The Universe — or Nothing, Meyer Moldeven [best color ebook reader txt] 📗

similarly immobilized. Evenly spaced along the wall were curtained sleep-privacy enclosures. Behind partitions on opposite sides of the compartment were entries to two standard wash-lavs. The furnishings were functional and clean.

One after the other, the prisoners drifted off to inspect the enclosures. All were back in less than a minute; they silently kept distance from each other.

The inmate who had so carefully examined the corridor while Malcolm talked, leaned against one of the tables and crossed his arms. He repeated his scan of the compartment, but this time one sector at a time, turning to take it all in yet pass over each cell-mate that entered his field of vision. His movements gave the group a focus; it was easier than to just stare at the walls and the austere furnishings.

"I don't get this," the table-leaner locked arms across his chest as he spoke with a puzzled expression on his face. His voice was low, flat yet courteous. "We may as well get the formalities out of the way. Who are we? Names will do for starters. I'm Brad."

Faces relaxed a mite. One of the women sat on a bench. The ice may have cracked, but the silence held. Brad had their attention.

Seconds passed.

"Hodak."

The word welled up as a growl, low and rumbling from a squat, muscular man. His deeply embedded eyes circled the room from under a boulder-brow that bridged the space beneath his bald pate to blend with the stub nose, wide mouth and crinkled skin of a seemingly amiable face.

"I'm Zolan," said the third male. He was of medium height, slight of build, waxy features and a high brow with the pallid complexion of a spacer. As alert and tense as a coiled spring, Zolan leaned against a bulkhead, eyes moving rapidly from Brad to Hodak to the walls to fix on an opposite bulkhead.

"That takes care of the men." A woman's voice, melodious, dulcet. "I'm Adari."

Sturdy, tightly curled hair and chocolate-toned skin. Her soft, rounded features were dimpled, cheerful, animated. Standing near a sleep enclosure, her grin was infectious. She brought long-absent grins, twinkles and nods from the others.

Repeating her name slowly, she smiled invitingly at the petite woman seated on a nearby bench.

"My, aren't we cautious," the little one said as she looked up and returned Adari's grin. "I am Kumiko," she shifted her eyes to take in the others, "and I regret to say that I am not particularly pleased to be among you." She paused, looked down. "Nothing personal, mind you, it's just that I did have other hopes."

Eyes shifted to the last of the group. Tall and slender, olive-skinned, she paced the narrow space between the wall and the cell's central section. Her turn, no longer to be put off.

"Myra," she said flatly.

The silence closed back in.

Chapter FOUR

The meeting hall was roughly triangular, the rows of form-fit seats molded into the deck which sloped downward toward a slightly raised platform jammed into a corner. Alongside the platform a meter-wide view tank rose from the deck to merge with the overhead. A single cable snaked from the view tank's base and disappeared into the nearby bulkhead.

The six inmates entered, milled about, silent, their features without expressions. In their own time, they each took seats, several empties apart. The first three rows remained vacant.

Hodak broke the silence. "The Blue Plate Special the Looie gave didn't sound right," he growled. "I want to know more about what he was gettin' at with that crack about our schedule 'being different'."

Adari turned, eyebrows raised, to stare at him thoughtfully. She nodded slowly and turned back to join the others to focus on a figure perched on a high stool beside the view tank.

He looked tall, despite his being seated. A slate-gray uniform covered him from neck to ankles; his feet shod in high-top deck slippers that matched the shade of his garment. He wore no insignia. Long, crowded features and tawny space-worn skin formed a face of planes and angles. His hairless head and long hands looked like they might have been hacked from a block of Mercurian tuscanite and left to weather for a few million years in the sun's glare.

The hall quieted. Satisfied that he had their attention, the man stood. The mere suggestion of height, seated, did not do him justice. He unfolded like an articulated, mechanical crane. Fully extended, his towering frame rose more than two meters from heels to naked, gleaming scalp.

His first words took Hodak's challenge.

"You will know, Hodak." His voice was soft, and carried the gravity of authority.

His eyes moved from one to the other.

"What I say here applies to all of you," he said. "I will not answer all of your questions, but you will be told all you need to know at this time."

He stepped down toward them from the dais, halting inside the curve of the first row of seats.

"I am Ram Xindral," he said, "your orientation lecturer, your trainer and, should you need one, your counselor. I am also your Control. Take specific note of the term 'control'. It has only one meaning: you are in a prison, but from here on take no orders from prison staff. You take your orders only from me; I am not 'prison' staff."

"What the hell!"

Hodak again, bouncing up, down, up again. Adari, her mouth open in surprise and alarm, also stood, paused, and moved to stand beside Hodak. Zolan remained seated, his hooded eyes on Xindral. Kumiko shifted position slightly and stared vacantly at the deck. Myra remained motionless, her face also closed. Brad, brows drawn into a frown, crossed his arms, waiting.

"Hah! This sure as hell isn't the standard orientation lecture for new inmates." Adari's jeering laugh burst from her in a sardonic cascade.

"No, Adari, it isn't," Ram said with a smile, "but hear me out."

The hall was suddenly charged with tension and wariness. Hodak remained on his feet, bent forward, hands gripping the back of the seat in front of him, challenge in his eyes.

Xindral clasped his hands behind his back. The gesture tightened his frame and seemed to increase his height. He faced away from them, strode back to stand beside the view tank and turned. Hodak grunted, sat, muttered under his breath; Adari took the seat alongside, leaned in toward Hodak, listened to him mumble, and grinned, nudged and nodded.

"Details later," Xindral continued. "Let's get this first part over with. I'll talk. Cut in with questions if you must, and bitch if it helps; we'll get to know each other better. If you take off on a tangent, so be it. I'll go along, within limits. I didn't expect this to be a monologue, by far. It'll take a while, but you'll get the information I intend you to have."

An uneasy shifting about ensued. The prisoners weren't buying. Brad sensed the apprehension in the others that he felt in himself. Xindral's opening remarks along with his aura projected formidable power despite his slender frame.

"Before we continue," Xindral said, "know that you are not quartered in the penal section of the station. The usual new arrivals don't get this sort of attention. Furthermore, the lectures given to them are confined to station routines. Their processing includes a few tests that are evaluated for basic intelligence and skills. It helps the staff assign them to shops, rehab training, and eventually for return to the outside world. You're not that lucky."

Xindral's last words jolted Hodak back on to his feet.

"Look, whoever the hell you are," he rumbled, jabbing a stubby finger at Xindral, "let's cut out the crap about our luck. First the Looie, now you, puttin' on this mystery act with fancy hints that don't make sense. You said we're allowed to ask questions. OK, here's one: am I an inmate in this prison or not?"

"You are, and you aren't," Xindral shrugged. "That's my answer at this time. As we talk, the picture will clear."

Xindral's face flexed into a grin.

The animosity in the hall was palpable, exacerbated by Xindral's evasive response to a fair question. As Hodak grumbled his way back down into his seat the elongated figure drew a flat, palm-sized control from a sheath fastened to his belt and pressed an embedded key.

The view tank's haze cleared to the standard solar schematic. The scene faded, replaced by a ring of tiny multicolored lights: the Asteroid Belt.

"This display is tailored to the general run of inmates processed through orientation, just to give them an idea where they are. Their familiarity with deep space is often limited, so station lectures start with fundamentals. We'll pass on this."

Brad tensed at Xindral's choice of words, and sensed the others had been similarly alerted. He glanced sideways. His companions, as he, stared at one another as if seeing them for the first time. Were they of a kind?

Xindral continued as if he hadn't noticed.

"A footnote," he said. "The Belt's been cleared of almost all rocks and swarms, plus the big ones that we couldn't use for outposts. As you may recall from your school days, it wasn't easy hauling micro-spunnel terminals around the Belt and ramming rocks into the hoppers for transfer to meltdown and refining above Venus.

"In short, the big space sweeps of five to eight hundred years ago cleared away most of the residue in Belt orbits that had no beneficial purpose and were a hazard to traffic. The Belt was a good source for minerals — while it lasted."

He paused to key the instrument in his hand.

"That's done," he said. "What's left are only a few of the big asteroids, like Ceres. They serve both regions as Solar Spacetrack Centers, communications relays, search and rescue operations, space lanes debris collection teams, urgent care hospitals, and for spunnel gateways management."

As he spoke the ring of lights in the tank flickered. Another ring formed, evenly spaced rods, each glowing a contrasting color.

"The Guardian Stations," Xindral said, "have been in position for more than six centuries. Twenty stations; no more are planned."

The tank zoomed in on five of the twenty rods in a quarter segment of the full orbit; the rods expanded to form slowly rotating cylinders.

"The Guardians are apportioned among four generally equal sectors, any one of which serves the quadrant that it happens to transit at the time. Responsibilities and missions overlap, and are passed along from the station moving out of a quadrant to the one entering it along the common orbital path. Using standard and hyperspace omnidirectional surveillance, each station's primary job is to monitor its sector: inward toward the Sun, and outward to the rim and beyond as far as our technical capabilities extend. The service areas change constantly in keeping with the alignments and dynamics of planets and their satellites, traffic-lane management, neutralizing debris intrusions, and conventional and spunnel teleport maintenance."

Xindral folded himself back on to the high stool as he spoke.

"After the political separation of the Inner and Outer Regions these Guardian Stations reverted to us by the treaty. Formally, they serve only the Inner Region's jurisdictions. Informally, however, the stations cover the entire system; to do otherwise would bring about enormous disruptions and disasters in space traffic and communications.

"The Guardians' functions include standard and spunnel communications, disaster relief, search and rescue of distressed spacecraft, intercepting and diverting comets-of-hazard, meteors, debris and other threats to traffic in the space-ways that serve the Inner Region's space colonies needs. Often the Outer Region's folks help when their interests are involved; just as often they don't. It's one of the prices we pay for this political breach, and one of the most frustrating."

Zolan turned to aim a remark at Adari. She giggled and elbowed Hodak. He growled and twisted away. Kumiko's eyes lifted from the deck to lazily roam the blank overhead.

Myra's face openly played non-listener. Brad continued to observe Xindral closely, glancing occasionally at the tank.

Aware that he was losing his audience, Xindral paused and stood quietly for a moment.

"Do my words bore you?" He leaned forward to take them all in. His voice, still soft, nevertheless exposed a cutting edge.

Zolan looked at Xindral as he contemptuously gave the tank the back of his hand.

"Who're you trying to kid?" His challenge was cast low, tight. "I don't know about the rest of these folks. I haven't asked any of them about themselves, nor have they tried to check me out. But you wouldn't have brought us together without first investigating us for whatever your purpose might be. For example; you must know I'm a space communicator. So, frankly, your rambling on like this not only bores me, its phoniness is clear and insulting."

Hodak slapped his knee and laughed. He pointed at
Zolan, then wagged his finger at Ram.

"Comm isn't my beat," he said. Thumbing over his shoulder at Zolan, he added, "but what he said goes for me."

Xindral brushed the keys on the control and returned it to its case. The view tank faded as he fixed his eyes on