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20 Jan 2010

Master of Shadows

Posted by joncooper. 2 Comments

I have posted the full manuscript for Master of Shadows in the Free Books section of this blog! This is the unedited manuscript that was produced as a part of nanowrimo.

I have been wanting to rewrite the book but I have not been able to do that, so rather than wait indefinitely to release it I thought I would release what I had. If I ever do rewrite the book I will let everyone know.

Thanks!

(Updated 1/20/10: This book is now available in paperback. You can find a link to the printed edition on the Printed Books page of this blog.)

20 Dec 2009

Dragons and Stars, Chapters 18-End of Book

Posted by pendragon7. 2 Comments

(“Dragons and Stars” copyright 2009, Daniel Routh)

CHAPTER 18: The Chase

Hanna and Grummel left the catchwire and came moonwalking back to where Neal and the two policemen were standing. They each carried large stun guns and their kevlar-titanium suits glistened in the flashing neon lights of the street.

“What’s going on?” the taller one, a woman, asked on the all-wave public radio band.

Neal stopped. Nothing really had happened yet.

“Er, these two men in the bar,” he said. “They were threatening us.”

“Turn your helmet tinting off,” said the shorter officer.

Neal and Hanna turned their tinting off.

“Did they have a weapon?” asked the taller woman officer.

“Um, maybe,” said Neal. “They were chasing us out. I thought one might have a gun or something.”

Hanna cut in. “They were talking about something and grew angry when they saw us listening in.”

The officers relaxed a little.

“That was a little rude of you,” the tall woman officer said.

Just then a side door of the bar flew open and the two bearded men came bounding around the corner, the scar-faced man holding a long knife.

The police officers immediately raised their stun guns and aimed at the two men in black suits.

The two men froze, bouncing to a stop, and raised their hands.

“Drop your knife,” said the shorter policeman.

“Those three are in trouble with us,” said the man with spectacles.

“Drop your knife immediately or we stun you!” the tall policewoman said.

The scar-faced man laid his long knife down on the asteroid dust of the street with a dark look. “Those three are in our custody,” said the man beside him with spectacles.
“These kids?” the policewoman asked.

“Yes,” said the man with the spectacles. “We demand you turn them over to us.”

“To you two?” said the taller woman in shock at their bravado.

The bearded man with the spectacles said to the short policeman, “Please contact your supervisor Gregory Hymes and verify that we have authority in this situation. Or it will go very badly for you both.”

The two police officers looked at each other. Than the short policeman switched to a private channel and they could see him talking in his helmet. After listening for a minute, the taller policewoman turned to look at the three teenagers.

Her eyes were wide with shock and anger. With her body blocking her hands from the others, she held up the number four. Neal looked at Hanna and Grummel, and they all quietly changed their radio frequency to four.

“Something dirty’s up,” the tall woman said quietly and angrily over the channel. “Our supervisor seems afraid of these two. He’s giving them permission to take you. We won’t help them, but we have to stand by. Confound it! I suggest you three make a break and run for it. It’s all the help I can give you right now. I’m sorry.” She adjusted her face to appear impassive and turned back to the others.

“Holy comets,” said Neal weakly.

“Oy gevalt!,” said Hanna angrily. “Those cursed goyim. Get ready on three again. For the catchwire.”

Neal looked quickly back. The scar-faced bearded man was leaning down to pick up his knife again.

“One…” said Hanna quietly.

The shorter policeman was turning to look at them, his face impassive.

“Two….” said Hanna.

“I’m afraid you must….” began the shorter policeman.

“THREE!” shouted Hanna. The three of them began running for the catchwire. As they reached it they each jumped for it, snapping off their magboot switches in mid-air. Neal safely caught hold, and he saw Grummel catch hold, but Hanna missed her handle by a hair and flew past the catchwire, tumbling slowly towards a hotel on the other side of the street.

The two dark men jumped just past them and floated past the wire. Both turned and bounced after Hanna.

As Neal and Grummel clung to the speeding catchwire, the whole street quickly disappeared around a corner behind them.

“I’m going back!” shouted Neal.

He let go at high speed, going headfirst toward a tall building in front of him. Doing a slow backflip in the air, he hit the building feet first and pushed upward, tapping the face of the building with his feet as he ran up it with the redirected speed of the catchwire.

As he approached the top of the 200-hundred foot tall building, he slowed himself and grabbed an outcropping steel beam. Looking down he saw behind him and far below the neon-lit street and the tiny figures of Hanna coming to a fighting crouch to face the two men. Neal braced his feet, bounced away and back two times and with a sudden kick aimed himself straight towards the men and slightly above them.

The mighty push sent him soaring off the building at a slight downward tilt. Other tall buildings went by on either side of him as he swooped down above the open bar street. The slight gravity of Ceres pulled him down slowly as he flew towards the men at perhaps thirty miles per hour, twice as fast as a human can sprint. The two men were stepping towards Hanna, one waving his knife threateningly.

Neal touched a temporary air release valve on the front of his suit, spinning his body onto his back, feet first. In a split second the men’s backs loomed in front of him and he scissored out his legs and bent his knees. As he impacted them, he kicked out with his legs, connecting one foot to each of their backs, slamming them violently forward in a somersault against the wall of the hotel.

The exchange of energy brought Neal to a slow stop. He drifted down onto his back on the street. Hanna pushed off the hotel wall and grabbed his arms to steady him. “One has a stunner,” she said.

He glanced over and saw the man with the scar lying groggily, but the other scrambling to stand up. Hanna lunged and jumped towards an alley beside the hotel, bouncing against the far wall of the alley and disappearing around the corner. Neal jumped towards the alley after her. As he flew through the air he looked back and saw the spectacled man pulling a stun gun from a holster in his suit. A glowing blue ball ripped past Neal and ricocheted off the wall ahead of him. He bounced off the wall as well, jumping into the alley and to the other wall again. He jumped back and forth like a tennis ball, propelling himself down the alley. Reaching another cross alley he darted into it, grabbing onto a steel girder to stop himself and breathe.

“Hanna!” he hissed. He heard her breathing.

“I’m here,” she said.

Neal looked twenty feet down and saw trash piled in the alley, old metal crates and a dilapidated old crawler. A hand reached out of a crate and waved at him. He quickly pushed down to the ground and pulled himself into the crate with her.

“Shouldn’t we run?” he said over the mic. Then he noticed her. Her eyes were wide, and she was pale. Her breathing was laboring in short little gasps. She’s panicking, Neal thought in amazement. He’d never seen Hanna panic before.

“C’mon,” he said. “If we stay here we’re sitting ducks.”

He took her by the arm and crouched behind the crates, peering out into the dark night shadows of the alley. Above them the stars burned like ten thousand tiny suns. Which they were, in a way, Neal thought. He shook his head to focus. The bearded man with spectacles and the stun gun ran past their side alley just then, jogging in his magboots.

“Okay,” Neal said when he was out of sight. He pulled Hanna and they pushed off the wall and further down the alley. Out of the corner of his eye, Neal saw a movement behind them. The man with the scar on his face stood at the alley entrance a hundred feet behind them, holding a knife. He saw them and began running down the alley after them. Neal grasped Hanna’s arm and they began pushing off beams and ledges, lunging down the alley. They reached the end of the alley where it met another narrow alley. Hanna was gasping and beginning to sob.

“Hang in there,” Neal said. He looked around wildly in the new alley. Suddenly a grate swung open on the concrete floor of the alley and a man popped out. He waved them down into the grate.

Neal hesitated only a moment before pulling Hanna and himself left down the alley to the man. The man had a black beard and beady black eyes like a squirrel. He looked familiar. Neal and Hanna darted down into the hole in the alley and the man followed them, pulling the grate over them. As it banged shut over them, the man slid a metal bolt into a steel ring soldered underneath the grate. They stood panting and gasping and staring up at it.

A few moments later a hand grasped the metal grate from above and tried to pull it up. A helmeted face with a scar leaned over and peered through it, a knife glinting in the starlight beside his face. He stared down into the shadows with a look of pure hatred. Hanna suddenly sprung up at the grate in a fury, shouting in Yiddish and hitting at it. The knife flashed through the grate downwards, and Neal and the man grabbed Hanna and yanked her away. They held her a safe distance back, flailing and kicking and cursing in Yiddish.

Then their friend with the beady black eyes like a squirrel let go of her. He turned and walked down a tight underground tunnel. He left them behind at the grate.

 

CHAPTER 19: Tunnel Rats

Neal and Hanna hurried after him.

“Where are you going?” asked Neal on his suit speaker. The man looked back at them but said nothing and continued.

All along the walls of the passage large pipes and tubes and wires stretched ahead into total darkness. The man switched on a battered flashlight to light the way. Neal glanced back a last time at the grate in the tunnel ceiling as they floated and bounced gently forward.

The three of them floated forward a long while, past thick insulated tubes and under an occasional grate. Neal was relieved to see they all appeared to be shut and bolted.

“I wonder what this place is,” said Neal over the radio link to Hanna. She said nothing. Neal glimpsed her face in the reflections of the flashlight ahead and saw she was still pale and haggard.

“What happened after we left you?” he asked.

Hanna was silent a moment. “They threatened me,” she said.

“They threatened to stab you with that knife?” Neal asked.

She waved her arm dismissively. Neal grasped a beam and bent his legs onto it like a vertical surfboard, again pushing himself forward twenty feet before he drifted downward and had to repeat his floating lunge again. Hanna grabbed a beam beside him and held him still.

“They threatened to do other things to me,” she said, angry.

“Like…” he left the question unasked.

“Yes,” she said. “Like that.”

Neal felt a hot surge of blood in veins. He felt like opening one of the grates they’d passed and going back up. He’d find them, and this time he wouldn’t let them get off with just a kick in the back. He fantasized for a few moments about the ways he would make them suffer. In his mind they twisted in agony and pleaded for mercy.

Like that would happen, he thought. I’m a smallish 17-year old against two killers. But still the image had a bittersweetness that felt addictive.

Hanna pushed off ahead of him, and he shoved off to follow her.

Up ahead the flashlight stopped.

“Where are we going?” asked Hanna.

Neal flipped his radio to public direct-line broadcast.

“Who are you?” he asked.

The man turned and shone the flashlight up on himself. In the eerie light Neal saw a dirty and almost ragged suit, a scratched and battered helmet, and a gaunt face like a skull, covered with a tight curly black beard. Hanna pushed herself off a beam, to drift slowly back to where Neal was settling to the floor of the tunnel.

It came to Neal.
“You’re the homeless guy we saw begging today,” he said.

The man took a few steps toward them and Neal was certain–the same dirty helmet, the same bright beady eyes like a squirrel’s.

“That’s me,” he said. “One and the same. Billy-O is my name.”

He turned back around and nodded his head. “Come on,” he said.

Neal remained standing.

“Where are we going?” he asked.

“To see the others,” said Billy-O. He opened a grate in the floor of the tunnel and motioned down it. Neal and Hanna sidled a little closer, uncertain. Neal tried to think how far back the last grate up to the surface was. He thought he probably could unbolt it himself. If no one was holding him back.

Billy-O shone his light on their faces. Hanna’s looked panicked, and Neal’s was tense, uncertain.

Billy-O uttered a bad word and said, “You’re afraid! I’m sorry.”

He clicked a button on his suit and said, “Hey, Mary Mary, would you come up here? We have two frightened young visitors.”

Neal waited a long minute, and then another helmeted face peeped up out of the hatch at Billy-O’s feet. It was a young black woman with long silky hair and a beautiful, kind face. She squeezed her ample form out of the hatch and pushed over to them. “Oh, oh oh, my my.” She turned immediately to Hanna. “Honey, you do look troubled,” she said. She wrapped Hanna in a big hug and looked back at Billy-O. “What happened Billy?”

He stared at her with his bright beady eyes in the dim lit tunnel. “They got jumped by some janjas. Even the police couldn’t save them. They made a run for it, but the janjas got this girl here and were waving their knives at her and threatenin’ her. This boy came back. He had one amazing jump from the top of the building on 22nd Street, knocked both these dudes down and they got away. But one of those crimed-up baggers would of got them if I hadn’t let ’em in that hatch up in James Alley.”

“Watch your language,” she scolded him. She turned to Neal. “My, honey,” she said. “You are one brave boy.”

The thought was a new one to Neal. He knew that usually he was afraid to say what he was really thinking and feeling. But a certain warmth spread through him. I guess I was a little brave, he admitted to himself. Fighting two armed men. But should I think that about myself? Isn’t that proud?

“It was nothing,” he said, trying to dismiss it.

“Oh no!” she said. “Jumping from a tall building to fight two crazy janjas with knives to save your friend!? Honey, that ain’t no sissy action. You’d best be proud of what you done!” she said. “I can see you want be humble and all. But humble don’t mean you gotta deny you did something good or you have some gift. Humble just mean you’re equally happy about others gifts too, you’re not all thinking about yo’self.”

She pulled Hanna along to the hatch. “Now, come on, you both, and rest a spell in a safe place.”

Neal looked at Mary Mary, and at Billy-O. He felt suddenly exhausted.

“Okay,” he said. Mary Mary squeezed down the hatch first, then reached up to help Hanna drift down. Neal went after Hanna, still keeping the corner of his eye on Billy-O. Billy-O shone the flashlight down the hatch to help him see where he was going, then came down after him, closing and bolting the grate up into the underground tunnel from underneath. Neal saw only darkness below him in the shaft. They drifted down it with help from Billy-O’s flashlight, its beam bouncing this way and that on the walls of the vertical shaft. In the occasional flash of light Neal could tell the tunnel went down very far hundreds of feet into darkness and continued out of the light. After they had gone down perhaps two hundred feet, Mary Mary stopped. Billy-O shone his light on a hatch in the side of the tunnel wall, and Mary Mary tapped on it lightly with a certain rhythm as though she playing the drum for a song. After a moment the door unlocked and a suited man peered out from a darkened room. Mary Mary helped a trembling Hanna inside, and Billy-O shone the light for Neal to pull his way in. It was an airlock. Billy-O pulled himself in and shut the door, turning a wheel on the inside and then pushing a button. A burst of air pressurized the chamber, and Mary Mary opened the inside door.

“This is where we Tunnel Rats live,” she said. A warm ray of light burst into the small chamber as the inner door opened. Mary Mary stepped out and pulled off her helmet, shaking her long silky hair down her back. Neal stepped out into a warmly lighted room. He checked his compad. The air was safe.

Neal shakily unsealed his helmet and pulled it off with a hiss of exhalation. The air in the room smelled musty. He rubbed his face and looked around at the large room. Near the door several old chairs and crates were scattered with ten or fifteen people sitting on them under warm floodlights. Farther back a hallway wound its way into darkness. Hanging tarps partitioned off smaller rooms from this hallway.

“What is this place?” asked Neal.

“This is our home!” said Mary Mary. “We’re all homeless except for this place, honey. C’mon over and sit down, both of you.”

Suddenly a thought flashed into Neal’s mind.

“Grummel!” he said loudly.

Everyone jumped, and Billy-O said, “What?”

“Our friend Grummel,” said Neal. “We had a friend, a really big guy who was with us. I left him to go back for Hanna. I don’t know where he is. He….” he thought hard about what Grummel would have done. “He probably would try to come back for us but he would have taken longer to make it back to that bar street.”

“We’ll send some people up to look for him right away,” said Billy-O. He motioned to several people in the corner and they stood and pulled on scratched helmets of their own. They filed into the airlock and the door closed.

“Well,” said Mary Mary. “You two just come and sit down and make yourselves comfortable. Rearview, you get out of that chair and give these two a place to sit.”

A man with thick glasses stood up from one of the plush chairs and sat down on a crate. Hanna and Neal settled down in the chairs and Mary Mary sat on a crate nearby.

Neal yawned suddenly, his mind spinning wearily from the excitement. Hanna’s eyes were already sinking shut.
“Oh, my!” said Mary Mary. “You two don’t need chairs, you need beds. Come wi’ me, then.” She helped Hanna up and Neal followed her out of the sitting room and into the curtained hallway. Mary Mary stopped at the first door. “This is Billy-O’s,” she said. “He’ll want you to use his bed for nap. Honey,” she said to Hanna, “You come on back to my room.” Neal stumbled into the room, suddenly exhausted. It was a small eight by eight room with curtain walls. A pile of old freighter blankets were piled on the floor into a sort of bed. Neal didn’t take off his suit, just lay on the blankets, tucking another blanket under his head. His head hurt. He closed his eyes, images flashing through his mind, and fell asleep.

[have neal rest his helmet beside the bed?]

 

CHAPTER 20: Tales in the Tunnel

Neal heard a rustle and opened his eyes. He’d been sleeping. The curtain to the little room lifted open and Billy-O peered in. His hair stuck up in little cowlicks, and his black beard framed his face and his bright beady eyes. He stared at Neal a moment, then came in.

“You and the girl gave me the ten-credits,” he said matter-of-factly. “I’d thought it was you.”

“Yes,” said Neal. Neal studied his scratched helmet and the small room for a minute.

“You’re not looking for work on a freighter, are you?” asked Neal.

“No,” said Billy-O.

“And you didn’t need the ten-credits for your air-generator, did you?” Neal asked.

“No,” said Billy-O.

“What did you do with the money?”

Billy-O pointed to a tiny table by the pile of blankets.

“That bottle of wine. That nutri-pack of food. I gave three credits to Mary Mary for her food.”

Neal looked at the items. “Is Mary Mary your girlfriend?”

Billy-O smiled. “Just a friend,” he said. “She’s too religious for me, says I’m a dirty old wino.”

Neal found himself smiling.

Then he remembered Grummel.

“Did you find my friend Grummel?” he asked, swinging his legs over the pile of blankets to sit up.

“Yes,” said Billy-O. “Rearview went up and watched bar street. He saw a huge loaf of a guy with a tinted helmet come hurrying out of the bar you all went in earlier. Rearview went up and asked him if his name was Grummel. He said yes and wanted to know where you guys were. We got him down here in the tunnels. And off the streets.”

“He’s here?” asked Neal, standing up.

Billy-O motioned and Neal followed him out through the curtained hallways and into the sitting area.

Grummel was standing in front of the airlock, holding his helmet under his arm and ducking his head slightly under the low ceiling. Several miners were gathering around him, looking up at him.

“I ain’t never seen a boy thet tall!” said one of the soot-covered men.

“Well, there’s Old Timers,” said a lady who was missing several teeth.

“Yeah, but they ain’t so big and meaty!” said the first man back.

Grummel saw Neal and ran toward him, banging his head on a light before he made it to Neal and took him in a crushing hug.

“I wus worre’d sick about you two!” he said, his eyes turning red but no tears falling. “Wher’s Hanna?”

“She’s back there taking a nap,” said Neal, nodding behind him.

Grummel’s large shoulders sagged in relief and he did sob for a moment. Mary Mary came up then and handed him a rag. Grummel blew his nose into it like a trumpet and then looked around for a place to put it. Mary Mary took it back. “Why don’t you jes’ sit down on one of these here crates?” she said kindly. “Hush, now, no need for cryin’, a big boy like you!”

Grummel made his way to an empty steel crate and sat down on it. Neal and Mary Mary came and sat nearby.

Grummel wiped another tear away and did his best to sit up manfully. “Ma’am, why er’ ya livin’ here?” he asked Mary Mary.

Mary Mary clasped her long slender fingers together and looked down for a minute.

“Well, honey,” she said. “When I was eleven years old, janjaweed fighters came and attacked the little asteroid where my momma and daddy worked as miners.”

“Who are janjaweed?” asked Neal.

“Oh, honey, they’s some bad-boned guys, let me tell you. They are a tribe of muslim nomads. They wander from place to place, more often than not piratin’ and killing to get what they want. Like they did on my asteroid. I saw them do away with my daddy, and my momma died trying to protect me. She was like a she-bear, she was. She like to have tore those men apart with her bare hands before they got her.”

She wiped her eye and tightened her jaw as she remembered it.

“Well, they took me back to their ship. I was so afraid of them. They wore these black helmet masks, you see, with these laaarge glass mirrors over their eyes and this black circle filter over their mouths. And they was dressed all in white with white hoods on their suits. They looked mighty bad, let me tell you. But when they took off the masks, they was just ordinary men with mean faces and smelly beards. I was given to one of their leaders to be his wife.”

“His wife!” exclaimed Neal. “When you were eleven?”

“Yes, honey,” she said. “Sh sh, now. Look here. Lots of bad things happen in this world but that won’t never have to stop us from being good and lovin’ others. Now listen. This man’s name was Abdul-Raheem. That means “Servant of the Most Compassionate” in the Arabic language. She turned and spit on the ground in anger. “From him I never once saw compassion. So he can say his god was compassionate all day long and I won’t believe a word. Uh hm, not until I see some compassion in action, you hear what I’m saying?”

Neal nodded, wide eyed. Mary Mary’s beautiful face and high cheek bones shone in the floodlights like an ancient warrior princess.

“Well,” she said, “This Abdul-Raheem beat me every day, though that wasn’t the worst of what he did. After several years I almost got used to that treatment. But then one day he told me he was taking a second wife. He said I hadn’t given him any children yet, and I deserved to die. He started to say terrible things about my momma and daddy, and something inside me snapped away.

“I just picked up his big curved knife and I cut his face, from his eye right down the side of his cheek. Then I ran out and into the streets. God is compassionate, Neal, because I got away from that man. I got away from him. I hid in crates and boxes and only came out at night. I worked my way across the city until I got to the tunnel up to the station. But I didn’t have no money. That’s when I met these folks and became a Tunnel Rat. I’ve been here nigh unto three years now.”

Grummel said, “Thet man what was your husband…” he hesitated at the fierce look at Mary Mary’s face. “One o’ the men what chased us had a scar from ‘is eye down his cheek,” he said. “And he carried a long curved carver.”

Mary Mary’s eyes flashed. “That was him,” she said. “Why was he chasing you all?”

Neal told her about seeing Mirk go into the bar, and how they snuck in to see what he was up to. About how the two men had come into the bar and Mirk wrote something down for them, and how they gave him thirteen thousand credits. Billy-O whistled at that number. “That’s a lot of mischief if it’s thirteen thousand credits worth of mischief,” he said. Mary Mary nodded. “That’s no good, no good at all. Mm mm. Those janjas are planning something. I’d guess your ship to be waylaid again. Or your asteroid to be attacked.”

“Eros, attacked?” said Neal.

“You from Eros?” Billy-O said.

“It could be an attack,” said Mary Mary. “There’ve been three small asteroids attacked in just the past two years by pirates. The last two times there were no survivors that have come forward. There was only one survivor from the first attack. That’s Billy-O.”

Grummel and Neal looked at Billy-O.

“I hid in a cave,” he said. “In a cryo-unit where they couldn’t trace my body heat. I shouldn’t have. I should have fought them.”

“You did fight them,” Mary Mary said. “You said you did.”

“Not enough,” he said.

“Why don’t ya tell the police?” asked Grummel.

Billy-O’s happy little eyes turned sad. “I did,” he said. “They promised to look into it. That’s all that happened.”

“Mm mm,” said Mary Mary. “Something dirty is going down, and that’s for sure.”

Neal stood up. “Can you help us get back to my uncle?” he said. “He’s probably very worried by now.”

Billy-O sat and considered. “You all got a ship at the station?” he asked.

“Yea,” said Grummel. “H’et’s the S.S. Samson.”

“I think you’d best bee-line for your ship,” said Billy-O. “Get back on it and then radio your Uncle from the ship to let him know.”

He turned to Rearview. “You think you can get them back to the tunnel to the station?” he asked.

Rearview took off his thick glasses and cleaned them slowly. “Believe I can,” he said.

Billy-O thought a moment more. “I’ll go ahead of you and scout it out to make sure it’s safe,” he said.

Neal and Grummel stood up.

“I’ll go wake Hanna,” said Mary Mary, standing and hurrying back into the curtained hallway.

Two minutes later, Hanna was out, clinging to Grummel with a big hug while he looked sheepish. The three of them stood by the airlock, putting their helmets on. Billy-O looked at Neal. “After I check the station I’ll go over to your aunt’s house,” he said. “I know she won’t let me in her building, but I’ll tell her on the compad that you’re safe and sound.”

“Thank you,” Neal said. He didn’t know what to say to these people. He didn’t know how to repay them. He couldn’t. “Can I leave some money?” he asked, reaching for his pocket. The faces around him instantly became stern. Mary Mary pulled his hand away. “Don’t you dare think of it, Neal,” she said. “You think we’re doing this for yo’ money?”

Neal squirmed inside. “No,” he said. “I don’t.”

He looked around at them. “Thank you,” he said. It was all he could find to say.

They escorted them to the airlock and waved as the inner door started to slide closed.

“Ya’ll take care now,” said Mary Mary. The other miners with her yelled goodbye as the airlock door slammed shut and they were suddenly in silence and blackness again.

 

CHAPTER 21: Journey Home

They had bounced along tunnels for perhaps an hour, with Rearview leading the way. Billy-O and the others had gone on slightly ahead to scout for them before they arrived. Rearview turned down many forks and turned right or left at many tunnel intersections.

I could never find my way out of here, thought Neal. I’d have to open a grate and try my luck on the surface.

After her nap and the warmth of the Tunnel Rats, Hanna seemed to be regaining some of her old spunk, or “chutzpah” as she called it. She was bouncing just behind Rearview, effortlessly keeping up with him, and peppering him with questions.

“So, why are you called Rearview?” she asked.

“Can’t you tell?” he said. “Look at my glasses.”

He shone his flashlight for a moment up on his glasses. Neal, behind Hanna, saw a small circular rearview mirror attached to the left side of his thick glasses.

“This way I can always see what’s behind me,” he said. “I can’t imagine not having them. It’s like having a third eye to look behind you.”

[how would that work on his helmet? helmets are a solid glass bulb]

Neal had to agree it sounded pretty useful.

“How long have you lived here?” Hanna asked.

“All my life on Ceres,” Rearview said. “Thankfully I had some weight training when I was younger. I worked as a high school politics teacher for a while. Then my wife died and I started drinking too much.”

“You were a high school teacher?” asked Hanna, surprised.

“Yep, don’t look like it now, do I?” he said. He shone the flashlight on his bedraggled suit and grimy helmet, and on the stubble on his chin under his thick glasses.

“You taught politics?” asked Neal.

“Yep. Not anymore now. Politics is just a way for the stronger to take advantage of the weak. One of these days the central governments on earth are going to implant us all with chips and control our lives every second. You just watch. I know I might sound a little strange, but it’s true. And this synthesized food we eat? I heard it’s going to give us all a strange disease. Only the government will have the cure for it, and then we’ll be stuck.”

Neal privately thought that Rearview had lived too long alone or something.

Grummel floated past Neal just then like a meaty rowboat. “Is et true?” he whispered. “Is our food poi’soned?”

Neal shook his head no in the dim flashes of light and he saw Grummel look relieved.

* * *

At last Rearview stopped underneath a grate.

“Switch off your lights,” he said.

They turned off any lights they were carrying and stood in total darkness. Neal looked up at the grate. A pale brightness was shining through it. It’s morning! Neal thought. The nine hour Cerian night was already over. The night seemed so long, he thought. But looking back it passed like a flash.

Rearview cleared his throat on the radio. “Rat One calling to the other Rats. Over.”

Billy-O’s voice came over the radio. “Rat One, we are in positions and the coast is clear. Scurry away. Over.”

Rearview reached up to the grate. It was already unbolted, and he pushed it up slowly and peeked his head out. Then he signaled them to follow him quickly and pulled himself out of the tunnel and above ground.

After Hanna and Grummel went out, Neal pulled himself out and stood up. They were standing in an alley behind the transit building. Rising up from the center of the building, the hundred foot diameter texaglass tube ran straight up into the sky, fifteen miles up to the orbiting station that still seemed impossibly close and large. The sun was shining low along the horizon between various tall buildings, sending shafts of bright light across the city. There were none of the blues and oranges and reds he’d seen in pictures of earth sunrises, but to Neal it still felt beautiful to see the brightness return.

“This way,” said Rearview after closing the grate. The three teenagers followed the ragged suited man down the alley. At the end of it he looked both ways.

“It looks clear,” he said.

“That’s what we told you!” complained Billy-O.

“Just making double sure,” said Rearview. “You know me.”

“And that’s what drove me to drinkin’,” shot Billy-O back.

Rearview snorted, then pointed them towards the main entrance to the transit building. Neal felt hesitant, and he could tell Hanna felt the same.

“Well, at least we’re in a wide open public place,” he said comfortingly to Hanna. She nodded and stuck out her jaw. “Let’s go,” she said.

They marched out of the alley and down the street to the wide stairs leading up to the transit building. Seated at the foot of the stairs was one of the Tunnel Rats, holding a sign that said, “Will Work for Food. Please help.” He winked at them as they walked past. They went up the stairs and into the main hall of the building. In the main hall they saw two other Tunnel Rats loitering around, one quietly asking for money from passerbys. The three teens paid their return fee and walked to the platform. Billy-O was leaning against the wall there, pretending to read a newspaper he’d probably found on the floor. He looked over it at them with his bright beady eyes.

“Take care,” he said.

“You guys are ainjells,” said Hanna.

“Not quite,” he said. There was a pause.

“I’ll visit you the next time I come to Ceres,” said Neal suddenly.

Billy-O looked up then with a strange expression on his face, as though he were homesick or had just heard a lovely song. He looked about to say something, but instead he just nodded his head to them as they climbed into the glass pod.

* * *

It felt like a whole week had passed since yesterday when they’d last zipped through the tube. Neal looked down past his feet at the sprawling city rapidly growing smaller. He could see the different districts of it and tried to find his aunt’s house, and the bar street, but couldn’t find them before they were too small, and the pod shifted and flipped for the approach to the station.

They stepped off the pod onto the station platform and squeezed their way down a white hallway with a crowd of others from Ceres. Neal felt a hand on his shoulder and jumped. He turned to see it was only Grummel. “Look ‘er,” said Grummel, pointing to a screen. The screen listed the ships in dock at the moment. Dock E-23 was the S.S. Samson. “There,” said Hanna, pointing to a sign which read “E Docks: Enter Here.” They filed into that hallway which transferred to another and went up a level and down another long hallway. A pulley rope turned in the middle of the huge hallway, and they each grabbed onto the rope going away from the station. “Number 13, 14, 15…” read Hanna. “There,” said Grummel after a minute. They let go and drifted to the exit tunnel for E-23. There was the long bright tunnel stretching around a corner and out of sight. Neal, Hanna and Grummel pushed into the tunnel. Neal felt tense, ready to fight, his stomach tight. They turned a corner and saw the back end of the S.S. Samson sealed inside the end of the tunnel. The loading ramp was pulled up and sealed shut.

They floated silently toward it. Neal went to the compad beside the ramp door and pushed it.

“This Neal, Hanna, and Grummel to the ship,” he said. There was no answer. He pushed it again. “This is Neal to the S.S. Samson,” he said.

A voice crackled back. “Neal?” It was Mrs. Silver’s voice.

“It’s me,” he said. The back ramp clicked and whirred slowly down. The three of them hurried inside and Neal pushed the inner control to lock it back up. They pushed hurriedly through the empty hold until they reached the crew door at the far end. As they stepped out of the airlock into the crew lounge area with its forward-facing sofas, Mrs. Silver was standing there waiting for them. She pushed quickly at them spreading her arms wide and trying to hug all three at once.

“Oh, thank God, thank God,” she said, with tears in her eyes. “I’ve been praying for you three so much.”

“Where is everyone?” asked Neal.

“They are down in Ceres City searching for you three,” Mrs. Silver said. “I just radioed them that you’d arrived here.”

“Is Mirk back?” said Hanna.

“Yes,” said Mrs. Silver. “He’s asleep in his bunk, resting. He said…” She paused and looked at them.
“I’m not sure if I believe him, but he said….” she trailed off.

“What did he say?” asked Hanna, putting her hands on her hips.

“He said you three went into a bar, and he followed you, and that you three got in a fight with some men. He said he looked for you but he couldn’t find you.”

“Ooooh!” said Hanna. Neal frowned angrily.

“I don’t need to hear all the details,” Mrs. Silver said. “I just want to know if you’re all right.”

She stared into each of their eyes.

“Yes,” said Neal. Hanna and Grummel nodded. Mrs. Silver looked deep into their eyes and then looked relieved.

“You are all right,” she said. “Your hearts are honest.”

[how to cook it with no gravity?]

Mrs. Silver shushed them then, made them sit on the sofas and brought them out hot chocolate and quickly cooked up some synthesized egg and cheese protein omeletts. She brought the omelettes to them sizzling and stuck to a spike-plate that held food on it. Neal took his fork and stabbed a piece of omellete off and stuffed it into his mouth. He hadn’t realized how hungry he was. Like a starving animal he ripped off the remaining pieces of omellete and swallowed them down. Hanna and Grummel likewise finished off their omelettes in seconds and looked around. “Oh my lands,” said Mrs. Silver. “But you all are hungry.”

“Some homeless people helped us,” said Neal. “But we didn’t eat much.” Mary Mary had offered them part of her protein bar, but Neal had only accepted one bite of it, knowing it was all she had.

“Well, we’ll just have to fix this,” said Mrs. Silver. She hurried back over to the kitchenette and soon began orchestrating sandwiches, soups, and other delicious smelling cuisine.

Soon empty spike-plates, cuptubes and other items were floating all around the three.

A whirr buzzed somewhere in the cargo hold, and a minute later the airlock hissed and then opened into the lounge. Uncle John and a crowd of the ship’s crew pushed into the room. The miners, pilots, and even Dr. Brut floated behind Uncle John as he pushed forward. The crowd of them including Uncle John looked exhausted with deep bags under their tired eyes. Uncle John pulled himself to the sofa in front of the three of them and looked at them for a minute.

 

 

CHAPTER 22: Getting Into Trouble of Another Kind

 

“Well?” Uncle John said, grimly.

Neal didn’t know how to answer that question. He felt like a deer caught in the headlights of his uncle’s angry stare.

“Well, what?” he asked.

Oh man, he thought. That was a dumb response.

Uncle John controlled himself and spoke tersely. “Did you or did you not go into a bar last night?” he asked.

“Yes, but…” said Neal.

“And did you, or did you not get in a fight with two men?” he asked.

“We were defending ourselves!” said Hanna.

“So,” said Uncle John, as the other miners floated silent, watching. “Let me get this straight. You three went into a bar, which I have told you not to do. You got involved in a fight with two men. And you did not come back until this morning!”

“But Uncle John,” said Neal.

“Did I, or did I not tell you to stay out of the bars?” asked Uncle John, his voice rising.

‘But we…” said Neal.

“Did I or did I not?” shouted Uncle John.

“You did,” said Neal, angry now himself.

“You have cost this entire crew no end of worry and exhaustion!” said Uncle John. “Go to your bunk, Neal, and have a serious apology prepared before you come out again!”

Neal saw red and felt a blind rage boil up in his blood. He clenched his jaw tightly, jerked away his seat belt and pushed past the the staring crew towards his bunk room door. After all they’d been through, this is what they got!?

“Uncle John,” began Hanna.

“I don’t want to hear it!” shouted Uncle John. “Hanna, you go to your room also!”

“I WILL NOT!” shouted Hanna right back at him. Neal turned around at his bunk room door.

Hanna unfasted her seat belt and stood up on her seat to face Uncle John. They floated, staring at each other a moment, breathing hard.

“You are a wise and patient Captain,” Hanna said, trembling at the effort to speak calmly. “We all appreciate your leadership. And your sacrifices. So I trust you will listen to the full story of what really happened to us.”

Uncle John shifted slightly and considered her.

“We are sorry for going into a bar,” Hanna said. “But the only reason we went into the bar was because Neal saw Mirk go in and we wanted to….we wanted to see what he was up to. Maybe we shouldn’t have.”

“You three followed Mirk in?” asked Uncle John, looking to Neal, and to Grummel.

They nodded.

Uncle John shoved off the sofa towards a bunkroom door and pulled it open. “Mirk, come out here now,” he said.

A moment later a tousled and sullen Mirk pulled himself out the door and closed it behind him.

“These three say they followed you into a bar,” said Uncle John to Mirk. “Is that true?”

Mirk squirmed slightly and looked angry and uncomfortable.

“They were following me, bothering me,” said Mirk lamely.

“What were you doing in the bar?” Uncle John asked. When Mirk didn’t answer, he turned to Neal. “Neal?”

“We followed Mirk in and just sat at a table,” said Neal. “Two guys came in and sat down with him. I think they gave him money.”

“Money?” said Uncle John, raising a bushy eyebrow.

“Thirteen thousand credits,” said Neal.

Mirk shot him in a venemous glance.

Three thousand credits,” said Mirk. “I saw an advertisement to buy a Book. I sold them my Book.” He shifted his eyes and looked down.

“You sold your book!?” asked Dr. Brut. “Why did you sell your book?”

“I figured I could buy a cheaper one later and keep the change,” he said.

“And what will you use to read your textbooks until then?” demanded Dr. Brut.

“There’s an old extra Book in the library,” said Mirk.

“Just a minute,” said Uncle John. “Hanna, Grummel, did you hear thirteen thousand?”

Grummel shook his head. Hanna said, “We tuned into their radio frequency after Neal did.”

“Those men said thirteen thousand,” said Neal.

Uncle John was silent a minute.

“These men chased you?” he asked.

“Yea,” Grummel said. “I sneezed over the rad’o, ‘en those two men got all suspicious like and ‘gan walkin’ the place lookin’ fer us. So we three took off and made it outside.”

“And?” Uncle John prompted.

“And two policer’s stopped us,” said Grummel.

Uncle John covered his eyes. “Go on,” he said.

“They asked us whet we were about. Jes’ then the two men came a running out o’ another door. One o’ them had a knife.”

“A knife!” said Mrs. Silver.

“Yea,” said Grummel. “The policer’s made ’em put it down. But then the lady policer gave us a word quiet-like thet’ we should make a run for it.”

“Yes,” added Hanna. “She said those two men had a connection in the police department or something and they had to turn us over to them.”

“We ran for it,” Neal said, “But Hanna didn’t make the catchwire.”

“Neal came back for me,” said Hanna. “The two meshuganuh’s had me cornered! The one with the knife said some very bad things to me.” Her eyes flashed.

“What things?” Uncle John asked.

Hanna remained silent, her face red. “Neal came flying back and knocked them both over,” she said after a moment.

A look of pride flashed across Uncle John’s face, and Neal felt his anger cooling some.

“One of them fired a stunner at us, but we jumped down some alleys to get away from them,” Neal said. “A man in the alley came out of a manhole and let us hide there.”

“You followed a stranger down a manhole in an alley?” asked Uncle John, incredulous.

“The guy behind us had a knife,” said Neal.

“The guy in the manhole took us to….” began Hanna.

“A safe place in the tunnel,” cut in Neal, with an eye on Mirk. “Later he took us back to the transit tunnel up to the station. He was a homeless guy but very helpful.”

Uncle John breathed deeply and turned to push himself down in the sofa and strap himself in.

“It sounds like you three have an endless capacity to get into trouble,” he said, sighing, bewildered. “I am glad you are back safely.” He looked at Hanna, then Neal. “I am sorry I snapped at you before listening to you,” he said a little gruffly.

“Okay,” said Neal. “It’s all right,” said Hanna.

Everyone there seemed to heave a deep breath. Some of the miners took off their helmets and sat down, others went to their bunks in the side rooms. The two pilots looked at Uncle John. He wearily waved his hand.

“Let’s prepare for liftoff,” he said. “We need to get underway since the journey will be longer.” He looked at Neal, Hanna and Grummel. “The security police here recommended we go a longer three-day route on more major trafficked paths back to Eros.”

Neal wanted to ask more and say more, but he felt the tiredness soaking into his bones. All he could think of now was sliding off his suit, climbing into his bunk, and rolling over into a deep sleep. Which is what he did.

[more about Mirk?]

 

CHAPTER 23: Grummel Has to Dance

[their first day?]

Groggily Neal woke up. It was the morning of their second day of travel back to Eros. He swung his feet out of his bunk and push-floated himself down to the floor. Uncle John was sleeping in his bunk, his arm thrown over his face which had a scraggly shadow on it. Neal felt the slight fuzz on his upper lip, then padded out into the main room in his socks.

Technically, the under-armor jumpsuit everyone wore wasn’t considered indecent like underwear. But it wasn’t exactly day wear either. To be seen out and about in one’s undersuit was like being seen in pajamas. On the ship, however, the crew felt more relaxed, especially on the trip back from an ore delivery. And especially when it was going to be a three day scenic-route.

The miners and in fact everyone had taken to lounging about in their undersuits, sleeping late, and watching old films on the monitors up front. The pilots on duty however, had to be on sharp alert to make sure they didn’t fly too close to other freighters on the busy star paths. They often passed ships every five or ten minutes, some small private craft going to Ceres for supplies, others freighters carrying a constant stream of ore to Ceres’ Station. Uncle John sometimes asked Neal to sit co-pilot now, and Neal was thrilled to be able to put some of his years of sim practice finally into use. He and the other pilots kept a sharp eye out for any suspicious ships that might be pirates. But the most exciting thing they met was a Starcruiser, a giant mile-long naval starship that flew past them on their port side. Neal focused a camera on it and interrupted a classic film called Star Wars to show the lounge folks a view of the fearsome vessel. It made the S.S. Samson look like a goldfish next to a whale as it coasted by, headed for Ceres.

Neal had been sitting watch with Uncle John that first day when they saw it. He made sure the bridge door was shut and the intercom off.

“Uncle John,” he said, as he watched the giant cruiser grow smaller on the video cam. “The homeless people who protected us said that…”

“Yes?” said Uncle John, peering down at a green-lit radar screen.

“They said in the past few years three asteroids have been completely wiped out by these kiff’eem pirates.”

Uncle John raised his head and looked at Neal for a moment, then back down again.

“Yes?” he said.

“They thought the guys Mirk was dealing with were janjas. One of the homeless ladies in the tunnels said the man with the knife had been her husband. She left him when he was going to marry a second wife.”

Uncle John’s eyebrow lifted.

“So she knows he’s a janja,” continued Neal. “She said janjas came to her asteroid when she was eleven and killed everyone. Except her. They made her marry that guy when she was only eleven.”

Uncle John’s face furrowed and grimaced.

“Anyway,” said Neal, “She thought maybe if Mirk was dealing with them our ship or even our asteroid might be in danger from janjas.”

Uncle John rubbed his face. “Or, Mirk could have just have chosen the wrong people to trade with,” he said.

“They counted thirteen thousand,” said Neal.

Uncle John looked into Neal’s eyes. “I believe you,” he said after a moment. “But that doesn’t tell us that janjas are going to come attack our asteroid. He could have been stealing some gold and selling to to them, or who knows what. We’ll have to keep an eye on him. But for now, we just have to be cautious.”

“What if janjas come to Eros?” demanded Neal.

“We’ll watch the long-range radars,” said Uncle John thoughtfully. “And there’s a space security outpost only three hours from us. If we see anything suspicious we’ll radio them immediately.”

[elaborate on piece missing? what sort of piece is missing?]

Neal had thought more about it, turning the whole thing over in his mind. There was some missing piece here. Something didn’t add up. He had slept on it, but now late in the morning of the second day, he was no closer to figuring it out. He hopped out into the main room in his sock feet, quietly closing the door behind him, and did a graceful somersault through the air and over Grummel, who was reading comics on his Book. Neal snatched Grummel’s book and tossed it towards Hanna, who was heating something at the kitchenette. She caught it. Grummel jumped out of his seat and flew towards her like a giant cow of revenge. Hanna pitched it towards one of the miners, who caught it grinning and sliced it floating end over end back to Neal, who began reading aloud.

“And then Spiderman says, “Hope you enjoy the special web I made for you, Hammerhead!” []

“Gimme that!” bellowed Grummel, pushing off the wall towards Neal like an angry bull. Neal held the book out like a red cape and whisked it out of Grummel’s reach as he went whizzing by.

Mrs. Silver was just stepping out of the bathroom door on the left side as Grummel barrelled into her, knocking them both back into the bathroom.

The crew lounging around the main room craned their necks but all they could see was one of Grummel’s giant legs sticking out of the door. Unshaven miner’s faces leaned back in loud peals of laughter and Neal and Hanna joined in. A minute later with a red face and many heartfelt apologies Grummel helped Mrs. Silver back into the main room.

“Well!” she said. “That was exciting.” She turned twinkling eyes at Neal and Hanna.

“I think we are getting a little restless,” she said. “How about each of you three write a poem? We can let the crew judge their favorite and the two losers have to do a dance for the crew.”

“Yes!” shouted the three or four crew from their corner. One of the pilots poked his head out the bridge door. “Sounds good to me,” he said.

“A poem!” Neal protested,

“You have thirty minutes,” said Mrs. Silver. “Why not write about something you love? But better get on it!”

Hanna ran to grab her Book, and Grummel retrieved his and sat down with a furrowed brow. Neal reluctantly went to get his Book.

Thirty minutes later, Mrs. Silver said, “All right! Who’s first?”

Grummel pushed himself up.

The miners looked up from their Books and applauded.

Grummel looked a bit awkward but stared hard at his Book and read the poem he’d written.

“Ah’ called et, ‘Baby Dragon’,” he said. He cleared his throat nervously.

“Chomp, chomp, Lil’ Cree-a-ture

Chomp your yummy protein paste

I really hopes ye’ likes the taste

‘Cause it’ll mak’ ye more mature

On’ day ye’ll be so big en’ scary!

Ye’ll have claws so nice and long–

En’ legs so powe’ful ‘en strong

So’s I can ride ye’ like a flea!”

“Whhoooo!” said the miners, clapping, and Neal and Hanna joined in. Grummel smiled and looked proud.

“Very good,” said Mrs. Silver. “You wrote about something you know well and love. Hanna?”

Hanna stepped up, pushing her thick curly hair back into a ponytail then looked at her Book and read.

“Solar Fire.

Oh Adonai, how long will the wicked go on living?

You lit Moses’ burning bush with holy fire

You’ve given us the sun which burned

Since the time of Moses until our time today

The wicked wander about like rocks and dust

In the emptiness of space

But I turn my ship and give to you my trust

Even though we do not see your Face.”

 

 

Neal

Flying

 

Stars

Rust on the ramming rods

Dust on the rocks

The asteroids are all God’s

Wandering in flocks.

Light on the glowing stars

In bright galaxies

They all are God’s stars

His own fantasy.

 

The clapping subsided and Neal smiled at everyone.

“All right,” said Mrs. Silver, “Let’s vote and see who wins the poetry contest. Who votes for Grummel’s poem?” Three hands went up, one of them a proud-looking MacHardy. “And who votes for Hanna’s?” One hand went up, and Mrs. Silver raised her hand, too. “And who votes for Neal’s?” she asked. The remaining two miners raised their hands. “Looks like it’s Grummel!” she said. Just then the door to the bridge swung open and the pilot shouted out, “Both of us vote for Neal’s poem!”

“My!” said Mrs. Silver. “Hey, no fair,” protested Hanna. “They just voted for it because they’re pilots too!”

“Fair is fair,” said Mrs. Silver. “Hanna and Grummel, let’s see you dance!”

MacHardy reached over and switched on some disco dance music.

“Dance!” he bawled in delight.

Hanna and Grummel made their way grumpily to the front of the room as the music thumped. Hanna raised her arms and began swinging them right and left, raising them up to clap in a Jewish dance. Grummel was awkwardly bobbing and swaying his large form as everyone hooted and laughed. When the song ended Hanna stuck out her tongue at Neal and Grummel glared at his father, who was chortling with delight at the scene.

“Whet was thet’ I saw you writing, dad?” he asked. A look of horror appeared on MacHardy’s face. “Was you writin’ e’ poem?” Grummel asked craftily.

“Er, mebbe I was jus’ writing down some things what needed to be remembered,” said MacHardy, looking around bashfully.

“A grocery list?” asked one of the miners. Andrews poked his head out of the bridge room. “Well, MacHardy,” he said. “If it need to be remembered, you can read it to us and we’ll help you remember it!”

MacHardy flexed and squirmed his large muscled body and turned red.

“Oh hoooo!” shouted the group as a whole. “We’ve hit a nerve,” said Andrews.

“Read it! Read it!” they began to chant.

Reluctantly MacHardy pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket and tried not to look at anyone. He rubbed his hand nervously over his thick red beard.

“Ahem, er. It’s jus’ e’ little poem,” he said.

“Read it!” they chorused.

“Eh, er. Wahl,” he said. “Et’s called, ‘Sometin’ Beeyootiful.'”

He blushed and began reading.

“There es’ sometin’ more beauteeful than stars out ‘en space

Werth’ more than te’ gold that’s been secret fer’ years

There’s sometin’ more lively than drills spinning w’ grace

And speeds my heart faster then’ my wors’ pirate fears

That beauteeful treasure will charm’ me forever

It’s no one else than the lovely…. er…no one else than… a flowing river,” he finished lamely.

“Or maybe ‘no one else than Hannah Silver’?” put in Andrews from the bridge.

MacHardy blushed horribly and coughed to everyone’s great amusment.

“Oh, leave him be!” said Hanna, a little fiercely. Mrs. Silver had a slight blush in her cheeks and a good-natured smile creeping across her wrinkled face.

MacHardy blustered another moment and then stumped to the bathroom where he squeezed inside and slammed the door.

* * *

That night Neal was tossing and turning on his bed. At last he gave up and crawled quietly out into the main room. The lights were dimmed there and the room empty. Neal saw that the bathroom was occupied. He sat in a corner and waited for his turn. As he sat down, he felt something shoved under the cushion. Neal stood and pulled the cushion up. It was a Book. Frowning, Neal pulled the Book out and opened it. It was Mirk’s Book. Neal looked at the front writing page. It looked like a journal was written there. Well, Neal thought, since this book isn’t supposed to exist I guess I can read it. He stared closer.

“One day I will be acepted and respected by everyone around me. One day my dad will stand up. He will say to me, ‘Mirk, you are a smart boy. Even an inteligent boy. I am so proud you are my son.’ And Hanna will like me very much. She will say what a great man i am. she will want to be my girlfriend. and Neal will pay attention to me. he will repect me and listen to what i——-”

[mirk must be smarter than this. sounds like grummel]

“Hey!” said Mirk fiercely, behind Neal. He reached over and grabbed the book out of Neal’s hand.

Neal stood silent.

“So, you didn’t sell the book,” said Neal after a minute. Mirk looked angry and worried. “Mirk, just tell everyone. Tell them what you were really doing.” Mirk stared at Neal. “Just tell them and they will respect you,” said Neal.

“No one respects me,” said Mirk. He lunged across the room to the kitchenette. Opening the trash incinerator he threw the book in and shut the door, pressing the button. Neal stared silently at Mirk and at the trash incinerator which blinked “Burn Complete.” Mirk glared at Neal. “Never poke your nose in my stuff again!” he said. Mirk went inside his bunkroom door and slammed it behind him. Neal sat down on a sofa. Dear God, he said. Dear God, are you there? What should I have done?

 

 

CHAPTER 24: Back to Work

The day after they arrived back on the asteroid, Neal was in the dragon stables. Grummel was in one of the stalls, wearing large bite-proof gloves past his elbows as he wrestled to strap a large monitor lizard into its suit.

“C’mon, Snowflake,” said Grummel entreatingly. “Jes’ step in this little suit. It’ll keep ye’ so warm and cozy whilst ye’ runs aboot on the ast’riod.” Apparently, thought Neal, Snowflake does not want to be warm and cozy. At least not to judge by the way he’s biting Grummel’s arm. ‘Course, he thought, I would probably bite someone’s arm if my name was Snowflake.

Grummel had already helped Neal saddle up Izzy and seal her helmet over head. Neal always felt much safer once she had her helmet on. Not that he got on badly with Izzy, but occasionally she got into a mood and would try to snap at him.

Grummel and Neal had finished their math homework just after lunch and were now going to join a work crew out at Post 3. MacHardy was confident he’d found a lode of iron and wanted extra workers to help drill the tunnel.

Neal led Izzy out, adjusting her gravity to two pounds and double checking to make sure his magboots were off. Grummel at last came to some sort of agreement with Snowflake and led her out as well.

“Ssssssss,” hissed Neal to Izzy, and she started clambering along the floor and out of the stable along several tunnels, and up to the main exit airlock. Outside the base, Neal took a deep breath in his helmet and looked up at the stars, at Mars low on the horizon like a large pea, and at Jupiter looming high in the sky above him. The stars spattered across the whole black canvas of sky above the valley, shining like bright old friends. The stars always comforted Neal. They reminded him how small he was in the vast dance of God’s cosmos. And light itself seemed to be a positive, especially in the darkness of space.

Neal and Grummel made good time around the asteroid to Post 3, arriving in less than an hour at the mine entrance and clambering down the shaft into the main control cavern at the bottom. There under floodlights, a team was preparing a large drilling robot to dig a new tunnel. MacHardy stood by a large display monitor, checking the projected path for the robot drill.

Mrs. Silver was looking at the drillbot. Neal clipped his komodo to an iron bar in the wall and bounced slowly over to her.

“What is this?” asked Mrs. Silver, rubbing her hand down the left casing of the strange machine. It was mounted on spiky tank tracks and had several spidery metal arms poking out in front of it, frozen in place. Each held little drills. In the middle of the whole assembly was a huge drill facing forward at the wall.

“It’s a drilling robot,” said Neal over the radio. “It digs the tunnels for us down anyway we need it to.”

“Gonna start!” called MacHardy. “Stend back then!”

Neal pulled Mrs. Silver back from the burrowing machine towards a wall of the cavern. The drillbot jerked and then began to trundle forward to a section of the cave’s wall. The large drill on its front began to spin until it was motionless blur. It touched the wall and seemed to slide into the rock like butter, dirt and gravel spilling out behind the machine into a pile. Tilting down, it slowly worked its way at in incline down into the wall, its arms waving smaller drills and touching points around the hole with delicate precision. After only a few minutes the machine had worked its way out of sight.

“That is an amazing machine,” said Mrs. Silver. At the controls MacHardy seemed to straighten a little, but kept his eyes on the display monitor.

“After it digs a pretty long tunnel,” said Neal, “we will go in and examine the walls for gold, iron, and other metals. We dig some of it out by hand, and some of it we use the drillbot to dig for a little more. Later we get our collection bot to pack it into crates for smelting and processing.”

[where does all the dirt go?]

Mrs. Silver leaned forward and looked down the tunnel in fascination.

“All right,” said MacHardy. “Here she comes again, watch out!” The drillbot slowly backed out of the tunnel and back into the room. “Neal, could you go check the composition?” MacHardy said. Neal nodded and ducked down, darting into the tunnel. He turned on his flashlight. The walls were ragged and jagged from the drill, but the hole overall was round and even. At the end of the tunnel Neal checked his compad. The wall composition was better than they had expected–rich deposits of gold clumped around streaks of iron. Early scientists had once estimated that Eros had more gold and other metals packed in its small body than in all of earth’s crust. And they had not been far wrong.

“NEAL!” MacHardy crackled over the radio. “Neal, thet drilling machine has jest started on it’s own! I’m tryin’ me best to shut ‘er down but there ‘s some malf-unction! Take care down ‘er!”

Neal felt a sudden clench on his stomach and shone his flashlight behind him. In the glare of the flashilight he saw the machine crawling towards him through the tunnel. The drills were not on, but it moved relentlessly at a steady grind towards him. Neal looked around wildly in the tunnel. There was no other side passage yet dug in the rock. He turned and stared in shock at the machine as it pressed forward. “I’m tryin’ Neal, I’m a’ tryin!” came MacHardy’s frantic and sobbing voice. “Oh, God!” groaned Hanna over the radio and lapsed into Yiddish prayer. The drill bot’s huge bit almost filled the tunnel as it trundled downwards to Neal and up to him. Neal attempted to squeeze himself to the side of it but as it rumbled by it caught him and pressed him to rock wall, dragging him along. Neal felt his legs twisting, his ribs snapping as a crushing force flashed white into his vision.

* * *

Neal came awake not knowing where he was. He was lying on rock and dust, alone. A flashlight shone a lone beam against a rock wall above him. Cracks laced the front of his helmet and a steady hiss told him his air was escaping. He tried to lift himself to his feet but found he couldn’t move anything except his neck. He turned his neck slowly to the left and looked up a sloping tunnel. Suddenly he saw another flashlight bobbing towards him and figures behind it. I wonder who they are, thought Neal. I wonder what’s happening. A sudden feeling of panic surged through him and then died down. Seconds later Hanna’s face appeared above him in the flashlight reflection, tears coursing down her cheeks behind her helmet.

“Oh meshugenah, meshugenah!” she cried. “You silly klopper, you stupid…oh Adonai!”

MacHardy pushed his way past her in the cramped tunnel.

“Neal,” he said in a shaky voice. “Neal, can you hear me?”

Neal nodded his head slowly.

MacHardy shone his light across Neal’s body and swore a blue streak. “Post 3 callin’ Providence!” he radioed, “Code 1!”

“Post 3 this is Providence, please report.”

“Providence, Neal’s hurt awful in a drill accident. Send e’ medivac ship at once.”

“Post 3, notifying medivac now.” There was a pause. “Medivac underway. ETA 10 minutes. Please describe Neal’s condition.”

“Oh criminy!” moaned MacHardy. He shone his light up and down Neal’s body. Neal felt a little distant from it all. He couldn’t feel anything. I wonder what I look like, he thought absently.

“His suit resisted ‘eny tearing,” MacHardy reported, “But ‘is ‘elmets leaking air slowly. Oh dear goodness, et’ appears e’s been serious crushed upon these rocks. ‘Pears his legs are all broken and his ribs crush’ed, major inter’nal dam’ge ‘en bleedin’ sure likely. I don’ think e’s gonna make it ten minutes, Providence. Oh dear Father, I don’t think e’s gonna make it.”

MacHardy started to break down, sobbing and touching Neal’s helmet. Neal felt an odd floating and lifting sensation as MacHardy began to speak from a greater distance.

“MacHardy,” said the gentle voice of Mrs. Silver over Neal’s radio. “MacHardy, let me look at him.”

MacHardy blubbered and shoved himself backward in the cramped tunnel. A moment later Mrs. Silver’s face appeared in the flashlight glare above Neal. She looked down at him, deep sadness etched in her cheerful face. Neal felt a great comfort at seeing her though he couldn’t say why. She laid her hands on Neal and he felt where she laid her hands, with a warmth burning him through his suit. “Dear Father,” she prayed calmly, with assurance. “You know the plans you have for Neal. In Jesus name I ask for his complete healing.” She began to mutter strange melodic syllables, closing her eyes as a tear slipped down her face. A calmness settled onto her face and Neal felt a warmth suffusing through her hands into body, traveling down his legs, and spreading through his chest. Tears came to his eyes though he couldn’t say why. He slipped into a half-doze as the warmth continued to heat and dance through his bones.

* * *

“Please evacuate ze’ tunnel to let us through,” a voice said over the radio. Neal opened his eyes to see the faces of Mrs. Silver, Hanna, and MacHardy pull back and turn away. A minute later the concerned face of Anna, Dirk’s girlfriend, appeared over him.

[who’s anna and dirk]

“Come on down, Andrews,” she said. “I vill’ need help getting him out.” She let go of a medical bag which floated slowly down and leaned over him with a compad ultra-sound. Slowly she waved the compad from his head down to his feet.

“MacHardy,” she said. “You said there vas’ massive crushing of the legs and ribs?”

“Yea!” said MacHardy’s hoarsely. “E’ looked like a rag doll whut were smashed en’ a lock’ door.”

Anna scanned the device across Neal again. “Neal,” she said. “Con’ you moof’ your arm for me?”

Neal tried it and found he could. He lifted it into the air and moved it around stiffly.

“Und’ your legs. Con’ you moof’ your legs?”

Neal felt a painful tingling in his legs, as though they were waking up after falling asleep. He breathed slowly and moved first his right leg, then his left.

“Can you try to sit up?” she said, uncertainly.

Neal took a deep breath in his hissing helmet and expanded his chest with air. It felt comfortable, normal. He slowly pushed himself up with his left elbow into a sitting position and leaned against the wall.

“Can you stand up?” she said, almost breathless.

Neal kicked his tingling legs a few times and slowly shifted himself to a crouch, then stood up slowly under the low tunnel roof. He was breathing a little heavily, but otherwise he felt fine.

“Can you valk out of ze’ tunnel?” asked Anna. She held his right arm as he walked slowly up the tunnel. Ahead he saw the bright circle of light of the tunnel entrance. He walked slowly out of it, squinting in the brightly floodlit cavern. Hanna, Mrs. Silver, MacHardy and a few others were standing there, staring at him with wide eyes. MacHardy walked slowly forward to Neal. He reached out gingerly and touched Neal’s chest, then knelt down and felt his legs. Tears sprang into his rugged face and he gave Neal a hug which nearly did him in.

“Oh God, I’ll never doubt ye’ again,” he breathed. Hanna stared wide-eyed at him and said nothing. Mrs. Silver glowed and raised her hands upwards.

 

 

 

CHAPTER 25: The Lull Before the Storm

Weeks passed. News of Neal’s brush with death had immediately circulated through the whole community. Everyone had their own take on it.

“Perhaps MacHardy exaggerated how bad it was,” Uncle John was heard admitting. “Whatever happened I thank the Lord that Neal is all right.”

Dr. Brut admitted, “There are things we cannot yet explain in this universe. But that’s no reason to go around saying there’s a God. It’s invalid to claim a connection.”

The miners for their part passed around rumors for a while that Mrs. Silver might be an ainjell. It took a while for that to die down, until finally stomped out one morning when the coffee machine broke and Mrs. Silver complained of a headache and snapped at three different people.

For her part Mrs. Silver treated the whole thing rather matter-of-factly. “It’s not the first time God has healed a broken body,” she said. “And it won’t be the last. He’s a God of resurrection. Praise the Lord!”

Hanna had nothing to say. She seemed almost in shock whenever the issue was brought up. And thoughtful.

And MacHardy…. He would simply turn red-eyed and blubber like a baby whenever someone mentioned the incident. “Thenk God,” was all he could get out.

He largely blamed himself for the incident, though after taking the whole drillbot apart and putting it back together it was found that a circuit board had short-circuited. The miners jotted it down as a new safety regulation: don’t enter a tunnel if the drill-bot is still turned on. Some things seem obvious looking back.

A sense of destiny did begin to rise into Neal’s heart. Perhaps, he thought, perhaps God does love me. Perhaps He does care about me in some way. Even perhaps, I have some important role to play with my life. Neal didn’t say much about what happened, but when asked he did try to give as honest a description of the event as he could.

“I felt myself crushed against the rock wall by the drillbot,” he would say. “I believe I felt ribs breaking and pain in my legs. Then I passed out, and when I woke up I couldn’t move anything. Mrs. Silver prayed for me and laid her hands on me. Then I felt a warmth going through me and I fell asleep. Later I was able to get up and walk again and felt normal, no pain.”

The days passed into weeks, and the weeks passed into a month. There were no seasons on Eros, no visible signs of the passing of time aside from its five hours of sunlight and five hours of darkness. But Uncle John was one for traditions. They celebrated Thanksgiving by eating far too much food, especially too much of Mr. Lin’s Kung-Pao Chicken.

[are they americans?]

Every December 5 was Dragon Racing day, in which everyone who wanted to would race to Post 4 on the other side of Eros and back again. The winner was allowed exemption from cleaning the Komodo stalls for the next year and had their turn to possess the golden statue of a Komodo Dragon. Twelve people went in for it, though as expected Hanna won it for the second year in a row. Surprisingly Andrews came in a close second. Neal came in third. Uncle John had raced and come in eighth, but he was a good sport about it and said he just did it to feel young again anyway.

Now it was December 10 on the earth calendar, and Christmas was approaching. On this evening everyone gathered in the Dining and Recreation level of the living cylinder to decorate for Christmas. Long strings of colored LED lights were strung, fifty or so Christmas stockings were fastened all along one wall, and old Christmas songs were played on the intercom system.

This year marked a new decoration, as well. Uncle John had at last allowed a synthetic fir tree to be put up by one wall of the sitting area and decorated.

For years he had not allowed a Christmas tree to be part of the celebration. “It’s a leftover from the pagan Germanic holidays when they worshiped trees,” he would say. Now after years of begging from the children, he at last relented.

This year everyone was allowed to put one ornament on the tree. So now it sagged under many strange items. Grummel had hung a komodo’s claw from his first pet dragon, Fluffy, who had passed away two years ago. Neal hung a picture of his mom and dad. Mrs. Silver hung a beautiful red bow. Uncle John hung a cross, perhaps to cross out any evil the tree brought, or at least remind them of the true meaning of Christmas. Granddaddy Gazer even allowed Hanna to hang something on the goyim tree: [ ].

Granddaddy Gazer had also humbly requested Uncle John if he could put up a Jewish Mennorah candle to celebrate Hannukhah in the common dining room. Uncle John had considered it and said yes (mentioning to Neal privately that since it was ordained by God in the Old Testament it was an acceptable religious symbol.) Dr. Brut had once griped slightly about the creche along one wall with Joseph, Mary, the shepherds, and the baby Jesus, but since Uncle John was the owner of the Providence mining operation, it remained. Not, however, that Uncle John had wanted it himself: he felt that depictions of Jesus in any form bordered on idolatry and personally didn’t care for the display. But it was a hand-carved creche MacHardy had made himself, and Uncle John decided to bend his convictions for the sake of others. Though he averted his own eyes from it.

Later in the evening, after everyone had drunk some eggnog and sang a few songs together, Neal and Hanna and Grummel sat on some couches in the sitting area of the room, admiring the lights. The normal overhead lights were dimmed, and the colored LED lights shone out like festive stars in strands. The three of them sat, soaking in the lazy warmth of the moment.

“What are you going to get me this year?” Neal asked Hanna.

“A few rocks and some ashes,” she shot back.

“Grummel, what are you getting me?” she asked him.

“Can’t say,” said Grummel. Neal and Hanna every year enjoyed trying to squeeze hints out of Grummel, who could sometimes be tricked into giving himself away. So far this year he had held firm.

“Is it something alive?” asked Hanna.

“Nope,” said Grummel.

“It’s made from metal, isn’t it?” said Neal slyly.

“It’s….” Grummel paused and crossed his meaty arms. “Can’t say.”

Neal grinned.

“Hey,” whispered Hanna suddenly, “Is that Mrs. Silver?”

Neal and Grummel turned to look. In another corner of the dim room sat Mrs. Silver under a strand of colored lights. It looked like her head was in her hands, and she was shaking. Is she laughing, wondered Neal. But after a few seconds he doubted it.

The three of them stood and walked quietly in the cylinder’s half-gravity over to her. Neal and Grummel stood awkwardly by as Hanna sat next to Mrs. Silver on the sofa. Mrs. Silver looked up in the dark room, the colored lights reflecting off tears in her eyes. Neal had never seen Mrs. Silver like this.

“What’s wrong?” asked Hanna.

Mrs. Silver sniffed and wiped her eyes.

“I….Christmas is a hard time for me,” she said. “My husband left me for another woman years ago. And my son and daughter really don’t keep in touch with me anymore. They are busy with their own lives.” She sniffed and wiped her nose.

They sat silent for a minute.

“Ye’ have us, Miz Silver,” put in Grummel.

“Yes,” she said. “You’re right, I am so very blessed to have you three.”

She stood up and they gathered around to give her a hug.

“Would you mind sitting with me awhile?” she asked.

“No,” they said.

“I’ll bring some hot chocolate,” said Hanna.

* * *

That night Neal couldn’t get to sleep for hours. At last he found himself floating and pushing himself along tunnels in the upper levels of the base. He came to the surface hatch and stepped out of the airlock onto the surface of Eros.

Then he caught his breath. The stars above him seemed winking out one by one, and the sky darkening. Neal squinted to see what was causing it. It looked like little birds, or rocks maybe, drifting silently towards him. He stood up and stared. The shadows drifted nearer to the asteroid surface, blocking most of the stars above him, and his heart jumped in his throat. They were people. Still, silent forms, with white unhelmeted faces and drifting fingers were floating in a soundless flock towards the asteroid.

Suddenly behind him he heard a sound. He whipped around and saw walking out from behind a rock a strange figure with a plastic face and black circular eyes, covered by a hood. It moaned at him and reached out towards him. Suddenly he felt something brushing his back and looked behind him to find another just behind him. Struggling away from the hands, Neal pushed strongly off the surface of the asteroid and out into space. He floated rapdily towards the still bodies. One of them floated by him, its white hands dangling motionless as it turned slow circles by him.

It was an old woman, her white face frozen in shock and fear, her hair spreading out from her face in gray waves. Another floated by on his left, a young boy curled in a ball of fear, but white and still. Thump! He felt himself slam into one, and hurried to push it around and behind him toward his pursuers. One of the fingers caught in his suit pocket and Neal plucked it away as quickly as he could, then caught sight of the face. It was Grummel’s face, but bloated and white as though left in a freezer.

Neal felt a silent scream rise to his lips. He looked behind Grummel’s drifting form to the ghostly cloaked figures without eyes, moving through the forest of bodies towards him. He flailed in place, kicking and crying out, feeling the bodies around him gently bump against him.

“Neal!” Uncle John’s voice broke through his mind. Neal was drenched in sweat, kicking at his sheets and trembling. Uncle John was standing over his bed, pushing Neal gently on his arm. He sat down by Neal.

“It’s been many years since you had a dream that bad,” he said, as calmly as he could.

Neal sat up, hugging his thin hairy legs and trembling in the dark living room. He looked at the clock: 04:23 AM, DEC 11.

He took a deep breath and sob and was too shaken to even feel embarrassed as Uncle John awkwardly patted his back.

He looked up at the clear space above him. The stars were there as always, winking down at him in the Eros’ night rotation. He sat down on a rock in the shadowed valley and stared at them dully.

“You all right?” Uncle John asked.

“I think I’d like to go see Mrs. Silver,” said Neal. Uncle John looked slightly hurt, and lifted an eyebrow.

“At this time of the morning?” he asked.

“She’ll understand,” said Neal.

Uncle John stood up and watched as Neal grabbed a suit out of the closet and pulled it on. He climbed the ladder up to the hatch of their room and went out, shutting it behind him.

Floating eighty feet down the cylinder to her hatch, Neal paused a moment and hesitated. Was it too crazy to wake her up? He almost knocked, then paused and pushed away. He wouldn’t bother her. No, wait a second. She really wouldn’t mind, he was sure of that. Pushing back to the door he knocked on it before he could change his mind. The door intercom lit up.

[go ahead and avoid her, then later change mind]

“Yes?” croaked out Mrs. Silver’s groggy voice.

Neal grimaced. “Er, hi, Mrs. Silver, it’s me, Neal.”

“Neal?” she said sleepily. “Come on in, Neal.”

The hatch unlocked and Neal opened it and climbed down the ladder into her room. She was still staying in guest quarters, but she’d put up colorful paintings on her walls and draped other decorations everywhere. She was sitting up in her bed with the bedlamp on, rubbing her wrinkled eyes.

“What’s happening, Neal?” she asked, yawning.

Neal sat down in a chair by her head. “I just had a nightmare,” he said hugging his arms to himself.

She looked thoughtful. “I was just having some bad dreams myself,” she said. “I dreamed my son and daughter had become very bad people.” She shivered. “Why don’t you tell me about your dream?” She pulled her knees up and leaned her head on them looking at him with her bright green eyes.

“Well,” he said. “I went out the main hatch onto the surface. Then I saw the stars were being blocked out by…by dead bodies. Just then two people with empty circles for eyes came chasing me so I jumped up and into the bodies. One of them was Grummel.”

He stared at her a moment.

“That was the dream?” she said.

“Yes,” he said. “Do you think it’s going to happen?”

She pondered a moment. “Neal,” she said, “God does sometimes send us dreams. But usually they are to warn us to stop doing something wrong or to avoid some danger.” She considered.

“It’s possible this is a warning dream, but I think it may be from the evil one. Perhaps something frightening or troublesome is about to happen. But tell me, did this dream make you more ready to face a danger or less ready?”

“I feel more frightened,” said Neal slowly.

“God doesn’t give us a spirit of fear,” she said gently. “He gives us power, love, and light. I think this may be a dream from some evil spirits, some deem who wants to frighten and discourage you.”

Neal wasn’t much for believing in evil spirits, at least in daily life, but at the moment it made sense.

“But every trouble is a chance for us to crawl up closer to God,” she said. “No matter if some evil thing sent this dream, we can let it drive us to God. That’s the best way to frustrate deems,” she smiled.

“Do you think Grummel is going to die?” asked Neal.

“Yes, I do,” said Mrs. Silver. “Just like the rest of us. We all must die one day and go to be with God. I don’t think this dream necessarily means he’s about to die now though. It’s just using someone you care about to frighten you.”

Neal felt a great relief settling onto him, like a warm light brightening in his heart.

“Neal,” said Mrs. Silver. “I do believe you will be tested very soon. But don’t be afraid. Be strong and very courageous because God is with you.” She laid a hand on his shoulder. “The same God who saved your life and healed you is always with you,” she said.

“Thank you,” said Neal.

After a short prayer together Neal went back to bed and slept a little more quietly.

 

CHAPTER 26: Like a Thief in the Night

It was three days later when Neal wandered down the living shaft after supper towards his room. “Neal,” said Uncle John, poking his head out of the small control room. “Can you give me a hand?” In such small unknown moments our lives are directed.

Neal ducked into the hatch and down the ladder into the cramped room. Monitors and displays glowed all around him from the desk and walls of the room. Uncle John crawled under one bank of computers in the corner.

“I’m doing my annual inspection of the radar,” said Uncle John’s muffled voice. “Hand me the .05 screwdriver, would you?” Neal found it in a box of tools and put it into Uncle John’s stuck out hand. Metal clanked and Uncle John grunted while Neal waited. “Now the .01 screwdriver,” said Uncle John, sticking his hand out from underneath with the first screwdriver. Neal took it and replaced it with the smaller. He stared idly at a list sheet on the wall as Uncle John clanked away. The list was a schedule of chores and checks to be performed on the base’s systems. “DEC 10 10:00 AM: Air Filtration Service. DEC 14 7:00 PM: Radar Check and Service. DEC 17, 7:00 PM: Gravity Spin Check and Oiling….”

“How are your studies?” asked Uncle John. “All right,” said Neal absently. “Mrs. Silver says I have good potential in literature.” “Hmpf,” said Uncle John. He was an engineer to the core and saw limited use for fiction or the arts in general. “Hand me the electrolyzer, will you?” he asked. Neal fished around in the toolbox and put it in Uncle John’s increasingly greasy hand that poked out from under the assembly.

Neal saw something move above him. He looked up to see Mirk peeking through the hatch, wide-eyed. He looked awful, as though he hadn’t slept for days. His face was drawn tight in a worried stare. He opened his mouth to speak but stopped and just looked at them, conflicted.

“Get lost, Mirk,” said Neal. “You’re not allowed in here.” Mirk’s face hardened slightly. He looked at Neal. A slow anger burned in his eyes, and a sadness. “Soon I will be,” he said, and disappeared.

 

Neal frowned. “What did you say?” asked Uncle John’s muffled voice. “Nothing,” said Neal. What was wrong with Mirk? He stared at the blank radar screens as though searching for answers. A thought rose slowly in his mind.

“Uncle John,” he said. “How long have the radars been turned off?”

“Oh, probably an hour now,” said Uncle John. “It’ll be another thirty minutes before I can bring them back online after the inspection.”

“What if the pirates came while our radar was down?” asked Neal.

“How would they know when our radar was down?” said Uncle Neal. “They wouldn’t.”

Neal paused, putting his words together. “What if Mirk told them?”

Uncle John stopped moving and a silence settled over the room. “How would he know?” asked Uncle John.

“It’s written on the schedule here,” said Neal. “Maybe that’s what he wrote down for them on that piece of paper they gave him thirteen thousand credits for.”

Uncle John wiggled out from under the assembly and lay there, looking up piercingly at Neal. “You’re gonna accuse Mirk of doing that?” he asked.

“He was just here, watching and acting suspicious,” said Neal. “Back on Ceres he wrote something for those men and they paid him thirteen thousand and told him not to double-cross them.” It occured to him. “That means maybe he’s crossing someone else. You have to cross someone before you can double-cross someone else.”

“Now, Neal,” said Uncle John, pondering. “You may be jumping to conclusions. We don’t even know if maybe he did sell his Book to those men and you heard the price wrong.”

“He didn’t sell his Book,” said Neal. “I saw him with it on the trip back. He grabbed it back from me and shoved it in the incinerator so there’d be no evidence.”

Uncle John pulled himself to his feet and put his hands on Neal’s shoulders.

“Neal,” he said. “I believe you are a trustworthy boy. You’re becoming a man. I want you to answer me as soberly and honestly as you can. He really put his Book in the incinerator?”

“Yes,” said Neal.

Uncle John froze for a moment, thinking, then turned and hurriedly hit the radio call button. “MacHardy,” he said. “Is everyone back in the base?” “Should be,” MacHardy’s voice crackled back. “Whet’s up?”

“There’s a possibility of a pirate attack,” said Uncle John quietly to the mic. “Just being cautious but we need to get everyone inside the base and the exterior hatches locked and secured. Pronto.”

“Yes sir,” said MacHardy shortly and clicked off.

Uncle John clambered back under the assembly quickly. “The .05 screwdriver,” he said. Neal handed it to him immediately.

“Attention ever’one,” echoed MacHardy’s voice over the base loudspeaker. “Ever’one please stay en’side te’ base. Andrews, please check and lock on up the main hangar hetch’. Grummel, er’ you in the lizerd’ stables?”

“Yea sir,” came Grummel’s voice after a moment.

“Go on out en’ close en’ lock te’ main exit hetch’ from te’ inside,” said MacHardy. “Ret’ now.”

“Yea sir,” said Grummel hurriedly.

Uncle John clanked and banged under the assembly.
“Neal, press the restart button under the radar display,” he said.

Reaching over, Neal held down the restart button under the monitor. It flashed white, then blinked a few times. INPUT ERROR it said.

“It says, ‘Input Error’,” reported Neal.

“Hand me that electrolyzer again,” said Uncle John.

A few minutes later he said, “Press it again.”

Neal pressed the reset button and this time the screen booted up. A three-dimensional green sphere glowed into brightness on the screen. In the middle Neal saw the elongated shape of Eros.

And nearby swooping towards it were seven or eight small dots. “Is it working?” asked Uncle John.

“It’s working,” said Neal. Uncle John paused when he heard the tone in Neal’s voice, then scrambled to stand up and look at it. A yellow light began flashing in the room and a computer voice said, “Incoming vessels detected. Incoming vessels detected.”

Quickly Uncle John turned to the long-distance radio set and punched in the code for space security.

“Bzzzzzzzzz Ah Bzzzzzzzzzz,” went the radio.

“They’re jamming us,” said Uncle John. “They’re too close for us to radio out.”

He bowed his head for a moment and his lips moved in silent words. Neal felt a little dizzy, almost as he had watching the drillbot charging him.

Uncle John sat down, rubbing his eyes for a moment, thinking. “Providence Base,” he said, punching the intercom button. “This is John Washer. It looks like seven or eight vessels are approaching the asteroid. They will probably land in five to seven minutes. Our radio is jammed. We must assume they’re space pirates, probably Kiff’eem.”

He paused. Neal imagined the looks on the face of everyone in the base.

“Everyone meet me in the lobby above the living cylinder in NO MORE THAN THREE MINUTES. I repeat: proceed immediately to the lobby above the living cylinder. Helmets on!”

 

 

CHAPTER 27: Like a Rat in a Cage

Neal floated up out of the living cylinder into a lobby crowded with miners. Several more miners floated out of the shaft behind him. Some women and children crowded together. He saw Dirk and Anna holding each other. MacHardy stumped in from a side tunnel. He was carrying several stun guns and a few regular bullet-guns. He started to hand them out.

“Hold on!” said Uncle John. “We don’t need those just yet. You hold on to them, MacHardy, and pray to God we don’t need to hand them out.”

MacHardy took back the gun or two he’d handed out and a silence fell over the crowd.

Uncle John waved his hands to everyone and held up his two hands: five, two. Everyone changed their radios to channel fifty-two.

“We’re going to a safe place, God willing,” said Uncle John. “But even on this channel I can’t tell you where at the moment. They may be listening in to our radio. And there may be a traitor in our midst.”

A murmur followed that.

“Where’s Mirk?” said Dr. Brut, looking around.

“We believe he may have given the pirates information about when our radar would be down,” said Uncle John.

“No!” said Dr. Brut, angrily.

Uncle John only looked at him.

“C’mon!” said MacHardy. “We don’t got time to be arguin’. Mirk heard te’ news same as ever’one and he’s makin’ his own choices.”

“This way,” said Uncle John, pushing down the lamp-lit tunnel towards the hangar.

“Everyone’s helmets sealed?” asked Uncle John, looking around. Then he punched a code on the door to the hangar, opening both doors together to save time. Air began rushing out of the hallways and escaping into the hangar as the crowd of fifty or so miners hurried through the double airlock doors. Once on the other side Uncle Neal shut them again with the lock code.

Neal looked to the right wall of the massive hangar cavern. The large exit doors were sealed shut. Any minute those pirates will arrive to cut or blow them open, he thought, as the little crowd of people hurried through the quarter-mile long hangar.

“Uncle John,” Neal said, catching up with him. “We need to send for help.”

“I just need to get everyone to a safe hiding place,” said Uncle John.

“These aren’t regular pirates,” argued Neal. “They’re not just going to steal everything and leave. They want to kill us all and leave an empty asteroid!”

Several people in the group stopped and turned to stare at Neal, and a woman started to sob.

“Nonsense!” said Uncle John. “They just want our stuff and when they can’t find us they’ll leave. They’ll be afraid space security will come.”

“They’ve probably paid some local space security guy off,” said Neal. “I think they want to kill everyone on the asteroid, Uncle John.”

Uncle John made a warning face at Neal and pointed at the others in the group, motioning him to stop.

“I won’t stop!” said Neal. “It’s true. You have to send someone for help or they’ll just hunt us down and kidnap or kill us all!”

“And what?” shouted Uncle John. “What are you going to do, Neal? Are you going to take one of these ships in the hangar and fly for help? Is that it? As soon as you fly out these hangar doors there will be three or four Kiff’eem hunter ships on your tail. You’d never make it! We just have to do what we can!”

Neal fell into silence. Uncle John motioned the group which had stopped to stare at them. “Come on,” he said. “Unless you want to wait here to shake hands with the pirates.”

The group turned and hurried after Uncle John. Neal stood for a minute as they hurried past him, staring at the hangar door.

Just then a shout went up.

The airlock they’d just come through began to open.

MacHardy let go of his armful of guns to let them float slowly to the ground. He turned and knelt, aiming a rifle at the door a hundred feet away.

The door clanged open and out of the dark airlock stepped Granddaddy Gazer. He waved frantically to them. “Have you seen Hanna?” he asked on the public channel.

Everyone began looking around the group. Hanna was not there.

Granddaddy Gazer hobbled closer, tears on his cheeks. “I’ve looked everywhere,” he said. “I can’t find her. Oh Adonai,” he said raising his old face to the ceiling high over head. “Keep her!” He lapsed into Yiddish and rocked back and forth, leaning against the airlock door for support.

Uncle John looked at the group. “Anyone know where she might be?” he asked. “She might’ be out racing ‘er dragon,” said Grummel. “She said some’ut to me this morning about wanting to take er’ lizard out today.”

A look of pain crossed Uncle John’s face. “Hanna,” he murmured. “I’m going back to look for her,” he said to the crowd. “But we don’t where we’re going!” said one of the miners. “Ask the Old Timers,” said Uncle John.

Suddenly, the intercom beeped. “Hey!” crackled Hanna’s cheerful voice. “Hey, why is this main hatch locked? Let me in, okay? I promise to shower!”

Everyone froze. Suddenly Neal found himself lunging back across the hangar toward Granddaddy Gazer and the airlock.

“Neal! No!” shouted Uncle John. Out of the corner of his eye Neal saw Mrs. Silver reach out and grab Uncle John’s arm as he tried to jump after Neal.

“No, John,” she said. “It must be Neal. God has chosen him.”

Neal reached the airlock. Granddaddy Gazer was turning to go back inside. As gently as he could, Neal picked up Granddaddy Gazer and pushed him through air away from the lock. Granddaddy Gazer floated backwards through the air, kicking his arms and legs as he slowly floated back to the earth. Neal stepped inside airlock and pushed the close button.

“Neal!” said MacHardy’s voice over his headset. “Ketch’ this!” Neal looked up to see a stun gun hurtling through air towards the airlock from the distant MacHady. He caught it two seconds before the door finished sliding shut. “En’ don’t forget ‘te cargo scooter which is…” The door slammed shut and the short-wave radio contact blinked out. Neal hit the button to open the inner door, pulling down the emergecy switch which skipped the air pressurisation cycle.

As he bounded out and into the empty lamp-lit tunnel, he felt he was in a dream again. His hands seemed distant from his head and every action seemed almost in slow-motion, deliberate. He turned left down a short hallway and simply jumped up a ladder into the a tunnel above, taking a short-cut to the main hatch. Reaching it, he typed the code with fumbling fingers, getting it wrong once before the inner door clicked and hissed open. He stepped into the empty exit airlock and paused.

“Dear God,” he prayed. Those were all the words that would come. Then he pushed the outer hatch door button, his hand on the stop switch. The door hissed loudly and slowly started to slide open, revealing the gray and brownish dusty valley floor outside. Several figures with dirty white robes over their space suits were advancing toward the door. They had strange black helmets with large white glass circles over their eyes and hoods pulled up. As the door slid further open he saw Hanna laying on her back, shaking convulsively. She’s been stunned, thought Neal. Quick as a thought he found himself grabbing her arm and hauling her into the airlock. He hit the reverse button and the door slowly slid back toward close, blocking the rushing figures from sight. One suddenly appeared in the narrow space of the closing door, trying to reach a knife in. Neal planted his foot and kicked out at the figure, sending it tumbling back out of sight. The door touched shut with a hiss, and Neal heard buzzes and pings on the outside of it as bullets and stun gun charges ricocheted off the heavy titanium-steel door. He turned and typed the lock-code then bent down.

“Are you all right? Hanna!” he said. She was lying unconscious and didn’t respond. Neal checked to make sure her magboots were switched off. He lifted her and tugged her floating body hurriedly out of the airlock, closing the inner door behind him. Neal rushed back down the hallway with Hanna’s floating body, pulling it down the ladder to the lower level and sprinting out into the lamplit tunnel that led to the hangar. He approached the door into the hangar and typed the code. The inner door slid open and he pulled Hanna into the airlock, pressing the button for the outer door. As it growled open, Neal saw that the miners were gone. The door ground to a stop fully open and Neal started to step out when a blur whizzed silently past him and pinged off the wall. He peeked around the corner and saw a crowd of the shabby white hooded figures standing two hundred feet away inside the destroyed hangar’s huge exit doors, several guns aimed his direction. Another bullet zipped by him, grazing his texaglass helmet with a plink sound.

Neal jerked back inside the airlock, temporarily shielded from the bullets. He considered, then hit the CLOSE button on the outer airlock door. It slid slowly shut as bullets and stun pellets blurred silently by. Neal stared at the closed door. Even on the slim chance he could have made it past their rifle fire, he didn’t want to lead the pirates to the rest of the miners. He hit the lock code on the panel and pondered. It would probably take them two to three minutes to blast or cut their way into this door. And pirates were probably already working on the surface exit hatch he’d just rescued Hanna from. Any minute they’d break through there. There were no other exits. He was trapped between the two. I’ve gotta find some place to hide, he thought. Focus! Focus! Dear Lord, where should I hide? Where to go?

 

CHAPTER 28: The Face of a Betrayer

As he stood rooted to the ground, a thought surfaced. The komodo dragons… They were the only escape vehicles left. He remembered a small locked janitor closet that opened into the stable area. He could hide there. Turning to Hanna’s floating form, Neal grabbed her around the waist and sprinted back down the lamp-lit tunnel, locking the inner airlock door closed as he went. A minute later he ran into the main lobby above the living cylinder and across it, and down the tunnel leading most directly to the komodo’s stable.

As he ran down the dim tunnel, he turned a corner and suddenly tripped over something soft, a human body. He went tumbling forward, and Hanna’s body continued sailing onward up the tunnel. Neal jerked his boots around and let them pull him to the ground. Pulling MacHardy’s stun pistol from a pocket in his suit, Neal crouched down and peered back the way he’d just come.

“Don’t shoot!” said a frantic, nasally voice over the radio link. In the dim red light Neal crept forward to see a figure slumped against the wall. It was Mirk, looking up at him, his arms curled up, trembling.

“What are you doing?” shouted Neal.

“I’m sorry, I don’t know, I don’t know,” howled Mirk. Neal leaned closer and saw that Mirk’s eyes were red, his face wet from blubbering.

“You did this!” shouted Neal, pushing the stun pistol closer to Mirk’s helmeted face. Mirk tried to scramble backwards against the wall, putting his hands up.

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” he sobbed. He put his head down and gasped.

Neal held the pistol towards him. He should stun him so he couldn’t tell the pirates he and Hanna were still here in the base. But Mirk lifted his teary face again at Neal and somehow Neal couldn’t do it. He eased his finger off the trigger and turned and ran back up the tunnel to find Hanna’s body.

[up / down tunnels]

There she was, resting sprawling on the floor of the tunnel near the top of the incline. Neal picked her up again around the waist and quickly turned down another tunnel, then opened a door along the wall and peered into the stable’s cave. It was dimly lighted and still. Neal looked up and down the hallway and darted in, shutting the door. Dimly he heard a dull explosion and felt the floor shake. Along the sides of the cave were the heavy metal doors opening into the komodo cages. Neal sprinted over to the janitor’s closet and put his fingers on the lockpad. He hesitated, trying to remember the code. Dimly he heard rough shouts and clattering approaching in the hallways. Neal looked wildly around. Think! Lord, help! He ran to a larger cage that housed Jack, a large male komodo, and usually a female as well. He punched the OPEN button on the cage and pushed Hanna inside, before jumping inside himself and pulling the heavy metal door shut. On either side of the door heavy wire mesh looked out on the main area of the cave. Neal listened for a moment. Bangs and steps echoed up and down the hallways outside the stable cave. Something hissed behind Neal and he turned to see Ol’ Jack, a large nine foot long dragon standing right behind him, slowly stalking toward him. Neal uttered a word and grabbed a thick armglove from a hook on the wall, pulling it on his left arm. He held this out toward Jack who continued hissing and suddenly bit the titanium-meshed glove, hard. Neal winced a little even in the glove, but reached out with his free right hand to the feed box. He clicked it open and shoveled out a small portion of mucky biofeed. Neal checked behind him through the mesh into the main area, then floated a small chunk of the biofeed toward Jack. The lizard let go of Neal’s glove, and considered the floating chunk, then suddenly lunged and gulped it, chewing with its mouth. Neal grabbed Hanna and pulled her to the back of the cage, where a hole was carved into the cave wall. Neal extended his gloved hand into the hole and a lizard’s mouth shot out and chomped down. Neal dragged the reluctant lizard out. It was Izzy, his own mount. “Izzy,” he whispered in his helmet. “You know me better than that!” As she came out she smelled the biofeed and paddled over to Jack to investigate. Neal grabbed Hanna’s arm and crawled through the hole into the cave. It was dark inside. Neal pulled Hanna in through the hole and behind him to lie against the wall. Bumping his helmet on the low rock ceiling, Neal crept back and looked out through the hole. In the cage area, Jack and Izzy were licking their tongues out, searching around for more food. Outside the cage in the main cave area, it was silent, lit only by a few flickering yellow lights.

Suddenly the door on the left wall of the cave clicked and slammed open, two black masked figures crouching with guns aimed into the room. One of them stood up and swaggered in, his long dirty white cloak whisking in the silence. The large mirror circle eyes in his black air mask turned left and right, peering into the cages. He said something in Arabic to the other man and they turned and went out again, leaving the door open.

[clarify that men looked in the stable room but didn’t go into the cages. which door they opened]

Neal stared out the hole at the open door. Through the cage’s wire mesh, he saw the white cloaked figures rushing up and down the hallway. After a few minutes he didn’t see anymore. He began to ease through the hole out into the dimness of the cage. Suddenly a cloaked figure came to the door of the cave and walked in, dragging a small gray-suited Mirk. Another shorter figure in a deep red cloak stepped in after them and shut the door behind him. He motioned to the tall figure. The tall one in the dirty white cloak reached down and picked Mirk up like a rag doll. He pinned him against one of the metal cage doors on the other side of the cave. Then he reached up and unsealed Mirk’s helmet, yanking it off with a hiss. Mirk jerked his head around in panic, but after a moment realized there was still breathable air in the room. His parted hair was mussed up, his face red and wet.

“Well, what have we here,” buzzed the tall figure in an echoing voice. The tall figure reached up and pressed a few switches along its plasticized face mask. The white circular eyes and mouth filter pulled off like a mask. Under the hood was a bearded face with a long scar down from his left eye.

The short figure in red stepped up.

“Mirkus, Mirkus,” he said in a small filtered voice, shaking his head. “You haf let us down. You told your friends that we were coming. Now they haf all run away and we don’t know where dey’ are. But you know, don’t you? And you want to tell us, don’t you?”

Mirk stared wide-eyed at him, then back at the large man holding him pinned against the metal door. He was trembling.

“But why did you betray us, Mirkus?” he crooned. “Were you not happy wiss’ de sirteen-sousand credits?”

“I…I didn’t betray you,” croaked Mirk. “I didn’t.”

“Sure, f’we know that,” crooned the short rubber-masked man. “But f’where are ze’ others?”

Mirk stared silently at him, his eyes darting back and forth.

“Abdul,” said the short figure, nodding slightly toward the tall scar-faced man. Abdul pulled a pair of handcuffs from a suit pocket. He smoothly snapped one onto Mirk’s left wrist, then pulled it up above Mirk’s head and through a metal ring above the metal door. Pulling it through, he yanked Mirk’s right arm up and snapped the other cuff around his right wrist. Mirk hung down from his wrists, his feet tugging toward the floor. Abdul knelt down and gently adjusted the settings of Mirk’s boots. Mirk stretched downward with a yell as his boots increased their magnetic pull to a much higher level. Suddenly they turned backwards against the metal door behind him, snapping against it. Mirk’s body was stretched taut, and he began to sob. Neal closed his eyes. Oh God, please, he thought, in agony himself. A small voice inside him said, he deserves it. Neal struggled with that for a moment. Yes but what do I deserve, he said back to himself. The Bible says all have sinned. And the wages of sin is death. I deserve this. That could be me there.

“F’where are ze’ others!?” asked the short hooded figure. Mirk only stared dully at him.

The tall scar-faced man grabbed Mirk’s tousled face and twisted it to look up at him. Slowly he took a stun-gun from his suit pocket. As Mirk watched, eyes growing wider, the man moved it slowly to his torso. “Where are the others?” he asked quietly in a deep voice. Mirk heaved little gasps like a fish out of water as he stared transfixed at the stun gun pressed against his torso.

“Oh, don’t worry,” said the man. “It’s only enough to hurt.”

Suddenly he pulled the trigger and Mirk jerked as a buzzing sound filled the air.

“Ow!! Oh, ow!” said Mirk, twisting his head in agony.

“How was that?” asked the tall man. He did it again, causing Mirk to convulse.

The man withdrew the stun gun and whispered again, “Now, where are they?”

“I don’t know,” wailed Mirk. He looks more like a young boy than a tough teenage thug, thought Neal. He ground his jaw and looked away as the man pressed the stun gun again into Mirk and a buzzing sound sizzled through the air. Mirk’s wails and screams grew louder as the gun continued pausing and then buzzing again. In tears Neal pulled back into the cave, crawling over to Hanna. He pulled his helmet off and plugged his ears, pressing his face into Hanna’s shoulder.

 

CHAPTER 28: Some Plan

Hanna moved against him and Neal opened his eyes in the dimness of the little cave. She moaned lowly, and Neal hurried to unseal her helmet and pull it gently off. She lay dazed, blinking up in the darkness at the cave ceiling.

“Un Mmmm,” she said, groggily.

“Sh,” whispered Neal into her ear. “Just lie still and stay quiet, Hanna. We’re surrounded by pirates.”

Her face grimaced as she shifted and turned to look at Neal’s silhouette in the dimness.

“Where are we?” she whispered hoarsely.

“In a komodo cage,” he whispered back. She rolled her eyes, trying to look around the cave cautiously.

A voice shouted in Arabic outside. Neal rolled over and peered out the cave hole. Under the yellow lights, he saw Mirk unconscious, his head hanging back, eyes closed. The tall man pulled a small flask out of his pocket and dashed the watery contents across Mirk’s face. Mirk gasped and jerked his head up, eyes wide.

“Wh.. wha…” he said.

The tall man asked, very gently, “Where are the others?”

Mirk squeezed his eyes shut and wept.

“Listen,” said the man quietly to him. “Look.”

Mirk stopped sobbing but kept his eyes closed.

“Look!” shouted the man, grabbing Mirk by the chin. Mirk’s eyes opened. The man stepped away from Mirk and pocketed his stun gun. He bowed to the short figure in the red cloak, who handed him a bullet rifle. The man turned to Mirk. “You are about to die, young man, because you have nothing useful to tell us.”

Neal stared bug-eyed twenty feet across the cave at Mirk, who was staring at the gun.

“Where could the others be?” said the man, gently, caressing the rifle barrel under Mirk’s chin. Mirk struggled to breathe, trying to pull away. Neal reached in his pocket and fingered the stun gun he held there.

“Are they down in the locked living cylinder?” asked the man.

Mirk was silent.

Suddenly the man turned the rifle into the cage and fired loudly, deafeningly, three times. A lizard in the cage squealed and cried out. Neal caught a glimpse of Snowflake scrabbling frantically, clawing at the air and gurgling.

Suddenly Neal was glad Grummel wasn’t with him.

Abdul swung the rifle back towards Mirk.

“Are they in the living cylinder!?” he shouted.

“No,” Mirk said, weakly.

“Where did they go!?” demanded Abdul.

“They….they went to the hangar,” Mirk said, gazing down the barrel of the rifle. “I don’t know where they went after that.”

Abdul stroked his full beard, gazing shrewdly at Mirk. Then he lowered the gun. He keyed his left-wrist compad and spoke in Arabic for a minute.

“Should I shoot him now?” he asked the short figure, grinning.

The short figure in the red cloak shook its wide circle-eyed face slightly and said something in Arabic. Abdul frowned and they both turned and high-stepped out of the room.

* * *

“Hanna,” Neal said in a low voice.

“Yes?” she asked, behind his ear. She was peering over his shoulder in the cave, taking in everything.

“We have to get out there and suit thse lizards,” he said. “We have to make a run for it.”

“Where are we going?” she asked.

“To the cargo scooter,” whispered Neal. “It’s nearby at Post 1.”

“But that little thing can’t get us anywhere!” she said fiercely.

“Sh!” he whispered in her ear. “It can get us to Vesta 7.”

“But that asteroid’s run by muslims!” she shot back in his ear. “They’ll turn us right back over to these schmucks.”

“I don’t think so,” he whispered back. “Uncle John said they were muslims but they were honest people. I met them one time. Anyway, it’s our only shot. The cargo runner can’t make it anywhere else in the next two months. Vesta 7 is only one day away even on that tiny spud peeler.”

Hanna shifted in the cave and looked out, thinking.

“Okay,” she said. “Then let’s add some chutzpah and get outta here.” She paused. “I guess you have some plan to break us out of here.”

“Some plan,” said Neal.

Hanna rolled her eyes and pulled herself stiffly out of the cave hole into the cage area. Neal hurried close behind, ready with this padded left armglove.

Jack was clinging to the wire bar wall of the cage. Izzy was crammed in a corner, licking her tongue at them cautiously. Neal walked slowly to the feed box. Attached underneath it was another box with two smaller holes. Next to each hole was a lever. Neal reached up and turned a knob on the feedbox, pushing biofeed down into the lower box with two holes. The two komodo dragons perked their heads up and stared, licking their tongues. Then they walked with quick steps to the box as Neal jumped back. Jack, and then Izzy both stuck their heads in the two holes to get at the biofeed. Hanna and Neal jumped forward and gently pulled the two levers down, closing the holes enough that the two lizards couldn’t pull out to bite them. Then Hanna reached up and pulled two suits out of a box fastened higher up on the cage wall. She and Neal quickly laid them over the backs of the two busy komodos and tucked them under the dragons bellies and around their legs. Magnets in the suit edges sealed them together. Neal had a struggle with Izzy’s back right leg, which she stuck straight out to avoid the suit leg. Neal wrestled her leg and almost got caught by her claws. Now I wish Grummel was here, Neal thought, glancing up at the thought from his concentration. Snowflake lie quietly in her cage on her back, one leg twitching slightly. Mirk still hung from his wrists. His head hung down and it looked like he might be unconscious.

Neal hurried to catch Izzy’s leg again and snapped the suit leg quickly around it, where it sealed itself the rest of the way.

“Okay,” he whispered to Hanna, and she nodded back. They both reached up and grabbed the small texaglass helmets off their hooks and then unlevered the dragon’s heads. Jack and Izzy backed out of the feed trough, licking their lips. Izzy hissed at Neal.

“Oh, hush,” whispered Neal. He grabbed a handle on the back of Izzy’s suit and swung onto her back, pulling the helmet down over her head where it attached and sealed in place. Hanna had done the same. Neal hurried to the cave hole and grabbed their helmets, tossing Hanna hers and keeping his own in his hand. Then he pulled the stun gun out of his pocket. Hanna looked at it and held out her hand for it. Neal hesitated a moment, weighing options, as Uncle John would say. Hanna was a better shot. And less likely to hesitant. A little reluctantly he handed the stun gun to her and pointed to its side meter: 10. The gun only had 10 stun balls. It could be activated to not fire a ball and merely stun on contact, but at a distance it had only 10 shots. Hanna nodded, understanding.

Neal reached through the bars and pushed the OPEN button on the outside of the metal door, which clicked and opened, creaking far too loudly for Neal’s taste. Hanna pushed it open with her hand and nosed Jack through it, stun gun ready. Neal climbed on Izzy and followed. Mirk groaned as they approached, his head flopping from side to side in pain.

Neal paused a moment.

“What?” said Hanna.

“I’ve got to help him,” whispered Neal.

“So he can keep betraying us?” said Hanna. She aimed her stun gun generally towards Mirk. Mirk opened his eyes and stared at her with a glazed but disturbed expression.

“Mirk didn’t betray you and me,” Neal said. “He knew we were still here in the base, probably in this room, and he didn’t say anything.”

Hanna let the stun gun sink down and turned to watch the door.

Neal hurried to Mirk.

“Mirk,” he whispered. “Mirk!”

Mirk shifted his eyes slowly to look at Neal. He looked dazed.

“Neal,” he murmured. “Neal, I told them. I told them.”

“No, it’s all right,” said Neal. “They won’t find them. You only told them about the hangar.”

Neal knelt down and turned off Mirk’s boots, releasing Mirk to float up and find some relief for his bleeding wrists. Neal considered the handcuffs briefly.

“I can’t undo the handcuffs,” said Neal. Mirk slowly looked up at them. A tear drained out of one eye.

“They’ll be angry with you if they know we helped you,” said Neal. “Let me do this.” He knelt to Mirk’s boot again and began powering it up. Mirk squealed a little and tried to kick, frightened.

“No,” said Neal. “Trust me.” Mirk quieted and Neal held Mirk’s boots against the metal door again, but this time a few inches higher up. The boots powered up and snapped to the door.

“There,” Neal said. “It looks about like they left you, but you should be able to push a little higher up on that foothold.”

Mirk numbly pushed himself up and found he could take the pressure off his wrists a little more. He nodded at Neal.

Neal stared at him for a moment. Then to his surprise he gave Mirk’s legs a firm hug.

“Hang in there, Mirk,” he said. “God willing, we will come back for you before too long.”

Mirk began to look panicked and Neal held a finger pleadingly to his mouth to motion for quiet. Then he swung on his helmet and looked at Hanna. She nodded to him, and he nodded back. “Jesus,” he said. “Be with us.” “Adonai,” said Hanna, “Be with us.”

Jesus, you are Adonai, thought Neal, but kept his peace.

Hanna raised the stun gun, and charged out into the tunnel. Neal hissed to Izzy and charged after.

 

 

CHAPTER 30: The Great Escape

To his surprise, there were no goons standing guard or walking in the halls. Apparently they’re all searching for the miners down below, he thought as he and Hanna whisked through the tunnels. They turned right at the next hallway, then left up another hallway, sprinting as only lizards can do. As they turned the corner, Hanna saw a guard leaning against the main airlock door. Hanna shot him without hesitation, leaving him twitching and unconscious on the floor as they approached. Neal pushed the button for the inner door and it slid open. They stepped into the spacious airlock and the door closed behind them. In the main outside door of the airlock a large hole had been melted and cut out of the metal door. It was now patched with a magnet curtain. Hanna cautiously raised a corner of the curtain, letting a whistle of air escape through it. “There are guys out there,” she said.

“How far are they?” asked Neal. “They’re about fifty feet to the right,” said Hanna. “I think if we dart out and head for the boulders on the left we can run that direction and maybe get away. That’s the direction of Post 1 anyway, right?”

“Right,” said Neal. He paused. “Ready?” he asked.

[saying goodbyes – wait, said hanna, and breathed deeply. hanna, said neal. what, said hanna. you’re my best friend, said neal. oh, shut up with the sentimental said hanna.. oy gevalt. she touched his arm and then tore]

“As I’ll ever be,” said Hanna. “Oy gevalt.” She tore the curtain off the wall and her lizard leaped forward. She disappeared and the next instant Neal was after her, hissing and clucking his lizard with emergency speed. As he leaped out of the gaping hole in the hatch door, Neal saw a group of the dirty-white cloaked figures sitting around under a Kiff’eem spacecraft parked on the valley floor. They were in the middle of standing up as Neal caught sight of them, some reaching for guns or knives. Neal leaned forward against Izzy and hissed her wildly. She obliged, perhaps thinking she was in the races he’d trained her for. She paddled wildly, skittering along the ground, flying past rocks and boulders. Neal glanced back and saw a crowd of the ghoulish figures running and chasing them, but lagging farther and farther behind. A glowing blue stun ball flew past Neal on his right. He saw small puffs go up on the brownish-gray asteroid dust to his left. Bullets, he thought. Ahead of him Hanna had swerved behind a large boulder and kept running up a gradual slope. As he sped towards it, Neal also swerved past it and behind. For the moment he was safe. As he sped further up the gradual incline and out of that side of the valley, Neal saw another puff or two rise up off to his right. “Ah!!” shouted Hanna. Neal snapped his head up and saw Hanna twisting on her mount. “Go! Go!” he shouted. He looked back to see the running figures very small behind them, some kneeling to take aim with rifles. A few moments later Hanna and Neal swerved over the lip of the valley and out of the line of fire. Neal urged Izzy up beside Hanna.

[resting place for the moment

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“I think I was hit,” she replied.

“Where?”

“In the back of my left leg. Oy gevalt!” she ground out in pain.

Neal glanced at her leg as their mounts paddled wildly forward. There was a ragged seam where a hole had gone through the back of her left leg and the suit had sealed itself again.

He leaned forward and they were flying over gravel and down inclines and simply jumping across small craters.

“There might be janjas at Post 1,” he shouted. “Want me to take the stunner?”

“No, I really want it now,” Hanna said between gritted teeth. “Pity the meshugenah janja I meet!”

In spite of everything Neal felt himself smiling. They dodged around a large rock and then suddenly down into a crater where a large metal tower was standing silent.

“I don’t see any ships,” said Hanna.

“Let’s be careful,” said Neal.

“Careful is my middle name,” Hanna shot back sarcastically, and then caught her breath as her leg shifted.

Neal scanned the crater as they approached a large hatch built into the crater wall.

“They must have just scanned the asteroid for life and realized it was probably all at Providence,” said Neal, thinking aloud. “Or else they figured the only way off this rock was in the base hangar. So as long as they jam our signals no one can leave.”

“Either way, they’re gonna fly a ship after us any minute,” gritted Hanna. “So hope you still have some plan left.”

Neal raced up to the hatch door and pressed the code. The huge hatch door began to open and Hanna raced her lizard into the giant airlock, followed by Neal. He opened the inner airlock also, locking both doors to open. They scrambled into a large cavern. A small two-seater cargo scooter sat in one corner of the giant room. It had tiny directional thrusters, but also a larger thruster in back. It was probably 30 feet long and ten feet wide, and at the moment empty of the crates usually fastened to it for transport back to Providence Base and the much larger freighter starship there.

“We need to leave the lizards here,” Neal said. “It will look like a life sign for their scanners.”

Hanna climbed off her lizard with a pat and pushed off with her good leg for the cargo scooter. Neal patted Izzy also and jumped for the cargo scooter. “Dear God,” he breathed. “This won’t work without you. Please remember us and save us from these worthless men.” The scooter had no cockpit or cabin, it was simply open like a convertible car on earth.

[like an open platform that flies]

“All right, radio silence,” he said to Hanna. She nodded to him and they both switched off all their radio functions.

Neal typed the communal code on the scooter compad and the thrusters trembled into life. The two lizards scampered away from the dust thrown up by the cargo scooter. Neal quickly flew it out through the large open doors, keying the command to close them behind him. He threw the back thruster on and they were snapped back in their seats as they flew across the crater floor.

He saw Hanna’s confusion and outraged questioning look at him.

Neal didn’t have time to gesture back to explain his plan.

The little cargo scooter zipped toward the far wall of the crater. At the last moment Neal pulled it up and over the crater edge, and down into a valley on the other side. I have to get out of visual site of any ships that come looking for us on those lizards, Neal thought. He cut the engines suddenly and settled down into small crater barely the size of the little craft. Neal and Hanna sat silently. Hanna gave him a warning look, but Neal held up his hand…Trust me, trust me. They waited for about thirty seconds, and then two Kiff’eem scout ships suddenly roared up over the horizon of the asteroid. Apparently they saw the dust cloud drifting up from Post 1 crater. As they flew closer they saw the metal tower in the crater and the large hatch door. The two ships descended and landed out of site within the crater.

I hope they don’t shoot Izzy or Jack, thought Neal. That closed hatch door should keep them busy for awhile. He nodded to Hanna and started up the little craft again.

Hopefully the skies are clear for the moment, he thought. Neal guided the ship low along the terrain of the asteroid through valleys and into craters until he felt they were far enough on the other side of the planetoid.

Dear God, our lives are yours, he prayed. Here goes, he thought, looking right at Hanna, then pulling back on the controls as the open little craft turned up and shot away from Eros.

Neal searched quickly for some of the nearby meteorites that floated in a very loose orbit around Eros. He spotted one ahead to the right and gave a short thrust towards it. The meteorite was a slab of rock and metal about 30 by 40 feet, with one side mostly flat like a skipping stone. They drew slowly closer to it as Neal looked back at Eros.

It was still large behind them, but Providence Base and the valley for Post 1 were both out of sight around the other side of the asteroid. Hanna waved her hand in front of his face, and Neal snapped his eyes back around to see a smaller boulder hurtling toward the scooter. He touched the controls and the boulder shot under them. As they flew closer to the meteorite they aimed for, Neal turned the craft over and briefly fired the rear thruster.

They slowed, and coasted by the meteorite. Neal finangled the controls for a few moments, settling down onto the flat side of the meteorite. He engaged the anchoring pins, which shot down into the meteorite and spread microscopic steely barbs out to cling to the meteorite fiercely. Then Neal shut down all systems and remembered to breathe. And to pray. “Thank you, God,” he whispered inside his helmet. “I don’t think that part would of worked if you weren’t helping us.” He glanced to his right at Hanna who sat panting in pain. She grinned bravely at him and looked back at Eros. The large asteroid was turning slowly beneath them. Suddenly a tiny speck glinted in sunlight.

It’s one of the scout ships, Neal thought, forgetting to breathe again. The ship buzzed far below them, scouring craters and valleys. I hope they don’t turn their scanners up here for life signs, Neal thought. A minute of watching went by. Well, he thought, that was a nice break. Now for part two.

Neal closed his eyes a moment. God, I want you here with me, no matter what happens. Even if they catch us. Even if they kill us or worse. I will trust in you. I’d rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell with the wicked….Especially those wicked.

Neal focused back on the compad in front of him. Hanna looked over at him, quizzical again. He tried to motion with his hands to explain, but she didn’t get it. Neal turned the engines back on.

Hanna reached to retract the anchors, but Neal grabbed her suited arm and shook his head. She looked at him a moment through her helmet as though he were crazy, but let go to watch him. Neal turned one small side thruster on, slowly, very slowly turning not only the cargo scooter but the meteorite it was attached to also.

Neal hit another thruster and the meteorite slowly rotated, gradually blocking their view of Eros–and Eros’ view of them. When he was satisfied, Neal touched other thrusters to stop their spin. Then, with the cargo scooter turned mostly away from Eros, Neal turned up the main back thruster. It trembled and shook them as it strained against the mass of the meteorite, but slowly the scooter and attached meteorite gained speed.

[pulling it with them, and why]

Neal checked their speed relative to Eros. When he felt they were going fast enough he turned off all thrusters and let them hurtle through space away from Eros.

Hanna turned to him, shaking her head in amazement. Neal smiled and closed his eyes, lifting his hands up like Mrs. Silver would if she were here.

* * *

Hours passed in silence. The little meteorite continued speeding away from Eros, which was now only a pea-sized rock behind them. Neal looked at the stars carefully. They gave him a general direction toward Vesta 7. That asteroid itself continued in a slow orbit around the sun which had brought it closer to Eros over the past several years. By a swift space craft, someone from Eros could reach Vesta 7 in a couple hours. In this small runabout, it would take at least a day.

Neal checked the fuel gauge. Half-empty. But that at least should get them to Vesta 7. But not back again if things didn’t work oiut. Not at any real speed at least.

Hanna touched his arm and he looked up. She searched around under her seat and pulled out a notepad and magnetic pencil. She scrawled on it for a minute and handed it to him.

“We’re headed to Vesta 7?” she’d written. He took the pencil.

“Yes, if I can find it. How is your leg?”

She reached down and moved her leg, her lips giving a soundless shout in the vacuum around them. After a moment she reached out with a trembling hand and took the pencil again.

“Not good. Feels like a knife stuck in my leg. Think my suit has constricted my leg to slow blood loss.”

Neal stared at her in the seat, her thick curly black hair a little matted, a fighting spark still in her eyes.

“Hang in there,” he wrote.

She took the notepad back. “I hope the others are all right,” she wrote. He looked at it and nodded.

“Wonder where they hid,” she wrote.

He took the pad. “U. John said sth about the Old Timers,” he scrawled.

Hanna wrote, “Won’t pirates just scan for life and find them?”

Neal didn’t say anything. The only way to avoid life scans was either to go very deep underground or to hide in a special container like a cryo-vac unit. He didn’t think there was a way to do either at the base.

“Hope they can make a blockade and fight to keep pirates out,” he wrote.

Just then a rock whizzed by them just over their heads. Neal realized they were flying exposed to any small rocks or gravel that would fly their way. Flying in an open craft like this was dangerous at best. Neal touched a thruster on the cargo scooter and the meteorite under them yawed upward until he stopped it. Now the rock was slightly in front of them, blocking them from any objects directly in their path.

I hope we don’t hit any larger rocks, Neal thought. He didn’t write that down.

Around them was a vastness of blackness, a great emptiness with no large objects nearby. Stars glowed like pinpricks in space in a swarm all around them. Neal could pick out the small objects that would be Jupiter, and Mars. And a larger star he was pretty sure was earth. There was a freedom in such vast emptiness. Neal had read about sailors long ago on earth’s oceans, for weeks out of sight of any land. But the pictures he saw of it looked much more interesting than this: large waves of water splashing up and down, creatures swimming below the ships, a fiery blue or orange sky glowing with clouds above the ship. One day, thought Neal. One day I want to visit earth.

Neal took the pad. “Why don’t you try to sleep a few hours and then I’ll wake you,” he wrote. Hanna read it and nodded. She let her arms hang loose and float freely as her eyes closed.

 

 

CHAPTER A Knock at the Door

Hanna shook Neal awake from his turn at napping. They’d been travelling for about thirty hours. Neal very stiffly stretched his legs and arms and checked the rudimentary radar on the small cargo scooter. It showed a large asteroid, almost as large as Eros, coming up ahead and far to their left. Neal reached down and pushed a button. The anchors retracted their feathery spikes and withdrew into the underside of the scooter. Neal touched the controls and pushed off the meteroite, which continued its hurtling course away from Eros deeper into the asteroid belt. Neal turned the scooter at a vector far in front of Vesta 7, engaging the main thruster. The scooter tugged and whipped suddenly away from the meteorite which receded quickly to a small rock and disappeared. Neal continued thrusting and adjusting the scooter towards the distant Vesta 7.

It loomed closer and soon enough, their scooter approached the circular craggy asteroid. It was probably half the size of Eros, but still a good nine miles in diameter and more bulbously spherical. Neal nodded to Hanna and they switched on their helmet mics at last. Neal thumbed the scooter’s radio switch.

“Vesta 7, this is an emergency. Vesta 7, this is an emergency. Please give aid and shelter.”

There was a pause, then an accented voice replied. “Small brother, where do you speak from? We cannot see you.”

“I and my friend are in a small craft from Eros,” Neal replied. “Where can we land to find aid and shelter?”

“What do you need aid and shelter from?” the voice asked. “Has some calamity befallen you?”

“Please, we ask you to be our gracious host,” Hanna put in.

The voice sighed and paused. Then it crackled back. “We will accept you as strangers in the will of Allah.”

Neal saw a light flash on the surface of the asteroid, a searchlight beam aimed at them. He guided the cargo scooter down towards the surface of the asteroid. It loomed up before them as they swooped in towards the beam of light shining up at them. Neal slowed the cargo scooter as it flew nose first into a crater, as they slowed, a large hangar door in the side of the crater wall eased open, and Neal flew the ship into it and settled inside the door. It ground close behind them as hangar lights glowed on around them.

Neal and Hanna found them and their little craft landed inside a luxuriously decorated hangar. The ceiling was geometrically shaped up to the top, where a glowing colored design shone a light down on all. The walls of the hangar were made of marble, as was the floor, and ornate designs were patterned along the floor in diamonds and swirls. Every twenty feet along the wall a warm yellow lantern hung, cast a glowing ambience into the hangar. Towards them across the vast marble floor came a short round man followed by two tall figures. The two figures were dressed in white robes and wore the rubber masks and round white eye circles of the Kiff’eem pirates.

Neal stood in his dusty suit, feeling unable to fight any longer. Hanna painfully pulled herself down from the scooter and stood beside him. She raised her stun gun at the two taller figures. They immediately stepped in front of the shorter man to shield him. He pushed them aside and walked forward.

“Please,” he said, holding out his hands. “Do not fire.” There was something about his eyes that made Hanna hesitate.

“You have Kiff’eem with you,” croaked Hanna in a dry voice.

The short man had a long full beard in his helmet, and gold necklaces hanging down the front of his purple space suit. He considered her for a moment, then looked at his two guards. He motioned for them to leave. They spoke rapidly in Arabic, but he motioned them again and they bowed and backed away reluctantly.

“I am Ihtsham Hussain,” he said, bowing politely to Neal. “The “Strong and Handsome” as my name means” he grinned, waving to his chubby self. “As you can see, I am well-named.” He turned and pointed at the retreating figures. “These soldiers wear the good uniform of a muslim fighter, and they are bound by loyalty and obedience to me. They will do nothing I forbid them.”

“Come,” he said, walking closer to them, up to Hanna who still held the stunner at an angle. He held out a gloved hand to them each. “Come, allow me the privilege to be your host,” he said. Neal thought about it. He didn’t have much choice, actually. And the man at least wasn’t overtly threatening them. “Let’s go with him, Hanna,” he said.

A few minutes later Neal found himself in a large marble room with steaming water. “Please get in,” an old wrinkled servant said, helping Neal step down into it. Neal felt embarrassed to be without clothes and have someone else present. Not as embarrassed though, as he felt a minute later when Ihtsham Hussain himself came in. Neal huddled under the hot water, looking up at the robed and bearded man who stared down at him with twinkling eyes. Ihtsham began to sit down, and the aged servant hurried a soft pillow beneath him.

“What has happened to you and your friend?” Ihtsham asked. “Is all with your family on Eros? And are you, perhaps running away from your parents for the sake of love?” He winked at Neal.

Neal was shocked. “No!” he blurted. “Hanna and I are only good friends.” “Mhmm,” said the man, stroking his beard. Neal hurried on.

“One boy in our community sold information about when our radar was down to two men,” he said. Ihtsham raised his eyebrows and nodded. “These men were janjas. One had a scar from his eye down,” said Neal, motioning. “The other was short with spectacles.”

The smile faded from Ihtsham’s eyes. “I know these men,” he said. “Your friend is lucky to still be alive after dealing with them.”

“I don’t know if he is,” Neal said. “These men brought seven or eight Kiff’eem ships to Eros while the radar was down. They jammed our radio and attacked. The community fled to some place even I do not know.”

“And you?” asked Ihtsham. “Why are you not with them?”

“Hanna was trapped outside of the base,” Neal said.

“Aha!” shouted Ihtsham. “It is love!” He stood, waving his arms. “You valiantly rode to face a host of pirates to save the one beauty dearest to you!” Ihtsham stepped down into the steaming pool in his fine robes and grabbed Neal’s face in his hands. “You are indeed a brave warrior, my child.”

Neal turned rather red and struggled slightly out of Ihtsham’s grasp. He struggled to find the right words. “My father,” he said, “If you will really help us, I ask you to give us a ship to fly to the Security Starbase at Minerva and ask the officers there to help free my asteroid.”

Ihtsham stepped back, his robes swirling in the water, and considered Neal, muttering to himself. “I do not interfere in these infidel matters,” he murmured thoughtfully. “And these Kiff’eem certainly are my brothers in the faith.” His face darkened. “But they are also dogs, and worthless men, who steal and kill only for gain and not for true faith in the blessed Allah.”

Neal made a note to himself that Ihtsham did not discount stealing and killing if it was for sake of the true faith.

“Please,” said Neal. “We are in your hands.”

Ihtsham considered a moment more. “Then, it is clearly my duty as your host to give you all the help I may,” he said. “In this way I will win honor before others and in the sight of Allah himself, perhaps.”

“But first,” he said, shaking his finger at Neal, “You must finish your bath and eat a large dinner with me. Only then will it be civilized to rush out to infidels for help.”

* * *

Dinner was over. Neal had eaten more food than he thought he had ever eaten before, except perhaps at Thanksgiving. He was anxious to get underway, knowing that the Providence community might be holding off pirate attacks as he sat eating kebabs and lamb and slurping fat noodles.

Hanna had been treated skillfully by a doctor, and her leg was bound tightly.

Ihtsham’s large wife had a scarf pulled over her head. She sat next to Hanna, spooning soup into her mouth.

Ihtsham stood. “Well,” he said. “Let us go.”

“She may not go with you!” his wife flashed at him and spattered some upset Arabic phrases at him.

“Even so, even so, she shall not go,” Ihtsham relented. Now Hanna’s eyes flashed and she struggled to stand.

“I will most certainly go!” she said to Ihtsham. “I must!” Ihtsham raised his hands upwards. “Allah allows us women to teach us patience,” he said. “Allah sends women to bring common sense to men,” snapped his wife. “If Hanna will go then I will go also.”

Ihtsham covered his face and then waved them all on. “Let’s go, let’s go,” he said.

A red cloaked Kiff’eem soldier came into the room, bowed to Ihtsham and spoke in Arabic. “The ship is ready,” said Ihtsham.

* * *

Neal leaned farther back into the soft cushions on the S.S. Persia. The ship was Ihtsham’s personal transport ship, and had a luxurious lounge area with several reclining sofas and a service area with antique silver coffee makers. Curtains hung down over portals along two walls looking out into space. The floor was situated toward the rear of the ship, so that during the long periods of acceleration and deceleration, their feet were pressed to the floor with real gravity.

Neal was lost in his thoughts. He was wondering how Mrs. Silver was doing. Wondering if Grummel knew yet that Snowflake had died. He smiled as he imagined MacHardy protecting Mrs. Silver and probably hovering around her like a fierce angel. Had the pirates found them yet? Were they even now fighting? Were they alive?

Ihtsham sat near him, watching them all as he sipped coffee from a delicate china tea cup. A quiet buzzer sounded and a red light came on. A voice murmured something in Arabic over the intercom. Ihtsham handed his tea cup to a servant and looked at Neal.

“It appears your friends the Kiff’eem are seeking you,” he said. “Two of their hunter craft have intersected our course and asked for information about you.”

Neal sat silent.

“Of course I know nothing,” said Ihtsham.

“Are you in danger from the Kiff’eem?” asked Neal.

“We are both followers of Mohammed the prophet,” said Ihtsham. “They will not harm us. Unless, perhaps, they find you.”

He clapped and two servants came to help Neal and Hanna up.

“Please stay very quiet,” Ihtsham said to them.

The servants opened a trap door in the carpeted floor and Neal and Hanna followed them down a ladder into the under/rear area of the ship. The two servants handed them their helmets as they went through a tight airlock and into the engine area, an area rumbling with smooth power. One servant walked to one of the engine fuel tanks and pushed a hidden button. The fuel tank opened suddenly, revealing a padded acceleration couch with seat belts. One servant bowed and motioned them in. Neal bowed back slightly, to the servant’s amusement. They shut the door after Hanna and all was silent. Neal looked at Hanna in the dim glow of their wrist compads. Will Ihtsham betray us? Neal wondered. Minutes passed, then an hour, then two.

Suddenly the wall lifted again, and as it did Neal saw the expensive boots and suit of Ihtsham himself, with a servant.

Ihtsham motioned them to follow, and when they seated once more in the cushy lounge area drinking coffee, he motioned dismissively.

“They asked about you,” he said. “And why we were headed towards the Space Security station. I said we were going to complain about their infidel patrols flying too close to my asteroid. They didn’t dare to ask to search my ship, but I’m sure they scanned and counted life signs. I’m gratified that my personal chamber’s shielding seems to work. I will have to reward Ali for his excellent work,” he said meditatively.

Then his face grew darker. “Those dogs!” he growled. “In some ways they are as bad as unbelieving infidels.” Then he looked at Neal and Hanna apologetically. “And in some ways, much worse,” he said politely.

“We are not unbelieving,” said Hanna.

“And what do you believe?” asked Ihtsham.

“We believe in the God of Abraham,” said Hanna.

“Ah, yes,” he said. “Abraham the father of Ismael.”

“And the father of Isaac,” said Hanna.

Ihtsham stared more closely at her. “You are a Jew?” he asked darkly.

Hanna nodded.

“By the prophet!” murmured Ihtsham. “I have been hiding Jews!” He sighed and motioned a servant to refill her cup of coffee.

“And are you a Jew also?” he asked Neal, eyeing his brown hair and blue eyes.

“No,” said Neal. “I’m a follower of Jesus. I believe muslims call him ‘Isa.”

“Well,” said Ihtsham, breaking into a small smile as he stroked his bushy beard. “You do believe a little. ‘Isa was a very great prophet indeed.”

“Didn’t Muhammed urge his followers to read the teachings of Jesus?” asked Neal.

“I have heard this,” said Ihtsham.

“Well, I read Isa’s teachings and I believe his words,” said Neal, surprised at his boldness.

“Well,” said Ihtsham. “Perhaps we do have a believer here.”

“And you would be blessed if you read his words also,” said Neal.

Ihtsham laughed. “Well, my son,” he said, pleased at Neal’s courage. “Perhaps I will.”

A servant came and whispered into Ihtsham’s ear.

“We are about to turn and begin decelerating,” said Ihtsham. “Please take hold.”

The ship’s accelerating eased up, giving them all a floating sensation. Neal looked around. All the coffee cups had already been neatly put away. The curtains by the portals began to drift up and into the room. Neal stared out the window and saw the stars suddenly begin to spin as the ship turned 180 degrees. After several moments the stars slowed. Neal saw his helmet floating up by his hand and he grabbed it. Then the rear thrusters fired again in gentle deceleration, and Neal was again pressed down to his seat at a normal weight of perhaps a half-gravity.

“It takes more fuel to keep the gravity at the proper level the whole journey,” Ihtsham said. “But I find it worth it. Also, we are in a hurry.”

“Are you in danger if the pirates find out you helped us?” asked Hanna.

“Certainly. Especially if some of them are killed by Space Security. They will never forgive me, if they know,” he said.

“What if they attack you for helping us?” Neal asked.

Ihtsham raised his hands and shrugged. “This is the will of Allah,” he said.

 

* * *

Four hours later the ship tugged to a stop at the Space Security Station for the region. A long arm of the station reached out into space to touch a giant Starcruiser, armored and at a mile long, bigger than the station itself. The S.S. Persia was nestled much closer in at one of the domestic docks.

“Thank you, for your help,” said Neal. “We are deeply obliged.” Ihtsham waved his hand dismissively. “Only what I must do. I will wait here to make sure you are listened to. If you have any further problems, please return here and I will assist you further.”

Neal was overwhelmed by the generosity of Ihtsham Hussain. Ihtsham held out his arms, and Neal found himself in a giant bear hug with a wet patriarch’s kiss on his forehead. “GO, and be brave as a lion,” Ihtsham said. He looked at Hanna and winked at Neal, then shooed them out into the hallway.

Neal and Hanna were escorted by the servants up the exit tunnel to the station itself, where they left them with deep bows.

Inside, Neal and Hanna looked at a sign full of names and offices on the station. Neal at last went to a desk where a woman in security uniform sat scanning something.

“How can I help you?” she asked politely.

Neal cleared his throat. “Our asteroid is currently under attack by seven or eight Kiff’eem pirate ships,” he said quietly.

The woman stopped her work and looked up at him.

“Pirate ships?” she asked, doubtfully looking him over.

“Look!” shouted Hanna suddenly. She turned so the woman could see her bandaged leg. “One of those goyim shot me as we fled. The whole mining community is hiding from the pirates. Perhaps they are already dead while you sit there scanning!”

The woman’s eyes widened. Then she became more gentle and official. “Which asteroid are you from?” she asked.

“Eros,” said Neal. The woman typed it in and pushed a button.

“Captain,” she said. “I’m sorry to interrupt your meeting. We have two teens here who report a Kiff’eem attack in progress on their asteroid of Eros.”

“Send them to my office at once,” he said.

* * *

After telling Captain Yu everything they could remember about the attack, they watched him as he sat back in his chair. He was a pleasant-faced man of Chinese stock, with larger shoulders and hair combed back. “Let me verify one thing,” he said. “Connie,” he said to the intercom. “Is it true that Ihtsham Hussain is docked at our station right now?” After a moment she replied back, “Yes, sir. He wishes to lodge a complaint that our ships travel too close to his asteroid.”

Captain Yu chuckled. “We don’t go anywhere near his asteroid,” he confided to Neal and Hanna. He pushed another button. “Attention: Crew of the Starcruiser Confident. We are departing dock in twenty minutes for emergency departure. Proceed to your stations!”

“Let us go,” he said to Neal and Hanna, putting a fatherly hand on their shoulders to guide them out the door.

Neal found Hanna and himself whisking down a conveyor tube at high speed behind Captain Yu and several other officers, heading along the dock arm out to the Starcruiser. The ship loomed larger and larger in front of them, its long bristling body covered with reflector plates, antennae and weaponry.

Soon Neal and Hanna found themselves tucked in a corner of the bridge. Large screens lit the walls around the large circular room, and Captain Yu joined a group of officers in their seats at the middle of the room. “Course to Eros, maximum speed,” he said to a group of navigators.

“Confident, this is Captain Yu,” he announced over the massive ship’s intercom. “Prepare for top acceleration.”

With a deep groan the ship detached from the station and began surging forward. After a few moments it began a massive roar and trembling sound, and Neal found himself pressed harder than he ever had been before against the back of his accelaration seat. His head was pressed against the back so hard he couldn’t make a facial expression. On monitors he saw numbers rising rapidly, and an image of the station growing quickly smaller behind the ship.

“Goodbye, Ihtsham,” murmured Neal.

An hour and a half later the gigantic ship swung around and began decelerating. Captain Yu from his chair held quick conferences with various systems and squad leaders by radio.

“Dispatching patrol ships,” reported a woman’s voice at thirty minutes from arrival. The ship shook slightly as twenty smaller attack craft kicked loose from the mother ship and spread out in a huge open cup formation, this tails towards their targets as they joined the Confident in decelarating. “Powering up long-distance scanners,” said a tech. On several screens 3-D wire frames of Eros scanned into sight. A cluster of yellow dots appeared around the valley of Providence Base, with two other yellow dots moving over other parts of the asteroid. Tiny red dots clustered underground in Providence Base, moving around. Neal didn’t see any crowd of red dots large enough to describe the fifty or so miners and their families who should be gathered hiding or blockaded off somewhere.

Suddenly on the map the two dots turned and increased speed back to Providence Base.

“They may have seen on us their distance radars,” said the tech.

“Charge stun net,” said Captain Yu.

“Ten minutes to arrival,” said a navigator.

“Fire stun net at nine minutes,” said Captain Yu.

Some moments later a blinding light glowed on the screen showing the rear camera. A sparkling sheen of stun EMP balls twinkled out in a massive blanket from the twenty attack fights arrayed behind the Confident, flying backwards towards Eros. Eros was now a small rock in visible range. The thousands of tiny glowing stun balls twinkled out, spreading farther and farther. Neal saw the red dots all moving and clumping toward the exits of Providence Base, streaming toward the yellow dots of their ships. One or two ships lifted off already and began fleeing the scene. The huge blanket of glowing EMP stun balls reached Eros. Neal realized the wall of stun balls must be thirty miles in diameter as they streamed into Eros like small meteorites and pounded across its surface. Several ships had started to lift off the asteroid. Neal saw bright blue explosions as each EMP ball would explode in a burst of energy-disabling EMP pulses, shutting down or destroying any electrical systems nearby. Most of the ships flickered and went dead, drifting aimlessly and helplessly away from Eros. The smaller attack craft swooped after them. Two of the craft had escaped the EMP pulses and began firing wildly at the oncoming space craft. They fired several seeker missiles at the Kiff’eem ships, and Neal saw two explosions where the ships used to be.

“Deploy landing force,” Captain Yu said. Two large troop landing ships lurched out of the Confident and down to the valley by Providence Base. One landed in the valley and another just above it, firing heavy laser bursts at the crowd of pirate soldiers still left behind by the departing ships. Neal saw images from onsite videos flash up on various monitors. He could see the dirty-white figures ducking behind boulders and firing towards the landing craft. Red beams cut through the air, leaving piles of white figures behind. Security troops began disembarking behind texaglass shields, stun guns and lasers cocked and aimed as they disappeared into the ragged hole in the main base hatch.

After five minutes a voice reported back, “The base is clear, level Yellow, sir. No sighting of miners or other civilians. Except one boy. In bad condition.”

* * *

Neal exited the landing craft with Hanna and several additional police. He felt strange stepping back through the ragged hole in the base hatch. He and Hanna stepped down several hallways they had recently streaked up on komodos. As they entered the stable, they saw Mirk still hanging from blood-streaked wrists from the steel ring above the door. A medic was holding up a liquid carton for him to drink, and two techs were working to cut the handcuffs off. Mirk raised a weary bruised face as Neal and Hanna came in. Neal came up and put his hand on Mirk’s leg.

“You came back,” gargled Mirk in a dry voice. “You came back.”

“We came back,” Neal said. “We’re gonna go look for the others, okay, Mirk?”

“They saw us,” Mirk murmured. “The faces saw us. I didn’t tell them, I didn’t say. The faces.”

“He’s in shock,” said the medic. Neal nodded, and he and Hanna hurried on through the base. Parts of the base were damaged or trashed. The hatch down to the living shaft had been burned open. Neal darted down into the shaft and lifted aside the hatch to the dining area which had been smashed off its hinges. Neal peeked inside, shining a flashlight around. It was a wreck, tables overturned, food scraps on the floor, Christmas tree in pieces. It seemed months ago when they’d sat here in the warmth of the colored lights. It was only days. Neal felt a giant hand on his shoulder. Turning slowly he saw MacHardy.

“MacHardy!!” shouted Neal, turning and grabbing the huge man in a hug.

“Where are the others?” asked Neal.

“There es’ a deep old minin’ shaft under the Old Timer’s homeplace. We all hid down ‘en there. Jes’ now I was scouting out en’ about en’ met te’ space security sold’ers. Ye all er’ a sight for sore eyes.”

* * *

A few days later Neal was sitting in the Dining Area of the Living Cylinder. Beside him on the sofa were Hanna, Grummel, and Mrs. Silver. MacHardy came in looking nervous.

“Er, Mrs. Silver,” he said. “I ‘eard ye were plannin’ to leave.”

“Yes,” she said gently.

“I jes’ wanted ye to know thet…I lov ye,” he said, stammering.

Her face brightened into a smile bright as the sun. She stood and put something in his hand. “I’m leaving for some months,” she said. “But I’ll be back.”

MacHardy turned to Neal. “Is thet’ good?” he asked.

“Yes,” Neal said. “I think it is.”

 

 

 

20 Nov 2009

Master of Shadows

Posted by joncooper. 2 Comments

I just wanted to let everyone know that the first draft of the manuscript for Master of Shadows has been completed! The manuscript comes in at just over 64,000 words. There is still a great deal of polishing to do before the book can be released, but this is definitely a milestone.

19 Nov 2009

Dragons and Stars, Chapter 17: Getting Into Trouble

Posted by pendragon7. 5 Comments

After a minute, Hanna and Neal did their best to saunter casually into the bar’s airlock. It unsealed and they stepped out of it into a large dark room filled with booths and smoke. A tousled-looking waitress with no helmet greeted them with a cigarette hanging from her lips and a dark mascara line drawn from ear to ear across her eyes.

Neal saw Mirk sitting at a booth nearby, and two booths away, Grummel’s large form slouched over a table. It’s good it’s so dark in here, thought Neal. He looked at the waitress and motioned to Grummel.

“My friend,” he said through his suit speakers, trying to make his voice sound older. She nodded indifferently and led them to Grummel’s booth. Most of the customers had their helmets off, but some still had theirs on. Neal was relieved that they wouldn’t stand out too much with their tinted helmets still on.

Hanna pulled out a 20-credit coin and handed it to the waitress.

“We’d just like to sit and chat for a bit,” she said.

The waitress pocketed the coin and nodded, clumping away in her thigh-high magboots.

Neal held up his fingers: two, four, six.

Hanna and Grummel typed on their backwrist compads and changed to the new radio frequency.

“Hey guys,” whispered Neal on the radio channel to them, “I’m sitting with my back to Mirk. I’ll take off my helmet and try to listen. You guys search the channels and try to see if he’s on the radio.” They nodded their helmets. The grinding music in the bar grew louder as he slipped his helmet off and put it on the seat next to him. He strained to sort out voices he could hear talking.

“So I said to him, shut up, ya’ know?” The raspy woman’s voice sounded like it could belong to the curly haired blonde with the man in the booth just behind him. He continued flipping through stations.

Just then two astronauts walked out of the airlock and looked around. Neal stared at them through his tinted helmet. The two clomped over to Mirk’s table. Neal peered over his shoulder and stared at them out of the corner of his eyes as they sat down with Mirk. They were dark-haired, bearded individuals, still wearing their helmets. They looked a little savage. A scar etched down from the left eye of one and across his cheek. Spectacles perched on the nose of the other man. They left their helmets on and leaned forward to Mirk. Neal saw one of them hold up one finger but then Mirk’s head blocked his hand.

Neal hit his suit radio button. “It’s in the one-hundreds,” he whispered.

Hanna nodded. “Grummel, you search one-hundred to one-fifty, I’ll search one-fifty to two-hundred,” she said quietly over the radio.

Neal peeked over his shoulder again, he could see Mirk’s back across from the two men. They were talking quietly and intensely. Mirk wrote something on a piece of paper. The men handed Mirk a coin-holder that was sealed. Grummel said, “Ya know, Hanna, et’ could be in the teens, like fifteen. Thet starts wi’ one.” “Quieter,” she whispered. “Good thinking. Neal, can you check ten to nine-teen?” Neal quickly turned to ten and worked his way up. Nothing. He had a thought and switched to channel one.

“Eleven, twelve, thirteen thousand,” said Mirk’s voice. Neal quickly held up just one finger. Hanna and Grummel switched to channel one.

“It’s all there, yes?” asked a deep voice with a slight accent.

“Yes,” said Mirk’s voice a little shakily.

“That money is yours now,” the deep voice said. “But if you double-cross us….”

Grummel inhaled suddenly and then sneezed.

“What was that?” a thinner voice said. The deep voice said something back in a different language. Neal could hear one of them stand up. He pretended to be looking at his compad.

He heard footsteps. The man with the scar from his eye had walked to the other side of the bar’s main room. He walked carefully from booth to booth. At each booth he leaned over and examined the people in the booth. They would look up, start to complain, and see his cruel face and fall silent. He worked his way from booth to booth, staring down the occupants of each booth. The bar fell silent except for the background music, grinding away.

Neal figured if he put his tinted helmet on, the man would only be more suspicious. And probably demand they take their helmets off. He signaled to the others: two-two. They nodded and quickly changed their radio channel to 22.

“If he comes to us here, Mirk will notice us,” Neal said.

“Let’s run for it on three,” said Hanna.

Neal felt his stomach and legs tighten. “Okay,” he said. He breathed a short prayer. Easy to remember God in crunch time, he thought.

“One….two…..three!” said Hanna.

She darted out of her booth towards the airlock. Grummel kicked the table over as he climbed out. Neal pulled a miner trick, clicking off his boots, jumping towards the wall by the booth, and then kicking powerfully off the wall straight towards the airlock. He sailed past Grummel and then Hanna and slammed inside the airlock. He hit the exit button just as Grummel lunged into the airlock and the inner door began to close. Neal saw the man with the scar running toward it, nearly there, pulling something from his pocket. The door closed and air cycled out at the same moment Neal slammed his helmet down on his head and sealed it on. The outer door slid open back onto the night street and its garish lighting and they jumped out. Neal quickly looked around for an object.

“Wait!” he said as Grummel and Hanna were already halfway to the catchwire. “Do you guys have something you can leave behind? A Book, a flashlight, a bottle?”

Hanna reached in a pocket and pulled her Book out and threw it to him like a football pass. He would have argued her choice but they didn’t have time. The airlock door was sliding closed again. He stuck Hanna’s Book in the way and the airlock door slid open again.

“That will keep the inner door from opening,” muttered Neal. But he knew there was probably a side exit nearby. Just then two policemen came around the corner. They saw Neal leaving the Book in the bar door.

“Hey!” they said, coming toward him in their armored suits.

Neal raised his hands. “Oh, thank God!” he said weakly.

 

18 Nov 2009

Dragons and Stars, Chapter 16: I Walked Through the City and What Did I See?

Posted by pendragon7. Comments Off on Dragons and Stars, Chapter 16: I Walked Through the City and What Did I See?

Aunt Dottie’s eyes went wide.

“I’m sorry to put you out,” said Hanna.

“Oh no, no, it’s no bother at all, none at all,” said Aunt Dottie. “What can I get for you instead? Noodles? I really don’t know what you Jewish people eat.”

Uncle John put in, “Dottie, you know those egg sandwiches you’re famous for? You could whip one of those up.”

“Certainly, certainly,” said Aunt Dottie, going into the kitchen.

* * *

After dinner the atmosphere was a little stifling in the room.

“Aunt Dottie,” said Neal, “I think we’ll go for a walk around the neighborhood.”

“All right,” she said sweetly. “But do be careful of all the homeless people and others around. This is the night time. Do stay together.”

Neal, Hanna, and Grummel exited the apartment building with a great sigh of relief. Neal took a deep breath and stared up at the stars above them. Grummel leaned against the building, and Hanna leaned down to stretch out her legs.

“Bet you can’t catch me, you kloppers,” said Hanna, suddenly darting for the catchwire rope in between the two buildings. She ran away down the street and grabbed hold of the handle, turning off her boots with the other hand. Swiftly she was being pulled out of sight. Neal and Grummel stared, then took off after her.

Neal took a running start at the catchwire tow-rope and grabbed on. Grummel behind him did the same, but was having a hard time. He was trying to reach down and turn off his boots, but wasn’t. His boots were pulling to the ground while he was dragged swiftly along. Grummel was hopping to break his boots away. He let go at last like a water skier dragged through a lake and fell tumbling along the ground. Neal looked ahead, then let go to make sure Grummel was all right.

“Hanna!” he shouted into his mic, but buildings already blocked their short-distance radio connection.

“Humph!” said Grummel, coming to a stop against the wall of a building, upside down. Neal pushed over hurriedly and pulled him to his feet. They clomped back to the catchwire together and before Grummel could make the same mistake again, Neal reached down and turned of his boots.

“Thenks,” said Grummel.

They grabbed the catchwire and were pulled hurriedly on. I hope Hanna stops and waits when she sees we’re not behind her, Neal thought. But his knowledge of Hanna made him doubt. She was not always one for caution.

They were pulled past several buildings and shopping centers. Then the line took a turn down a darker alley and came out into a neon-lit street. Some glowing street signs made it clear there were women about showing their God-given bodies to earn some cash. Several bars let out on the street, and as they whisked by one, a fight broke out between two men with what looked like knives.

“Oh, man,” said Neal. He hadn’t been to this part of town before by day much less by night. Could Hanna have come this far? he wondered.

“‘Ey,” said Grummel. “Isn’t thet Mirk?”

Neal looked to his left at a bar they were passing. A younger astronaut was going in the bar. It did look like Mirk.

Neal felt torn, wanting to stop and take a second look, but wanting to find Hanna.

“Should we’ stop?” asked Grummel.

“No,” said Neal shortly.

They were whizzing around a bend in the street when Neal spotted Hanna. She was leaning by a bar door, waiting for them.

“Hanna!” Neal said. He and Grummel let go and drifted by her, slowly coming down and trying to find traction to stop.

“Hanna!” said Neal.

“Well, don’t wear my name out,” she answered back.

“You shouldn’t have come this far alone,” he said.

“Whatever!” she said. “I’m fine.”

But Neal could see she was peeved at herself and knew she’d made a mistake.

They stood for a minute, taking in the sights. Several largish miners wandered into the bar next to them.

“Let’s go,” said Hanna.

“I thought I saw Mirk,” said Neal.
“Where?”

“At one of the bars just back around that bend,” he said.

“Let’s go see what he’s up to,” said Hanna.

“He’ll just be mad at us,” said Neal.

“He won’t see us,” said Hanna. “We’ll darken our helmets. A lot of people here have. We won’t stand out.”

Neal looked around and realized that a lot of astronauts had tinted their helmets to not be able to see their faces. It wouldn’t do a lot of good with a policeman, who had radar sensors that showed them the shape of the face underneath. But it gave an edge in everyday interactions.

The three spies adjusted their compad sensors. Their helmets began to tint and then dimmed almost to black. The three of them lunged lightly forward along the street, moonwalking back the way they came.

“Here it is,” said Neal. “The Lady Hawk.” The bar had a large neon hawk above it.

“Grummel,” said Hanna, “You stand out the most with us. You go in first, look for Mirk, and try to sit at a table closest to him. He’ll never guess you’d come alone. We’ll be in to join you in a minute. And don’t mess it up.”

“Okay, okay,” said Grummel. He lumbered toward the bar entrance where a bouncer let him past with a look at Grummel’s huge figure.

“I hope Mirk doesn’t recognize him,” said Hanna.

“I hope Uncle John doesn’t kill us with his bare hands,” Neal said moodily, wondering what punishments would come upon them for going to a bar.

18 Nov 2009

Dragons and Stars, Chapter 15: Suffering through Church

Posted by pendragon7. 3 Comments

The three made their way into the airlock. At the back of it, two elevator doors stood open. They squeezed in the left one and Neal pressed the 76 on the elevator list. The doors closed and the elevator whooshed upwards.

As it slowed to a stop Hanna’s boots broke free and she drifted upwards. “Oy gevalt!” she said. She pushed off the elevator’s plushly pillowed ceiling, and once back on the floor turned up her magboots. They clumped out into a hallway and circled around the elevator shaft until they came to Aunt Dottie’s door.

Neal knocked, and after a long minute, Aunt Dottie opened the door. She was tall, in strange high heels with pointy toes. A long brown leather coat draped down past her knees as a sort of dress. The collars on her red Z patterned shirt stuck up as high as her eyes around the back and sides of her head. Her hair was piled impossibly high and waxy. She peered through her collar at them and smiled crisply. “Come in, come in.”

They walked into the luxuriously appointed apartment. Two magnificent flowers grew in corner pots, and warm spotlights shone on various genuine wood furnitures.

“I was just getting ready to go to an evening church service,” said Aunt Dottie. “Are you ready?”

“Oh, er, okay, sure,” said Neal. He didn’t care much for Aunt Dottie’s church, but what can you do. She scrunched a tall narrow helmet inside her collar and over her hair. “Let’s go!” she said in the radio.

They bundled out into the hallway again, down the elevator and out the front door. Low on the horizon, Neal could see a large red dot he knew to be Mars. The stars overhead were dimmer than on Eros because the city all around him was brightly lit in the swift evening. Ceres rotated completely every nine hours, compared to Eros’ 5 hours 15 minutes.

As they grabbed handles on the passing catchwire, darkness settled over the city like a bird alighting. The lights of the building glowed in every direction. Neal had seen Ceres City from station before at night. It glowed like a jewel on the surface of the great asteroid. The stars grew brighter as the asteroid turned its shoulder to the ever-shining sun.

Neal looked back and grinned at Hanna. She smiled back, enjoying the ride through the big city. “Oh, it’s so beautiful!” exclaimed Mrs. Silver over the radio. “Praise Jesus!”

In front Aunt Dottie turned her head back and stared curiously at Mrs. Silver.

They arrived at a tall square structure with a tall sharp tower on one corner. Neal always thought the building was strange in the city of cylinders and spheres, but being a yokal from the outskirts he didn’t say anything. They went through the airlock into the church, and Aunt Dottie immediately removed her helmet, patting her hair. A large smile came across her face and she immediately began greeting others by shaking only one hand with the people who came to meet them (how rude, Neal thought) who had similar large smiles pasted on their faces.

“God bless you,” she said to one middle-aged man, holding his hand a little longer than the rest. “And how is your oh-so-dear mother doing these days?”

“Oh,” he rumbled, “Praise the Lord, she’s doing better. The medicine is very expensive but it looks like she will not lose her hair after all.”

Neal clumped away and sat down as the music began to start. He pulled off his helmet and put it under his seat and strapped himself in to keep from drifting. The music was slow, sonorous, and Neal felt he was singing at a funeral. He sang along with the lyrics transmitted in his Book. The words were interesting enough, although he didn’t understand them all. “…A bulwark never failing…” But he got the idea. Jesus was strong and important. If only they didn’t grind through the words so slowly.

The music minister up front was waving his hands authoritatively and energetically to the mumbling gathering.

“All right,” he said, “Now let’s have one for the younger people present.” He pressed a button and a faster-tempoed song played from the sound boards. “Praise the Star Maker, He’s my life maker, glory be to Jupiter’s king, from the stars our praises ring…”

Neal felt a shift beside him. To his embarrassment, Mrs. Silver had raised both her hands into the air and was swaying from side to side. Everyone around them was staring down at their books and mumbling. Then to his horror, she said to him, “Excuse me, Neal.”

She scooted past him into the aisle and began dancing gracefully in circles. People looked up from their Books in shock, staring, and murmuring to each other as the music blasted on. Not for the first time that day, Neal wanted to crawl under a chair.

Hanna elbowed him. “I think she’s full of chutzpah,” she said. The song shifted. “This is the air I breathe,” the song leader sang. “Your holy presence, living in me.”

Mrs. Silver lay down on her face in aisle with her hands forward. Neal covered his eyes.

* * *

On the way home after the service, Aunt Dottie was rather silent. “Thank you for taking us to your lovely church,” said Mrs. Silver.

Aunt Dottie turned her head back and lifted the corners of her mouth. “Oh, you are welcome,” she said. “Did you grow up with Jews?”

“Well, no,” said Mrs. Silver. “I wish I did. Why do you ask?”

“Well,” said Aunt Dottie, “I thought perhaps you were about to get out your tambourine for a minute.”

“Why, what a lovely idea!” said Mrs. Silver. “Do you have a tambourine?” Aunt Dottie stayed silent.

Hanna shot a fuming look at Neal. He scrunched a grimace back at her and waved his free hand helplessly.

When they reached Aunt Dottie’s apartment, a ragged looking astronaut was squatting by the door. As they came up to it, he stood suddenly and came to them. His face was gaunt and hollow under his dirty and scratched helmet, and a ragged beard grew around his mouth. His eyes were small and black like a squirrel’s.

“Please,” he said. “Credits for a homeless man. My air generator needs a repair or I’ll run out of air.” Aunt Dottie briskly walked past him and pressed a code on the door compad.
“Please,” he said, turning to them. “I might die. Can you at least let me sleep in the hallway outside your door for the night? I’m looking for a freighter to work on. Just down on my luck.”

“Please,” said Aunt Dottie. “Move away from here or I’ll contact Ceres Security.” Hanna looked at Neal and he nodded, fishing the ten-credit coin from his pocket and handing it quietly to the man before they followed Aunt Dottie into the airlock.

At her house, they waited around the elegantly carved wooden table as Aunt Dottie radioed for dinner. “Those pests!” she said, indignantly. “Just because they were irresponsible, they think they can mooch off everyone else. You work hard, you get ahead. And most of the time their stories are tall tales anyway. Take a lesson, kids,” she said to them.

A knock came at the door, and a service robot walked in on spider legs, holding a steaming box. It set it down on the floor and scurried out.

The intercom buzzed just then and Uncle John’s voice came in. “Dottie?” he said. “It’s me, John– and a friend.”

“Oh, do come in,” she said sweetly. “Dinner just arrived and there should be plenty.”

A minute later Uncle John knocked and came in. Grummel was with him.

“Where’s your dad?” asked Neal. Grummel looked around the posh apartment, and then nodded his head toward Mrs. Silver.

“‘E thought ‘eed be more comfor’ble on the ship this eve’ing,” he said. He leaned forward, pushing his mic off to whisper in Neal’s ear. “He were frightened o’ making a mistake.” Neal looked over at Mrs. Silver and nodded. He probably was right on that one. If he didn’t break some imported vase, he’d probably at least blurt out something embarrassing. That was MacHardy–blunt spoken at times, but always earnest.

They sat down to eat and Aunt Dotte pulled smaller boxes out of the crate the robot had brought and set one before each of them. “One of my favorite dishes!” she said, as Neal opened his and looked at a pasty pat’e. “Rillons, ‘blanc de l’ouest’ pigs!”

“Oh!” said Neal. “Aunt Dottie, Hanna can’t eat this.”

“Oh, why not?” she asked.

“She’s Jewish,” said Neal.

 

18 Nov 2009

Dragons and Stars, Chapter 14: Hello Ceres

Posted by pendragon7. 2 Comments

The S.S. Samson screamed into range of Ceres and Ceres’ Station. Uncle John didn’t want to take a chance on the pirates changing their minds and coming to finish them off before they made it to Ceres. As a result, the Samson was going to overshoot and blow past Ceres like a runner passing first base, before it could reach a full stop and work its way back to the Station.

Andrews had expertly flipped the long ship so it was flying end-first. The thrusters were working away to decrease the ship’s velocity at a rate their bodies and the ship’s frame could withstand. Even so, they all remained pressed into their seats for more than one hour as the ship screeched to a stop.

The intercom crackled.

“Freighter S.S. Samson,” said an upset man’s voice, “Please advise why you are flying at unacceptable speeds through Ceres orbital space.”

Uncle John’s voice crackled in reply. “Ceres Base, please be advised that we have recently undergone a pirate attack from three Kiff’eem ships and barely escaped after losing half our cargo.”

There was a long pause.

“Freighter S.S. Samson, send representatives to Space Security headquarters immediately upon landing. Also carry ship recordings of the event.”

“Roger,” said Uncle John.

The ship’s rear at last came to a full stop in space, and once again the ship was flying front-forward in approach back to Ceres Station.

“Oh!” said Mrs. Silver, sitting next to Neal. She was holding his right hand in her two hands, but it was more comforting than annoying to Neal after the past eight hours. “I see what you mean, Neal!”

On the forward camera screen, the largest of the asteroids looked very much like a small moon as it filled the left side of the monitor. In the right side of the monitor above the moon, a large multi-layered space station grew larger as they approached. And between Ceres and the station above it, a thin connecting wire shone in the light of the distant sun.

“That’s the connection tube,” said Hanna, pointing. “Even though it looks like a thin wire, it’s actually about a hundred feet in diameter and has two-way traffic going through it from the station to Ceres.”

“My goodness!” exclaimed Mrs. Silver. “It’s like a fifteen mile tall skyscraper with a huge station at its top!”

“Have you seen real skyscrapers before?” asked Neal, curiously.

“Oh my, yes,” she smiled. “I grew up on earth! But earth’s skyscrapers are not nearly as tall as those on the moon. On the moon there are towers more than a mile tall.”

Neal digested that information as the space station grew to fill the monitors. The ship slowed to a stop at one of the long docking arms of the station, and a transfer tube from the arm whirred out to the ship and connected to the back with a large bump. A sound buzzed in their eyes, followed by a hiss and a click.

“We’re connected,” Uncle John said. “Let’s pray before we leave. We should not ask for help and forget to give equal time to thanks afterwards.”

Uncle John bowed his head. Beside Neal, Mrs. Silver pulled herself down out of her seat and bowed her face to the floor, her arms up in the air. Neal tried to look away. He closed his eyes.

“Dear Lord,” Uncle John prayed, “We thank you humbly for delivering us from death. We’re also thankful we still have half our cargo. To you belong escapes from death.”

“Amen! Hallelujah!” shouted Mrs. Silver, making Neal jump.

There was a pause, then Uncle John said, “Amen.”

Everyone shuffled or floated out of their seats, some walking with magboots, others pulling themselves to the airlock by handles in the ceiling. Neal, Hanna, Mrs. Silver, and Grummel waited together and put on their helmets. Grummel had been ribbed mercilessly by the other miners for the past several hours for sleeping through the entire pirate attack. He took it sheepishly and good-naturedly.

“Now,” said Hanna, “You don’t have to come with us, Grummel, if you don’t want to. You can just go nap in your bunk while we spend the day on Ceres…”

Grummel grimaced. “I reckon’ I got enough sleep fer now,” he said.

They went out through the airlock and into the cargo area, where the miners were beginning to unlock crates from the hold wall.

MacHardy floated over. “Grummel,” he said. “I’m gonna need ye here helping to unload the cargo what’s left. You can go on down te’ Ceres later ef’ there’s time.”

Grummel looked disappointed, but nodded.

Neal turned to help with a box, but MacHardy barred his way with a meaty arm.

“Ye’ done enough today, young pilot,” he said. “You take Hanna an’ Mrs. Slender, er, Sliver, that es.. Mrs. Silver, on down to Ceres and rest up. Eny’ways, we only got half the cargo we had a’fore, so we’ll do jes’ fine by ourselves.”

Neal nodded. He pushed off behind Hanna and Mrs. Silver and glided down the cargo bay until they reached the back ramp. It was lowered into a large bright tube, where station crew waited with cargo floaters to tug the ore crates somewhere else on the station.

* * *

“Five credits each!” said the guard. They had floated through hall after hall crowded with dock workers, merchants and travelers. Now they had arrived at the entrance to the tube down to Ceres. “I’ve got it,” said Neal, handing the guard a twenty credit thin coin.

“And there’s a five credit service charge for giving out tickets!” the guard said, under his breath.

Neal froze and stared awkwardly to the side. Should he fight it?

“A five credit service charge?” asked Hanna sharply. “I would like to talk to your commanding officer about this charge. Would you like to go get him or her?”

The officer raised his eyebrows in surprise, then his face grew shrewd.

“Well, cutie,” he said, eyeing her up and down. “He’s on vacation right now.”

Neal clenched his right fist and saw red for a moment.

Hanna’s flushed slightly, but she calmly looked him back in the eyes.

“Well, that’s interesting.” She pointed at Neal. “His uncle, the governor of a large asteroid, is going to talk to base officials in just a few minutes about a pirate attack on us coming here.” She punched a button on her compad behind her left wrist and held it up to her mouth. “Perhaps we’ll just ask him to mention this service charge in connection with you…” she peered at his nametag, which read “Rice,” and at the mark on his sleeve. “Corporal Rice is it?” She thumbed the communication switch.

“Wait. Wait! Okay, okay.” He called her an uncomplimentary name and fished around for change in his side bag.

Neal looked around and was very embarrassed to see a long line forming behind them.

“Better make it ten credits,” Hanna said. “We are quite inconvenienced.”
“Why you little!” he began, but Hanna thumbed her wristpad. “Captain John?”

“Yes, what is it Hanna?” Uncle John replied through the compad.

The guard furiously snatched a ten credit coin and tossed it at them. Neal caught it against his chest.

“Never mind,” said Hanna into her compad. “Sorry to bother you, Uncle John.”

She smiled at the guard and they entered the tube.

“You know how to make enemies!” Neal said to her in a low voice.

“But you admire my spunk, don’t you?” Hanna asked him, shaking her hair out.

Neal smiled and shook his head no. “Yeah,” he said.

Mrs. Silver had watched the whole thing from a certain distance. She said nothing but laid a hand on each of their arms as they stepped off the waiting platform onto a pod.

It was already mostly full, and after they squeezed on the doors shut behind them. The clear texaglass pods rotated on the track leading down to Ceres. As it pushed away from the station, the pod swung so that they were traveling headfirst to the asteroid, giving their feet gravity against the floor of the pod. The three of them craned their heads up to look through the clear tube at the approaching asteroid. The pod picked up speed for about five minutes and the round asteroid grew to fill their sight. Then a bell sounded, and everyone grabbed a handhold as the pod swung until they were going feetfirst downward to the asteroid. The pod began slowing, giving their feet gravity onto the floor again after a few moments. A large city came up underneath them, and after five minutes they settled to a stop nestled in the midst of tall buildings.

The gravity eased up to normal Ceres gravity, 1/30th of an earth gravity. Nea normally would weigh 145 earth-pounds (72.5 pounds in the half-gravity of the Living Cylinder). Now he felt like he weighed about five pounds. Fortunately, their magboots worked on metal-cored Ceres. Several passengers leaned down to adjust their boots for better walking. Those who didn’t exited the pod with a sort of lunge forward, which floated them away just above the ground. Miners called these lunges “moonwalking.” Not to be confused with the dance, which ironically could be performed best in higher gravity.

Neal, Hanna, and Mrs. Silver made their way out of the station and into the city. To Neal’s eyes, the city was huge. Ceres’ diameter of 590 miles made Eros’ 20 mile length look like a pebble in space. But Neal had read that Earth’s moon was four times as large as even Ceres! It boggled his mind to imagine. And then Terra, earth itself–four times the diameter of its great moon, and fifty times the total volume. I guess compared to all that, Ceres is not such great shakes, Neal thought. But still. He stared out at the city sprouting out of the sharply curving surface of Ceres.

There were tall buildings, great tall columns and cylinders, a few of them spinning. Bubble geodesic domes covered large shopping and trade areas. Miners came from all over the asteroid belt to offload their ores and cargos and pick up supplies and fuel. Ceres itself had an amazing amount of frozen water in its mantle which could be broken up into oxygen for breathing and hydrogen for fuel, or simply collected as water.

A public conveyance tow-rope was gliding in front of them. They each stepped up to it, turned off their magboots, and grabbed hold of a handle. This tow-rope wound through various parts of the city on pulleys and wheels. Neal always enjoyed the ride, which now moved at a quick pace down streets and between buildings. After ten minutes a tall apartment cylinder loomed above them, marked “Mavery Place.” All three let go of the line. Their momentum carried them straight to the wall of the cylinder. The pushed against it lightly with their feet, bringing themselves to a stop, floating down to the surface where they turned on their magboots. Neal pressed the compad on the wall next to the entrance.

“Mrs. Turner, please,” he said.

“Yes, sir,” a robotic voice replied.

“Who is this?” said a woman’s voice a moment later.

“It’s Neal Washer, your nephew,” he said. “I have two friends with me.”

“Why Neal, how marvelous! Come on up!” The airlock beeped and the outer door slid open.

 

14 Nov 2009

Dragons and Stars, Chapter 13: A New Pilot

Posted by pendragon7. 1 Comment

Neal breathed deeply. Through the portal, he could see a group of smaller asteroids approaching off to the left of the ship.

Neal lifted his hands. He was ashamed to see they were shaking uncontrollably. Uncle John looked at them, at him, but said nothing. Neal breathed again and entered a new flight pattern. “Check?” he said to Andrews. Andrews scanned the new trajectory which would take them on a left loop into the Wilds and straighten out to beeline for Ceres. “Check,” he said, eyes wide.

Neal adjusted the displays around him to ship statistics, forward camera view, and general radar. His central display he set to a trajectory radar view. This view traced the lines of detected asteroids and larger rocks and their trajectories in glowing red lines. It also traced the trajectory of the ship through the tangle of rock trajectories ahead.

Neal focused his mind. This was something he could do. At least nine times out of ten. “Engage at mark,” he said to Andrews. Andrews stared at his display, brushing his hands back through his shaggy blonde hair. “Engaging in T-minus eight seconds,” he announced over the intercom. Five, four, three, two, one… Neal felt the strange invisible force lift him, pull him around in his seat as the engines of Samson paused to redirect and roar in a new direction. Outside the portal the asteroids dipped, then turned and began to approach the ship rapidly.

Neal only had time to glance at the main radar. Two of the Kiff’eem ships continued on toward the jettisoned cargo. One turned it’s trajectory to follow them. Neal snapped his eyes to his forward radar display, putting his fingers on the buttons connecting to various directional thrust rockets. He watched the ship trajectory connect ahead with a two-hundred-foot meteroite. In twenty seconds they would collide at 100,000 miles per hour. Neal pushed two fingers down and two right side thrusters fired and the ship shifted. In the portal window a rock came into view and hurtled past them like one long streak. That was easy. Now came the hard part.
Neal breathed a silent prayer and then closed everything out of his mind but the spaghetti tangle of lines they were approaching. Little tinks and clatters began to shake the ship, as small dust and tiny rocks collided with the forward mounts. The Samson was equipped with two large forward plates of titanite, like an ice-breaker ship from old earth, or like the cow-catchers on the front of ancient steam locomotives. In addition a powerful charged electromagnet aimed forward, parting metallic small meteorites to the sides of the ship. But the plates and magnet wouldn’t hold off any rock larger than five or six feet. Especially at this speed.

Neal’s mind closed around the fifty or sixty rock trajectories ahead of them on the display. He quickly sorted through various options and their results in a sort of high-speed chess strategy. He paused for four seconds, watching the ship’s course, then rapidly began pushing buttons connected to the sixteen directional thrusters on the ship. The ship began gyrating, tilting this way and that, edging to the left, then downwards, and tilting back up. On the radar display the ship’s trajectory path slid and shifted, leaving behind a wavy line. Out of the corner of his eye, Neal could see the forward cameras showing dusts and debris parting almost miraculously in front of the ship, the occasional less metallic rock making it through to ding against the forward plates. Larger fragments of rocks loomed near, some blurring past above or to the sides of the ship. Meteorites and large chunks of rock flipped past them in all directions as the ship continued its slow dance.

Suddenly on the radar, Neal saw a smaller rock intersect with the Kiff’eem ship pursuing them.

“Their ship is hit!” shouted Andrews excitedly. “Yes!”

“Don’t rejoice when your enemy falls,” said Uncle John sternly.

Neal only heard their words with half an ear. His mind was locked onto the rocks and trace lines ahead, pushing buttons instinctively as the ship yawed and tilted like a giant whale dancing. A clear patch opened ahead, and Neal allowed himself to look at the general radar. The ship behind them was turning slowly end over end as it hurtled forward. Neal watched as another meteorite probably ten feet across approached the somersaulting Kiff’eem ship and went straight through it and out the other side as though the ship wasn’t even there. Pieces of small debris began floating from the ship.

“Anyone not suited up on that ship is dead now,” said Uncle John, staring.

Neal couldn’t take that in now. His fingers tensed, pushed, and danced on the buttons as his eyes tracked the spaghetti of lines tracing past the ship. All else faded from view. He felt his fingers tapping in slow motion, the ship shifting and turning like a movie on slow motion as ten, twenty minutes passed. Now the field was clearing. They blew through the last clouds of debris and out into clear space again, en route to Ceres.

He felt strong hands gripping his shoulders. Uncle John flipped the intercom so all could hear. “We’re safely through,” he said. “Thank the Lord. And thanks to a brand-new pilot, Neal Washer.” Neal heard pride in his uncle’s voice. And distantly, as though two hundred feet away, the sounds of clapping and cheering. He stared with glazed eyes at the monitor and the ship’s clear trajectory going straight ahead.

Then he heard laughter. His eyes finally focused when he heard Grummel’s groggy voice in the lounge area. “Good mornin’ ever’one. Whet’s all the clappin’ en shoutin’ aboot?”

 

 

14 Nov 2009

Dragons and Stars, Chapter 12: The Problem

Posted by pendragon7. 1 Comment

He pointed to one of the monitors. Three dark colored specks were shining in the picture from the rear-camera. As Neal watched, they slowly grew larger.

“Those are pirates,” said Uncle John.

There was a dead silence as they all stared at him.

“Should I be goin’ to get the guns out?” asked MacHardy after a moment.

Uncle John looked grim. Neal knew what he was thinking. Would the pirates merely take their goods and go, or would they go for the crew as well? Neal had heard whispers of pirates who killed whole crew to keep from being tracked. A gutted spaceship had been found five months before, half its crew murdered and the others missing.

“We’ll leave the guns locked up until we’re actually to be boarded,” Uncle John told MacHardy and then walked back into the bridge control room. Through the door Neal saw the banks of computers that ran the ship, and through the small protected portals, the stars ahead, and Jupiter to one side, growing larger.

“Everyone buckle in!” one of the pilots said over the loudspeaker. Alarms sounded. Uncle John peeked back through the door. “Neal, come in here, please!” Neal hurried inside and buckled himself at one of the consoles. Acceleration kicked in then, pressing him back hard against his seat.

“You’re one of the best pilots on the simulaters, Neal,” said Uncle John. “Stand by.”

Neal’s head was spinning as the S.S. Samson continued to accelerate. The simulaters? Was Uncle John asking him to fly the ship? Sure he’d spent hours in the flight simulaters, practicing flying different ships. It was perhaps the one subject he was better at than Hanna. But it was one thing to fly a simulater and another to be here. People’s lives were involved. His hands began to shake as his heart pounded.

Neal looked at one of the displays in front of him. It showed the three ships still drawing closer, though more slowly. They were strange, bulbous shaped ships, with sharp angles cut and swept forward.

“Uncle John,” he said, pointing. “Those are Kiff’eem.”

Uncle John leaned forward to his display and studied it. “Are you sure?” he asked, sternly.
“Yes,” said Neal. They were one of his favorite ships to fly on his game simulater. The class simulator didn’t have it in the database.

“So they’re Janjaweed,” said Uncle John, his jaw clenching. “They will show no care for this crew. God help us.”

Uncle John sat for a moment, then closed his eyes. “Dear Lord,” he prayed, tersely. “We need you. Deliver us from the bloodthirsty and the hands of those who hate us. Give us wisdom.”

MacHardy crackled over the intercom. “Uncle John?” he said.

“Yes?”

“Hev ye thought upon jettisonin’ some of the cargo? It may distract ’em since they’re after loot’. And it’ll mek us lighter fer faster acceleration.”

“An excellent suggestion, MacHardy,” said Uncle John. He thought about it for a moment.

“Neal, you and Andrews stay here and guide the ship. Keep us apprised of what’s happening out there.” He turned and flicked the intercom.

“Attention, all crew. Put on your helmets and meet me at the cargo bay airlock in one minute. We’re going to unclip half the cargo for jettison.”

He got up, holding to the doorframe. Grabbing some handles on the low ceiling, he let his feet float towards the back of the ship and walked down the ceiling like a ladder to the back airlock.

The four miners, Hanna, Dr. Brut, MacHardy, and the second pilot all joined him at the airlock at the back of the lounge. “Mirk!” shouted Dr. Brut. Neal saw Mirk sullenly push off into view and drift backwards to the lock with the others. Mrs. Silver made her way to Uncle John and patted his arm. “I’m praying,” she said. “Be brave! God told me we will escape from them without harm.” Uncle John stared at her a moment, then pushed the doorpad. The airlock hissed opened. Putting their helmets on, they all squeezed inside, and the door closed, leaving Mrs. Silver alone. She worked her way back to a sofa and strapped herself in. “God will help us!” she called up to Neal. Neal fervently hoped so.

* * *

The next twenty minutes passed with agonizing slowness. Neal felt each second on the clock pause and wait before ticking to the next. The ships had drawn closer, nearly within striking range. Neal thought hard. If they jettisoned the cargo as they were, the pirates might still tag them and destroy them, then go back for the cargo later. But if….

Neal clicked the intercom. “Uncle John, request permission to change flight trajectory toward Jupiter.”

“What’s your thinking?” said Uncle John’s tense voice from the hold. He was breathing hard.

“If we jettison the cargo on a high speed flight path toward Jupiter, the pirates cannot continue to chase us and then go back for the cargo later. The cargo will continue at high velocity towards Jupiter, where it will fall into Jupiter’s gravity and disappear into the lower atmosphere. If they want the cargo, they’ll have to stay with it and catch it before it goes too far towards Jupiter.”

There was a pause. “Good thinking, Neal,” said Uncle John. “Permission granted.”

Neal nodded to Andrews, the other pilot, and they set about recalculating their direction. A simple turn and thrust toward Jupiter would not actually direct them to the great planet. They would continue sliding in a mixed trajectory. Instead they needed to turn and rethrust far to the right of Jupiter. Their vector would then change enough to take them on a collision path into Jupiter, still another two days away.

“Are the figures correct?” he asked, checking the new vector with Andrews. “Yes,” Andrews said. “Engaging redirected thrusters,” said Neal. “Engage,” said Andrews. Neal hesitated a moment. God help us! he thought. Their ship felt so fragile, like a glass vial that could be broken by the slightest contact. “Engaging in T-minus five seconds!” he said over the intercom. Timing it in his head, he hit the Engage button.

The change of thrust twisted them in their seats, wrenching their heads as the stars began to spin and turn outside the portal. After a few moments the thrust gradually readjusted to a single rearward thrust again, and Neal checked the trajectory. “We’re straight on to Jupiter,” he said over the intercom.

The Kiff’eem ships behind did similar trajectory changes after a minute. Their vectors tracked to contact range with the S.S. Samson in thirty minutes. Neal wasn’t sure what they would do then. Probably fire an EMP pulse which could disable their ship and leave it helplessly hurtling through space, a sitting duck. It would also take out their life support, so they would only have suit-air to live on. Until they were boarded.

The airlock hissed open, and the group came back through, taking off their helmets. “Keep your helmets at hand,” said Uncle John. He clipped his to his belt and pulled himself forward by the handholds to the bridge door.

“Any suggestion for what to do after we jettison half our cargo?” asked Uncle John.

Neal had been thinking. “Since Ceres is still the closest major base, I think after we jettison we should rethrust toward Ceres,” he said. He hesitated a moment. “I think if we steered through the Wilds it would add discouragement for them to follow us.” Uncle John eyed him for a moment. The Wilds were a nearby patch of the asteroid belt filled with small rocks and pieces of asteroids that floated randomly and were a true danger to navigate through.
“Can you steer us through the Wilds?” he asked, staring Neal in the eyes.

“I used to do it in the flight simulator,” Neal said. “With a 92% success rate.”

Uncle John sat back to ponder on it, weighing the factors that held their lives in the balance.

“All right,” he said. “We’ll rethrust through the Wilds. You’ll be steering, Neal, since you have the most experience in that.”

Neal closed his eyes.

Uncle John typed a few buttons on a display and thumbed the intercom.

“Prepare for jettison in T-minus ten seconds,” he said. Neal saw him push the button and open the back hatch of the ship. “Aim all positioning thrusters backwards and prepare for a two second burst,” he instructed Andrews. With a quiet whine, all the small positioning rockets on the sides of the ships turned backwards. These were the weak thrusters used for close-contact docking. “Engage,” said Uncle John.

Andrews engaged them, and Neal felt a slight tug forward. He checked the rear camera view. Slowly crate after crate of ore drifted out the back of the ship. The S.S. Samson slowly left the flock of forty or fifty crates behind. Uncle John checked the radar. “They’ll see that for sure,” he said, staring at the display.

“I’m sorry, Uncle John,” Neal said as they watched the crates drift farther back from sight.

“Crates of metal aren’t worth anything compared to human lives,” said Uncle John simply. He looked up.

“Neal, it’s up to you now. Take the helm.”

 

 

14 Nov 2009

Dragons and Stars, Chapter 11: Journey to Ceres

Posted by pendragon7. 1 Comment

It was early the next Monday morning and Neal was curled in bed when he heard Uncle John’s voice.
“Neal! Cornelius Van Til Washer! Time to get up!” His uncle turned on the overhead lights, blinding Neal and sending him burrowing under his blankets.
“Up!” said Uncle John.

“Why so early?” mumbled Neal.

“It’s Shipment Day!” said Uncle John cheerfully. “Don’t you remember?”

Neal began to ease into consciousness. Yes, now he did remember that it was the Monday of the month when they took a shipment of ore for processing to Ceres. He generally looked forward to the chance to get away and see the sights, but the past few days he’d been distracted by all the other excitement on the asteroid.

Neal sighed and rolled out of bed, stubbing his toe as he went to the wallcloset to choose his space suit. It wasn’t much of a choice, since Neal only owned three: two of them the standard gray mining worksuits and a bright blue dress suit for better occasions. Neal grabbed the blue one and hurriedly pulling it on, checking his hair in the mirror. It was a terrible mess, like a haystack gone insane. He groaned and went to the sink, putting his head under the faucet to soak his hair, then drying it off with a towel. That generally did the trick of making it hang down uniformly, and as it dried it had a purposeful tousled look that he thought looked just fine. Anyway, much better than a haystack. Neal joined Uncle John for a brief breakfast of artifically synthesized oatmeal.

Afterwards Uncle John read a chapter from 1 Kings. Neal listened as King Ahab tried to take Naboth’s vineyard, and pouted when he couldn’t. His wife Jezebel falsely accused Naboth and had him stoned do death. Then she gave his vineyard to her husband. God was angry at that and promised Ahab his line would be cut off and dogs would lick his blood. To Neal’s surprise, Ahab tore his clothes and went around mourning for several days. Apparently it surprised God too, who promised Ahab the disasters would not come during his lifetime. “Was God surprised?” Neal asked Uncle John. “God is never surprised,” said Uncle John. “Wasn’t Jesus surprised?” asked Neal. “Yes,” said Uncle John thoughtfully. “But he limited himself.” He looked at the clock. “Well, let’s go!”

They stood up and grabbed their helmets. Neal followed Uncle John up out the hatch and into the living cylinder shaft. Other miners were clambering out of their hatches and working their way up the shaft, murmuring good mornings to each other, running their fingers through their hair or checking their compad watches behind their left wrists.

Floating out the living shaft, Neal adjusted his magboots and walked after his uncle down a large tunnel for several minutes, past lamp after lamp on the tunnel wall. They reached a waiting room where four miners stood shuffling their gear and waiting. Dr. Brut and Mirk were also standing there. Neal looked away and put on his texaglass helmet and pushed the safety button sealing it in place. The others did the same as Uncle John slid a key into a keypad on the wall and typed a few numbers. After a moment a large door trundled open and Neal walked through with the others into an airlock chamber. The door behind them closed, a warning sounded, and the outer door ground open. Outside the vast underground hanger came into view. It was a giant cavern, perhaps a quarter mile long and nearly as wide, with a ceiling three or four hundred feet overhead. Early explorers had discovered this cavern when digging for ore. The cavern was one reasons Providence Base was located here on the asteroid. That, and the cleft valley helped protect it from the occasional meteorite strike. Neal and the others trudged toward the largest ship in the hangar, the S.S. Samson. This freighter carried the metal ores they mined to the nearest trade point. That point was the space station attached to Ceres, the largest asteroid.

The ship had been loaded on Saturday by some of the miners, but Sunday was a day of rest Uncle John insisted upon. Neal yawned inside his helmet and started up the ramp onto the ship.

“Hi sleepy!” came a voice crackling over his headset. Neal looked back over his shoulder to see Hanna and Grummel making their way out of the airlock towards him. Neal leaned against the railing and waited for them to arrive.

“Is our friend sourpuss on this flight?” Hanna asked. Neal nodded glumly. She examined his face more closely. “Your eyes are not quite as black as they were Saturday,” she said. Neal brightened. “They are more like a…a dark blue or green, wouldn’t you say, Grummel?” She laughed, and Neal sighed and joined them as they climbed the ramp at the back of the ship.

The back of the giant ship was full of large steel boxes, fastened to the sides of the hold. The three of them walked the aisle between the crates for two or three minutes until at last they came to a sealed airlock door. Through this airlock was the crew area, consisting of a cozy crew room with several sofas. As they stepped into this room, each took off their helmet and stored it on a shelf by the door. On the left and right walls of the lounge area were doors into the bunk rooms where crew could sleep, and in one corner of the lounge was a small kitchenette area. At the end of the lounge room was another door forward into the bridge control room. That door was open at the moment and Uncle John was standing in it, talking to one of the pilots.

“Prepare for liftoff!” he said, turning his head to Neal, Hanna and Grummel as they came in. Taking seats on the forward-facing sofas, they pulled straps down across them and buckled themselves in. The others on the ship had already strapped themselves into various seats. As a rumble started beneath them, images flashed up on two monitors on the walls. One image was from a base camera, showing the S.S. Samson floating off its magnedock station. The other was from a forward camera on the ship, showing a large hangar door in front of them pulling open to reveal the stars outside. The ship passed through this door, and the first image switched to an outside rear view of the ship pulling away from the asteroid. The asteroid filled the screen behind them, its little craters and hills a familiar home to Neal. The rumbling increased and they felt the force push them farther back into the sofas. The asteroid grew smaller behind them. Coming up over the edge of the asteroid they could see the sun suddenly glint out and shine at the camera, casting the asteroid in front of it into shadow. The sun was small, about the side of a pea, but still too bright to look at directly. Neal sighed and pulled his Book from his coat. A Book looked like an old-fashioned book with pages that turned, but each page had electronic ink that could change at the push of a button. Neal open the front cover and scanned the titles down to his science textbook. His Book beeped, and all the pages were immediately reformatted into his textbook. He turned to page 176 and began reading. “The mitochondria in the cell…” Several minutes passed. He yawned again and looked left at Hanna. Her eyes were drifting shut and her head bobbing. To her left Grummel had his head knocked back on the sofa. He was snoring. Neal had thought it was part of the rumbling of the ship’s engines. Grummel’s lips pursed and opened as he sucked in vast quantities of air with a rumbling snort and exhaled them with a whistle.

“Grummel!” said MacHardy. He came out of the pilot’s bridge just then into the lounge area. “Grummel! You’d best attend to yor’ schoolin’ or i’m going to learn your backside some education!” Grummel’s eyes popped open and he jerked forward, dropping his book onto the floor with a loud bang. He hurriedly picked it up and began reading. Neal noticed the book was upside down.

Just then one of the side doors on the lounge opened and Mrs. Silver stepped out. Her hair was tousled cutely around face, and her eyes were sleepy.

“Is there something wrong?” she asked, looking a little alarmed.

“Oh, my!” said MacHardy. He gave a clumsy bow. “I’m vera’ sorry ma’am, I didn’t know as thet you was on the ship!”

“Captain John invited me along,” she said, “And I decided to come. I was just enjoying a little nap in one of these cute bunks.” She waved her hand at the door.

MacHardy looked ready to eat his shirt. “I’m vera’ vera’ sorry,” he said. “I’ll try to be more quiet. I have a mighty big mouth Miz Silver and I don’t even’ know the nummer o’ times it’s gotten me in trouble.”

Grummel let out a loud guffaw which ended suddenly at a look from MacHardy.

“Oh, please, don’t worry about it!” said Mrs. Silver. “I don’t want to sleep through this trip anyway.”

MacHardy stood rooted for a minute then turned and stumped back into the bridge.

Mrs. Silver walked over to them.

“Is that a kitchenette over there?” she asked, pointing.

“Yes,” said Neal. Hanna’s eyes were open now, but she didn’t seem completely there and stared dully at Mrs. Silver.

“Could I bring you anything?” she asked the three of them.

“I’d lek some hot chocolate, ma’am,” said Grummel, “If it weren’t be no trouble.”

“None at all!” she said, delighted. Hanna shook her head, and Neal said, “Some coffee, please.”

A minute later she brought them over. Grummel accepted his cuptube with grateful paws. “Thenk you ever’ so much, ma’am,” he said. Hanna scootched away from Grummel. In spite of the hot chocolate being in a sealed cuptube, she had faith in Grummel’s ability to spill it on her. Their magboots still helped them walk across the floor of the metal ship, but cups and liquids and other objects were free to float. The only gravity was a gentle force backwards as the engines continued to gradually increase speed. Nothing was as hard to clean up as a liquid spill in low gravity. It floated in every direction.

Mrs. Silver went around to the others in the lounge, bringing them drinks or snacks as they liked. Dr. Brut accepted a cup of hot tea, but Mirk refused anything. Then Mrs. Silver came back and to Neal’s delight, settled down by him, her short red hair curling slightly around her wrinkled, glowing face. She stared at the two monitors in obvious delight. “Where are we headed?” she asked.

“To Ceres,” said Neal. “It’s the largest asteroid. It’s like a small moon [ content ]. A trade space station orbits Ceres, connected to it by a long transit tube. We dock at the space station and off-load there in zero gravity, but usually we take the tube down to Ceres to visit my uncle’s sister and her family.”

“There’s a tube connecting the space station down to the asteroid!?” Mrs. Silver exclaimed.

Hanna’s eyes bobbed open for a moment and sank again. Grummel’s head had sunk back into the sofa, and his nose was pointed up. He wasn’t quite snoring yet though.

“Yes,” said Neal, trying to speak quietly and give Mrs. Silver the hint. “Even though Ceres is a [hundred times ]larger than Eros, it’s still just small marble next to even earth’s moon. It’s gravity isn’t very strong at all, about 1/200th of an Earth Gravity. With the space station far enough out orbiting Ceres, it’s perfectly balanced. The tube is only fifteen miles long from the station down to Ceres. You’ll have to see it!” he said excitedly and realized he’d spoken louder as well. He glanced over at Mirk, but Mirk was sitting with his back in a corner staring at his book. Neal cynically wondered if Mirk was staring at indecent pictures instead of doing his homework. It wouldn’t be the first time. Not that Neal had a perfect track record there either.

Mrs. Silver brought him back by putting her hand on his arm. “And what are you reading?”

Neal looked down at his Book. “Oh yeah, I’m reading about cells in my biology book.”

“Cells!” she said, excitedly. “Aren’t they beautiful! Aren’t they fascinating! Whole worlds in a tiny speck! Have you learned how they have whole factories, and let some molecules in, and communicate with each other, and defend themselves, and…!” she stopped and caught her breath. She had lifted her hands in the air.

“Oh, praise God for his great wisdom and goodness!” she exclaimed.

For the hundredth time Neal felt a little embarrassed, felt like crawling under the sofa in front of him. Several miners looked over at Mrs. Silver who didn’t seem to notice in the least. She closed her eyes and bowed her head and murmured quietly for a few moments. Then she turned back to Neal with sparkling eyes.
“Aren’t you so blessed to be able to study all about it!” she said.

Neal felt himself smiling in spite of himself. “Sure,” he said.

The trip would take almost two days. Over the first day, Neal and the others napped, ate light meals, played cards and told tall tales. Neal did finish his assignments in his science book and had even done most of his reading for literature, several chapters from the old novel “The Two Towers,” the second in an epic trilogy from the 20th century. He enjoyed it quite well and found himself truly lost in the strange wild place and its cultures and dangers. He read late into the night hours (night being a traditional measure of time leftover from the ancestors who lived on earth). Finally, yawning, he quietly opened one of the doors in the left wall and snuck in. Grummel’s giant form was curled up on a bottom bunk, and MacHardy asleep on the top bunk, which hung down dangerously under his weight. Neal turned to the other bunkbed. His uncle slept on the bottom, though he was on duty in the bridge currently. Neal climbed to the top, slid under the blanket, and immediately dropped into a deep sleep.

* * *

Clangings and flashing red lights woke Neal with a start. He sat up suddenly, banging his head on the low ceiling. “Ow!” he said, squinting his eyes at the throbbing red light on the bunk room wall. Below him he saw Grummel sleeping soundly. Across from him, MacHardy swung down from his bunk and hurried out of the room. Neal rolled over and slid off the bunk, padding out into the lounge in his socks.

Several miners were coming out of their bunk rooms, sleepily staring around. Hanna came out of her bunk room, followed by Mrs. Silver.

“What’s goin’ on here?” asked MacHardy, tersely.

He went to the bridge door and knocked on it.

Uncle John opened the sealed door a moment later and stepped out.

“We’ve got a problem,” he said.

 

 

 

14 Nov 2009

Master of Shadows

Posted by joncooper. 3 Comments

Over the past few days I’ve come to realize that my new book is not turning out as well as I had hoped. I am going to have to go back and do a lot of rewriting. However, I’m in the middle of nanowrimo and I don’t have the time to rewrite 50,000 words. So I’m going to finish the book as it is and then go back and extensively edit it once the month is over.

Rather than keep posting chapters I’m going to stop, finish the book, edit it, and then release it after I’m satisfied with the story. I’m not going to continue to release something that I’m not happy with.

I’m not sure how long it is going to take to rewrite the book. Since next month is December (and a lot happens in December) my guess is I won’t be able to finish the editing until sometime around the first quarter of next year.

As Montezuma Vly once said, quality is severe drudgery. If a thing is worth doing it’s worth doing right.

14 Nov 2009

Master of Shadows, Chapter 13: Darkness

Posted by joncooper. 1 Comment

In an instant Jack whipped out his laser pistol and pointed it at Alice. An anger surged through him that was more intense than anything he had ever felt before. “Tell me you did not just kill my wife,” he said in a very dangerous and cold voice. “I want you to tell me that she is still alive.”

“All you care about is your precious wife, isn’t it?” Alice snarled. “You are all fools! Maybe I’m wasting my time trying to save civilization. Maybe it would be better if I let you all die.”

The rage inside Jack reached the boiling point. He pulled the trigger and fired. The laser hit Alice squarely in the chest. Her red suit absorbed much of the energy but the suit’s breastplate was badly damaged and the blackened suit began smoldering. A look of panic appeared on Alice’s face as she belatedly realized that she had pushed Jack too far.

Jack coolly surveyed the damage he had done to her suit. He kept his pistol aimed squarely at her. “Let’s try this again. What have you done to my wife?

“I haven’t done anything!” she pleaded. “I’ve been standing right here the whole time.”

Jack shook his head angrily. “Stop it, Alice! Don’t play games with me. That suit isn’t going to protect you the next time I fire. I want you to tell me what you have done to my wife.”

“I don’t know!” Alice said, with genuine panic in her voice. “The city attacked her and she’s gone. It might have just taken her prisoner but I don’t know. You’ve got to believe me! It’s not my fault. You can’t blame me for this.”

Jack looked at her with an expression of intense anger. He desperately fought to regain control of his temper and not shoot her again. He couldn’t remember the last time he was filled with such rage. “You are murderer, Alice. A murderer and a thief. I have no doubt that if you had a gun in your hands right now both Joe and I would already be dead. Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t kill you before you kill us both.”

Joe interrupted him. “I’ll give you one. You’re not an executioner, Jack. Alice will answer for her crimes. But this is not the time or the place.”

The computer at Alice’s feet beeped, and she glanced down at it. “I’ll give you another reason,” she replied.

“What’s that?” Jack asked.

Alice smiled. “It’s too late.”

Before she even finished her sentence the room was plunged into darkness. Alice immediately somersaulted behind her and kicked Joe squarely in the chest. The attack caught him off guard and he went sprawling across the room. The elderly man slammed heavily into a crate and fell to the ground, unmoving.

Jack was still holding the laser pistol but the room was completely dark. I can’t see her, he panicked. She’s getting away!

He stopped moving and stood perfectly still. He could hear nothing. She’s probably trained for combat in the dark, he thought ruefully. I bet she has all kinds of black-belt karate skills. This is so unfair.

Then Jack heard something – the sound of metal crunching against metal. Jack slowly turned around and strained to look in the general direction of the noise. In the utter blackness of the room Jack saw a single red light in the distance, about eight feet off the ground. When the light moved he realized that there were actually two red lights beside each other. His blood ran cold. Those aren’t lights – those are eyes!

Without making a sound Jack slowly crouched behind a crate and waited. He gripped his pistol tightly. At first he heard nothing, but then he could hear the sound of metal footsteps. As they drew closer Jack found himself holding his breath. Large drops of sweat poured off his brow. He couldn’t remember the last time he had been so scared. Please, please go away!

His mind wandered to Joe Taylor. What happened to him? Is he all right? I haven’t heard him move. Is he dead? Is he injured? Well, he’s not moving, so of course he’s injured! Why do these things have to happen to me? Why didn’t I listen to my wife? Oh Lily, where are you?

Jack suddenly realized that he no longer heard anything. He waited a moment longer but the metal footsteps never resumed. Gathering up all his courage, Jack slowly stood up.

Two glowing red eyes were staring right at him from an inch away.

Jack panicked. He staggered back into a crate and knocked something over. He quickly pulled up his laser pistol and fired repeatedly at the eyes. There was a flash of sparks on the other side of the room and then a whoosh. Something in the distance caught fire. As the object started burning Jack used the light from the fire to look around the room. He was completely alone.

It was just an illusion! he thought to himself. There was no robot here at all. I hate this place! It’s impossible to tell reality from mirages.

Before Jack put out the fire he quickly surveyed the room and found a small lantern. Jack turned it on and set it aside, and then used a nearby blanket to smother the flames that were consuming a wooden crate. Inside the now-burned crate was a pile of blackened machinery. I hope there was nothing important in there, Jack thought to himself.

“Joe?” Jack called out. There was no response. Jack walked over to where he had last seen Joe and found the fallen Starman still lying on the ground. He was not moving and his eyes were closed.

I guess this is where my ten minutes of first-aid training comes to play, Jack thought. After holstering his pistol he grabbed Joe’s wrist and attempted to take his pulse. When my boss sent me to that first aid class I was convinced he was wasting his time. I’m a technician, for crying out loud! But I guess emergencies do happen. I’ll have to send him a thank-you card or something.

Joe still had a pulse, and that made Jack feel a little bit better. He then performed a quick examination of the Starman. He’s got a nasty cut on his head, and it looks like his leg is broken. I’d better do something about that.

Jack searched the room for a first-aid kit. He located one in a crate of supplies and used its contents to dress Joe’s injuries. As he finished tying a splint to Joe’s leg the Starman slowly returned to consciousness.

“Take it easy,” Jack said as the Starman opened his eyes. “You’re not as young as you used to be.”

“You’re telling me,” Joe replied weakly. He looked at Jack and then down at his leg. He winced. “So that’s where all the pain is coming from.”

“You’ve got a nasty bump on your head too,” Jack commented. “You’ve probably sustained a concussion but I’m no expert.”

Joe smiled. “It wouldn’t be the first time. Thanks for helping me out. What’s been going on?”

“Way too much, I’m afraid! The lights went out, Alice escaped, the city almost scared me to death, and you went down for the count. I have no idea where Alice went but I have a feeling she is up to no good.”

Joe sighed. “I’m sorry about all this, Jack, I really am. When I asked you to come with me to talk to her I really thought she was just a misguided person and would give herself up. I never dreamed she was capable of murder. My respect for the title of Starman blinded me to who she really was.”

“So you think Lily is really -”

“I don’t know,” Joe interrupted. “And I don’t think Alice knows either. All she knows is that the city did something. I have a hunch that Alice knows far less than she thinks she does. She is so convinced she knows what is going on that she can’t even see the facts anymore. All she sees is what she wants to see.”

Jack finished dressing Joe’s injuries and then looked at the elderly man. “So what do we do now?”

Joe sat up, wincing in pain. “Scoot that computer console over to me. I want to see what Alice has been up to. If she could spot me as I was landing then maybe I can use that thing to spot her.”

Jack grabbed the computer and hauled it over to Joe. The Starman gingerly set it on his lap and worked at the console for a few minutes, carefully examining the holoscreen. He frowned.

“What’s wrong?” Jack asked.

“Well, there’s good news and bad news. The good news is that I’ve found Alice. The bad news is that she’s several miles away from here. That doesn’t make any sense to me. How could she have possibly crossed so much distance in just a few minutes?”

Jack snapped his fingers. “She’s got access to a wormhole transporter! I forgot to mention that.”

Joe looked puzzled. “But how is that possible? Didn’t you tell me that she blew up her ship?”

“Yes, but she also told me that she has a shuttlecraft hidden somewhere. I bet it’s just like yours.”

“That would explain it. I’m sure her suit is connected to that shuttle, and she’s using it to get around. That also means it’s going to be almost impossible to catch her. Our first order of business is going to be to find that shuttlecraft and disable it.”

Jack looked at the Starman in disbelief. “You want us to destroy our only way off of this planet?”

Joe laughed. “Not exactly! But I do want you to turn it off. If it’s not running then she can’t use it to escape.”

“You want me to turn it off?” Jack asked.

“I’m afraid so! Look at me, Jack. I’m not exactly able to move around right now. This is all in your hands now. I need you to find that ship and take care of it for me.”

“Can’t we use the ship to radio for help instead?”

Joe shook his head. “We don’t have time for that. Alice has been busy, Jack. I think she’s almost done assembling her bomb.”

“Ok, then here’s another plan. Why not use her shuttlecraft to get off of this planet and back into space? Alice will be stranded here with no way to escape and she’ll have to bide her time until the police arrive and pick her up. It’s foolproof.”

“Not quite, I’m afraid. There is still the small matter of the city’s defenses. But aside from that not-insignificant problem, what happens if Alice detonates her bomb while we’re gone? She could easily blow up the entire city. Your wife could still be out there, you know. If we allow Alice to destroy this place then the chances of you ever seeing your wife again become very, very small.”

“I hadn’t thought of that,” Jack said. “But the city is huge. How could Alice possibly blow the whole thing up?”

Joe paused before answering. “This is not the only camp that Alice has established. I’ve seen a couple other places on this map where it looks like equipment has been stored. There is one reading in particular that I am almost convinced is the Third Treasure. It gives off a very peculiar type of radiation that is easy to detect.”

“Ok,” Jack said. “So?”

“I’m familiar with some Ahmanyan weapons that could easily destroy this entire planet. For example, the Ahmanyans found a way to destabilize normal matter. When this technique is activated all of the normal, stable matter within the weapon’s sphere of influence starts collapsing and turning to energy. If Alice recreated that device and gave it a one-foot radius she could easily destroy this entire underground bunker, and possibly the city as well. But if she gave it a ten-foot effective radius she would have a good chance of destroying the entire planet.”

“You’ve got to be kidding! I had no idea the Ahmanyans had weapons like that. I’ve never even heard of such a thing.”

Joe smiled. “There are reasons for that. As far as I know the last time the device was used was in the first Ahmanyan-Xenobot war, which was a very long time ago. But if I were an insane Starman bent on destroying a planet that’s what I would do.”

Jack nodded. “Ok, I think I’ve got it. You want me to disable Alice’s shuttle so she can’t escape. We’ll then capture her somehow and use her ship to leave.”

“That’s the plan,” Joe agreed. “Think you’re up to it?”

“Not really. But what choice do I have?”

Joe smiled. “You’ll do fine! But can you do me one favor before you go?”

“Sure – anything.”

Joe pointed to an object lying on the ground, out of his reach. “Can you hand me my laser pistol?”

Jack reached over, grabbed the gun, and handed it to the Starman. Joe checked it for damage and then put it back in his holster.

“So where do I go ?” Jack asked.

“First things first,” Joe said. He removed a small metal strap from the arm of his suit and handed it to Jack. “This is a communications device. Strap it onto your arm and press the button whenever you want to talk. I’ll stay here and keep an eye on things and will let you know what’s going on.”

“Thanks,” Jack replied. After securing the strap he glanced at the holoscreen. “So where am I going?”

Joe pointed at a small area on the map. “I’m pretty sure that is her shuttlecraft right there.”

Jack frowned. “But that location is underground! How could she possibly have gotten the ship a mile below the planet’s surface?”

“The wormhole transporter is quite capable of transporting the ship itself,” Joe pointed out. “After all, the transporter works by opening a wormhole. It’s not hard to open a wormhole and then shove the ship through it. I’ve done it myself. And you have to admit that if the ship was underground it would be out of reach of any prying eyes on the surface.”

“I guess I see your point. You did tell me you didn’t find any sign of her when you entered orbit. That’s why you came to us.”

“Right!” Joe agreed. “And out of all the readings I see on this screen that dot looks the most promising.”

“How far away is it?” Jack asked.

“About a mile,” Joe replied. “But it’s not hard to reach.” Joe used the map to explain the route through the underground passages. After a few minutes of discussion Jack nodded. “I think I’ve got it.”

“Remember, I’ll be right here watching you. I’ll let you know if you make a wrong turn.”

“Thanks,” Jack replied. He stood up and looked around. “Is there anything I can get you before I go?”

Joe shook his head. “Just hurry back safely. And I am sorry about all this.”

Jack nodded. “I’ll see you later.” He waved goodbye, grabbed a lantern, and then started walking down the long, dark, metal hallway.

* * * * *

It’s the darkness that bothers me the most, Jack thought to himself. He had been walking for almost half an hour now. The lantern he was holding did a decent job of illuminating the surrounding area, but in the distance the light faded away into darkness. I can’t see what’s behind me or what’s ahead of me. I don’t like it.

Jack made his way to another intersection. He pressed a button on his wrist communicator. “Do I go left here?”

“Yes,” Joe replied. The voice was a little crackly but it was easy to understand. “You’re almost there! At the end of that hallway is a flight of stairs. Go up three floors and then make a right. The ship should be right there.”

“Thanks,” Jack replied. He resumed walking. His body was aching from all the exercise he had experienced over the past week but he ignored the pain. All he could think about was the darkness that surrounded him.

In the distance he heard the noise of metal striking metal. He shuddered. These noises are going to make me lose my mind. I keep hearing things but I never see anything. Am I really alone down here?

Jack shook his head to clear his thoughts. He pressed on down the hallway, quickening his pace a little. As he neared the end of the passage he heard footsteps behind him. Jack whirled around, lifting his lantern a little higher to see what was behind him. The noise stopped and he could see nothing.

Jack placed his hand on his laser pistol and then slowly took his hand off of it. “I’m not going to play your little game!” he shouted into the air. “There’s nothing out there, do you hear me? Nothing! I am not going to panic.”

Sure you’re not, Jack thought to himself. He opened the door to the stairwell and started climbing the stairs. You’re a mile underground on an alien planet. Something terrible just happened to your wife, and that same evil is still out there and it’s after you. You’re alone, it’s dark, and you would give your right arm to be in Eagle City right now. How could you not panic?

Jack swallowed. Keep it together! You’re almost there. Three flights of stairs – that’s what he said.

When Jack reached the third flight he looked around. In front of him was an airlock. The stairs continued up into the darkness.

Jack’s communicator crackled to life. “That’s it! You made it. Now go through the door.”

Jack frowned. “There’s an airlock here, Joe. Are you sure you want me to do this?”

“It’s either go through or come back,” Joe replied.

Jack sighed. He pressed a button on the control panel beside the airlock and the door opened. Beyond the door he could see nothing. The room was pitch black. There was not a single light to be seen.

That’s odd, Jack thought to himself. Don’t airlocks normally have two sets of doors? Maybe that was a security door or something. I don’t like this.

Jack gathered up all his nerve and walked into the dark room. As soon as he had crossed the threshold the door slid shut behind him. Jack walked further inside and looked around. He soon realized that he was in a small, empty metal room. The only thing the room contained was darkness.

Jack touched his communicator. “Got bad news, Joe. There’s nothing here.”

The surprise in Joe’s voice was impossible to miss. “Are you sure? Have you looked everywhere?”

“It’s a tiny room! There’s nowhere near enough space to park a starship in here. I’m telling you it’s totally empty.”

“Wait a minute,” Joe said. There was a slight pause. “The readings just changed. Now all I see in that room is you.”

Jack clenched his fist. “It was an illusion! I’ve seen the city do this before. It was nothing but a trick.”

“Didn’t you say you went through an airlock door?” Joe asked, with concern in his voice.

Jack ran to the door and pressed the button to open it. Nothing happened. He pounded the door, screaming. “I’m trapped!”

13 Nov 2009

Dragons and Stars, Chapter 10: The Eve’ing Tales

Posted by pendragon7. 2 Comments

“Wahl,” said the old woman, whom Neal knew to be named Emmaline, “There wus quite a tale told of the freighter I was born on. Now, mind you, I had jus’ been born, so I remember wee of it at all.”

Mrs. Silver nodded her head.

“In those days,” said Emmaline, “There wus lots o’ talk about deems in the space.”

“Deems?” asked Mrs. Silver.

“Dark cree-atures what would hide on your ship and attack when ya was at the loneliest place on yer journey,” said Emmaline. “Some myners bought little things what with to protect the’selves. Little crosses or mayhaps some stranger things. I knew one man whut carried a necklace of baby’s hair ‘roun his neck at all times. Some said babies was special protected from deems.”

“I heerd that once,” put in one of the miners.

“T’weren’t true,” said Emmaline. “He was one of the ones what didn’t make it.”

“What happened?” asked Mrs. Silver, leaning forward.

“Accordin’ to me mother, midway on our journey in the lon’liest place, the night fears started to come upon us. People became fri’tened for no reasons et all. They’d tape paper over the portals into space, afraid som’tin was coming in it to get ’em. Even grown men start’ed to sleep in ‘de same rooms together, afraid te’ sleep alone.

“And the strange’st thing of it wus that the ship lights seemed dimmer ever’ day. The cap’n checked ’em hisself, and there weren’t nothin wrong wit’ the lights, but ever’ one agreed they seemed clouded and durk.

“Then the noises started, creakings and groanin’s in the ship. It were an old ship, and some began te’ wonder what things had come to pass on it in beforetimes. Then the wurst thing of all began. People began to fighten and quarrelin’ with each ot’er. My mother said she found herself screamin’ at my father and he screamin’ back, she cryin’ fit to break, over the littlest things.

“She sed’ she once’t handed him a book and he didn’t say thenk you fer it, and she commenced to screamin’ at him for it till she stopped herself and asked why. Well, things went on like this for nigh unto a week. The folks was haggard from lack of sleep and scared of their own shadows. Two or three of them started in talking about wantin’ to kill themselves. My mother told me it were the durkest moments o’ her life, even durker than the pirate attack which took me father years later.

“More n’ more of the folks jus’ wanted nothin more than to turn back to the moon and all the friends they’d left behind. That warm life of happiness seemed like a dream thet weren’t even real anymore in the horrible place they was in then and the shadows they lived in. My mother said she was afeared the lights on the ship would jist get dimmer and dimmer ’til they went black and never came on again for any’one.”

Neal felt Hanna reach for his hand in the shadows. He realized that Grummel was holding his other hand already, though he couldn’t say which of them had reached first.

“What happened?” asked one of the miners, twisting his hands.

“Wahl,” said Emmaline. “There wus a few religious people on board, follo’ers of Jesh’us. They ask’d us all to stop eatin’ and ju’s pray to God for help. In the state we wus, we didn’t feel like eatin’ anyways. So we nearly all of us started to fastin’ and a prayin’. There weren’t a one of us what didn’t turn religious then except a strange old man named Greems. He were a slimy sort what would always stare at the girls and kept to hisself. He were the one wid’ the baby-hair necklace. Someone even rumored about thet he kept some bones o’ a baby in his carry bag for their power.

“Wahl, one day he were in an airlock checkin’ a panel with my father, and the door closed all mysterious. They was in there without helmets on, and the next thing ya knows, the outer door unseals.”

Gasps went up from the miners.

“It were ten minutes before the crew could get the airlock closed again and the inner door opened. It was strangerly jammed. When they opened it, they was both in there. Greems’ face was perfet’ly white and horrified, wid’ the strange lines o’ his blood vessels bulging under his skin, dead as a corpse. But me dad was asleep on the floor, calm and peaceful with no helmet either. They poked him and he woke up. Me dad said a large man had come in the room and given him a helmet, tho no sign of any such helmet was there. We knew then that deems and ainjells were both about.

“Still people never knew whether Greems done it hisself as a suicide or whether it were a deem what done it. Several folk got serious to God et thet point, however. Some people confessed to their sins. One man confessed an affair he were havin’ wid’ another woman on board. They took all the belongin’s of thet man Greems and threw them out the airlock wid’ him, and other people threw out charms or things they had which they oughtn’t to of had. The air seemed to get cleaner, and the lights grew brighter. The folks could again remember the good things in life and told the cap’n to keep goin’ on to Ceres and their new life there. Thet were how my mother an’ dad became Christians then, tho me dad didn’t become a Christian till a year or two laters.”

Everyone was silent for a few moments. Mrs. Silver sighed deeply. “Oh, my,” she said.

Neal, floating between his two friends, felt the stillness of the cylinder, felt the gentle turning of the great asteroid, felt in his heart the great blackness of space above them on this far-off place. Sometimes it put a loneliness in his heart that stung and ached.

“‘Ainjells’ and ‘deems’ are real,” said Mrs. Silver. “And so is the God who lives in heaven. He sends his ainjells to protect his children and do his will. And the deems weren’t always so evil,” she said.

“No?” said a miner.

“No,” said Mrs. Silver, shaking her short red hair in the firelight. “Long ago in the earliest days of the universe, all the ainjells lived in heaven, worshipping God. They were like the stars of space shining in majesty before the One who made all things.”

She shifted in her seat. “The greatest of the ainjells was named Lucifer, the light of morning. He watched as the Son of Heaven, God’s only child, spoke all planets and moons into existence with the breath of his mouth. He watched as the Son descended down onto Earth and knelt in the dirt and formed the first man and woman. And he watched as the Son appointed the angels to be servants to the humans.”

All was quiet except the crackling sounds of the fireplace.

“A terrible thing happened,” continued Mrs. Silver. “Lucifer, the brightest of the stars, grew prouder and angrier in his heart. He thought he should be God, equal to the Son of Heaven, ruling all things from the Throne. In his pride he began to change into a dragon. His ears turned into horns, his teeth grew longer and his hands grew claws until he was a large and horrible beast.”

She grew quiet, thinking.

“But the Son again returned to earth,” she whispered. “This time he was born as a human himself. But the dragon ran in front of the woman who was to give birth. He ran to the Jewish people to destroy them.”
Beside him, Hanna sucked in her breath.

“But the Son was snatched up to heaven and to God, and the woman was protected in the desert for 1,260 days. And such a war there was between Michael, God’s archangel, and the dragon and his angels! They fought against the dragon and his angels. Lucifer was not strong enough, and he was hurled down to the earth with his angels. They are the deems we know today, and they roam about like roaring lions seeking to steal, kill, and destroy with their lies.”

Neal felt the story sounded familiar. He couldn’t quite understand it as he turned it back and forth in his mind. He felt strange.

“Wuhl, I don’t rightly understand,” said one of the miners to Mrs. Silver.

“To put it in a nutshell, my friend,” she said, “The deems used to be ainjells. They rebelled against the only true God who made all things, and now they run amuck causing terror and trouble. We don’t usually see them, but they do what they can.”

Some of the old timers were nodding their heads. “I hev seen enough in one life to believe et’s true,” said Emmaline.

“What did she say about the Jewish people?” whispered Hanna, curiously. “The dragon wanted to destroy them because of their son?”

“I don’t know,” said Neal, a little shortly. Not only did his stomach and body ache, but his heart was exhausted from too much emotion in the day. “I’m heading to bed.” He shoved away from the group gathered by the firelight and pulled himself out through the dark hatch nearby.

 

 

 

13 Nov 2009

Dragons and Stars, Chapter 9: The Old Timers Come

Posted by pendragon7. 1 Comment

Grummel and Mrs. Silver walked over to their table. MacHardy brushed his wild beard hurriedly and ran his finger through his wild red hair. Grummel eased down next to his father and Mrs. Silver settled on the far side of Grummel.

“I’m John Washer,” said Uncle John, standing and offering his hands to Mrs. Silver.

“And I’m Hannah Silver,” she said, shaking his two hands with hers. “I’m so very, very pleased to meet you! It’s a wonderful blessing to be here at Providence. And you have a very special son, Mr. Washer.”

“Everyone here calls me Uncle John, or John,” he said. He looked at Neal proudly. “He’s actually my nephew, but he’s growing into a good man. When he’s not fighting,” he added, raising his eyebrows.

“Oh my!” she said, staring at Neal. “What happened to you!?” She hurried around the table to cluck over his bluish eyes and hear the story. “That poor boy, Mirk,” she said, looking sad. Neal didn’t feel very sorry for Mirk.

“Grummel,” she said, “You didn’t introduce me yet. Is this your father?”

“Oh, yeh,” said Grummel. “This here’s me old dad.”

MacHardy stood up, nearly overturning the table. He bowed awkwardly.

“I, er, yes, um,” he said.

“I’m pleased to meet you,” said Mrs. Silver, offering her hands to him. MacHardy stared at her hands for an awkward minute. Then he hurriedly seized both her hands in his great paws and shook them silently.

She smiled sweetly back at him. MacHardy continued to stand, staring silently at her. Neal saw Grummel shift and kick his dad’s leg under the table. “Oof! Er, quite nice to…” MacHardy mumbled, nodding his head and sitting back down.

Mrs. Silver laughed at him. “You are a dear,” she said. “Oh, Mr. John,” she said, turning to Uncle John. “Grummel took me to see the Old Timers earlier this evening. They are such lovely people! They requested if they could come for a visit this evening?”

“I believe that could be arranged,” he said.

* * *

After everyone had finished eating, Uncle John stood up.

“The Old Timers wonder if they can come join us for the Ev’ing Tales,” he announced to the other tables. “Please finish your drinks and prepare for zero g’s.” Several miners took a last swig from their cups as Uncle John pulled a radio from his pocket and punched a button.

“Providence Living Cylinder, this is John Washer. We are going to zero G’s for an evening visit from the Old Timers. Please secure any objects you don’t want floating in the next sixty seconds.” “Neal,” he said, turning to him and handing him a key, “Please go shut down the cylinder g’s.” “Yes, sir,” said Neal, heading for a ladder, proud for the task.

Neal floated down the cylinder shaft to the inner control room hatch ten feet lower. As he was unlocking the hatch, Hanna exited her hatch fifty feet below him. “Hi,” she called up the shaft, pushing off and up towards him. “Hi,” he said. “The old timers want to come for a visit.” Hanna joined him as he opened the hatch and climbed down the ladder into the cramped control room. Technically, Hanna wasn’t supposed to be in this room, but Uncle John was lax on laws where Hanna was concerned. He trusted her as his own daughter.

Neal opened a control box and pulled the G lever down to zero. The living cylinder’s spin wheels engaged their brakes gradually and the huge cylinder began to slow its rotation. After a minute it had fully stopped and Neal felt himself drifting up off the floor of the control room. He and Hanna didn’t bother to climb the ladder, instead pushing off the floor and out the hatch.

Back in the dining room, Neal and Hanna drifted over to Grummel.

“Ach,” said Grummel. “Me dad’s twitter-pated.” Hanna looked at MacHardy, floating above the fastened table. His large legs stuck out as he twirled slowly, trying to comb his hair with a tiny comb. “It’s sad,” said Neal. Hanna stared and burst into laughter.

They worked their way over to a wall of the room where some sofas were fastened to the floor. Several miners had strapped themselves into the sofas, while others floated overhead or nearby. On the wall a monitor played a video hologram of a crackling fire. Hanna went to the wall and dimmed the other lights. Just then the hatch in the central shaft opened and a very old face peered through. “May we come in?” a creaky old voice asked. “Certainly, certainly,” said Uncle John and several others. Some gave up their seats on the sofas. Others unclipped chairs and reclipped them behind the sofas. Neal and Hanna and Grummel preferred to float up to the ceiling and rest there with their backs against the ceiling in the flickering firelight.

The old timers, six or seven of them, came gently through the hatch and to the sofas. They were strangely tall and thin. Living their entire lives without weight or gravity, their bones had grown in strange shapes and lengths. Most were seven or eight feet tall, but thin as skeletons. There was a quietness and fragility to them, but a peace, too.

“Thenk ye, thenk ye,” said one old lady as she accepted a chair. Despite their age, however, they had few wrinkles, since gravity had missed the chance to make them sag. Their skin was loose but smooth, giving their faces a soft roundness almost like babies–babies with gray hair. They settled quietly into their places, looking very pleased and satisfied by the cozy gathering. The miners’ quiet conversations and chatting picked up again in little pockets. Mrs. Silver sat in a chair next to the old timer lady who had spoken earlier and belted herself in.

“How long have you lived here?” asked Mrs. Silver.

“Wahl, let me see,” said the old woman in a soft crooning voice. “Me mother gave birth to me on a freighter travelling from The Moon on towards Ceres. I cam’ here to Eros when I were five. I’ve lived at here since that vera’ day.”

“What stories you must have!” said Mrs. Silver. “Can you tell us one?”

“But o’ course,” the old woman said, thinking.

The other miners quieted and turned to listen to the first “tale of the eve’ing.”

 

13 Nov 2009

Master of Shadows, Chapter 12: Negotiations

Posted by joncooper. Comments Off on Master of Shadows, Chapter 12: Negotiations

Jack looked at the elderly man in wonder. “You’re the Joe Taylor?”

“That’s what they tell me!” he replied cheerfully. “But who do I have the pleasure of speaking with?”

“Wow. Um, my name is Jack Rossman, and this is my wife Lily.”

Lily stepped forward and shook Joe’s hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“The pleasure is all mine,” Joe replied. “Pardon me if I’m wrong, but are either of you Starmen?”

Jack shook his head. “Oh no. We’re just two innocent bystanders who made the fatal mistake of working late one evening. Are you looking for Alice Montaine?”

“As a matter of fact I am,” Joe replied. “I thought one of you might be her but I see I’m very much mistaken. When I got here I scanned the planet for life signs and the two of you were the only people I found.”

“Alice is about a mile underground,” Lily replied. “She probably just didn’t show up on your scanners.”

“That makes sense,” Joe said slowly. “I can see how I might have missed her. I was looking for a campsite on the surface.”

Jack spoke up. “If you don’t mind my asking, what are you doing here? We really weren’t expecting visitors.”

“It’s pretty simple, actually! I’ve spent many years trying to figure out where the First Races disappeared to. I was over at Larson’s Folly when I got a call from Caedmon, who told me that Alice had made a fascinating discovery. When I heard the details of what she had found I got over here as quickly as possible. It was really quite exciting!”

“We’re very glad you came,” Lily said fervently. “Is there any chance you could get us off this planet and take us back to Ahmanya?”

Joe looked puzzled. “Well, of course, ma’am. But if you don’t mind my asking – exactly how did you get here? This planet isn’t exactly a tourist destination. Are you two explorers or something?”

“We’re actually hostages,” Jack explained. “Alice kidnapped us as a part of her evil scheme to steal the Third Treasure and blow up this planet.”

Joe’s eyes widened. “You can’t be serious! Do you mean to tell me that Alice Montaine kidnapped you?”

“Among other things,” Lily replied. “On two separate occasions she nearly killed us both.”

“That’s horrible – simply horrible! I had no idea that was going on. What happened?”

“It’s actually pretty straightforward,” Jack said. “From what I understand Alice believes there’s something very dangerous on this planet that’s going to kill us all if it gets let loose. However, when Caedmon wouldn’t let her borrow Tharsos she decided her only option was to steal the Third Treasure, bring it here, and use it to blow up the planet. I wasn’t willing to help her do that so she kidnapped me and my wife.”

Joe shook his head. “I can’t believe how out of touch I am. I didn’t even realize the Third Treasure had been stolen! Caedmon did tell me that Alice thought she had found a weapon of some kind, but Caedmon and I were under the impression that she had returned here to gather more data. I actually came here to her help research the matter.”

Lily looked surprised. “How could you not know the Third Treasure was stolen? Hasn’t it been all over the news?”

“I don’t really pay much attention to the news,” Joe said apologetically. “I spend most of my time in places that have few creature comforts. Space Station Zane is the exception, though. It’s actually extremely nice there. Ingrid has excellent taste.”

Lily looked at Joe’s shuttlecraft. “I hate to push you, but do you think we could get out of here? Like right now? I’d like to get as far away from this place as possible. It’s not safe here.”

Joe frowned. “I’d really like to talk to Alice before we do anything else. If she has done everything you’ve told me then she is in a lot of trouble. Where is her starship?”

“She blew it up,” Jack said. “While we were on board, actually. We got out just in time.”

Joe looked at Jack in shock. “She blew up her starship? Why would she do such a thing?”

“Because it turned on her,” Jack replied. “When Rachel – that’s the AI that was on her ship – found out what Alice had done it tried to stop her. So Alice decided that Rachel had to be eliminated. In her first attempt to destroy it all she managed to do was knock the Raptor out of orbit.”

“While we were still on board,” Lily added.

“Right. Anyway, after it was on the ground I managed to repair it, and when Alice saw what I had done she sent a missile our way and blew it into tiny pieces. She told us she couldn’t risk having her ship compromise the mission.”

Joe shook his head. “And you were on board both times?”

“Yup!” Jack replied. “We survived the first time because we managed to find an escape pod and bail. We survived the second time because Rachel warned us to run for our lives just before the missile hit. If it hadn’t been for her we’d both be dead.”

“Did Alice know you were on board?” Joe asked.

“She did the first time,” Lily replied. “But she said she didn’t have a choice. The mission was too important.”

Joe was silent for a minute. “That’s terrible. I can’t believe it. Taking hostages, stealing priceless artifacts, and recklessly endangering the lives of others are all staggering violations of the Starmen’s code. No Starman has done anything like that since the days of Ronald Mortimer.”

“Can we talk about this later?” Lily pleaded. “We’ve got to get off of this planet immediately. Remember, Alice blew up her own ship. Why do you think she won’t blow up yours?”

“Maybe if I just talked to her,” Joe said slowly. “She is a Starman after all, and Starmen are chosen to represent the best and brightest of each generation. Alice is a very intelligent person and will surely listen to reason. Maybe she just doesn’t realize that Starlight Enterprise is taking her discovery very seriously. She may just be doing what she thinks is right.”

“Oh, she definitely thinks she’s right,” Lily replied. “And she’s completely unhinged. We’ve already tried talking to her and got nowhere. I’m telling you that she’s out of her mind.”

“Did she deliberately try to kill you?” Joe asked.

Lily reluctantly shook her head. “No, she didn’t. But she knew we were on board when she attacked her ship. She just said she wasn’t able to take the time to beam us off. The mission was too important, or something.”

“So she knew you were on board and yet attacked anyway,” Joe said seriously. “That is really bad. She deliberately endangered your lives.”

Lily nodded. “She claimed she had to do it in order to save civilization. She told us we were too stupid to understand.”

“That’s not quite the way she said it,” Jack replied.

“But that’s what she meant,” Lily shot back. “She was just too polite to come right out and say what she was thinking.”

Joe shook his head sadly. “So Alice has started endangering the lives of others in order to save them. That is a dangerous road to go down. Once you have decided that the end justifies the means there is no telling what else you might do. Any action becomes justifiable. Based on what you’ve told me this is much too serious to simply wait for the authorities. We’re going to have to go down there and arrest her before she puts someone else’s life at risk.”

“We?” Lily exclaimed. “Why we? Why can’t you do it without us?”

“Two reasons,” Joe said. “First, Alice knows the two of you but she doesn’t know me. You may be able to help me talk her into giving herself up.”

Lily shook her head. “Don’t be ridiculous. Everybody knows who you are. You’re one of the most famous Starmen of all time. That’s like saying no one knows who the Starlight family is.”

Joe tried to suppress a smile. “Point taken. But when it comes to negotiating her surrender you may be more effective than I.”

“What’s the second reason?” Jack asked.

“I’m an old man,” Joe confessed. “I don’t get around quite as well as I used to. If she decides to do things the hard way I may need a little help. You look like a strong, healthy young man.”

Lily giggled. “I think you mean he’s a young, overweight couch potato that would fall over dead if he had to run a mile. But since he’s all that you’ve got he’ll have to do.”

“Lily!” Jack said in an admonishing tone. “Where did that come from?”

“It’s true!” she replied.

Joe held up a hand, grinning. “I see the two of you really are married. But seriously. If Alice is about to blow up this planet we need to stop her, and I don’t think we have the time to wait for backup to arrive. Will you help me?”

Lily shook her head. “Absolutely not. I mean no disrespect, but I think you’re out of your mind.”

“I’ll go,” Jack said. “If you think it will do some good.”

“It won’t,” Lily replied.

Joe spoke up. “Here’s the plan, then. Jack and I will go underground, confront Alice, and bring her to the surface. Then all four of us will cram into my tiny starship and we’ll go to the nearest outpost. There’s a space station about a day’s journey from here. I can contact the authorities after we get into space and have them take her into custody once we arrive.”

Lily sighed. “If you want to shoot yourselves in the foot then go right ahead. Don’t let me stop you! Have it your way.”

“We’ll be right back,” Jack promised.

“Sure you will,” Lily replied.

Joe looked at Lily. “I promise I will return your husband to you safe and sound. This won’t take long.”

“Just hurry back,” she sighed. “I love you, Jack.”

“I love you too,” he told her.

Joe turned to Jack. “Come with me. We’ll need to use my ship to pinpoint Alice underground.”

The two men waved farewell and then walked to Joe’s ship and boarded it. Joe sat down in front of a computer console and brought up a map of the area. He worked at the desk for a few minutes while Jack stood behind him, watching. “I see what you mean,” Joe said at last. “About a mile underground is a large network of tunnels.”

Jack nodded. “Alice said the only way to get there was by transporter. She claimed that none of the tunnels led to the surface.”

“She’s right. And according to my computer she is standing right there,” Joe said, pointing. Jack saw a small, white dot on the holoscreen.

“Can we beam down there?” Jack asked.

“I think so,” Joe replied. “It would be impossible to do this from orbit, but as long as the ship remains on the surface I think we’ll manage. Are you ready?”

“Do you have any weapons?” Jack asked.

Joe looked thoughtful. “It’s been a long time since I’ve needed to carry a weapon. But you are right. This situation does warrant that precaution.” Joe stood up and walked to the back of the ship, where he opened a small panel in the wall. He took out two holsters. Joe put one around his waist and then offered the second one to Jack. “Do you feel up to it?”

“Absolutely,” Jack replied.

While he was securing his holster in place Joe reached into the back of the compartment and took out two laser pistols. He checked them briefly. “They’re both fully charged,” he said with satisfaction. He put one in his holster and gave the second to Jack, who did the same thing with his.

“Ready now?” Joe asked.

“Ready,” Jack agreed.

“Then let’s go!” Joe reached over to the arm of his suit and pressed a small button that activated his ship’s wormhole transporter. The two men were suddenly engulfed in a brilliant white light. When the light faded they found themselves deep underground, in a large room with blue metal walls. The room was filled with crates and partially-assembled equipment. Jack immediately recognized it as the same room where he and his wife had encountered Alice the day before.

Starman Alice was sitting on the floor in front of a computer terminal, hard at work. When the two men appeared she jumped to her feet. “What’s going on?” she demanded.

“I’ve come to talk to you,” Joe said quietly. “There’s no reason to be alarmed.”

Alice looked at him closely. When she realized who he was she took a step back. “You’re Joe Taylor! What are you doing here? How did you get here? You’re supposed to be on the other side of the galaxy!”

“Didn’t Caedmon tell you that he was going to send me a copy of your report?” Joe asked.

“I think so,” Alice said uncertainly.

“Well, at any rate, he did. I read the report and was fascinated by what you had discovered. I immediately came right here. I landed just a few minutes ago.”

“Ok,” Alice said slowly. The computer at her feet made a small chirping sound. She glanced down at it nervously and then looked back at Joe. “But why did you come here? I didn’t ask for help.”

“This planet is one of the most important discoveries of the past fifty years!” Joe replied. “How could I not come and see this place? Why, the implications are staggering. This has the potential to completely rewrite our history books.”

“You mean this has the potential to kill us all,” Alice replied. “This planet has got to be destroyed. We can’t allow the evil in that chamber to get out. In the few days I’ve been here someone has already tried to break in twice. My equipment has been sabotaged. I’m not the only one that knows about this and we are rapidly running out of time.”

Joe nodded. “Believe me, I understand your concern. I will personally make sure that after we leave Lemura the best minds in the galaxy will be sent here to continue your research.”

“What do you mean, after we leave?” Alice asked. She glanced down at the computer again. “What’s going on?”

Joe paused for a moment. “Alice, Jack and his wife have briefed me on what you’ve been doing lately. You have committed a series of gross violations of the Starmen’s code and put many lives in danger. I have no choice but to place you under arrest. I want you to come with me.”

Alice shook her head. “You don’t understand! I had to do those things. This mission is too important! Don’t you get it? If that attacker breaks into the chamber then we’re all dead! We’re not going to get a second chance at this. We can’t just sit idly by this time and let Zip Foster save our skins.”

Joe looked Alice in the eye. Jack was surprised at how angry he looked. “You are way out of line, Starman. You have stolen one of the most prized artifacts of the Ahmanyan people. You took hostages. You knowingly endangered the lives of innocent civilians. There is a right way to do things and a wrong way to do things, and you have really, really blown it. Your Starman days are over.”

Alice glanced at the holsters that both men were wearing. “You plan to take me by force,” she said slowly.

“I would rather you surrendered willingly,” Joe replied. “That’s why I came down here to talk with you. Things will go much better for you if I can tell the authorities that you cooperated with us.”

“Don’t give me that!” Alice snarled. “Only a moron would have come down here before talking to the police and making a full report. I bet your friends will arrive in orbit any minute now. And while they are arresting me the shadow is going to break into that chamber and set loose something horrible, and then we’re all going to die. I’m sorry but I can’t allow that to happen.”

Joe swiftly drew his laser pistol and aimed it at Alice. “You don’t have a choice.”

“Oh, but I do,” Alice said eagerly. She nodded toward the computer console at her feet. “You were fools to come here. I saw you land, you know. I knew what was going to happen.”

With his pistol aimed squarely at Alice, Joe slowly circled her. When he was ten feet behind her he looked at the holoscreen that was at her feet. What he saw frightened him. “What did you do?”

“I did what any intelligent person would do! As you can see, I destroyed your ship. But that’s only part of it. I also reactivated the city.”

“I don’t understand,” Joe said.

“The city is hostile,” Jack explained. “It’s tried to kill us before.”

“The city was built to protect what is in the chamber,” Alice explained. “It took me a while to realize that. As soon as I saw your ship enter orbit I realized what was going to happen and I turned the city back on. It is now in full combat mode. When your police force arrives it is going to be blown out of the sky. And while the city is defending itself I will have time to finish the mission.”

“But that’s impossible!” Jack exclaimed. “We blew up the city’s power plant yesterday.”

“You are such a fool!” Alice replied. “Do you really think that was the only generator in the entire city? Yes, given the city’s weakened condition that was enough to take the power grid offline. But I’ve spent the past twenty-four hours repairing the breach in case something stupid like this happened. And the city is back online now, as dangerous as ever.”

“But my wife is up there!” Jack screamed.

Alice smiled. “Not anymore. The city has already reached her. She’s put Lemura in danger for the last time – and the two of you are next.”