Racers of the Night: Science Fiction Stories by Brad R. Torgersen (9 page)

“If you’re here, then things must be picking up,” Henrietta said.

“No,” Jimmy replied. “The super-recession is like quicksand. Every time one of the big economies starts to claw its way out, it gets dragged back down by the others. Europe is hurting. North America is hurting. The Pacific Rim is hurting. The Yen’s not been this bad in a long, long time. Nobody is quite sure what’s going to break us out of the slump. Everyone is waiting and holding their breath for …”

“For what?” Henrietta asked.

“A spark. A flame. Something unexpected—to get the wheels turning again. In eras past, it was often technological. Steam engines opened the American West and liberated humanity from speed-of-horse. The telegraph, and later, the telephone … these things liberated communication. The automobile and the airplane became institutions unto themselves, inseparable from modernity. But what’s left for us now? The oil and the coal won’t last forever, to say nothing of environmental restrictions. The internet is a giant time sink into which generations have poured their creative energy, for the sake of entertainment and socializing. There’s no forward movement there. Nothing gets
made
on the web. And it’s getting harder and harder to
make
things in real life, too. Humanity is spinning its wheels while we’re slowly circling the civilizational drain. Something has to change. In a big way.”

Now it was Henrietta’s turn to gauge Jimmy. His eyes had lost focus and he sounded like he was addressing an audience, not just one person.

“You’ve made that pitch before,” she guessed.

Jimmy blushed.

“Yes. Many times, actually.”

“And you’re not just an astronaut working for the Consortium.”

“I am a Cape-rated astronaut,” Jimmy said, his chest suddenly puffing up with pride. “But I don’t just work for the Consortium, I
am
the Consortium.”

“What?”

“You never read the fine-print on your contract, did you?”

Henrietta had to admit that she didn’t.

“The Jimmerson family has a controlling interest in Industrial Omni-Dynamix, Ltd., which is at present the most stable and well-funded partner in the Consortium. We’ve got our fingers into the economies of two dozen major countries, and while some of the smaller partners were eager to bail when the bailing was good, my grandfather always told me that no Jimmerson was going to just sit back and let a good dream go to waste.”

“But why did
you
come all the way out
here?”
Henrietta asked.

“There was only enough money for a mini-mission. One shot, one crewmember, one chance. I could have asked for volunteers, and gotten them. But because of how much is riding on this … well, I didn’t feel comfortable putting my expectations on anyone else’s shoulders. I also didn’t want to have to deal with the repercussions of failure, should we fail. You and I.”

“And what precisely do you expect
us
to do?”

“Finish the mission. Insert 33 Riga into a stable Earth orbit and hang out the ‘Open For Business’ sign. The First and Second International Space Stations are winding down—at the ends of their lifecycles. The three moon colonies are sitting half-finished and empty because nobody’s got money to complete or staff them. We need cheap resources in Earth orbit—to ease the path, if you will. That was the whole idea of ADC in the first place.”

Henrietta considered. She’d once been very enthusiastic about the whole ADC project. It was why she’d foregone a more stable teaching career, and signed on for space training.

Jimmy noticed the mental clouds passing over Henrietta’s eyes.

“How exactly did the others die?” Jimmy asked.

“I can’t talk about it right now,” Henrietta said. “Just tell me one thing, Mister—I mean, Jimmy. If I help you get 33 Riga to Earth orbit, can you promise me that you’ll put my life back the way it was?”

“Before you left Earth?”

“No, before
you
came.”

“If things go the way I’ve planned, 33 Riga will be a busy place. Crawling with people. No, I can’t promise you anything like what you want.”

“Then I’ve no interest. You can do what you want with the original mission equipment. I’m not lifting a finger to assist.”

“I came here prepared to do this alone,” Jimmy said, his neck stiffening.

“Then do it alone,” Henrietta said, and turned her back on him, expertly kicking and swimming her way to the far side of the hall.

“Wait!” Jimmy cried.

Henrietta paused at the mouth of the corridor to her sleeping chamber.

“Yes?” she said.

“What about Greenland? I could set you up in the middle of nowhere. Enough supplies and equipment for a new house, plus domes for farming, not too different from the hydroponics stuff you’re using now. No other human being for a hundred miles, at least.”

“I thought you said you were prepared to do this alone?” Henrietta said.

“The chances for success double, with two of us working together. I meant it when I launched the return stage: I’m in this thing to win, one way, or another.”

“Are you also a man who keeps his word?” Henrietta asked.

“Absolutely.”

“Okay. I will give you a chance to prove it.”

• • •

The initial work was painful.

Not only had Henrietta’s training on the original mission equipment gathered two decades of rust, but some of the equipment itself had not fared well despite much of it still being in its factory containers aboard the original lander. Batteries were long dead. Computer memories were wiped. If the containers had been rated on Earth as “radiation resistant” they had most definitely
not
been designed to sit out in the unshielded glare of the sun—solar wind, sunspots, solar flares—for as long as these ones had.

Henrietta and Jimmy did a lot of cannibalizing.

Of course, he’d brought new equipment too. Some of it much improved over the older stuff.

For Henrietta, uncrating all the systems brought back lots of buried memories. The original lander was located far from Henrietta’s home, behind a ridge that blocked sight of it from the observation dome. And for good reason, too. She’d not been back to the lander in years, and was plagued by ghostly recollections of she, Shavro, and the others, all working together to unload the lander’s cargo, unpack the solar arrays, rig up the electrical grid, get the tunneling robots working, and so forth.

A few times she had to stop work—sweat pouring down her face behind the transparent helmet bowl of her older, bulkier suit—to let the waves of crippling anxiety pass.

Day and night cycles began to spin by.

Jimmy made himself at home in the house, but was noticeably careful to not intrude into Henrietta’s private areas—especially her sleeping chamber. He was also noticeably careful to avoid asking any more questions about how the rest of the original mission crew had died, though doubtless this was on his mind. He kept the talk technical, professional, and despite her misgivings over the fact that Jimmy was, for all intents and purposes, a super-rich man, he proved surprisingly eager and willing to work. Often, to the point of physical exhaustion.

Always, the blue-white-green sphere of the Earth grew larger in the sky. Just a little bit, week after week.

One afternoon, as they both struggled to bring the first ion thruster-pusher to life, Henrietta experienced a particularly bad episode and had to abandon the job before it was complete. She returned to the house as quickly as her suit’s onboard maneuvering pack could jet her there, and spent over an hour huddled in the microgravity shower, being doused by spraying hot water.

She emerged—wrinkled and delicate—to find Jimmy working in the kitchen.

The heavenly aroma that issued forth sent culinary explosions through her brain that she’d not experienced in a long, long time.

“Is that—?”

“Top sirloin,” Jimmy said with a smile. “I was saving it for a special occasion. Got the thruster-pusher up and running. It’s now gently nudging us into a new orbit. A smidge at a time. Once we bring a few more of those on-line, we ought to begin making good progress. Then we can break out the mining robots and get started on the refinery too. In the meantime, how do you like your beef, madam? Medium-rare?”

It had been so long since Henrietta had eaten meat. She’d almost forgotten the taste. But with the hunks of steak sizzling nicely on a spit in the roaster—juice and melted fat clinging to the exterior, forming a heavenly sheen—her mouth suddenly began to water ferociously. She floated to the roaster and peered through the glass door, licking her lips.

“I don’t care,” she said. “Cook it however. I just can’t believe you brought meat.”

“Teddy Roosevelt dined well when he rode in Africa. Seems to me I ought to be able to do the same out in space.”

Henrietta greedily watched the spit revolve, the roaster’s electric-red coils glowing softly and a gentle hissing sound coming from the meat as it cooked.

“Your file didn’t say anything about agoraphobia,” Jimmy said, not looking up at Henrietta from where he prepared a couple of russet potatoes on a similar spit: to go into the roaster directly after the steak had been placed into a warmer.

“Are you a psychologist now?” Henrietta asked.

“No,” Jimmy said. “But on my way up from Earth I did an extensive study on the files of all the original mission crew. The woman who tested out for this trip in the first place? She’s not the woman I’m getting to know now. You were smart, and you were bold. Then. Now? It’s like … like you’re afraid of your own shadow or something.”

“Things happen to people,” Henrietta said, not liking the sudden turn of conversation. If Jimmy was going to start prodding at sore wounds, she was going to shut him down immediately. Beef dinner, or no beef dinner.

“What things?” Jimmy said, his eyes still on his work.

“This conversation is going to end right—”

“Tell me about Damio.”

Henrietta jerked her head up. He didn’t look back.

“How do you know that name?” she asked crisply.

“You’ve done a good job sealing off the logs and keeping me out of your secure local area network, but not good enough. The medical computer was wide open, and has records of a birth. You were the only female on the original mission team. Henrietta, what happened to your son?”

Henrietta began to shake. Visibly.

“We will not speak of Damio,” she said, feeling a sudden, rushing weight pile itself quickly onto her shoulders. If she’d been standing in Earth-normal gravity, she’d have collapsed to her knees.

“The medical computer doesn’t give any details about an accident. Everyone seemed healthy, including the baby, who grew into a toddler. You gave him a clean bill of health on his third birthday, and then … blank. Nothing. Not for him. And not for any of the others. I had to think about it for a while, until I realized that the return stage for
your
spacecraft is also missing. Only the lander and its cargo are present.”

By now Henrietta was paralyzed.

A familiar, raw sound began to gurgle up in her throat.

She fought it, with all her mind and soul.

But the memories of Damio—of Henrietta and Shavro having their final, titanic argument—had been suppressed for too long. The emotion boiled up into her heart like acid, and left her hugging her arms over her breasts and weeping uncontrollably.

A second pair of arms gently guided her to the other side of the kitchen, then hesitantly pulled her into a hug. The first bona fide hug Henrietta had experienced in years.

A fresh round of sobs bubbled out of her, so that she was quietly bawling into the front of Jimmy’s jumpsuit. His hands patted her back in a reserved fashion, then grew a little more sure of themselves as she continued to weep right down to the tips of her toes.

Sobs turned to snuffles, then to sniffling.

“Meat’s going to burn” Jimmy said quietly.

Henrietta detached herself and was embarrassed to see the front of his jumpsuit damp with mucus and tears.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t realize—” Jimmy said, his face red and his eyes looking ashamed.

Whatever he’d expected from her, he hadn’t expected
that.

Henrietta pushed out of the kitchen and returned to the shower, where she stripped, pulled the curtain back up, sealed the rim, and hit the button that would blast her with hot water.

• • •

Two hours later, Henrietta emerged to find the kitchen empty, but a healthy piece of sirloin in the warmer, and a nicely-baked potato too; with freshly steamed vegetables from the hydroponics farm.

But no Jimmy.

Henrietta didn’t care. She was as famished as she was exhausted. She tore into the beef like a leopard on a springbok. The meat was tender and seasoned and arguably the most delicious, positively astounding thing she’d ever tasted in her life.

When she was done—an eminently satisfying feeling behind her ribs—she set out to find the cook. To thank him.

She found Jimmy back in the observation dome where their mutual association had begun months before. In his hand was a drinking bulb filled with a suspicious amber fluid.

“Whiskey?” she said.

“Scotch,” Jimmy said. “Also saved for a special occasion. After I made you cry like that, I came up here to drown a few sorrows of my own.”

“What sorrows could a billionaire possibly have?”

Jimmy turned to her, his expression just slightly touched with intoxication.

“You’d be surprised,” he said.

“No, really,” Henrietta said. “You have ferretted out some of my secrets, let’s hear about yours, Mister Space Tycoon. Tell me. What weighs heavily on the brow of a man who has everything, beyond the rise and fall of the stock markets?”

Jimmy took a quick pull from the drinking bulb’s one-way straw, wiped his mouth on the back of his hand, then returned to looking up at the imperceptibly-growing image of the Earth.

“You’re not the only one who’s lost a son,” he said, choosing his words carefully. “Carter—we called him Cart—was doing okay, until his mother and I started getting sideways with each other. Darcy said I was working myself to death: spending too much time at the office, and not enough time at home. Small wonder. ADC was falling apart and threatening to pull Industrial Omni-Dynamix down with it. If I wasn’t at the office I was flying all over the world putting out business fires. Darcy and me … we just kind of got lost in the shuffle, I guess. One day I came home and she’d packed herself and Cart up. Poof. Gone to stay with her parents in Wisconsin. When she filed for the divorce, I didn’t fight it. I knew I’d quit on her before she’d quit on me. But I didn’t anticipate how hard it would be on Cart.”