Titan University Archives

Excerpts from the personal recordings of Chief Terraform Engineer Susan Witts

Access Restricted to Clearance AA2 or Higher

… The first seeds arrived today, Raymond. I couldn’t resist the urge to touch them. Dry little flecks of nothing that will change a world. The Stage One engineers can  keep their comet-shifting launchers. The Stage Two’s are welcome to their landform machines and atmosphere purifiers. I’ll accomplish as much or more with these. One day, you’ll see.

   What a relief to be off the transit station! I don’t care how big they are, or how modern, they still make me feel like I’m breathing yesterday’s air. They’re building more all the time. Eventually, there’ll be enough stations to handle the passenger and freight traffic to all the systems with terraformed worlds. Glorified bus stops, crammed with customs officials and other bureaucrats. I suppose the stations have their use. But you won’t catch me staying in one any longer than I must.

   While I’m away, you’re going to hear things on the news about me and this project. Don’t worry. They’ll be good things. We have a lot of support back home. Sol System is more than ready for this – Earth herself is bursting at the seams with people eager to start new lives some place that isn’t a mining dome or station. We’re making those places. I’m making those places, Raymond.

   I hope you’ll be proud of me. I hope you know how hard it was to take you back to Earth and leave you with Grandpa and Grandma. We’ll be together again. We both have to be patient.

   I know that’s hard, too. Back home, some people don’t understand why they have to wait for Stage Three, my stage. They want these beautiful worlds now, seeing only that sixteen planets have gained blue skies and flowing water. But they have to wait, just like you and I. Right now, the land is barren. The cycling of nutrients through water, soil, and air hasn’t even begun. They’ll wait and be glad, Raymond, because I’m going to bring life to these worlds, life that will welcome and nourish the people who come here.

   What a dream we’re living! Humanity -- prosperous, at peace, and ready for adventure – about to expand as never before. Within the next fifty years, the first worlds will receive their immigrants – maybe your children, Raymond – while terraformers like me will have already moved on to the next set of planets ready for Stage Three, then to the next. We’ll be like waves sweeping outward until human beings are living on every suitable world we’ve discovered. Until we own this entire sector of space.

   Not that everyone is happy about the terraforming project. You’ll hear complaints, I’m sure. Not too loud or too many -- it isn’t fashionable to question humanity’s Great Dream. But you’ll read in your history books how this is a relatively new dream for us, and some people still hold to an older one. Is anybody out there? We all had it, you know, in one form or another. Since well before I was born, Earth and the system Universities were sending deep-space expeditions in all directions, searching for others like ourselves. True, they found life almost everywhere, but nothing with intelligence.

   We’re alone, Raymond.

   By the time I was old enough to join such an expedition, our mission had changed. If we wanted company, we were going to have to provide our own. We were to locate worlds with the right kind of sun, the right elements, and no indigenous life. Stage One engineers were pelting planets with ice even before we’d finished cataloging all the possibilities. It was…

   Drat. McNab’s on the comm. Sorry, Raymond. I’ll add to this later.

   Be well, my son.

   And think of me out here, making you a brand new world.

Prologue

“What about the next world, Jer?” Gabby asked with a careful lack of interest. Her hands were sore, having been clenched together too long under her sweater.

   Her companion — business partner, captain of the Merry Mate II, and husband — keyed her request into the boards, his stubby fingers sure and quick. From where she sat, Gabby could see the red band staining the readout. “Posted,” the man said, the word merely echoing what they both expected. “They're everywhere, Gabby. We'll have to move on.”

   Gabby opened her throbbing fingers, pressing them over the roundness they guarded. The ship was no place to give birth, not if they wanted a future for their child. She'd known the risks in this search but they'd all seemed so distant in the beginning, the possibilities so endless. Time had a way of narrowing options. She gazed at her husband, seeing past the shadows of beard and fatigue to his gentle, round-cheeked face, and sighed softly, letting some of her tension out with her breath. “We could try a station — just for a little while.”

   Jer Pardell winced, then covered the motion with a cough. As though she wouldn’t notice. But of course she had. They’d been together too long, were so closely linked as a working team that one was forever finishing the sentences the other had begun. “There’s no such thing as a ‘little while,’ stationside,” he said almost harshly, but it was his fear for her. “Stations here would strip off our cargo and then make us pay for air rights — might even impound the ship. You know that, Gabby. They’re as hard up as the rest of us, since the Quill.” He scowled at the red-stained screen, clearing it with a stab. “Stations don’t need more people. You heard Raner, last stopover. Earth’s clamped down -- put holds on all travel vouchers and transports. Who knows how long that will last? And if you try to stay onstation? Head tax, sterilization for permanent residents, dowries to keep immigrant status...” he took a deep breath.  “We can’t live like that. Our child won’t live like that. Our baby will be born a citizen, under a sky."

   Despite her concern, Gabby's spirits rose a little. A sky. The ship, now home and livelihood, was supposed to have been temporary, merely their passage to a glorious new world. They were the lucky ones, to still have this much freedom when most had none. Jer’s doing. He’d seen the way things were moving and kept independent, protecting them from the increasingly desperate hordes clinging to the stations and fading hopes.

   If you were planet-born, she reminded herself, as she had so many times in the past months, you already had a home. A citizenship no one could strip away.

   Gabby rubbed her thumb in little circles against a protuberance firmer than the rest, smiling to herself as the push became harder and then disappeared with a tremble like a laugh. “What are they like?”

   “The dreaded Quill?”  Jer leaned back in his slingchair, relaxing himself, perhaps recognizing her familiar preoccupation. “Probably three meter giants with googly eyes and long tentacles.”

   Gabby raised one eyebrow. “That’s not what you said yesterday.”

   He chuckled. “I’ll have a new one tomorrow, guaranteed correct, and just as wrong.” Speculation was a familiar game; the wilder the better. Not that anyone out here would dare claim to have really met a Quill, face-to-whatever -- the mere suspicion of such contact guaranteed a ride out the nearest airlock.

   Everyone knew what mattered: the sudden, fragmented reports … the stunning news that a non-Terran lifeform – the Quill -- had accidently been released on the terraformed worlds … the way those reports had ceased almost immediately. Then, worse, the terrible discovery that rescue teams sent to those worlds died as well. Everyone did, whether they landed or hovered at low altitudes.

   But what turned a reasonable fear of an unknown danger into outright hysteria was that no one, learned or otherwise, could determine the cause of death. Any bodies recovered by remotes appeared to be perfectly healthy, unblemished by attack or contagion.

   It was as if their lives had simply been stopped by the Quill.

   Gabby shuddered. “I didn’t believe they’d been spread so far. Not to the unfinished worlds. But it must be true -- Earth’s posted this world! Does this mean the Quill can survive where we can’t? What hope’s left then, Jer?”

   Jer reached across the distance between them and laid his hand on her shoulder. Gabby pressed her cheek against its warmth for a moment. “They can’t spread on their own,” Jer reminded her. “All the xenos say so, Gabby. They’re harmless now.”

   “Harmless?” she echoed, unable to keep a rare bitterness from her voice. “How can anything be harmless that’s ripped the very ground from under us? This was to be a human sector, Jer. More than a hundred new worlds being made ready for us — for our babies — not for those mindless things!”

   Jer withdrew his hand, an unhappy look on his face. Gabby understood. They were a team, but, until now, she’d been the one always able to see through a tangled problem to its roots. Her loss of control obviously flustered him as much as it surprised her. Jer didn’t know what to say or do to comfort her.  Neither did she, she sighed to herself.

   “There are other worlds,” he offered finally. “No one would transport a Quill now. They aren’t going to spread any further, Gabby. Earth was wrong to pull in the deep exploration fleet – everyone says so. There are other worlds out here,” he repeated, as if stating it made it so. 

   She eased herself from the slingchair with a practiced roll; Jer had tried to lighten the gravity in the ship from Earth-normal for her, but Gabby had detected his tampering and insisted her husband restore it. He trusted her judgment, Gabby thought, though it was her first child. Not his first, not technically. He’d contributed to three offspring according to his biospecs, born of women who opted his sperm, probably drawn by his ship-suited smallness and childhood resistance to lar fever. Women were practical that way. She’d be practical, too.

   “I’ll leave you to it, then,” she said calmly, stooping for a quick kiss. “Call me if something comes up.”

   Jer Pardell watched Gabby waddle out the doorway to the passage with a mixture of pride, concern, and a hope he wouldn’t let go. It was different when you saw it happening, he thought, when the signs of new life were inextricably wrapped in the one life more important than your own.

   When she was gone, Jer turned back to the console. He called up the nav-tapes, grunting as he reviewed the painstaking course they had followed over the past weeks, threading their way through space that was supposed to belong to humanity and now seemed exclusively the property of something else. He asked for alternatives, checking and rejecting courses based not on trade prospects or fuel, but on the timing of an event beyond their control.

   Nothing. Jer thought glumly of the stations, built to service the expansion of humanity and now bursting with homeless settlers. He shook his head once, hard. Then he unlocked a set of tapes older than the others — junk really, family records of no interest to anyone else. He began to read.

**

“There it is.” Jer stared at the readout on the system. For once, the numbers added up to Terran norm without the warning slash of red. But the little shiver that ran down Jer’s spine did not escape Gabby’s sharp eyes, despite the distraction of a birth more impending than either of them had thought. “What’s wrong?” she asked.

   Jer started at her voice. “It’s possible nothing is,” he said, eyes still fixed on the numbers which read of atmosphere, moisture, and climate, his voice filled with wonder. “The readout’s good — damn good. We don’t have to be down long anyway. It’s uninhabited.”

   “Are you sure?”

   “The terraform station is empty; vegetation’s well in place. This had to be one of the first terraform experiments — it’s way off the main lanes. We’ll have to let Thromberg Station know as soon as we head back. Instant heroes, Gabby. That’ll be us.”

   Something in Jer’s voice lacked conviction. Gabby froze and asked: “What about the Quill? I thought they’d contaminated every terraforming project. That’s what Earth claims.”

   “Guess not, Gabby.” His eyes flickered to hers and back. “This world’s not posted. No warn-off beacons. Looks to be nothing on it at all beyond the standard. And,” this as she uttered a small involuntary sound, “I dare say we’re past being fussy, if this impatient child of ours is to be born downworld.”

   Gabby smiled at him as she eased herself into another position, her smile becoming fixed as another contraction rippled across her abdomen. “Impatient is the word, husband-mine.” She studied the readout, then snorted. “What’s this? You’ve named it Pardell? Fool,” she said fondly. “We can’t afford to apply for naming disposition. If every spacer’s brat ended up with a world named for  them --”

   “I didn’t name it.” Jer reddened. He didn’t seem able to take his eyes from the readout, as though still finding their luck hard to believe. “I went through some old tapes. Family tapes. This is Pardell.”

   “Oh." Gabby eyed her husband with some alarm. He was neither a secretive nor a cunning man, traits she’d always appreciated. “Your grandparents must have had more credits once, then.”

   “No.” Jer wiped his palms on his thighs before looking at her sideways. “Naming privilege.”

   After five years, Gabby thought, he finally surprises me. “You’ve been holding out on me, Jer. You didn’t tell me your family was famous.”

   “My grandmother was a terraform engineer. She was first to live on Pardell — that gave her naming privilege. My father was born here.”

   Gabby felt a deep glow of rightness. With the exception of Earth, family members were almost never born on the same world. It made all their searching worthwhile. Then a worry trickled through her mind, an inconsistency. “Why didn’t we come here first? Why didn’t you tell me?” 

   “My family doesn’t talk about my grandmother,” Jer didn’t met her eyes. “And I didn’t know about this world until I looked in the old records. I thought my dad had wiped her tapes, but they were in the database. I don’t know if he missed these or somehow wanted me to find them one day.”

   “I’d think your father would have been proud of her. Terraforming --”

   “Gabby...” Jer looked at his wife with a confused sadness. “They fought before I was born. He refused to see her again -- even changed our family name. Easy enough,  since by then we were living on the ‘Mate and hauling freight to whatever station was being built. So I never met her or knew she was alive back then. Mom told me about her, after my dad passed away. Turned out Grandma was about as big a celebrity as they come. Really famous. Mom didn’t want me to find out from a stranger.”

   All her instincts said to let him stop there, that she really didn’t want to know, but Gabby prodded: “Who was she, Jer?”

   “Susan Witts. My Dad was born Raymond Alexander Witts-Pardell.”

   “The Susan Witts...?” Gabby felt her face harden into fierce lines, but couldn’t help that or the way her voice rose. “Susan Witts infected the terraformed worlds with  the Quill! All those people, hundreds of thousands trapped on the stations – it’s her fault we’ve no place to go! It’s her fault old Mother Earth won’t take any of us back. Do you know how many curse her name every night?”

    “They can curse her all they want – she’s hardly going to notice. Using her shuttle to give Titan a new crater wasn’t exactly an inconspicuous suicide, was it?” He paused. “Susan Witts was never part of my life, Gabby. I didn’t see any reason to make her part of ours. Maybe I’d have told you, once we’d started living on a world she’d help prepare for us. But then the Quill changed all that. She couldn’t have known what they’d do, what would happen to all of us, out here. It didn’t matter -- I couldn’t tell you whose grandson I was after that.” His defense seemed oddly automatic, as if used to himself so often he no longer heard the words.

   An abrupt shift by the baby under her ribs made Gabby swallow what she would have said. It gave her time to look at Jer, to see the new misery aging a face already drawn with stress. A face she knew better than her own by now. “Damn you, Jer,” she said, but more kindly. “This is a great time to bring skeletons out of stowage. Anything else I should know before I give birth to your baby? A sister prone to mass murder? Or maybe a great-uncle who believes the universe is carried on the back of a shellfish?”

   Jer leaned over to her, burrowing his face past the collar of her coveralls into the warm softness of her neck. His nose was cold.  Muffled, he said, “We’ll be all right, Gabrielle. I promise.”

   Gabby rubbed his close-cropped hair fondly with one hand, her other stretched to the controls to replay the information on the world below them. All of a sudden, she needed all the reassurance she could get, unable to believe the work of the woman who had brought them to the brink of disaster could be their salvation now.

**

Pardell turned out to be pleasant enough, Terran-norm of course, with deep blue seas cut into thirds by narrow, ribbon-like continents. If those continents looked a bit regular, well, everyone knew terraformers had budgets too. Only one continent showed significant amounts of green; these were patchy areas, as though the terraformers hadn’t bothered to finish their work, or as if they’d tried a variety of seeds and only some had survived.

   They’d not had time for more than a glance during approach before clouds obscured the view. Gabby sat, silent, licking beads of sweat from her upper lip. She checked the shuttle's fuel as surreptitiously as possible. Jer wouldn’t be the first expectant father to have forgotten to top up the tanks. She didn’t intend to stay downworld any longer than it would take for the recorders to prove her baby’s citizenship. Her eyes glistened with anticipation and her thoughts focused inward again.

   They landed without incident. Jer was a careful pilot under any circumstances, and now, with his anxiety for his wife and unborn child, the craft touched the grass-coated ground with a master’s gentleness. He grabbed the equipment they’d packed weeks before, eyeing Gabby’s pale, determined face with a decidedly suspicious look. “Can you make it?” he asked. “Do you want the grav belt?”

   Gabby didn’t think this deserved any of the air she was drawing in lightly through her nose, carefully opposing the rhythm of her contractions. She stood and held Jer’s arm in an iron-like grip. He helped her to the airlock, managing somehow not to bang her legs with any of the bags he carried. Not that she’d notice.

   The air was warm, heady with the smell of earth and life. Triumphant, Gabby allowed herself a deep breath and doubled over in pain. Jer dropped everything, put his arm around her shoulders to keep her from falling to her knees. A liquid warmth gushed between her legs, almost immediately turning into a chill dampness. “Timing...was never better, Jer...” she managed to say past the smile the urgent pain couldn’t erase. At last, at last...

**

Jer wiped his hands dry, contented to his bones. His shoulders ached. His wrist throbbed, especially where Gabby's nails had broken through the skin. What strength she had! Everything had happened so quickly. He’d have to watch this on the shuttle’s vid recording when they were back on the ship.

   The seed-heavy tips of the grass rustled together with every breeze, as if to remind them where they were. He drew the fragrant air in through his nostrils, trying to remember the last time he’d been to Earth and if it had smelled this wonderful.

   Welcome to your world, Jer thought to himself as he sat beside Gabby, watching her sleep. The tiny life curled between her breasts squirmed slowly, as if delighted to find no obstructions to the stretching of his limbs. Jer stroked his son’s fist, then was amazed that such a tight wrapping of fingers could uncurl so quickly, like a flower opening. He felt love welling up from his heart, love such as he’d never known before in all his life. Tears slid unnoticed down his cheeks.

     LOVE. Jer sobbed, his heart near to breaking with the emotion. Deep, warm, rich, the future, the past, his eternity, Gabby’s fulfillment — all of this beat through him, against him. The baby’s head teetered and flopped. Jer saw his son’s eyes, not quite focused, darkly blue. Another surge of love crushed him. LOVE.

   Gabby moaned in her sleep. Her eyes flashed opened, stared at him, pits of terror. FEAR. Sharp, ice, futility, ending — her arms tightened convulsively over the baby. Somehow Jer managed to free himself from the paralysis locking his muscles long enough to fling himself over them both. The fear faded back. 

   There was time for Gabby to meet his eyes, for the knowledge in hers to break his heart. He drew in the sweetness of her breath, the wet newness of the baby. Then LOVE came again, and crushed them utterly.

   The Quill were on Pardell after all.

Chapter 1

Sammie’s Tavern had been several meters of access corridor in the days before the Quill -- before Thromberg Station welded shut every second bulkhead to make more rooms throughout its Outward Five levels, moving the crush of homeless into space formerly intended for industrial use and warehousing. Across the hole approximating a doorway in one wall, its cut, jagged edges hammered into a safer smoothness, Sammie’s boasted a fabric curtain to keep in the fragrance of stale beer and staler patrons, a token separation accomplishing very little at this time of station-day, when odd-cycle work crews were stumbling off-shift and even-cycle were staggering on. Still, visual barriers gave the illusion of privacy, luxury in a place where there was almost none.

    The tavern, as always, was packed so full it was difficult to see if there were chairs and tables, let alone find them. The press of flesh to flesh eased in only two places. One marked the narrow aisle behind the bar, necessary allowance so the bartenders could attempt to keep up with the demand with about as much success as someone bailing an ocean with cupped hands. The other opening, less immediately obvious but as well defined, was the room given one man, presently leaning against the counter like the rest.

    It was an unconscious distancing, a habit familiar enough to be unnoticed by all, including the dark-haired man at its core. At first glance, he might have been any immie or stationer seeking a moment’s oblivion. His clothes were regular-issue tunic and pants, well-patched, with neater repair work than some and cleaner than most. Unusual in this crowd, though not unique, he wore snug-fitting gloves. His spare frame was slightly less than standard height, and lean to the point of almost gaunt – but then again, so were the majority of his companions. Few fattened or grew full height on station-rations. The unremarkable man slouched comfortably over his drink, deep in conversation with the bartender. It was only the instinctive way others avoided touching him, even when it required significant effort, that set him apart: a non-malicious avoidance, as though he formed a natural hazard, like the edge of a cliff.

    “Six dibs?” the man was asking, the words rising with disbelief, his hazel eyes squinted half-closed as though that was all he wanted to view of Sammie’s thick girth, mismatched teeth, and amply-stained apron. “When d’you start importing Earth lager, Sammie? Four’s pushing hard enough for the watery swill you’re pouring down our throats.”

    There were cheerful comments and nods of agreement from the men and women crushed elbow-to-elbow along the thin, tarnished metal bar, as well as those leaning companionably on their shoulders. The bartender shrugged irritably. “Prices’ up for ever’thin, Pardell. If’n you’d show up more of’n, you’d be aware --”

    Pardell flashed a sudden grin, crinkling the skin around his eyes while stripping years from his thin features. “If I showed up more often, Sammie, I’d be even more destitute than the miserable stationer scum you let in here --”

    “Keep ‘r up, Pardell--” Sammie growled warningly. Stationers were not only outnumbered everywhere on Thromberg by immigrants, or immies -- the very people they’d been originally been brought here to assist – there was no longer any obvious way to distinguish the two unless you accessed an individual’s registration data by retinal scan. Or asked, which would likely earn you a bloodied nose.

    The blending had been deliberate, reconciliation and survival in one. The first, and deadliest, Ration Riot had surged throughout the station two weeks after the partial collapse of the still-new hydroponics system. As blame flew down every possible corridor on wings of fear, everyone’s face grew pinched with hunger; it only added fuel when stationers were accused of hoarding. The match was lit when rumor – the only way news traveled through the station -- spread that only those immies willing to be sterilized and become stationers would continue to be fed. The uprising was mercifully brief and contained to the Outward Five levels. It was mercilessly violent and consumed too many  innocent lives.

    In the anguished aftermath, enough truth was found behind both rumors that stationers throughout Thromberg gathered in quiet, somber groups, unable to meet the eyes of passing immies, talking in hushed tones about how the real enemies were the Quill and the blindness of Earth. Station insignia started disappearing: from a tunic on this man, from the coats of all the meds in the infirmary on night shift, suddenly gone from every stationer working in Outward Five and elsewhere. Unorganized, unsanctioned, and oddly healing – no one commented out loud, but the tensions between stationer and immigrant slowly eased. Eventually, only the original station records remained, kept to make sure everyone received their fair share of work and food.

    Good intentions aside, each knew the other – for better and worse -- and the final generation of immie and stationer kids grew up knowing precisely how to start each other’s tempers flying.

    “Aw, Aaron...don’t you try and pick a fight again,” this loudly insincere  complaint came from Pardell’s right-hand neighbor, a stationer named Hugh Malley. They’d been friends even before being orphaned by the third and most recent of the Ration Riots,  nine years earlier, a friendship presently belied by the bigger man’s fierce scowl. Work in the recycling depot had laid its characteristic curve of muscle over already massive shoulders and barrel chest, making Malley’s share of the bar surface necessarily greater than most. He took advantage of that space to thump down one huge, scarred fist with sufficient emphasis to spill the frothy heads from most of the containers foolishly left sitting in front of their owners. Grumbles about this waste were conspicuously absent. “No fights,” Malley repeated. “We owe Sammie here dibs for the last ruckus. You know I hate cleaning up this place.”

    Pardell blinked innocently. “You hate cleaning up anywhere,” he replied, raising his own voice to be heard over the growing din as those behind began murmuring in anticipation. Sure enough, an instant later the bar’s bell sounded and, automatically, all of those presently leaning on the bar, including Malley and Pardell, snatched up their drinks and straightened to let others squeeze by them. Sammie and his co-workers went into a frenzy, collecting dib chits from those moving out of immediate reach as well as from those newly arrived and impatient.

    Malley settled his heavy forearms companionably on the shoulders of the two men now in his former place, neither arguing beyond a strangled grunt. Pardell toasted the nervous-looking immie in front of him, relieving any concern he might be drunk enough to try for the same service. The tavern settled back into its comforting babble of voices and laughter as smoothly as if nothing had happened at all.

    Smooth, because it had to be, Pardell told himself, helplessly sliding into one of those detached, intense moments of thought that consumed him every so often, no matter what he was doing, or where he was. He usually tried to turn the feeling from aloof to amused; he usually failed, settling – as now -- for a mild sense of dislocation.

     While it lasted, it was as if the tavern suddenly expanded along each axis; the people crammed inside faceless and strange, any movement slowed, every sound stilled. This bar, Pardell observed, with no choice but to accept perception – was a monument to human adaptability. There was no doubt the overcrowding on this and the other stations had produced its share of nightmares -- he’d lived some -- but it had also produced ways of coping. Queuing was a lifestyle, manners an essential skill. There was a seething, reasonably efficient economy based on barter and turnabout. In fact, the entire station operated that way, half keeping the reverse daylight/night cycle from the rest, allowing the available space and equipment to be used round the clock. It had become the stuff of romance as well as convenience, given there was someone in every bed no matter the time. It did make it awkward keeping track of anyone on reverse hours --

     “Rejoining us any time soon, Aaron?” Malley’s rumble interrupted Pardell’s thoughts, startling him back to a noisy, companionable reality. The big man suggestively held up his own container, a piece of pipe of generous depth, one end welded shut. Intricate etchings covered its surface, extraordinarily fine work considering the size of the hands responsible. But then Malley’s appearance was the last thing to judge him by, as most in their section knew. A ferocious intellect that absorbed anything and everything in reach, off-shift Malley earned half again as many dibs teaching as he did as a laborer. There hadn’t been a subject yet which he didn’t know -- or couldn’t learn -- well enough to keep ahead of his students. Rumor had it, those joining Malley’s work shift had to pass an exam. It was more accurate, Pardell smiled to himself as he considered his friend fondly, to say only those willing to debate anything from astrophysics to poetry while heaving scrap metal managed to keep sane.

     Pardell raised his container, a white plastic cup, to Malley’s obediently. In another place and time, it would have been disposable. Here and now, despite its plain appearance, the cup was a prized possession; its ship markings, Merry Mate II, proof of a heritage few could claim and none could replace. “I was just thinking, my friend,” Pardell protested mildly after sipping his beer. “There’s no law against it.”

     Malley wasn’t letting it go, turning to look Pardell in the eyes. His own, dark brown beneath a broad forehead and straight-line brows, were clouded. “There’s no law against butting in line, but the last person we saw do it ended up in pieces. Messy, little pieces. You know better than to make people nervous, Aaron. Going all spacey in a crowded room is one of those nervous-making things. Okay?”

     Nervous. Pardell looked down at his gloved hands, trying to think if there had been an instant of his life when he didn’t have to listen to warnings, make the effort to blend with others. Suddenly, the boisterous crowd, the heat and smells, the sounds -- everything -- became overwhelming real. Pardell inhaled slowly and carefully through his nostrils, fighting the irrational urge to gasp for air, recognizing the signs with helpless frustration and more than a little disappointment. He’d overstayed his tolerance. “Time I headed home, anyway,” he announced, pouring the rest of his beer into Malley’s as nonchalantly as possible. The reminder hadn’t offended him; Malley was right. Odd behavior wasn’t tolerated, not here, where getting along meant being safely predictable and following the unspoken rules.

     Those rules definitely included not pushing ones’ way in through the doorway so people trying to leave were shoved back against others. Pardell and Malley turned at the commotion with everyone else, the growl of outrage vibrating in a wave from door to the bar. The following, ominous hush let Sammie’s roar through clearly: “Enter onna right, morons! Where’re you raised, huh --?”

    The rest of what the usually vocal Sammie might have said died away. “Malley! What’s going on?” Pardell hissed. Malley, taller by a head than most, was staring in the direction of the tavern entrance. “Who --?”

     “Strangers,” Malley said, astonishment clear in his hushed voice.

    “How many beers have you had?” Pardell muttered, straining to see for himself.  The station might be bursting at the seams with humanity, but people kept to their own sections. Thromberg had sacrificed a significant amount of its interconnectivity through the emergency modifications to house the immigrant population trapped here, and, unstated, station admin was nothing loath to keep its inhabitants in isolated communities. Especially since the riots.

    No doubt Sammie’s regular clientele knew each other on sight, all too well. “Thought you knew everybody,” Pardell teased his friend.

    “Shut up,” Malley said almost absently. “They’re Uniforms. Earth uniforms.”

     “Earthers? On-station. In Sammie’s.” Pardell wasn’t sure which was more ludicrous: the idea an Earth ship could dock at the station without the news spreading  translight, or that such troops would simply walk in here first. Outward Five was nowhere near the stern docking ring, by any measure. “In Sammie’s,” he repeated numbly.

     “Shhsh. I’m trying to hear what’s going on.” Despite this,  Malley gave a low growl of his own when bodies suddenly pressed closer on all sides, everyone facing the door with the quivering attention of a crowd unsure whether to bolt or cheer. His strong arm made a wall between Pardell and the nearest set of shoulders. “Watch where you’re going, Denery!”

     Syd Denery’s back rammed into Malley’s elbow before the smaller immie could help himself. He craned his head around to face Pardell, an anxious look on his wizened features. “Sorry, Aaron. Can’t help it. They’re shoving us back to make room for the Earthers. Maybe you should head out before it gets worse.” With another contortion, Denery managed to twist minutely further away, as he did so, informing his immediate neighbors in an urgent, cheery whisper: “Hey, Aaron’s back here, y’know. Careful, you louts!”

     “I’m all right,” Pardell said to the world in general, feeling the familiar humiliating heat of an angry blush on his face.

     “No,” Malley countered. “I don’t like this. You should get out of here --”

     Pardell sputtered: “How --?” just as the unthinkable happened and a mass of people fell backwards towards him as though knocked flying in some game. Amid the cursing and apologies, he felt contact on all sides.

     Confusion. Anger. FEAR!

     ...Time stopped. All Pardell could hear was his own heart, hammering like some frantic bird caged within his ribs. There must have been dozens of people touching him, connecting with him, bombarding him with their emotions until he knew he couldn’t stand another feeling ...

     PITY.

     ...It drowned him even as his body was wrenched free. Suddenly, all of the connections were broken at once as Pardell felt himself launched through the air. He had an instant to be amazed at the pile of struggling, intertwined bodies beneath him before Malley’s toss landed him on the floor behind the bar.

     Anything broken? Pardell asked himself cautiously, unwilling to move and find out. He remained curled where he’d dropped, ignoring the spilled liquid and crumpled containers under shoulders and hip, working on controlling the natural impulses of his stomach and waiting for his heart to resume something closer to a normal beat. Breathing took a fair amount of concentration.

     “You okay, Aaron?” Sammie leaned over him, warily distant. “Malley’s go’n nuts out there.”

    Pardell jerked his head in what he hoped looked like a nod and not the prelude to convulsion. He’d had plenty of those as a child, learning to cope with his reaction to the inadvertent touch of others. Adolescence had been worse, far worse; adulthood had moderated his body’s confusion to a tendency to vomit and a blinding headache. Like the one presently building behind his temples. He swallowed carefully, feeling his stomach subside, at least.

     His friends would be upset to have done this to him. They’d grown up together; very likely, he wouldn’t have survived the process without their help in keeping a safe distance. Mutual gain, since anyone touching him received a low level shock, like a static discharge, but that had never diminished their sense of responsibility for him. Always the weakest. “Look out for Pardell.” If he’d heard it once....

     Pardell felt his hands clenching into fists. “I’ll be fine, Sammie,” he ground out, easing to his feet. He glanced down at the mess on the floor. “Let me know the dibs on this --”

     “Not your fault,” Sammie mumbled, surprisingly. “Get that lump of a Malley outta here ‘fore he tosses someone bigger in my face.”

     Pardell didn’t bother nodding, although his headache had started to fade. He was more intent on the scene on the other side. Things were, to put it mildly, rather interesting.

     Like the parting of a flood, the tavern patrons had somehow been dammed up on either side, many jumping on tables to gain a better view as well as breathing space. It didn’t appear as though any had left. Novelty was as rare as privacy, Pardell thought, as intrigued as the rest. The curtain hung limply across the door, unmoving for perhaps the first time in a decade. There was an unprecedented amount of filthy floor showing in front of the bar, a glimpse Pardell could have done without, having recently been pressed to it.

     In the now-becalmed center stood the mannerless fourteen who’d caused such an uproar. Earthers for sure, Pardell thought with wonder, almost forgetting his sore head and battered body parts. He’d never seen one before, but there was no mistaking either the flawless uniforms or the well-fed faces. Seven men and seven women, lined up in two tidy rows, similar to the point of caricature. Someone, he decided, liked jutting jaws, black hair, and high cheekbones. The troops, for they were patently military of some kind, looked jittery, standing at a very uneasy attention with their eyes rolling as if attempting to track everyone in the room at once. Pardell wasn’t sure if this was because they were dismayed by the closeness of the crowd or by being weaponless. Had they tried boarding Thromberg with weapons, he reminded himself, they wouldn’t have made it this far. Stationers and immies might not always get along, but neither tolerated Earther arrogance – not when Earth’s idea of helping the desperate meant the occasional supply ship and suggestions of patience.

     Malley was standing closer to the bar than most, still part of the crowd. Although his jacket had split open along its right shoulder mend again, there was no sign Sammie’s fear of more flying bodies was about to come true. Pardell caught Malley’s meaningful look his way and shrugged slightly in reassurance. He was bent, but nothing worse, thanks to his friend’s quick thinking. Several others, the less drunk, mouthed “sorry” at him or otherwise looked embarrassed.

     Then the curtain opened to allow someone else in and every local face assumed the same expression, as though a riper odor than usual had permeated the room. Sammie rubbed his hands marginally cleaner on his stained apron before coming around to the other side of his bar, a move that raised more than a few eyebrows. It settled several outstanding bets on what Sammie wore on his feet, Pardell chuckled to himself, watching a few of the gamblers in question glumly examining the splayed toes in their quite serviceable, if homemade, thongs. “What’s the meaning of this, Forester?” Sammie demanded without a trace of his customary lowerdeck accent, inspiring the collection of other wagers. “I expect compensation for this interference with my trade and customers --”

     Sector Administrator Garfield Forester. No need for the name – everyone in Outward Five would recognize the receding double-chin and mottled skin, those odd washed-pale eyes under shaggy brows. The man used every possible opportunity to stick his face in front of them on the vid screen and complain about something or other; let alone his popularity as a subject on washroom walls.

     Why was he here? Pardell wondered. Everyone knew Forester as a straightforward bastard: efficient and ruthless, but not inclined to visit those in his care. He’d gone from running the station’s main cargo bays to being in charge of ten thousand homeless. Needless to say, the change hadn’t been appreciated by either side.

     Odd to see Forester without his usual trio of security from Inward Four, though Pardell was sure the man had been delighted to exchange his scruffy escort for the spit-and-polish Earthers. After all, station security were distinguishable from their fellow stationers only by the crossed belts they wore on duty, the belts holding vital equipment such as comm equipment, a force rod or two, and, most importantly, a day’s rations in case duty meant missing their scheduled turn in line at the dispensers. Until those had been added, escorts had tended to be unreliable around the supper hour.

     Outward Five supplied security personnel for Inward Four, and so forth up the length of the station -- a policy that reduced the risk of having to hit a member of your own family over the head when maintaining order. Of course, on Thromberg, the definition of order had evolved to suit the times. Station Admin used to have volumes of picky little rules and regulations, with keen-eyed officers watching for crime and mischief. Now, what mattered was containing trouble to one location, whether it was a malfunctioning air vent or the start of a riot. Thromberg’s surviving security was very good at spotting trouble and locking it down until trouble died away or killed itself.

     Anything else was handled locally. Each section had become like a small town, with those who assumed responsibility and those who happily avoided it. Both types understood that stability depended on the whole more than any individual. Station Admin ignored the tendency of persistent troublemakers to simply disappear. And, usually, Station Admin could be ignored – except when they conducted sweeps. Those annoying searches were ostensibly to look for hoarders, but everyone knew they were really hunting station equipment that had been “relocated.” Kept people on their toes.

     So why was Forester down here, with Earthers? It wasn’t routine.

     Pardell’s own eyes narrowed thoughtfully as he took an easy, slow step back. Tanya, Sammie’s oldest granddaughter and senior-most of his bar staff, mirrored his movement, slipping forward with convincing casualness to scrub at a ring marring the bar’s metal surface that likely pre-dated her birth, in the process almost completely blocking him from view. He could just see Sammie’s back each time she leaned forward.

     Not that Station Admin knew any reason to single him out, Pardell assured himself, but it was always safer to avoid notice. He wasn’t the only one quietly fading into the background. Sammie’s was a haven for many unwelcome elsewhere.

     “We’ll be out of your way in a moment, Mr. Leland,” promised Forester, his real voice a thready echo of those rich tones heard daily on the interstation comms – if any still paid attention to those announcements. Pardell couldn’t recall the last time he’d listened. “We’re looking for a non-reg’d individual named Pardell.”

     Pardell closed his eyes briefly, wishing he’d placed his own bet. What were the odds? While he couldn’t for the life of him imagine why Forester came after him with Earth troops, there were some – minor – infractions he could imagine might be of interest to Station Admin. Not that most in the room couldn’t say the same. Creative housekeeping had become an honored skill on Thromberg.

     “Non-registered? By your people?” Sammie repeated, putting a distinctly ironic twist to the words. “How could that possibly be, Administrator Forester?”

     By the sound, Forester had gritted his teeth. “Non-reg as in not a stationer or immigrant. You know the type I mean. The kind of refuse that keeps you in business.”

     “I’ll take your slur under advisement for litigation, Administrator.” Sammie stepped forward, his stained apron jutting ahead of him, thick, capable hands curling almost into fists. “What do you – or these Earthers -- want with this Pardell?”

     Forester didn’t retreat, but his erect stance developed something of a backwards tilt. “That’s none of your concern, is it? As you’ve noticed, our guests have come quite a distance – let’s not keep them waiting while you and I debate.” Forester coughed, as though the well-shared air of the tavern was not to his taste, or it could have been his proximity to Sammie. “I want Aaron Luis Pardell. Now. I understand he frequents this level – has acquaintances here...” his voice trailed away suggestively. Then, loudly: “Anyone know this man? Step forward if you do.”

     Even Forester had to sense the rising tension in the room. Give one of their own to Admin? Pardell asked himself. Barely likely – and there’d have to be a reward or serious grudge involved.

     Give one to Earthers?

     There’d be blood first, even from those who might otherwise consider Pardell himself a waste of air.

     “As usual, your informants have lied to you, Administrator,” Sammie said with some of that tension edging his voice. “Look elsewhere.”

     “Hey!” came a voice from the crowd. “Not so fast. I know the guy you’re after – tall, heavyset fellow? Pardell. Yeah, I know him. Hangs around the ration line a lot, looking for handouts.”

     In a falsetto, yet. Pardell bit his lip to contain a grin. Trust Denery. He’d owe the man major dibs for this one. There were a few equally unhelpful descriptions shouted out at random. Given the level of alcohol consumed in the room earlier, he was surprised no one burst out laughing.

     Though Forester won’t believe a word of it, he warned himself, losing that impulse himself, but he won’t risk looking a fool in front of the Earthers either. Pardell wished he dared lean further to one side or that Tanya’s grandfather had thought to polish the metal sheathing behind the bar to make some sort of mirror.

     Fourteen pairs of fresh-from-a-box mag boots clanged in unison as the Earthers acknowledged a new arrival. Pardell’s curiosity got the best of him and he sidled as close as he dared to Tanya to catch a better look past her ample shoulder.

     Forester was tall for a stationer, closer to Malley’s height than Pardell’s, but without his mass; the matched set of Earthers were tall and lanky as well. The figure now holding the curtain to one side, as though uncertain of welcome or justifiably offended by the atmosphere in Sammie’s, was dwarfed by comparison.

     It didn’t matter.

    She, or he, wore a floor-sweeping, metallic green cloak, complete with hood and goggled respirator. It resembled the gear used by the meds and their assistants during outbreaks of infectious disease, but made of layers of such fine, gauze-like material it could have been mistaken for some flight of fashion. One gloved hand kept the heavy, well-patched curtain open; the other held a notepad, curled protectively within the crook of an arm. The figure took a step into the room, letting the curtain fall, then fumbled abruptly at the respirator, finally pulling it down under her chin with an impatient yank.

     For the face was female. Pardell released the breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.

    Not a pretty face, he decided. Not one to easily forget either. It might have been the combination of impatience and disapproval drawing her lips into a thin line – or the glitter of absolute determination in those bright blue eyes. Her cheeks were indented with the reddish pinch marks left by an ill-adjusted respirator. Rather painful-looking marks at that. Not a happy lady.

    They were her troops, all right, having frozen into a rigid attentiveness the moment she’d opened the curtain. Two more had followed her in, essentially filling the cleared part of the room. Forester was practically groveling. Pardell noticed everyone else, including Malley, seemed suddenly more entertained than wary, as though the arrival of this mystery woman was part of a free vidshow. Maybe, he thought with disgust, they expected her to take off the cloak next and dance on the bar.

    What she did do was take one more step to confront Forester. Given her expression and obvious discomfort, the controlled, pleasant tone of her voice surprised Pardell almost as much as her clipped accent – unfamiliar to an ear used to station drawls. “Is there a problem, Administrator?”

    “I’m not getting the cooperation I expected, Professor Smith.”

    Hard to imagine a less exotic name, which strangely added to the mystique. Pardell found himself leaning forward expectantly with the rest, still keeping behind Tanya. Malley sent him a warning scowl. Professor Smith arched one slim, dark eyebrow, then looked away from Forester to survey the room. “I’m not surprised. What did you do?” she asked calmly. “Threaten to close the place? I wouldn’t cooperate either.”

    Sammie almost smiled, then apparently remembered it wasn’t an expression that sat well on his square face and compromised with a nod. “Completely unnecessary, Madame,” he said briskly. “This is a peaceful – inn. The Administrator here, he comes in and disrupts my business. My patrons and I have been subjected to indignities.” He deepened his voice for emphasis: “And there’s been a distinct loss of dibs. I can tell you that without checking my tills.”

    Her other eyebrow rose. “’Dibs?’”

    Pardell was amused by the contortions of Forester’s face as the stationer heroically managed to keep his mouth shut while Sammie went on to explain, at some length and with considerable gusto, the barter system allowing patrons to make their purchases based on recorded work exchanges. The crowd, growing bored and likely thirsty, became involved by way of throwing out examples, many of them totally incomprehensible and a couple profanely hopeful. The Earther woman appeared fascinated. “But we don’t call them in – the work, that is – very often any more, Madame,” Sammie finished. “It’s coin of the realm these days.”

    “I see. Mr. Leland –”

    “Call me Sammie. Please.”

    Pardell was sure he spotted the ghost of a dimple at the corner of her mouth; it could have been the poor lighting. “Thank you. Sammie. I believe there may have been a misunderstanding. I’m here to offer Mr. Pardell a job -- a job for which I would pay him in other than ‘dibs,’ as you’ve ably explained them. I assure you I mean him no harm and that it has nothing to do with Administrator Forester or another other station personnel. So,” Smith raised her voice, although she had everyone’s rapt attention, turning in a slow circle to address the entire crowd. Her gaze passed over the bar as if it wasn’t there. Pardell fought the urge to duck. “Please relay this message to Mr. Pardell for me: if he’s interested, he should come to the docking ring, and introduce himself to any member of my crew. There’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity waiting for him. In the meantime,” this as she faced Sammie again, “my sincere apologies for disturbing you and for any losses you’ve incurred.” Forester began to sputter. The professor bent down and picked up the broken remains of a cup to wave under his nose. She silenced him completely by adding: “Send the bill for the next three rounds to the ERC Deep Space Vessel Seeker.”

    Professor Smith swept up her Earther troops, Administrator Forester, and her cloak, heading to the curtained door with a suddenness that suggested she either knew very well to get out of the way of the imminent stampede to the bar -- or she’d accomplished what she wanted here and was in a hurry to do the same elsewhere.

    Or both, Pardell thought uneasily, distracted as the bar’s bell rang automatically, its message to patrons lost in happy confusion.