The Dark Between The Stars

FIFTY-THREE
LEE ISWANDER

A few months ago, Lee Iswander could not have imagined such an ambitious new start, the possibilities as numerous and bright as all the stars in the Spiral Arm. After losing everything at Sheol, he had doubted he would ever recover. But now, thanks to Elisa’s discovery of the bloaters, he had a tremendous opportunity, and he did not intend to waste it. Iswander Industries would rise like a phoenix from the ashes of the lava-processing disaster.

Elisa had led him out to the new cluster of drifting sacks, thousands of them on the far outer edge of a solar system that was so obscure it had no name, only coordinate numbers. The silent bloaters were as marvelous as they were mysterious.

Alec Pannebaker ran an analysis, trying to understand what the swollen nodules were, where they were drifting, and why they had clustered together in ways that gravity could not explain. They were possibly organic, but with very little structure. A comparison to giant plankton seemed apt. Most important, the membrane-enclosed globules were filled with ekti that could be easily drained and processed. That was all Iswander needed to know.

Most of his assets had been tied up in the Sheol facility, his primary accounts impounded, pending legal actions. Accusations and criminal charges flitted about as the investigation continued, but Roamers were loathe to fall into what they saw as “old Hansa ways” of pointing fingers, looking for scapegoats, and solving problems with lawsuits. The history of the gypsy clans was filled with instances of life-support failures, dome breaches, asteroid collisions, structural collapses. Sometimes the universe lashed out, and people paid the price. Roamers tended to stick together.

Even so, they were not convinced the industrialist was really a Roamer, in his heart.

When Iswander tried to buy the equipment he needed for his new secret operations, many Roamer businessmen refused to deal with him, blaming him for the Sheol catastrophe. One particularly intractable supplier of storage silos told Iswander, “You’d never be able to meet my price.”

Iswander met the man’s gaze. “Name your price—I’ll meet it.”

The supplier crossed his arms over his chest. “Fifteen hundred and forty-three lives.”

Iswander went elsewhere. He managed to liquidate some of his other assets, scraping together enough funds to buy the basic equipment he needed, though he told no one what it was for. Over the course of a month, he set up his operations in the new bloater field under tight security, inviting a small group of workers who were willing to take another chance on Iswander Industries, the few faithful who had stuck with him even in his darkest hour.

The drifting cluster of bloaters soon developed into an ambitious ekti-extraction outpost: a cluster of big ships, modular stations, industrial storage tanks, pumping vessels, and six cargo shuttles that would soon begin distributing stardrive fuel. Iswander was optimistic, and expected he would need more ships soon enough. These thousands of bloaters held a wealth of ekti for the taking, and no one else knew the source.

Fifteen of his modular habitats were linked together, comprising a headquarters, an admin module, living quarters, landing bays, and a small medical center in case of accidental injuries. At the moment, only sixty people worked out at the site, but once Iswander began making a profit he could hire more employees, all carefully vetted. Before long, Lee Iswander would restore his wealth and, more important, his reputation.

His wife and son were glad to help him make a fresh start. Though they were lonely out here, both Arden and Londa believed him when he said he was going to make his name and his fortune all over again. Elisa Reeves got to work, as she always did.

Pannebaker and two other engineers modified existing equipment to drain bloater sacks. The ekti was easily obtained, the operation far more efficient than the huge and expensive traditional skymines that processed mind-boggling quantities of hydrogen into small amounts of stardrive fuel. Iswander knew that his new ekti source would change the Confederation, change the whole Spiral Arm—but he did not intend to reveal his secret.

Best of all, tests confirmed that the ekti from the bloaters had a higher energy potential than traditional stardrive fuel. The difference was so remarkable that Iswander decided to call his product ekti-X. There would be much consternation among the Roamers who now shunned him, because they wouldn’t be able to figure out his source.

Occasionally, the nodules sparkled and flashed, but no one understood why, how to predict the sequence, or what it meant. The discharge caused problems with electronic circuitry nearby, and Iswander’s engineers installed significant shielding where necessary. Because he knew how explosive the bloaters could be, having seen the images Elisa brought back, he also instituted extreme safety measures.

Otherwise, Iswander was happy to let scientific investigations continue so long as they didn’t interfere with the extraction work. He had a lot of ground to make up.

Ships flitted around the bloaters, and tankers filled with purified ekti-X hung near the clustered spheres. By now, fifteen of the giant sacks had been drained, and the empty membranes hung like husks in space. As he watched the workers tow another flaccid membrane out beyond the traffic areas, Iswander was reminded of old sailing ships on the seas of Earth, hunting whales for the blubber. He knew he was anthropomorphizing the nodules, which certainly weren’t alive, weren’t aware. They were just gas bags filled with stardrive fuel. They weren’t even biological, as far as anyone could tell.

Elisa stood with him in the admin module looking out the windowports. “As soon as possible, we will bring clan Iswander back to prominence, sir.”

“Your confidence is contagious—as well it should be.”

Her smile was hard. Elisa Reeves was not soft by any measure, but she was a beautiful woman. Elisa Enturi, he corrected himself; she no longer wanted to be known by her married name.

“Garrison is gone,” she had reminded him when she took her maiden name again. “He was dead to me before the explosions killed him and my son. I don’t want to carry his name around like old luggage. We both need a fresh start, sir—and this is the place to do it. Once you begin supplying limitless cheap ekti-X for the Confederation and the Ildiran Empire, the Sheol disaster will be forgotten. Everything else will be seen as a mere setback.”

“Thank you for that, Elisa,” he said—but he wouldn’t soon forget the 1, 543. Nevertheless, he realized that reliability and loyalty were very attractive qualities.

Alec Pannebaker loved zipping around in an inspection pod while the extractors plunged nozzles through the tough bloater membranes and began pumping out the murky contents. It was like protoplasm inside a gigantic cell, and each bloater contained an amorphous dark structure at its core, like a rudimentary nucleus. Iswander’s processing stations centrifuged the base material to remove unwanted compounds and then filled hundreds of canisters of ekti-X.

Ten years ago, Pannebaker had served aboard a Roamer skymine, and he understood ekti processing. He made sure Iswander understood that draining bloaters was a thousand times more efficient than traditional stardrive fuel operations.

Elisa said, “Once we start distributing our ekti, sir, the Roamers are going to go nuts. We’ll have to be very careful not to let anyone else discover where our operations are.”

“We’ve got plenty of reasons to keep a low profile,” Iswander said. “And I can’t trust anyone more than I trust you, Elisa. I want you to handle the distribution. Our first major shipment should be ready to go soon.”

“I’ve already started making plans, sir. If we bring our ekti-X to a central point—say, Ulio—I can hire pilots to distribute it from there.” She looked out at the expanding operations, the extraction and refinery. “This is something we both needed.” The bitterness in her voice had not faded.

“A new start,” he said. “Everybody loves a redemption story.”