The Rock Rats

throwing up a shower of rocky debris that spread leisurely across the barren landscape. The next one obliterated several of the metal huts dug halfway into the crater floor. Then more and more of them pounded in, raising so much dust and debris that Harbin could no longer see the crater at all. The dust cloud rose and drifted, a lingering shroud of destruction and death, slowly enveloping the entire asteroid, even reaching out toward his ship. Harbin unconsciously expected it to form a mushroom shape, as nuclear bombs did on Earth. Instead the cloud simply grew wider and darker, growing as if it fed on the asteroid’s inner core. Harbin realized it would hang over the asteroid for days, perhaps weeks, a dark pall of death.

By the time Shanidar had broken out of orbit, the ore freighter was long gone. The damnable dust cloud even interfered with Harbin’s attempts to pick it up on a long-range radar sweep.

CHAPTER 47

“He what?” Martin Humphries screamed.

“He wiped out the base on Vesta,” Diane Verwoerd repeated. “All fifty-two people on the surface were killed.” Humphries sank back in his desk chair. He had been on the phone negotiating a deal to sell high-grade asteroidal nickel-iron to the government of China when she had burst into his office, tight-lipped and pale with shock. Seeing the expression on her face, Humphries had fobbed the Chinese negotiator off onto one of his underlings in Beijing as politely as possible, then cut the phone link and asked her what was the matter.

“Wiped out the entire base?” he asked, his voice gone hollow. “One of our ships in orbit around Vesta got caught in the dust cloud and—”

“What dust cloud?” Humphries demanded irritably. Verwoerd sank into one of the chairs in front of his desk and explained as much as she knew of Fuchs’s attack. Humphries had never seen her look so stunned, so upset. It intrigued him.

“Fifty-two people killed,” she murmured, almost as if talking to herself. “And the crew of the ship that was damaged by the dust cloud…four of them died when their life support system broke down.”

Humphries calmed himself, then asked, “And Fuchs got away?”

“Yes,” she said. “Harbin tried to give chase, but he was too low on fuel. He had to turn back.”

“So he’s still out there, hatching more mischief.”

“Mischief?” She looked squarely at him. “This is more than mischief, Martin. This is a massacre.”

He nodded, almost smiled. “That’s right. That’s exactly what it was. A deliberate massacre.”

“You look as if you’re pleased about it.”

“We can make it work in our favor,” Humphries said.

“I don’t see—”

“Those rock rats have been helping Fuchs, giving him fuel and food, giving him information about our ships’ schedules and destinations.”

“Yes,” she said. “Obviously.”

“Somebody told him about the base on Vesta.”

“Obviously,” Verwoerd repeated.

“And now he’s killed a couple of dozen of his own people. Rock rats. Construction workers. Right?”

She took a deep breath, straightened up in the chair. “I see. You think they’ll turn against him.”

“Damned right.”

“What if they turn against you?” Verwoerd asked. “What if they decide that working for HSS is too dangerous, no matter how good the pay?”

“That’s where we play our trump card,” Humphries said. “Stavenger’s been putting out feelers about arranging a peace conference. Apparently the world government’s sticking its nose into the situation and Stavenger wants to head them off.”

“A peace conference?”

“Humphries Space Systems, Astro, Selene… even the world government will send a representative. Slice up the Asteroid Belt neat and clean, so there’s no more fighting.”

“Who’ll represent the rock rats?”

He laughed. “What do we need them for? This is strictly among the major players. The big boys.”

“But it’s about them,” Verwoerd countered. “You can’t divide up the Asteroid Belt between HSS and Astro without including them.”

With a shake of his head, Humphries said, “You don’t understand history, Diane. Back in the twentieth century there was a big flap in Europe over some country called Czechoslovakia. It doesn’t even exist anymore. But at that time, Germany wanted to take it over. England and France met with the Germans in Munich. They decided what to do with Czechoslovakia. The Czechs weren’t included in the conference. No need for them; the big boys parceled it all out.”

Verwoerd shot back, “And a year later all Europe was at war. I know more history than you think. You can’t have a conference about parceling out the Belt without having the rock rats in on it.”

“Can’t we?”

“You’ll be throwing them into Fuchs’s arms!”

Humphries frowned at that. “You think so?” he asked.

“Of course.”

“H’mm. I hadn’t thought of that. Maybe you’re right.”

Verwoerd leaned toward him slightly. “But if you included the rock rats, got them to send a representative to the conference—”

“We’d be making them a party to the crime,” Humphries finished for her.

“And the only outsider, the only one who doesn’t agree to the settlement, would be Fuchs.”

“Right!”

“He’d be isolated,” Verwoerd said. “Really alone. He’d have to give up. Nobody would help him and he’d be forced to quit.”

Humphries clasped his hands behind his head and leaned far back in his big, comfortable chair. “And he’d also have to face trial for killing all those people on Vesta. I love it!”

CHAPTER 48

Much to his surprise, George Ambrose was elected “mayor” of Ceres.

His official title was Chief Administrator. The election came about once the inhabitants of Ceres reluctantly admitted that they needed some form of government, if only to represent them against the growing mayhem that was turning the Belt into a war zone. Fuchs’s destruction of the Vesta base was the last straw; more than two dozen residents of Ceres had been killed in the attack.

Amanda tried to distance herself from her estranged husband’s offense by throwing herself into the drive to bring some form of law and order to Ceres. She worked tirelessly to craft a government, searching databases for months to find governmental organizations that might fit the needs of the rock rats. Once she had put together a proposed constitution, the rock rats grumbled and fussed and ripped it to shreds. But she picked up the pieces and presented a new document that addressed most of their complaints. With great reluctance, they voted to accept the new government—as long as it imposed no direct taxes on them.

Staffing the government was simple enough: there were enough clerks and technical supervisors on Ceres to handle the jobs. Many of them were delighted with the prospect of getting an assured salary, although Amanda made certain that each bureaucrat had to satisfy a strict performance review annually to hold onto the job.

Then came the selection of a governing board. Seven people were chosen at random by computer from the permanent residents of Ceres. No one was allowed to refuse the “honor.” Or the responsibility. Amanda was not selected by the computerized lottery, which disappointed her. George was, which disappointed him even more.

At their first meeting, the board elected George their chief, over his grudging protests.