CHAPTER 3
Inside
The Shaft bar, music blared. Drinking and gambling were the only forms of
entertainment, so the bar was always filled with off-shift miners.
Today, angry miners, most of them
Earth descendants, but a few humanoid-like aliens, still dirty from their near
escape from the asteroid Vesta, shouted down Vestacorp supervisor, David
Picchetti, as he stood on a table. He held up his hands and shouted as he tried
to regain control of the meeting.
“Okay, okay, I know how you feel—”
Picchetti said, trying to calm the angry mob.
“Like hell you do!” one shouted.
“You’re a staff puke! You still got a job!” another challenged.
“And so will you,” Picchetti said.
“We don’t have no stock
options! We don’t work, we don’t get
paid!”
“I promise you, men, as soon as the
Department of Mines clears one of the new sites, you’ll all have jobs,”
Picchetti tried to assure the miners.
“That could be months. I got a family back on Mars and they can’t
eat promises,” a big miner shouted.
“It can’t be helped,” Picchetti
said. “We’re terraforming three new
asteroids and we’ll be getting the Vesta site back online as fast as possible.”
“What about the back pay we’re
owed?” Jake asked.
An old timer, October Bruner, standing
next to Jake quipped, “You can kiss that good-bye.”
“Well, you see…” Picchetti started
to say.
“Here it comes,” October said.
“What?” Jake said.
“The big lie,” October added.
“...there’s a problem at
corporate—” Picchetti continued.
A wiry, slightly crazed looking
miner, Howard C. Tibbs, threw a beer mug that shattered against a hanging lamp
near Picchetti’s head. “We don’t want no excuses,” Tibbs challenged. “We want our pay.”
October whispered to Jake, “Nothing
like the direct approach.”
Picchetti knew he was in danger. “The
company has had a few setbacks and now with this Vesta disaster—”
“You want to get out of here with
your skin, you better come up with something, Picchetti,” Tibbs threatened.
Picchetti nervously took out his
com-device and hurriedly tapped in some numbers. He didn’t like what he saw on the screen as
he faced down the angry miners.
“I can pay you out of my personal
account,” he said. “That’s the best I
can offer. It’ll clean me out, but I can
give you ten cents on the dollar—”
“Ten cents on the dollar!” Tibbs
bellowed.
Others complained loudly.
“I haven’t been paid myself in
three months,” Picchetti said.
“I ain’t buying it,” one miner
shouted. “The brass watches out for its
own and to hell with the crews.”
“You men knew the risks going in,”
Picchetti said. “Equal shares on processed ore delivered to Earth. Vesta is shut down...probably for good if the
company thinks it will be too costly to bring it back on line.”
“What about the ore already
shipped?” Jake said. “I haven’t seen any
credits posted to my account. Why is
that?”
Tibbs added his two bits mockingly,
“Yeah, Mr. Company man, why is that?”
“I’ll pay you what I can. Take it or leave it,” Picchetti said.
The miners grumbled, but knew there
was little they could do. Picchetti punched a couple buttons on his com-device.
“Good,” he said. “You should see the
credits in your accounts in a couple of minutes.”
“I want hard currency,” Tibbs
demanded.
“Anyone else?” Picchetti asked.
A couple of the aliens raised their
hands. “We want the official exchange rate of our own system,” one demanded.
Picchetti went over to the bar to a
cash exchanger, pointed com-device at it and pushed a couple buttons. A few coins
dropped. “Tibbs,” he said, offering him the coins.
Tibbs grabbed the coins and counted
them suspiciously. He glared at
Picchetti and snarled at the bartender, “Whiskey,” he ordered.
Picchetti touched a button on the cash
machine, and then his com-device. Cubed coins dropped into the slot. He nodded to the two alien miners and they scooped
up their pay. “If anyone’s interested the Department of Mines is accepting
applications for wildcatter franchises on Ceres,” he said.
No one seemed to care.
Picchetti shrugged. “I’ve got the
contract, so if anyone is interested,
you know where to find me.” He left the bar and the miners returned to their
drinking and complaining.
Jake checked his com-device and saw
that the credit had been placed in his account.
He noticed an empty chair at a table of miners who were in the middle of
a card game. October was dealing.
“You mind?” Jake asked, motioning
to an empty chair.
“Nope,” October said.
Jake sat next to one of the alien miners.
“You got coins?” October asked
Jake.
Jake dug into his pant pocket and
tossed a couple of coins on the table. October grinned and dealt him in and
looked up as Tibbs approached the last empty seat. October nodded and Tibbs slid in, spilling
some of his drink on the alien, who glared at him.
“You got something on your mind?”
Tibbs slurred. “If you got one, that is.”
The alien wiped the liquid off his
sleeve and picked up his cards.
“Didn’t think so,” Tibbs said. “They let anybody in here these days, don’t
they.”
October eyed Tibbs and dealt the
cards. “Any you boys thought on wildcattin’ Ceres?” October asked.
“What’s it to you?” Tibbs said
irritably.
“Nothing,” October said. “Just trying to have a little conversation is
all.”
Jake offered his hand to October.
“The name’s Jake Lane,” he said.
October shook Jake’s hand. They talked while they played through several
hands.
“October Bruener,” the old miner
said in way of introduction.
“That’s a dumb name,” Tibbs snarled.
“Only one I got. It suits me.”
“You ever wildcatted?” Jake asked.
“Pretty near all my life. Started when I was just a kid on Earth. Gold.
Silver, Uranium.”
“You must not have been too good at
it or you wouldn’t be stuck out here, broke like the rest of us,” Tibbs said.
“Not so, not so. Made my fortune several times over.”
“What happen?” Jake said.
“Spent it. Wine, women and song, like the saying
goes. Mostly women. Had me a few.”
“Sure you have,” Tibbs said
skeptically.
“Wasn’t always old, you know,”
October said. “Had my way with the
ladies on three planets and some of the outer colonies.”
Jake grinned. “Kids?”
“You bet. Last count, I think it was ten or eleven.”
“You ought to learn to keep it in
your pants, old man,” Tibbs interrupted.
“I’ve got a son,” Jake said. “He’s with his mother. They’re visiting her folks on Earth.”
October looked at Jake
curiously. He knew something. “Bet you
miss them,” he said.
Jake looked at his hand and tossed
in two cards. October dealt him two.
“I was counting on this job to get
home—”
“No family for me,” Tibbs said. “All they want is for you to buy them stuff
and they bitch all the time when things don’t go right. No, I watch out for myself. Better that way all around.”
“Kinda lonely way to live, don’t
you think?” October asked.
“Naw. I want a woman, I can get one whenever. Don’t want any brats calling me daddy.”
“I’ve seen you down on Vesta,” Jake
said to October.
“Looking for partners.”
“You mean a handout,” Tibbs said.
October ignored Tibbs. “I’m
considering going on over to Ceres and try my luck,” he said. “I got a nose for finding ore.”
“Then you have to sell out to one
of the corporations, so what’s the use?” Tibbs said.
“I made a half million on my last
find.”
This got their attention.
“And it’s all gone?” Tibbs asked.
“I still got enough if I can find a
couple partners to go in with, we can bid on wildcat rights on Ceres.”
“How much would one of these
partners need?” Jake asked.
“I thought you wanted to go home,”
Tibbs said.
Jake gave Tibbs a look. Tibbs
ignored him.
“How much?” Jake asked.
“Couple hundred’s all,” October
said. “Department of Mines will match
whatever a wildcatter has to grubstake them.”
“You think there’s anything worth
finding on Ceres?” Tibbs said.
“Pretty likely,” October said. “That was a good strike on Vesta.”
“So,” Tibbs said.
“There are thousands of asteroids
in the belt,” October said. “It’s a good
bet they’re all from one planet that exploded.
If that’s so, what you find on one, you mostly likely will find on the
others.
“There are sixteen about the size
of Vesta, which is a couple hundred miles across. All but two have been mined out. But Ceres, she’s twice as big as the others,
so I figure there’s twice as much a chance of finding ore there.”
“If that's the case, why hasn’t it
already been mined?” Jack asked.
“Someone else got there first.” October
looked over at the alien miner.
“My people,” the alien miner said.
“Your people ain’t people,” Tibbs
said. “You’re, you’re a—”
“What?” the alien miner said,
glaring.
“Well, you sure ain’t human people.”
“Humans have pretty much mucked up
their own planet and now they’ve come out here to do the same. Thank god I am
not human.”
“What god would that be? It sure ain’t mine.”
“Okay, boys,” October said, trying
to calm things down a bit. “We playing
cards or what?”
Tibbs lost the hand to the alien,
who grinned as he raked in his winnings. “Thank you, gentlemen,” he said as he got
up to leave.
Tibbs grabbed his arm. “Where you
think you’re going with my money?”
“It is no longer your money, human,” the miner said, as if it were a racial
slur. He eased back his coat to reveal a long, curved knife. Tibbs sulked and tossed his cards across the
table to Jake and nodded to him and October. “October. Perhaps we’ll meet again...on Ceres.” He
left.
Tibbs and October picked up their
cards.
“What’s he mean by that?” Tibbs
growled at October.
“Nothing. I just know him from when I was on Ceres
before,” October said.
Tibbs watched suspiciously as the
alien miner left the bar. He lost another
hand to Jake. Two other men tossed in
their hands and went over to the bar, leaving only the three.
“You’ve been to Ceres. What’s it like?” Jake asked.
“Nicest place this side of the
galaxy,” October reflected. “The Terantus
set it up as a penal colony—”
“You mean those slime freaks,”
Tibbs said.
“If you should ever find yourself
on Ceres, I would be careful of what I say, if I were you,” October said with a
hint of anger.
Tibbs’ upper lip twitched slightly
as he attempted a smile.
“Is it still a penal colony?” Jake
asked.
“There’s a couple of gypsy
outposts; a religious sect set up a township,” October said as he tossed his
cards down. “From what I hear, the prison is pretty much shut down. There’s just a few real bad characters left.”
He reflected a moment. “Real bad
characters.”
“Is that where they put Amasunto?”
“The flesh eater?” Tibbs
interjected.
“Yeah. He’s there,” October said.
“Did he really eat all those
people?”
“And a few of his own kind.”
Tibbs shrugged, as if to say no loss there. He looked at his last
coin. “A few less Terantus.”
“Maybe you should save that to buy
something to eat,” Jake suggested.
Tibbs grinned and watched a
waitress pass. “A man can always find food,” he said. “Just deal, will ya.”
October leaned back in his chair. “I
remember one time on Enceladus,” he pontificated. “It was one of the early expeditions. Prettiest moon in the universe, if you ask
me. I never been so cold in my
life. Nearly froze to the bone.
“We set up the first water
exchanger there. Anyway, the supply ship
was broke down somewhere east of hell and we about starved. Took three weeks to get to us.” He chuckled at
the memory. “I tell you, much longer and it would have been a toss-up who
would’ve ended up on the griddle.”
“You a professional liar or do you
have to work at it?” Tibbs chided.
“My second wife said I was a
natural born liar, but you know, sometimes the truth and a lie share the same
bed,” October said. “All depends on who’s doing the telling.”
Tibbs stared over his cards.
“You ever done any wildcattin’?”
October asked Jake.
“I’ve done my time in the mines,”
Jake said.
“In the mines, you can count on
others to help you in case of trouble. A
wildcatter out on his own’s got no one but his’self. Mining company feeds you. You get medical care. All that nifty equipment don’t cost you
nothing.
“At the end of the day you can come
back here for a shower and a shave, and a clean rack to sleep in. None of that for a wildcatter. You’re on your own. No one knows where you are, or cares. You get sick, heal yourself. Hungry?
You pack it in, cause there sure ain’t any game to worth killing on no
asteroid I ever been on. And you pay for
and haul ever damn piece of equipment on your back if you can't afford a mule.”
“Why you do it, then?”
“I owe no one and no one owns
me. I go where I want, when I want. I’ve found and spent three fortunes.”
“How come I never heard of you if
you struck it rich so many times?” Tibbs said skeptically.
“Ain’t something you broadcast out
loud,” October said. “Wouldn’t live too
long that way. Always someone ready to
take it from you. Many a wildcatter just
disappeared on some lonely rock in space.
If you gonna make it out there, you got to be tough and mean.”
“You don’t look so tough...or
mean,” Tibbs said.
“Oh, I don’t know, Tibbs,” Jake
said. “Not many men out here his age.”
He grinned at October. “Gotta be pretty tough to be around that long.”
“Not so tough these days, though,”
October said, eyeing the two men. “I got the nose to find ore, but I need a
couple strong, young lads to help keep it long enough to cash it in.”
“You’re nuts if you think anyone would
go out there with you,” Tibbs growled.
“I would,” Jake said.
October smiled at Jake.
“Then you’re as crazy as him,”
Tibbs challenged Jake.
“Why don’t you?” October asked,
ignoring Tibbs.
“I’m tapped out,” Jake said. “As it is, I’m going to have to find some
kind of work here on the ship.”
“The company will cover your
expenses until another mine opens up,” Tibbs said.
“Then take it all out of your first
paycheck before you can send any home.
No thanks.”
October grinned as he won another
hand and pulled in the last of the money. “Something to be said for being a
free man,” he said.
