The Rock Rats

CHAPTER 3

Build a habitat big enough to house everyone living at Ceres?” asked Martin Humphries, incredulous.

“That’s what the rumble is,” said his aide, a winsome brunet with long-lashed almond eyes, full pouty lips, and a razor-sharp mind. Even though her image on his bedroom wallscreen showed only her head and shoulders and some background of her office, the sight of her set Humphries’s mind wandering.

Humphries leaned back in his wide, luxurious bed and tried to concentrate on business. He had started the morning with a vigorous tussle with a big-breasted computer analyst who nominally worked in Humphries Space Systems’ transportation department. She had spent the night in Humphries’s bed, yet even in the midst of their most passionate exertions he found himself closing his eyes and fantasizing about Amanda.

His bedmate was in the shower now, and all thoughts about her or Amanda were pushed aside as Humphries talked business with his aide, whose office was several levels up in Selene’s underground network of corridors.

“It sounds ridiculous,” Humphries said. “How reliable is this information?”

The aide let a wintry smile cross her tempting lips. “Quite reliable, sir. The prospectors are all talking about it, back and forth, from one ship to another. They’re chattering all across the Belt about it.”

“It still sounds ridiculous,” Humphries grumbled.

“Beg to differ, sir,” said the aide. Her words were deferential, but the expression on her face looked almost smug. “It makes a certain amount of sense.”

“Does it?”

“If they could build a habitat and spin it to produce an artificial gravity that approaches the grav field here on the Moon, it would be much healthier for the people living out there for months or years on end. Better for their bones and organs than sustained microgravity.”

“H’mmph.”

“In addition, sir, the habitat would have the same level of radiation shielding that the latest spacecraft have. Or even better, perhaps.”

“But the prospectors still have to go out into the Belt and claim the asteroids.”

“They are required by law to be present at an asteroid in order for their claim to be legal,” the aide agreed. “But from then on they can work the rock remotely.”

“Remotely? The distances are too big for remote operations. It takes hours for signals to cross the Belt.”

“From Ceres, sir,” the aide said stiffly, “roughly five thousand ore-bearing rocks are within one light-minute. That’s close enough for remote operations, don’t you think?”

Humphries didn’t want to give her the satisfaction of admitting she was right. Instead he replied, “Well, we’d better be getting our own people out there claiming those asteroids before the rock rats snap them all up.”

“I’ll get on that right away,” said the aide, with enough of a smile curving her tempting lips to show that she had already thought of it. “And mining teams, too.”

“Mining operations aren’t as urgent as claiming the stupid rocks.”

“Understood,” she said. Then she added, “The board meeting is this morning at ten. You asked me to remind you.”

He nodded. “Yes, I know.” Without another word he tapped the keypad on the nightstand and her wallscreen image winked off.

Slumping deeper into the pillows, he heard the woman who’d spent the night in his bed singing in the shower. Off-key. Well, he said to himself, music isn’t her best talent.

Fuchs. The thought of Lars Fuchs pushed all other notions out of his mind. He’s out there with Amanda. I never realized she’d stay out in that wilderness with him. She doesn’t belong there, living in a crummy ship like some gypsy, some penniless drifter wandering out there in the empty wastes. She should be here, with me. This is where she belongs.

I made a mistake with him. I underestimated him. He’s no fool. He’s not just prospecting and mining. He’s building an empire out there. With Pancho Lane’s help.

The young woman appeared at the bathroom door, naked, her skin dewy and flawless. She posed enticingly and smiled for Humphries.

“Do we have time for one more? Are you up to it?” Her smile turned just a tad impudent.

Despite himself, Humphries felt stirred. But he said gruffly, “Not now. I’ve got work to do.”

And he thought, This twat could get possessive. I’d better transfer her to some job back on Earth.

Martin Humphries drummed his fingers impatiently on his desk, waiting for the lame-brained techs to make all the connections so the board meeting could get underway.

After all these years, he fumed to himself, you’d think that setting up a simple virtual reality meeting with a half-dozen idiots who refuse to leave Earth would be an easy matter. He hated waiting. He loathed being dependent on anyone or anything.

Humphries refused to leave Selene. His home was on the Moon, he told himself, not Earth. Everything he wanted was here in the underground city, and what wasn’t here could be shipped to Selene upon his order. He had fought Selene’s legal system to a standstill to prevent them from exiling him back to Earth.

Earth was crippled, dying. The greenhouse flooding had wiped out most coastal cities and turned hundreds of millions of people into homeless, starving wanderers. Farmlands withered in droughts while tropical diseases found fresh territories in what used to be temperate climates. Electrical power grids everywhere faltered and sputtered lamely. A new wave of terrorism unleashed man-made plagues while crumbling nations armed their missiles and threatened nuclear war.

It’s only a matter of time, Humphries knew. Despite all the efforts by the so-called world government, despite the New Morality’s fundamentalism and relentless grip on the political reins of power, despite the suspension of individual freedoms all across the globe, it’s only a matter of time until they start nuking each other into extinction.

Safer here on the Moon. Better to be away from all that death and destruction. What was it Dan Randolph used to say? When the going gets tough, the tough get going—to where the going is easier.

Humphries nodded to himself as he sat in his high-backed chair. He was alone in his sumptuous office, a mere twenty meters from his bedroom. Most of Humphries Space Systems’ board members also lived in Selene now, yet hardly any of them were allowed into the house. They stayed in their own homes, or came to the HSS offices up in the Grand Plaza tower.

Damned waste of time, Humphries grumbled to himself. The board’s just a rubber stamp, anyway. The only member who ever gave me any trouble was Dad, and he’s gone now. Probably trying to tell St. Peter how to run heaven. Or more likely arguing with Satan in hell.

“We’re ready now, sir,” said his aide’s silky voice in the stereo earplugs Humphries wore.

“Then do it.”

“Are your goggles in place, sir?”

“I’ve been wearing my contacts for damned near fifteen minutes!”

“Of course.”

The young woman said nothing else. An instant later, the long conference table that existed only in Humphries’s computer chips sprang into existence before his eyes, each seat filled by a board member. Most of them looked slightly startled, but after a few seconds of turning in their chairs to see if everyone was there, they began chatting easily enough with one another. The half-dozen who were still on Earth were at a disadvantage, because it took nearly three seconds for signals to make the round-trip from Moon to Earth and back again. Humphries had no intention of holding up the proceedings for them; the six old farts had little power on the board, no need to worry about them. Of course, they each had a lot to say. Humphries wished he could silence them. Permanently.

He was in a foul mood by the time the meeting ended, cranky and tired. The meeting had accomplished nothing except very routine decisions that could have been made by a troop of baboons. Humphries called for his aide over the intercom phone. By the time he had gone to the lavatory, slipped his VR contacts out of his eyes, washed his face and combed his hair, she was standing in his office doorway, wearing a cool powder blue pantsuit accented with asteroidal sapphires.

Her name was Diane Verwoerd, born of a Dutch father and Indonesian mother, a teenaged fashion model in Amsterdam when her dark, sultry looks first attracted Humphries’s notice. She was a little on the skinny side, he thought, but he paid her way through law school anyway and watched her climb his corporate ladder without ever once succumbing to his attempted seductions. He liked her all the more for her independence; he could trust her, rely on her judgment, which was more than he could say about the women who did flop into his bed.

Besides, he thought, sooner or later she’ll give in. Even though she knows that’ll be the end of her job in my office, she’ll crawl into bed with me one of these nights. I just haven’t found the right motivation for her yet. It’s not money or status, I know that much about her. Maybe power. If it’s power she’s after, she could be dangerous. He grinned inwardly. Playing with nitroglycerine can be fun, sometimes.

Keeping those thoughts to himself, Humphries said without preamble as he stepped back to his desk, “We need to get rid of the rock rats.”

If the statement surprised her, Verwoerd showed no hint of it. “Why should we?” she countered.

“Simple economics. There’s so many of them out there claiming asteroids that they’re keeping the price of metals and minerals too low. Supply and demand. They’re overdoing the supply.”

“Commodities prices are low, except for food products,” Verwoerd agreed.

“And sinking,” Humphries pointed out. “But if we controlled the supply of raw materials—”

“Which means controlling the rock rats.”

“Right.”

“We could stop selling them supplies,” Verwoerd suggested.

Humphries waved a hand in the air. “They’d just buy their goods from Astro. I don’t want that.”

She nodded.

“No, I think our first step should be to establish a base of operations on Ceres.”

“On Ceres?”

“Ostensibly, it will be a depot for the supplies we sell to the rock rats,” Humphries said, sliding into his commodious high-backed chair. If he desired, the chair would massage his body or send waves of soothing warmth through him. At this moment, Humphries wanted neither.

Verwoerd gave the appearance of thinking over his statement for several moments. “And actually?”

“It’ll be a cover for putting our own people out there; a base for knocking the rock rats out of the Belt.”

Verwoerd smiled coldly. “Once we open the base, we cut our prices for the supplies we sell the prospectors and miners.”

“Cut our prices? Why?”

“To get them buying from HSS and not Astro. Tie them to us.”

Nodding, Humphries said, “We could give them more favorable terms for leasing spacecraft, too.”

Now she took one of the upholstered chairs in front of his desk. Crossing her long legs absently, she said, “Better yet, lower the interest rates on purchase loans.”

“No, no. I don’t want them to own the vessels. I want them to lease the spacecraft from us. I want them tied to Humphries Space Systems.”

“Under contract to HSS?”

Humphries leaned back in his chair and clasped his hands behind his head. “Right. I want those rock rats working for me.”

“At prices that you set,” she said.

“We allow the prices for raw ores to keep going down,” Humphries mused. “We encourage the independents to bring in so much ore that the prices are forced constantly downward. That will drive them out of the field, sooner or later.”

“Leaving only the people who are under contract to HSS,” Verwoerd agreed.

“That way, we gain control of the costs of exploration and mining,” he said, “and on the other end we also control the prices for the refined metals and other resources that we sell to Selene and Earth.”

“But individual rock rats could sell to companies on Earth on their own, independently,” she pointed out.

“So what?” Humphries snapped. “They’ll just be undercutting each other until they drive themselves out of business. They’ll be cutting their own throats.”

“Supply and demand,” Verwoerd murmured.

“Yes. But when we get the rock rats working exclusively for us, we’ll control the supply. No matter what the demand, we’ll be able to control prices. And profits.”

“A little on the devious side.” She smiled, though.

“It worked for Rockefeller.”

“Until the anti-trust laws were passed.”

“There aren’t any anti-trust laws in the Belt,” Humphries said. “No laws at all, come to think of it.”

Verwoerd hesitated, thinking, then said, “It will take some time to drive out all the independents. And there’s still Astro to consider.”

“I’ll handle Astro when the time comes.”

“Then you’ll have complete control of the Belt.”

“Which means that in the long run it won’t cost us anything to set up a base on Ceres.” It was a statement, not a question.

“That’s not exactly how the accounting department will see it.”

He laughed. “Then why don’t we do it? Establish a base on Ceres and bring those rock rats under our control.”

She gave him a long, careful look, a look that said, I know there’s more to this than you’re telling me. You’ve got a hidden agenda, and I’m pretty sure I know what it is.

But aloud all she said was, “We can use this base on Ceres to centralize all the maintenance work, as well.”

He nodded an acknowledgement to her. “Good idea.”

“Offer the lowest possible terms on the maintenance contracts.”

“Get the rock rats to come to HSS for maintenance,” he agreed.

“Make them dependent on you.”

He laughed again. “Gillette’s dictum.”

She looked puzzled.

“Give ’em the razor,” he explained. “Sell ’em the blades.”