Short Fiction, Poul Anderson [simple e reader .TXT] 📗

When he arrived, the Altair officers were already there, a score of correct young men in white dress uniforms. Short, squat, and placid looking, Jimmy Chung stood making polite conversation. “Ah, there,” he said, “Lieutenant Ziska and gentlemen, my partner, Michael Blades, Mike, may I present⁠—”

Blades’ attention stopped at Lieutenant Ziska. He heard vaguely that she was the head quartermaster officer. But mainly she was tall and blond and blue-eyed, with a bewitching dimple when she smiled, and filled her gown the way a Cellini Venus doubtless filled its casting mold.

“Very pleased to meet you, Mr. Blades,” she said as if she meant it. Maybe she did! He gulped for air.

“And Commander Leibknecht,” Chung said across several light-years. “Commander Leibknecht. Commander Leibknecht.”

“Oh. Sure. ’Scuse.” Blades dropped Lieutenant Ziska’s hand in reluctant haste. “Hardjado, C’mander Leibfraumilch.”

Somehow the introductions were gotten through. “I’m sorry we have to be so inhospitable,” Chung said, “but you’ll see how crowded we are. About all we can do is show you around, if you’re interested.”

“Of course you’re interested,” said Blades to Lieutenant Ziska. “I’ll show you some gimmicks I thought up myself.”

Chung scowled at him. “We’d best divide the party and proceed along alternate routes,” he said, “We’ll meet again in the mess for coffee, Lieutenant Ziska, would you like to⁠—”

“Come with me? Certainly,” Blades said.

Chung’s glance became downright murderous. “I thought⁠—” he began.

“Sure.” Blades nodded vigorously. “You being the senior partner, you’ll take the highest ranking of these gentlemen, and I’ll be in Scotland before you. C’mon, let’s get started. May I?” He offered the quartermistress his arm. She smiled and took it. He supposed that eight or ten of her fellows trailed them.

The first disturbing note was sounded on the verandah.

They had glanced at the cavelike dormitories where most of the personnel lived; at the recreation dome topside which made the life tolerable; at kitchen, sick bay, and the other service facilities; at the hydroponic tanks and yeast vats which supplied much of the Station’s food; at the tiny cabins scooped out for the top engineers and the married couples. Before leaving this end of the asteroid, Blades took his group to the verandah. It was a clear dome jutting from the surface, softly lighted, furnished as a primitive officers’ lounge, open to a view of half the sky.

“Oh-h,” murmured Ellen Ziska. Unconsciously she moved closer to Blades.

Young Lieutenant Commander Gilbertson gave her a somewhat jaundiced look. “You’ve seen deep space often enough before,” he said.

“Through a port or a helmet.” Her eyes glimmered enormous in the dusk. “Never like this.”

The stars crowded close in their wintry myriads. The galactic belt glistened, diamond against infinite darkness. Vision toppled endlessly outward, toward the far mysterious shimmer of the Andromeda Nebula; silence was not a mere absence of noise, but a majestic presence, the seething of suns.

“What about the observation terrace at Leyburg?” Gilbertson challenged.

“That was different,” Ellen Ziska said. “Everything was safe and civilized. This is like being on the edge of creation.”

Blades could see why Goddard House had so long resisted the inclusion of female officers on ships of the line, despite political pressure at home and the Russian example abroad. He was glad they’d finally given in. Now if only he could build himself up as a dashing, romantic type⁠ ⁠… But how long would the Altair stay? Her stopover seemed quite extended already, for a casual visit in the course of a routine patrol cruise. He’d have to work fast.

“Yes, we are pretty isolated,” he said. “The Jupiter ships just unload their balloons, pick up the empties, and head right back for another cargo.”

“I don’t understand how you can found an industry here, when your raw materials only arrive at conjunction,” Ellen said.

“Things will be different once we’re in full operation,” Blades assured her. “Then we’ll be doing enough business to pay for a steady input, transshipped from whatever depot is nearest Jupiter at any given time.”

“You’ve actually built this simply to process⁠ ⁠… gas?” Gilbertson interposed. Blades didn’t know whether he was being sarcastic or asking a genuine question. It was astonishing how ignorant Earthsiders, even space-traveling Earthsiders, often were about such matters.

“Jovian gas is rich stuff,” he explained. “Chiefly hydrogen and helium, of course; but the scoopships separate out most of that during a pickup. The rest is ammonia, water, methane, a dozen important organics, including some of the damn⁠ ⁠… doggonedest metallic complexes you ever heard of. We need them as the basis of a chemosynthetic industry, which we need for survival, which we need if we’re to get the minerals that were the reason for colonizing the Belt in the first place.” He waved his hand at the sky. “When we really get going, we’ll attract settlement. This asteroid has companions, waiting for people to come and mine them. Homeships and orbital stations will be built. In ten years there’ll be quite a little city clustered around the Sword.”

“It’s happened before,” nodded tight-faced Commander Warburton of Gunnery Control.

“It’s going to happen a lot oftener,” Blades said enthusiastically. “The Belt’s going to grow!” He aimed his words at Ellen. “This is the real frontier. The planets will never amount to much. It’s actually harder to maintain human-type conditions on so big a mass, with a useless atmosphere around you, than on a lump in space like this. And the gravity wells are so deep. Even given nuclear power, the energy cost of really exploiting a planet is prohibitive. Besides which, the choice minerals are buried under kilometers of rock. On a metallic asteroid, you can find almost everything you want directly under your feet. No limit to what you can do.”

“But your own energy expenditure⁠—” Gilbertson objected.

“That’s no problem.” As if on cue, the worldlet’s spin brought the sun into sight. Tiny but intolerably brilliant, it flooded the dome with harsh radiance. Blades lowered the blinds on that side. He pointed in the opposite direction, toward several sparks of equal brightness that had manifested themselves.

“Hundred-meter