Uranus Read online

  Then a tiny dark speck appeared against the blue-gray clouds.

  “There she is!” someone shouted.

  “No, that’s just—”

  But even as the people stared at the screens, the cameras in orbit around the planet zoomed in on the unmistakable image of the spherical submersible rising above Uranus’s clouds and heading for the habitat.

  “She’s made it!”

  “She’s coming home!”

  The crowd roared. People swarmed around Gomez, grabbing for his hand, pounding him on the back. Women kissed him. Men grinned and laughed as if they were responsible for the submersible’s return. Raven stood aside and let Tómas bask in his moment of glory.

  But after a few moments the big grin on his face faded. He nodded good-naturedly at the crowd and said, “Now we must examine the samples from the seabed that the sub has carried to us. Now we have to find out whether or not the planet is truly sterile.”

  That didn’t diminish the crowd’s enthusiasm one iota. Raven watched them as they smiled and nodded and pawed at the astronomer. One woman stepped up to Tómas, brazenly wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him squarely on the lips. Gomez sputtered and gulped for air, half delighted, half embarrassed.

  Standing off at the edge of the crowd, Raven realized that Tómas was right: his real work was just beginning.

  QUINCY O’DONNELL

  Eventually the crowd broke up into knots of men and women talking, discussing, gesticulating while they slowly walked out of the auditorium. Raven watched Gomez as the crowd gradually melted away from him. Your fifteen minutes of fame have ended, she said to him silently.

  Gomez seemed to understand. He turned and headed for the nearest exit, without even a nod toward Raven. Heading back to work, heading for his real love, his urge to uncover the mysteries of Uranus.

  Despite herself, she sighed. But when she turned and started for an exit she saw Quincy O’Donnell standing a few steps away from her, big, hulking, the expression on his face halfway between expectant and cringing.

  Raven made herself smile at him. “Hello, Quincy.”

  “Hello, Raven,” he said, his eyes glancing this way and that. “How are you?”

  As Raven headed slowly toward the nearest exit, she replied, “I’m fine. And you?”

  Walking beside her, Quincy asked, “Are you busy tonight? Can I take you to dinner?”

  Raven hesitated. She saw the big oaf’s anxiety in his deep blue eyes. Why not? she asked herself. Keep him on the leash.

  “That would be nice,” she said, as she extended her hand toward his.

  * * *

  Raven spent the day in her quarters, studying. Precisely at 7:00 P.M. she heard a tap on her door. The viewscreen next to the door showed O’Donnell out in the passageway, wearing a sharply creased pair of new-looking trousers and a powder-blue hip-length shirt, nervously biting his lip.

  He’s dressed up for me, she thought.

  She cleared the wall screen she’d been working with, got to her feet and commanded the door to open. O’Donnell stood there uncertainly, like an oversized child wondering what was expected of him.

  “Come in, Quincy,” said Raven. As he entered, Raven turned toward her bedroom and said over her shoulder, “I’ll only be a minute.”

  * * *

  O’Donnell led Raven to the habitat’s fanciest restaurant. She wore a form-hugging outfit she had created from one of the shapeless uniforms in her closet; it complemented his outfit nicely.

  As they sat off in a corner of the restaurant, at a table for two, Raven asked, “What are you up to these days?”

  A wide grin broke across his rugged, ruddy face. “I’ve been promoted, I have. I’ll be supervising one o’ the teams of robots buildin’ the new wheel.”

  “Really? That’s wonderful. Congratulations.”

  And for the rest of their dinner, O’Donnell described his work on the extension of Haven’s habitat. The new wheel they were constructing would double the station’s capacity.

  “It’ll be a duplicate of this structure, right down to the last weld,” he said happily.

  As the robotic waiter delivered their desserts, Raven said, “I didn’t know you were an engineer.”

  Still beaming happily, O’Donnell responded, “I wasn’t, not until last Friday. I been studyin’ in my sleep, y’know, learnin’ structural engineering—at least, enough to qualify for a supervisor’s slot. I’m risin’ up in the world, I am!”

  Raven realized she wasn’t the only one using hypno-learning to advance herself.

  She said, “Quincy, that’s wonderful.”

  “On this job, we’ll be workin’ outside, you know. Out in space. It won’t bother the robots, of course, but I’ll have to wear a space suit, just like the astronauts!”

  “That’ll be exciting,” Raven enthused.

  “One o’ these days I’ll be a full-fledged engineer, with a diploma and everything.”

  “That will be grand,” Raven said, feeling honestly delighted for him.

  “It will,” he said happily. “It will.”

  He walked her back to her quarters. Raven stopped at her door, stood on her tiptoes to give him a peck on the lips, and said, “Thanks for a lovely dinner, Quincy.”

  He beamed happily.

  “And congratulations again on your new position.”

  He nodded, fidgeting uncertainly before her closed door.

  “Good night, Quincy.”

  For a moment he was silent, staring down at her. Then, “Good night, Raven.”

  He turned and started down the passageway. Raven stared after his shambling, hulking form for a moment, then swiftly opened her apartment’s door, stepped inside, and slid it shut again.

  She leaned against the closed door, thinking, The higher he gets in the engineering field, the harder it will be to control him. Remember that.

  THE DRUG TRADE

  Morning after morning, Raven went to Evan Waxman’s office, past the piercing cold blue eyes of Alicia Polanyi, and learned more about the intricacies of managing habitat Haven.

  More than four thousand people lived in Haven, almost all of them refugees from the slums and villages of Earth. They were the forgotten ones, the voiceless ones, bypassed in the surging rush for wealth, for pleasure, for opportunity that their more fortunate brethren pursued. Most of these poor, downtrodden men and women were trying to better themselves, striving for education, for a new place in this new world.

  “We don’t seem to have many children here,” Raven said to Waxman, as she stood in front of his desk.

  Leaning back in his desk chair, Waxman said carelessly, “No, we don’t. By design.”

  “By design?” Raven echoed, surprised. “But I would think that families—especially families with small children—they’re the ones who need our help the most.”

  Waxman replied casually, “You’d think that, wouldn’t you?”

  “Don’t you?” she asked.

  He shook his head. “It’s too late for them. We don’t want to become a charity ward for young families. For women without husbands and a half-dozen brats clinging to their skirts.”

  “But they’re the ones who need the most help!”

  “Maybe they do, but they’d soak up most of our resources. And for what? So that they can go out and make more children? We’re not running a family clinic here. We want single, unattached men and women who can learn and grow, who can manage themselves positively and help this habitat to prosper.”

  “By selling Rust.” The words were out of Raven’s mouth before she could stop them.

  Waxman stared up at her for a long, silent moment. Then, “That bothers you, doesn’t it?”

  She stared back at him as she sank into one of the chairs in front of his desk. At last she admitted, “Yes, it does.”

  “You didn’t do drugs while you were on the street in Naples?”

  “Of course I did,” Raven replied. “You couldn’t survive without something to
take the edge off.”

  “Small stuff, I imagine.”

  “That was all I could afford, Evan. Marijuana, coke now and then … I even tried Ecstasy once in a while.”

  “But not Rust.”

  “I didn’t know Rust existed until I got here.”

  Waxman smiled mirthlessly. “And here I thought you were smart enough to steer clear of it.”

  Thinking of Alicia, in the outer office, Raven said, “I would have, if I had known its long-term effects.”

  He shook his head. “No, you wouldn’t. Oh, you might have tried to stay away from it, but sooner or later you’d try some. Just as an experiment, you’d have told yourself. But you’d have tried it.”

  Raven let her eyes drop. “You’re probably right. There were times when I would have tried anything, just to get through another night, just to survive.”

  Waxman’s stony expression softened. “I’m glad you didn’t, Raven. I’m glad you came here to Haven, instead.”

  In a low voice she replied, “So am I.”

  * * *

  That evening, after dinner alone in her quarters, as Raven pored over a text on political organizations, her door announced, “Reverend Umber is at the door.”

  Surprised, she looked up and, sure enough, the door’s tiny viewscreen showed Umber standing outside in the passageway, decked out entirely in white, as usual.

  “Door open!” she called, as she got up from the sofa.

  The door slid open, and Reverend Umber stepped in, looking uncertain, perplexed.

  “I’m not intruding, am I?” he asked, as the door slid shut behind him.

  “Not at all,” said Raven as she cleared the wall screen she’d been reading from. “Come right in.”

  Umber stepped hesitantly toward the sling chair next to the sofa and gingerly lowered himself into it.

  “Can I get you something?” Raven asked. “Coffee? Tea?”

  “Plain water, please.”

  Raven went to the kitchen and drew a glass of water from the sink’s faucet.

  “I’m sorry to barge in on you like this,” Umber began.

  “It’s okay. I was just studying.”

  She handed him the glass and sat down on the edge of the sofa.

  “Studying. That’s good. Very good.”

  Raven peered at his round, pink face. He was smiling at her, yet somehow she felt that he was troubled.

  She started to apologize. “I know I haven’t been attending church services—”

  Umber waved a hand. “That’s entirely up to you. We each find God in our own way.”

  Raven nodded her thanks. A silence fell between them.

  After several seconds, Raven asked, “What do you want to talk to me about?”

  Umber flushed noticeably and ran a hand through his long, auburn hair. Then he uttered a single word:

  “Rust.”

  Surprised, Raven blinked. “Rust?”

  “It’s a narcotic. I’m sure that Evan has told you about it.”

  “Yes, he has. He warned me about it, actually.”

  Umber nodded and clasped his hands together. “I’m uncomfortable that we’re selling Rust to anyone who has the wherewithal to purchase it. He’s turning Haven into a drug dealership!”

  “He’s not selling it to any of our residents,” Raven said.

  “True enough. They can’t afford it. But people who can afford it buy it from him. Kilo after kilo. Drug dealers. Millionaires. Society people. Entertainment stars.”

  “Evan says it’s perfectly legal.”

  With a shrug of his shoulders, Umber replied, “Oh, I’m sure it is. Evan is very clever that way.”

  “But it bothers you.”

  For a long wordless moment Umber stared at her. She realized that his eyes were light gray, almost silver.

  “Yes, it bothers me. I believe that Evan is doing the devil’s work.”

  “Have you spoken to him about it?”

  “Many times. He nods and smiles and pays me no attention.”

  “But you’re the head of this community,” Raven said. “Why can’t you—”

  Umber stopped her with an upraised hand. “I may be the nominal head of this community, my dear, but Evan Waxman is actually running Haven.”

  “How can that be? I thought—”

  Shaking his head sadly, Umber said, “It’s the Golden Rule, my dear. He who has the gold makes the rules.”

  “I know he handles the administration for you.”

  “For himself. Oh, Evan’s been very kind and extremely generous. But he runs this habitat to suit his purposes, masquerading as my faithful backer and administrator.”

  It took Raven several moments to digest what Umber was telling her. At last she asked, “What can you do about this?”

  “That’s why I’ve come to see you,” said Umber.

  PLAN OF ACTION

  Raven stared at the minister. Somehow Umber’s round, florid face seemed inexpressibly sad. His silvery eyes, though, were focused squarely on her.

  “Me?” she squeaked. “What can I do?”

  Umber shrugged his round shoulders. “I wish I knew! But we’ve got to do something. It’s wrong to be selling Rust. It’s the devil’s work!”

  Raven nodded her agreement, but asked again, “How can you stop it? How can you get Evan to stop it?”

  “I tried to at yesterday’s Council meeting. I got voted down, sixteen to two, including my own vote.”

  “So the Council is with him.”

  “I realize now that Evan himself picked most of the Council members. I trusted him. I let him handle the governance of Haven and he’s turned the habitat into a narcotics trafficking center.”

  Again Raven asked, “How can you stop him?”

  “I don’t know! I was hoping you might have some idea.”

  “But I’m a newcomer here. A nobody. Evan’s picked me to be his assistant, but that doesn’t mean anything. He could drop me anytime he wants to.”

  “You’re sleeping with him,” said Umber. It wasn’t an accusation, not even an objection. Merely a statement of fact.

  “Yes, I am,” said Raven. Then she added, “Now and then.”

  “You’re closer to him than anyone in this habitat.”

  “But that doesn’t mean…” Raven ran out of words. She didn’t want to carry her thought to its logical conclusion.

  Umber’s eyes went wide as he realized what Raven was thinking. “No!” he shouted. “No violence! I won’t be a party to violence!”

  For an instant Raven’s mind filled with the scenes of violence she had witnessed: many of them aimed at her.

  “No violence,” she agreed, in a near whisper. Then she asked, “But then … what?”

  The outraged flush in Umber’s cheeks faded. More quietly he answered, “I wish I knew.”

  A fine couple of collaborators, Raven thought. Neither one of us has the slightest idea of what to do.

  She admitted, “I don’t think I could talk Evan out of selling Rust. He thinks he’s doing it for the good of the habitat—at least, in part.”

  Umber shook his head. “It’s always easy to convince yourself you’re doing what is needed, what is helpful, what is right—when in fact you’re doing the devil’s work.”

  Raven said, “If only we could get the people who’re buying the junk to stop. Take away the market for it.”

  “I don’t see how we could do that.”

  “You’re a respected man of God,” Raven told him. “Maybe you could contact the organization that links all the settlements we’ve made through the solar system…”

  “The Interplanetary Council?”

  “Yes. Ask them to convene a meeting to find a way to stop the sale of Rust.”

  Umber shook his head. “But Haven doesn’t belong to the IC. We’ve never applied to join.”

  Raven smiled at him. “Then we should.”

  IMPLEMENTATION

  “I can’t contact the Interplanetary Council,” Um
ber objected. “Evan has my phones tapped, I’m sure. He wouldn’t let me put through a call to Earth.”

  Raven understood where he was heading. “You think I could? As your representative?”

  With a shake of his head, Umber replied, “I would think Evan monitors all our communications with Earth and the other settlements throughout the solar system.”

  “You mean he wouldn’t allow you to talk to anyone who might…”

  “Who might be connected to the Interplanetary Council,” Umber finished for her.

  The two of them sat in her living room, silently staring at each other. In her mind, Raven pictured how the habitat’s phone links to Earth and the other human settlements throughout the solar system worked.

  You’ve studied this, she told herself. You’ve read about the system linking Haven to Earth and the rest of the solar system.

  Communications satellites, she remembered. We put through a call to Earth. The call goes from the habitat to one of the commsats in orbit around Uranus. From that satellite to another one in orbit around Earth, and then down to the phone you’re trying to reach.

  She murmured, “If I could make a direct contact to one of the commsats outside this habitat…”

  Umber’s face brightened. “Without using a phone here in Haven.”

  “No one in Haven would know about it,” she continued. “We could reach the IC without Evan finding out.”

  “Yes,” said Umber. But then his expression clouded over once again. “But how could you do that?”

  A smile lifted Raven’s lips. “I think I know a way.”

  * * *

  “Go outside?” Quincy O’Donnell’s beefy face frowned down at Raven.

  They were having lunch together at one of Haven’s crowded, noisy restaurants. The more noise the better, Raven thought. Makes it harder to snoop on what we’re talking about.

  “Outside, like you do,” she said to him. “I’d love to see the work you’re doing.”

  He shook his head slowly, ponderously, from side to side. “That’s not allowed, Raven. Safety regulations.”