Mining the Oort (32 page)

"You smell pretty good to me," Dekker offered, and she gave him an ambiguous look, then grinned.

"Anyway, thank God the session's over. Oh, look, the cavalry's coming over the hill."

Dekker looked around to see that everybody was getting ready to leave and Consalvo's former colleague from the Oort, Berl Korman, was hustling toward them. He was scowling at Dekker. "Are you all right?" he asked Consalvo, though his eyes remained on Dekker.

"Of course I'm all right. He's just a mass of muscle, this fellow, but there's no permanent damage. Do you two know each other, by the way? Berl was our ace spotter out in the cloud, Dekker. I always liked fitting out his comets, because they were all solid and easy to handle."

Dekker shook the man's hand. "Were you the one who tagged that runty little 67-JY?" he asked, meaning to put the conversation on a civilized basis by poking some good-natured fun.

Korman didn't take it that way. His scowl returned. "Why do you want to know?"

"Easy, Berl. DeWoe's just being friendly," Consalvo said quickly.

"He is? Why'd he mention that particular comet?"

Dekker answered for himself. "No special reason. Just that it's little and they seem to be having trouble getting it vectored properly." He might have said more, but Consalvo interrupted.

"Forget it, Berl," she ordered. '"You go on ahead and I'll catch you later." And when the man had rather sulkily left she said to Dekker, "You see, that embarrassed him. Actually he really was the one who tagged 67-JY. He's a little sensitive about it."

"Oh," Dekker said, no longer very interested. What had caught his attention was that she was going to see the other man later—the other man, and not, for instance, himself.

"Actually, if you want to blame someone, I was the one who threaded it, for that matter, so we're both kind of sensitive. Still," she added, smiling, "they're better too small than too big, aren't they? You wouldn't want us to be sending down any plutons?"

The remark startled Dekker. "Christ, no!" Everyone knew what plutons were—immense comet bodies, the size of the Pluto that gave them their name. One of those could pretty near fill Mars's airspace by itself, but only at the cost of destroying Mars. Then he realized she, too, was probably joking.

He changed the subject back to the one that interested him. "You like Korman, don't you?"

"Well, of course I do. He's a good man." Then, studying him, she added, "I like you, too, Dekker. I hope you know that by now."

"You do?"

She laughed at the skeptical tone. "Come on, Dekker. I know I've been sort of, well, hard to get to know. It isn't that I don't like you. It's mostly that I do." While he was puzzling that out, she added earnestly, "Look, you don't know what it's like on a station, even Co-Mars Two. Once you're there you spend a lot of time with the same people. That means you don't want to get too close with anybody too fast, because maybe you'll regret it. Then you have some kind of break, and that usually means some kind of hard feelings go along with breaking up—and that s trouble. You don't want that kind of trouble coming up when you're stuck with a small group of people."

"The Law of the Raft," Dekker said, nodding.

"Well, I don't know what the Law of the Raft is, but that's the idea. Unless they change their minds again upstairs, we'll both be going to Co-Mars Two. That means we're going to be together for a long time, Dekker. I want to be sure of what I want before I get in too deep. Do you understand what I'm saying?"

Dekker beamed at her. "Of course I do," he said, and, casting caution to the winds, took her by the shoulders and gave her a quick, impulsive kiss, and then turned away and headed for the showers, more sunnily than he had felt in some time.

The thing people didn't realize about the Oort project stations was that, of the two hundred or more people on a station like Co-Mars Two, only about twenty worked regularly as controllers. The rest worked as cooks, cleaners, systems maintenance, and all the other support tasks that kept the controllers in business.

That was what Marty Gillespie pointed out to them in their last week. He added, "You'll be getting your extra-duty assignments soon. That's what they call them, as though you were just going to do them when you had a few minutes off from jockeying comets around. Don't take that word 'extra' too seriously. The fact is that they'll be your main work. You'll be spending more time on them than on controlling, at least until the next batch of new blood comes up and relieves some of you of the scut work."

Toro Tanabe's hand shot up. "I have not taken all this dreary technical training simply to become a houseboy," he complained.

"Haven't you? What a pity, because it'll be a while before you get to use that glamorous technical training. Oh, they'll put you on shift now and then, to keep your skills up—or, really, to learn them, because you'll always be teamed with a real pro, and he'll be watching every move you make. Then if you're good enough sooner or later you'll get to be a certified operator. Meanwhile, you'll do what you're ordered to do, Tanabe. Including repairing toilets, if that's still worrying you."

He smiled politely at the Japanese, who looked rebellious but was quiet. "Okay then," Gillespie went on to the class at large. "You're not actually going to learn how to fix sanitary facilities here, though. What you're going to learn now is how to use the tutorials in the station data base; they'll do the teaching, not me. Starting now." He paused to move his fingers over his keypad, then looked up at the class. "I've just simulated a broken toilet. Now you people go ahead and start your diagnostics, and let's see which team can get it fixed first."

The class bent to it. The first team finished wasn't Dekker's, although both he and Rima Consalvo knew the technique—people who had lived on Mars or in the Oort had practice in those matters. What slowed them down was Dekker, because testosterone was enlivening his senses every time they brushed arms or their hands touched on the keypad—and, wonderfully, Consalvo seemed as conscious of his presence as he was of hers.

That was about all the touching they did. There wasn't any more kissing, either, though once or twice Rima Consalvo gave him an affectionate clasp of the arm or touch on the cheek before she went off to whatever other social matter engaged her evenings. On the rare occasions when Dekker happened to see her talking with anyone else, the group usually included Ven Kupferfeld or Annetta, sometimes Jay-John Belster or the other Oort cloud alumnus, Berl Korman. When Dekker overcame the restrictions of manners and common sense enough to ask her just what they did together, Consalvo simply shrugged.

Dekker didn't press the question. He didn't want to find out that perhaps Consalvo was interviewing other candidates for a more meaningful relationship once they got out in the field, and that maybe one of the others was, for instance, Jay-John Belster.

On the night before graduation some of the more eager members of the class proposed a celebration. They had reason to celebrate. Amazingly, no one had failed Phase Six and the rumor had become fact: they were all going in a body to Co-Mars Two.

It sounded to Dekker as though it were going to be one of those Earthie drinking matches, probably with singing and a lot of loud talk—not really the kind of thing he liked. Still, no doubt Rima Consalvo would be there. He decided to go, but took his time about it. He stopped by way of his quarters to see if his formal orders, as well as his extra-duty assignment posting, had arrived.

They hadn't, but there was a voicemail message waiting for him, and it was from his mother.

"Hello, Dekker. I'm in a blimp somewhere near Panama, I think, although all I can see out the window is water. That means I landed safely and I'm on my way. I'll be arriving in Denver early tomorrow morning. Don't meet me at the airport; they're providing me with a car and driver. They're putting me up at the Oortcorp VIP quarters, too, which all sounds nice except that I have the feeling they're trying to fatten me up for the kill. Anyway, I'll give you a call in the morning—and I'll get to see you graduate after all!"

So Dekker got to the celebration late, though it didn't seem to matter. It turned out to be a leaden kind of a party, and a sparsely populated one, too. Only about half the class was there, quietly seated at tables in the recreation hall and sipping an occasional beer as they talked desultorily. Of the people Dekker was most interested in there were almost none—well, none at all, if you counted properly, because the only one he was really looking forward to seeing was Rima Consalvo, and she, Shiaopin Ye informed him, had left early with Ven Kupferfeld. Toro Tanabe was gone, too, and some of the others had never showed up at all.

In a way—though not the most important way—that was a relief. Dekker had not looked forward to noise and drunkenness. For manners' sake he said a few words to some of his classmates and then sat down with Ye and drank half a glass of beer. Without Rima Consalvo to brighten up the room it seemed a waste of time; and when Ye said that she thought she'd better go back to her quarters and pack, Dekker left, too.

He expected to find Toro Tanabe in their rooms, no doubt also packing up and agonizing over what treasures to leave behind to make the mass limit. It wasn't quite the way he expected. Tanabe was there, and packing, but he was randomly flinging everything he owned into bags, swearing to himself and looking furious at the world. Dekker stopped and regarded him. "Won't you have to leave some of that out?" he asked mildly.

"I will leave it
all
out," Tanabe said angrily. "I will take nothing at all, not even me, for I am not going to Co-Mars Two! Do you know what they have assigned me to for 'extra duty'? It isn't even fixing toilets! They expect Toro Tanabe, the son of Waishi Tanabe, to work as a
cook
."

"Hell," Dekker said. He knew that, in spite of everything Marty Gillespie had said, Tanabe had still expected that the one in a million chance would work out for him and he would go directly into comet control. Once a lottery player always a lottery player, Dekker thought.

He said generously, "That's a damn shame, Tanabe, considering that your grades have been good all along—better than mine."

Tanabe shook his head. "Of course they were, and of course they should have given me some more dignified work instead of the sort of thing we give to Hainan
peasants
. But it isn't just grades. These people never forget," he said dolefully. "You do recall that I had some disciplinary problems—?"

"Coming in late and drunk, you mean?" Dekker said, trying to be helpful.

Tanabe glared, then shrugged. "That sort of thing, yes. They still have all those early demerits on the record, so they pay no attention to my other grades."

"Yes," Dekker said, nodding. "The grades you got from the test answers you bought from Annetta Bancroft."

Tanabe looked surprised and embarrassed at the same time. "Bancroft? Was it she who provided the answers? I didn't know; I got them from your dear friend, Kupferfeld, and she never said where they came from. That is a surprise to me. I had thought of Bancroft as a quite honorable person."

Dekker was also surprised, but it all made sense. Tanabe went on, his voice lowering. "I am sorry you know that of me, DeWoe." Dekker shrugged uncomfortably. "Still, what difference does it make who knows it now? They can't expel me anymore. I will attend the graduation, but then I will inform them I resign, and fly home to Tokyo to tell my father I have finally come to my senses."

"It's still too bad," Dekker offered.

"Thank you. But perhaps not; I think my father may need me now. In his last mail he said there were rumors of some developments that will surely affect the market, one way or another. He says that there is supposed to be a high-level Martian delegation coming. Is that by any chance—?"

"Yes," Dekker said, nodding. "It's my mother. She's part of it, anyway."

"So," Tanabe said softly, and left it at that. "Well, I must pack. And by the way, DeWoe, aren't you curious? Your own orders were on the machine, too. I took the liberty of reading them. It is not a bad assignment, I think. It is damage control specialist.

35

It had snowed overnight, and Dekker was shivering as he climbed the hill to where his mother was staying. When he got there, he thought at first he was in the wrong place. He knew he had never been in the VIP quarters before, but the funny thing was that as he walked into the lobby of the building, leaving clumps of snow from his feet to mark his trail, it all looked familiar. It
was
familiar, and when he heard someone call his name and turned to see Annetta Bancroft coming toward him out of the breakfast room, carrying a cup of coffee and looking startled, he realized why. He was in the former resort hotel where she had her tiny room.

She gave him a hostile look. "What are you doing here, DeWoe? Are you looking for me?" she demanded.

"No. My mother's supposed to be here somewhere, if this is the VIP quarters."

"Oh, right," she said, thawing slightly. 'They're up in the tower. You have to take those other elevators, down the hall." As he nodded and started to turn away she stopped him. "Listen. Let's talk. I'm shipping out with you, you know. We may not be friends, but we might as well act friendly."

He shrugged, impatient to get on but accepting the logic of the statement. "All right."

"Good, then. Did you get your extra-duty assignment yet?"

It seemed that the acting-friendly directive was to take immediate effect, so Dekker followed her example. "I drew damage control," he said, just like any two colleagues comparing notes. "I guess it could've been worse."

"Yes, it could," she said, approving. 'That's about as good as you can get—outside of actual controller, I mean. You'll be working all over the station, so you'll get a chance to meet everybody and learn everything."

"It isn't what I trained for, though."

"Hell, DeWoe, whoever gets what he trained for right away? Your time will come, probably. Listen, do you know who Pelly Marine is? No, you wouldn't, yet, but Pelly's the station chief of Co-Mars Two, and he started out in damage control, too. I served with him two years. He's a good man." She gave Dekker an appraising look. "He's a lot like you, in fact," she added, leaving him to ponder that as he rode the elevator to the VIP floors.