Uranus

RUST

Raven spent her days studying and learning how Haven was administered—and occasional nights in Waxman’s bed.

On one particular morning, he met her in his outer office as she came in from the passageway outside.

“Raven,” he said, with a beaming smile, “you, of course, know my executive assistant, Alicia Polanyi. Alicia, I want you to be the first to know that Raven Marchesi, here, is now my new administrative assistant.”

Raven felt surprised, even delighted. Until she saw the expression on Alicia Polanyi’s sallow face.

Polanyi measured Raven with her eyes, which were glacial-blue, the color of an Arctic iceberg. Her light brown hair was cut spiky-short, her face cadaverous with sunken cheeks and nothing more than a thin, faintly pink line for lips, her body lean to the point of emaciation. She was wearing a single-piece uniform that hung on her bony frame, two sizes too large.

No competition, Raven thought as she extended her hand toward Polanyi’s cadaverous fingers.

“Congratulations,” Polanyi said, her voice flat and dark.

“Raven’s going to be working with me here in the office from now on,” Waxman announced. “She’ll need a space for herself, with a desk, console, all the trimmings.”

“I’ll take care of it right away,” said Polanyi, her icy blue eyes never moving from Raven’s face.

Waxman smiled brightly, then said to Raven, “Come on into my office. We have work to do.”

Raven turned and followed Waxman into the inner office. But she could feel Polanyi’s eyes burning into her back.

It took less than a day for a team of robots and a single male supervisor to create an office all her own for Raven. It was several doors down the passageway from Waxman’s suite, and she had to go past Polanyi’s cold-eyed stare to get to Evan’s office, but she got accustomed to that.

Although there was no written record of it, casual conversations with other staff members over the lunch tables in the cafeteria told Raven that Waxman and Polanyi had once been lovers.

“She was a knockout in those days, less than a year ago,” said one of Raven’s newfound office mates. “But that was before she started toking Rust.”

Raven knew better than to ask obviously pointed questions. She just let the office gossip gradually fill her in. Rust was apparently a hallucinogenic, a powerful narcotic.

“It lifts you up to the stars,” one of the office crew told her—the guy who had supervised the robots that had built her office. “But then it drops you down into a pile of shit.”

Raven understood what they were saying: stay away from Rust.

But a few days later, she found a line in an invoice buried among the other office records. Just a single line. It was a bill for the sale of ten kilos of Rust. Close to a million international dollars! Raven got up from her desk and headed for Waxman’s office.

As she strode down the corridor, she remembered that Tómas’s submersible was due to break out of the ocean tomorrow and return to the habitat. She hadn’t seen Tómas in several days. Was he hiding from her?

But she put her thoughts of Gomez aside as she stepped into Waxman’s outer office and locked eyes with Alicia Polanyi, who nodded silently to Raven and touched the keypad that opened the door to Waxman’s private office. All without a word spoken by either of them.

That’s what Rust does to you, Raven told herself as she swept past Polanyi’s desk. Alicia is the wreckage of what had once been Evan’s mistress. Don’t let that happen to you!

Waxman was seated at his desk. The wall screen to his right showed a view of Uranus, blue-gray and bland as usual, except for a cyclonic swirl of dark clouds near the planet’s north pole.

Without preamble Raven asked, “What is Rust?”

Waxman’s face froze. For a heartbeat he just stared at Raven, unmoving, his mouth slightly open, his eyes unblinking. Then he asked, “Rust?”

“There’s a charge for Rust on invoice 26-953,” Raven said.

Waxman shook his head. “That’s not possible.”

Pointing to the desktop screen, Raven said, “Take a look.”

Waxman hesitated a brief moment, then took a breath and called up the invoice. He scanned every item. “I don’t see any mention of Rust.”

Raven stepped around his desk and stared at the screen.

“I saw the entry,” she insisted.

Leaning back in his desk chair, Waxman said coolly, “It’s not there now.”

“It’s been erased.”

For an eternally long moment Waxman stared into Raven’s eyes. She stared back, unflinching.

At last he said, “It wasn’t supposed to be there. One of the accounting robots made an error.”

“We’re buying narcotics?”

Waxman eased into a sly smile. “No. We’re selling the stuff.”

“Rust?” Raven asked, in a voice half an octave higher than a moment earlier. “We’re selling Rust?”

“To whoever wants to buy it,” said Waxman. “How do you think we keep this habitat running?”

Raven stepped over to one of the chairs in front of Waxman’s desk and sank into it.

“We’re selling narcotics?”

“Down in the Chemlab Building we manufacture the drug called Rust. It’s our major export item.”

“But it’s illegal.”

“Not here. Not aboard Haven. There’s no law against it here.”

“But on Earth… on the other worlds, the Asteroid Belt…”

Waxman tilted his head slightly. “They have their laws, we have ours.”

It took several moments for Raven to process what Waxman was telling her. Then she asked, “What does Reverend Umber have to say about this?”

“Nothing. Not a thing. He closes his eyes and doesn’t get in our way. He acts as if he doesn’t know anything about it.”

“But he does know?”

With a shrug, Waxman replied, “Of course he knows. But I can tell you this: he doesn’t want to know.”

An almost delirious laugh bubbled out of Raven’s throat. “This entire habitat—this haven of refuge—it’s built on money from narcotics.”

Waxman shrugged again. “Politics makes strange bedfellows, Raven.”

“This isn’t politics,” she retorted. “It’s drugs! It ruins people. Kills them!”

“They kill themselves,” Waxman said sternly. “We don’t force anyone to use the stuff. They pay good money for the privilege.”

Nodding toward Waxman’s office door, Raven said, “Like Alicia.”

“Like Alicia,” Waxman agreed. “She’s working hard to get off her habit. She might even be successful, sooner or later.”

“Sooner or later,” Raven echoed.

Waxman leveled a stern gaze at her. “That’s up to her. People bear the responsibility for their actions, you know.”

“I know that narcotics can sizzle your brain, turn you into a zombie, kill you.”

“That’s not our fault. We simply sell the stuff. We don’t force anyone to use it.”

A picture of some of the people she knew in Naples filled Raven’s mind. No, she thought, you don’t force anyone to use the drugs. You just make them available. You just lay them out in front of them, like offering candy to a baby. You pocket their money and leave them to tear themselves apart.

But she said nothing. She knew that Waxman would not tolerate any objections from her, any questions, any doubts.

Instead, she asked, “You pay for this whole habitat with the money you make from Rust?”

With a shake of his head, Waxman smilingly replied, “Oh no, not at all. Most of the habitat’s money comes from good-hearted people who honestly want to help the poor. They donate money and tell themselves they’re doing good.”

“And they stay in their mansions and live their lives and think everything’s okay.”

Waxman sighed. “That’s about the size of it. We help the good, honest, high-minded citizens of the worlds to feel they’re doing the right thing.”

“While you make millions from selling Rust. Or is it billions?”

“Not quite billions,” Waxman answered with a thin smile, “but it’s getting close.”

“I see.”

“Now that you know,” Waxman told her, “naturally I’d like you to keep quiet about it. No sense advertising it all through the habitat. Not that it’s illegal here, remember. It’s perfectly legal.”

But slimy, Raven thought. Dirty. Filthy.

Unaware of what she was thinking, Waxman went on, “We try to keep a low profile here in the habitat. We’ve used Rust to help pacify some of our rowdier residents, of course. There’s always a few who slip through the screening process—as you did.”

Raven saw that he was staring at her, his face set in a mask of authority. Automatically, she made herself smile back at him. “Why Evan, I thought you liked me.”

“I do,” he said, breaking into a sunny smile. “I like you very much, Raven.”

Like you once liked Alicia, she thought.

His expression hardening again, Waxman said, “But I want this Rust business kept as quiet as possible. Loose lips sink ships… and sailors.”

THE PRODIGAL RETURNS

Raven went to the main auditorium to watch the recovery of Gomez’s submarine. Tómas had invited her to his quarters, but she couldn’t make herself accept his invitation. That would be too close, she told herself. It might give him ideas. Better to stay separated.

Waxman had declared an official holiday, so the auditorium was already crowded, and more people were coming in to watch the sub’s return, standing and staring at the big screens that hung on every wall. So far, they showed nothing but Uranus’s blue-gray clouds.

Raven was surprised—almost shocked—when she saw Tómas shouldering his way through the crowd that had gathered in the auditorium. Heading toward her.

“Tómas!” she called to him. “What are you doing here?”

His face looked tense, worried. “Same as you,” he shouted over the hubbub of the crowd. “I’ve come to see if my sub had survived its mission.”

“But not in your quarters?”

“I couldn’t stand being alone,” he said, stepping beside her.

And you wanted to be with me, Raven said to herself. Well, there’s nothing I can do about it. He’s here. She realized that she was glad that Gomez had come to be with her. And that her reaction was anything but wise.

The speakers set into the auditorium’s ceiling announced, “Breakout from the ocean in thirty seconds.”

“If she breaks out,” Gomez muttered. “If she’s intact. If nothing happened to her while she was down on the sea bottom.”

A different voice sang through the speakers, “Breakout attained at oh-nine-seventeen hours GMT.”

The crowd roared out a lusty cheer. Raven threw her arms around Gomez’s neck. “She’s okay! She made it!”

Gomez’s grin could have lit up a major city. They both stared at the wall screens, which still showed nothing but Uranus’s endless expanse of clouds.

“It’ll take almost an hour to climb through the atmosphere and break out of the clouds,” said Gomez tensely.

They waited. Nearly quivering with anxiety as they stood in the middle of the crowd, they stared at the pole-to-pole expanse of blue-gray clouds, together with all the others, half-listening to the scraps of conversation from the people around them.

“…atmospheric turbulence…”

“…wind shear in the clouds…”

Raven was surprised to hear so much talk about the conditions in Uranus’s atmosphere. These people didn’t sound like poor, ignorant dregs of civilization. They had learned something, many of them, since they’d arrived at Haven. She realized that she wasn’t the only one who had been educating herself.

Then a tiny dark speck appeared against the blue-gray clouds.

“There she is!” someone shouted.

“No, that’s just—”

But even as the people stared at the screens, the cameras in orbit around the planet zoomed in on the unmistakable image of the spherical submersible rising above Uranus’s clouds and heading for the habitat.

“She’s made it!”

“She’s coming home!”

The crowd roared. People swarmed around Gomez, grabbing for his hand, pounding him on the back. Women kissed him. Men grinned and laughed as if they were responsible for the submersible’s return. Raven stood aside and let Tómas bask in his moment of glory.

But after a few moments the big grin on his face faded. He nodded good-naturedly at the crowd and said, “Now we must examine the samples from the seabed that the sub has carried to us. Now we have to find out whether or not the planet is truly sterile.”

That didn’t diminish the crowd’s enthusiasm one iota. Raven watched them as they smiled and nodded and pawed at the astronomer. One woman stepped up to Tómas, brazenly wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him squarely on the lips. Gomez sputtered and gulped for air, half delighted, half embarrassed.

Standing off at the edge of the crowd, Raven realized that Tómas was right: his real work was just beginning.

QUINCY O’DONNELL

Eventually the crowd broke up into knots of men and women talking, discussing, gesticulating while they slowly walked out of the auditorium. Raven watched Gomez as the crowd gradually melted away from him. Your fifteen minutes of fame have ended, she said to him silently.

Gomez seemed to understand. He turned and headed for the nearest exit, without even a nod toward Raven. Heading back to work, heading for his real love, his urge to uncover the mysteries of Uranus.

Despite herself, she sighed. But when she turned and started for an exit she saw Quincy O’Donnell standing a few steps away from her, big, hulking, the expression on his face halfway between expectant and cringing.

Raven made herself smile at him. “Hello, Quincy.”

“Hello, Raven,” he said, his eyes glancing this way and that. “How are you?”

As Raven headed slowly toward the nearest exit, she replied, “I’m fine. And you?”

Walking beside her, Quincy asked, “Are you busy tonight? Can I take you to dinner?”

Raven hesitated. She saw the big oaf’s anxiety in his deep blue eyes. Why not? she asked herself. Keep him on the leash.

“That would be nice,” she said, as she extended her hand toward his.

Raven spent the day in her quarters, studying. Precisely at 7:00 P.M. she heard a tap on her door. The viewscreen next to the door showed O’Donnell out in the passageway, wearing a sharply creased pair of new-looking trousers and a powder-blue hip-length shirt, nervously biting his lip.

He’s dressed up for me, she thought.

She cleared the wall screen she’d been working with, got to her feet and commanded the door to open. O’Donnell stood there uncertainly, like an oversized child wondering what was expected of him.

“Come in, Quincy,” said Raven. As he entered, Raven turned toward her bedroom and said over her shoulder, “I’ll only be a minute.”

O’Donnell led Raven to the habitat’s fanciest restaurant. She wore a form-hugging outfit she had created from one of the shapeless uniforms in her closet; it complemented his outfit nicely.

As they sat off in a corner of the restaurant, at a table for two, Raven asked, “What are you up to these days?”

A wide grin broke across his rugged, ruddy face. “I’ve been promoted, I have. I’ll be supervising one o’ the teams of robots buildin’ the new wheel.”

“Really? That’s wonderful. Congratulations.”

And for the rest of their dinner, O’Donnell described his work on the extension of Haven’s habitat. The new wheel they were constructing would double the station’s capacity.

“It’ll be a duplicate of this structure, right down to the last weld,” he said happily.

As the robotic waiter delivered their desserts, Raven said, “I didn’t know you were an engineer.”

Still beaming happily, O’Donnell responded, “I wasn’t, not until last Friday. I been studyin’ in my sleep, y’know, learnin’ structural engineering—at least, enough to qualify for a supervisor’s slot. I’m risin’ up in the world, I am!”

Raven realized she wasn’t the only one using hypno-learning to advance herself.

She said, “Quincy, that’s wonderful.”

“On this job, we’ll be workin’ outside, you know. Out in space. It won’t bother the robots, of course, but I’ll have to wear a space suit, just like the astronauts!”

“That’ll be exciting,” Raven enthused.

“One o’ these days I’ll be a full-fledged engineer, with a diploma and everything.”

“That will be grand,” Raven said, feeling honestly delighted for him.

“It will,” he said happily. “It will.”

He walked her back to her quarters. Raven stopped at her door, stood on her tiptoes to give him a peck on the lips, and said, “Thanks for a lovely dinner, Quincy.”

He beamed happily.

“And congratulations again on your new position.”

He nodded, fidgeting uncertainly before her closed door.

“Good night, Quincy.”

For a moment he was silent, staring down at her. Then, “Good night, Raven.”

He turned and started down the passageway. Raven stared after his shambling, hulking form for a moment, then swiftly opened her apartment’s door, stepped inside, and slid it shut again.

She leaned against the closed door, thinking, The higher he gets in the engineering field, the harder it will be to control him. Remember that.

THE DRUG TRADE

Morning after morning, Raven went to Evan Waxman’s office, past the piercing cold blue eyes of Alicia Polanyi, and learned more about the intricacies of managing habitat Haven.

More than four thousand people lived in Haven, almost all of them refugees from the slums and villages of Earth. They were the forgotten ones, the voiceless ones, bypassed in the surging rush for wealth, for pleasure, for opportunity that their more fortunate brethren pursued. Most of these poor, downtrodden men and women were trying to better themselves, striving for education, for a new place in this new world.

“We don’t seem to have many children here,” Raven said to Waxman, as she stood in front of his desk.

Leaning back in his desk chair, Waxman said carelessly, “No, we don’t. By design.”

“By design?” Raven echoed, surprised. “But I would think that families—especially families with small children—they’re the ones who need our help the most.”

Waxman replied casually, “You’d think that, wouldn’t you?”

“Don’t you?” she asked.

He shook his head. “It’s too late for them. We don’t want to become a charity ward for young families. For women without husbands and a half-dozen brats clinging to their skirts.”

“But they’re the ones who need the most help!”

“Maybe they do, but they’d soak up most of our resources. And for what? So that they can go out and make more children? We’re not running a family clinic here. We want single, unattached men and women who can learn and grow, who can manage themselves positively and help this habitat to prosper.”

“By selling Rust.” The words were out of Raven’s mouth before she could stop them.

Waxman stared up at her for a long, silent moment. Then, “That bothers you, doesn’t it?”

She stared back at him as she sank into one of the chairs in front of his desk. At last she admitted, “Yes, it does.”

“You didn’t do drugs while you were on the street in Naples?”

“Of course I did,” Raven replied. “You couldn’t survive without something to take the edge off.”

“Small stuff, I imagine.”

“That was all I could afford, Evan. Marijuana, coke now and then… I even tried Ecstasy once in a while.”

“But not Rust.”

“I didn’t know Rust existed until I got here.”

Waxman smiled mirthlessly. “And here I thought you were smart enough to steer clear of it.”

Thinking of Alicia, in the outer office, Raven said, “I would have, if I had known its long-term effects.”

He shook his head. “No, you wouldn’t. Oh, you might have tried to stay away from it, but sooner or later you’d try some. Just as an experiment, you’d have told yourself. But you’d have tried it.”

Raven let her eyes drop. “You’re probably right. There were times when I would have tried anything, just to get through another night, just to survive.”

Waxman’s stony expression softened. “I’m glad you didn’t, Raven. I’m glad you came here to Haven, instead.”

In a low voice she replied, “So am I.”

That evening, after dinner alone in her quarters, as Raven pored over a text on political organizations, her door announced, “Reverend Umber is at the door.”

Surprised, she looked up and, sure enough, the door’s tiny viewscreen showed Umber standing outside in the passageway, decked out entirely in white, as usual.

“Door open!” she called, as she got up from the sofa.

The door slid open, and Reverend Umber stepped in, looking uncertain, perplexed.

“I’m not intruding, am I?” he asked, as the door slid shut behind him.

“Not at all,” said Raven as she cleared the wall screen she’d been reading from. “Come right in.”

Umber stepped hesitantly toward the sling chair next to the sofa and gingerly lowered himself into it.

“Can I get you something?” Raven asked. “Coffee? Tea?”

“Plain water, please.”

Raven went to the kitchen and drew a glass of water from the sink’s faucet.

“I’m sorry to barge in on you like this,” Umber began.

“It’s okay. I was just studying.”

She handed him the glass and sat down on the edge of the sofa.

“Studying. That’s good. Very good.”

Raven peered at his round, pink face. He was smiling at her, yet somehow she felt that he was troubled.

She started to apologize. “I know I haven’t been attending church services—”

Umber waved a hand. “That’s entirely up to you. We each find God in our own way.”

Raven nodded her thanks. A silence fell between them.

After several seconds, Raven asked, “What do you want to talk to me about?”

Umber flushed noticeably and ran a hand through his long, auburn hair. Then he uttered a single word:

“Rust.”

Surprised, Raven blinked. “Rust?”

“It’s a narcotic. I’m sure that Evan has told you about it.”

“Yes, he has. He warned me about it, actually.”

Umber nodded and clasped his hands together. “I’m uncomfortable that we’re selling Rust to anyone who has the wherewithal to purchase it. He’s turning Haven into a drug dealership!”

“He’s not selling it to any of our residents,” Raven said.

“True enough. They can’t afford it. But people who can afford it buy it from him. Kilo after kilo. Drug dealers. Millionaires. Society people. Entertainment stars.”

“Evan says it’s perfectly legal.”

With a shrug of his shoulders, Umber replied, “Oh, I’m sure it is. Evan is very clever that way.”

“But it bothers you.”

For a long wordless moment Umber stared at her. She realized that his eyes were light gray, almost silver.

“Yes, it bothers me. I believe that Evan is doing the devil’s work.”

“Have you spoken to him about it?”

“Many times. He nods and smiles and pays me no attention.”

“But you’re the head of this community,” Raven said. “Why can’t you—”

Umber stopped her with an upraised hand. “I may be the nominal head of this community, my dear, but Evan Waxman is actually running Haven.”

“How can that be? I thought—”

Shaking his head sadly, Umber said, “It’s the Golden Rule, my dear. He who has the gold makes the rules.”

“I know he handles the administration for you.”

“For himself. Oh, Evan’s been very kind and extremely generous. But he runs this habitat to suit his purposes, masquerading as my faithful backer and administrator.”

It took Raven several moments to digest what Umber was telling her. At last she asked, “What can you do about this?”

“That’s why I’ve come to see you,” said Umber.

PLAN OF ACTION

Raven stared at the minister. Somehow Umber’s round, florid face seemed inexpressibly sad. His silvery eyes, though, were focused squarely on her.

“Me?” she squeaked. “What can I do?”

Umber shrugged his round shoulders. “I wish I knew! But we’ve got to do something. It’s wrong to be selling Rust. It’s the devil’s work!”

Raven nodded her agreement, but asked again, “How can you stop it? How can you get Evan to stop it?”

“I tried to at yesterday’s Council meeting. I got voted down, sixteen to two, including my own vote.”

“So the Council is with him.”

“I realize now that Evan himself picked most of the Council members. I trusted him. I let him handle the governance of Haven and he’s turned the habitat into a narcotics trafficking center.”

Again Raven asked, “How can you stop him?”

“I don’t know! I was hoping you might have some idea.”

“But I’m a newcomer here. A nobody. Evan’s picked me to be his assistant, but that doesn’t mean anything. He could drop me anytime he wants to.”

“You’re sleeping with him,” said Umber. It wasn’t an accusation, not even an objection. Merely a statement of fact.

“Yes, I am,” said Raven. Then she added, “Now and then.”

“You’re closer to him than anyone in this habitat.”

“But that doesn’t mean…” Raven ran out of words. She didn’t want to carry her thought to its logical conclusion.

Umber’s eyes went wide as he realized what Raven was thinking. “No!” he shouted. “No violence! I won’t be a party to violence!”

For an instant Raven’s mind filled with the scenes of violence she had witnessed: many of them aimed at her.

“No violence,” she agreed, in a near whisper. Then she asked, “But then… what?”

The outraged flush in Umber’s cheeks faded. More quietly he answered, “I wish I knew.”

A fine couple of collaborators, Raven thought. Neither one of us has the slightest idea of what to do.

She admitted, “I don’t think I could talk Evan out of selling Rust. He thinks he’s doing it for the good of the habitat—at least, in part.”

Umber shook his head. “It’s always easy to convince yourself you’re doing what is needed, what is helpful, what is right—when in fact you’re doing the devil’s work.”

Raven said, “If only we could get the people who’re buying the junk to stop. Take away the market for it.”

“I don’t see how we could do that.”

“You’re a respected man of God,” Raven told him. “Maybe you could contact the organization that links all the settlements we’ve made through the solar system…”

“The Interplanetary Council?”

“Yes. Ask them to convene a meeting to find a way to stop the sale of Rust.”

Umber shook his head. “But Haven doesn’t belong to the IC. We’ve never applied to join.”

Raven smiled at him. “Then we should.”

IMPLEMENTATION

“I can’t contact the Interplanetary Council,” Umber objected. “Evan has my phones tapped, I’m sure. He wouldn’t let me put through a call to Earth.”

Raven understood where he was heading. “You think I could? As your representative?”

With a shake of his head, Umber replied, “I would think Evan monitors all our communications with Earth and the other settlements throughout the solar system.”

“You mean he wouldn’t allow you to talk to anyone who might…”

“Who might be connected to the Interplanetary Council,” Umber finished for her.

The two of them sat in her living room, silently staring at each other. In her mind, Raven pictured how the habitat’s phone links to Earth and the other human settlements throughout the solar system worked.

You’ve studied this, she told herself. You’ve read about the system linking Haven to Earth and the rest of the solar system.

Communications satellites, she remembered. We put through a call to Earth. The call goes from the habitat to one of the commsats in orbit around Uranus. From that satellite to another one in orbit around Earth, and then down to the phone you’re trying to reach.

She murmured, “If I could make a direct contact to one of the commsats outside this habitat…”

Umber’s face brightened. “Without using a phone here in Haven.”

“No one in Haven would know about it,” she continued. “We could reach the IC without Evan finding out.”

“Yes,” said Umber. But then his expression clouded over once again. “But how could you do that?”

A smile lifted Raven’s lips. “I think I know a way.”

“Go outside?” Quincy O’Donnell’s beefy face frowned down at Raven.

They were having lunch together at one of Haven’s crowded, noisy restaurants. The more noise the better, Raven thought. Makes it harder to snoop on what we’re talking about.

“Outside, like you do,” she said to him. “I’d love to see the work you’re doing.”

He shook his head slowly, ponderously, from side to side. “That’s not allowed, Raven. Safety regulations.”

“But it would only be this one time,” she coaxed. “And just for a quick visit. Couldn’t you bend the rules a little? For me?”

O’Donnell was still shaking his head. But he said, “I could lose my job. If anything happened…” His voice trailed off.

Raven decided to play her trump card. “I’d be ever so grateful to you, Quincy. Really grateful.”

His head shaking stopped. From across their narrow table he stared down at her. In a tone that was almost pleading, he insisted, “The regulations are for your own safety, Raven.”

“But you’d be there to protect me.”

“Yes… but…”

“Afterward we could have dinner together. In my quarters.”

He swallowed visibly. “Dinner.”

“Just the two of us.”

“The two of us.”

“I’d really be grateful, Quincy.”

She could see the wheels turning behind his deep blue eyes. “Well,” he muttered, “you are the assistant to Mr. Waxman, after all.”

“That’s right,” she agreed. “I could write up a work assignment or something, so your responsibility would be covered.”

“That you could,” O’Donnell agreed.

For the first time in her life, Raven felt like a conspirator. Hell, she told herself, I am a conspirator. Quincy O’Donnell looked uneasy when, two days later, he took her down to the station where the suits for extravehicular activity were stored. They walked slowly, carefully, past the rows of empty suits hanging in storage, seeking one small enough to fit Raven properly.

O’Donnell insisted on having her walk through all the safety procedures with a pair of technicians who trained people for work outside the habitat’s sheltering walls. Then she went through a standard test in one of the habitat’s docking centers, working in the suit carefully, slowly, inside an exercise chamber pumped down to vacuum.

She had to do her training exercises on her own time, during lunch hours or after full days of working with Waxman. She didn’t want Evan to know what she was up to, of course. He seemed to have no inkling. Waxman worked with Raven as usual, and spent his nights rotating through his harem.

Good, thought Raven. Keep yourself busy, Evan. Still, she did her best to keep him happy on the nights when he crooked his finger at her.

EVA

Raven stood nervously by the airlock hatch, decked in a nanofabric space suit and glassteel helmet. Quincy O’Donnell loomed next to her, dwarfing her diminutive figure. Like her, O’Donnell was enclosed in a semitransparent nanofabric EVA outfit. Somehow it made him look even bigger and lumpier than normal.

It was well past the dinner hour. The exit chamber was otherwise empty except for a pair of technicians, one male and one female, sitting at the control consoles on the balcony that ran high above the metal-walled chamber.

“Ready for extravehicular activity?” sounded in Raven’s helmet earphones.

She heard O’Donnell reply, “Ready.”

The hatch before them swung open ponderously. Beyond it was the airlock chamber, bathed in lurid red light, looking dark and dangerous.

O’Donnell’s voice croaked, “Raven, switch to freak two.”

She lifted her left arm and pressed the button for frequency two. Now she and Quincy could speak to one another without anyone else hearing them.

“Are you sure you’re ready for this?” Quincy’s voice sounded worried in her helmet earphones.

With a courage she did not truly feel, Raven nodded inside her helmet and answered, “I’m ready.”

“All right then.” He gestured toward the open airlock chamber. “Ladies first.”

Her insides fluttering, Raven stepped carefully over the hatch’s coaming and into the airlock’s interior. O’Donnell clumped in behind her and the heavy hatch swung slowly closed.

The airlock was surprisingly large, big enough to handle a half-dozen people in space suits or even sizable pieces of equipment.

“Alone at last,” O’Donnell quipped. Raven smiled at him, then realized he couldn’t see it through her helmet’s visor in the chamber’s dim lighting.

“Ready for depressurization?” she heard the female monitoring technician ask.

“Ready,” said O’Donnell.

A clattering sound penetrated the insulation of Raven’s helmet. She saw a trio of lights on the chamber wall next to the outer hatch: green, amber and red. The green light winked out and the amber turned on. The clattering noise seemed to dwindle, grow fainter.

After several moments, Raven couldn’t hear the sound at all, although she still felt its vibration through the thick soles of the boots she was wearing.

Her mouth felt dry. She remembered from her training sessions that there was a water nipple just beneath her helmet’s visor, but she couldn’t locate it without her hands to search for it.

At last the vibration dwindled into silence.

“Here we go,” Quincy said.

The amber light went dark and the red one turned on. Vacuum, Raven thought. We’re in vacuum now.

Even as she thought that, the outer hatch began to swing open. And beyond it was the universe.

Raven’s mouth dropped open. She gaped at countless swarms of stars hanging unblinking against the utter blackness of space. On the rocket journey from Earth, she and the other passengers had been seated in a windowless compartment. There were video screens on the seatbacks in front of each passenger, of course, but they didn’t give a hint of the sheer magnitude of the vast universe outside.

Now Raven saw it all, stars and nebulae hanging there as far as she could see, blazing magnificently. Off to one side curved the bare-boned skeleton of what would one day be Haven II. But it was the splendor of the stars that mesmerized her. They weren’t twinkling. They hung out there staring at her, as if they were judging her, deciding if she were fit to be in their company.

O’Donnell broke the spell. He reached for the clip at the end of her safety tether and pulled it out from its housing. No noise. Not a sound. Just the slightest tremor of a silent vibration.

“I’ll attach this to the cleat outside the hatch,” she heard O’Donnell saying. “Wouldn’t want you to go floatin’ off to infinity now.”

Raven nodded wordlessly, still staring in awe at the stars.

O’Donnell went to the edge of the hatch, attached Raven’s safety line and then his own to the cleat on the station’s skin out there, then turned back toward Raven.

With a stiff little bow, he said, “The universe awaits, my dear.”

Raven stepped carefully to the rim of the hatch and then, after taking a deep breath, she pushed through into emptiness.

She knew that she wouldn’t be truly in zero gravity as long as she was connected to the rotating space station. Still, as she floated away from the habitat’s structure she felt her stomach fluttering and her throat constricting.

Then she heard O’Donnell’s voice: “Oh Lord, I love the beauty of Thy house, and the place where Thy glory dwelleth.”

Turning in mid-emptiness, Raven asked, “What was that, Quincy?”

She could hear the embarrassment in his voice. “Oh, it’s nothin’. Just… ah, just a little somethin’ I say whenever I go outside. It’s from the Twenty-fifth Psalm.”

“It’s beautiful,” said Raven.

He floated up behind her and grasped both her shoulders. “There’s nothin’ like it. The universe. God’s creation.”

“It certainly is magnificent,” Raven agreed, staring at the wonder and glory of the stars.

He turned her to face the unfinished skeleton of what would become Haven II.

“That’s where I work,” he said, with real pride in his voice. “Me and a handful of robots.”

For almost a half hour Raven hung there nearly weightless while O’Donnell pointed out the intricacies of the structure that was being built. The bare metal assembly formed a complete circle, exactly the same size as Haven itself, but it was only a skeleton, empty, incomplete. Halfway across its diameter Raven caught the flashes of welding tools as a team of robots worked steadily, tirelessly.

Pointing, O’Donnell told her, “That’s goin’ to be the main reception area for newbies, same as we have here on the original Haven. And there”—his gloved hand shifted—“will be the command and control center. Lots of electronic gadgetry will go in there. And we’ll connect the new module to the original down there, at their hubs.”

Raven nodded and smiled in the right places, knowing that Quincy couldn’t see it through the tinting of her helmet visor but feeling that he needed some reward for this unauthorized visit.

At last she said, “Oh! While we’re out here, can I make a call to Earth?”

“From here?” O’Donnell asked. “Why not from inside?”

“It’s more private outside here, isn’t it?”

Sounding puzzled, O’Donnell answered, “I suppose so.”

“It’s for Reverend Umber,” she stretched the truth. “I’ve been so busy with you lately, I haven’t had the time to do this for him.”

O’Donnell’s tone sounded wary, skeptical, but he said, “I suppose it’ll be okay.”

Raven touched her helmet to his and gave him an awkward nuzzle. “Thanks, Quincy!”

He sputtered and floated slightly away from her.

Raven had memorized the number of the Interplanetary Council’s executive director, Harvey Millard. She switched to her suit’s private line, then spoke the string of numbers into her helmet microphone.

“I’m calling on behalf of the Reverend Kyle Umber, the head of the Haven habitat in orbit around the planet Uranus. Reverend Umber would like to request that the Interplanetary Council consider allowing habitat Haven to join the Council. He awaits your reply.”

There, she thought. It’s done. The message is on its way. She knew it would take some two and a half hours for her message to reach Earth, and the same amount of time for Earth’s reply to get back to the habitat.

She remembered something a Vietnamese businessman had told her, one night long ago as he was slowly removing her clothing: Even the longest journey begins with a single step.

I’ve taken the first step, Raven said to herself.

COMMUNICATIONS FAILURE

After their little extravehicular sojourn, Raven and O’Donnell returned to the habitat and wormed out of their nanofabric space suits, then made their way to her quarters. She put together sandwiches for the two of them while O’Donnell busied himself pouring wine from the kitchen’s scant supply of bottles.

At last they moved to Raven’s bedroom. O’Donnell seemed flustered at first, eager yet somehow at the same time hesitant—not reluctant, but unsure of himself.

“Raven,” he breathed as she unbuttoned his shirt, “you don’t have to do this, you know.”

She looked up into his flushed face. “You don’t want to?” she asked, all innocence and disappointment.

“I want to!” he exclaimed. “But… well… maybe we shouldn’t…” His face was an image of conflict.

Raven stood on tiptoes and kissed him lightly on the lips. “Well, why don’t we just get into bed together and see what happens.”

“Okay… I guess…”

Raven watched him watching her as she stripped. Then she pulled down the covers and slipped into bed, with him still there, gawking.

She patted the sheet next to her. “Come on, Quincy.”

Red-faced with inner conflict, O’Donnell peeled down to his skivvies and walked around to the other side of the bed. Even with his undershorts still on, she could see that he was erect.

He’s a virgin! Raven realized. He’s never done this before.

O’Donnell climbed into bed beside her. The mattress sagged noticeably.

“I don’t…,” he began.

Raven shushed him softly as she put a hand on his chest and then slowly slid it down to his groin. He made a sound halfway between a sigh and a moan.

“It’s all right, Quincy,” she whispered to him. “Everything’s going to be fine.”

When she awoke the next morning O’Donnell was gone. His side of the bed was a jumble of twisted sweaty sheets; even his pillow was shorn of its casing. Raven sat up in bed, then got to her feet, pulled a robe out of the closet and padded into the kitchen as she cinched it around her waist.

Quincy was nowhere in sight. But he’d left a sheet of tablet paper on the kitchen table.

I LOVE YOU, was scrawled in block letters across the paper.

Raven sank onto the kitchen chair and fought back tears.

She was a few minutes late arriving at her office. It had somehow taken Raven longer than usual to shower, dress, and gobble a breakfast bun.

Her desktop screen bore a command. SEE ME AS SOON AS YOU GET IN. EVAN.

Alicia Polanyi was not at her desk as Raven entered Waxman’s outer office. Good, she said to herself. Polanyi’s silent, accusatory stares distressed Raven.

Waxman was at his desk, speaking through his computer screen to one of the engineers. He waved her to the padded chair in front of the desk without missing a syllable of his ongoing discussion.

Raven sat and tuned out Waxman’s voice. Quincy’s going to be a problem, she told herself. One night in bed and he thinks he’s in love. Probably wants to marry me. She almost smiled at the thought. But she realized, I’m going to have to handle him carefully. Let him down gently.

Waxman ended his phone discussion, cleared his desktop screen, turned and smiled at Raven.

“And how are you this fine morning?” he asked, his smile showing teeth.

“I’m fine,” Raven said. “And you?”

Waxman pursed his lips, then answered, “I’ve got a bit of a problem, Raven.”

“Oh?”

“That call you put through to the IC.”

Raven felt her entire body stiffen.

Calmly, still smiling, Waxman went on, “I don’t allow calls to the Interplanetary Council for a reason, Raven. I control all communications with Earth. I and I alone.”

“Oh. I didn’t know.”

“Whether you did or not is immaterial.”

Raven stared at him. The man was still smiling, yet his expression made her shudder.

“Your call came to me. It never was sent to Earth.”

“I see.”

“No, you don’t see,” said Waxman. “But you will. You and your oaf of a boyfriend.”

“Quincy’s not my boyfriend!”

“Perhaps not,” Waxman said, his smile turning dangerous. “But he’s going to be.”

PUNISHMENT

Trying to keep her breathing under control, Raven asked, “What do you mean?”

Waxman leaned back in his desk chair, his eyes never leaving Raven’s face.

“You tried to go around me, Raven. You tried to make contact between Umber and the Interplanetary Council.”

“I…”

“Don’t bother denying it.” Waxman leaned forward in his chair, placed both his forearms on his desktop. “I can’t trust you, Raven. But I can punish you. You and the lummox who helped you.”

Raven heard herself protest, “Don’t blame Quincy! He didn’t know what I was doing. He had no idea.”

“He’s got to learn to be more careful. And you have to learn to be more grateful to me.”

“I am, Evan. I’m very grateful. For everything you’ve done—”

“You’ve betrayed me, Raven. After all I’ve done for you.” Waxman shook his head sadly. “I can’t let that betrayal go unpunished. You’ve got to learn to be obedient.”

“Wh… what do you mean?”

“You’re going back to your old life, Raven. Once a whore always a whore. But this time you’ll be working for me.”

Raven blinked at him. “I don’t understand…”

“How could you?” Waxman’s smile turned malicious, nasty.

He pulled open a desk drawer and took out a thin vial containing a reddish dust.

“You were curious about Rust, weren’t you?” He held the vial between two fingers and shook it slightly. “Well, this is what the stuff looks like. You notice the vial is half empty? The other half is floating in the air of this office. You’ve been breathing it since you walked in here.”

Raven’s eyes went wide. That’s why Alicia wasn’t at her desk! she thought. But Evan’s sitting there, breathing in the Rust, and he’s—

Reading the expression on her face, Waxman said, “I’m wearing nose filters, Raven. But you’re not.”

Raven’s immediate thought was to get out of this office, this trap that Evan had set for her. She tried to push herself out of the chair, but her legs wouldn’t support her. Then she saw that Waxman’s desk was dissolving, its side softening, liquefying, dripping onto the carpeting like the wax of a melting candle.

With a malicious smile Waxman said, “I can see that the Rust is taking effect. Good.”

Raven watched as Waxman’s desk faded away. Still seated in his chair, he too began to melt and stretch out into a long multicolored ribbon.

“Enjoy your trip, Raven.” Waxman’s voice boomed in her ears as she felt herself dissolving, liquefying, sliding into another dimension.

She couldn’t move, couldn’t even blink her eyes. She stared as the world around her coalesced into a kaleidoscope of vivid, pulsing colors.

Raven was floating, rocking gently on a sea of surging colors. She felt hands on her body, stripping her, groping her, pawing her, and all she could think was More! More! Time was stretching like taffy. She lost all awareness of who she was, what she was, all lost in the overwhelming sensations of being stroked, touched, caressed.

The first lash of the whip made her scream, but the only words she heard were “More! More!”

Floating on a sea of frenzy, she writhed and twisted, but strong, powerful hands held her as Waxman’s voice boomed like the trumpet of a god, “You’re a whore, Raven. That’s all you’ve ever been and all you’ll ever be.”

And she was screaming, sobbing, “Yes! Please! Please!”

Her body pulsed and writhed with agony that was exhilarating, overpowering, stretching her consciousness and her bodily sensations beyond endurance.

Everything went dark. She thought she must be sleeping, but this was much deeper. She could feel nothing, hear nothing, see nothing. Only darkness and a throbbing pain deep inside her.

She awoke, alone and naked in a bare little room. A cell. A prison. She propped herself on one elbow. Nothing to see except cold gray walls.

She heard a sound. The soft fall of a naked foot. All around her a cluster of men came into focus, naked, erect, intent. And Alicia Polanyi stood among them, also naked and smiling mirthlessly down at Raven.

“Welcome to my world, Raven,” Polanyi said, with a cheerless smile.

The men crowded around her, seized her arms and legs and lifted her off the cold bare floor. One of them stepped between her outstretched legs, grinning wickedly. “I’m first,” he said, grinning down at her naked, struggling body. “But I won’t be the last.” The other men laughed and gripped Raven tighter.

An animal roar shattered the gray-walled cell. The locked door crashed to the floor. The men grasping Raven dropped her painfully onto the cement floor as a huge apparition took form in their midst.

“Quincy,” Raven whimpered.

Another man’s form coalesced between Raven and O’Donnell. “It’s not your turn yet,” said Evan Waxman. Unlike the others, Waxman was wearing a multicolored floor-length robe that shimmered with his every motion.

O’Donnell stared at him. “You promised me,” he growled.

Waxman smiled knowingly. “Not just yet, Quincy. We’re not finished having our fun with her.”

For an eternally long moment, O’Donnell stood before Waxman, blinking uncertainly, his hands balled into fists, his hairy chest heaving. Then he glanced down at Raven, lying helpless and naked on the cold bare floor.

“You’re finished!” O’Donnell bellowed. And he swung a backhand swat at Waxman that sent him staggering to the floor.

The other men scattered and disappeared. O’Donnell stepped down and lifted Raven gently in his arms, then turned and started for the open doorway. Beyond the door was light, so bright it hurt Raven’s eyes.

Raven heard a sharp zing and felt O’Donnell shudder, but the giant of a man lumbered through the door and staggered out into the brightness.

The light hurt Raven’s eyes. She squeezed them shut as Quincy carried her in a staggering trot along the habitat’s long, curving passageway. She could hear him puffing, panting, feel his hairy chest heaving while his big meaty hands held her naked body close to his.

Raven didn’t know if anyone else was in the passageway. She kept her eyes shut tight against the painful overhead lights. She heard no voices, no footsteps, sensed the presence of no one except Quincy’s massive body lumbering along the passageway.

She felt his chest rising and falling as he puffed along, felt the warmth of his body, the sheen of his sweat.

Where are you taking me? she asked silently, too exhausted and drained to speak aloud.

At last she sensed him slowing down. She cracked her eyelids open enough to see the double-doored entrance of the habitat’s hospital. Quincy banged a bare foot against one of the doors and it swung open.

Raven closed her eyes again but she heard voices, male and female:

“Who the hell—”

“What do you think you’re doing?”

“What’s wrong?”

She gave up her fragile grip on consciousness and let herself slide into oblivion.

CONFRONTATION

Quincy O’Donnell watched the medics take Raven’s naked form from his arms and wheel past him, into the hospital’s main corridor.

Suddenly he realized with a shock that he was standing in the hospital lobby totally naked. The medical personnel and waiting patients were staring at him. He didn’t know what to do, where to go.

One of the nurses—a short, dark-skinned Asian—came to him, bearing a full-length hospital gown.

“It’s disposable,” she said in a near whisper to Quincy as she stood on tiptoes to spread it over his broad shoulders. “Just flush it down a waste chute when you’re finished with it.”

Red-faced with embarrassment, Quincy muttered his thanks as he struggled into the gown. It barely reached his mid-thighs and he worried that it would rip down the back, but he felt unutterably grateful for it.

He marched himself, barefoot, back through the passageways toward his quarters. People passed by him, staring, some grinning, but one look at the grim expression on his face kept them from saying anything.

He reached his apartment finally and sat heavily on his unmade bed. Waxman, he thought. He did this to Raven. Promised me she and I would be together, and when I got there she was naked and shivering while Waxman and all those other men looked down and pawed at her.

He saw again Waxman’s sadistic, gloating face in his mind’s eye. His fists clenching automatically, Quincy told himself, “I’ll have to see him.”

He lay back on his unmade bed and tried to sleep. But the visions of Raven in that cold room, naked, helpless, while Waxman gloated over her, filled his mind whenever he tried to close his eyes.

Quincy was surprised when he awoke. Turning on the bed, he saw that it was a few minutes past 6:00 A.M. Very deliberately, he got to his feet, showered, shaved, dressed in a work uniform, threw the hospital gown down the disposal chute, and headed for Waxman’s office. He passed two different cafeterias on his way there, but didn’t have the faintest urge to eat anything.

Waxman’s office was locked when he reached it. Quincy decided to wait out in the passageway. He stood there like a Praetorian guard until Alicia Polanyi showed up, blinked with surprise, then let him into the outer office.

“You want to see Mr. Waxman?” she asked, curiosity knitting her lean face. “Do you have an appointment?”

“No,” said Quincy as he settled himself in one of the chairs along the office’s wall. “I’ll wait for him.”

“Shouldn’t you be out with your construction team?”

“They’re robots. They’re already programmed. I need to see Mr. Waxman.”

At that moment the door to the passageway outside slid open and Waxman stepped in. He stiffened with surprise as Quincy rose from his chair like a looming thundercloud.

“O’Donnell,” Waxman said stiffly. “I should have expected this.” Without even a glance at Alicia, Waxman strode to the door to his private office, which slid open automatically as he told Quincy, “Come on in.”

Quincy followed Waxman through the doorway and firmly shut the door as Waxman slid into his desk chair.

“So what do you want?” Waxman asked, looking up at Quincy. “Disappointed that you didn’t get your chance with her? That can be—”

Quincy planted his massive fists on Waxman’s desk and leaned over until he was nose-to-nose with the man.

“You leave her alone,” he rumbled.

“Raven? She’s a whore, for god’s sake. You can’t—”

Grasping the front of Waxman’s shirt and lifting him up from his chair, Quincy repeated, “Leave her alone.”

Waxman grasped Quincy’s fist in both his hands, but couldn’t budge them from his shirt front.

“You try to touch her again,” Quincy told him, “and I’ll kill you. I’ll break your face and crush your ribs and dance on your dead bones. Understand me?”

Waxman sputtered, swallowed hard, and finally managed to squeak, “I understand you.”

Quincy released him. Waxman collapsed back into his sumptuous dark chair.

“Good,” said Quincy. Then he turned and left the office.

A moment later Alicia Polanyi appeared at the doorway, distressed. “Are you all right?”

Waxman was breathing heavily, his eyes on the doorway that Quincy had gone through.

After a few moments, he nodded shakily. “Yes. All right. No damage done.” He sat up more erectly, drummed his fingers on his desktop, then said, “Get the chief of the robotics department on the phone for me.”

“Yes, sir.” Polanyi went back to the outer office, sliding the door shut behind her.

Threaten me, will he? Waxman seethed inwardly. The big Irish idiot. We’ll see who lives and who dies.

AWAKENING

Far, far in the distance she heard voices. Women, for the most part, talking about—her, Raven felt sure, but she couldn’t quite make out the words they were using. Too soft, too hushed, too guarded.

She sank back into the oblivion of unconsciousness, all sensation gone, all memories nothing more than a faint, distant picture of Vesuvius hulking against the blue Neapolitan sky. After a while the volcano shifted, transformed into the hulking form of Quincy O’Donnell, grim and silent.

Time lost all meaning. Raven floated on nothingness as Quincy’s bulky form dissipated, dissolved into blank nothingness.

“Can you hear me?”

The voice sounded familiar, somehow.

“Raven, please open your eyes. It’s time for you to wake up.”

Alicia? Raven wondered.

It took an effort of will as she tried to force her eyelids open.

Alicia Polanyi was bending over her, her cold blue eyes staring at Raven, her cadaverous face grave, utterly serious.

“Wake up, Raven,” she said softly, almost begging. “Please wake up.”

Raven blinked twice, three times.

“I’m awake,” she croaked. Her throat felt sandy dry, scratchy.

Alicia’s gaunt face broke into a thin smile. “Thank God,” she whispered. “Thank God.”

Raven realized she was lying in a hospital bed. The ceiling, the walls were soft white. The room was narrow, cramped; she thought she could almost touch both walls without moving from the bed by stretching out her arms. Machines somewhere were chugging and beeping. She felt weak, fragile.

“I was…”

Alicia placed a finger gently on Raven’s lips. “Don’t try to talk. Rest. Sleep. You’re all right now.”

But Raven tried to push herself up to a sitting position. And failed. She had no strength. She lay back on the hospital pillow and stared at Alicia.

“What happened?” she mumbled. “How did I get here?”

Alicia’s thin lips almost smiled again. “Quincy O’Donnell brought you here. With a tranquilizer dart embedded in his back, he carried you in his arms from Evan’s little playroom to the hospital.”

“Playroom?” Raven asked.

“You’re all right now,” Alicia said. “The Rust has been flushed out of your system. The medics got to you in time, thanks to your big boyfriend.”

“Quincy’s not…” Raven couldn’t finish the sentence. She knew whichever way she said it would be wrong.

“You sleep now,” Alicia Polanyi said gently, getting to her feet. “The medical staff will take care of you.”

A sudden alarm made Raven’s body tense. “Evan! He did this to me.”

With a nod, Alicia agreed, “Just as he did to me, more than a year ago. But I didn’t have a giant of a man to save me.”

“Quincy.”

“He pulled you out of Evan’s little playroom and brought you here. He saved your life.”

“Quincy,” Raven repeated, more softly as sleep closed her eyes.

When she awoke again the Reverend Kyle Umber was standing beside her bed, in his customary chaste white suit, staring down at her with sorrowful eyes.

“Good morning,” he said softly.

For the first time, Raven noticed there was a view screen on the wall of her room. It showed an image of Uranus: blue-gray, serene, bland.

Surprised, Raven mumbled, “Reverend Umber.”

“How do you feel?” Umber asked.

Raven realized that she felt strong, sound. As she pulled herself up to a sitting position she saw that she was wearing a disposable hospital gown, as pure white as Umber’s suit. The bed rose behind her, almost noiselessly.

“I’m all right… I think.”

“You had a close call. The percentage of Rust in your blood was very high.”

“Evan did that to me,” she snapped.

Umber shook his head. “When I heard that you were here in the hospital I immediately asked Evan what he knew about it. He told me he’d been in an all-night meeting with the maintenance staff. There’s been an accident on the construction of Haven II—”

“He was gang-banging me!” Raven cried.

Umber shook his head sadly. “Seven members of the maintenance division affirmed that they were in conference with Evan all that night.”

“They’re lying!”

With a helpless shrug, Umber said, “How can we prove that? It’s your word against theirs.”

The word of a whore against the manager of this entire habitat, Raven thought.

COST

“He’s evil,” Raven whispered. “Evan’s a monster.”

Reverend Umber nodded sadly. “He’s drunk with power. I’ve tried to change him, bring him to God’s grace, but…” He shook his head. “I’ve had no success with him. Not yet.”

“I’ll kill him,” she hissed.

Umber’s face went white with alarm. “No!” he barked. “Evil is not the answer.”

“It wouldn’t be evil,” Raven insisted. “It would be justice. God’s justice.”

For a long silent moment Umber looked down upon Raven sadly. “Don’t try to assume the powers of God. That way lies death and damnation.”

Raven started to reply, but held her tongue. The reverend doesn’t understand. He doesn’t know how truly evil Evan is. In her mind she saw again Waxman’s cold smile as the men pawed and penetrated her.

At last she said, “I know you’re right, Reverend. But it’s hard to forgive.”

“Christ forgave those who crucified him. From the Cross, bleeding and dying, he forgave them all.”

Raven nodded, but inwardly she thought, I’m not Jesus Christ. I’m not God.

After a few more attempts to comfort her, Umber left her room, head bowed unhappily. A nurse came in with a luncheon tray. And an announcement. “Good news, Ms. Marchesi. You passed all the diagnostic tests. You’ll be free to leave this afternoon, after your physician sees you and signs off on your case.”

And go where? Raven asked herself.

She was finishing the last morsel of soyburger on her tray when Evan Waxman stepped through the doorway of her narrow room.

Smiling brightly at her, Waxman said, “They tell me you’ll be able to return to work tomorrow.”

Raven glared at him.

Stepping to the side of her bed, Waxman lowered his voice and continued, “Don’t be sullen. You tried to go around me and paid the penalty for that. Let’s allow bygones to be bygones.”

“Bygones?” Raven shouted. “You call what you did to me ‘bygones’?”

Waxman shook his head sadly. “Raven, my dear, nothing happened to you. You weren’t raped. You weren’t even molested.”

“The hell I wasn’t!”

His smile only slightly thinner, Waxman explained, “That’s the beauty of Rust, my dear. That’s why it’s in such demand. It affects the mind, not the body. It builds elaborate fantasies inside your brain.”

Raven glared at him, unbelieving.

Waxman sat himself on the edge of her bed. “Think, Raven. You’ve been thoroughly examined by this hospital’s very meticulous machinery. And probed by the medical staff. They haven’t found you injured in any way; no scars, not even any bruises. Perfectly sound of limb and body.”

“I was gang-raped,” Raven snarled. “While you watched. And smiled. And laughed.”

“All in your imagination, my dear. All in your mind. The Rust produced a fantasy for you.”

“For you, Evan.”

His smile thinning somewhat, Waxman admitted, “Well, yes, I produced the scenario for your dramatics. But it all happened in your mind, not your body.”

“I don’t believe you.”

Spreading his hands innocently, Waxman said, “Raven, I wouldn’t hurt you. Not really. I’m rather fond of you, actually.”

“You’re a monster.”

“Perhaps,” he admitted carelessly. “But the only scars you’re carrying as a result of our little endeavor are in your mind, not your body.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“It’s true. I promise you. The hospital staff, the diagnostic systems that examined you from top to toe, they all show that you are physically unharmed.”

“Physically,” Raven echoed.

Getting to his feet once more, Waxman said, “The brain, Raven. That’s the most important sexual organ of all. And thanks to Rust, we can manipulate it virtually any way we like.”

Glowering at him, Raven muttered, “You’re a monster, Evan.”

“Perhaps,” he replied. “But if you want to survive here, you’ll do as I tell you.”

Raven said nothing, although she was telling herself, Silence means assent. Let him think that. Do what he wants. For now.

Waxman went as far as the door before turning and telling Raven, “Oh, yes, that lumbering oaf O’Donnell. He was killed two days ago. An accident on the job he was supervising outside on Haven II’s construction. Damned fool misprogrammed one of the robots he was managing and it tore his head off, helmet and all.”

ALLIANCE

Raven sat on the bed, stunned. Quincy is dead? The question reverberated in her mind. Dead? Killed? Because he helped me. It’s my fault. I killed him.

She bent over and cried until no more tears were left.

Eventually, a pair of doctors came into her room—one male and one female—and gave her a peremptory examination. Vision, reflexes, a quick check of her innards with a handheld scanner.

“You’re good to go,” the male doctor said cheerily, as he scrawled his signature on the processor in his hand.

“Everything looks fine,” added the woman smiling beside him.

You didn’t look into my mind, Raven said silently. You didn’t see the sickness in there.

“You can get dressed and leave,” the man said, “whenever you’re ready.”

“Before five P.M.,” the woman added.

They left Raven sitting on the bed, wondering where her clothes might be. Then she remembered that when Quincy brought her to this hospital she had no clothes on.

The thought of Quincy welled up inside her again. But Raven forced it down, away. He’s dead and there’s no bringing him back. From somewhere deep in her memory she remembered a schoolteacher telling her, “Life belongs to the living. Don’t bury yourself in useless mourning.”

No mourning, Raven told herself. But vengeance, justice, payback—those are worth living for.

The door to her narrow stall opened and Alicia Polanyi stepped in, a capacious handbag on one arm.

“Are you all right?” Alicia asked.

Raven nodded. “So they tell me.”

Hefting the handbag, Alicia said, “I brought you some clothes. Evan gave me the combination to your apartment’s front door.”

“Very generous of him.”

Alicia’s lips twitched in what might have been the beginning of a smile. “He can be generous—when he’s getting what he wants.”

“He wants me back at the office tomorrow,” Raven said, without moving from the bed.

Alicia nodded. “I know.”

“I can’t go back there! I can’t look at his face without wanting to kill him.”

“You’ve got to. If you don’t, he’ll see to it that no one will employ you. You’ll be dumped into the unemployable pool. You’ll end up selling yourself again.”

Raven said, “I’ve been there before.”

“You don’t want to go back there,” Alicia said, her sallow face lit with inner fire.

“I want to kill him.”

“Evan?”

“Evan.”

Alicia stared at her for a long, silent moment. At last she whispered, “So do I.”

Raven blinked at her as she digested Alicia’s words. Then she felt herself smiling.

“Then let’s do it. You and I. Together.”

“Don’t be crazy.”

“I mean it,” Raven insisted. “It won’t be murder. It would be execution. He killed Quincy.”

Alicia nodded again. “Yes, he did, didn’t he?”

“Justice,” Raven murmured.

With a shake of her head, Alicia said, “I couldn’t do it.”

“Why not?”

“He’s too strong. Too powerful. If we tried it and failed… think what he’d do to us.”

“What’s he doing to us now?” Raven countered. “Do you want to spend the rest of your life with him pulling your strings?”

A long silence. Then Alicia whispered, “No. I don’t.”

“Then let’s kill him.”

Alicia’s eyes went wide. “Do you think we could?”

“We could try.”

“But if we fail…”

“We’d be no worse off than we are now. We’re his slaves, Alicia! He points his finger at us and we perform anything he wants.”

“But with Rust it’s all… imaginary.”

“Murdering Quincy wasn’t imaginary.”

“True.”

“And what he made me do.” Raven shuddered at the memory. “It might have been all in my mind, but he watched it somehow. He enjoyed watching it.”

Alicia’s skeletal face went solemn. “He’s enjoyed watching me, too. Many times.”

Raven swung her legs off the bed and stood up. “He’s killing us a centimeter at a time. We’ve got to stop him, once and for all.”

“Do you really think we could do it?”

“Maybe. I don’t know. But we’ve got to try. I’m not going to let him kill me, torture me to death.”

“Me neither!”

The two women clasped each other in a sisterly embrace.

As Raven swiftly pulled on the clothes that Alicia had brought, a sudden thought seared her consciousness.

“Our conversation is being recorded!” she realized. “It’s part of the hospital’s data system.”

Alicia nodded, tight-lipped. “We’ve got to erase it.”

“Can you do that?”

“If we act quickly enough. I’ll go back to my office and erase the record. Then, at the end of the workday, I’ll meet you in your quarters.”

Raven nodded. “I’ll wait for you there.”

PLANNING

Raven returned to her apartment and waited impatiently for Alicia to show up, pacing back and forth through the living room, her mind churning.

Was Alicia able to erase the hospital’s recording of our conversation? Is she really going to work with me or was she lying about it? Is she working for Evan?

That thought sent an electric current through her. Is she so attached to Evan that she’d betray me? Or worse, maybe Evan controls her so completely that she’s spilling her guts to him right now! Raven stopped her pacing and stared at herself in the mirror hanging over the sofa. I’d be better off dead, if that’s the case.

The doorbell buzzed. Raven turned and stared at the screen by the door. Alicia Polanyi. Alone. By herself. No one with her.

“Door open!” she called out.

Alicia stepped into her living room, but not before casting a quick glance back over her shoulder.

Raven realized, “He can see that you’ve come to my quarters.”

Alicia forced a smile. “Raven, there are tons of records from all the cameras installed throughout the habitat. He’d have to spend all his time sifting through them if he intended to keep watch on you.”

Taking in a deep, calming breath, Raven said, “I suppose so.” But then she thought about it. “Couldn’t he set up an automated search system to watch my door?”

“He could,” Alicia answered. “But he’d ask me to do it for him. Evan is smart, but he hardly ever does his own dirty work.”

Raven smiled cooly. “That’s what assistants are for, I guess.”

As she gestured Alicia to the sofa, the phone announced, “Incoming call.”

Both women froze. The phone continued, “From Dr. Tómas Gomez.”

Raven breathed again. “Phone answer,” she said, as Alicia sat tensely on one end of the sofa.

Gomez’s broad-cheeked tan face filled the wall screen on the other side of the room. He looked alarmed, his dark eyes wide, his hair disheveled.

“Raven!” he called, as if he were floundering in a heaving ocean. “I need your help! Right away! This idiot that Waxman assigned to assist me is no good at all. I need you!”

Raven blinked at him. “Tómas, I’ll be happy to help you, but I’ll have to get Mr. Waxman’s permission first.”

“Do it! Please!”

“First thing in the morning,” she replied. “I promise.”

“I’m going to call him now,” Gomez said.

“He won’t answer you, not after office hours. Not unless it’s an emergency.”

“This is an emergency! It’s urgent! All my work will be useless unless I can get someone to help me.”

“I’ll do what I can, Tómas.”

“Please!”

“I’ll speak to Mr. Waxman first thing tomorrow morning.”

“Please,” Gomez repeated.

Raven thought she should ask Tómas to have dinner with her, calm him down, soothe him. Then she glanced at Alicia and decided that it would only cause complications.

“I’ll call you as soon as I’ve spoken with Mr. Waxman,” she said.

“Promise?”

“I promise.”

“Thank you!” Gomez said, as if she had just stepped in front of a bullet aimed at his heart. “Thank you!”

Once the screen went dark, Alicia asked, “Is he always so churned up?”

“His work means everything to him,” Raven replied.

“So he assumes it should mean everything to you, as well.”

Raven realized the truth of it. “I suppose he does.”

“Scientists.” Alicia made it sound like a curse. And suddenly Raven recognized that she was right. It is a curse, she told herself. Scientists like Tómas are truly cursed; they’ve cursed themselves with a curiosity that must be satisfied, if they’re ever to find peace.

Sitting herself down on the sofa next to Alicia, Raven asked, “So what are we going to do about Evan?”

Two hours later they still sat—at the tiny kitchen table—facing each other, the question totally unanswered.

PLAYING WITH FIRE

Raven slowly pulled herself to her feet and started taking the dinner dishes to the kitchen sink. Alicia got up too, as if she weighed ten tons, and cleared the narrow kitchen table of the rest of their dishes.

“This isn’t going to be easy,” she said as she stood beside Raven at the sink.

“We’ll figure it out,” Raven said. “There’s got to be a way.”

“We’re playing with fire.”

Raven almost smiled. “The lessons in anthropology that I’m studying in my sleep showed me that early humans who played with fire changed the course of history.”

Alicia nodded, but said, “Did your lessons show you how many of them got burned?”

They both returned to their jobs the next morning: Alicia to Waxman’s outer office and Raven to her cubbyhole down the hall. Once Alicia told her that Waxman had shown up, Raven strode to his office, stepped past Alicia at her desk, and rapped on the partially open door to Waxman’s private office. She stepped in before the man could respond.

“Raven!” he said, looking up from his desk. “What a delightful surprise.”

Ignoring his remark, Raven said, “Tómas Gomez called me last night. He was frantic—”

“I know,” Waxman said, his expression souring. “He left a message for me that was more than half an hour long.”

“He needs my help. He’s like a little boy who can’t find his toys.”

“Aptly put,” said Waxman. “How long do you think you’d be away from this office?”

She temporized, “A few days. Maybe a week or so.”

Waxman stared at her for a long, wordless moment. “And we were just starting to get along together so well.”

Standing there before his desk, Raven replied, “That’s finished, Evan. I won’t be taking Rust again.”

He smiled thinly. “That’s not for you to decide.”

“Yes it is. I ordered nose filters just like yours. They’ll be delivered to my quarters this afternoon.” Raven didn’t reveal that it was Alicia Polanyi who scoured through the habitat’s catalogues, found the filters, and ordered them. Plus a pair for herself.

Waxman’s narrow smile disappeared. “Did you now?”

“I did.”

Waving one hand carelessly in the air, Waxman said, “All right, go ahead and drudge for Gomez. I hope you enjoy the work.”

“Thank you, Evan,” said Raven. And she turned and left his office.

As she passed Alicia’s desk, she made the slightest of nods. Alicia smiled slightly.

Waxman’s voice came through the open doorway of his office, “You just make damned certain you’ve cleaned up all the tasks you’ve been working on here before you go start babysitting that astronomer.”

Without breaking her stride, Raven answered over her shoulder, “Of course, Mr. Waxman.”

Once Raven got back to her own cramped little office, she called Gomez.

Before she could say a word, he asked breathlessly, “Is it all right? Did he give you permission—”

“Yes, Tómas,” Raven interrupted, smiling. “I’ll start working with you tomorrow morning.”

“Tomorrow?” Crestfallen. “But I need you today! Now!”

With the slightest shake of her head, Raven replied, “I’ve got to clean up the work I’ve been doing here, Tómas. It’ll take me the rest of the day and well into the evening.”

“That long.”

“That long,” she confirmed. “But I’ll be at your laboratory first thing tomorrow morning. Without fail.”

He nodded ruefully. Without his expression changing in the slightest Gomez asked, “Can you have dinner with me tonight?”

Raven made herself smile. “I’m afraid not. Too much work to get through. I’ll probably just have a snack here in my office.”

“Oh. All right. Okay.” His face looked miserable. “I’ll see you first thing tomorrow.”

“Without fail,” Raven replied, trying to make it sound as cheerful and bright as possible.

Her desktop screen went blank.

Evan Waxman leaned back in his plush desk chair and drummed the fingers of both his hands against the thighs of his perfectly fitted trousers.

She thinks she’s getting away from me, he said to himself, his face clouding over. She thinks she can walk out on me.

There are plenty of other fish in the sea, a voice in his head reminded him. Yes, Waxman admitted, but once you let one get away the others will notice it. It will give them ideas.

Raven’s got to be brought under control, he concluded. I can’t let her walk away from me. She’s not leaving until I’m finished with her.

He sat up straight in his chair and called for Alicia.

She appeared almost instantly at his office door.

Eying her gaunt figure, Waxman said, “I want you to set up a surveillance watch on Raven Marchesi while she’s working with Gomez. I want to see everything she and that astronomer are doing together.”

Alicia Polanyi nodded obediently. “Right away, Mr. Waxman,” she said.

COUNTERMEASURES

Slightly bleary-eyed from having slept only a few hours, Raven got out of bed, showered, dressed, and grabbed a sweet bun for breakfast. She was still chewing its last remains as she left her apartment and headed for Tómas Gomez’s quarters, halfway across Haven’s main wheel.

She tapped at his apartment’s door once and it slid open immediately. Gomez was asleep at his desk, head resting on his arms amid a clutter of papers and fingernail-sized video chips.

Like her own quarters, Gomez’s place was not spacious. But he had turned it into his personal laboratory. The living room was filled with diagnostic devices, machines that could display and analyze the recordings that the submersible had made down at the bottom of Uranus’s globe-girdling ocean. Viewscreens covered the walls, all of them blank, silent.

Looking at Gomez’s slumbering form, Raven realized that he must have worked all night. Just as I did, she thought. Worked until he collapsed.

Suddenly Gomez snapped awake. His head popped up and his bloodshot eyes went wide as he focused on Raven.

“You’re here! Thank God!”

Raven smiled down at him and said, “I’m ready for work, Tómas.”

“Thank God,” he repeated.

Gomez was not nearly as disorganized as Raven had feared. It was just the sheer amount of data that his submersible had accumulated and sent to the surface during its mission into Uranus’s sea bottom that had overwhelmed him.

Raven pulled up one of the chairs in front of his desk and started sorting out all the papers and chips. Using the skills she had learned at Waxman’s command, she began to bring some order out of the seeming chaos. By lunchtime Gomez was actually grinning happily.

Smiling back at him, Raven suggested, “Why don’t you go take a shower and get into some clean clothes, Tómas? Then we can have lunch together.”

The astronomer looked stricken. “I must smell pretty bad, huh?”

“I’ve smelled worse,” Raven said. “But you do need a shower and a change of clothes.”

He scrambled out of his desk chair. “Yes, you’re right. I’ll get to it right away.”

And he scurried to the bedroom like an embarrassed teenager. Raven saw that his bed was covered with still more chips and printouts. She smiled at his back as he dashed through the door, then she turned to her work again.

The data she worked with meant nothing to her. Only numbers and alphabetical designations. But she sorted them patiently as her mind drifted to Evan Waxman and his expectations, his demands.

Evan won’t willingly let me out of his control, she knew. How can I make him believe I’m still under his domination without actually giving in to him?

She realized she’d already taken the first step. The nose filters will protect me from breathing in Rust, she knew. Evan won’t like it but there’s nothing he can do about it, not without violence.

Raven had known violence in her earlier life. She’d been beaten and savaged by some of the meanest, toughest thugs of Naples’s dark underworld. She’d survived, but only at the cost of convincing one hood after another that she was willing to do anything for his pleasure.

Evan’s not like that, she understood. He’s smarter. And meaner. Rust is his perfect weapon. It doesn’t harm its victims—except in their minds.

Rust creates fantasies. It makes its victims live out those fantasies in their imaginations. No physical damage. But she remembered the pain of the whips, her helpless agony when the men were having their fun with her.

And somehow Evan participates in those fantasies. He takes part in them. He enjoys them. He invades my mind and plays with me. While I do whatever he wants me to do.

There’s got to be a way out of this, she told herself. There’s got to be an escape route, a countermeasure that I can use to protect myself.

The only countermeasure she could think of was refusal. Refusal to take the Rust. Refusal to play Evan’s game, refusal to allow him to play with her.

But that path led to danger, she knew. He could overpower me easily enough. The imaginary “friends” that he used to work me over could be replaced by real, actual men. And then where would she be?

She was still struggling with that question when Tómas came back into the cluttered living room, glowingly clean, beaming from ear to ear.

DECISIONS

Evan Waxman sat at his desk, also thinking about his relationship with Raven.

She’s only one woman, he told himself. Why worry about her? There are plenty of others. But he kept thinking of how exciting, how wonderfully abandoned she was under the influence of Rust. She’d do anything, and ask for more.

So what? he asked. So was Alicia, back when we started. And a dozen others. Don’t get your life snarled around one woman. There are plenty of others, and more coming in on every shipload that arrives here.

Almost, he convinced himself. Almost.

But then he thought, If I let Raven walk away from me, what message does that send to Alicia and all the others? I’m in charge here, goddammit! They do what I want them to do, or else. If I let Raven walk away, then others will try to follow.

I can’t allow that, Waxman told himself. I’ve got to bring her back under my control. Totally. She doesn’t leave me until I’m finished with her. And it’s got to be done so that all the other little slashes see it and know it and understand that I tell them what to do and they do it.

I’m not going to allow Raven or any other of these available twats to get away from me. There’s only one way out for them. Like that big oaf O’Donnell. The only freedom they’ll ever find is death.

Nodding to himself, he called to his intercom, “Alicia.”

She slid his office door open immediately.

Waxman smiled at her. That’s the kind of response I want, he told himself. I call and she comes.

“Yes, Mr. Waxman?” Alicia asked from the doorway.

Gesturing to the chairs in front of his desk, he said, “Come in. Sit down.”

Alicia did as she was told.

Waxman studied her gaunt face for a silent moment.

Then, “How friendly are you with Raven Marchesi?”

Alicia’s eyes flashed wide for a moment. Alarm? Waxman asked himself. The question had startled her.

Swiftly composing herself, Alicia answered, “I had dinner with her once, in her quarters.”

“You two get along well?”

“Well enough.”

Waxman went silent for several heartbeats. Then he slid open one of his desk drawers and pulled out the half-empty plastic vial of Rust.

“You know what this is, of course,” he said.

Alicia stiffened slightly. “Rust.”

Dangling the tiny vial between two fingers, Waxman asked, “Do you think you could get into Raven’s quarters and sprinkle this inside her refrigerator? Without her knowing it, of course.”

Alicia Polanyi stared at the vial hanging from Waxman’s fingers, her lips pressed together into a thin bloodless line. He smiled at her. How long has it been since our last session with this stuff? Waxman asked her silently. Months. And it still has its pull. She’s staring at it like a starving man gazing at a full-course dinner.

“It took several weeks for the medical team to clean that junk out of my system,” Alicia said.

“I know,” Waxman responded. “But I’m told you’ve requisitioned nose filters for yourself, so there’s no danger of your inhaling any of it.”

Alicia couldn’t take her eyes off the tiny plastic tube half filled with the reddish narcotic. But something was going on behind those ice-blue eyes, Waxman saw. Something was churning in her mind.

“Well?” he prodded.

“I… I’d rather not have anything to do with it, if you don’t mind.”

“But I do mind, Alicia. I mind very much. I want you to do me this favor. You’ll be perfectly safe, I promise you.”

She finally shifted her gaze to Waxman’s slyly smiling face.

“And what do I get in return?”

Waxman leaned back in his sculpted chair. “Ah. The old quid pro quo.”

Alicia said nothing.

Almost laughing, Waxman said, “Well. I won’t offer you another Rust trip. That would be too cruel, after all your hard work to get over your addiction.”

She nodded silently.

“What would you like? What can I offer you?”

“I… I’ll have to think about that.”

Spreading his arms wide, Waxman said, “Name your price. Anything in this habitat that you want.”

“I’ll think about it,” Alicia repeated. “This is a surprise.”

His smile disappearing, Waxman said, “Well, think quickly. I want your answer before the end of the day.”

“Yes, sir,” Alicia said. And she got up from the chair and hurried to the outer office, leaving Waxman staring at the door sliding shut between them.

Alicia sat at her desk, her thoughts spinning. Anything in this habitat that you want, he said. Anything. She knew what she really wanted. She wanted to be away from Evan Waxman and his cruelly smiling face, his lustful hands, his filthy pleasures. She wanted to be back on Earth, free, rich enough to live as she wished, where she wished.

But Evan would never allow that. She might have rid herself of the need for Rust, but he would never allow her to leave the habitat and get entirely away from him.

What to do? Who could she run to? She dared not contact Raven. Evan would find out and punish her. Maybe kill her, just as he’d had Quincy O’Donnell murdered.

She did not want to serve Evan Waxman anymore, not for another day, not for another hour, another minute. But how to get away from him? How?

It was late in the afternoon before she made up her mind.

Checking her desktop video, she saw that Waxman was deep in conversation with one of the habitat’s councilmen. They were talking about the construction of Haven II. Quincy O’Donnell’s death had put a crimp in the construction schedule, from what they were saying, but that would be smoothed out soon enough.

Alicia tapped out the number for Tómas Gomez’s quarters, and there was Raven, seated beside the astronomer, scrolling through a long, incomprehensible list of alphanumeric symbols.

I can’t call her, Alicia said to herself. Evan might find out. But maybe…

She thought over the idea that had cropped up in her mind nearly an hour earlier. At last she decided that it could work. There was some risk involved, of course, but sitting here doing nothing was riskier.

Checking back on Evan, she saw that his conversation with the councilman was finished. Time to act, she told herself.

Alicia Polanyi got to her feet, stepped to the door to Waxman’s private office, and rapped on it firmly.

ACTIONS

Without preamble, Alicia said to Waxman, “I want to set up a boutique.”

Waxman’s brows climbed toward his scalp. “A boutique?”

“A shop for women. A place where they could buy stylish clothes, jewelry, shoes… that sort of thing.”

His eyes narrowing slightly, Waxman said, “We already have shops for women.”

Stepping farther into his office, Alicia said, “Yes, I know. But they’re more like military depots than shops where a woman can choose from the latest fashions.”

“That’s Umber’s doing. He wants our people to dress pretty much alike. And besides, that keeps the price of clothing low. Nobody can out-do her neighbors. No competition between the women. Or the men, for that matter.”

“But women like to dress up,” Alicia countered. “Why should we all go around wearing the same uniforms?”

“From what I’ve seen,” Waxman answered, “lots of women make their own alterations on their clothes.”

Alicia nodded vigorously. “Yes. Of course they do. No woman really wants to go around in the same uniform as everybody else.”

“A women’s clothing shop,” Waxman mused.

“It could make a profit for the habitat,” Alicia coaxed. “Only a small one, at first, but…”

For a long, silent moment Waxman stared at her as he thought, She wants to get away from me. She wants to set herself up as someone to pay attention to.

With a shake of his head, he told Alicia, “This is something that’s beyond my authority. You’ll have to get Reverend Umber’s permission.”

Clamping down on the thrill of excitement she felt, Alicia asked, “May I speak to him about it?”

Waxman clearly was not pleased with the idea, but he reluctantly agreed, “I suppose so.”

“Oh, thank you, Evan! I’m so grateful!”

Waxman nodded, thinking, We’ll see just how grateful you are the next time I invite you to my quarters.

Now comes the hard part, Alicia told herself.

It was late in the afternoon. She carried the plastic tube half-filled with Rust in the pocket of her slacks as she headed for Raven’s quarters.

Evan can track me through the cameras set up along all the passageways, she knew. But once I’m inside Raven’s place there won’t be any surveillance devices watching me. She knew this from the long months she had spent as Waxman’s assistant. Private quarters were kept private, at Reverend Umber’s insistence.

“We’ll have no Peeping Toms in Haven,” the reverend had commanded.

Other men and women strode along the passageway as Alicia approached Raven’s quarters. Aside from a nod or a smile, they paid scant attention to her. She had memorized the combination to Raven’s front door. No pulling out a slip of paper when she was ready to tap out the entry code. It’s got to look as if I’m going into my own place—which was several dozen meters farther down the corridor.

No one seemed to pay any attention to her as she quickly fingered the lock’s combination. The door slid open smoothly and Alicia hurriedly slipped inside, then slid the door shut again.

She went into the kitchen and glanced at the little refrigerator sitting beside one of the storage shelves. She pulled the tube of Rust from her pocket and, after scanning the kitchen’s ceiling for a sign of a surveillance camera, threw the vial and its contents into the disposal chute.

The chute’s door snapped shut, but not before Alicia saw the flash of light that meant the vial and its contents had been vaporized, utterly destroyed, broken into their constituent atoms by the disposal’s laser system.

Then she pulled a small pad from her other pocket and scrawled on it: Meet me in the main cafeteria as soon as you can.

She signed the note with a single sweeping A, then pressed it onto the kitchen table. Again she looked up and scanned the ceiling. No sign of surveillance cameras. Still, she felt nervous.

Alicia wanted to phone Raven, but feared their conversation would be tapped by Waxman. Instead, she made her way to the main cafeteria, found a table for two off in a corner far from the serving counters, and waited for Raven to show up.