The Rock Rats

CHAPTER 2

Once George had cycled through Starpower 1’s airlock and jetted back to his own Waltzing Matilda, Fuchs went down the ship’s narrow central passageway to the compartment where his wife was working.

She looked up from the wallscreen as Fuchs slid the compartment door open. He saw that she was watching a fashion show beamed from somewhere on Earth: slim, slinky models in brightly colored gowns of outrageous designs. Fuchs frowned slightly: half the people of Earth displaced by floods and earthquakes, starvation rampant almost everywhere, and still the rich played their games.

Amanda blanked the wallscreen as she asked, “Has George left already?”

“Yes. And he agreed to it!”

Her smile was minimal. “He did? It didn’t take you terribly long to convince him, did it?”

She still spoke with a trace of the Oxford accent she had learned years earlier in London. She was wearing an oversized faded sweatshirt and cutoff work pants. Her golden blonde hair was pinned up off her neck and slightly disheveled. She wore not a trace of makeup. Still, she was much more beautiful than any of the emaciated mannequins of the fashion show. Fuchs pulled her to him and kissed her warmly.

“In two years, maybe less, we’ll have a decent base in orbit around Ceres with lunar-level gravity.”

Amanda gazed into her husband’s eyes, seeking something. “Kris Cardenas will be happy to hear it,” she said.

“Yes, Dr. Cardenas will be very pleased,” Fuchs agreed. “We should tell her as soon as we arrive.”

“Of course.”

“But you’re not even dressed yet!”

“It won’t take me a minute,” Amanda said. “It’s not like we’re going to a royal reception.” Then she added, “Or even to a party in Selene.”

Fuchs realized that Amanda wasn’t as happy as he’d thought she would be. “What’s the matter? Is something wrong?”

“No,” she said, too quickly. “Not really.”

“Amanda, my darling, I know that when you say ‘not really’ you really mean ‘really.’ ”

She broke into a genuine smile. “You know me too well.”

“No, not too well. Just well enough.” He kissed her again, lightly this time. “Now, what’s wrong? Tell me, please.”

Leaning her cheek on his shoulder, Amanda said very softly, “I thought we’d be home by now, Lars.”

“Home?”

“Earth. Or even Selene. I never dreamt we’d stay in the Belt for three years.”

Suddenly Fuchs saw the worn, scuffed metal walls of this tiny coop of a cubicle, the narrow confines of the ship’s passageway and the other cramped compartments; smelled the stale air with its acrid tinge of ozone; felt the background vibrations that rattled through the ship every moment; consciously noticed the clatter of pumps and wheezing of the air fans. And he heard his own voice ask inanely:

“You’re not happy here?”

“Lars, I’m happy being with you. Wherever you are. You know that. But—”

“But you would rather be back on Earth. Or at Selene.”

“It’s better than living on a ship all the time.”

“He’s still at Selene.”

She pulled slightly away, looked straight into his deep-set eyes. “You mean Martin?”

“Humphries,” said Fuchs. “Who else?”

“He’s got nothing to do with it.”

“Doesn’t he?”

Now she looked truly alarmed. “Lars, you don’t think that Martin Humphries means anything to me?”

He felt his blood turning to ice. One look at Amanda’s innocent blue eyes and full-bosomed figure and any man would be wild to have her.

Coldly, calmly, he said, “I know that Martin Humphries wants you. I think that you married me to escape from him. I think—”

“Lars, that’s not true!”

“Isn’t it?”

“I love you! For god’s sake, don’t you know that? Don’t you understand it?”

The ice thawed. He realized that he held in his arms the most gorgeous woman he had ever seen. That she had come to this desolate emptiness on the frontier of human habitation to be with him, to help him, to love him.

“I’m sorry,” he muttered, feeling ashamed. “It’s just that… I love you so much…”

“And I love you, Lars. I truly do.”

“I know.”

“Do you?”

He shook his head ruefully. “Sometimes I wonder why you put up with me.”

She smiled and traced a fingertip across his stubborn, stubbled jaw. “Why not? You put up with me, don’t you?”

With a sigh, he admitted, “I thought we’d be back on Earth by now. I thought we’d be rich.”

“We are. Aren’t we?”

“On paper, perhaps. We’re better off than most of the other prospectors. At least we own this ship…”

His voice faltered. They both knew why. They owned Star-power because Martin Humphries had given it to them as a gift.

“But the bills do mount up,” Amanda said swiftly, trying to change the subject. “I was going over the accounts earlier. We can’t seem to stay ahead of the expenses.”

Fuchs made a sound somewhere between a grunt and a snort. “If you count how much we owe, we certainly are multimillionaires.”

It was a classic problem, they both knew. A prospector might find an asteroid worth hundreds of billions on paper, but the costs of mining the ores, transporting them back to the Earth/Moon region, refining them—the costs of food and fuel and air to breathe—were so high that the prospectors were almost always on the ragged edge of bankruptcy. Still they pushed on, always seeking that lode of wealth that would allow them to retire at last and live in luxury. Yet no matter how much wealth they actually found, hardly any of it stayed in their hands for long.

And I want to take ten percent of that from them, Fuchs said to himself. But it will be worth it! They’ll thank me for it, once it’s done.

“It’s not like we’re spendthrifts,” Amanda murmured. “We don’t throw the money away on frivolities.”

“I should never have brought you out here,” Fuchs said. “It was a mistake.”

“No!” she contradicted. “I want to be with you, Lars. Wherever you are.”

“This is no place for a woman such as you. You should be living comfortably, happily—”

She silenced him with a single slim finger across his thin lips. “I’m perfectly comfortable and happy here.”

“But you’d be happier on Earth. Or Selene.”

She hesitated a fraction of a second before replying, “Wouldn’t you?”

“Yes,” he admitted. “Of course. But I’m not going back until I can give you all the things you deserve.”

“Oh, Lars, you’re all that I really want.”

He gazed at her for a long moment, then said, “Yes, perhaps. But I want more. Much more.”

Amanda said nothing.

Brightening, Fuchs said, “But as long as we’re out here, at least I can make a decent home for you in Ceres orbit!”

She smiled for her husband.