* * * * *
"Well, yes," Amspaugh admitted, "it was a unique war in many ways,
including its origin. However, there are so many analogies to other
colonial revolutions--" His words trailed off as usual.
"I know. Earth's mercantile policies and so forth," said Lindgren. He
fancies himself a student of interplanetary history. This has led to
quite a few arguments since Amspaugh, who teaches in that field,
joined the Club. Mostly they're good. I went to the bar and got myself
another drink, listening as the mine owner's big voice went on:
"But what began it? When did the asterites first start realizing they
weren't pseudopods of a dozen Terrestrial nations, but a single nation
in their own right? There's the root of the revolution. And it can be
pinned down, too."
"'Ware metaphor!" cried someone at my elbow. I turned and saw Missy
Blades. She'd come quietly into the lounge and started mixing a gin
and bitters.
The view window framed her white head in Orion as she moved toward the
little cluster of seated men. She took a fat cigar from her pocket,
struck it on her shoe sole, and added her special contribution to the
blue cloud in the room after she sat down.
"Excuse me," she said. "I couldn't help that. Please go on." Which I
hope relieves you of any fear that she's an Unforgettable Character.
Oh, yes, she's old as Satan now; her toil and guts and conniving make
up half the biography of the Sword; she manned a gun turret at Ceres,
and was mate of the _Tyrfing_ on some of the earliest Saturn runs when
men took their lives between their teeth because they needed both
hands free; her sons and grandsons fill the Belt with their brawling
ventures; she can drink any ordinary man to the deck; she's one of the
three women ever admitted to the Club. But she's also one of the few
genuine ladies I've known in my life.
"Uh, well," Lindgren grinned at her. "I was saying, Missy, the germ of
the revolution was when the Stations armed themselves. You see, that
meant more than police powers. It implied a degree of sovereignty.
Over the years, the implication grew."
"Correct." Orloff nodded his bald head. "I remember how the Governing
Commission squalled when the Station managers first demanded the
right. They foresaw trouble. But if the Stations belonging to one
country put in space weapons, what else could the others do?"
"They should have stuck together and all been firm about refusing to
allow it," Amspaugh said. "From the standpoint of their own best
interests, I mean."
"They tried to," Orloff replied. "I hate to think how many
communications we sent home from our own office, and the others must
have done the same. But Earth was a long way off. The Station bosses
were close. Inverse square law of political pressure."
"I grant you, arming each new little settlement proved important,"
Amspaugh said. "But really, it expressed nothing more than the first
inchoate stirrings of asteroid nationalism. And the origins of that
are much more subtle and complex. For instance ... er...."
"You've got to have a key event somewhere," Lindgren insisted. "I say
that this was it."
A silence fell, as will happen in conversation. I came back from the
bar and settled myself beside Missy. She looked for a while into her
drink, and then out to the stars. The slow spin of our rock had now
brought the Dippers into view. Her faded eyes sought the Pole
Star--but it's Earth's, not our own any more--and I wondered what
memories they were sharing. She shook herself the least bit and said:
"I don't know about the sociological ins and outs. All I know is, a
lot of things happened, and there wasn't any pattern to them at the
time. We just slogged through as best we were able, which wasn't
really very good. But I can identify one of those wriggling roots for
you, Sigurd. I was there when the question of arming the Stations
first came up. Or, rather, when the incident occurred that led
directly to the question being raised."
Our whole attention went to her. She didn't dwell on the past as often
as we would have liked.
A slow, private smile crossed her lips. She looked beyond us again.
"As a matter of fact," she murmured, "I got my husband out of it."
Then quickly, as if to keep from remembering too much:
"Do you care to hear the story? It was when the Sword was just getting
started. They'd established themselves on SSC 45--oh, never mind the
catalogue number. Sword Enterprises, because Mike Blades' name
suggested it--what kind of name could you get out of Jimmy Chung, even
if he was the senior partner? It'd sound too much like a collision
with a meteorite--so naturally the asteroid also came to be called the
Sword. They began on the borrowed shoestring that was usual in those
days. Of course, in the Belt a shoestring has to be mighty long, and
finances got stretched to the limit. The older men here will know how
much had to be done by hand, in mortal danger, because machines were
too expensive. But in spite of everything, they succeeded. The Station
was functional and they were ready to start business when--"
* * * * *
It was no coincidence that the Jupiter craft were arriving steadily
when the battleship came. Construction had been scheduled with this in
mind, that the Sword should be approaching conjunction with the king
planet, making direct shuttle service feasible, just as the chemical
plant went into service. We need not consider how much struggle and
heartbreak had gone into meeting that schedule. As for the battleship,
she appeared because the fact that a Station in just this orbit was
about to commence operations was news important enough to cross the
Solar System and push through many strata of bureaucracy. The heads of
the recently elected North American government became suddenly, fully
aware of what had been going on.
Michael Blades was outside, overseeing the installation of a receptor,
when his earplug buzzed. He thrust his chin against the tuning plate,
switching from gang to interoffice band. "Mike?" said Avis Page's
voice, "You're wanted up front."
"Now?" he objected. "Whatever for?"
"Courtesy visit from the NASS _Altair_. You've lost track of time, my
boy."
"What the ... the jumping blue blazes are you talking about? We've had
our courtesy visit. Jimmy and I both went over to pay our respects,
and we had Rear Admiral Hulse here to dinner. What more do they
expect, for Harry's sake?"
"Don't you remember? Since there wasn't room to entertain his
officers, you promised to take them on a personal guided tour later. I
made the appointment the very next watch. Now's the hour."
"Oh, yes, it comes back to me. Yeah. Hulse brought a magnum of
champagne with him, and after so long a time drinking recycled water,
my capacity was shot to pieces. I got a warm glow of good fellowship
on, and offered--Let Jimmy handle it, I'm busy."
"The party's too large, he says. You'll have to take half of them.
Their gig will dock in thirty minutes."
"Well, depute somebody else."
"That'd be rude, Mike. Have you forgotten how sensitive they are about
rank at home?" Avis hesitated. "If what I believe about the mood back
there is true, we can use the good will of high-level Navy personnel.
And any other influential people in sight."
Blades drew a deep breath. "You're too blinking sensible. Remind me to
fire you after I've made my first ten million bucks."
"What'll you do for your next ten million, then?" snipped his
secretary-file clerk-confidante-adviser-et cetera.
"Nothing. I'll just squander the first."
"Goody! Can I help?"
"Uh ... I'll be right along." Blades switched off. His ears felt hot,
as often of late when he tangled with Avis, and he unlimbered only a
few choice oaths.
"Troubles?" asked Carlos Odonaju.
Blades stood a moment, looking around, before he answered. He was on
the wide end of the Sword, which was shaped roughly like a truncated
pyramid. Beyond him and his half dozen men stretched a vista of pitted
rock, jutting crags, gulf-black shadows, under the glare of
floodlamps. A few kilometers away, the farthest horizon ended, chopped
off like a cliff. Beyond lay the stars, crowding that night which
never ends. It grew very still while the gang waited for his word. He
could listen to his own lungs and pulse, loud in the spacesuit; he
could even notice its interior smell, blend of plastic and oxygen
cycle chemicals, flesh and sweat. He was used to the sensation of
hanging upside down on the surface, grip-soled boots holding him
against that fractional gee by which the asteroid's rotation overcame
its feeble gravity. But it came to him that this was an eerie
bat-fashion way for an Oregon farm boy to stand.
Oregon was long behind him, though, not only the food factory where he
grew up but the coasts where he had fished and the woods where he had
tramped. No loss. There'd always been too many tourists. You couldn't
escape from people on Earth. Cold and vacuum and raw rock and
everything, the Belt was better. It annoyed him to be interrupted
here.
Could Carlos take over as foreman? N-no, Blades decided, not yet. A
gas receptor was an intricate piece of equipment. Carlos was a good
man of his hands. Every one of the hundred-odd in the Station
necessarily was. But he hadn't done this kind of work often enough.
"I have to quit," Blades said. "Secure the stuff and report back to
Buck Meyers over at the dock, the lot of you. His crew's putting in
another recoil pier, as I suppose you know. They'll find jobs for you.
I'll see you here again on your next watch."
* * * * *
He waved--being half the nominal ownership of this place didn't
justify snobbery, when everyone must work together or die--and stepped
off toward the nearest entry lock with that flowing spaceman's pace
which always keeps one foot on the ground. Even so, he didn't
unshackle his inward-reeling lifeline till he was inside the chamber.
On the way he topped a gaunt ridge and had a clear view of the balloons
that were attached to the completed receptors. Those that were still
full bulked enormous, like ghostly moons. The Jovian gases that
strained their tough elastomer did not much blur the stars seen
through them; but they swelled high enough to catch the light of the
hidden sun and shimmer with it. The nearly discharged balloons hung
thin, straining outward. Two full ones passed in slow orbit against
the constellations. They were waiting to be hauled in and coupled
fast, to release their loads into the Station's hungry chemical plant.
But there were not yet enough facilities to handle them at once--and
the _Pallas Castle_ would soon be arriving with another--Blades found
that he needed a few extra curses.
Having cycled through the air lock, he removed his suit and stowed it,
also the heavy gloves which kept him from frostbite as he touched its
space-cold exterior. Tastefully clad in a Navy surplus Long John, he
started down the corridors.
Now that the first stage of burrowing within the asteroid had been
completed, most passages went through its body, rather than being
plastic tubes snaking across the surface. Nothing had been done thus
far about facing them. They were merely shafts, two meters square,
lined with doorways, ventilator grilles, and fluoropanels. They had no
thermocoils. Once the nickel-iron mass had been sufficiently warmed
up, the waste heat of man and his industry kept it that way. The dark,
chipped-out tunnels throbbed with machine noises. Here and there a
girlie picture or a sentimental landscape from Earth was posted. Men
moved busily along them, bearing tools, instruments, supplies. They
were from numerous countries, those men, though mostly North
Americans, but they had acquired a likeness, a rangy leathery look and
a free-swinging stride, that went beyond their colorful coveralls.
"Hi, Mike.... How's she spinning?... Hey, Mike, you heard the latest
story about the Martian and the bishop?... Can you spare me a minute?
We got troubles in the separator manifolds.... What's the hurry, Mike,
your batteries overcharged?" Blades waved the hails aside. There was
need for haste. You could move fast indoors, under the low weight
which became lower as you approached the axis of rotation, with no
fear of tumbling off. But it was several kilometers from the gas
receptor end to the people end of the asteroid.
He rattled down a ladder and entered his cramped office out of breath.
Avis Page looked up from her desk and wrinkled her freckled snub nose
at him. "You ought to take a shower, but there isn't time," she said.
"Here, use my antistinker." She threw him a spray cartridge with a
deft motion. "I got your suit and beardex out of your cabin."
"Have I no privacy?" he grumbled, but grinned in her direction. She
wasn't much to look at--not ugly, just small, brunette, and
unspectacular--but she was a supernova of an assistant. Make somebody
a good wife some day. He wondered why she hadn't taken advantage of
the situation here to snaffle a husband. A dozen women, all but two of
them married, and a hundred men, was a ratio even more lopsided than
the norm in the Belt. Of course with so much work to do, and with
everybody conscious of the need to maintain cordial relations, sex
didn't get much chance to rear its lovely head. Still--
She smiled back with the gentleness that he found disturbing when he
noticed it. "Shoo," she said. "Your guests will be here any minute.
You're to meet them in Jimmy's office."
* * * * *
Blades ducked into the tiny washroom. He wasn't any 3V star himself,
he decided as he smeared cream over his face: big, homely, red-haired.
_But not something you'd be scared to meet in a dark alley, either,_
he added smugly. In fact, there had been an alley in Aresopolis....
Things were expected to be going so smoothly by the time they
approached conjunction with Mars that he could run over to that sinful
ginful city for a vacation. Long overdue ... whooee! He wiped off his
whiskers, shucked the zipskin, and climbed into the white pants and
high-collared blue tunic that must serve as formal garb.
Emerging, he stopped again at Avis' desk. "Any message from the
_Pallas_?" he asked.
"No," the girl said. "But she ought to be here in another two watches,
right on sked. You worry too much, Mike."
"Somebody has to, and I haven't got Jimmy's Buddhist
ride-with-the-punches attitude."
"You should cultivate it." She grew curious. The brown eyes lingered
on him. "Worry's contagious. You make me fret about you."
"Nothing's going to give me an ulcer but the shortage of booze on this
rock. Uh, if Bill Mbolo should call about those catalysts while I'm
gone, tell him--" He ran off a string of instructions and headed for
the door.
Chung's hangout was halfway around the asteroid, so that one chief or
the other could be a little nearer the scene of any emergency. Not
that they spent much time at their desks. Shorthanded and
undermechanized, they were forever having to help out in the actual
construction. Once in a while Blades found himself harking wistfully
back to his days as an engineer with Solar Metals: good pay,
interesting if hazardous work on flying mountains where men had never
trod before, and no further responsibilities. But most asterites had
the dream of becoming their own bosses.
When he arrived, the _Altair_ officers were already there, a score of
correct young men in white dress uniforms. Short, squat, and placid
looking, Jimmy Chung stood making polite conversation. "Ah, there," he
said, "Lieutenant Ziska and gentlemen, my partner, Michael Blades,
Mike, may I present--"
Blades' attention stopped at Lieutenant Ziska. He heard vaguely that
she was the head quartermaster officer. But mainly she was tall and
blond and blue-eyed, with a bewitching dimple when she smiled, and
filled her gown the way a Cellini Venus doubtless filled its casting
mold.
"Very pleased to meet you, Mr. Blades," she said as if she meant it.
Maybe she did! He gulped for air.
"And Commander Leibknecht," Chung said across several light-years.
"Commander Leibknecht. _Commander Leibknecht._"
"Oh. Sure. 'Scuse." Blades dropped Lieutenant Ziska's hand in
reluctant haste. "Hardjado, C'mander Leibfraumilch."
Somehow the introductions were gotten through. "I'm sorry we have to
be so inhospitable," Chung said, "but you'll see how crowded we are.
About all we can do is show you around, if you're interested."
"Of course you're interested," said Blades to Lieutenant Ziska. "I'll
show you some gimmicks I thought up myself."
Chung scowled at him. "We'd best divide the party and proceed along
alternate routes," he said, "We'll meet again in the mess for coffee,
Lieutenant Ziska, would you like to--"
"Come with me? Certainly," Blades said.
Chung's glance became downright murderous. "I thought--" he began.
"Sure." Blades nodded vigorously. "You being the senior partner,
you'll take the highest ranking of these gentlemen, and I'll be in
Scotland before you. C'mon, let's get started. May I?" He offered the
quartermistress his arm. She smiled and took it. He supposed that
eight or ten of her fellows trailed them.
* * * * *
The first disturbing note was sounded on the verandah.
[Illustration]
They had glanced at the cavelike dormitories where most of the
personnel lived; at the recreation dome topside which made the life
tolerable; at kitchen, sick bay, and the other service facilities; at
the hydroponic tanks and yeast vats which supplied much of the
Station's food; at the tiny cabins scooped out for the top engineers
and the married couples. Before leaving this end of the asteroid,
Blades took his group to the verandah. It was a clear dome jutting
from the surface, softly lighted, furnished as a primitive officers'
lounge, open to a view of half the sky.
"Oh-h," murmured Ellen Ziska. Unconsciously she moved closer to
Blades.
Young Lieutenant Commander Gilbertson gave her a somewhat jaundiced
look. "You've seen deep space often enough before," he said.
"Through a port or a helmet." Her eyes glimmered enormous in the dusk.
"Never like this."
The stars crowded close in their wintry myriads. The galactic belt
glistened, diamond against infinite darkness. Vision toppled endlessly
outward, toward the far mysterious shimmer of the Andromeda Nebula;
silence was not a mere absence of noise, but a majestic presence, the
seething of suns.
"What about the observation terrace at Leyburg?" Gilbertson
challenged.
"That was different," Ellen Ziska said. "Everything was safe and
civilized. This is like being on the edge of creation."
Blades could see why Goddard House had so long resisted the inclusion of
female officers on ships of the line, despite political pressure at home
and the Russian example abroad. He was glad they'd finally given in. Now
if only he could build himself up as a dashing, romantic type ... But how
long would the _Altair_ stay? Her stopover seemed quite extended already,
for a casual visit in the course of a routine patrol cruise. He'd have to
work fast.
"Yes, we are pretty isolated," he said. "The Jupiter ships just unload
their balloons, pick up the empties, and head right back for another
cargo."
"I don't understand how you can found an industry here, when your raw
materials only arrive at conjunction," Ellen said.
"Things will be different once we're in full operation," Blades
assured her. "Then we'll be doing enough business to pay for a steady
input, transshipped from whatever depot is nearest Jupiter at any
given time."
"You've actually built this simply to process ... gas?" Gilbertson
interposed. Blades didn't know whether he was being sarcastic or
asking a genuine question. It was astonishing how ignorant
Earthsiders, even space-traveling Earthsiders, often were about such
matters.
"Jovian gas is rich stuff," he explained. "Chiefly hydrogen and
helium, of course; but the scoopships separate out most of that during
a pickup. The rest is ammonia, water, methane, a dozen important
organics, including some of the damn ... doggonedest metallic
complexes you ever heard of. We need them as the basis of a
chemosynthetic industry, which we need for survival, which we need if
we're to get the minerals that were the reason for colonizing the Belt
in the first place." He waved his hand at the sky. "When we really get
going, we'll attract settlement. This asteroid has companions, waiting
for people to come and mine them. Homeships and orbital stations will
be built. In ten years there'll be quite a little city clustered
around the Sword."
"It's happened before," nodded tight-faced Commander Warburton of
Gunnery Control.
"It's going to happen a lot oftener," Blades said enthusiastically.
"The Belt's going to grow!" He aimed his words at Ellen. "This is the
real frontier. The planets will never amount to much. It's actually
harder to maintain human-type conditions on so big a mass, with a
useless atmosphere around you, than on a lump in space like this. And
the gravity wells are so deep. Even given nuclear power, the energy
cost of really exploiting a planet is prohibitive. Besides which, the
choice minerals are buried under kilometers of rock. On a metallic
asteroid, you can find almost everything you want directly under your
feet. No limit to what you can do."
"But your own energy expenditure--" Gilbertson objected.
"That's no problem." As if on cue, the worldlet's spin brought the sun
into sight. Tiny but intolerably brilliant, it flooded the dome with
harsh radiance. Blades lowered the blinds on that side. He pointed in
the opposite direction, toward several sparks of equal brightness that
had manifested themselves.
"Hundred-meter parabolic mirrors," he said. "Easy to make; you spray a
thin metallic coat on a plastic backing. They're in orbit around us,
each with a small geegee unit to control drift and keep it aimed
directly at the sun. The focused radiation charges heavy-duty
accumulators, which we then collect and use for our power source in
all our mobile work."
"Do you mean you haven't any nuclear generator?" asked Warburton.
He seemed curiously intent about it. Blades wondered why, but nodded.
"That's correct. We don't want one. Too dangerous for us. Nor is it
necessary. Even at this distance from the sun, and allowing for
assorted inefficiencies, a mirror supplies better than five hundred
kilowatts, twenty-four hours a day, year after year, absolutely free."
"Hm-m-m. Yes." Warburton's lean head turned slowly about, to rake
Blades with a look of calculation. "I understand that's the normal
power system in Stations of this type. But we didn't know if it was
used in your case, too."
_Why should you care?_ Blades thought.
He shoved aside his faint unease and urged Ellen toward the dome
railing. "Maybe we can spot your ship, Lieutenant, uh, Miss Ziska.
Here's a telescope. Let me see, her orbit ought to run about so...."
* * * * *
He hunted until the _Altair_ swam into the viewfield. At this distance
the spheroid looked like a tiny crescent moon, dully painted; but he
could make out the sinister shapes of a rifle turret and a couple of
missile launchers. "Have a look," he invited. Her hair tickled his
nose, brushing past him. It had a delightful sunny odor.
"How small she seems," the girl said, with the same note of wonder as
before. "And how huge when you're aboard."
Big, all right, Blades knew, and loaded to the hatches with nuclear
hellfire. But not massive. A civilian spaceship carried meteor
plating, but since that was about as useful as wet cardboard against
modern weapons, warcraft sacrificed it for the sake of mobility. The
self-sealing hull was thin magnesium, the outer shell periodically
renewed as cosmic sand eroded it.
"I'm not surprised we orbited, instead of docking," Ellen remarked.
"We'd have butted against your radar and bellied into your control
tower."
"Well, actually, no," said Blades. "Even half finished, our dock's big
enough to accommodate you, as you'll see today. Don't forget, we
anticipate a lot of traffic in the future. I'm puzzled why you didn't
accept our invitation to use it."
"Doctrine!" Warburton clipped.
The sun came past the blind and touched the officers' faces with
incandescence. Did some look startled, one or two open their mouths as
if to protest and then snap them shut again at a warning look? Blades'
spine tingled. _I never heard of any such doctrine,_ he thought,
_least of all when a North American ship drops in on a North American
Station._
"Is ... er ... is there some international crisis brewing?" he
inquired.
"Why, no." Ellen straightened from the telescope. "I'd say relations
have seldom been as good as they are now. What makes you ask?"
"Well, the reason your captain didn't--"
"Never mind," Warburton said. "We'd better continue the tour, if you
please."
Blades filed his misgivings for later reference. He might have fretted
immediately, but Ellen Ziska's presence forbade that. A sort of Pauli
exclusion principle. One can't have two spins simultaneously, can one?
He gave her his arm again. "Let's go on to Central Control," he
proposed. "That's right behind the people section."
"You know, I can't get over it," she told him softly. "This miracle
you've wrought. I've never been more proud of being human."
"Is this your first long space trip?"
"Yes, I was stationed at Port Colorado before the new Administration
reshuffled armed service assignments."
"They did? How come?"
"I don't know. Well, that is, during the election campaign the Social
Justice Party did talk a lot about old-line officers who were too
hidebound to carry out modern policies effectively. But it sounded
rather silly to me."
Warburton compressed his lips. "I do not believe it is proper for
service officers to discuss political issues publicly," he said like a
machine gun.