Asimov's Science Fiction: December 2013 (20 page)

"A mess. Are you people insane? Here, look at the baffles. See the buildup? That's arsenic. By the time air gets to the fifth baffle there's no way to purge it. You are breathing this poison. I—"

"That's very interesting, but while we're chatting shop, my people are born breathing more toxins. We don't have backups for our systems. I closed down our industrial ops when the Haf ' went down, but there were a lotta pollutants in the pipeline."

I cracked my voice a few times, doing my Mayor Keenan imitation as a prelude to full-tilt begging. The best cons required maximum pressure at the proper moment to keep the mark from thinking too much.

"I want to inspect the separation trays."

"Absol, Meka. Can...
may
we have a new Haf ' for our breather first?"

"Don't call me that," she growled, dull eyes suddenly gleaming. To call her a lover was a step too far.

She took a deep breath. "Who did this to you people?"

Now, to sink the hook. I clenched my left hand, pressuring my broken pinkie. My tears were real.

The grainer explained, "Our original equipment Haf ' went south while we were queued for an orbital slot at Deimos Station. They won't allow us to dock anymore because of the riot
#338
started there last year."

"Why don't grainers name their ships like normal people?" I'd served as a MP at the Academy. We were taught to interrupt suspects' stories frequently to trip them up.

"To name 'em is to admit they're our homes for-bloody-ever. It's been twenty-eight years since Earth died, but we ain't never gonna accept these grainships as permanent. As long as there's hope, we can dream of a better future." The grainer choked and coughed.

My eyes returned to his unruly mane, rousing a twinge of envy. I stopped myself from raking my fingers under my wig to what few hairs remained on my scalp after the last rad leak aboard my ship.

"This is my fault," continued Handy. "I was supposed to oversee the installation. I intended to dismantle this Haf' for a full inspection while we were parasited on the station, but I had our radar to repair. Odd how quickly they gave us docking permission after our emergency was declared. You don't suppose—"

"Are you saying the Martians
intentionally
installed a defective unit?"

The grainer sidled up to the Haf 'tsk, bending over to brush the melted lump with his nose. Flipping his eyepiece down, he intently studied the module. So sincere.

However, the liar had made a fatal mistake—showing me his engines. Anyone possessing the cojones and genius to tamper with gravs wouldn't allow a defective Haf' to be installed.

I engaged my own eyepiece. Plugging into the multimeter on my belt, my stomach muscles contracted thrice in rapid succession, activating the computer nestled within the coils of my intestines. Its inductives tapped into the multi. Dim lines floated in front of my eyes. Stomach twitches flashed me through the menu. ID mode confirmed the processor had been manufactured by the Khuler Corporation on Mars. The assembly contained trace chemicals associated with that slipshod red planet. The soot appeared consistent with burnt plastic; its minor variants could be attributed to wiring, et al. The dust had some unusual components—human skin cells, fibers, and minute metal filings.

Mistake two—he had used dust gathered from his workshop to coat the Haf'.

No doubt the grainer had stolen the unit from a junk heap. Only a grainer would dare to attempt this breed of confidence game. Lacking backups and inventory, they depended on the kindness of strangers, diligently enforced by the Trade Commission in order to earn brownie points with the aliens with whom they dealt.

My mind shifted gears. One good scam deserved another.

"You witnessed the installation?"

"I was there," he said too quickly.

A tic developed in his left eye. The red cast to the white of the eye gave me the creeps. You heard about Lurre Fever, but seldom saw it. He wiped his eyes. Palsy trembled the hand. Space Malaria, the media called it, a bacteria that a hundred dollars of antibiotics would cure.

If he hadn't tried to scam me, I wouldn't have minded giving him the Haf '. It wasn't like it was money out of my pocket. Or even tax money. A few years back, customs had confiscated hundreds of them from a smuggler. As far as I was concerned they were freebies.

But I resented having my intelligence insulted. I swallowed my anger. Yes, I could use this pathetic trick.

The wheels spinning in her military mind would have deafened a lesser man. Fivers and their Lunar bankers were locked in an ice cold war with the Martians. Since the day Earth nuked itself to death, the rival alliances had vied for leadership of humanity. I had counted on the "enemy of my enemy is my friend" mentality.

The dye I had used on my eyes had been one step too far. I could feel them corroding every time I blinked. Stupid. Anyone dispatched by the fleet would expect a grainer to be sick. My faux illness wasn't speeding Tech Seven Marquez one iota. She had a sickbay back on her ship stocked full of cures. The threat of Lurre Fever didn't faze her.

I feared giving Marquez too much time to contemplate the flaws in my story. The disease gambit had failed; therefore it was time for Plan B. I casually slipped my hand under the portable workbench and pressed a button three times. In theory, Alice Snela, our Environmental Guardian, should buzz us from the bridge with a dire warning about our degrading air quality.

Nothing.

Like the mayor, it had taken hours of argument to enlist Snela for my plan. Why was I cursed with so many ethical people? I wished I'd had the foresight to create a Plan C.

Marquez's stomach beeped. A flick of her eyebrow raised her eyepiece. She tilted her head as if straining to listen to a faint conversation.

"Damn!" She slammed her fist against the bench. Spinning, the woman coiled as if to strike me.

I threw my hands atop my head and slowly backed off. "Sorry, I'm sorry." I hadn't expected my con to blow up so soon.

Would defrauding Fiver customs land me in a military or civilian jail? With my degree and clean record, the Fiver court would go easy on me—no more than thirty years in a penal factory.

"Just
won-der-ful,"
she hissed, pressing her palms against her temples. Her wig shifted, revealing wisps of hair. "My ship is in hot pursuit of a shadow freighter. I'm stranded here."

"Shadow what?"

"Smugglers, you moron."

"I don't know nuttin' about smuggling."

"Grainers never do. You snake a kilo of dope, and you losers think you're Al Capone. I'm talking real smugglers. Half the onions sold on Luna are snaked from Mars. If we had a dime for every dollar you damned snakers rob from our treasury, there would be no air tax."

"Onions?" I regretted speaking the instant the word popped from my mouth. The sheer joy of having not been caught numbed my brain cells. I eased further back as her fists reknotted.

"Onions and peppers, TVs and plumbing fixtures, brass and wood products. Smugglers are destroying our economy." She sprayed saliva as she yelled. "The basis of civilized life is taxation to pay for services rendered by the government. You snakes—" "Pardon me," I blurted, "but our toxin levels."

"My taxes pay for
your
kind!" She spat on my poncho.

"True. But, it was y'all's decision not to assimilate us. If it hadn't been for aliens giving us these grainships, what would you taxpayers have done? Airlocked us like they did on Marshall Polis? It ain't our fault we were rescued without viable skills. Replace my Haf' before somebody dies."

Never, ever mention the Marshall incident to an upright, uptight Fiver. They will blow a clot every single time. Few, however, will throw kicks.

I swallowed hard to get my testicles out of my throat. While I writhed on the deck, she yanked a new Haf' from her blue bag and scrambled into the core.

I stopped crying by the time she returned; I was so happy I could almost stand.

The audacity of this conniving trash... this
grainer...
associating me with Marshall scum. Like I would have anything to do with those L–3 losers. Here he was stealing, and he had the gall to strut an attitude at me.

It wasn't our fault Earth committed nuclear suicide. It wasn't our fault the peons and ghetto rabble, the prison and asylum inmates rescued by the alien Dyb' from the last gasp of Earth lacked the skills required to earn citizenship. Even Mars wouldn't take them in. Mars called its government an anarchy, but even they wouldn't accept the grainers. Didn't that say everything?

And it dawned on me that I had assaulted a diseased loser. What was wrong with me? I'd spent half of my last furlough rewiring Skid Hall on Anderson Polis so the poor could upgrade their cable TV.

Sorensen's whining and spying; Harper's spying and pawing; Quilin's pawing and hinting. The last seven weeks on patrol had been like the road show of
Bedlam: The Musical.
A little pressure and I punched out a loser—hardly something to be proud of.

Digging a bottle out of a kit, I took a long pull of liquid fire. My disgust receded. The reactor surge hadn't been my fault; I hadn't been that loaded. It was the software, not me that failed. The Sorensen stress, the rotten booze...

And now I was stuck on this human compost heap for days, perhaps until we reached L–5.

No!
I would not be trapped. With the grainer's momentum and my shuttle's engines, I could reach Myer Station in a week.

Carefully, I stowed my tools after cleaning each with a rag. A wipe, a sip. By the time I finished, those sips had mellowed me.

Realizing his performance wasn't earning one whit of sympathy, the grainer got to his feet. I held out my bottle, showing I could put our tiff behind us. He drained it in a trice. I strangled the evidence with plastic wrap.

"I'll need to get a deposition from you regarding this Haf '—point of origin, that sort of thing. My commander is a stickler for details." My voice disguised the turmoil knifing me.

The grainer wasn't smart enough to glean my ulterior motive. His smug little sneer declared he believed I was an idiot. Bad enough Prince Sorensen once shared that same opinion at the top of his voice in the officers' mess. But to have this
grainer...
I reined my anger, double wrapping the Haf ' before ramming it into my kit.

"I take it yer ship ain't returning for you. So, what are you gonna do? We're hoping to snag a berth on New Jamaica next week."

His eyes belied the offer. He wanted me gone. Why not tease the yerp?

"Good thinking. I'll return to my shuttle... as soon as we document this incident properly. Then, I'll dog my hatch, breathe clean air, and dream about my next furlough until we reach civilization."

"But shouldn't you—"

"Solo missions accrue an additional 15 percent diff atop my normal salary. Sorensen will go ballistic, but union rules are concrete."

I grinned at his squirming discomfort, the sweat beading on his brow. This was better than kicking his brains out his ears.

"Let's get the deposition out of the way first." I produced a recorder. "Speak clearly, starting... now."

He sputtered like a broken boiler.

Yes, this could be fun.

"No hard feelings?" I asked, keeping my distance from Marquez.

Her eyes became silver before turning blue. I'd read about those new eye dyes and, of course, seen them on the screen—they were all the rage in New Hollywood—but I'd never experienced them up close. The effect was spooky.

She grasped her side like a runner with a stitch. Those internal rigs, however good, occasionally bled current; tiny sparks twitched her bowels. Her free hand trembled as it clutched the Velcro clasps on her bags shut. Weaving a lock-cord through the handles of the bag containing the Haf', she thumbed its electronic lock until it beeped.

Locks. At college my dorm-mates invariably deployed an array of locks. If a spoon was missing from the cafeteria, the campus police searched my room. I couldn't go to parties without my host shadowing me.

Locks became prison walls.

"I kept the documentation on the repair. On our way to pick it up, I'll buy you the best dinner on our ship. Our way of saying thanks."

"No need. I just ate before docking."

Her eyes shifted to purple, checking the lumps in my pockets just in case I'd heisted her spleen.

It felt refreshing to be guilty. Not that she had a clue. The exaltation of victory chased away the fear-pain in my gut.

A ventilator blew right on me. The smell of too many people could never be fully scrubbed, however well the Haf 'tsk operated. The cutter often got that way while we were systems down, waiting for our prey. We often went dead for weeks lest the smugglers detected us lurking.

The grainer asked, "Got a smoke? 'Backy, pot,
loshna,
I ain't picky."

"You're kidding. Pulmonary suicide is against the law."

However, my guilt emerged from the alcohol's glow. I pulled a silver case from my inner pocket and offered him a
loshna.
You learned to pack trade goods whenever you encountered savages. He snatched up the alien poison stick, torched it, and grinned. The rancid stench was an improvement over the atmosphere.

"Ready to get that work manifest for me?"

He coughed as we walked. Had the yerp been vaccinated? Sky Dublin Polis had spent three years under quarantine after an outbreak of TB–3 originating with a sick grainer.

I needed to update my inoculations.

He led me through a human menagerie. People wandered around with the shocked look of mental patients. Except patients would have been cleaner. Their grubby bare feet bothered me the most.

"Where are the children?" I asked. "I don't recall seeing a single one since I boarded."

"The Dyb' aren't bothered by radiation as much as humans are, so it ain't their fault. Bloody Trade Commission cut corners, allowed 'cost-effective' low-level rad penetration of our shields. Ergo, we've had trouble with 'viable births' as the Accord medicos call 'em. The few kids we have are stashed in the core of the ship."