A Second Chance at Eden

«Should he be sailing in this condition?»

«He'll just have to,» she said with a sudden flash of pique. «He does it every time we bring him. And it's always me who has to go looking in the taverns for him. I hate those places.»

«Is this your father?»

She let out a guffaw, then clamped her mouth over her mouth. «I'm sorry. No, he's not my father. This is Rousseau. Ross. He lives with us, helps around the house and garden, things like that. When he's sober,» she added tartly.

«Where do you live?»

«Mother and I live on Charmaine; it's an island out in the archipelago.»

He hid a smile. Perfect. «Must be a tough life, all by yourselves.»

«We manage. It won't be for ever, though.» Her angular shoulders jerked in what he thought was supposed to be an apologetic shrug; it was more like a convulsion. Eason couldn't recall meeting someone this shy for a long while. It made her appealing, after an odd sort of fashion.

•   •   •

The Orphйe was tied up to a quay near the gap in the harbour wall. Eason whistled in appreciation when he saw her. She was a trim little craft, six metres long, with a flat-bottomed wooden hull and a compact cabin at the prow. The two outriggers were smaller versions of the main hull, with room for cargo; all archipelago craft had them, a lot of the channels between islands were too shallow for keel fins.

Bitek units were dovetailed neatly into the wooden superstructure: nutrient-fluid sacs with ancillary organs in the stern compartment, a powerful-looking three metre long silver-grey serpent tail instead of a rudder, and a membrane sail whorled round the tall mast.

Althaea's mother was sitting cross-legged on the cabin roof, wearing a faded blue denim shirt and white shorts. Eason had no doubt she was Althaea's mother: her hair was much shorter, but the same colour, and though she lacked the girl's half-starved appearance her delicate features were identical. Their closeness was uncanny.

She was holding up an odd-looking pendulum, a slim gold chain that was fastened to the centre of a wooden disc, five centimetres in diameter. The disk must have been perfectly balanced, because it remained horizontal.

When Eason reached the quayside directly above the Orphйe he saw the rim of the disc was carved with spidery hieroglyphics. It was turning slowly. Or he thought it was. When he steadied Ross and looked down properly, it was stationary.

The woman seemed absorbed by it.

«Mother?» Althaea said uncertainly.

Her gaze lifted from the disk, and met Eason's eyes. She didn't seem at all put out by his appearance.

He found it hard to break her stare; it was almost triumphant.

Rousseau vomited on the quay.

Althaea let out a despairing groan. «Oh, Ross!» She was close to tears.

«Bring him on board,» her mother said wearily. She slipped the disc and chain into her shirt pocket.

With Althaea's help, Eason manhandled Ross onto a bunk in the cabin. The old man groaned as he was laid on the grey blankets, then closed his eyes, asleep at once.

Althaea put a plastic bucket on the floor beside the bunk, and shook her head sadly.

«What's the pendulum for?» Eason asked quietly. He could hear her mother moving round on the deck outside.

«Mother uses it for divining.»

«On a boat?»

She pressed her lips together. «You can use divining to find whatever you wish, not just water—stones, wood, buried treasure, stuff like that. It can even guide you home in the fog, just like a compass. The disc is only a focus for your thoughts, that's all. Your mind does the actual work.»

«I think I'll stick with an inertial guido.»

Althaea's humour evaporated. She hung her head as if she'd been scolded.

«I'm Tiarella Rosa, Althaea's mother,» the woman said after Eason stepped out of the cabin. She stuck her hand out. «Thank you for helping with Ross.»

«No trouble,» Eason said affably. Tiarella Rosa had a firm grip, her hand calloused from deckwork.

«I was wondering,» he said. «Do you have any work available on Charmaine? I'm not fussy, or proud. I can dig ditches, pick fruit, rig nets, whatever.»

Tiarella's eyes swept over him, taking in the ship's jumpsuit he wore, the thin-soled shoes, his compact but hardly bulky frame, albino-pale skin. «Why would you be interested, asteroid man?»

«I'm a drifter. I'm tired of asteroid biosphere chambers. I want the real thing, the real outdoors. And I'm just about broke.»

«A drifter?»

«Yeah.» Out of the corner of his eye he saw Althaea emerge from the cabin, her already anxious expression even more apprehensive.

«I can only offer room and board,» Tiarella said. «In case you haven't noticed, we're not rich, either.» There was the intimation of amusement in her voice.

Eason prevented his glance from slipping round the Orphйe ; she must have cost ten thousand fuseodollars at least.

«And the Orphйe has been in the family for thirty years,» Tiarella said briskly. «She's a working boat, the only link we have with the outside world.»

«Right. Room and board would be fine.»

Tiarella ruffled Althaea's hair. «No need to ask your opinion, is there, darling. A new face at Charmaine, Christmas come in April.»

Althaea blushed crimson, hunching in on herself.

«OK, drifter , we'll give it a try.»

•   •   •

Orphйe 's tail kicked up a spume of foam as she manoeuvred away from the quay. Tiarella's eyes were tight shut as she steered the boat via her affinity bond with the bitek's governing processors. Once they were clear, the sail membrane began to spread itself, a brilliant emerald sheet woven through with a hexagonal mesh of rubbery cords.

Outside the harbour walls they picked up a respectable speed. Tiarella headed straight away from the land for five kilometres, then slowly let the boat come round until they were pointing east. Eason went into the cabin to stow his flight bag. Rousseau was snoring fitfully, turning the air toxic with whisky and bad breath.

He unlocked the case to check on the spheres it contained. His synaptic web established a datalink with them, and ran a diagnostic. All three superconductor confinement systems were functioning perfectly, the drop of frozen anti-hydrogen suspended at the centre of each one was completely stable. The resulting explosion should one of them ever rupture would be seen from a million miles away in space. It was a destructive potential he considered too great.

The Quissico Independence Party had other ideas. It was the blackmail weapon they were going to use against the development company administration to gain full political and economic freedom for the asteroid. They had spent three years establishing contact with one of the black syndicates which manufactured antimatter. Three years of a gradually escalating campaign of propaganda and harassment against the development company.

Eason had joined the cause when he was still in his teens. Quissico was a highly successful settlement, with dozens of industrial stations and rich resources of minerals and organic chemicals. Its people worked hard and manufactured excellent astronautics equipment and specialist microgee compounds. That they were not allowed a greater say in how the wealth they created was spent was a deliberate provocation. They had made the founding