant about the people surrounding me.

“Would you like a food bar?”

“Sure,” she said, and her face brightened.

I pulled one from my pants pocket and tossed it to her. She opened it and gobbled it down in three bites.

“It’s a good thing that security guy is stupid,” she said as she chewed.

I blinked at the sudden change of subject. “Why do you say that?”

“Because Mars will be at its closest point in a few weeks. They’d have plenty of time to kill you and get a replacement from Mars.”

I couldn’t help but laugh. “Holy crap, kid. You’re a real piece of work.”

“Stop calling me ‘kid.’ My name’s Nora. By the way, you’re a terrible liar. Decompression wouldn’t squirt that guy through a small hole. His body would just block it. You’d need a big hole.”

“I never said a 
small
 hole, but I think he got the point.”

She shrugged and looked at me through squinted eyes. “You need to clean up. When’s the last time you changed clothes?”

I looked down to see fresh blood droplets added to the food and sweat stains on my dingy island shirt.

“Sorry. Hey, this has been nice . . . Nora, but it’s time for you to go.”

She ignored my comment and nodded toward Felicia’s canister. “What’s in the can that you were ready to kill for?”

My initial reaction was to tell her it was none of her business, but then I decided maybe the truth would shock her into leaving. I stroked the cool black metal canister and then held it up. “This is my wife, Felicia.”

The kid blinked then frowned. “Um, right. Is it some kind of computer? Or a game machine?”

“When my wife died, she was cremated and her ashes were sealed in this container.”

That got her attention. She had a horrified look on her face and leaned forward on the chair. “Ashes? She wasn’t recycled?”

I shook my head. “They . . . sometimes do things differently on Earth and Mars.”

“That’s kinda creepy,” she said.

I shrugged.

“Then why do you talk to it? That’s why my mom thinks you’re nuts.”

“Nora!”

The yell came from just behind my right ear and made me flinch. Nora’s mother rushed into the cabin, grabbed her daughter by the arm and pulled her upright. “What are you doing here?”

“Just talking,” Nora said, then grinned at me. “He tried to make me leave, but I was having fun. Did you know that his dead wife is in that can?”

“Oh, Nora,” the woman said and ran a hand through limp, messy hair that was dark like her daughter’s. She also had the same squarish face, but hers had sharp angles from being much too thin. Her eyes were dull with exhaustion and she seemed on the brink of tears.

“I’m so sorry, Mr. . . . ?”

“Clarke Kooper,” I said and extended my hand.

She edged past me out the door, dragging the girl with her, and once safely in the hall, turned back and glanced at my bloody cheek and wild hair, half of which had come out of my ponytail during the fight. She took my still-extended hand. “I’m Wendy and I don’t think you’re crazy. Nora just . . . has a rather vivid imagination.”

“She’s been quite,” I struggled for a word that wouldn’t sound rude, “entertaining.”

“I’m sure she has,” Wendy said with a sigh then turned to Nora. “C’mon, you little monster, let’s go eat some dinner.”