Uranus

ORBITAL STATION HAVEN

There were thirty of them, eleven women and nineteen men, their ages ranging from late teens to approaching senility, standing wide-eyed, gaping at the trees and shrubs and—beyond the Glassteel dome above them—the blue-gray clouds of the planet Uranus.

Pointing toward the bland-looking planet, their group leader said sternly, “That world’s name is pronounced ‘YOU-ra-nus.’” His craggy face dead serious, he went on, “I don’t wanna hear any wiseguys call it ‘Your-ANUS.’ Unnerstand me?”

The thirty newbies nodded and mumbled assent.

His ham-sized fists planted on his hips, Quincy O’Donnell nodded back at his new charges. “All right, then,” he said, the flat twang of his native Boston still unmistakable in his creaky tenor voice, “let’s get on with it. The minister is waitin’ to greet you.”

They were standing in the garden, a wide swath of Earthly greenery planted and lovingly tended by the inhabitants of Haven, the spindly ring-shaped space station swinging in orbit around the huge planet Uranus. In the distance, they could see several towers rising high above their level. And overhead there was more real estate: green empty acres, small clusters of towns that looked sparkling new, untouched as yet.

A whole new world, built inside the ring of metal and plastic that encircled them.

Not one of the dozen newcomers moved a centimeter. They were all gaping at the habitat spreading as far as the eye could see, even above their heads. They stared wide-eyed, frozen in wonderment.

It’s hitting them, O’Donnell said to himself. For the first time, the reality of it is making itself felt. You’re a long way from Earth, he told them silently. And there’s no goin’ back. This is your new home. Permanently.

“All right now, that’s enough of sightseein’. Let’s get moving.”

They stirred, reluctantly. But they moved in response to his command. Good. They’ll learn to obey orders, they will. Or suffer for their sins.

O’Donnell turned and led the newbies along the winding brick path that led through the profuse foliage to the waiting auditorium. Thirty more poor souls, he said to himself. Thirty more lost waifs searchin’ for paradise. Well, maybe they’ll find it here. If not here, I don’t know where on God’s green Earth they’ll find a place to rest their poor bones.

Then he reminded himself that they weren’t on God’s green Earth, not anymore. They were damned near three billion kilometers from Earth, out at the ass end of the solar system, swinging endlessly around the planet Uranus.

O’Donnell clenched his teeth tightly. There you go again, Quincy old boy, swearin’ like you haven’t been taught better. Remember to include that sin in your next confession.

“C’mon,” he shouted. “The minister is waitin’ for yez.”

DATA BANK

Uranus is the third largest of the solar system’s eight planets, orbiting beyond beringed Saturn, out in the cold and lonely darkness of the Sun’s most distant children.

More than four times larger than Earth, Uranus orbits nearly three billion kilometers from the Sun. Uranus’s year is slightly more than eighty-four Earth years. It spins around its axis every seventeen hours and four minutes.

While the planet’s mass is 14.5 times more than Earth’s, its density is merely 1.3 times greater than that of water. Its atmosphere—at least the uppermost part of it—is composed mainly of hydrogen and helium, the two lightest elements, with significant amounts of methane and ammonia. The temperature of its cloud tops is truly frigid: more than 197 degrees below zero Celsius.

Uranus is weird. The other planets of the solar system have axial tilts ranging from Jupiter’s 3.1 degrees to 26.7 degrees for Saturn. Earth’s axis is tipped 23.4 degrees, a tilt that produces its seasons.

Uranus, though, is tilted 97.9 degrees from vertical. Its north pole points toward the Sun for part of its year, while half a Uranian year later (some forty-two Earth years) its south pole points Sunward. And unlike all the other planets, Uranus spins from east to west, retrograde, in astronomical parlance.

Uranus has rings circling over its equator. Thin, dark rings of meteoric bits of rock and metal, barely visible except on those rare occasions when they happen to catch a glint of sunlight.

Curious scientists from Earth sent dozens of unmanned probes into orbit around Uranus, and deep into the placid blue-gray clouds that cover it from pole to pole. They were only partially successful in unveiling the planet’s secrets. Something collided with Uranus early in the solar system’s history, the scientists reasoned, banging its axial tilt so far from vertical. Something apparently sterilized the planet-wide ocean that lies beneath Uranus’s methane and ammonia clouds. Unlike the oceans of Jupiter and Saturn, and even the more-distant Neptune, the ocean of Uranus is dead: no living creature has been found there, not even single-celled protoplasms.

Interest in Uranus faltered in the face of such discouraging discoveries. A sterile planet, dead, lifeless. Scientific probes were sent elsewhere. Uranus was a dead end, literally.

Until the self-styled Reverend Kyle Umber conceived his plan of building a haven for Earth’s poor, disenfranchised, forgotten men and women, in orbit around the planet Uranus.

KYLE UMBER

Quincy O’Donnell led his thirty foundlings along the bricked path that led toward the auditorium. That’s how he thought of his charges: foundlings, orphans, the “wretched refuse” of their native Earth, poor, ignorant, hopeless.

But Reverend Umber will give them hope, give them learning, give them a reason to live and to praise God. O’Donnell had seen it happen to earlier arrivals at this mission station set in deep space.

Thanks to optical recognition technology the auditorium doors swung open automatically as O’Donnell led his little troop toward them. The thirty followed O’Donnell inside, goggling at the lofty ceiling, the broad expanse of pews, row after row of benches and—up atop the stage—a row of high-backed wooden chairs that looked stiff, stern, uncomfortable.

All empty. The vast, high-ceilinged auditorium was empty except for their little group. Unadorned. No pictures on the blank walls. No statues or images of any sort on the empty stage before them. Their footsteps echoed off the metal walls. They were awed into silence.

O’Donnell sat them in the front row of seats, grinning inwardly at their wide-eyed stares. The auditorium was bare, undecorated, windowless, yet it still astounded each one of them into silence.

For several moments, they sat before the raised stage, glancing around uneasily, unsure of what they were about to face.

Then the Reverend Kyle Umber came walking silently, smilingly, out of the right wing of the stage. He seemed to glow against the shadows behind him. Dressed in a simple suit of pure white, Umber looked down at the new arrivals with a smile that lit up his entire face.

It was an ordinary sort of face, roundish, with healthy pink cheeks and a full crop of reddish-brown hair swept back from his forehead and falling to his shoulders. Umber was short, thickset, with heavyish arms and legs beneath his immaculate white jacket and trousers.

He walked to the edge of the stage and—as several of the newcomers rose to their feet in automatic reflex—he hopped off the edge of the stage and landed like a well-trained acrobat on the balls of his feet exactly in front of the newbies.

A wide smile on his ruddy face, Kyle Umber spread his arms and said, “Welcome to Haven. Welcome to your new home.”

The people who had gotten up hesitated a moment, then crumpled back into their seats, almost shamefaced. Quincy O’Donnell—who had seen the minister’s hijinks before—remained standing in the aisle, arms folded across his broad chest, resisting the urge to applaud.

Umber said, in a soft, intimate voice, “I hope you’ll forgive my dramatics. I get a kick out of making that little jump. To me, it sort of illustrates the much bigger jump each of you has made—the jump from teeming, overcrowded, decaying Earth to the new paradise we are working to create here at Haven.”

A few of the new arrivals chuckled appreciatively.

“I suppose you’re wondering why I established this refuge, this sanctuary nearly three billion kilometers away from Earth. The reason is simple: I wanted to create a haven far from Earth and its troubles, a refuge where men and women like yourselves could find peace, and love, and a meaningful life.

“Haven is that place. It is a new world, a world that you will help to build, literally, with your own hands and hearts and skills. A refuge where you can live in dignity and harmony, far from the evils and temptations of Earth. Here in Haven you will build a new world. On Earth you were considered the worst samples of humankind. Here in Haven you will become the best examples of human capabilities. Together, you and I, we will create the best out of the worst.

“Haven is the place where the human race will be reborn, clean, new, strong and free. And you will be reborn as well—clean, new, strong and free.”

Absolute silence through the vast, echoing auditorium. The newcomers were totally fixated on the Reverend Kyle Umber.

“If you are ignorant, we will teach you. If you have skills or knowledge, we will put them to use in building this new world. Put your past behind you! A new life is opening for you, God is giving you a new chance to live the life He wants you to live.”

“Amen!” shouted one of the women.

Smiling, Umber nodded and said, “Amen indeed. We have a stupendous task before us. We will build a new world here, literally. We will—together, you, me and all of us—we will extend and enlarge Haven so that we can accept as many of Earth’s forgotten millions as possible.

“We will build new habitats, new man-made worlds that will house and protect and educate all who come here seeking shelter and wisdom and safety. We will endure hardships and dangers. We will conquer fear and hate. We will create a true human paradise here in the darkness, so far from the lifegiving Sun. We will triumph over ignorance and poverty and hatred.

“Together, you and I and the others, together we will prevail. We will triumph.”

The thirty newcomers rose to their feet as a single entity and cheered lustily. The sound of their enthusiasm echoed throughout the vast, nearly empty auditorium.

Kyle Umber bowed his head in silent acknowledgement of their approval. He stood silent and unmoving until the newbies sat back in their chairs.

Raising his head to look at them again, his smile benign, his eyes aglow, Umber went on, “This is a monumental task we have set for ourselves. It will not be accomplished easily or quickly. But we will prevail!”

Again the thirty jumped to their feet, clapping their hands lustily. Quincy O’Donnell, still standing in the aisle at the end of the row, smiled inwardly. He had seen this performance before. The minister always stirred the newbies with his vision.

As the newcomers settled back into their seats again, Umber half turned back toward the stage and said, “Now I want you to meet the person who has made all this possible: Evan Waxman.”

EVAN WAXMAN

From the same right wing of the stage stepped a tall, lean, elegant man, stylish despite the casual pearl-gray slacks and untucked light yellow shirt he wore. Smiling at the newcomers, he went to the corner of the stage and came down the steps there in an easy, loose-limbed gait.

“This is Evan Waxman.” Umber introduced him. “Our benefactor and great good friend.”

Waxman was a full head taller than Umber, his chiseled features handsome, confident. His hair was dark and cut short; his skin pale, ashen. He waved one hand carelessly at the newbies and smiled at them with dazzling teeth.

“Hello everybody,” he said in a clear deep voice. “Good to meet you.”

Umber reached up to pat Waxman’s shoulder. “Mr. Waxman is really the founder of our feast. He has spent a good part of his family’s fortune to construct Haven out here in the wilderness. The debt we owe him can never be repaid—in money.”

Waxman bowed his head humbly, then spoke up. “What I have donated to Reverend Umber’s cause is only money. I was glad to do it. Reverend Umber has shown me that there are much more important things than mere wealth, things like loyalty, and generosity, and a vision for the future.”

“And a few billion international dollars to donate,” Umber added, with a happy smile.

“That’s merely money,” Waxman repeated, “money that I am glad to give, money that is being turned into this sanctuary, this retreat where you and he and I—together—can create a refuge where we can build new lives for ourselves, where we can learn to live in peace and harmony.”

One of the newcomers—thin, frail, dark of skin and eye—raised a questioning hand.

Waxman nodded to him.

The newbie slowly got to his feet, glanced shyly around at his companions, then asked, “Is Haven strictly a Christian endeavor, or is it truly open to people of all faiths?”

Waxman turned toward Umber, whose smiling face grew quite serious.

“We believe that God is served by all faiths. People from every corner of the Earth try to worship God in the ways that make sense to them. Here in Haven we have no specific denomination of worship. All are free to worship God in his or her own way.”

And he called out, “Roman Catholic decor, please.”

Suddenly the auditorium was transformed. The stage became an altar with a three-story-high crucifix hanging behind it. Windows topped by pointed arches appeared along the side walls, each showing a magnificent stained-glass image of a Biblical scene.

The newbies gasped in awe.

Umber called, “Lutheran decor, please.”

Instantly the dramatic pictures and images disappeared, replaced by quietly dignified simplicity.

Smiling broadly, Umber called, “Thank you. End presentation.”

The auditorium returned to its original bare simplicity.

“We have decor schemes for more than forty different religious affiliations, including Moslem, Hindu, even Baha’i.”

“What about agnostics?” asked the questioner. “Or outright atheists?”

Umber’s smile widened, gentle, understanding. “Whatever your faith—or lack of it—you will be welcome in Haven. After all, the God who created the universe knows what is in your heart. His vision is all-encompassing.”

“I’d like to add something to that,” Waxman said, his brows knitting slightly. “I am an agnostic. The religion that my parents followed—the religion I was indoctrinated with as a child—that religion taught that faith is a gift, given freely by God.” With a shrug of his shoulders, Waxman went on, “Well, I never received that gift. I wish I had, but somehow it’s eluded me. Yet here I am, working shoulder to shoulder with Reverend Umber to help build Haven.”

“You say ‘to help build Haven,’” one of the other men called, from his seat. “How large do you intend to make this habitat?”

Umber spread his arms. “As large as we can. And we intend to build more habitats, to house more immigrants. Haven II is already under construction next to us. We intend to take all those who seek shelter and solace and peace into our community. There will never be an end to this endeavor; we will keep growing as long as we need to.”

“Where’s the money going to come from?”

“From generous patrons such as Mr. Waxman, here,” Umber replied. “And from others like him. God will provide, never fear.”

RAVEN MARCHESI

Sitting on the aisle seat of the auditorium’s front row—next to Quincy O’Donnell standing out in the aisle—Raven Marchesi watched and listened intently to Kyle Umber and Evan Waxman.

They’re good salesmen, she thought. Smooth and slick. Promising heaven and peace and joy. But what’s it going to cost us?

Raven always worried about the costs of life, from the time she’d been six years old in the decaying slums of Naples, within sight of the smoldering old Mt. Vesuvius, looming over her.

Her home—such as it was—had been buried in Vesuvius’s latest eruption. No one came to her neighborhood to warn the people to get out. Most of them were buried when the skies rained white-hot ashes and choking gas.

But Raven had noticed the exodus of private cars and hired buses from the high-rent condominiums on the edge of her rundown district; she followed barefoot the evacuation trail of her wealthier neighbors. She had no parents to guide her; her only warning of the coming eruption was the evacuation by the rich.

Her earliest memories were of the seedy, roach-crawling, rat-infested orphanage where she’d grown up. She’d been ten years old when she had her first period—and her first sexual experience. She quickly learned that sex was a sort of equalizer: as poor and ragged as she was, sex was the one path to money and safety open to her.

As she grew into a slim, sleek, dark-haired beauty, she learned about sex. She learned how to turn the sweaty passions of men—and women—into money and a scant measure of security.

She was nearing twenty when one of the occasional police sweeps scooped her off the streets and landed her in a dark and dismal jail. Her cell was crowded with other women: some defiant, some bitter and hopeless, some offering themselves to the prison guards. She almost laughed at the irony of it. I’m back among the rats and the filth, she told herself. Back where I started.

To her surprise, the next morning she was taken by a pair of guards from her overcrowded cell to a tiny office several levels above the cellblock. The cramped little room had a single slit of a window, set too high in the wall for Raven to see the street. Nothing out there but a jumble of slanted rooftops. Bright warm sunshine made the sky glow.

A dumpy, overweight woman in a starched white blouse and dull gray skirt came in and sat behind the table that took up almost all the room’s floor space. The table was bare except for a hand-sized notebook computer. A stiff wooden chair stood empty in front of the table. On the stone wall behind the table a large round clock silently showed the time flowing by: almost 10:00 A.M.

“Sit,” said the woman, in a voice like a cobra’s hiss.

Raven sat. Her stomach rumbled slightly; she’d had nothing to eat except a candy bar the night before.

The woman flicked her computer open and, without looking up, asked in Tuscan dialect, “Your name?”

Noting that the woman’s fingers bore no rings, Raven replied, “Raven Marchesi, signorina.”

The woman looked up at Raven, her brow cocked. In English she said, “Let’s leave my marital status out of this, Miss Marchesi.”

Raven nodded and replied in barely accented English, “Very well.”

Continuing in English, the interviewer asked, “Your occupation?”

Raven shrugged. “Sex therapist.”

The woman said to her computer, “Whore.”

“No!” Raven protested. “I—”

“A sex therapist?” The woman scoffed. “Where did you get your degree?”

“I’ve been trying to save enough money for the classes, but—”

“Shut up! You’re a whore and we both know it.”

Raven glowered at her but said nothing.

The woman went through a series of questions, almost automatically. Just as mechanically, Raven gave answers—some of them the truth, the rest fables from her imagination.

At last the woman closed her notebook and studied Raven’s face for long, silent moments. The clock’s second hand swung silently.

“The police can hold you here for twenty-four hours, then they are required to turn you loose. Is that what you want?”

“Of course.”

With a bitter smile, the woman said, “You won’t get much sleep during those twenty-four hours.”

Raven shrugged her slim shoulders. “It won’t be the first time.”

“I can offer you something better.”

“Sex with you?” Raven sneered.

The woman seemed shocked, repelled. “Sex? With you? Good lord, no!”

“You might like it,” Raven said.

Looking halfway between disgusted and ashamed, the woman said sternly, “I am empowered to invite you to join a journey to a space habitat named Haven, orbiting the planet Uranus. It will be a one-way journey; you will spend the rest of your life there. Not as a prisoner or a convict. Haven is a self-sufficient community for the poor and disadvantaged. You can start a new life there. A better life.”

The woman spoke for more than twenty minutes, nonstop, promoting the advantages of the Haven habitat. After ten of those minutes, Raven was ready to sign up and start a new life.

She made up her mind when the woman told Raven that during the flight out to the distant planet, she would undergo medical procedures that would cleanse her of any narcotics or disease organisms her body housed.

“You’ll arrive at Uranus clean and healthy,” the woman promised, “ready to begin a better life. A new beginning for you.”

A new beginning, Raven said to herself. A new, clean life. It might even be true.

A NEW HOME

Now, seven weeks later and billions of kilometers from Naples, Raven sat in Haven’s auditorium and studied Kyle Umber and Evan Waxman as they explained about the world they had created here at the cold, dark end of the solar system.

The Reverend Kyle Umber, she said to herself. He doesn’t look like a priest. Doesn’t act much like one, either. She had known her share of priests back in Naples. Some were furtive, haunted. Others were haughty, self-important, even sadistic. Umber looked like a pleasant-enough man, smiling, friendly. But Raven thought she detected a hard shell beneath his amiable exterior.

The man is dedicated, she decided. Driven to build this new paradise far from the filth and indecencies of old Earth. Behind his smiling eyes was a dedication, a mission, an inflexible drive to make his vision into reality.

Not him, she decided.

She turned her chestnut-brown eyes to Evan Waxman. Tall, graceful, rich. Good smile, the kind of smile that comes from never having to worry about where your next meal might come from, or where you can spend the night. Successful, she realized. Clever enough to be born to incredibly wealthy parents.

And now he’s spending most of that wealth on Umber’s Haven. On the dream of a place where the poor can begin to lead new lives. Where they can leave their miserable existences behind them and start out fresh.

Like what the priests told us about God and heaven and a perfect life. Does Evan Waxman really believe that? Truly? She guessed not. But she decided that her best path to safety on this new world was to be enfolded in the wings of this very wealthy Evan Waxman.

But how to get to him? How to make him notice me? Raven realized she was dressed in the dreary uniform they had given her aboard the spacecraft that had carried her and the others from Earth. Mousy-gray, shapeless baggy trousers and an equally loose-fitting long-sleeved blouse.

He’d never notice me in this sack, she thought. How to attract him? How?

Standing in front of the row of new arrivals, Kyle Umber clasped his hands together and said, “All right, that’s enough from Evan and me. Now Mr. O’Donnell will show you to your quarters. You’ll have the rest of the day to yourselves, and tomorrow you’ll begin your new lives as citizens of Haven. May God be with you.”

With that, Umber turned and headed for the stairs that led up to the stage.

Waxman, beside him, asked in a voice loud enough for all the newcomers to hear, “Aren’t you going to jump up onto the stage?”

Umber laughed and shook his head. “Thou shalt not tempt the Lord our God,” he said as he took to the stairs.

Quincy O’Donnell led the thirty new arrivals out of the auditorium and down a long, straight passageway. No decorations on the walls. No pictures or windows. Nothing but bare metal and closed, unmarked doors. Raven could see that the passageway was not actually straight: it curved, in the distance, rising up and out of sight. But as she walked along with the others, it seemed perfectly flat. Strange, she thought.

Raven maneuvered past a rail-thin woman and a pair of reasonably healthy-looking young men to come up next to O’Donnell.

He towered over her, big and beefy, the expression on his florid face absolutely neutral, as if he were actually walking in his sleep.

“Will it be much farther?” Raven asked him, in a small voice.

O’Donnell’s face came alive instantly. Looking down at her, he asked, “Why? Is anything wrong?”

Raven temporized, “I’ve got a cramp in my leg.”

“A cramp?”

“I’m not accustomed to walking so far,” she said.

“Oh… well, we’re almost there. See?” He pointed. “There are nameplates on the doors here. Your quarters’ll be just a little bit further on.”

Raven nodded and conspicuously bit her lip.

“Are you in a lot of pain? Maybe—”

“No,” she said softly. “I can manage.” And she made herself limp ever so slightly.

O’Donnell looked confused, upset, almost guilty. “Only a few more meters now,” he said.

“That’s good,” said Raven. Inwardly she smiled at the big oaf’s concern. Easy pickings, she said to herself.

Sure enough, the doors on either side of the passageway started to show the names of the thirty newcomers. One by one they entered their quarters. Raven caught glimpses of the compartments inside: they didn’t seem very spacious, but they weren’t cramped, either. Nice enough, she thought. Above everything else, they seemed clean! No rats, no spiderwebs, no water seeping down the walls.

At last they came to her place. The nameplate on the door read MARCHESI, R.

O’Donnell clicked the lock and slid the door open for her. Then, with a sweeping gesture, he ushered Raven into her new home.

She took two steps inside, then stopped.

“Is it all right?” O’Donnell asked, from out in the passageway.

Raven saw a sofa, a pair of sling chairs, a coffee table. To the right was a kitchen, with sink, refrigerator, shelves stocked with various cartons and bottles. To her left was an open door and, beyond it, a bed neatly made with sheets and a blanket and plump pillows with real pillowcases over them!

“Is it all right?” O’Donnell asked again.

“It’s wonderful!” Raven cried.

Then she turned, stepped outside again, threw her arms around his neck and kissed O’Donnell on the lips. “It’s wonderful,” she repeated.

O’Donnell’s face flamed tomato red.

“Well… it’s all yours,” he managed to mutter as he disentangled himself from her arms.

Raven stepped back into the living room. Her living room. Her very own. Dimly she heard the door slide shut behind her. Suddenly alone in her new home—her own home, all to herself—she raced into the bedroom and jumped full-length upon the bed.

It was soft and warm and safe. Raven had never been so happy in her life.

A NEW LIFE

Raven woke to the sound of an insistent buzzing. She opened her gummy eyes, blinked several times, then sat up on the bed. It was real. The room, the bed, the warm coverlet tangled around her bare legs.

“It’s not a dream,” she said aloud.

Looking around, she saw that her bedroom walls were a soft yellow, the ceiling blank white.

My bedroom, she said to herself. My own bedroom, all to myself. And out past that door is a living room and a kitchen.

The buzzing rose a notch. Turning, Raven saw that it came from a phone console on the night table next to her bed.

“Phone answer,” she called out.

A woman’s face appeared on the phone’s small screen.

“Good morning, Miss Marchesi. You are scheduled for an orientation interview at oh-nine-hundred hours. The time is now oh-seven-thirty.”

“Where is my interview going to be?” Raven asked.

The woman’s brunette features froze for a moment, long enough for Raven to realize that this wasn’t an actual live person, but a computer image.

“Your interview will take place in your quarters at oh-nine-hundred hours. One hour and twenty-nine minutes from now.”

“Thank you,” said Raven.

The phone screen went blank.

Raven got up, showered, wrapped a towel around herself, then rummaged through the kitchen and made herself a bowl of cereal and a cup of strong black coffee. By 8:48 A.M. she was dressed in another of the dreary, baggy outfits that she’d found hanging in her closet.

My closet, she told herself. My very own closet in my very own bedroom in my very own apartment. She felt like dancing.

But she sat, demure and ladylike, on the living room sofa. They’re probably watching you, she told herself. You’d better behave like a proper lady.

Precisely at 0900 hours the front door buzzer hummed. Raven got up from the sofa, went to the door, and stopped, puzzled. She could not see any buttons or latches or controls for opening the door. Nothing but a small screen beside the door that showed a middle-aged woman, slim and good-looking, with well-coiffed short blond hair, standing out in the passageway.

Suddenly desperate, Raven called out, “How do I open the door?”

The woman outside broke into a bright smile. “Just say ‘Open please.’ The mechanism is tuned to your voice.”

Raven glared at the door and muttered, “Open please.”

The door slid open.

“Hello,” said the blond woman as she extended her hand. “I’m Cathy Fremont. I’m your orientation leader.”

Raven clasped her hand and gestured her into the living room. The door slid shut behind them.

“I’m sorry to be so stupid,” said Raven as she led Cathy Fremont to the sofa.

“This is all new to you, isn’t it?” Fremont replied as she sat down.

“Yes, it is.”

“You speak English very well, Raven. Is it all right for me to call you by your first name?”

“Yes, of course,” said Raven, sitting herself on the sling chair nearest the sofa. “I speak Italian, English, Spanish, German, a little Greek and a smattering of a few other languages.”

Fremont made an obviously forced smile. “How clever of you.”

Raven cocked her head slightly. “In my profession you learn languages quickly.”

“Your former profession,” said Fremont.

“Yes, of course. My former profession. I’m starting a new life here, aren’t I?”

“Indeed so.”

It was a long day. Without leaving Raven’s apartment, Fremont used the living room’s wall screen to show her the layout of station Haven, everything from the cafeterias and formal dining rooms to the clinic and the recreational facilities. Raven took it all in, asking questions, nodding at the answers.

As noon approached, Raven went to the kitchen and found the makings for sandwiches. Cathy Fremont nibbled away happily without stopping the orientation for more than a moment or two.

Inwardly, Raven was asking herself, How can I get close to Evan Waxman? How can I make him notice me?

As the digital readout at the bottom of the wall screen reached 4:00 P.M. Fremont said, “I think that’s enough for one day. Tomorrow you will take a battery of aptitude tests, so we can determine what kind of work you’re best suited for.”

Dropping her eyes respectfully, Raven said, “I’m afraid I don’t have much experience at anything useful.”

Fremont smiled reassuringly. “Oh, don’t be too sure of that. We’ve found great stores of talent among our new arrivals, talents that most of them didn’t realize that they had.”

Raven smiled back at her, but she thought, Is fellatio one of the talents you’re looking for?

FINDING TALENT

For the next three months, Raven attended school. Back in Naples she had been forced to go to school whenever the authorities picked her off the streets.

“For your own good,” they would tell her. “To improve yourself.”

But the dreary classes in the stifling, oppressive rooms taught her nothing except an unbearable yearning to get out, get free, get back on the streets where she could use her brains and her body to live on her own. Even a beating was better than sitting through the droning lectures and pretending to read the stupid books they forced on her.

Here on Haven, though, school was very different. She studied in her apartment, engrossed in virtual reality programs that immersed her in the subjects she explored. History became real to her: she lived in ancient Rome, in modern Euro-America. She saw how mathematics worked and stored the new knowledge in her brain. She learned how her own body worked, and marveled at the wonderful intricacy of her cellular machinery.

Without realizing it, at first, Raven began to learn.

She learned how the habitat Haven was governed, how the poor, ignorant newcomers were transformed into productive, intelligent citizens who actually helped to govern the habitat’s growing population.

I could become a councilwoman, Raven realized one afternoon. I could be one of the people who gives orders, who makes decisions, who directs how the others live.

Evan Waxman would have to notice me then, she told herself.

She made friends among the other newcomers, and even among the people who had been there longer, who were now part of the government of Haven. One of those friends was Quincy O’Donnell, the big, beefy watchman who had guided Raven’s group when they’d first arrived at Haven.

One afternoon, as she was taking lunch in the main cafeteria after a morning of exhausting examinations by the education department’s central computer, Quincy O’Donnell came up to her table carrying a tray loaded to its edges with a salad, a sandwich, a hefty slab of pie, a big cup of juice and a dainty jewel of chocolate topped by a pink sliver of candy.

“D’you mind if I sit with you?” he asked, his voice quavering slightly.

Raven gave him a minimal smile and said, “No, I don’t mind at all. Sit right down.”

O’Donnell placed his tray carefully on the small table across from her and settled his bulk in the spindly-legged chair.

Then he picked up the tiny chocolate piece delicately, in two fingers, and placed it on Raven’s tray.

“For you,” he said, the expression on his heavy-featured face somewhere between expectant and apprehensive.

“Why, thank you,” said Raven, surprised.

O’Donnell broke into a sloppy grin, then grabbed his sandwich and tore a huge bite out of it.

Raven smiled demurely at him. By the time they had finished their lunches they were chatting like old friends.

They got up from their chairs, O’Donnell towering over her.

“I… uh,” he stammered, “I thought… well, maybe we could have dinner together sometime.”

Keeping her smile fixed in place, Raven replied, “That would be nice.”

O’Donnell nodded happily and mumbled, “I’ll call you.”

“Fine,” said Raven. Then she watched the big man lumber away, as if fleeing some ogre.

He’ll be easy to keep on a leash, she told herself as she watched his retreating back. Like a big puppy. Just don’t let him get too close.

When she got back to her apartment, Raven’s wall screen showed a notification to appear at Cathy Fremont’s office at 0900 hours the next morning.

She sank down onto the sofa in her living room, staring at the message on the screen, biting her lip in consternation. What have I done wrong? she asked herself, alarmed. She wondered, Maybe I shouldn’t have agreed to have dinner with Quincy. Maybe…

With a shake of her head, she decided it was pointless to try to guess why she’d been summoned. Just go to Fremont’s office and face the music, she told herself.

But her dreams that night were of old Naples, dark and filled with danger.

The next morning, Raven marched herself to Fremont’s office, rehearsing in her mind what she would reply to any accusation her orientation leader would level at her. I didn’t do it. I didn’t know it was against the rules. I won’t do it again.

But she didn’t know what “it” was.

Cathy Fremont rose from her desk chair as Raven stepped into her office.

“Good morning,” Fremont said cheerfully.

Raven muttered a “good morning” and slipped into the chair before Fremont’s desk.

Hiking a thumb toward the viewscreen on her office wall, Fremont smiled and said, “You’ve done very well with your studies. Your grades are among the highest we’ve ever seen.”

Taken aback, Raven replied merely, “They are?”

“Yes, they are,” Fremont answered happily. “There’s a first-rate mind inside your skull, Raven.”

Raven blinked with surprise.

Fremont stared at Raven for a long, unsettling moment. Here it comes, Raven thought. She softens me up with good news, and now comes the sledgehammer.

But Fremont’s smile widened slightly as she leaned back in her desk chair and said, “I think you might be able to help us with a situation that’s about to arise. That is, if you want to.”

“Help you?”

“You’ve probably never heard of Tómas Gomez, have you?”

Raven shook her head.

“I thought not. He’s an astronomer, from Chile, in South America.”

“An astronomer,” Raven echoed.

“He’s coming here to Haven because he wants to study Uranus. We need someone to show him around, get him settled, familiarize him with our habitat.”

Suddenly it clicked in Raven’s mind. I haven’t done anything wrong! She doesn’t want to punish me. She’s asking me to help her!

“You want me to be his guide?”

“Yes. Only for his first few days. Help him get his feet on the ground, so to speak. Help him get his equipment set up.”

Raven said, “I don’t know anything about astronomy.”

“That’s no problem. What we need is someone to make Gomez feel comfortable here in Haven. Get him settled in. I believe he plans to stay here for at least a year, perhaps longer.”

“I can do that,” Raven said.

Before she could think about how she might make the man comfortable, Fremont’s smile evaporated.

Raising a warning finger, Fremont said, “We know about your life back in Naples, Raven. That’s all behind you now. We are not asking you to treat Gomez as a sexual customer. In fact, I think he would be shocked and horrified if you even hinted at such behavior.”

“Of course,” Raven said softly. But she was thinking, We’ll see.

TÓMAS GOMEZ

Two days later, Raven met Tómas Gomez at the reception area just outside Haven’s main docking port.

The place was busy, as usual. Raven saw troops of newbies being led by officers like Quincy O’Donnell, gaggles of young men and women goggling at the broad expanse of the arrival center and the busy chatter of the newcomers and their hardworking guides.

She recognized Tómas Gomez from the photos she’d seen in his file. He was walking slowly among the crowd, his head pivoting as if he were searching for someone to meet him.

He was just about Raven’s own height, stocky, his hair dark and straight, his face the light brown of uncured tobacco leaf. Ordinary face, broad cheeks, his eyes just slightly slanted, not oriental but mestizo. Native American heritage, Raven realized, using some of the history lessons she had recently absorbed.

“Señor Gomez?” she asked as he stepped across the lines painted across the reception area’s floor.

He stopped and stared at her. Raven had spent most of her evenings studying a computer course in dressmaking, and had altered her baggy, saggy uniforms into tighter, sleeker outfits.

“I am Tómas Gomez,” he replied, in English.

Switching to English herself, Raven extended her hand as she said, “Hello. I am Raven Marchesi. I’ll be your guide for your first few days here in Haven.”

Gomez’s face lit up with a broad smile. “I’m very pleased to meet you, Ms. Marchesi.”

“Raven,” she said.

“Raven,” he repeated, still smiling.

Raven led Gomez down into Haven’s living area, and through the intersecting passageways to the compartment that had been assigned as his living quarters. It was much like her own: living room, kitchen, bedroom, bath.

“This will be your home while you’re living here,” she said cheerfully.

His eyes flicked to the travel bags sitting by the door to the bedroom. “My equipment?” he asked. “Where is my equipment?”

Raven tugged the phone from her hip pocket as she asked, “Do you have an identification number for it?”

Gomez nodded and spelled out a nine-digit string of alphanumerics.

Raven’s phone showed that the equipment was being taken to one of the habitat’s docking ports.

“I must go see it,” he said.

With a smile that she hoped showed self-assurance, Raven said, “We can see it from here.”

“Really?”

“Of course.”

It took three tries, but at last Raven got the living room’s wall screen to show six bulky crates being unloaded in a docking area by a team of robots and their human overseer.

Gomez slowly sank onto the sofa and stared at the screen as if it showed his whole life being delivered.

“That’s your equipment?” she asked softly.

Gomez nodded, his eyes glued to the screen.

Raven sat down beside him, fully an arm’s length away. “What’s in the packages?” she asked.

Without taking his eyes from the screen, Gomez replied, “Spectrographs, sampling equipment, a boring machine, computer systems to operate them all.”

Little by little, Raven got Gomez to explain what the equipment was supposed to do.

“Vessels that go into Uranus’s ocean are cut off from contact with us, here in space,” he told her. “The ocean absorbs ordinary electronic transmissions. Even laser beams are distorted beyond comprehensibility.”

Raven nodded in what she hoped were the right places. Dimly, she understood that ships sent into the planet-wide ocean down on the planet were on their own, any signals they sent out were cut off by the seawater.

“Then how do you control them?” she asked.

Gomez shook his head, still without looking at her. “We can’t control them. They are preprogrammed. All we can do is hope that the programming works.”

“You mean you don’t know if it works or not?”

At last his head turned toward her. “No. Not yet.”

Raven stared at him.

“Something happened to Uranus,” Gomez said, his voice stronger than before. “Something knocked the whole planet sidewise and sterilized its ocean. I hope to learn what that something was.”

She saw an intensity burning in his coal-black eyes, a fury.

“By sending a submarine into the ocean,” she said.

“To the bottom of that ocean,” Gomez corrected, his face set in rigid determination. “I’m going to dredge up samples from the seabed and bring them back here for analysis. I’m going to find out what happened to the planet billions of years ago.”

Raven simply stared at him. She couldn’t think of anything to say.

And suddenly Gomez’s iron-hard expression melted into an embarrassed smile. “I’m sorry,” he told her. “I tend to get carried away with my own importance.”

“No,” Raven countered. “I think it’s exciting… wonderful. What happened to this planet? It’s a marvelous mystery.”

“And I’m a marvelous egotist to think that I can solve it.”

“Somebody will, sooner or later,” Raven said. “Why not you?”

“That’s the big question, isn’t it?”

Before Raven could think of a reply, Gomez’s phone buzzed.

“Answer, please,” he called out.

The scene of the docking port vanished and Evan Waxman’s handsome face appeared on the screen.

“Dr. Gomez,” said Waxman. “Welcome to Haven.”

“Thank you, Mr. Waxman.”

“I wonder if you could drop in at my office tomorrow morning?”

“Of course,” said Gomez. “What time would be convenient for you?”

“Oh, nine, nine thirty.”

“I’ll be there at nine,” Gomez said.

“Fine. See you then.”

And Raven’s pulse quickened. I’ll go with you, she said silently to Gomez. I’m going to meet Evan Waxman!

MEETING

Raven was up at six. She showered, then dressed carefully, noting that the dull and shapeless uniform that was standard dress for newcomers now looked trimmer, more form-fitting. Not sexy, perhaps, but at least it hinted that there was a desirable woman beneath the gray fabric.

She called Gomez and arranged to meet him at his apartment at 0730 hours. Then she led him to the closest cafeteria for breakfast. Once they finished eating, she used her phone’s scanner to guide them and led Gomez to Waxman’s office. Gomez rapped on its door at precisely 0858 hours.

The door slid open and they stepped into an anteroom, where a female assistant—lean, almost gaunt, with hollow cheeks and pale blue eyes, her light brown hair cut in short, wild spikes—rose silently from her desk to greet them with a cold stare.

Gesturing to the door beside her, she smiled slightly and said, “Go right in, Dr. Gomez. Mr. Waxman is expecting you.”

Raven followed the astronomer into Waxman’s private office.

It was considerably smaller than she had expected. Waxman was standing behind a trim little curved desk, smiling at Gomez. He didn’t seem surprised or upset that Raven was with him. In fact, his smile widened at the sight of her.

“Dr. Gomez,” said Waxman, coming around the desk, arms extended in greeting. “I’m very pleased to meet you.”

Then he turned slightly toward Raven. “And you must be Ms. Marchesi.”

Raven smiled back at him, but said nothing.

“Sit down, make yourselves comfortable.” Waxman pointed to the plushly upholstered chairs in front of his desk.

As Raven sat down, she glanced around the office. No bookshelves, no furniture at all except for a hip-tall cabinet lining the wall to the right of Waxman’s desk. The walls were crowded with images, though: photographs of streets, houses, park squares in a city that was built on hills by a big lake of some sort.

“Salt Lake City,” Waxman explained, noting Raven’s interest. “I was born there. So was Reverend Umber.”

“You were childhood friends?” Raven asked.

Waxman smiled thinly. “Not exactly. As a matter of fact, we met in the city jail.”

“Jail?” Gomez blurted.

“It’s a long story,” Waxman said, waving one hand as if to shoo it away. “Today I’d like to learn about what you intend to accomplish here, Dr. Gomez, and how we may help you to succeed.”

For the next hour and then some, Gomez expounded on the unsolved mysteries of Uranus’s lopsided configuration and its seemingly barren worldwide ocean.

Waxman nodded here and there, frowned with puzzlement, clasped his hands together on his desk. Raven tried to follow Gomez’s narration, but the words seemed to flow over her like a tidal wave. Soon she felt that she was drowning. But she made herself nod, too, whenever Waxman did.

At last the astronomer wound down. “I know this is a lot to aim for, but I have only this one chance to study the planet. The Astronomical Association back on Earth decided to fund this one expedition. Period. Either I find what has made Uranus so unique or I return home empty-handed.”

Straightening in his high-backed desk chair, Waxman gave the astronomer a piercing gaze. “We will, of course, assist you in every way we can. Manpower, computer time, communications back to Earth—whatever you want, simply ask me.”

Gomez dipped his chin in acknowledgement. “Thank you so much, Mr. Waxman, I—”

“Evan; please call me Evan.”

“Evan,” Gomez said. “And I am Tómas.”

Waxman smiled pleasantly as he turned his head toward Raven. “And you, Ms. Marchesi? May I call you Raven?”

Raven smiled back brightly. “Certainly… Evan.”

Without an official acknowledgement, without anyone telling her or even asking her, Raven became Gomez’s de facto assistant. She oversaw the unloading of his equipment in the docking area, and when his submersible arrived, several days after he had, she watched the crew that Waxman had assigned carefully installing the instruments into the spherical-shaped submarine.

She dined with Gomez almost every night, but except for that first meeting, she heard nothing from Evan Waxman. He didn’t notice me, Raven told herself disconsolately. I sat there across the desk from him and smiled my best but he paid me no notice.

How can I attract his attention? she asked herself.

And got no answer.

Her work with Gomez, though, absorbed more and more of her time. While the astronomer busied himself in checking the submersible’s instrumentation and plotting its course through the Uranian ocean, Raven took on all the “household” details of his existence.

Not once in all those days—and evenings—did Gomez give the slightest indication that he was sexually attracted to her. He might as well be my brother, she complained to herself. Or a priest.

It was at that moment that it struck her. He is a priest, of sorts, she realized. He’s married to his profession. His god is the universe, and he’s dedicated himself to uncovering its secrets. He has no time for romance or even sex.

Could I break through his shell? she wondered. And if I did, would it make Evan Waxman notice me?

BODY AND SOUL

To her surprise, Raven was summoned, not to Waxman’s office, but to the presence of the Reverend Kyle Umber.

She was preparing dinner for herself and Gomez one evening when she received an instruction on the wall screen of her living room to appear at the minister’s office the next morning. At precisely the specified time—1100 hours—Raven stood before the double doors that fronted Umber’s suite of offices. The doors slid open silently.

She stepped just inside the doorway. No one was there. This outer office space was filled with eight consoles, each displaying circular data screens blinking faster than the human eye could follow. No sounds. Raven could hear no hum or buzz. No noise at all. The screens flashed and flickered madly with no person in the room to monitor them.

Before she could think of anything to say or even blink her eyes, a flatly emotionless robotic voice said from a speaker in the ceiling:

“Welcome, Ms. Marchesi. Please proceed along the middle aisle to the door on the far wall.”

Feeling a little uncertain, Raven walked past the busily flashing computer consoles toward the door, which slid open as she approached it.

She stepped through, into a garden.

It had a high, dome-like ceiling, barely visible through the branches of the trees and shrubs that lined the walkway curving through the foliage. Flowers bloomed everywhere and the air was scented with their fragrance.

“That’s right,” a human voice spoke out of nowhere, “just walk along the path.”

The seamless golden path curved left, then right, then ended at a magnificent broad desk of teak and inlaid precious metals. Behind the desk stood the Reverend Kyle Umber, smiling beneficently.

“Welcome, Ms. Marchesi,” Umber said, spreading his arms in salutation. He was dressed in a spotless white suit that seemed almost to glow. Raven half expected a halo to be hovering above his thick shoulder-length reddish-brown hair.

She realized that Umber’s desk was subtly raised above floor level. Even though she was standing, she had to look slightly up at him. She approached the desk and saw that there was a single stiff-looking chair placed in front of it.

“Please sit,” said Umber, gesturing to the chair. “Make yourself comfortable.”

The chair didn’t look comfortable, but Raven sat slowly down on it. To her surprise, the chair seemed to shift, almost to flow, until it conformed to her body shape.

Umber sank into his own high-backed black plush chair. Leaning forward and resting his forearms on the desktop, he asked solicitously, “May I address you as Raven?”

Raven nodded wordlessly.

“Good. And you may call me Reverend Umber.”

Raven almost smiled. The power game, she said to herself. The Reverend Umber isn’t above playing the game. Well, I can play it too.

“I was very honored to receive your call,” she said, in what she hoped was a properly humble tone.

“We’ve been watching your work with Dr. Gomez,” said Umber, “and I must say that I, for one, am quite happily impressed with it.”

Raven looked up into Umber’s round, pink-cheeked face with its auburn hair sweeping down to his shoulders, and smiled.

She said, “I’m trying to help Dr. Gomez all I can.”

“That’s good. Very good. I’m sure God will reward your efforts.”

“I hope so.”

“We have noticed, however, that you have not attended any religious services of any kind since arriving here in Haven.”

Raven put on an expression of contrition. “I have no religion,” she said, softly, sadly.

Umber nodded sorrowfully. “In your former life, I suppose the word of God didn’t reach you.”

“Hardly.”

“But here in Haven you have begun to change your life. Don’t you think you might try to meet God halfway?”

“I don’t know how,” she replied, in a near whisper.

“I could help you.”

Despite herself, Raven’s eyes widened with surprise. He’s coming on to me! This man of God wants to lay me!

“I… I don’t know if I’m worthy of your help, sir.”

“Not my help,” said Umber gently. “God’s help.”

Raven bowed her head as she asked, “What must I do?”

“Attend services at the main chapel tomorrow at six A.M.”

“Chapel services?”

“Get to know God and what He expects of you. His yoke is light, His way is the path to salvation.”

Raven was too surprised to reply. Does he actually mean what he’s saying? Is he really trying to save my soul? He’s not after my body?

MIND AND SPIRIT

Using her apartment’s computer, Raven found that the habitat’s main chapel was actually the big auditorium she and the other new arrivals had been taken to on her first day in Haven.

The following morning, she arrived at the auditorium a good ten minutes before six, wearing one of the dreary gray outfits that hung in her closet. She slipped quietly through the heavy wooden double doors.…

And stepped into another world. The auditorium had been transformed into a chapel. It was only half filled with worshipers, but the vast chamber soared above their bowed heads like a magnificent vision of heaven. Stained glass windows lined both sides of the nave, displaying beautiful scenes of saintly men and women in strikingly bold colors. At the front of the chapel, behind the many-colored marble altar, stood a mammoth image of the crucified Christ, staring out from His cross, a beatific smile on His bearded face despite the bloody nails through His hands and feet and the cruel crown of thorns pressed down upon His head.

She remembered the brief glimpse of this setting from her first day at Haven, but somehow, with the chapel half filled with kneeling worshipers, it all seemed more powerful, more stirring.

Raven thought the Christ image was staring directly at her, as if there were no one else in the church. It took an effort of will for her to tear her eyes away from its hypnotic gaze.

Standing on trembling legs at the rear of the church, Raven saw a splendidly robed priest rise to his feet at one side of the altar and raise his hands in blessing.

A voice from nowhere filled the cathedral, pronouncing, “Dominus vobiscum.” The congregation replied in unison, “Et cum spiritu tuo.”

“Ite, missa est,” said the priest, his arms raised in blessing.

As one, the people replied, “Deo gratias.”

Then the people—men and women, a few children—rose from their pews and walked slowly along the central aisle, heads bent reverently, past Raven, who was still standing by the massive rear doors. No one spoke a word. To Raven it seemed as if they had all been struck dumb.

She stood there until the last of the worshipers filed past and left the church, leaving it empty, silent.

Suddenly a crisply authoritative voice boomed, “Scrub the Catholic setting. Cue up the Quaker façade.”

The beautiful cathedral disappeared like a lamp suddenly clicked off. The church went totally dark for a moment, then a new vision lit up before Raven’s astonished eyes. Somehow the church was now much smaller and utterly unadorned. No stained glass windows, no elaborate crucifixion scene, no marble altar. The walls were bare, simple black and white.

A handful of plainly dressed people began filtering into the church. Raven shook her head, as if to clear it, and stumbled back into the walkway outside, which was filling up with pedestrians striding along, talking, laughing, living lives that Raven could understand.

By the time Raven got back to her quarters, she had made up her mind that she would not return to the chapel, or cathedral, or auditorium, or whatever it was. Not for me, she told herself. If Reverend Umber ever asks me about it, I’ll tell him I tried but it didn’t work for me.

She wondered if that was the right way to go. But she knew that joining a congregation of worshipers, bowing and kneeling and repeating phrases that were thousands of years old—that was not for her. If she did it, she would be playacting. She felt no sense of belonging among those people. None whatever.

The message light was blinking at the bottom of her living room screen. A message from Tómas, she saw. She called out, “Play message, please.”

Gomez’s broad-cheeked mestizo face appeared on the screen, looking distraught. “Raven, I need your help. I’m ready for the final checkout of the submersible, but I can’t find the checklist that inventories the sub’s consumables. I’ve looked everywhere but I can’t find it! Do you know where it is?”

Raven almost laughed. It’s probably in your back pocket, she said silently to the image on her screen, filed away on your personal notebook.

Instead, she made herself look almost as serious as he did, then called out, “Reply to message.”

Gomez’s image shrank to a corner of the screen as Raven said aloud, “I’ll come over and help you look for it, Tómas. I’ll be there in five minutes.”

She sent the message, shut down the screen, then got up and went to her front door, heading for Gomez and problems that she understood.

WAXMAN’S FILE

The spherical submersible craft sat in a cradle of plastisteel beams in the middle of the docking area. A trio of robots paced slowly around its globular shape, examining every seam and joint along its length. Tómas Gomez stood up on the raised balcony high above, intently watching the automatons, his personal notebook clutched in both hands.

Raven climbed the spiral metal staircase and stood beside Gomez, keeping her face blank, noncommittal, hiding the amusement she felt. Wordlessly, she took the notebook from Gomez’s hands.

Sure enough, the checklist that he’d been unable to find was tucked among the data filed in his notebook, along with a lifetime’s collection of notes, blueprints, photographs and other miscellanea.

As she watched Gomez’s intent face staring down at the robots and the submersible, Raven thought, He really would be lost without me. He’s like a very bright little boy, brilliant but absentminded. I wonder who looked after him on Earth?

Raven knew from peeking into Gomez’s personnel file that he was unmarried, unattached. He seemed to have time only for his work, his research, his passion to unlock the secrets that Uranus hid at the bottom of its planet-girdling ocean.

She turned her head slightly to gaze down at the submersible. It was a perfectly rotund shape of dark metal, designed to withstand the immense pressures at the bottom of Uranus’s sea.

My rival, Raven thought. He doesn’t have time for anything or anyone else. I’m playing second fiddle to a machine.

Almost, she laughed. Almost. But she was thinking, once that contraption goes into the ocean, once it’s cut off from communication with him, once he’s alone up here without his precious toy—that’s the time when he’ll have no one to talk to, no one to console him, no shoulder to cry on. That’s when I’ll get him.

Yet a voice in her head asked, Why bother? You don’t need him. He can’t raise your status in this imitation heaven. Waxman’s the one with power. Waxman and Umber. But Umber’s not available and Waxman is.

That evening, after a solitary dinner in her own kitchen, Raven looked up the station’s computer file on Evan Waxman.

Born to great wealth. Married twice, twice divorced. Met Kyle Umber when the reverend was serving a brief prison term for leading a protest against a state law that allowed people to hunt and kill the few brown bears still living in the national forests. Spent almost all his family’s considerable fortune to construct this space station in orbit around Uranus, the station that Umber christened Haven. Devoted his life to working with Umber, helping him turn Haven into a refuge for Earth’s downtrodden poor.

Raven shook her head in disappointment. Nothing there, she concluded. Nothing that lets me see inside the man. Nothing but a shining, glorified biography that was probably written by a public relations organization.

Her phone buzzed, startling Raven out of her musings.

“Answer, please.”

Evan Waxman’s handsome features appeared on her living room wall screen.

“Good evening,” he said, with a smile.

“Mr. Waxman,” said Raven, surprised.

“Evan.”

“Evan.”

“I see that you’re examining my biography.”

Raven felt a pulse of alarm. “I… I was curious about you.”

Waxman’s smile widened slightly. “Why don’t you come over to my quarters and I’ll tell you the story of my life.”

“Your quarters?”

“I’ve opened a bottle of very good Amontillado, and I really don’t like to drink alone.”

Raven’s thoughts swirled through her mind as she heard herself answer, “I’m not really dressed to go visiting, I’m afraid.”

“You look fine to me. Nothing to be afraid of.”

“I don’t know…”

“Please.”

She recognized the expression on his face. She had seen it many times before, on many faces.

“Well, if you think it’s okay…”

Waxman broke into a handsome grin. “I won’t tell Reverend Umber if you won’t.”

Raven smiled back at him. “All right. I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

As she strode up to Waxman’s door, it slid open automatically for her. Stepping inside, she saw the man standing in the center of his living room, wearing a deep burgundy jacket over black trousers, a long-stemmed wineglass in one hand.

Waxman’s apartment seemed little different from her own. Slightly bigger, but the furnishings were very similar. The walls were hung with paintings, though: scenes of cities from the distant past, ancient Rome, Athens, other cities that Raven did not recognize.

Gesturing toward the images, Waxman said—almost sadly—“The glories of yesterday. Many of them have been drowned in the greenhouse floods.”

“How sad,” Raven murmured.

Brightening noticeably, Waxman said, “I promised you some wine.”

He turned toward the coffee table that rested in front of a sofa that was remarkably like the one in Raven’s own quarters. A slim bottle of wine stood in an ice bucket on the coffee table and a glass exactly like the one Waxman was holding rested beside it.

“Amontillado,” Waxman said. “I first discovered it in a story by Edgar Allan Poe. Been fascinated by it every since.”

Raven shook her head. “I never heard of it.”

He bent down, put down his own wine glass, and picked up the bottle and the empty glass. “I hope you like it,” he said as he poured.

Raven took a cautious sip. The wine tasted slightly bitter, almost tart.

“It’s good,” she lied.

Waxman nodded and gestured to the sofa. “Let’s get to know each other better,” he said.

WAXMAN’S STORY

Raven sat on the couch. Waxman sat next to her, close enough for her to smell the cologne he was wearing.

“I’ve read your personnel file,” he said, with a whimsical smile. “Is all that true?”

Raven made herself smile back at him. “Most of it.”

“It must have been a very difficult life. You must be glad to be here now.”

“I’m very happy to be here. For the first time in my life, I feel safe.”

Waxman took a long pull from his wine glass. Then he smiled and asked, “Even now?”

Raven blinked at him. “Are you suggesting that I shouldn’t feel safe now?”

His smile shrank noticeably. “The male ego is a very fragile thing, you know.”

Keeping her expression serious, Raven replied, “Sometimes the male ego turns violent.”

“You poor thing.”

“No, I’m not a poor thing. I’m a survivor. I’ve lived through hell, back on Earth. Now I’m striving for heaven.”

Waxman leaned back on the sofa and turned his eyes toward the ceiling, which sparkled with twinkling stars. “You’ve been talking with Umber, I see.”

“Once.”

“And do you intend to become one of his converts? One of his saved creatures?”

For several moments Raven did not answer. Her mind was spinning different responses to Waxman’s question. Finally she said, “I intend to become a free and independent woman, able to stand on my own feet and go my own way, without depending on anyone else.”

“That,” said Waxman, “is well nigh impossible. Everyone needs others to depend on. One person alone can’t make it in human society.”

“I intend to try.”

“Then why did you come here tonight?”

Raven hesitated again. At last she shrugged and answered, “Old habits die hard.”

“Ah.”

“I shouldn’t have come. I shouldn’t have given you the impression that I was… available.”

Waxman sighed. “And I shouldn’t have given you the impression that I’m a predator.”

Raven stared at him. “You’re not?”

He grinned at her. “Not entirely.”

“I suppose this is where you tell me the story of your life.”

“You haven’t looked it up?”

“Your biography looks like a public relations job.”

He nodded. “And so it is.”

“What’s the real story?”

“Too dull to repeat. Until I met Kyle.”

“Reverend Umber.”

“Yes. He changed my life. Quite literally. Before I met him I was just a rich kid, like so many others. Just drifting through life. No ambitions, no goals.”

“And Reverend Umber changed that?”

“He did indeed,” said Waxman. “At first I thought he was crazy. Build a habitat orbiting the planet Uranus? Create a haven for Earth’s poor, downtrodden? For the forgotten masses, the people left to vegetate on the outskirts of our glorious interplanetary society? It sounded like pie in the sky. Fantasy. A pipe dream.”

“And yet you’re here.”

“I am indeed. I’m here among your huddled masses, yearning to breathe free. I’m here helping that madman build a better world.”

“That’s kind of wonderful.”

“It is that,” Waxman said, with some fervor.

Raven thought it over for a few silent seconds. Then she asked, “So where do you go from here?”

He made a noise somewhere between a chuckle and a grunt. “Where do we go? Onward and outward. Enlarge Haven. Bring more of your downtrodden brethren here. Build additional habitats. Start a new nation—free, clean and safe for all.”

Raven shook her head. “There are some terrible people among Earth’s poor. Horrible people.”

“I know,” Waxman said, sighing. “I’ve been warning Umber about them. But he sees only the good in them.”

“You’ve got to protect him against them.”

“I try. We use computers to scan their records. We test them before we allow them to come to Haven.”

Raven remembered how she had maneuvered through the tests. She wondered how many others had done the same. How many murderers and thieves and hopeless scoundrels was Reverend Umber allowing into Haven?

“Umber thinks God will turn all the refugees into saints,” Waxman said.

“That won’t happen, will it?”

“Hardly.”

“How can we protect him from the predators?”

Waxman’s brows rose in surprise. “We?”

“I want the reverend’s plan to succeed,” Raven said. “I want Haven to be everything Reverend Umber hopes for it.”

“So do I.”

“How do we do that?” she asked.

Leaning closer to her, Waxman said, “Well, to begin with, you might consider working with me instead of that astronomer.”

Raven pretended surprise. “Oh, I couldn’t leave Dr. Gomez! He’s like a little boy. He’d be lost without someone to look after him.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

Waxman studied her face for several silent moments. Raven tried to look sincere and a bit uneasy.

At last Waxman said, “Well, if that’s the way you feel…”

Raven got to her feet. Waxman looked up at her, then stood up too.

“I… I’m sorry,” Raven stammered. “I’d love to work with you, I really would. But I couldn’t leave Dr. Gomez, really, I couldn’t.”

“I see,” said Waxman, flatly, tonelessly.

She started toward the door. “I appreciate your offer. I really do.”

Almost wistfully, Waxman said, “I really need an assistant. Someone bright and… well, capable.”

Lowering her eyes, Raven said, “Not now. Not yet.”

“I understand,” said Waxman.

He walked her to the apartment’s front door. As it slid open, Raven said, “Thanks for understanding, Evan.”

He smiled ruefully.

“You’re a real gentleman.”

“Then why do I feel like a real idiot?”

Raven stood on tiptoes, gave him a peck on the lips, then swiftly stepped out into the passageway. As she strode hurriedly away from Waxman she smiled to herself.

Leave him hungry for more, she told herself. He’ll be back.

INTO THE OCEAN

Gomez had turned his living quarters into a command center. The living room was crammed with buzzing, humming, blinking pieces of equipment. The only place Raven could find to sit down was the sofa, next to Gomez himself.

The astronomer looked as tense as a live wire stretched almost to the breaking point. The wall screen across the living room showed the submersible, floating in space outside the Haven habitat. The screen’s audio system was counting down the seconds to the sub’s launch.

Gomez’s eyes flicked from one piece of droning, chattering equipment to another. Every light showed green as the audio’s countdown continued smoothly, but the astronomer looked as anxious as a man facing a firing squad.

Raven put out her hand and rested it on Gomez’s thigh. He took no notice of it. His head swiveled back and forth, peering at the various consoles as if he were keeping them functioning by his own willpower alone.

“T minus ten seconds,” the audio voice intoned.

Gomez’s already taut posture stiffened even more. Raven thought that if ever he devoted this much concentration to lovemaking he’d be a marvelous partner.

“…four… three… two… one… ignition,” said the monitor’s emotionless voice.

For an instant nothing seemed to happen. Then the globular submersible disappeared. It flashed out of sight faster than Raven could blink.

Gomez pointed a trembling finger at one of the consoles. “It’s on its way,” he croaked, his voice hoarse with tension.

The wall screen showed a telescope’s view of the submersible dwindling against the background of Uranus’s blue-gray clouds.

Raven sat wordlessly beside Gomez as the astronomer turned his head slowly to stare at each and every one of the consoles littering his living room. She didn’t know what to say, what to do.

The telescope still showed the submersible hurtling closer to Uranus’s unbroken expanse of clouds. Off in the upper right corner of the screen swirled the dark circle of a mammoth storm, the size of Asia.

“We won’t be able to see it once it enters the clouds,” Gomez muttered. It was the longest sentence he’d spoken to Raven in more than an hour.

“We won’t see it enter the sea?” she asked.

“No. But we’ll know when that happens. All the telemetry will cut off.”

“It will go silent.”

“Yes.” With a wry smile, Gomez added, “Then I’ll know how my father felt when I left our home and went to the university.”

“But you could write to him, talk to him by telephone,” said Raven.

“I could have.”

Raven reached for his hand. “It will be all right, Tómas. Everything’s going to be fine.”

He nodded, but answered bleakly, “There’s only a few thousand things that could go wrong.”

“It will all go right.”

“I wish.”

“You’ll see.” Raven pushed herself up from the couch and headed toward Gomez’s kitchen. “I’m starved,” she called over her shoulder. “Aren’t you hungry?”

Gomez shook his head silently.

The red phone signal began flashing at the bottom of the view screen. “Incoming call from Mr. Waxman,” said the screen’s voice.

“Take his message,” Gomez commanded.

Waxman’s handsome face filled the screen. “I’m sure you’re watching the sub’s entry into Uranus’s clouds, Tómas. But once your baby dives into the ocean and is cut off from communicating, why don’t you join us in the main lounge? Most of your crew is here, ready to celebrate. Quite a few others, as well. We’d all like to see you and congratulate you on a successful launch.”

The screen went blank, except for a REPLY? prompt.

Before Gomez could say anything, Raven called from the kitchen, “We’d be happy to join you. Thanks.”

Gomez stared at her with real hostility burning in his eyes. “I’m not going to any party!”

“Yes, you are,” said Raven firmly. Then she repeated to the screen, “We’d be happy to join you, Evan. Thank you.” She hesitated a moment, then commanded, “Transmit message.”

MESSAGE TRANSMITTED, appeared on the screen.

Rising to his feet, Gomez complained, “I’m not in the mood for a party.”

“You could use some relaxation,” said Raven. “Once the submersible is in the ocean you won’t be able to communicate with it. Why not unwind a little bit? We won’t have to stay very long. Just let people admire you, Tómas. Be a little bit human.”

Gomez shook his head and mumbled something too low for Raven to make out. But once the submersible splashed into the ocean and its link with him was cut off he trudged reluctantly alongside Raven to the main lounge.

Raven could hear the thumping music while they were still twenty meters from the lounge’s door. They’re having a party, she realized. Letting off steam. Celebrating a successful launch.

Gomez looked somewhere between frightened and angry.

“What if something goes wrong?” he asked, in a near whisper. “What if the sub malfunctions or sinks?”

“But it hasn’t,” Raven countered, tugging at his arm. “It’s all gone fine so far, and you’re the man everyone wants to see and congratulate.”

“Maybe. But—”

“Come on, Tómas! Put on a smile!”

He tried to smile. Raven thought it looked ghastly. But they were approaching the doors of the lounge, and the music from inside blared loud enough to make her wince. Raven realized she hadn’t danced since she’d arrived at Haven, months ago. I deserve a little fun, she told herself.

The doors slid open automatically and the noise was enough to knock a person flat. Raven flinched momentarily, then, without even looking at Gomez, she stepped into the raucous, swirling party. Gomez hesitated at the doorway, as if frightened to enter the lounge.

“There he is!” someone shouted.

The music stopped abruptly, and some thirty or more men and women converged on them.

They pushed past Raven and surrounded Gomez, the men shouting congratulations and pounding his back, the women staring at him. Raven stepped away, thinking, This is Tómas’s party. His moment in the spotlight. His time to shine. I hope he enjoys it.

Gomez seemed bewildered at first, but within a few moments he was grinning at the men and women clustered about him. One of the women, lithe and leggy, several centimeters taller than Gomez himself, folded herself into his arms and—as the music resumed its thumping beat—began twirling with him across the floor. Raven saw that the woman was dancing, with Gomez shuffling along clumsily. But he was smiling.

The congratulatory group quickly broke into couples that swirled across the dance floor.

“May I have this dance?”

Raven turned. There was Evan Waxman, tall, elegantly dressed in a form-fitting jacket of royal blue, smiling at her. She placed her hand in his and let him lead her out onto the dance floor.

Over the blare of the music Waxman fairly shouted into Raven’s ear, “Looks like your lad is enjoying himself.”

Raven nodded. “I think this might be the first time he’s ever been the center of attention.”

“Ah,” said Waxman, “everyone should be the center of attention every now and then.”

“Yes, I suppose so.”

Waxman chuckled. “It’s a good thing that every resident of Haven has been medically examined and cleared of sexual diseases.”

Raven blinked with surprise, then muttered, “I suppose so.”

“That includes me, of course.”

She made herself smile up at him. “Me too,” said Raven.

THE MORNING AFTER

Raven awoke from a deep, languorous sleep. Evan Waxman lay beside her, snoring gently, a satisfied smile on his lips.

Tómas! Raven thought, her eyes snapping wide open. She remembered seeing him dancing happily with one woman after another. Then she’d lost track of him.

I’ve got to get back to my place and track him down. Softly, slowly, she slipped out of bed and headed for the bathroom. Evan had been a surprisingly gentle lover, she recalled. He knew how to help a woman enjoy sexual intercourse.

By the time she left the bathroom, fully dressed once again, Waxman was sitting up in the bed with the sheet covering his groin and legs.

“Leaving?” he asked, with a thin smile.

“I’ve got to locate Tómas,” Raven said. “He’s—”

“He’s in good hands,” said Waxman. “He trundled out of the lounge last night with a woman on each arm.”

Despite herself, Raven broke into laughter.

Still sitting on the bed, Waxman said, “Thank you.”

Dipping her chin slightly, she replied, “Thank you.”

“I wish you’d come and work with me, Raven. I need you.”

“In bed?”

He grinned ruefully. “Yes, of course.” Before Raven could reply, Waxman added, “But more than that. Much more. I need an assistant, Raven. An assistant with a first-class mind.”

“Me?” Raven felt truly surprised.

“You,” Waxman answered.

“I’m just a refugee, Evan. I don’t have any education, no experience—”

“You learn quickly. Gomez would be lost without you.”

“Yes, I suppose he would.”

“I need you, too. I truly do.”

Feeling torn, Raven said, “But Tómas…”

“He’s got nothing to do now that his sub is in the ocean. He doesn’t need you now.”

“But once his submersible comes up again, he’ll have his hands full of data to interpret.”

“I’ve got this entire fucking habitat to look after!” Waxman snapped, his voice rising. “Umber can sit up there on his private Cloud Nine, but I’ve got to make certain this habitat functions properly.”

“I know.”

“Then help me! I need your help.”

Raven studied his face. He seemed sincere enough, but she thought she knew what he was really saying.

“Evan, I can spend my nights with you.”

“And I can spend my nights with any one of a hundred women living in this habitat. It’s you that I want—and not just in bed. I want you to help me run this funny farm. I need you!”

Raven went over and sat on the edge of the bed. “I wish that was true.”

“It is!” Raising his right hand, he swore, “So help me God!”

“But I don’t know anything about running a habitat. I don’t have any education.”

Waxman’s earnest expression eased into a smile. “I can teach you. Me, and the computers. Then there’s hypno-learning. You can get an education while you sleep!”

“While I sleep?”

He nodded.

“But what about Tómas?”

“I’ll get one of my staff people to help him. As you said, there’s nothing for him to do until his sub pops up from the ocean.”

“True,” Raven said uncertainly.

“By then he’ll have forgotten about you,” Waxman said firmly.

Raven shook her head. “I don’t know.…”

Waxman let a small sigh escape his lips. Then he said, “All right, let’s try it this way: You take on the position of my assistant while Gomez’s submersible is in the ocean, out of contact. When his sub shows up again we can re-evaluate where we stand. Fair enough?”

For long moments Raven sat on the edge of the bed, her mind spinning. Waxman stared at her, studying her, waiting for her decision.

“All right,” she said at last, more than a little uncertainly. “Let’s try it that way.”

Waxman broke into a wide grin. He put out his hand toward her. “Agreed!”

Raven let her hand be engulfed by his. “Agreed,” she said, in a near whisper.

She expected him to pull her next to him for another bout of lovemaking. Instead he released her hand and, smiling, told her, “Now go and find Gomez and break the news to him.”

Surprised, Raven got up from the bed and headed for the door.

Waxman called after her, “I’ll expect you at my office tomorrow at oh-nine-hundred hours.”

She turned her head back toward him and nodded. “Oh-nine-hundred.”

By the time Raven got to the apartment’s front door and stepped into the passageway outside, she felt puzzled, confused. He really wants me to become his assistant? He isn’t just trying to screw me?

Then she smiled and started striding along the passageway, toward her own quarters, telling herself, But that doesn’t mean I can’t screw him.

LOVE

Raven phoned Gomez as soon as she returned to her quarters. No answer. She asked the habitat’s personnel monitor to locate him, but the monitor reported he was nowhere to be found.

He went off with a pair of women, Raven remembered from the night before. Haven’s security cameras scanned every square centimeter of public space aboard the habitat: passageways, parks, restaurants, shops, maintenance facilities, laboratories, storage areas, the hospital, offices. But private living quarters remained private. No security cameras watched them.

Where could Tómas be? Raven wondered.

She asked the security system to scan again. He’s got to be somewhere, Raven told herself.

And there he was, trudging along one of the passageways down among the habitat’s docking facilities. What’s he doing there? Raven wondered. His submersible isn’t there anymore, it’s gone into Uranus’s ocean.

“Tómas,” she called. “Can you hear me? It’s me, Raven.”

He looked up at the sound of her voice. “Raven. Where are you?”

“In my quarters. Come and join me. I’ll make some breakfast.”

Raven expected Gomez to be joyful, happy about his night with the two women he’d walked off with. Instead, as he sat at the kitchen’s tiny foldout table, he seemed morose, dejected… guilty?

She placed a plate of eggs and faux bacon before him and asked, “Did you enjoy your party?”

He looked startled.

Raven carried her own plate from the microwave oven to the miniature table and sat down opposite Gomez. “You certainly were the center of everyone’s attention.”

Gomez nodded glumly.

“Come on, eat your breakfast before it gets cold.”

He poked at the eggs.

“What’s the matter, Tómas?” Raven asked, smiling at him. “Didn’t you have a good time?”

He stared down at his plate.

“Two women,” Raven prompted. “You must be pretty tired.”

He looked up at her. “I wish it had been you.”

Raven’s mouth dropped open. “Me?”

“I love you, Raven.”

She stared at him, thinking, He’s spent the night with two women and he tells me he’s in love with me? Something inside her wanted to laugh at his hangdog expression, but something stronger kept her from doing that.

She heard herself ask, “You love me?”

“I do.”

Raven thought, You’d better put a stop to this, right here and now.

She said, “That’s very sweet of you, Tómas, but you can’t really mean it.”

“I do mean it. I love you.” The expression on his face was full of misery.

Raven shook her head. “Maybe you think you do, but—”

“I know what I feel. I love you!”

“Tómas, do you know what I was before I came here to Haven?”

“I don’t care.”

“I was a whore! I fucked men for money. Women too. I was a whore!”

“But you’re not anymore.”

“I’m not? What do you think I was doing while you were making out with your two friends?”

“I don’t care.”

“Well I do,” Raven said, her voice burning with the anger inside her. “I’m still a whore and I’m not interested in a moonstruck scientist who’s feeling guilty about having an enjoyable time last night.”

He stared at her, his deep brown eyes unblinking, steady and firm.

“Tómas, this is impossible!”

Gomez pushed his chair back from the table and slowly rose to his feet. Standing, he said softly, “I know you can’t love me. I know I’m nothing in your eyes. But I thought that if I told you how I felt… how I love you… it might make a difference.”

Raven remained seated. She looked up at him and said, “You’ll forget about me.” Before he could protest she went on, “It’s better that you do. I’m very flattered that you think so highly of me, but I’m not the woman you think I am. It will be better if we don’t see each other again.”

Gomez bit his lip and nodded. Silently he turned and walked out to the front door and left Raven’s apartment.

For long moments she stared at the door once it closed behind him. Then she sank her head in her arms and began to cry uncontrollably.

EDUCATION

Once she regained control of her emotions, Raven went into her living room, phoned Waxman and—without hesitation—asked him to find someone else to assist Gomez.

His expression on her wall screen was somewhere between surprised and amused.

“You don’t want to work with him anymore?” Waxman asked.

Sitting alone on her sofa, Raven replied, “I think it’s better if I don’t. I think I should devote all my attention to learning what I need to know about being your assistant.”

“Wonderful!” said Waxman. “You can start this evening, at my place. Dinner for two.”

Raven smiled thinly. “Evan, you told me to report for work at oh-nine-hundred. I’m serious about learning to be your assistant. I mean it.”

He flourished a hand in the air. “Certainly! And I’m happy that you feel this way. I’ll see you in my office at oh-nine-hundred hours, then.”

“Good.” Glancing at the clock on the kitchen counter, Raven saw that she had more than twenty minutes to get to Waxman’s office.

“And you can forget about tonight. I’ll find someone else to dine with.”

Raven started to reply, but held her tongue. Of course he’ll find someone else, she told herself. He must have a whole harem of women waiting for him to crook his finger at one of them. I’m just another conquest for him.

“Fine,” she said flatly.

She made herself smile more brightly at his image on the screen. Waxman smiled back. Raven was surprised that he didn’t lick his lips.

It was a strange romance, Raven thought. Every few nights Waxman invited her to his apartment and Raven went willingly, knowing what he expected. They spent those nights in bed together, exploring the many ways a man and a woman can give pleasure to each other. But once the habitat’s lighting system turned on its daylight mode, Raven became a student. She studied the complexities of Haven’s physical layout, the organization of its government and population, the balances of power and authority, who made decisions and who carried out those decisions.

For the first time in her life, Raven began to see how a community as massive and complex as Haven was actually put together, how it ran, how everything functioned.

Waxman was a gentle, accommodating lover. Insistent, but not too demanding. She smiled at his relaxed attitude. So sure of himself. He seemed truly concerned about her education, prodding her to learn and teaching her how to use what she learned in the day-to-day affairs of the habitat.

The nights he spent with her were very different, though. He made Raven feel as if she were the only woman in the universe that he cared for. But then he would go days, even weeks, before calling her to his bed again.

She did her best to satisfy him, knowing that she had plenty of competition for his affections. Meanwhile, she learned—even in her sleep.

Waxman gave her a pair of tiny buds that she could worm into her ears. Once her breathing and heart rates showed she was deeply asleep, the buds stimulated her brain directly and she awoke much more knowledgeable than she’d been when she’d fallen asleep.

During those weeks, every now and then she’d notice Quincy O’Donnell’s hulking figure, usually at a distance, his eyes on her. It made her feel slightly uncomfortable, but whenever the big man got close enough to speak to her he invariably mumbled a “Hello” and then shambled off, as if embarrassed.

She saw Gomez too, usually in one of the habitat’s cafeterias at lunch time. He too seemed stiff and uncomfortable at first, but after a few weeks his attitude loosened enough so that he would sit at the same table with her. Gomez would ask her how she was. Raven always replied positively but noncommittally.

“I’m fine, Tómas. And you?”

He shrugged. “The sub’s still down at the bottom of the ocean, poking around the seabed.” Than he added, “I hope.”

Leaning over her lunch tray, Raven asked, “When is it supposed to come back?”

“In two weeks. If it’s still functioning properly.”

“You won’t know until then?”

Gomez shook his head slowly.

“It must be maddening,” Raven said.

“Oh, it’s been sending up message drones on schedule,” Gomez replied, his hangdog expression unchanging. “Everything seems to be going along as designed.”

“That’s good.”

“But it hasn’t found anything. The seabed is just a collection of stones and sands. Nothing interesting. Nothing at all.”

“What are you hoping for?” Raven asked.

“Something!” Gomez blurted. “Anything! A sign of life. A seashell, a strand of biologically active chemicals. But there’s nothing down there. That ocean is as lifeless as a dead chunk of rock. It looks like my investigation isn’t turning up a goddamned thing.”

Raven didn’t know what to say, how to make him feel better.

“And that means my career goes down the toilet,” he added. “I’m dead meat.”

“No,” Raven snapped. “That can’t be true. I can’t believe that.”

“Believe it,” he said, his face a picture of misery, defeat. “The university went way out on a limb to fund my project, and I’m not going to have anything to show for it. Not a goddamned sonofabitchin’ thing.”

“But isn’t that a worthwhile finding?” Raven asked. “It’s a result that nobody knew before.”

“That the planet is sterile?” He hm’phed. “Big fuckin’ deal.”

“It’s a surprise, isn’t it? I mean, the other gas giants—Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune—they all have biospheres, don’t they?”

Gomez nodded. “But Uranus doesn’t.”

“How come? What makes Uranus different?”

He hunched his shoulders. “Whatever makes Uranus different must have happened very early in the solar system’s history, when there were lots of planetesimals whizzing through the system. One of them smacked into Uranus, knocked it over sideways, sterilized it.”

“So you’re proving that that’s what happened, aren’t you?”

“I guess,” he admitted slowly. “It all happened so far back in the system’s history—billions of years ago—that we can’t really be sure of who did what to who.”

“To whom,” Raven corrected.

“Whatever.”

She saw that he was really down, staring inescapable defeat in the face.

Putting on a smile, Raven said, “Well, maybe you’ll find something that your submarine dredged up from the sea floor once you get it back here.”

“Or maybe I should just put an electric probe in my mouth and scramble my brain permanently.”

“Don’t talk like that!” Raven snapped. “This isn’t the end of the world.”

“It’s the end of my world,” said Gomez.

He pushed his chair back, got to his feet, and slowly walked toward the cafeteria’s exit doors. Raven stared at his retreating back. Then she noticed that he hadn’t touched his breakfast. His tray lay there on the table, just as it had been when he’d first put it down.