Outcasts of Heaven Belt Read online

  “Dartagnan—”

  He heard Siamang rap on his door, quietly, and then more loudly. He went to it, opened it, his face set. Siamang stared; Chaim wondered whether he was staring at the neatness of his clothes, or the haggardness of his face. “What do you want?”

  Almost diffidently, Siamang held out a drink bulb; Dartagnan grimaced. “It’s just milk; you can believe it. Look, I’m sorry about what happened to you, Red. I shouldn’t have given you that big a dose, I didn’t think about your not being used to it—”

  The hell you didn’t, Dartagnan thought.

  “—I want you to know I’m sorry. How do you feel?”

  “Like I’ll be glad when I can forget it. How much time’s left before we reach Mecca?”

  “That’s why I knocked—only five kiloseconds. Are you going to be able to bring us in all right?”

  Dartagnan almost smiled, realizing the reason for Siamang’s sudden solicitude. “I think so. I hope so.” He moved out into the hall, hesitated, trying to make it sound casual: “I hope I didn’t—say anything I shouldn’t have, boss. I…don’t remember much about it.”

  “You told me you hated my stinking guts, Red.”

  He froze. “I’m sorry, boss, I didn’t mean it, I didn’t know what I was—”

  Siamang grinned forgiveness. “It’s all right, Red. I don’t blame you at all. In fact it’s just what I wanted to hear…I wanted to hear you say what you really thought, just once. Because you also said that I’d given you what you wanted, and that was all that mattered. I know I can trust you now, Red; because I’m sure we understand each other. Isn’t that right?” Mockery traced the words. His hand struck Chaim’s shoulder lightly.

  Dartagnan smiled. “Sure boss. Anything you say.”

  Dartagnan watched the elongated crescent of the asteroid Mecca grow large on the viewscreen, and gradually eclipse as he maneuvered them into its shadow. Siamang hung behind him, watching; oblivious, Chaim watched only the intricate, expanding pattern of strangely familiar ground lights below them. He began to pick out ships—the tankers like gigantic ticks, bloated or empty; the small, red-blossoming tows. He listened to the disjointed, disembodied radio communications, almost thought he could see the ships making way for him. He spoke calmly to the ground controller, explaining who he was, and boosted the response for Siamang to hear: the encouragements, the welcomings—interspersed with the terse, anxious coordinates to guide an inexperienced pilot down to the bright, scarred surface of the docking field. Their ship closed with the real world; Dartagnan felt the slight, jarring impact of a perfect landing rise through its structure. In his mind he compared the slow ceremony of docking to the terrifying urgency of their descent to the surface of Planet Two…remembered sharing the pride of a job well done. For half a second, he smiled.

  The field was curiously empty, their helmet speakers strangely silent, as they disembarked at last and made their way along a mooring cable toward the exit from the field. One guard met them, greeting Siamang with deference, cleared them to pass downward through the airlock into the asteroid’s heart.

  “Where the hell is everybody, Red? My father should be here, where’s our media coverage?” Siamang’s voice frowned. “I thought you radioed ahead about our arrival.”

  “I did, boss; you heard me. They must be waiting for us inside.” They’ve got to be…

  They were: Dartagnan followed Siamang along the corridor that dropped them inward from the surface, his broken camera floating at his shoulder, and saw his fellow mediamen clustered in wait on the platform at the city’s edge. A surprisingly sparse crowd of curious onlookers, surprisingly quiet, bumped and drifted among them. Awed…? he thought. He wondered if Siamang’s rivals among the distilleries had kept their workers away. The irony pleased him; but not, he noticed, Siamang.

  He watched the crowd flow forward to meet them, let it surround him, letting the mediamen get it out of their systems. “Demarch Siamang…Demarch Siamang…Hey, Red—?” He glimpsed the city, past and through them…a kilometer in diameter, towers trembling faintly, glittering in the shifting currents of air. Colored plastic stretched over fragile frames filled every square meter of ceiling, wall, floor, here where gravity was barely more than an abstraction: A manmade tribute to the magnificent generosity of nature, and the splendor of the Heaven Belt. The splendor made sterile because nature had turned its back on man; man the betrayer, who had betrayed himself. Chaim saw Sekka-Olefin’s future, in a sudden, strobing nightmare of horror overlying every crystal-facet wall, every stranger’s face that closed in on his own…My God…my God…And I’m the only one who knows! He steadied himself, inhaling the spices of the scented air, summoning strength and resolution.

  And then he raised his hands, raised his voice into the familiar singsong of a media hype. “Ladies and gentlemen…my fellow Demarchs…” Silence began to gather. “I’m sure you all know and recognize Demarch Siamang. But there’s a side of him that none of you really knows—” he stretched his silence until the silence around him was absolute; every eye, every pitiless camera lens was trained on him where he stood, with Siamang complacently at his side. He took a deep breath. “This man—is a murderer. He went four hundred million kilometers to Planet Two, to save Kwaime Sekka-Olefin, and wound up killing him instead, over that box of—stolen—computer software you see there in his hand.” He turned, bracing, saw Siamang’s face, the perfect image of incredulous amazement.

  Siamang’s eyes were blank with a fury that only he could read. “This man is a psychotic. I don’t have any idea what he’s talking about. I obtained this salvage from Sekka-Olefin in a legitimate business transaction: and he was perfectly alive when we left him—”

  A stranger pushed forward, touched Dartagnan’s arm; golden-brown eyes demanded his attention, assured, analytical. “Are you Chaim Dartagnan?”

  Chaim nodded, distracted; Siamang broke off speaking abruptly, “Who the hell are you?”

  “My name’s Abdhiamal; I’m a government negotiator…Demarch Dartagnan, what evidence do you have to support your charge?”

  “Now, listen, Abdhiamal—” Siamang interrupted, indignant. “No one needs any government interference here, this is simply a—”

  “Demarch Dartagnan has the floor,” Abdhiamal said evenly, his eyes never leaving Chaim’s face. “You’ll be permitted to speak in turn. Dartagnan?”

  Dartagnan almost laughed; triumph filled him, overwhelming gratitude made him giddy. He kept his own eyes on the media cameras—his damnation, his salvation, his weapon…“He got hold of my camera. I don’t have the recording of the murder. But he bribed me, to cover the whole thing up…This’s the corporation credit voucher, made out to me—” He spread it between his hands, held it out to the thousands of hungry eyes behind every camera lens.

  “That’s a forgery.”

  “And this—” Dartagnan pulled open the collar of his jacket, “is a recording of the transaction.” He twisted the jury-rigged playback knob on the note recorder he had ripped out of his spacesuit; he heard his own voice, “…I want it in writing, before I do my part to keep you clear of that murder.” And Siamang’s, “All right, Red.”

  “That was an accident!” Siamang’s voice slipped out of control. “I didn’t mean to kill Olefin, it was an accident—But ask him about Mythili Fukinuki, ask him about our pilot: That was no accident. He murdered her in cold blood; there was nothing I could do to stop him. He’s a madman, a homicidal maniac—”

  “Mythili Fukinuki’s not dead.” Dartagnan turned to watch for the second it took to register on Siamang’s face. He smiled; he turned back again to Abdhiamal, was surprised at the surprise he found in the amber-colored eyes. “At least…I don’t think she is. When I was alone with Sekka-Olefin he claimed a human could survive in Planet Two’s atmosphere; he said he’d breathed it himself. Siamang wanted to space her, because she overheard Olefin’s murder…I told him to put her out on the surface instead. He was on drugs, I couldn’t stop it or he wo
uld’ve killed us all. It was the only thing I could think of…” Ashamed, he looked down, away from the memory of her face: “Damn you, damn you…” “If I was wrong, if she died, then I’m just as guilty as he is; the Demarchy can do anything they choose to me, I deserve it. All that matters to me now is that somebody made it back, to tell the truth. And to see that Siamang and Sons pays to get her home—because I don’t believe that she is…dead…” A sudden reaction took away his voice. “Has there…have you heard of any radio messages being received? Is there any word?”

  “Better than that, as far as you’re concerned.” Abdhiamal smiled, without amusement. “Mythili Fukinuki returned to the Demarchy before you did, in that prospector’s ship. She reported everything that happened…except the fact that you weren’t actually trying to kill her, Dartagnan.”

  Dartagnan laughed incredulously. “My God, she would…she would!”

  Abdhiamal smiled again, at something he saw in Dartagnan’s face. “As far as the Demarchy’s concerned, your testimony leaves it up to her whether she wants to press her charges of attempted murder against you. But with a confession, and both your evidence and hers, I’d say the case against Demarch Siamang is a little more clear-cut…You see, Demarch Siamang,” he looked back, “this isn’t a news conference; consider it more of a preliminary hearing. The Demarchy had already been informed of Demarch Fukinuki’s testimony and evidence before you arrived; your father is being considered an accomplice, pending further questioning. All we needed was your version; and we have that, now.”

  Never underestimate the power of a woman…Dartagnan grinned, weak in the knees. He noticed that Siamang was ringed in now by “spectators”: vigilantes, volunteer police requested for the occasion. Siamang’s eyes raked them with disdain. “This is an outrage. This is entrapment—” He looked back at the cameras. “People of the Demarchy, are you going to stand by while a fellow Demarch is persecuted by the government?”

  “The people asked me to come here, Siamang. Save your rhetoric for your trial; in the meantime, consider yourself confined to your home…And I’ll take charge of the software—” Abdhiamal held out his hand. Chaim recognized a kind of gratification on the government man’s face; realized that Abdhiamal was hardly older than himself, behind the mask of his self-assurance. In the Demarchy, a government agent earned less respect than a mediaman; and had considerably less influence.

  Siamang passed the container to him, entirely in control once more. He faced Dartagnan again, at last; Dartagnan tried to read the expression behind his eyes, couldn’t. Siamang reached out abruptly, caught Dartagnan’s arm, jerked the voucher out of his hand. Chaim watched him tear it up, watched the pieces drift as they sought the lines of gravitational force. “You’ll never have a ship now, Red.” A final mockery showed in Siamang’s eyes, edged his voice. “But I hope you never stop wanting one, so you’ll never stop hating yourself for this.”

  Dartagnan smiled, filled with a terrible pride; smiled with a sincerity he didn’t know he still had in him. He shook his head, met the aggressor’s eyes at last. “Believe me, boss, I never wanted a ship, or anything, half so much as I wanted to see this happen…to see truth win out in this lousy business, just once, because of me.” He turned the smile on the cameras, and on the men behind them.

  Siamang’s escort led him away, to the rim of the ledge where an airbus waited. The handful of mediamen swarmed after them, onto the bus, into air taxis; Dartagnan stared at the bobbing mass of striped canopies, whirring propellers. The remaining crowd of strangers around him began to disperse, drifting over the ledge into the city, leaving him alone with Abdhiamal. “What about me?”

  Abdhiamal shrugged. “You’re not going anywhere, are you? Your further testimony will be needed when they call a trial; somehow I expect you’ll want to be there. I’d hate to see Siamang promo his way out of a guilty verdict now.”

  Dartagnan frowned. “He won’t, will he—?”

  “I doubt it. Public opinion’s had too much time to build against him. His father couldn’t do much to help him, because he didn’t know enough about the situation…You know, your fellow mediamen seem to be a lot more interested in the murderer than in your having exposed him.” Abdhiamal looked at him.

  Dartagnan grinned weakly. “It figures…I just paid ’em the biggest insult I could think of. Besides, a mediaman follows the smell of power…it smells like money, in case you’re interested.” He leaned down, picked up a corner of the ruined credit voucher. The full impact of what he had given up caught him like a blow. “Easy come, easy go.” He laughed, painfully, embarrassing himself. “That reminds me—what about the software, the salvage; what happens to Sekka-Olefin’s money, now?”

  “The artifacts will be sold at a public auction; Siamang and Sons being disqualified from bidding, of course. Sekka-Olefin’s relatives have put in claims against it; the money will be distributed among them, since he didn’t leave any will stating what he wanted done with it.”

  “But he did! He told me what he wanted done with it. He didn’t want it to go to his relatives; he wants it used to establish a colony on Planet Two, against the time when the Demarch’s not habitable anymore—” Chaim broke off, realizing how it sounded.

  Abdhiamal looked at him, tactfully noncommittal. “Do you have any proof of that?”

  “Yeah. Every word of it, on film…at the bottom of a well. A gravity well—” He swore. “His goddamned relatives’ll never listen. He was right! And it all went for nothing, because of Siamang.” He saw the crystal city through a haze of death, knew he would have to see it that way for the rest of his life: the towers decaying, the fragile thread of life coming apart. “That stinking bastard…I hope they vote to space him. Because that’s what he’s done to their future, and they’ll never even know…” His voice shook, with bitterness and exasperation.

  “At least you’ve done something to try to make it up to him.” The voice wasn’t Abdhiamal’s.

  He turned back, incredulous. “Mythili?” She stood beside him, materializing out of the diminished crowd; Abdhiamal had moved away, discreetly. “Mythili.” He started toward her. She pushed away, out of his reach. He stopped, pulled in his hands. “Sorry…I’m just…I’m glad. Just glad to see you.” He noticed the patches of pink, healing skin on her cheeks and nose. “Are you all right?”

  She nodded. “Some frostbite. Some burns, from the cold. I was a mess for a while. But I’m fine.”

  He nodded too, unthinking. “I’m glad. The old man was right, then—Sekka-Olefin. He told me that it was possible to live—”

  “I know.” She looked down abruptly, rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand. “I heard you.”

  “Do you believe it?”

  She still looked down. “Yes…yes, I believe you, now, Chaim. But why did you do it? We could have stopped him; you could have—”

  “—gotten us both killed?” Shame kindled anger. “Why didn’t you just keep your mouth shut, like I did? Everything would’ve been okay.”

  Her eyes flashed up. “Because I’m not like you!…I know, it was stupid. I know that now…But I couldn’t have hidden it anyway; he would have known. I’m not good at hiding what I feel—” She bit her lip. “I’m not like you, Dartagnan.”

  He let his breath out slowly, said stupidly, again, “I’m just glad you’re all right…I saw you, on the viewscreen, saw you take off your helmet. And then I thought I’d been wrong, that you—”

  “I thought so, too.” She laughed, tremulously, at the ghost of memory. “The air was so thin, so cold, I thought I couldn’t breathe. I panicked, and I blacked out. The noise and heat when you lifted off saved me, it woke me, or I would have frozen to death instead. I almost didn’t get up again…I thought I’d already died.”

  “You repaired Olefin’s ship?”

  “Yes…It’s a good ship, and the Mother is a fantastic ship; he must have spent a fortune—”

  “He did. Literally. On a dream.”

  “I broug
ht his body back; a pleasant companion, for a trip of three-plus megaseconds.” She shuddered. “Three and a quarter megaseconds, with a dead man, and frost-burned lungs, and memory…God, how I hated you, Chaim! How I hated you…and yet—” She wouldn’t look at him.

  “I know,” he said. “I know. Three and a half megaseconds with Siamang, and memory; wanting to kill him, and afraid he’d kill me. But you were there. I could feel you, helping me get through. Helping me survive to make it right. I always planned to tell the truth, Mythili, I never meant to do anything else.”

  “So the end justifies the means, then?” Her voice teetered on the edge of control.

  He didn’t answer, couldn’t.

  “I won’t press charges against you.” She turned away.

  “Mythili. Don’t go yet—” She looked back at him, he groped for words. “What…what will you be doing now? Are you still working for Siamang and Sons?”

  “No. Siamang, senior, fired me, after I made my accusations.” She almost smiled, not meaning it, “I’m hoping one of his competitors will offer me a job…” hopelessly. “So you won’t have a ship of your own, now, either—?”

  “No.” He looked down, at the torn corner of the voucher still wadded in his hand. “Not now…but someday, I will. And when I get it, I want you to be my partner. I want you to—to—” To stay with me. His mind, his eyes, finished it, uselessly.