Planet Pirates Omnibus Part 20

"The Index entries were written to cover the appearance of the clones should any of them travel, while indicating a range of values as if they were from a limited but normal colonial gene pool. His somatype has been faked, Sa.s.sinak. That's why you didn't catch it. No one would, who didn't know about clone colonies in general and Makstein VII in particular. And you couldn't find out because it's not in the files anymore."

"But someone knows," said Sa.s.sinak, hardly breathing for the thought of it. "Someone knew to fake his ID that way. ..."

"I wonder if your clever Lieutenant Commander Dupaynil could ask Mr. Prosser where he actually does come from?" Lunzie said in a drawl as she examined her fingertips, a mannerism which made Sa.s.sinak blink for it was much her own.

She keyed in Dupaynil's office and when he acknowledged, she sent him the spurious ID they'd uncovered. "Detain," was all she said but she knew Dupaynil would understand. "Great-great-great-grandmother," she said silkily, well pleased, "you're far too smart to stay in civilian medicine."

"Are you offering me a job?" The tone was meek, but the sharp glance belied it.

"Not a job exactly," Sa.s.sinak began. "A new career, a mid-life change, just right for fresh eyes that see with old knowledge that has somehow got lost for us who need it." Lunzie raised an inquiring eyebrow but her expression was alert, not skeptical. Sa.s.sinak went on with mounting enthusiasm, building on that little inkling she'd had before lunch. "Listen up, great-great. Do you realize what you have, to replace what you think you've lost? Files in your head, accessible facts that weren't wiped . . . and who knows how many more than just references to a prohibited colony!"

The old clone colony trick works only once, great-great."

"Let's not put arbitrary limits to what you have in your skull, revered ancestress. The old clone colony trick may not be all you've saved behind your fresh old eyes. You've got an immediate access to things forty-three and even a hundred and five years old which to me are either lost in datafiles or completely unknown. And this planetary piracy's been going on a long, long time by either of our standards." She saw the leap of interest in Lunzie's eyes and then the filming of old, sadder memories before the new hope replaced them. "I'm not offering you a job, old dear, I'm declaring you a team member, a refined intelligence that those planet hungry moneygrubbing ratguts could never expect to have ranged against them. How could they? A family team with almost the same time-in-service of say, the Paradens ..."

"Yes, the Paradens," and Lunzie sounded very grim. Then her thin lips curved into a smile that lit up her eyes. "A team? A planet pirate breaking team. I probably do know more than one useful thing. You're a commander, with a s.h.i.+p at your disposal..."

"Which is supposed to be hunting these planet pirates ..."

"You're Fleet and you can ask certain questions and get certain information. But I'm," and Lunzie swelled with self-pride, "a n.o.body, no big family, no fortune, no connections - bar my present elegant company - and they don't need to know that. Yes, esteemed descendant, I accept your offer of a team action."

Sa.s.sinak had just picked up the brandy bottle to charge their gla.s.ses when a loud thump on the bulkhead and raised voices indicated some disturbance. Sa.s.sinak rolled her eyes at Lunzie and went to see what it was.

Aygar was poised on the b.a.l.l.s of his feet just outside her office, with two marines denying him entry.

"Sorry about the noise, captain," said one of them. "He wants to speak to you and we told him ..."

"You said," Aygar burst out to Sa.s.sinak, "that as members of FSP, we had privileges ..."

"Interrupting my work isn't one of them," said Sa.s.sinak crisply. She felt a discreet tug on her sleeve. "However, I've a few moments to spare right now," and she dismissed the marines.

Aygar came into her office with slightly less swagger than usual. If he ever dropped that halfsulk of his, Sa.s.sinak thought he'd be extremely presentable. He didn't have the gross heavyworlder appearance. He could, in fact if he mended his att.i.tude, be taken as just a very well developed normal human type. He'd fill out a marine uniform very well indeed. And fill in other places.

"Did Major Currald recruit you?"

"He's trying," and that unexpected humor of Aygar flashed through again.

"I thought you intended to remain on Ireta, to protect all your hard work," Lunzie said in the mild sort of voice that Sa.s.sinak would use to elicit information. But she had a gleam in her eye as she regarded the handsome young Iretan that Sa.s.sinak also instantly recognized. It surprised her for a moment.

"I ... I thought I wanted to stay," he said slowly, "if Ireta was going to remain our world. But it's not. And there are hundreds of worlds out there ..."

"Which you could certainly visit as a marine." Sa.s.sinak sweetened her tone and added a smile. Two could play this game and she wasn't about to let her great-great- great-grandmother outmaneuver her in her own office.

Aygar regarded her through narrowed eyes. "I've also had an earful of the sort of prejudice heavyworlders face."

"My friend, if you act friendly and well behaved, people will like a young man as well favored as you," Sa.s.sinak said, ignoring Lunzie. "Life on Ireta and out of high-g environment has done you a favor. You look normal, although I'd wager that you'd withstand high-g stress better than most. Act friendly and most people will accept you with no qualms. Swagger around threatening them with your strength or size, and people will react with fear and hatred." Sa.s.sinak shrugged. "You're smart enough to catch on to that. You'd make an admirable marine."

Aygar c.o.c.ked an eyebrow in challenge. "I think I can do better than that. Commander. I'm not about to settle for second best. Not again. I want the chance to learn. That's a privilege in the FSP, too, I understand. I want to learn what they didn't and wouldn't teach us. They consistently lied to us." Anger flashed in his eyes, a carefully contained anger that fascinated Sa.s.sinak for she hadn't expected such depths to this young man. "And they kept us ignorant!" That rankled the deepest. Sa.s.sinak could almost bless the cautious, paranoid mutineers for that blunder. "Because we," and when Aygar jabbed, his thumb into his chest he meant all of his generations, "were not meant to have a part of this planet at all!"

"No," Sa.s.sinak said, suddenly recalling another snippet of information gleaned from the cathedral's Thekian homily, "you weren't."

"In fact," Lunzie began, in a voice as sweet as her descendant's, "you've a score to settle with the planet pirates, too. With the heavyworlders who sent Cruss and that transport s.h.i.+p."

Aygar shot the medic such a keen look that Sa.s.sinak d.a.m.ned her own lapse - that'd teach her to look at the exterior of a man and forget what made him tick.

"You might say I do at that," he replied in much too mild a tone.

"In that case," Sa.s.sinak said, glancing for approval at Lunzie, "I think we could actually take you on as a ... mmm . . . special advisor?"

"I've just signed on in a similar capacity," Lunzie said when she saw Aygar hesitate. "Special duties. Special training."

"Not in the usual chain of command," Sa.s.sinak gave him a look that had melted scores of junior officers.

"And who do I have to take orders from?" he asked, looking from Sa.s.sinak to Lunzie with the blandest of expressions on his handsome face.

"I'm still the captain," Sa.s.sinak said firmly, with a glare for her great-great-great-grandmother, who only grinned.

"You may be a lightweight, captain, but I think I can endure it," he said in a drawl, holding her gaze with his twinkling eyes.

"Welcome aboard, specialist Aygar!" And Sa.s.sinak extended her hand to take his in a firm shake of commitment.

Lunzie chuckled wickedly. "I think this is going to be a most ..." her pause was pregnant "... instructive voyage, granddaughter. Shall we toss for it?"

Just for a moment, Aygar looked from one to the other, with the expression of someone who suspects he hasn't quite caught a hidden meaning.

"We specialists should stick together," she added, offering him a gla.s.s of the amber brandy. "You'll drink to that, won't you. Commander?"

'That, and other things! Like 'down with planet piracy!' " She pinned Lunzie with a meaningful stare, wondering just what she'd got herself in for this trip.

"Hear, hear!" Lunzie l.u.s.tily agreed.

BOOK ONE.

Chapter One.

The single engaged engine of the empty spherical ore carrier thrummed hollowly through the hull. It set the decks and bulkheads of the personnel quarters vibrating at a frequency which at first, depending on one's mood, could be soothing or irritating. After four weeks aboard the Tau Ceti registered mining vessel Nellie Mine Nellie Mine, Lunzie Mespil had to think about it to remember that the hum was there at all. When she first boarded, as the newly hired doctor for the Descartes Mining Platform Number 6, the sound drove her halfway to distraction. There wasn't much to do except read and sleep and listen, or rather, feel the engine noise. Later, she discovered that the sound was conducive to easy sleep and relaxation, like being aboard a gently swaying monorail pa.s.senger carrier. Whether her fellow employees knew it or not, one of the chief reasons that the Descartes Mining Corporation had so few duels and mutinies on delivery runs was due to the peace-inducing hum of the engines.

The first few days she spent in the tiny, plain-walled cubicle which doubled as her sleeping quarters and office were a trifle lonely. Lunzie had too many hours to think of her daughter Fiona. Fiona, fourteen, lovely and precocious in Lunzie's unbiased opinion, had been left behind in the care of a friend who was the chief medical officer on the newly colonized planet of Tau Ceti. The settlement was surprisingly comfortable for one so recently established. It had a good climate, a biosphere reasonably friendly toward humankind, marked seasons, and plenty of arable land that allowed both Earth-type and hybrid seeds to prosper. Lunzie hoped to settle down there herself when she finished her tour of duty on the Platform, but she wasn't independently wealthy. Even a commodity as precious as medical expertise wasn't sufficient to buy into the Tau Ceti a.s.sociation. She needed to earn a stake, and there was little call on an atmosphere-and-gravity world for her to practice her specialty of psychological s.p.a.ce-incurred trauma. There was no help for it: she was compelled to go off-planet to earn money. To her great dismay, all of the posts which were best suited to her profession and experience - and paid the most - were on isolated facilities. She would not be able to take Fiona with her. After much negotiation, Lunzie signed on with Descartes for a stint on a remote mining platform.

Fiona had been angry that she couldn't accompany her mother to the Descartes Platform, and had refused to accept the fact. In the last days before Lunzie's departure, Fiona had avoided speaking to her, and stubbornly unpacked Lunzie's two five-kilo duffels as often as her mother filled them up. It was an adolescent prank, but one that showed Lunzie how hurt Fiona felt to be abandoned. Since she was born, they had never been apart more than a day or so. Lunzie herself was aching at the impending separation, but she understood, as Fiona would not, the economic necessity that caused her to take a medical berth so far away and leave Fiona behind.

Their s.p.a.cefare to Tau Ceti had been paid on speculation by the science council, who were testing the viability of a clone breeding center on the newly colonized planet. Lunzie had been approached by the ethics council to join them, their interest stemming from her involvement as the student advisor on a similar panel during her days in medical school which had resulted in an experimental colony. Surprisingly, the data on that earlier effort was unavailable even to the partic.i.p.ants on the panel. Her former term-husband Sion had also given her his recommendation. He was becoming very well known and respected in genetic studies, mainly involved in working on controlling the heavyworld human mutations.

There were four or five meetings of the ethics council, which quickly determined that even so altruistic a project as fostering a survival-oriented genome was self-defeating in just a few generations, and no further action was taken. Lunzie was out of work in a colony that didn't need her. Because of the cla.s.sified nature of the study, she was unable even to explain to her daughter why she wasn't employed in the job which they had traveled to Tau Ceti to take.

After the fifth or sixth time she had to repack her case, Lunzie knew by heart the few possessions she was taking with her, and locked her luggage up in the poisons cabinet in the Tau Ceti medical center to keep Fiona away from it.

By then, the protests had degenerated into a mere sulk. With love, Lunzie watched Fiona patiently, waiting for her to accept their parting, placing herself where she would be available to the troubled youngster when she decided she was ready to talk. Lunzie knew from experience that it was no good chasing Fiona down. She had to let Fiona come to her in her own time. They were too much alike. To force an early confrontation would be like forcing a nuclear pile to overload. She went about her business in the medical center, a.s.sisting other medical personnel with ongoing research which the colony had approved. At last, Fiona met her coming out of the medical center one sunny day after work, and presented her with a small wrapped package. It was a hard triangular cylinder. Lunzie smiled, recognizing the shape. Under the paper was a brand new studio hologram of Fiona, dressed in her feastday best, an outfit in the latest style for which she had begged and plagued her mother to supplement the amount she'd saved to buy it from her allowance on their last planetary home. Lunzie could see how much of her own looks were reflected in Fiona: the prominent cheekbones, the high forehead, the warm mouth. The waves of smooth hair were much darker than hers, nearer black than Lunzie's golden brown. Fiona had long, sleepy eyes and a strong chin she inherited from her father that made her look determined, if not downright stubborn, even as a baby. The ruby-colored frock enhanced the girl's light skin, making her exotic and lovely as a flower. The translucent flowing cape which fell from between the shoulders was in the very height of fas.h.i.+on, a field of stars in pinpoint lights which swirled like a comet's tail around Fiona's calves. Lunzie looked up from the gift into her daughter's eyes, which were watching her warily, wondering what she would say. "I love it, darling," Lunzie told her, gathering her close and tucking the hologram safely into her zip pouch. "I'll miss you so much."

"Don't forget me." A broken whimper was m.u.f.fled against Lunzie's tunic front.

Lunzie drew back and took her daughter's tear-stained face between her hands, studying it, learning it by heart. "I never could," Lunzie promised her. "I never will. And I'll be back before you know it."

During her remaining days planetside, she had turned over her laboratory work to a co-worker so she could spend all her time with Fiona. They visited favorite spots, and together moved Fiona's belongings and the rest of her own from their temporary quarters to the home of the friend who would be fostering the girl. They asked each other, 'Do you remember this? Do you remember that?', sharing precious memories as they had shared the events themselves. It was a glowing, warm time for both of them, too soon over for Lunzie's taste.

A silent Fiona walked her to the landing bay where the shuttle waited to transport her to the Nellie Mine Nellie Mine. Tau Ceti's pale lavender-blue sky was over-cast. When the sky was clear, Lunzie could often see the sun glint off the sides of visiting s.h.i.+ps high above Tau Ceti in parking orbit, but she was just as happy that she could not now. She was holding back on her emotions. If there was any way to spare Fiona her own misery, she would do it. Lunzie promised herself a really good cry once she was s.h.i.+pside. For one moment, she felt like ripping up her contract and running away, telling Descartes to chuck it, and pleading with the Tau Ceti authorities that she would work at any job, however menial, to stay here with Fiona. But then, good sense took over. Lunzie remembered crude financial matters like making a living, and a.s.sured herself that it wouldn't be that long before she could return, and they would have a comfortable life thereafter with what she'd earned.

"I'll negotiate for an asteroid miner as soon as I can afford it," Lunzie offered, breaking the silence. "Maybe I'll stake a few." Her words echoed among the corrugated metal walls of the s.p.a.ceport. There seemed to be no one there but themselves. "We'll strike it rich, you'll see. You'll be able to go to any university you like, or go for officer training in Fleet, like my brother. Whatever you want."

"Mm," was Fiona's only comment. Her face was drawn into a mask so tragic that Lunzie wanted to laugh and cry. Fiona hadn't used any makeup that morning, so she looked more childlike than her usual careful teenaged self.

It's manipulation, I know it, Lunzie told herself severely. I've got to make a living, or where's our future? I know she's grieving, but I'll only be gone two years, five at the most! The girl's nose was turning red, and her lips were white and pressed tightly closed. Lunzie started to offer another pleasantry, and then realized that she was trying to manipulate her daughter into foregoing her legitimate feelings. I don't want to make a scene, so I'm trying to keep her from acting unhappy. She pressed her own lips shut. We're too much alike, that's the trouble, Lunzie decided, shaking her head. She squeezed Fiona's hand tighter. They walked in silence to the landing bay.

Landing Bay Six contained a big cargo shuttle of the type used by s.h.i.+ppers who hauled more freight than pa.s.sengers. This craft, once nattily painted white with a broad red band from its nose to tail, was dinged and dented. The ceramic coating along the nose showed scorching from making descents through planetary atmospheres, but the vehicle seemed otherwise in good shape and well cared for. A broad-shouldered man with black curly hair stood in the middle of the bay, waving a clipboard and dispensing orders to a handful of coveralled workers. Sealed containers were being forklifted into the open top hatch of the shuttle.

The black-haired man noticed them and came over, hand out in greeting.

"You're the new doctor?" he asked, seizing Lunzie's free hand and wringing it companionably. "Captain Cosimo, Descartes Mining. Glad to have you with us. h.e.l.lo, little lady," Cosimo ducked his head to Fiona, a cross between a nod and a bow. "Are those your bags. Doctor? Marcus! Take the doctor's bags on board!" Lunzie offered Cosimo the small cube containing her contract and orders, which he slotted into the clipboard. "All's well," he said, scanning the readout on his screen. "We've got about twenty minutes before we lift off. Hatch shuts at T-minus two. Until then, your time's your own." With another smile for Fiona, he went back to shouting at one of his employees. "See here, Nelhen, that's a forklift, not a wee little toy!"

Lunzie turned to Fiona. Her throat began to tighten. All the things she wanted to say seemed so trivial when compared to what she felt. She cleared her throat, trying not to cry. Fiona's eyes were aswim with tears. "There's not much time."

"Oh, Mama," Fiona burst out in a huge sob. "I'll miss you so!" The almost-grown Fiona, who eschewed all juvenile things and had called her mother Lunzie since early childhood, reverted all at once to the baby name she hadn't used in years. "I'll miss you, too. Fee," Lunzie admitted, more touched than she realized. They clutched each other close and shed honest tears. Lunzie let it all out, and felt better for it. In the end, neither Lunzie nor any member of her family could be dishonest.

When the klaxon sounded, Fiona let her go with one more moist kiss, and stood back to watch the launch. Lunzie felt closer to her than she ever had. She kept Fiona in her mind, picturing her waving as the shuttle lifted and swept away through the violet- blue sky of Tau Ceti.

Now, with the exception of today's uniform, one music disk, and the hologram, her baggage was secured in the small storage chamber behind the shower unit with everyone else's. Lunzie had cropped her hair practically short as most crew members did. She missed the warm, fresh wind, cooking her own food from the indigenous plant life, and Fiona.

Without other set duties to occupy her, Lunzie spent the days studying the medical files of her future co-workers and medical texts on the typical injuries and ailments that befall asteroid miners. She was looking forward to her new post. s.p.a.ce-incurred traumas interested her. Agoraphobia and claustrophobia were the most common in s.p.a.ce-station life, followed by paranoid disorders. Strangely enough, frequently more than one occurred in the same patient at the same time. She was curious about the causes, and wanted to ama.s.s field research to prove or disprove her professors' statements about the possibility of cures.

She'd used her observations from the medical files to facilitate getting to know her fifteen s.h.i.+pmates. Miners were a hearty lot, sharing genuine good fellows.h.i.+p among themselves, but they took slowly to most strangers. Tragedy, suffered on the job and in personal lives, kept them clannish. But Lunzie wasn't a stranger long. They soon discovered that she cared deeply about the well-being of each of them, and that she was a good listener. After that, each of the others claimed time with her in the common dining recreation room, and filtered through her office, to pa.s.s the time between s.h.i.+fts, making her feel very welcome. With time, they began to open up to her. Lunzie heard about this crewman's broken romance, and that crewwoman's plan to open a satellite-based saloon with her savings, and the impending eggs of a mated pair of avians called Ryxi, who were specialists temporarily employed by the Platform. And they learned about her early life, her medical training, and her daughter.

The triangular hologram of Fiona was in her hand as she sat behind the desk in her office and listened to a human miner named Jilet. According to his file, Jilet had spent twelve years in cryogenic deepsleep after asteroids destroyed the drive on an ore carrier on which he and four other crewmen had been travelling. They'd been forced to evacuate from their posts, Jilet in one escape capsule near the cargo hold, the others in a second by the engine section. The other four men were recovered quickly, but Jilet was not found for over a decade more because of a malfunction in the signal beacon on his capsule. Not surprisingly, he was angry, afraid, and resentful. Three of the other crew presently on the Nellie Mine Nellie Mine had been in cold sleep at least once, but Jilet's stint had been the longest. Lunzie sympathized with him. had been in cold sleep at least once, but Jilet's stint had been the longest. Lunzie sympathized with him.

"The truth is that I know those years pa.s.sed while I was in cold sleep. Doctor, but it is killing me that I can't remember them. I've lost so much - my friends, my family. The world's gone round without me, and I don't know how to take up where I've left off." The burly, black-haired miner s.h.i.+fted in the deep impact lounger which Lunzie used as a psychoa.n.a.lyst's couch. "I feel I've lost parts of myself as well."

"Well, you know that's not true, Jilet," Lunzie corrected him, leaning forward on her elbows attentively. "The brain is very protective of its memory centers. What you know is still locked up in there." She tapped his forehead with a slender, square-tipped finger. "Research has proved that there is no degeneration of memory over the time spent in cold sleep. You have to rely upon what you are, who you are, not what your surroundings tell you you are. I know it's disorienting - no, I've never been through it myself, but I've taken care of many patients who have, What you must do is accept that you've suffered a trauma, and learn to live your life again."

Jilet grimaced. "When I was younger, my mates and I wanted to live in s.p.a.ce, away from all the crowds and noise. Hah! Catch me saying that now. All I want to do is settle down on one of the permanent colonies and maybe fix jets or industrial robots for a living. Can't do that yet without my Oh-Two money, not even including the extra if I want to have a family - a new new family - so I've got to keep mining. It's all I know." family - so I've got to keep mining. It's all I know."

Lunzie nodded. Oh-Two was the cant term for the set-up costs it took to add each person to the biosphere of an ongoing oxygen-breathing colony on a non-atmosphered site. It was expensive: the containment domes had to be expanded, and studies needed to be done to determine whether the other support systems could handle the presence of another life. Besides air, a human being needed water, sanitary facilities, a certain amount of s.p.a.ce for living quarters and food synthesis or farming acreage to support him. She had considered one herself, but the safety margins were not yet acceptable, to her way of thinking, for the raising of a child.

"What about a planetside community?" Lunzie asked. "My daughter's happy on Tau Ceti. It has a healthy atmosphere, and community centers or farmland available, whichever you prefer to inhabit. I want to buy in on an asteroid strike, so that Fiona and I can have a comfortable home." It was a common practice for the mining companies to allow freelancing by non-compet.i.tive consortia from their own platforms, so long as it didn't interfere with their primary business. Lunzie calculated that two or three years worth of her disposable income would be enough for a tidy share of a miner's time.

"Well, with apologies. Doctor Mespil, it's too settled and set on a domeless world. They're too - complacent; there, that's the word. Things is too easy for 'em. I'd rather be poor in a place where they understand the real pioneering spirit than rich on Earth itself. If I should have a daughter, I'd want her to grow up with some ambition . . . and some guts, not like her old man . . . With respect. Doctor," Jilet said, giving her an anxious look.

Lunzie waved away the thought that he had insulted her courage. She suspected that he was unwilling to expose himself to the undomed surface of a planet. Agoraphobia was an insidious complaint. The free atmosphere would remind him too much of free s.p.a.ce. He needed to be rea.s.sured that, like his memories, his courage was still there, and intact. "Never mind. But please, call me Lunzie. When you say 'Doctor Mespil,' I start to look around for my husband. And that contract ended years ago. Friendly parting, of course."

The miner laughed, at his ease. Lunzie examined the flush-set desk computer screen, which displayed Jilet's medical file. His anger would have to be talked out. The escape capsule in which he'd cold-slept had had another minor malfunction that left him staring drugged and half conscious through the port gla.s.s at open s.p.a.ce for two days before the cryogenic process had kicked in. Not surprisingly, that would contribute to the agoraphobia. There was a pathetic air of desperation about this big strong human, whose palpable dread was crippling him, impairing his usefulness. She wondered if teaching him rudimentary Discipline would help him, then decided against it. He didn't need to know how to control an adrenaline rush; he needed to learn how to keep them from happening. "Tell me how the fears start."

"It's not so bad in the morning," Jilet began. "I'm too busy with my job. Ever been on the mining platform?" Lunzie shook her head. The corners of Jilet's dark eyes crinkled merrily. "You've a lot to look forward to, then, haven't you? I hope you can take a joke or two. The boys are full of them. Don't get to liking this big office too much. s.p.a.ce is tight in the living quarters, so everyone gets to be tolerant of everyone else real fast. Oh, it's not like we're all mates right away," he added sadly. "A lot of the young ones first coming along die quickly. It only takes one mistake . . . and there you are, frozen or suffocated, or worse. A lot of them leave young families, too."

Lunzie gulped, thinking of Fiona, and felt her heart twist in her body. She knew the seals and panels of her atmosphere suit were whole and taut, but she vowed to scrutinize them carefully as soon as Jilet left. "What are your specific duties?"

"We all take turns at whatever needs doing, ma'am. I've got a knack for finding lucky strikes when I'm on scout duty, so I try to draw that one a lot. There's a bonus for a good find."

"Maybe you're the one I'll pay to make my daughter's fortune for her," Lunzie smiled.

"I'd be proud to have your trust, D-Lunzie, only why don't you see if I can cut it, eh? Well, every asteroid's got ore, large and small, but you don't waste your time on everything you see. The sensors in a scout are unidirectional. Once you've eyeballed something you like the look of, either on visual or in the navigational scanning net, you can get a detailed readout of the asteroid's makeup. Scouts aren't big. They're fit for one man only, so he'd better like being by himself for days or weeks, even months, at a time. It's not easy. You've got to be able to wake up cold-eyed if the scanner net alarm goes off to avoid collisions. When you find a potential strike, you lay claim to it on behalf of the company, pending computer search for other claims of owners.h.i.+p. If it's small, like a crystal ma.s.s, you can haul it back behind you to the platform - and you'll want to: there's always a bonus on crystals. You don't want anyone jumping claim behind you. The mediums can be brought in by a tug. The big ones a crew comes out to mine on the spot, I don't mind being in a scout, because I'm looking straight down the 'corridor' between fields in the net, and the inside of the s.h.i.+p is small enough to be comfortable. It starts to bug me when I'm fixing one of the rotating tumbling shafts, or something like that out in free-fall." Jilet finished with his brows drawn down and his arms folded tightly across his chest.

"Focus on the equipment, Jilet. Don't catch yourself staring off into s.p.a.ce. It was always there before. You just didn't pay attention to it then. Don't let it haunt you now. What matters is what you are working on at the moment." Lunzie hastened to calm him. She wanted him to verbalize the good facets of his job. It was impossible to heal the mind without giving it something positive to hang on to, a reason for healing. Half the battle was won, whether Jilet knew it or not. He had the guts to go back to his post on the Mining Platform. Getting back on the horse that threw him. "What do you look for when you're scouting?"

Jilet's body gradually relaxed, and he studied the ceiling through his wiry black eyebrows. "What I can find. Depending on what's claiming a good price dirtside, you'll see 'em breaking down s.p.a.ce rock into everything from diamonds to cobalt to iron. If the handling don't matter, they slag it apart with lasers and shove it into the tumbling chutes for processing. If how it's handled makes a difference, a prize crew'll strip it down. As much as possible is done in vacuum, for safety, conservation of oxygen, and to keep the material from expanding and contracting from exposure to too many temperatures. Makes the ore tough to s.h.i.+p if it has been thawed once. It'll split up, explode into a million shards if it warms too quickly. I've seen mates of mine killed that way. It's ugly, ma'am. I don't want to die in bed, but I'd rather not go that way, either."

With a rueful smile for her precise clinical imagination, Lunzie dismissed thoughts of trying to reconstruct a splintered miner's body. This was the life she was moving toward, at just under the speed of light. You won't be able to save every patient, you idealist. Help the ones you can. "What's a crystal strike look like? How do you find one?"

"Think I'd give all my secrets away, even to a friendly mindbrowser like you?" Jilet tilted one eye-brow toward her. Lunzie gave him an affable grin. "Well, I'll give you one clue. They're lighter than the others on the inside. Sounding gives you a cross-section that seems to be nearly hollow, bounces your scan around its interior. Sometimes it is. Why, I had one that split my beam up in a hundred different directions. The crew found it was rutilated with filaments of metal when they cut it apart. Worthless for communications, but some rich senator had it used for the walls of his house." Jilet spat in the direction of the nameless statesman.

They were getting off the track. Regretfully, for Jilet was really relaxing with her, Lunzie set them back on it. "You've also complained of sleeplessness. Tell me about it."

Jilet fidgeted, bent forward and squeezed his forehead with both hands. "It's not that I can't sleep. I - just don't want to fall asleep. I'm afraid that if I do, I won't wake up."

" 'Sleep, the brother of Death,' " Lunzie quoted. "Homer, or more recently, Daniel."

"Yes, that's it. I wish - I wish that if I wasn't going to die they'd've left me asleep for a hundred years or more, so that I'd come back a complete stranger, instead of everything seeming the same," Jilet exploded in a sudden pa.s.sionate outburst that surprised even him. "After only a dozen years I'm out of step. I remember things my friends have forgotten long since, that they laugh at me for, but it's all I've got to hang on to. They've had a decade to go on without me. They're older now. I'm a freak to them, being younger. I almost wish I had died."

"Now, now. Death is never as good as its press would have you believe. You've begun making new friends in your profession, you're heading toward a job right now that makes the best use of your talents, and you can learn some new techniques that didn't exist when you started out mining. Give the positive aspects a chance. Don't think of s.p.a.ce while you're trying to sleep. Let your mind turn inward, possibly to a memory of your childhood that you enjoyed." A chime sounded, indicating Jilet's personal time was at an end, and he needed to get back to his duties. Lunzie stood up, waited for Jilet to rise. He towered easily a third of a meter over her. "Come back and talk to me again next rest period," Lunzie insisted. "I want to hear more about crystal mining."

"You and half the youngsters that come out to the Platforms," Jilet complained good-naturedly. "But, Doctor, I mean Lunzie, how can I get to sleep without having this eating away at me? We're still so far out, but the feelings are keeping me awake all over again."

"I'd rather not give you drugs, though I will if you insist after you try it my way first. For now, concentrate on what is here, close by and around you. When you're in the rec area, never look out the window, always at the wall beside it," Lunzie smiled, reaching out to press Jilet's hand warmly. "In no time, you'll be so bored with the wall that mere yearning for something new will set you to gazing at the stars again."

After Jilet left, Lunzie got a carafe of fresh hot coffee for herself from a synthesiser hatch in the corridor, and returned to her office. While her observations on Jilet's case were still fresh in her mind, she sat down at her desk to key in data to her confidential files. She believed that in time he would recover completely. He'd obviously been counselled by experts when he first came out of cold sleep. Whoever the psychology team was that had worked with him, they were right on the ball when it came to rehabilitation counselling.

Jilet's agoraphobia had been triggered by an occupational hazard. Lunzie wondered uneasily how many latent agoraphobics there were in s.p.a.ce who simply hadn't been exposed to the correct stimuli yet that would cause it to manifest. Others in the crew could be on the edge of a breakout. Had anyone else shown symptoms?

Immediately, Lunzie put the thought away. Wryly, she decided she was frightening herself. "I'll have to treat myself for paranoia soon, if I'm not careful." But the feeling of uneasiness persisted. Not for the first time, Lunzie wished that Fiona was here to talk to. She had always discussed things with Fiona, even when she was an infant. Lunzie turned the hologram in her hands. The girl was growing and changing. She was already as tall as her mother. "She'll be a woman when I get back." Lunzie decided that her dissatisfaction was because she was spoiling for a good chat with someone. Her remote cubicle was too lonely. Since "office hours" were over, she would run down the corridor to the rec area and see if anyone else was on break.

Abruptly, Lunzie realized that the ever present hum of the engine had changed, sped up. Instead of the usual purr, the sound had an edge of panic to it. Two more growling notes coughed to life, increasing the vibration so much Lunzie's teeth were chattering. They were trying to fire up the dorsal and ventral engines!

"Attention, all personnel," Captain Cosimo's voice blared. "This is an emergency alert. We are in danger of collision with unknown objects. Be prepared to evacuate. Do not panic. Proceed in an orderly fas.h.i.+on to your stations. We are attempting to evade, but we might not make it. This is not a drill." Lunzie's eyes widened, and she turned to her desk screen. On the computer pickup, the automatic cut-off devolved to forward control video, and showed what the pilot on the bridge saw: half a dozen irregularly shaped asteroids. Two that appeared to be the size of the s.h.i.+p were closing in from either side like pincers, or hammer and anvil, with more fragments heading directly for them. There wasn't room for the giant s.h.i.+p, running on only one of its three engines, to manoeuvre and avoid them all. Normally, asteroid routes could be charted. The s.h.i.+p's flight plan took into account all the s.p.a.ce-borne debris to be avoided. At the last check, the route had been clear. These must have just crashed into one another, changing their course abruptly into the path of the Nellie Mine Nellie Mine. The huge freighter was incapable of making swift turns, and there was no way to get out of the path of all the fragments. Collision with the tumbling rocks was imminent.