Silverrock, p.2
Silverrock, page 2
The university wasn’t going to like it.
When we got to the paved road, the hopper joined a train of ore haulers heading from the refinery toward the transit depot. Our lights passed over the garbage dump at the edge of town, scattering the feeding scorps. None were as big as the one that had stung Lucien.
Lucien scrunched into the corner of the hopper’s cab, face pinched and eyes shut. “Can’t you go any faster? I don’t feel so good.”
“Almost there.”
At that hour of the evening, Sweetwater City was jumping. The bars and brothels on Venture Avenue did a roaring trade, with light, music, and drunks spilling onto the street. I cursed them all as the hopper maneuvered around jaywalking pedestrians.
The medical center was at the end of Venture Avenue. It called itself a hospital, but that was just typical frontier optimism. It had eight beds and two exam rooms, one of which doubled as the operating room. The small staff handled injuries from work accidents and barroom brawls, sexually transmitted diseases, and a sprinkling of maternity cases. Any pretense toward sterility was purely aspirational. The surgeon in charge was Dr. Tim Slade. I knew him well as a drinking buddy. He was good at that. As a doctor, he was good enough.
“Knife fight?” Slade asked as I helped Lucien to the exam table.
“It was a scorp,” Lucien said. The kid’s face had paled to a dusky gray. “A huge one. It stabbed me with its tail.”
Slade grinned. “Don’t tell me you got bit by a bull scorp?”
I glared at Slade for his levity. “Not bit. Stung.” A “bull scorp” was the local version of a yeti: a giant scorpidon seen only in the darkest part of night by the most unreliable of witnesses. “I saw it myself. The scorp rammed its stinger right into his chest.”
“Whatever you say.” Slade examined the puncture. “Doesn’t look too bad. This may sting a little . . .”
As a nurse pushed me toward the waiting room, Lucien grabbed my hand. “Booker, tell Professor Ambrose I want out. The first transport going back to Prime, I want to be on it.”
I nodded. “No problem.”
In the waiting room, I folded myself into a stiff chair as far as possible from crying babies and a miner trying to stifle his hacking cough. The walls were decorated with yellowing posters depicting clogged lungs and pus-filled sores. It was a great place to be sick.
For a full earthyear, since even before Professor Ambrose had arrived with his three eager interns, I’d been the dig’s facilities manager. I’d liaised between the university and the Sweetwater City authorities, set up the base of operations, and built the site facilities. I kept to the budget and filed regular reports to the university. I made sure the staff got paid, everyone had a place to sleep, and food was provided at regular intervals. I took pride in following my own personal Rule One: If you’re going to do something, do it right.
During all that time, there had been no major hitches—until now. I took it personally.
Maybe I should have remembered Rule Two: Even if you do everything right, something will go wrong.
I pulled out my mocom to begin an incident report but found it hard to concentrate. My “legs” were hurting—phantom pains where my legs had once been, a reaction to all the excitement. I triggered the stimulators on my prosthetics; a mild electrical current on the stumps was usually enough to stop the severed nerves from jangling.
Dictating the bare facts of the attack into the incident report was straightforward, but I paused when the form asked what steps would be taken to prevent a recurrence. With some reluctance, I switched to a different form: an application to the sheriff’s office for a license to carry a firearm.
Reason for request: protection of university research team. Source of danger: scorpidons.
It wasn’t long before Sheriff Mick Ugarte appeared in the hospital doorway, scoping the sprinkling of patients-in-waiting. He sidled over to take the seat next to me. “Evening, Booker. ¿Qué tal? What’s this nonsense about you wanting to carry a shooter?”
Ugarte was another drinking buddy—wherever I was posted, I tried to stay on drinking terms with the local law. His hair had gone sparse and his muscles were sagging, but in a town full of tough guys, Ugarte kept a lid on the bullies.
“One of my team was injured by a scorp tonight. My stun rod wasn’t enough—I practically had to pry the scorp off the kid.”
A corner of his mouth lifted. “You shoulda told them—no petting the wildlife.” Ugarte was smiling, but his eyes were sharp. “This town’s already got too many damn fools spooked by scorps and wanting to shoot something. I didn’t think you’d be one of them.”
My ears perked up. “Why? Have there been other scorp attacks?”
“Nah. Just the odd drunk swearing that a bull scorp was wandering in the alleyways.”
The nurse caught my eye and waved me back toward the exam room.
Two orderlies were transferring Lucien to a gurney. The kid was a deadweight, out like a light.
I turned in alarm to Doc Slade.
“Don’t worry,” Slade said, washing his hands. He nodded a greeting to Ugarte, who’d followed me in. “The young man was a little agitated, so we gave him a sedative. I’ve pumped him full of antimicrobials. We’ll see how he is in the morning.”
“What about an antidote for the poison?” I asked.
Slade shook his head. “Nobody ever bothered to develop one. Scorp venom’s mild. Usually, it barely raises a reaction.”
“Lucien collapsed when I managed to scare that scorp away—I’d call that a reaction.”
“Shock, probably. How long was he in contact with the stinger?”
It had seemed like an hour, but time is like that in an emergency. “Twenty or thirty seconds. Not more than a minute.”
“Hmm.” Slade stroked his upper lip the way he did when he had an iffy poker hand and was trying to decide whether to fold. “Usually, a scorp sting is a quick hit-and-run. Leaves you with a few hours of swelling, a mild fever, and a hangover headache. But if the lad got an unusually large dose, that might explain his agitation.” He slapped my shoulder. “Don’t worry. He’ll get a good night’s sleep and probably be fine in the morning.”
As the orderly tucked the sheet around him, Lucien stirred and mumbled in his sleep.
I bent over his bed. “Hang in there, kid. You’re safe now.” The orderlies wheeled him away.
Back in the corridor, I hard-stared Ugarte. “Well? What about my permit to carry?”
He rubbed his jaw. “I guess you can be trusted not to shoot up the town. You already got a weapon?”
“My service pistol,” I said. “A PQ52, locked to my palm so no one else can use it. Believe me, I’d rather not kill any living creature, but Professor Ambrose expects me to protect his team.”
Ugarte nodded and tapped an approval into his mocom. “All right. I’ll authorize it. Straight projectiles, no explosives. And be sure not to kill anything but scorps. You can kill all you want of those.”
CHAPTER 3
The Ranch
I’D ESTABLISHED the archeology project’s base of operations in a rented ranch house near the foothills. By the time I arrived—tired, dirty, and hungry—Professor Ambrose was relaxing in the parlor with Emma Dewinter, a university exobiologist who’d come to Silverrock to conduct a biosphere survey. She’d arrived at the same time as Lucien and was sharing quarters with us. That was fine with me: she was in her midthirties, and I liked her dark eyes, feline smile, and quirky sense of humor. Since she had three university degrees and I had none, my interest was probably one-sided.
Our teenage landlord, Lydia, placed a bowl of leftover rockskipper stew in front of me while I briefed Ambrose and Emma on Lucien’s condition. Only Ambrose, Emma, and I frequented the parlor’s battered couch and easy chairs—the interns preferred to congregate in the dorm module I’d added to the main house. It said something about Lucien’s lack of popularity that none of the interns bothered to come to the parlor to ask about him.
“The wound doesn’t look bad,” I said, mopping up the last of the stew, “but the doctor’s worried about infection. We’ll just have to see how he responds to medication.”
Lydia sniffed, dallying over clearing my now-empty bowl. “You shouldn’t of kept that poor boy up in the hills after sundown, Booker. That’s when them scorps come outa their holes.” At seventeen, Lydia was hard-eyed and stringy-haired, and so petite her apron strings wrapped twice around her.
Poor boy? Why would a personable young woman like Lydia go for a sullen lout like Lucien? But then, as my ex would attest, I’ve never understood women.
“I didn’t keep him,” I said. “He kept me. Lydia, you’ve lived here longer than any of us. Have you heard of scorps attacking anyone?”
She thought a moment, gazing at the ceiling and sucking her lip. “Not other than folks tripping over them in the dark, like. But they’re smarter than you’d think. My daddy had to pour a concrete floor in the chicken house to keep the scorps from digging under to get to ’em.” Lydia’s father had come to Silverrock with high hopes and a flock of goats, but scorps had preyed on the crops and livestock until he’d been forced to turn to mining. His death in a mining accident had left Lydia with the ranch and a pile of debt. The rent the university paid wasn’t much, but on Silverrock it made the difference between destitution and scraping by.
After Lydia had taken my plate to the kitchen, I turned to Ambrose. “Lucien said he wants to go back to Prime.”
“After everything I went through to get him here?” Ambrose’s bushy eyebrows drew into a scowl. “Damn it, he’s only been here two weeks. He can’t bail at the first little hiccup.”
“Do you really need him on Silverrock?” I asked. “Couldn’t somebody else run the scanner and let Lucien analyze the scans from Prime?”
Ambrose harrumphed. “Looking at scans isn’t the same as being on site. I need him here.”
Emma laid a calming hand on Ambrose’s arm. “I’ll talk to him. He knows how important this work is.” She’d traveled from planet Prime on the same transport as Lucien and must have befriended him during the five-day trip.
“No pressuring him,” I warned. “If he wants to go home, he goes home. That goes for the interns too.”
Ambrose’s thin frame stiffened. “This is my project. I’m in charge of the interns.”
I nodded. “Your project, your interns. You can hire them and fire them. But my job is safety and security, including making sure the rules are followed. Anyone who feels unsafe is entitled to quit.”
Emma narrowed her eyes at me. “You’re pretty good at laying down the law, aren’t you?”
“Just doing my job. And Professor Ambrose, from now on, no more working late at the dig. I want everyone off the site well before sunset. I’ve already gotten permission from the sheriff to carry a weapon.”
Ambrose ran a hand through his scant, graying hair, making it stand on end. “You’re overreacting. We’ve been working in the caverns for the last six months without any problems.”
I nodded. “True, but you’ll get a lot less flak from the university if my accident report shows we’re taking steps to prevent a repeat.”
Ambrose and Emma exchanged a glance.
“I suppose a report is inevitable.” Emma patted Ambrose’s hand. “Booker’s making sense. A little, um, tightening of procedures seems to be in order.”
Ambrose folded his arms. “All right. But this dig is extremely important. Don’t let your damn rules get in my way.”
I’d chosen for myself one of the smallest rooms in the old ranch house, letting the university types have the more comfortable dormitory module. The room suited me: it had just enough space for my bunk, a desk, and a few shelves to hold my kit. If I stretched my arms, I could touch the ceiling. The walls had originally been painted a cheerful pink, but the alkaline air had aged them to a mellow beige. I’d left the original curtains—white with pink hearts—on the small window. They reminded me of my sister’s room, back when we were growing up on Prime.
There was a vid message from her, waiting for me to answer. It had been sitting there a couple of days already. I knew Claudia had my best interests at heart, but her ideas of what was best for me didn’t jibe with mine.
Still, answering her couldn’t be put off forever. After I posted my incident report to the university—all very bland and full of assurances that we were doing everything possible to avoid further scorp interaction—I took a deep breath and replayed Claudia’s message.
“Hey, baby brother!” Claudia’s smile was artificially bright. No doubt she found dealing with me as trying as I found her attempts to organize my life. She pattered on for a minute or two about her son’s dance recital and her daughter’s science project before getting to the point.
“It’s a good position. Logistics supervisor for the agro export terminal on Prime. I’ve already spoken to them about your military and management experience, and they’re interested.” She held up a hand. “I know, I know. You’re saying you have a job. But what kind of job is it, babysitting student diggers? Out on some backwater planet too primitive for any civilized species to care about? Here’s a chance to do something meaningful. After all, it’s time you settled down.”
Settle down. That’s where Claudia always ended up. I’d tried settling down once, with Rita, but that hadn’t worked out so well. A desk job on Prime, regular hours, comfy home . . . until I’d become so bored I couldn’t stand it.
I’d put off answering Claudia to give her the illusion I was thinking it over, but the truth was I preferred the frontier, where I had a chance to see something being built from the ground up—and where I might make a difference for the better.
No, settling down was not for me. I fired off a thanks-but-no-thanks message to Claudia, assuring her that Silverrock wasn’t as primitive as she imagined. So maybe I exaggerated a little about the planet’s natural beauty and the cultural opportunities in Sweetwater City, but I didn’t want her worrying about me.
Before going to bed, I took my old service pistol from my trunk and cleaned and loaded it. It still fit comfortably in my hand—not a mere stunner but a PQ52 projectile launcher with enough power to bring down a man at a hundred paces. Not that I ever wanted to do that again.
Why had I kept it? I hadn’t even handled it since my medical discharge. But my stun rod hadn’t had much effect on that big double-clawed scorp. When it came to security, overcautious was better than underprepared. To protect my team, I needed firepower.
The next morning, the duty nurse at the hospital reported that Lucien was running a fever but was well enough to complain about the bed, the food, the nursing, and life in general. I promised to visit him later.
When the hoppers brought the team to the foothills to begin the day’s work, the area around the tunnel entrance was clear—no sign of the attack except for the scratchy scorp tracks around the rock outcropping. I told the team to wait at the top of the access tunnel while I did a quick recon.
My service pistol nestled comfortably in my hip holster as if it belonged there.
It felt strange to make the trek down the access tunnel alone. Alone, that is, except for the vermin. Every little rustle had me pausing at the corners and looking over my shoulder, as if a scorp might be waiting in ambush. But other than my nerves, everything was normal.
When I got to the overlook, I switched on the cavern lights, sending thousands of little sandbugs and rockskippers scurrying into the nearest crevice. A few scorps took their time retreating into the side passages, melting into the cracks and dark places.
Nothing unusual. No outsized scorp brandishing double claws and a stinger, just ordinary wildlife picking over the rocks for tasty bits of algae.
I called into the ruins, “We’re back.”
An echo answered: Back . . . back.
I shouted again. “I don’t want any more trouble.”
Trouble . . . trouble.
Feeling foolish, I ended my announcement with a mumble. “We have a job to do.”
After that, work went on as usual, except smoother without Lucien’s persnickety orders. Hauling around the scanner and lights for intern Amy was much less stressful.
Ambrose called a halt to work well before sundown. No scorps lurked around the tunnel exit. When we got to base, I pulled rank to be first in the shower and took one of the hoppers to Sweetwater City.
As I drove down Venture Avenue, the traffic and pedestrians that had irked me the night before now seemed warm and friendly. Tidy shops sold the newest imported goods. Grocers displayed produce from the hydroponics farms. Well-dressed men and women bustled between the Empire Hotel and Venture Mining’s gleaming offices, strategically situated next to the Sweetwater City town hall. Cranes and scaffolding marked the construction of a new hotel.
This was the street that greeted hopeful newcomers. The pawn shops and cheap rooming houses huddled on the side streets, just out of sight.
The planet had been named Silverrock by some enterprising promoter eager to recruit colonists to a world where gray was the dominant color. The ubiquitous limestone left pale dust everywhere. Even the sunlight tended toward the bluish end of the spectrum, lending a washed-out, gloomy cast to scenery and residents alike.
Silverrock’s first colonists—company prospectors and wildcat miners—had settled at the only freshwater spring anywhere near the mineral-rich hills. When the surveyors confirmed that the Builders had left behind enough heavy-metal deposits to make mining worthwhile, Venture Mining had bought the planet’s mineral rights and begun recruiting workers.
Sweetwater City had sprouted like mushrooms after a rain. Venture Mining provided Silverrock’s only town with everything a frontier planet needed: a transit depot for ships to carry settlers in and ore out, a general store to sell supplies at inflated prices, an assay office and registrar to analyze ore and keep track of mineral rights, a mayor, a sheriff, and a medical center. The saloons and brothels had followed on their own. The churches mostly hadn’t bothered.
