Outcasts of Heaven Belt Read online

  Also by Joan Vinge

  SNOW QUEEN

  CATSPAW

  Copyright © 1976, 1978, 1980 and 1991 by Joan D. Vinge

  All rights reserved.

  Questar ® is a registered trademark of Warner Books, Inc.

  This Warner Books Edition is published by arrangement with the author.

  Cover design by Don Puckey

  Cover illustration by Donald Clavette

  Warner Books, Inc.

  666 Fifth Avenue

  New York, NY 10103

  A Time Warner Company

  Printed in the United States of America

  To Barb, my friend of a lifetime

  ■ ■ ■ ■

  Two are better than one; because they have a good reward for their labours. For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow:

  but woe to him that is alone when he falleth;

  for he hath not another to help him up.

  —Ecclesiastes

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  LEGACY

  ■ ■ ■ ■ ■

  THE OUTCASTS OF HEAVEN BELT

  ■ ■ ■ ■ ■

  LEGACY

  ■ ■ ■ ■ ■

  I

  ■ ■ ■ ■ ■

  The sound of silence filled the black and silver vacuum of the Mecca docking field, echoed from the winking distillery towers, the phosphorescently-glowing storage sacks of gases, the insectoid forms of the looming cargo freighters. But it only filled the helmet of Chaim Dartagnan’s suit by an effort of will, as his mind blocked the invidious clamor from the helmet’s speakers:

  “Demarch Siamang. Demarch Siamang—!”

  “—true that you’re going to—”

  “What will you be bringing back?”

  “—rescue the stranded—?”

  “Hey, Dartagnan, c’mon, Red, give your ol’ buddies a break!”

  Dartagnan smiled and released the mooring rope to casually readjust his camera strap against his shoulder. Eat your hearts out, bastards. Any one of you’d break my neck to be here instead of me. He glanced back across the glaring, pitted gravel of the field. At the very front of the crowd beyond the gate he saw the elbowing desperation of his fellow mediamen, cameras draped across the barrier; the security guard shoved them back with what looked like relish. Independents all, crawling all over each other to get at the big story, or the unique pitch, that would win the attention of a corporate head and earn them a place in the ranks of a corporation’s promotional crew. There but for the grace of Siamang and Sons go I…He had won, by flattering the hell out of Old Man Siamang; won the chance to prove his reporting and image-hyping skills as the only mediaman along on this (he saw it in rhetoric) History-Making Journey, a Daring Rescue by a Siamang Scion, a Philanthropic Family’s Mission of Mercy…my ass, Dartagnan thought. He saw the two corporate cameramen filming his passage, the colored armbands that made them Siamang’s men. His stomach constricted over an unexpected pang of hope.

  He glanced up, at the purity of blackness unmarred by atmosphere, at the stars. Somewhere below his feet, through kilometers of nearly solid rock, was the tiny, pale spinel of the sun Heaven. He would be seeing it again, soon enough—he focused on the looming grotesqueness tethered at the end of the mooring cable, bifurcated by the abrupt edge of the asteroid’s horizon: the converted volatile freighter that would take them across the Main Belt and on in to Heaven’s second planet, to pick up one man…and a treasure. The three jutting booms that kept its nuclear electric rockets suspended away from the living quarters clutched rigid cylinders instead of the usual flimsy volatiles sack; it carried a liquid fuel rocket for their descent to the planet’s surface.

  The rest of the party was clustering now beneath the ship. He pulled himself along the final length of cable, unslung his camera and checked its pressure seal, plugged the recording jack into his suit’s radio. He began to film, identifying one figure from another by the intricately colored geometric patternings on their suits. There was Old Man Siamang, praising the nobility of a single human life, no effort should be too great to save this man—and a salvage find that could benefit all the people of the Demarchy…Dartagnan shook his head, behind his shielding faceplate. The Demarchy was an absolute democracy, and its philosophy was every man for himself, unless he got in the way of too many others…or he happened to have something too many others wanted.

  Chaim knew, because it was his business to know, that a prospector had gotten himself stranded on Planet Two when his landing craft broke down. The prospector’s radioed distress calls had been monitored; and knowing, like everyone else, that no one would come after him unless it was worth their while, he had revealed that he had found a considerable cache of prewar salvage items, including computer software that could streamline any distillery’s volatile processing.

  The distilleries were among the few of the small, independent corporations of the Demarchy to have the resources to send a ship in after him, and his discovery provided them with the motivation. Siamang and Sons had as much motivation as anyone, but they also had one crucial additional asset: they alone had the rocket engines available for a landing craft. And so Siamang and Sons would be the first to reach Planet Two, making them most likely to get the rights to the prize as well.

  Old Man Siamang had finished his speech, and the handful of representatives of other distilleries responded with all the sincerity their silent applause implied. Sabu Siamang, the old man’s son and heir, added a few words, equally insincere. But great copy. Siamang was sending his own son on a journey into the unknown, a landing on a world with not only a substantial gravity well, but also the unpredictability of an atmosphere. Maybe there was no one else Old Siamang would trust: but Dartagnan had heard it rumored that there were other reasons why the old man might want the future corporate head to face a little reality and responsibility. Young Siamang said good-bye to his father—any resentment well disguised under a gracious respectfulness—and to his wife. Dartagnan felt surprised that a woman of her position had come out onto the surface, even for this short a time. Her voice was calm, self-assured, like her husband’s. Chaim wondered whether she did it for appearances, or if she’d wanted to come. He felt another sharp, sudden emotion; ignored it, unsure even of what it was.

  He filmed the ritual of cordial bowing, the leave-taking, the others going back across the field: filming and being filmed, he followed Sabu Siamang up into the waiting ship.

  Dartagnan kicked free of his suit in the cramped alcove with the unconscious grace of a man who had spent his whole life on planetoids where gravity was almost nonexistent. He pulled himself through the doorway into the control room, took in the instrument panels: Siamang leaned lightly against one, probing carelessly among the rows of displays.

  “Don’t touch those!…please, Demarch Siamang.” The soft, almost girlish voice had a cutting edge of irritation, which dulled abruptly with remembered deference.

  Dartagnan looked past Siamang in the dim half-light: saw the pilot, the third and final member of their expedition. Just a kid, he thought, startled: a slim boy in a dark, formless jumpsuit, with short sky-black hair: average height, his own height, maybe two meters. Epicanthic folds almost hooded the bad temper in the boy’s dark, upturning eyes.

  Siamang looked around, startled at the tone; an expression of not-quite-apology formed on his face. “Oh, sorry.” A broad expanse of smile showed against his dark skin, darker hair. Dartagnan irrelevantly remembered animal faces frescoed on an antique table. (He had never seen any real animal larger than an insect; they were extreme rarities since the Civil War.) Chaim was never sure of the color of Siamang’s eyes, but only that they struck with the building intensity of a spotlight. He saw the pilot falter
and look down. Siamang looked back at Dartagnan, relaxing. Chaim faced the blinding gaze easily, used to not-seeing a face. Siamang was in his mid-thirties, perhaps ten years older than Dartagnan himself, and the rich embroidery of his loose jacket, the precise tailoring of his tight breeches, the shine on his boots, were blinding in their own right. The well-dressed demarch…“You haven’t met our pilot, have you? Mythili Fukinuki…Our token mediaman, Mythili—”

  Something in Siamang’s voice made the pilot’s surname into a double double-entendre. Dartagnan looked back at the pilot, stared, as suspicion became realization. My God, a woman—? He didn’t say it aloud; was grateful, as her eyes snapped up, burning with hostility. He had never seen a female pilot, they were as much a rarity as a living animal. He realized belatedly that Siamang had not introduced him, apparently wasn’t planning to. He wondered if Siamang had already forgotten his name. “Uh—my name’s Chaim Dartagnan. My friends call me Red.” He raised a hand, gestured at the auburn friz of his hair above his own faded-brown skin.

  The pilot categorized him with a look he had grown used to.

  Siamang’s easy laughter filled the uneasy space between them. “I didn’t think mediamen had any friends.”

  Dartagnan matched the laughter, added a careful note of self-deprecation. “I guess I should’ve said ‘acquaintances.’”

  “Red, here, is up from the media ranks, Mythili. If he does a good job, Dad’s going to hire him permanently. So be nice to him; you may have to be seeing a lot more of him.” He winked, and the pilot’s expression changed slightly. Chaim estimated that the temperature in the room dropped ten degrees. “How does it feel, Red, to be up here now, instead of down there with the rest of the coprophage-corps?”

  Dartagnan laughed again, meaning it. “Real good, boss. Just fine. I plan to make a habit of it.”

  “We’re scheduled for departure in one kilosecond. Demarch Siamang,” the pilot said. “Maybe you ought to check your cabin to make sure all your belongings are aboard. Just down the passageway—” She pointed at the hole in the middle of the floor, ringed by an aluminum guardrail.

  “Good idea.” Siamang pushed himself away from the panel, moving by her as he half-drifted toward the well. “Good to be aboard, Fukinuki…” His hand slid down over her buttocks in passing.

  If looks could kill, we’d be dead men. Dartagnan studied the floor, waiting to be turned to stone.

  “Well?”

  He glanced up, not focusing.

  “You have the crew’s dormitory all to yourself. Do you want to check out your belongings or not?” She pointed again. She had moved out of range of the exit well.

  He waved at his camera and sack of gear, at his own threadbare, unembellished jacket. “This’s it; I travel light.” He grinned ingratiatingly at nothing, got no response. “You know…uh…I have the same problem with my name. Everybody’s always asking me, ‘Where’s the Three Musketeers?’” It was a subject of morbid fascination to him that the most stupid and illiterate of men seemed somehow to have heard of that obscure Old World novel.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She drifted to the control panel, caught hold of a stabilizing strap, began to check readings.

  “What’s—”

  “And before you ask, ‘What’s a nice girl like me doing in a job like this?’ I’ll tell you. It’s because I want to be here. And yes, no, no, and no. Yes, I am sterile. No, I wasn’t born that way. No, I’m not sorry I did it. And no, I did not get the job by agreeing to put out for my passengers—I got it because I’m a damn good pilot!…Any more questions, mediaman?”

  “No…I guess that about covers them all.” He raised his hands, palms out in surrender. “But actually,” he lied, “I was only planning to ask if you’d mind my filming our departure on your screen.”

  “I do mind. The control room’s a restricted area as far as the passengers are concerned.”

  “It’s my job—”

  “It’s my job. Keep your lens out of it.”

  He shrugged, and bowed, and stepped into the well.

  Supplies and equipment had been stored in the crew’s quarters, filling most of the space from ceiling to floor, wall to wall. Dartagnan found the one remaining bunk halfway up a wall and strapped himself onto it, comforted by the feeling of closeness, used to it. My God, is it really happening…? He shut his eyes, hands under his head; relaxed his body abruptly, thoroughly, like switching off a machine. Memories from the time when he had piloted his father’s ship showed him the images he would have seen on this ship’s viewscreen, as they rose almost silently, almost without sensation of movement, from Mecca’s surface…His imagination expanded, for a vision of the entire Heaven system, circling in a sea of darkness:

  The Heaven system consisted of a G-class star orbited by four planets. The two inner worlds, nameless, were essentially uninhabitable, one too hot, one too cold, with nearly nonexistent atmospheres. The two outer worlds were gas giants: Discus, a carnelian scarab set within twenty separate bands of sun-silvered dust and frozen gases; Sevin, dim green, and unreachable since the Civil War. Both of those worlds were also uninhabited.

  But between Planet Two and Discus lay an asteroid belt, the Heaven Belt, which at one time had held a thriving human colony richer even than its parent Earth. But the Civil War had destroyed Heaven Belt, bringing death to nearly a hundred million people, most of its population; and now the Belt was for the most part a vast ruin, where the still-living preyed on the artifacts of the dead in order to keep on living. Among the small isolated pockets of humanity that still continued, the Demarchy had survived almost intact, due to its location. The Demarchy lay in the trojan asteroids, a 140,000-kilometer teardrop of planetoids trapped forever sixty degrees ahead of Discus in its orbital path. The Demarchy had been able to continue trade within itself, and with another surviving subculture, the inhabitants of the ice-bound debris that circled just beyond the rings of Discus proper. The Ringers supplied the volatiles—oxygen, hydrogen and hydrocarbons—necessary to life, as they had once supplied them to the whole of Heaven Belt. In return, the Demarchy provided the Rings with the pure minerals and refined ores that it had in plenty.

  Even before the war, the corporations that dominated the Demarchy’s economy and its trade had been primarily small and fragmented. The self-interested nature of the Demarchy’s town-meeting style of government discouraged monopolies, and so the inherent competitiveness of capitalism had gone to an extreme. The same sophisticated communications network that kept the Demarchy’s radical democracy functioning also provided a medium for the expression of corporate competition, and as a result the citizens of the Demarchy were dunned by a constant flow of news disguised by promotion, promotions disguised as news. The need for an ever-slicker, more compelling distortion of the truth had created a new ecological niche in Demarchy society, one that had been filled by the pen-for-hire, the mediaman, willing to say anything, sell anything, without question, for the highest bidder. Willing to do anything at all to impress a corporate head…

  Dartagnan grew rigid unconsciously; pain knifed him in the stomach. He pressed his hands down over the pain, sighed, remembering the bribes, the lies, the haunting of offices and corridors, the long, long megaseconds it had taken to catch Old Man Siamang’s ear at last, in a public washroom…the obsequious flattery it had taken to win an interview, and in his office, the careful camera angles, the fulsome praise. Sabu Siamang had been there, too, easy, gracious, charming, the complete gentleman. Dartagnan had used the same fawning approach on him, with mixed results. Sabu had asked his name, bemused, and asked, “What happened to the Three Musketeers?” Dartagnan had laughed too loudly.

  Dartagnan winced mentally, opened his eyes, staring at the wall…But Old Siamang had liked his work, had offered him this bizarre journey as a reward: ten megaseconds away from civilization, putting him out of touch with everything he needed to know. But if he did his job well, that wouldn’t matter; when he returned to Mecca City
he would be Siamang’s man, and his life would be secure at last.

  He thought about Mythili Fukinuki, Goody Two-Shoes, I-don’t-put-out-for-the-passengers, wondered how the hell she’d ever won the old man’s alleged heart. A woman pilot, for God’s sake—one of those women who put selfish interests and personal ambition above their own biological role as women, as childbearers, as the preservation of mankind’s future.

  Before the Civil War there had been no reason why women could not work or travel in space; but the war had changed many things, even for the Demarchy. The Demarchy still had the resources to preserve sperm, but not ova; because of the high shipboard radiation levels men were exposed to—both from solar storms and from the dirty atomic fission batteries of their own ships—they were usually sterilized, and a supply of undamaged sperm was put aside for the time when they were ready to raise a family. Sound, fertile women had no similar recourse, and so they were encouraged, even forced, to remain in the relative safety of the cities, protected by walls of stone, supported by their men. But with the comparatively high background radiation from the dirty postwar power sources, even in the “protected” cities, the percentage of defective births was on the rise. Women who could produce a healthy child were considered to be one of the Demarchy’s prime assets. But to some of them, that still wasn’t enough…She had contacts. That’s the only way anybody ever gets anything.

  He heard someone moving in the commons on the next level; he got up, taking his camera with him. Mythili Fukinuki was heating containers of food in the pantry. He drifted up behind her, looked over her shoulder.

  “Lunchtime?”

  She twisted to face him, startled; light danced along the tines of the fork in her hand.

  Chaim jerked back, awkwardly, through half a somersault. He righted himself, hands raised. “Hey, all I want is lunch!”

  Her face eased into a mocking smile; he wondered who was being mocked. “There are the bins, pick out what you want. Remember to close the lids tightly. This is an infrared heater, there’s the trash. Eat when you want to, clean up after yourself.” She turned back, fixed her containers with a clack onto the magnetized tray, and moved away to the table.