Macao Station

Chapter Two

Macao Station hung above the rotational plane of the Soros system like an overlooking god. Below, if such a direction could be said to have meaning in space, the asteroid belt sprawled vastly across an expanse of some four hundred million miles — an apparently endless sea of glittering shards. From their scarred surfaces, pockets of concentrated metallic ores caught the light of Soros and flung it back, tinted with the shades of iron, copper, nickel, even gold. These colourful lights winked on and off as the rocks rotated gently in their timeless ballet, the station keeping perfect step. Icebergs moved amongst the swarm like pale shades.

Occasionally, a rogue element would come crashing through this ordered procession — usually an incoming meteor from Platini-direction — and smash into one of the belt objects, either causing obliteration in a cloud of dust or setting off a chain of collisions. These legacies of disorder could continue for long, long periods, complicating navigation through the belt, but eventually the mostly-uniform motion of the great mass would correct any errant rocks, and the timeless discipline would be restored.

Lina McLough looked out over this vista from the window of the canteen, whose floor was on the middle level of the rotating wheel of Macao Station. She was swirling the unimpressively lumpy dregs of her coffee in its plastic mug.

Most of the denizens of the station found the real-view mode of the windows somewhat nauseating. After all, the whole thirteen-hundred-metre wheel of Macao spun one full revolution every fifty-one seconds, causing the field of asteroids to whirl past at a somewhat dizzying rate. The windows were usually set to display the feed from cameras mounted on tracks that encircled the station, whose steady movement in a counter-spin direction offset the rotation and created a merciful, much less sickening, impression of relative stillness. But Lina preferred the real-view.

The canteen was quiet at this time: a few other miners using up their last minutes of freedom before joining Lina’s shift on duty; a small group of admin staff; two off-duty members of the security team; and Lina, waiting for Eli to return from the toilet.

Si Davis, Niya Onh and Petra Kalistov, the other miners, were laughing and shoving each other over some mutually-insulting exchange of words, obviously completely at ease together. After all, most of the inhabitants of Macao had been here for many years. They were an odd and disparate bunch. Some of them had fled from Platini system due to personal or professional tragedy. Others had actively sought the quiet of the frontier life. Many had been drawn here by the salary, which easily outstripped what they might receive for similar work at Platini. Some of them had even been born on-board. These three, like Lina herself, were immigrants, but they’d all been here as long as she could remember. She knew these people like family. It was a strange family, admittedly, but one that was bound by undeniably strong ties despite its numerous sub-sects and inner cliques. After all, they daily depended on each other’s diligence to stay alive.

She absently cycled through the view-modes of the window, tapping it to change them. Three of the seven didn’t work at all, and one showed only an inward-looking close-up of the station’s own hull. She settled again on the real-view of the belt — a seemingly endless swathe of mineral wealth, an infinite job of work.

It was said that Macao could justify its expensive existence for many billions of years based on the volume of metals out there. She would have thought that the company would pay a little more attention to upkeep, bearing that in mind. It was believed, though, that Macao was kept alive mostly as an outpost, a launchpad, against the contingency that a second great interstellar land-grab should one day ensue. Its outlying position would give Farsight a natural advantage over most of its competitors in the unlikely event that this should happen.

Macao, as the expression went aboard, was just spinning itself — just about paying to keep itself turning. The investment required to increase production, and supply this produce first to Platini, and from there further into more densely-occupied space, would be so great as to be simply uneconomical. And for all their faults, Farsight could never be accused of poor economy.

So Macao just spun itself, ad infinitum, its failing systems replaced or repaired only as necessity dictated, sometimes not even then. The K6s, the in-system mining ships that supplied Macao with its lifeblood of raw materials, only ever flew due to the ingenuity of the maintenance team and ground crew, aided by Eli, a truly inventive scavenger and maker-do. It was not uncommon for a K6 to take off in a condition that would be considered un-flightworthy elsewhere.

Macao ran at a barely sustainable level of production at the best of times, and Halman, the Farsight company bigwig and station controller, feared that any loss of production could easily result in the closure and mothballing of the facility. So the usual policy on unsound or even unsafe K6s was to run them anyway. Eli did his best to stick up for his miners, but it was a constant balancing act between profit and safety. Even he knew that some concessions to operational danger must be tolerated.

And here he came, crumpled in his aged flight suit, heavyset and scarred, a friendly-looking veteran of the frontier, fifty-five standard years old but still crunching rocks with the best of them. He paused to share a brief laugh with the other miners, slapping the huge Si Davis on the back before moving to the coffee machine. His grizzled face studied the arcane panel of the device as if he hadn’t used it thousands of times before, wearing its usual expression of barely-restrained amusement. He shot a questioning look at Lina, who grimaced, held up her cup and shook her head. He chuckled, ordered just one drink from the machine and came to the table. He kicked his chair out and sat, placing his cup on the discoloured surface.

‘I wish you wouldn’t have the windows like that, Li,’ he said. ‘Makes me sick.’ He sipped his scalding coffee and winced.

‘No,’ replied Lina, ‘I’m pretty sure that’s the effect of the so-called coffee. What’s that, your third?’

He sipped again, pointedly. ‘Lifeblood of human civilisation, Li.’ He checked his watch and grimaced comically.

Lina cycled the window and the asteroid belt stopped moving. ‘Better?’

‘Thanks.’

‘Any more news from the lifers’ wing, then?’

‘What — the last news wasn’t enough for you?’

‘Just looking forward to the next exciting instalment, is all. I wonder what it’ll be? Maybe a full-on prison break, take the station by storm and establish Macao as the leading frontier pirate base.’

‘Don’t even joke about it. Did you know that Murkhoff is being sent back to Platini on the next shuttle for reconstructive surgery? They say he’ll be blind in his right eye until they can grow a transplant organ. You know what that animal did to him?’

‘No. I didn’t realise it was that bad. Wow.’ They were silent for a moment in homage to the injured man. ‘At least the shuttle is due soon, right?’

‘Any day, by my reckoning. Assuming Farsight haven’t forgotten us. So until then I guess Murkhoff isn’t going to be winning any games of pool.’

‘Pool?’

‘Yeah, depth perception, right? Your three-dee vision requires two working eyes.’

‘And you told me not to joke about it. Damn, Eli, that wasn’t even funny.’ She arched an eyebrow at him, a slight smile on her lips, an expression that, added to the effect of her well-defined cheekbones, shock of tangled blonde hair and wide green eyes, had been known to melt some men, at least in her younger days.

‘Maybe not, but I can get away with it, because Murkhoff said that himself. Anyway, poor guy. Our sec-teams aren’t made for this. What’s the worst they had to deal with before this whole prison thing started? A bit of graffiti and maybe kids breaking into the vending machines. And now this. . .’

‘Well, I guess it keeps us spinning. Although I would say that it takes a special kind of idiot to look at an under-supplied mining outpost full of civilians and think maximum-security prison.’

‘Yeah, well keep those thoughts to yourself is my advice. I get the impression that the company is a little touchy about the whole affair. Halman too. Doesn’t matter what you or I think. We just get paid to crunch rocks.’

‘Speaking of which, hadn’t we better saddle up in a minute?’

‘I make it five,’ Eli responded, gulping his coffee. He motioned to the window with his cup. ‘Rocks aren’t going anywhere.’

‘Pardon my enthusiasm. It wasn’t genuine, I assure you.’

‘I should hope not. Such a startling break from character would demand a referral to Hobbes.’ He gave her a serious look, but his face was too sculpted by laugh lines to really pull it off.

‘Does such a referral come with any sort of a rest?’

He chuckled, shaking his head. ‘Dream on.’

For a minute or two they both watched the belt. The exhaust plumes of the finishing shift’s K6s were converging into a rough group and heading back to base.

The canteen door suddenly whined open and Halman came in whistling brightly. He greeted the three miners at the other table, then wandered over to Eli and Lina.

‘Mind if I take a seat?’ asked Halman.

‘You’re the boss,’ said Eli. ‘Sit wherever you like, I reckon.’

Halman coughed laughter, his brown eyes sparking, and sat. He was a bear of a man, as broad as Eli but taller, possessed of a surprising grace of movement, balding and borderline-ugly, at least on the outside. Much of his once considerable muscle mass had lost its definition in his early fifties, leaving him a slightly slouching, hulking individual. He’d been a soldier in the corporate militia at Platini in his earlier life, where he’d fought guerilla warfare against the union insurgents. But apart from his habitual swearing, his gentle demeanour belied his violent past. He wasn’t exactly intelligent in the traditional sense, but he made up for this by being practical and resourceful. ‘You have to work with this asshole?’ he asked Lina, indicating Eli with one thumb.

‘Yeah, I do. About that pay rise. . .’

‘I don’t think so,’ replied Halman seriously. ‘I need that money for duct tape and nails. You know this place is only held together by duct tape.’

Lina sighed theatrically. ‘Yeah,’ she agreed grudgingly. ‘I know, I know.’

Eli leant towards Halman, giving him a sidelong, conspiratorial look. ‘About that. . .’ he said.

‘What?’ asked Halman suspiciously. He was all-too used to being harassed about the latest thing that had broken down. He did, in fact, consider it to be one of his main duties.

‘Well, the cooker in my quarters has been broken for two months now. I don’t have time to fix it myself — you know how hard you people work me — and more importantly, I don’t have the authority to sign for the parts myself.’

‘And?’ asked Halman warily.

‘Well. . . have you spoken to Nik Sudowski recently?’

Nik Sudowski was the head of Macao’s put-upon maintenance division, and as such was a man in great demand.

‘Of course I have,’ said Halman, uncertain as to where this was leading.

‘Well, I asked him about it again this morning. He wasn’t exactly helpful. In fact, he wasn’t exactly conversational. The guy kinda looked like crap, to be honest.’

‘I saw him yesterday,’ said Halman. ‘And he seemed okay. Maybe you’ve pissed him off, Eli.’

Lina laughed. ‘Yeah, Eli,’ she agreed. ‘You do have that magic touch with people.’

Eli nodded towards Lina. ‘And she asks for a pay rise!’ he exclaimed. He turned serious again and added, ‘It just seemed unlike him, is all. Nik, I mean. He didn’t really seem himself.’

Halman shook his head. ‘Nik’s fine,’ he said. ‘I’ll remind him about the cooker. Right now, it’s you lot I’m concerned about. Hadn’t you better get out there and make me rich?’

Eli grimaced and necked the last of his drink. ‘Rich,’ he muttered incredulously. He stood up, shoving Lina on the shoulder. Reluctantly, she also rose. ‘See you later, Dan,’ he said to Halman. ‘If, that is, we don’t die from exhaustion first.’

‘Hardly in the risk-group for that are you, Eli?’ replied Halman, grinning. ‘Everyone knows you guys do jack shit in those ships. They do everything for you, right?’

Eli rolled his eyes and groaned, but he didn’t allow Halman to bait him. ‘Come on, Lina,’ he said. They filed out of the canteen, gathering the other members of their shift along the way. Lina glanced back at Halman. He was staring out of the window, watching the belt, lost in his own thoughts, his large fingers drumming on the grimy table-top.