Uranus Read online

Raven almost smiled. The power game, she said to herself. The Reverend Umber isn’t above playing the game. Well, I can play it too.

  “I was very honored to receive your call,” she said, in what she hoped was a properly humble tone.

  “We’ve been watching your work with Dr. Gomez,” said Umber, “and I must say that I, for one, am quite happily impressed with it.”

  Raven looked up into Umber’s round, pink-cheeked face with its auburn hair sweeping down to his shoulders, and smiled.

  She said, “I’m trying to help Dr. Gomez all I can.”

  “That’s good. Very good. I’m sure God will reward your efforts.”

  “I hope so.”

  “We have noticed, however, that you have not attended any religious services of any kind since arriving here in Haven.”

  Raven put on an expression of contrition. “I have no religion,” she said, softly, sadly.

  Umber nodded sorrowfully. “In your former life, I suppose the word of God didn’t reach you.”

  “Hardly.”

  “But here in Haven you have begun to change your life. Don’t you think you might try to meet God halfway?”

  “I don’t know how,” she replied, in a near whisper.

  “I could help you.”

  Despite herself, Raven’s eyes widened with surprise. He’s coming on to me! This man of God wants to lay me!

  “I … I don’t know if I’m worthy of your help, sir.”

  “Not my help,” said Umber gently. “God’s help.”

  Raven bowed her head as she asked, “What must I do?”

  “Attend services at the main chapel tomorrow at six A.M.”

  “Chapel services?”

  “Get to know God and what He expects of you. His yoke is light, His way is the path to salvation.”

  Raven was too surprised to reply. Does he actually mean what he’s saying? Is he really trying to save my soul? He’s not after my body?

  MIND AND SPIRIT

  Using her apartment’s computer, Raven found that the habitat’s main chapel was actually the big auditorium she and the other new arrivals had been taken to on her first day in Haven.

  The following morning, she arrived at the auditorium a good ten minutes before six, wearing one of the dreary gray outfits that hung in her closet. She slipped quietly through the heavy wooden double doors.…

  And stepped into another world. The auditorium had been transformed into a chapel. It was only half filled with worshipers, but the vast chamber soared above their bowed heads like a magnificent vision of heaven. Stained glass windows lined both sides of the nave, displaying beautiful scenes of saintly men and women in strikingly bold colors. At the front of the chapel, behind the many-colored marble altar, stood a mammoth image of the crucified Christ, staring out from His cross, a beatific smile on His bearded face despite the bloody nails through His hands and feet and the cruel crown of thorns pressed down upon His head.

  She remembered the brief glimpse of this setting from her first day at Haven, but somehow, with the chapel half filled with kneeling worshipers, it all seemed more powerful, more stirring.

  Raven thought the Christ image was staring directly at her, as if there were no one else in the church. It took an effort of will for her to tear her eyes away from its hypnotic gaze.

  Standing on trembling legs at the rear of the church, Raven saw a splendidly robed priest rise to his feet at one side of the altar and raise his hands in blessing.

  A voice from nowhere filled the cathedral, pronouncing, “Dominus vobiscum.” The congregation replied in unison, “Et cum spiritu tuo.”

  “Ite, missa est,” said the priest, his arms raised in blessing.

  As one, the people replied, “Deo gratias.”

  Then the people—men and women, a few children—rose from their pews and walked slowly along the central aisle, heads bent reverently, past Raven, who was still standing by the massive rear doors. No one spoke a word. To Raven it seemed as if they had all been struck dumb.

  She stood there until the last of the worshipers filed past and left the church, leaving it empty, silent.

  Suddenly a crisply authoritative voice boomed, “Scrub the Catholic setting. Cue up the Quaker façade.”

  The beautiful cathedral disappeared like a lamp suddenly clicked off. The church went totally dark for a moment, then a new vision lit up before Raven’s astonished eyes. Somehow the church was now much smaller and utterly unadorned. No stained glass windows, no elaborate crucifixion scene, no marble altar. The walls were bare, simple black and white.

  A handful of plainly dressed people began filtering into the church. Raven shook her head, as if to clear it, and stumbled back into the walkway outside, which was filling up with pedestrians striding along, talking, laughing, living lives that Raven could understand.

  * * *

  By the time Raven got back to her quarters, she had made up her mind that she would not return to the chapel, or cathedral, or auditorium, or whatever it was. Not for me, she told herself. If Reverend Umber ever asks me about it, I’ll tell him I tried but it didn’t work for me.

  She wondered if that was the right way to go. But she knew that joining a congregation of worshipers, bowing and kneeling and repeating phrases that were thousands of years old—that was not for her. If she did it, she would be playacting. She felt no sense of belonging among those people. None whatever.

  The message light was blinking at the bottom of her living room screen. A message from Tómas, she saw. She called out, “Play message, please.”

  Gomez’s broad-cheeked mestizo face appeared on the screen, looking distraught. “Raven, I need your help. I’m ready for the final checkout of the submersible, but I can’t find the checklist that inventories the sub’s consumables. I’ve looked everywhere but I can’t find it! Do you know where it is?”

  Raven almost laughed. It’s probably in your back pocket, she said silently to the image on her screen, filed away on your personal notebook.

  Instead, she made herself look almost as serious as he did, then called out, “Reply to message.”

  Gomez’s image shrank to a corner of the screen as Raven said aloud, “I’ll come over and help you look for it, Tómas. I’ll be there in five minutes.”

  She sent the message, shut down the screen, then got up and went to her front door, heading for Gomez and problems that she understood.

  WAXMAN’S FILE

  The spherical submersible craft sat in a cradle of plastisteel beams in the middle of the docking area. A trio of robots paced slowly around its globular shape, examining every seam and joint along its length. Tómas Gomez stood up on the raised balcony high above, intently watching the automatons, his personal notebook clutched in both hands.

  Raven climbed the spiral metal staircase and stood beside Gomez, keeping her face blank, noncommittal, hiding the amusement she felt. Wordlessly, she took the notebook from Gomez’s hands.

  Sure enough, the checklist that he’d been unable to find was tucked among the data filed in his notebook, along with a lifetime’s collection of notes, blueprints, photographs and other miscellanea.

  As she watched Gomez’s intent face staring down at the robots and the submersible, Raven thought, He really would be lost without me. He’s like a very bright little boy, brilliant but absentminded. I wonder who looked after him on Earth?

  Raven knew from peeking into Gomez’s personnel file that he was unmarried, unattached. He seemed to have time only for his work, his research, his passion to unlock the secrets that Uranus hid at the bottom of its planet-girdling ocean.

  She turned her head slightly to gaze down at the submersible. It was a perfectly rotund shape of dark metal, designed to withstand the immense pressures at the bottom of Uranus’s sea.

  My rival, Raven thought. He doesn’t have time for anything or anyone else. I’m playing second fiddle to a machine.

  Almost, she laughed. Almost. But she was thinking, once that contraption goes into the ocean
, once it’s cut off from communication with him, once he’s alone up here without his precious toy—that’s the time when he’ll have no one to talk to, no one to console him, no shoulder to cry on. That’s when I’ll get him.

  Yet a voice in her head asked, Why bother? You don’t need him. He can’t raise your status in this imitation heaven. Waxman’s the one with power. Waxman and Umber. But Umber’s not available and Waxman is.

  * * *

  That evening, after a solitary dinner in her own kitchen, Raven looked up the station’s computer file on Evan Waxman.

  Born to great wealth. Married twice, twice divorced. Met Kyle Umber when the reverend was serving a brief prison term for leading a protest against a state law that allowed people to hunt and kill the few brown bears still living in the national forests. Spent almost all his family’s considerable fortune to construct this space station in orbit around Uranus, the station that Umber christened Haven. Devoted his life to working with Umber, helping him turn Haven into a refuge for Earth’s downtrodden poor.

  Raven shook her head in disappointment. Nothing there, she concluded. Nothing that lets me see inside the man. Nothing but a shining, glorified biography that was probably written by a public relations organization.

  Her phone buzzed, startling Raven out of her musings.

  “Answer, please.”

  Evan Waxman’s handsome features appeared on her living room wall screen.

  “Good evening,” he said, with a smile.

  “Mr. Waxman,” said Raven, surprised.

  “Evan.”

  “Evan.”

  “I see that you’re examining my biography.”

  Raven felt a pulse of alarm. “I … I was curious about you.”

  Waxman’s smile widened slightly. “Why don’t you come over to my quarters and I’ll tell you the story of my life.”

  “Your quarters?”

  “I’ve opened a bottle of very good Amontillado, and I really don’t like to drink alone.”

  Raven’s thoughts swirled through her mind as she heard herself answer, “I’m not really dressed to go visiting, I’m afraid.”

  “You look fine to me. Nothing to be afraid of.”

  “I don’t know…”

  “Please.”

  She recognized the expression on his face. She had seen it many times before, on many faces.

  “Well, if you think it’s okay…”

  Waxman broke into a handsome grin. “I won’t tell Reverend Umber if you won’t.”

  Raven smiled back at him. “All right. I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

  * * *

  As she strode up to Waxman’s door, it slid open automatically for her. Stepping inside, she saw the man standing in the center of his living room, wearing a deep burgundy jacket over black trousers, a long-stemmed wineglass in one hand.

  Waxman’s apartment seemed little different from her own. Slightly bigger, but the furnishings were very similar. The walls were hung with paintings, though: scenes of cities from the distant past, ancient Rome, Athens, other cities that Raven did not recognize.

  Gesturing toward the images, Waxman said—almost sadly—“The glories of yesterday. Many of them have been drowned in the greenhouse floods.”

  “How sad,” Raven murmured.

  Brightening noticeably, Waxman said, “I promised you some wine.”

  He turned toward the coffee table that rested in front of a sofa that was remarkably like the one in Raven’s own quarters. A slim bottle of wine stood in an ice bucket on the coffee table and a glass exactly like the one Waxman was holding rested beside it.

  “Amontillado,” Waxman said. “I first discovered it in a story by Edgar Allan Poe. Been fascinated by it every since.”

  Raven shook her head. “I never heard of it.”

  He bent down, put down his own wine glass, and picked up the bottle and the empty glass. “I hope you like it,” he said as he poured.

  Raven took a cautious sip. The wine tasted slightly bitter, almost tart.

  “It’s good,” she lied.

  Waxman nodded and gestured to the sofa. “Let’s get to know each other better,” he said.

  WAXMAN’S STORY

  Raven sat on the couch. Waxman sat next to her, close enough for her to smell the cologne he was wearing.

  “I’ve read your personnel file,” he said, with a whimsical smile. “Is all that true?”

  Raven made herself smile back at him. “Most of it.”

  “It must have been a very difficult life. You must be glad to be here now.”

  “I’m very happy to be here. For the first time in my life, I feel safe.”

  Waxman took a long pull from his wine glass. Then he smiled and asked, “Even now?”

  Raven blinked at him. “Are you suggesting that I shouldn’t feel safe now?”

  His smile shrank noticeably. “The male ego is a very fragile thing, you know.”

  Keeping her expression serious, Raven replied, “Sometimes the male ego turns violent.”

  “You poor thing.”

  “No, I’m not a poor thing. I’m a survivor. I’ve lived through hell, back on Earth. Now I’m striving for heaven.”

  Waxman leaned back on the sofa and turned his eyes toward the ceiling, which sparkled with twinkling stars. “You’ve been talking with Umber, I see.”

  “Once.”

  “And do you intend to become one of his converts? One of his saved creatures?”

  For several moments Raven did not answer. Her mind was spinning different responses to Waxman’s question. Finally she said, “I intend to become a free and independent woman, able to stand on my own feet and go my own way, without depending on anyone else.”

  “That,” said Waxman, “is well nigh impossible. Everyone needs others to depend on. One person alone can’t make it in human society.”

  “I intend to try.”

  “Then why did you come here tonight?”

  Raven hesitated again. At last she shrugged and answered, “Old habits die hard.”

  “Ah.”

  “I shouldn’t have come. I shouldn’t have given you the impression that I was … available.”

  Waxman sighed. “And I shouldn’t have given you the impression that I’m a predator.”

  Raven stared at him. “You’re not?”

  He grinned at her. “Not entirely.”

  “I suppose this is where you tell me the story of your life.”

  “You haven’t looked it up?”

  “Your biography looks like a public relations job.”

  He nodded. “And so it is.”

  “What’s the real story?”

  “Too dull to repeat. Until I met Kyle.”

  “Reverend Umber.”

  “Yes. He changed my life. Quite literally. Before I met him I was just a rich kid, like so many others. Just drifting through life. No ambitions, no goals.”

  “And Reverend Umber changed that?”

  “He did indeed,” said Waxman. “At first I thought he was crazy. Build a habitat orbiting the planet Uranus? Create a haven for Earth’s poor, downtrodden? For the forgotten masses, the people left to vegetate on the outskirts of our glorious interplanetary society? It sounded like pie in the sky. Fantasy. A pipe dream.”

  “And yet you’re here.”

  “I am indeed. I’m here among your huddled masses, yearning to breathe free. I’m here helping that madman build a better world.”

  “That’s kind of wonderful.”

  “It is that,” Waxman said, with some fervor.

  Raven thought it over for a few silent seconds. Then she asked, “So where do you go from here?”

  He made a noise somewhere between a chuckle and a grunt. “Where do we go? Onward and outward. Enlarge Haven. Bring more of your downtrodden brethren here. Build additional habitats. Start a new nation—free, clean and safe for all.”

  Raven shook her head. “There are some terrible people among Earth’s poor. Horrible people.”
>
  “I know,” Waxman said, sighing. “I’ve been warning Umber about them. But he sees only the good in them.”

  “You’ve got to protect him against them.”

  “I try. We use computers to scan their records. We test them before we allow them to come to Haven.”

  Raven remembered how she had maneuvered through the tests. She wondered how many others had done the same. How many murderers and thieves and hopeless scoundrels was Reverend Umber allowing into Haven?

  “Umber thinks God will turn all the refugees into saints,” Waxman said.

  “That won’t happen, will it?”

  “Hardly.”

  “How can we protect him from the predators?”

  Waxman’s brows rose in surprise. “We?”

  “I want the reverend’s plan to succeed,” Raven said. “I want Haven to be everything Reverend Umber hopes for it.”

  “So do I.”

  “How do we do that?” she asked.

  Leaning closer to her, Waxman said, “Well, to begin with, you might consider working with me instead of that astronomer.”

  Raven pretended surprise. “Oh, I couldn’t leave Dr. Gomez! He’s like a little boy. He’d be lost without someone to look after him.”

  “Really?”

  “Really.”

  Waxman studied her face for several silent moments. Raven tried to look sincere and a bit uneasy.

  At last Waxman said, “Well, if that’s the way you feel…”

  Raven got to her feet. Waxman looked up at her, then stood up too.

  “I … I’m sorry,” Raven stammered. “I’d love to work with you, I really would. But I couldn’t leave Dr. Gomez, really, I couldn’t.”

  “I see,” said Waxman, flatly, tonelessly.

  She started toward the door. “I appreciate your offer. I really do.”

  Almost wistfully, Waxman said, “I really need an assistant. Someone bright and … well, capable.”

  Lowering her eyes, Raven said, “Not now. Not yet.”

  “I understand,” said Waxman.

  He walked her to the apartment’s front door. As it slid open, Raven said, “Thanks for understanding, Evan.”