The navigator disappeared. Benyawe walked to the systems chart that stretched across one wall. A line representing the Formics’ trajectory cut across space. Benyawe touched various points on the line, leaving blinking red dots. “The first venting happened here, near Weigh Station Four. The next venting was here, roughly six au later. Now we have a third venting that’s approximately six au after that.”
“So they vent every six au,” said Dublin.
“Which means we can approximate where it will likely vent again,” said Benyawe. She tapped her finger down the line every six au and left more dots. As she reached the inner Belt, she placed a dot near an asteroid.
“What asteroid is that?” asked Lem.
Benyawe enlarged it until it filled the screen. Lem thought it looked like a dog bone: thin shaft in the middle, with two knobby lobes at either end. “It’s called Kleopatra,” said Benyawe. “M-class. Measures two hundred and seventeen kilometers across. She moved her fingers on the screen and rotated the asteroid until the opposite side came into view. There, on the surface of one of the lobes, was a small cluster of lights.
“What is that?” asked Lem. “Zoom in.”
Benyawe moved her fingers and zoomed in on the lights, revealing a massive mining complex at least five kilometers across. Buildings, smelting plants, diggers, barracks. A mini industrial city.
“It’s a Juke facility,” said Benyawe.
“One of ours? How come I’ve never heard of it?” asked Lem.
“Your father has over a hundred of these facilities throughout the Belt,” said Chubs. “By building a facility, we’re basically claiming the entire rock. We’re sticking a flag in the ground and telling competitors to back off. Which is smart. That much iron is worth a fortune.”
“If the Formics vent near Kleopatra, even if the plasma hits the opposite side of the asteroid, those people don’t stand a chance,” said Dublin.
“How many people work there?” asked Lem.
Benyawe tapped the complex with her finger, opened a window of data, and began reading. After a moment, she turned to them, troubled.
“How many?” asked Lem.
“Over seven thousand,” said Benyawe.
CHAPTER 20
Solitude
At first Victor thought little of the pain in his back. After five months of traveling in the quickship, unexplained aches and pains had become second nature. His muscles were atrophying, his bones were weakening; dull aches were to be expected. But then the backache worsened and became so excruciating at times that it felt like a knife stabbing and twisting inside him. It came in waves, and no matter how Victor positioned his body in the quickship, the pain continued. Then the pain spread to his side and groin. Then blood appeared in his urine, and he knew he was in trouble.
All symptoms pointed to kidney stones. His bones were becoming osteoporotic and the released calcium was coalescing in the kidneys. Sleep was difficult. He felt anxious and nauseated and worried about being sick in his helmet. He drank lots of water, but it didn’t help. He had brought a few mild pain meds, but he had taken those months ago to get through a few days of migraines. Now he cursed himself. The migraines were a gentle kiss on the cheek compared to this.
After three days, he worried that the stone might be too big to pass, and he wondered what would happen if that were the case. Would he get an infection? Could it kill him? Would Earth never receive warning because of a stupid clump of crystallized calcium?
He passed it on the fourth day, and the pain was so unexpectedly searing and intense that for a moment he thought he was dying. When it was over, he fell instantly asleep, exhausted.
He continued to drink a lot of water over the next few weeks, but it didn’t stop him from having stones. He passed four in all. None of them were as painful as the first, but they all left him anxious and restless. He was now keenly aware of the fact that his body was deteriorating, and he constantly worried about a dozen other ailments that might afflict him at any moment. His bone density was his primary concern. Would the weight of his own body break his legs when he stood on Luna? Gravity on Luna was only a fraction of what it was on Earth, but perhaps it would be enough to overstress his weakening bones. Then there was the issue of his appetite. It had greatly diminished recently. Was he malnourished? And what about his heart? It was weakening, too. Would it give out before he reached the Moon? And what about radiation? Was the shield holding? He needed to strengthen it, he realized. He needed to add another plate to the exterior. He was sure he’d get cancer if he didn’t.
Victor entered the commands in his handheld to initiate deceleration. The ship had been moving at a constant, high velocity for months, and if he maintained that speed and went outside, the ship would appear to him as if it wasn’t moving at all since he would be moving at the same velocity. But going outside at a high velocity was risky. He’d expose himself to gamma radiation and the threat of micrometeoroids. Getting hit by a tiny rock particle would likely be fatal. Victor couldn’t take that risk. Not with so much at stake. It would be safer to decelerate and repair the shields at a full stop. He’d add a lot of time to his trip, yes, and he wouldn’t reach Luna as quickly as he had hoped, but he felt the extra shielding and precautions were worth the delay.
It took the ship almost two full days to decelerate. Victor didn’t want to rush the process and put any undue burden on his body, weak as it was, so he had slowed the ship gradually. When it had reached a full stop, he detached his air hose and screwed a canister of oxygen into the back of his suit. Next came his tool belt, which he fastened around his waist. Then he opened the hatch and crawled outside. Using the handholds recessed into the hull, Victor pulled himself toward the back of the ship to check how the rear plates were holding up. His hand slipped from one of the handholds, and Victor instinctively reached for the safety cable fastened to his chest harness to steady himself.
Only the safety cable wasn’t there.
In his haste to come outside he had forgotten to anchor himself to the ship.
Victor clawed at the hull, trying to get purchase, desperate to stop himself, but his body was in motion now, moving toward the rear of the ship, and he had already passed the last handhold. His bulky gloves slipped along the metal surface, stopping on nothing. He was screaming now, his voice hoarse and cracked from lack of use. He was slipping down the side of the ship. There was nothing to grab. He was going to die.
Then he saw it ahead of him. A tube of some sort, a small metal pipe at the back corner of the ship. Beyond it was space. If he missed it, he was gone. He would drift until he ran out of air. He approached the pipe, and just before he reached it he knew he wouldn’t be able to grab it. It was too far away, just beyond the reach of his fingers.
In a single swift movement, his hand whipped to his tool belt and came back with a long wrench that he reached out and hooked around the pipe at the last possible moment, stopping himself. His heart was pounding. His breathing was labored. The wrench’s hold on the pipe was slight and precarious. It could easily slip off. He gently pulled and drew himself back to the ship.
The wrench slipped from the pipe, but he was moving in the right direction now. He slowly drifted toward the cockpit, climbed inside, and fastened the safety cable onto his harness. He cursed himself for being so stupid. He had come all this way, risked his life, with intelligence that the whole world needed to see, and he nearly ruined it all by failing to fasten a single metal ring to his harness. Brilliant, Victor. Real genius.
With the cable secured, he returned outside, checked the plates, found them in order, but then decided to install the spare plates anyway on top of the existing ones. Might as well. The spares weren’t doing any good inside the ship. Besides, he needed the labor. He needed to occupy his mind with work for a little while. He had built and engineered every day of his life since becoming Father’s apprentice, and the past five months had been nothing but mind-numbing idleness.
When he finished the installation, he resealed the seams twice to be sure they would hold. He knew he was stalling. The seals were fine. He simply didn’t want to get back in the ship.
Eventually, he returned to the cockpit. His hand lingered on the hatch for a moment before he closed it, his eyes scanning the expanse of space above him. He was only a few months away from Luna. He could endure this a
