Uranus

KYLE UMBER

Kyle Umber always insisted that he was not a saint.

“You have to be dead before you can be made a saint,” he would say, with that boyish smile of his. “I’m still alive and kicking.”

Now, though, as he knelt alone in his private quarters, the memory of that little piece of self-serving humility bedeviled him. The arrogance of it. The self-important smugness. Here we have several thousand migrants from Earth—the poor, the hopeless, the lost—and I joke about being worthy of sainthood.

He had been on his knees for the better part of an hour, vainly seeking a path out of the trap he’d built for himself. You don’t run this habitat, he realized. Evan Waxman does. And you let him do it! You stood aside, content to be admired by the poor souls arriving here, and let Evan take up the controls of the habitat.

Rust. Narcotics. God knows what else is taking place in that tower Evan’s built, right under my nose. And I’ve been too vain, too conceited, too stupid to take notice of it.

Fool. Blind, arrogant, trusting fool.

I’ve let Evan place me on a pedestal. And now I don’t know how to climb down off it and take control of Haven back into my own hands.

Pride, Reverend Umber told himself. The sin of pride.

Umber remembered the words of St. Augustine: It was pride that changed angels into devils.

Pride. Blind, stupid, self-glorifying pride. The sin from which all others arise.

Slowly, painfully, Umber struggled to his feet. All around him lay the trappings of power, the ornaments of selfish pride. His quarters resembled a scene out of ancient royalty: luxurious damask draperies and silken bed linens, bejeweled chandeliers and fine graceful furniture.

All the embellishments of wealth and power. Useless. Vain, self-glorifying, self-defeating pride.

I wanted to create a new heaven, here among the distant worlds, far from the corruption and temptations of Earth. And all I’ve accomplished is to create a center for drugs, narcotics, lustful sin. I’ve built a modern hell, not a new heaven.

Tottering before his handsome desk, surrounded by lush foliage and exquisite furniture, Umber cried aloud, “Lord, show me the way!”

But he heard no answer.

Raven was undressing for bed when the phone buzzed.

It must be Tómas, she thought. For an instant she hesitated. After the way he behaved at dinner, why should I talk to him? But she was already leaning across her bed, reaching for the phone. He’s under tremendous stress, she told herself. I shouldn’t get frosty with him.

The face in the phone screen was obviously a nurse. Tómas has been hurt. Badly. Raven pulled her discarded clothes back on and ran to the hospital.

He was stretched out on the bed, one leg encased in a cast and raised in traction, a big bandage hiding one side of his face, his skull wrapped in more bandages.

The doctor standing beside Raven, a plump red-haired woman, was saying in a whisper, “It’s the concussion that worries me most. They almost killed him.”

“They?” Raven asked, tearing her eyes away from Tómas’s unconscious form. “Who?”

The doctor made a small shrug. “We don’t know. He was found unconscious on the floor of the passageway. Surveillance video shows he was accosted by three young men.”

Raven stared down at Tómas’s battered face. Who would do this? Why?

The astronomer’s eyes fluttered open. Bloodshot, unfocused, blinking. Then they stopped at Raven’s form standing beside the bed.

He made a groaning sound.

She flung herself onto his prostrate form, cradling his bandaged face in her hands. He winced deeply.

“Tómas!” she sobbed.

He croaked, “Raven. I’m sorry.”

“Who did this to you?”

Tómas did not answer. All he could remember was the suddenness of the attack. The pain. His helplessness. But he recognized that Raven was here, sobbing uncontrollably as she lay sprawled across his chest.

He smiled faintly as he slid back into unconsciousness.

The following morning Evan Waxman strolled through his outer domain and into his private office, smiling at his assistants as they sat at their desks, already busy with their morning assignments.

Sliding into his handsome, comfortable chair, he told his desktop computer to present a summary of the week’s production figures. He smiled as the numbers showed that sales of various narcotics were climbing nicely.

Then an attention-demanding star flashed in the corner of his screen. With a puzzled frown Waxman told the computer to present the relevant data.

The screen showed the passageway from the shuttle docking area. A man was being viciously assaulted by a trio of thugs wearing gray hooded jackets. Waxman couldn’t make out their faces. They swiftly beat their victim and left him sprawled unconscious on the passageway floor as they ran away.

Waxman stared at the scene, his eyes wide with surprised disbelief. A mugging! Here in Haven? Outrageous. Unacceptable. Umber will hit the ceiling when he learns of this.

“Phone,” Waxman commanded. “Get me the security department. Top priority!”

The screen immediately showed a young woman wearing police blue. Waxman demanded to speak to the chief. The woman swiftly connected him.

Before Waxman could speak a word, the security chief—a grizzled, gray-haired man in a tight-fitting blue uniform—said, “This is about the incident last night, isn’t it?”

“Incident?” Waxman snapped. “We can’t have that kind of violence here! What the hell happened?”

“We’re trying to put the pieces together,” said the security chief, his beefy face showing concern, almost anger. “Seems like a random act of violence.”

“Random act? You mean those thugs were just having fun?”

“Could be,” said the chief.

“Who are they? Have you identified them?”

“Not yet. Those hoods they were wearing hid their faces pretty effectively.”

“Well find them!” Waxman demanded. “Find them quickly! We can’t have this kind of violence here!”

As reasonably as he could, the chief said, “You’ve got to expect little outbreaks like this from time to time. After all, this habitat is filled with the dregs of society.”

“You let them get away with this and pretty soon the whole damned colony will become a battleground! Find them! Quickly!”

The chief nodded. “Right.”

Waxman’s screen went blank. He leaned back in his self-adjusting chair, thinking, Umber will go berserk the minute he learns of this. He’ll blame me for it!

REACTIONS

Kyle Umber sat open-mouthed with shock as he watched the video of the attack on Tómas Gomez.

“This is terrible!” he exclaimed.

Evan Waxman, standing anxiously before Umber’s ornate desk nodded unhappily. “The victim was one of the astronomers: Tómas Gomez.”

“How badly was he hurt?”

“Broken leg, broken nose, fractured skull.”

“Good lord!”

“The assailants said something to him, but the surveillance system couldn’t make out the words.”

“I’ve got to go to the poor man,” Umber said, pushing himself up from his desk chair.

“We’re trying to amplify the words, maybe they’ll give us a clue as to who the ruffians were.”

As he came around his desk, Umber said, “And why they did such a senseless act of violence. Why would they do this?”

Waxman said, “Young thugs. They don’t need a reason.”

“No,” Umber disagreed. “Every human action has a motivation behind it. The motivation might seem farfetched, outrageous, but every action has a cause.”

Waxman shrugged. “I suppose so.”

“I’m going to the hospital, Evan. Please let me know if you learn anything about this.”

“I will.”

“Immediately.”

“Certainly.”

Umber hurried out of his ornate office. Waxman watched him leave, then headed for the meeting that the chief of security had set up for him. With a Sergeant Jacobi.

“Frankly,” said Jacobi, “I’m surprised that we haven’t seen more of this kind of thing.”

Waxman was sitting before Jacobi’s desk, a standard-issue gray metal type shoehorned into the sergeant’s narrow office; it was nothing more than a closet-sized space partitioned off from the rest of the station by flimsy shoulder-high panels. The area was barely big enough for the two of them, and Waxman could hear the daily chatter of the security people filling the air outside the cubicle.

Through gritted teeth, he said to Jacobi, “You’d better nail these thugs before other would-be vandals start terrorizing the people.”

Jacobi nodded. “We’re devoting all our resources to it, but there isn’t much to go on. Their faces were pretty well obscured by the hoods on their jackets—”

“You have voiceprints of what they said, don’t you?”

With a sad shake of his head, Jacobi replied, “Not clear enough for voiceprint ID, I’m afraid.”

Waxman stared at the sergeant. “Then what are you doing?”

“Initiating regular patrols along the passageways,” Jacobi answered. “The obvious presence of security patrols is the best way to prevent future incidents.”

“But what about finding the kids who attacked Dr. Gomez?”

“We’re bringing in kids by the carload and questioning them closely. Sooner or later we’ll get a lead.”

“Sooner or later,” Waxman echoed.

“Police work takes time, and patience.”

For several moments Waxman simply sat in the uncomfortable straight-back chair, glaring at Jacobi. At last he got to his feet.

“Keep me informed of how the investigation is progressing,” he said. Then he turned and left Jacobi sitting at his desk.

Watching his retreating back, Jacobi said to himself, Sure. I’ll send you written reports every day for the next week, then weekly, and then I’ll stop. You won’t pay them any attention and in a few weeks the whole affair will be forgotten.

He smiled knowingly.

Alicia could see how upset Raven was. The morning flow of customers was on the slow side, yet Raven hardly responded to the women’s questions and comments.

The crowd thinned to only two shoppers as the noon hour approached. Alicia pulled Raven aside and told her, in a low voice, that she should go to the hospital to visit Tómas.

“And leave you alone here?” Raven objected.

“I can handle things for a while,” Alicia replied. “You go and see Tómas.”

“You’re sure?”

With a smile, Alicia said, “I’m sure.”

It wasn’t until nearly closing time that Raven returned. She looked worried.

Alicia waited until the last customer sauntered out of the boutique. Then, as she lowered the window blinds, she asked, “So how is he today?”

Raven was obviously tense: her hands clenched into fists, her face looked strained, upset.

“He can’t remember very much about the attack,” she said. “It’s all a blur in his mind.”

“I suppose that’s typical.”

Raven nodded tightly. “That’s what the doctor said. She told me he was recuperating normally. But he can’t remember what happened! Not any details.”

“Nothing to worry about,” Alicia said, trying to sound comforting, sure of herself.

“I’m worried,” Raven replied.

Alicia went to her and wrapped her arms around Raven’s shoulders. “He’s going to be fine.”

“But who would do this to him?” Raven said, tearfully. “Why? Who would want to hurt him?”

“Some people are crazy,” Alicia said.

“But we were all tested during the trip out here,” Raven pointed out. “The psychotechnicians weeded out the violent ones.”

Alicia pulled up one of the wheeled chairs from the counter and sat Raven on it. Then she went to the water fountain and poured out a cupful.

Handing the cup to Raven, she said, “When I lived back in Chicago, there were plenty of cases of sidewalk violence. You couldn’t walk alone in some neighborhoods. People carried guns and knives.”

“Not here in Haven.”

“I hope not,” said Alicia. “It would be awful if this habitat sank into that kind of mess.”

FRUSTRATIONS

“It’s all a blur,” Tómas muttered. “It happened so fast.…”

Sitting beside the astronomer’s bed, Kyle Umber nodded sympathetically. “But you don’t remember what they said to you?”

Tómas started to shake his head, winced with pain, and said merely, “No, I don’t.”

“You can’t think of anyone who would want to hurt you?”

“Only that guy who tried to rape Raven, but he’s halfway back to Earth by now.”

“Noel Dacco.”

“Yes.”

Umber sighed. “We’ve never had an incident like this, not in the three years since we opened Haven to immigration.”

Through the dull pain throbbing behind his eyes, Tómas thought, It’s like he’s blaming me for the attack. Like it’s my own fault.

The minister leaned over and lightly patted Tómas’s uninjured leg. “Well, I’m sure the security chief and his sergeant Jacobi will get to the bottom of this. In the meantime, you relax and get well.”

Tómas smiled weakly. “I don’t have anything else to do, do I?”

Umber pushed himself to his feet. “God be with you.”

“And with you, sir.”

Umber left the narrow enclosure. Gomez stared at the door as it slid closed behind him. Then he shut his eyes and drifted to sleep.

He dreamed. He saw the planet Uranus surrounded by dozens of tiny moons whirling around it in hyperkinetic orbits. Then a huge moon came hurtling out of the darkness of space and smashed into the planet. The small satellites were swirled into a frenzy of new orbits, many of them flying completely away from Uranus. The planet itself tilted over on its side as huge clouds of gas and debris erupted from beneath its clouds and spurted into space.

Tómas saw it all clearly. So clearly it hurt his eyes, numbed his soul.

And a voice from deep within him said, “Find the wanderers, Tómas. Find the wanderers.”

He asked, “How? How can I find a moon torn loose from its orbit when I don’t know what its original orbit was?”

He heard no answer.

Kyle Umber returned to the security department’s headquarters and asked the chief to allow him to review the surveillance videos of the passageway where Gomez had been attacked.

The security chief looked surprised. “I doubt that you’ll see anything that Sergeant Jacobi and his team haven’t noticed.”

Umber smiled tightly and nodded. “Probably not. But I would like to try.”

With a cocked brow, the chief asked, “You’re sure?”

“The Lord helps those who help themselves, you know.”

Suppressing a sigh, the chief spoke into his desktop phone and called for an assistant to bring Umber down to the security camera monitoring center.

It was a small, tight circular room, its curving walls covered with monitoring screens that showed every passageway and public space in the habitat. Umber’s guide, a petite brunette young woman in a snugly form-fitting blue uniform, showed him to a vacant desk. As he slid into its chair, she tapped the viewscreen built into the tiny table before him.

“It’s voice activated,” she said. “Just tell the screen what you want to see: call up the list of cameras, pick the one you’re looking for. That’s all there is to it.” Then she added, “Oh, and tell the screen the time you’re interested in. Otherwise you’ll have to wade through weeks of observations.”

Umber nodded gratefully. With the young woman standing behind him, he plowed through a diagram showing the locations of the surveillance cameras. He found the one he wanted, then ordered the monitor to start one hour before the attack on Dr. Gomez.

The screen showed an empty passageway. Umber asked for fast-forward.

A trio of young men walked into the scene, ridiculously jerky in the fast-forward mode. Their faces were shaded by the hoods on their dark gray jackets.

“Normal speed, please,” said Umber.

The screen went totally blank. Then bright red lettering announced, FOOTAGE UNAVAILABLE. SECURITY INVESTIGATION IN PROGRESS.

Umber stared at the words for a silent moment, then turned to the young woman. “How do I get to see this footage?”

She seemed just as surprised as he. “I guess you’ll have to talk to Sergeant Jacobi. He’s in charge of the investigation.”

SEARCHING

His cold gray eyes focused on Reverend Umber, Sergeant Jacobi said, “I’m afraid that footage is being studied by our analysis team. I really wouldn’t want to interrupt their work.”

“You don’t have a copy of the footage?”

“Apparently not,” Jacobi answered, straight-faced.

“I see,” said Umber. “Could you kindly notify me when it’s available for me to see it?”

“Yes, certainly,” said Jacobi.

Umber got to his feet. Jacobi rose also.

“This is all very distressing,” said Umber.

Nodding, Jacobi said, “We haven’t had a beating this serious since the habitat was opened to immigration.”

Frowning slightly, Umber asked, “But there have been other… incidents?”

With a small shrug, Jacobi replied, “Petty stuff. Kids roughhousing, arguments that got out of hand—that sort of thing.”

“But this was a vicious attack. Deliberate.”

Jacobi stood behind his desk, perfectly motionless.

The silence between the two men stretched painfully. At last Umber said, “Please let me know as soon as you can.”

“Of course,” said Jacobi. Coldly.

As he walked slowly along the passageway back toward his office complex, Reverend Umber thought, There’s something out of place about this. A vicious attack on Dr. Gomez. The security people appear to be at a loss in their investigation. That Sergeant Jacobi doesn’t seem very upset about the incident. He acts as if it’s strictly routine, as far as he’s concerned.

But what if this incident is just the start of a new phase of our habitat’s development? What if we’re going to see more attacks? More violence? That could bring everything I’ve worked for crashing down around my shoulders.

The following morning, Raven was surprised to see a man enter the boutique. Alone. A few boyfriends and the rare husband had been dragged into the shop by their women, but a lone man was a surprise.

He was compactly built: good shoulders and a flat midsection. Swarthy face and dark wavy hair that curled down almost to the collar of his one-piece zipsuit. He maneuvered through the women pawing through the shop’s merchandise and came straight to Raven, standing behind the counter.

“Are you Raven Marchesi?”

Blinking with surprise, Raven answered, “Yes, I am. And you are…?”

“Vincente Zworkyn. Tómas Gomez and I work together.”

“Oh! Yes, Tómas has mentioned your name many times.”

Zworkyn said, “I went to visit him this morning, but the nurse told me he was in a therapy session and couldn’t see visitors until it was finished.”

Raven nodded. “Yes, he’s able to walk now. The nanomachines are repairing his leg.”

“I thought I’d come over and say hello to you. Tómas is quite taken with you.”

Raven heard herself say, “It’s mutual.”

“That’s good.”

Glancing swiftly at Alicia, talking to a trio of potential customers on the other side of the shop, Raven turned back to Zworkyn and asked, “Do you have any idea of who attacked Tómas?”

With a shake of his head, Zworkyn replied, “I’m afraid I don’t. But I hope the security department finds them and pushes them out an airlock.”

Raven decided she liked this man.

After a few moments of embarrassed silence, Zworkyn asked, “May I take you to dinner tonight?”

Raven hesitated, then replied, “My partner and I usually have dinner together. At home.”

“May I take you both to dinner?”

With a smile, Raven said, “Let’s see what Alicia thinks of that.”

Zworkyn smiled back, looking somewhere between embarrassed and hopeful.

Raven said, “I believe Tómas told me that you are married.”

Zworkyn’s smile evaporated. “My wife is back on Earth. Filing for a divorce.”

“Divorce?”

Looking uncomfortable, Zworkyn explained, “It’s my fault, I suppose. I’m away from home most of the time. Leaving her alone. It’s not a happy situation.”

“She doesn’t travel with you?”

“I’ve asked her to. But she’d rather stay at home. She has lots of friends there.”

“Where is your home?”

“Denmark. Copenhagen.”

From the pain that showed clearly on his face, Raven realized she was treading on a sensitive subject. “I’m sorry,” she said, in a low voice.

“Not your fault,” said Zworkyn. “Nobody’s fault but my own.”

DINNER

Zworkyn sat patiently—and silently—with Raven until Alicia brought the two shoppers to the counter. Both had several colorful skirts and blouses draped over their arms. They eyed Zworkyn with unabashed curiosity as Raven introduced the engineer to Alicia and her customers. Alicia rang up the sales while Raven wrapped their purchases and escorted the women to the boutique’s door.

“You work with Tómas?” Alicia asked as Raven bid a cheerful goodbye to the departing women.

“Yes,” said Zworkyn. He hesitated for a moment, then said, “I’ve invited your partner and you to dinner tonight. Will you join us?”

Alicia smiled. “It’s my turn to cook tonight. Why don’t you come to my quarters?”

Zworkyn smiled back. “I thought dinner at the restaurant would be a pleasant change for you.”

“That’s very thoughtful of you.”

“Will you join us?” he repeated.

“Has Raven agreed?”

“Yes,” he said, stretching reality a bit.

“All right, then. But we’ll have to change into something more fitting for the restaurant.”

“Why? You both look fine.”

“We’ll look better,” said Alicia.

As she was pulling on a colorful blouse, Raven heard Alicia ask from the adjoining dressing room, “Who is he?”

“He’s a mining engineer. He’s working with Tómas… that is, he was, until Tómas got hurt.”

Raven’s tone of voice changed slightly as she said, “He told me his wife is divorcing him, back on Earth.”

“Oh? I didn’t know. I wonder if that’s true, or it’s just a line he uses on susceptible women.”

Raven felt surprised. Susceptible? Alicia? It’s going to be an interesting dinner.

Tómas, meanwhile, was stretched out on his hospital bed. His leg ached from the walking that the nurses had made him do in the hospital’s recuperation ward. But I’m walking, he told himself. A few more days and I’ll be as good as new.

His narrow compartment had been turned down to sleep mode, dark and quiet. Tómas slid his hands behind his head and closed his eyes. No pain, he realized happily.

Suddenly his eyes popped open and he propped himself up on his elbows.

I don’t have to track the moons that were bumped out of orbit around Uranus! he realized. If they were forced out only a couple of million years ago, I should be able to spot one of them with a Schmidt!

Pushing himself up to a sitting position, Tómas ran the problem through in his mind. If the moons were forced away from Uranus a couple of million years ago, one of the wide-field Schmidt telescopes at the Farside Observatory ought to be able to see them. I don’t need Big Eye, not until we pick up one of the escaped moonlets and want to get a close-up of it to verify what it is!

He was so excited he started to pull off the bedsheet covering him and swing his legs off the bed. But he hesitated in mid-motion. Try to stand up and fall on your face; set your recuperation back a week or more.

He swung his cast-covered leg back onto the bed and turned to the telephone on the night table.

“Vincente Zworkyn,” he commanded the phone.

Almost immediately he heard Zworkyn’s recorded voice. “I’m not available at the moment. Please leave your name and I’ll get back—”

Tómas snapped, “Phone, locate Mr. Zworkyn. Wherever he is, find him. Emergency! Top priority!”

The robot waiter trundled up to their table with three desserts on its flat top. As it began to place them on the table where Raven, Alicia and Zworkyn were sitting, Zworkyn’s phone vibrated in his pocket.

Frowning, the engineer muttered, “I instructed the phone not to interrupt us.”

The phone buzzed again, softly but insistently.

“Damn,” Zworkyn muttered, tugging the phone from his pocket.

He could see the excitement on Tómas’s face even in the phone’s tiny screen.

Before Zworkyn could say a word, Tómas gushed, “We can do it! We can find one of Uranus’s runaway moons! Maybe more than one!”

With a glance at his two dinner companions, Zworkyn said, “I’m in the middle of dinner—”

“We use the Schmidts at Farside,” Tómas went on, undeterred. “We figure out the moonlets’ exit velocities and search at the distance they’d be after a couple of million years!”

“That’s a needle in a haystack approach.”

“No, it’s the way to find the escaped moons,” Tómas insisted. “It’ll work, I know it will!”

Zworkyn looked up at Alicia and Raven again as he said, “All right. All right. Calm down. I’ll come over and see you first thing in the morning.”

“I’ll start in on the math. We can estimate the exit velocity of the moons pretty well.…”

“Get some sleep, Tómas. I want you bright-eyed and bushy-tailed tomorrow morning.”

“Yes. Sure. Of course.”

“Goodnight, partner.”

“Goodnight, Vincente.”

Zworkyn clicked the phone off. “Scientists,” he muttered. “They’re all a little crazy.”

Alicia smiled at him. Raven did not.

ABBOTT

Gordon Abbott could feel his brows knitting into a frown as he asked the image on his office’s wall screen, “Use the Schmidt telescopes?”

“Yes!” replied Tómas Gomez eagerly. “The wide-field Schmidts. They can cover the whole sky in a couple of sweeps!”

“Not Big Eye.”

Gomez shook his head. “We won’t need Big Eye until we’ve located one of the escaped moons.”

Abbott couldn’t help noticing that Gomez didn’t wince at all when he shook his head. The lad’s recuperation is progressing nicely, he thought.

Practically quivering with excitement, Gomez said, “We don’t need to have tracking data for the runaway moons. We just estimate how far they’ve traveled since they left Uranus orbit and scan the sky until we find one!”

“Ingenious,” Abbott muttered.

“Can you get us time on the Schmidts at Farside?”

Nodding unconsciously, Abbott replied, “I believe that’s possible. In fact, you can scan the sweeps they’ve already made at that distance. You might find what you’re looking for that way.”

“Wonderful! How soon—”

Breaking into a reluctant grin, Abbott interrupted, “I’ll call Farside today. The director there is an old friend of mine.”

“Great!”

Abbott’s wall screen went blank. He stared at it for several long moments, thinking that it had been a long time since he’d felt as excited as Gomez about a sky survey. Ah youth, he said to himself. I just hope he actually finds the damned moon. It’d be a major breakthrough. Fine feather in the lad’s cap.

The Reverend Kyle Umber was far from joyful as he sat alone in his sumptuous office.

I’m a figurehead, he told himself for the hundredth time. A bloated, pompous, self-important figurehead; all display and no real power. Evan Waxman controls this habitat and he’s turned it into a center for narcotics and lord knows what else.

And I let him do it! I sat back and let him handle the habitat’s day-to-day administration. He’s taken control of everything. Everything I’ve worked for, hoped for, prayed for—it’s all in his hands now.

He looked out from his desk, slowly scanning the trappings of authority and command that surrounded him. All make-believe, he told himself. A narcotic to keep me quietly sedated while Evan turns Haven into a drug manufacturing center and God knows what else.

His eyes focused on a faded picture in an old wooden frame hanging on the wall to one side of his desk. It showed a soldier carrying a wounded comrade across his shoulders, slogging painfully through jungle underbrush.

He heard the words of a long-dead political leader: “…no matter how long, or hard, or painful the journey may be…”

He whispered to himself, “Every journey begins with a single step.”

Slowly, Kyle Umber pushed himself to his feet. “The journey begins now,” he told himself.

But as he stood there behind his handsome desk, he realized that he had no idea of what his next step would be.

Then he remembered that Sergeant Jacobi had promised to send the surveillance camera footage of the attack on Tómas Gomez to him. He leaned over and told the phone to contact Jacobi.

The security chief sat rigidly in his desk chair as he watched Sergeant Jacobi’s lean, pinched face on the wall screen.

“He’s pushing for something,” Jacobi was saying. “He keeps asking me for the footage of the attack on Dr. Gomez.”

The chief felt puzzled. “You’ve gone over the footage of the attack. Is there anything in it that can identify the attackers?”

“Nope. I personally reviewed every millimeter of the footage. It’s clean.”

With an exasperated sigh, the chief said, “Let him see it, then. He won’t be able to meddle with our investigation.”

Jacobi nodded. “Yes, sir.” A split-second’s hesitation, then, “About my promotion…”

“All in good time, Sergeant,” said the chief. “All in good time.”

THE FORCE OF RIGHTEOUSNESS

When in trouble or in doubt, Kyle Umber recited silently to himself, run in circles, scream and shout.

He smiled bitterly at the old bit of doggerel as he walked slowly along Haven’s central passageway. Doors lined both sides of the broad corridor, men and women strode purposefully along its plastic floor paneling.

Well, I’m walking in circles all right, he said to himself. He had traversed the kilometers-long passageway more than once since he’d started pacing its circular length earlier in the morning.

Everyone he met smiled and said hello to the founder of the community. Umber smiled back, with only his lips, and nodded benedictions to them.

But his mind was far away from this refuge in space. As Haven glided smoothly in orbit around Uranus, Kyle Umber was thinking of his younger days back on Earth and how he got the inspiration for developing the habitat and offering it as a refuge for Earth’s forgotten, downtrodden people.

Three thousand and some refugees, he thought. Hardly an imposing number. There are millions more back on Earth desperately seeking a way out of poverty and despair. But I won’t be able to help them, not unless I can wrest control of this habitat back out of Evan’s hands.

How? he cried silently. How can one man stand against Waxman and his minions? He has the Council under his control. He’s reduced me to a figurehead. How can I fight against him? How can I win?

Glancing about, Umber realized he had walked completely around the habitat’s passageway again; he was back where he had started earlier in the day.

How symbolic, he told himself. Back where you began. You’ve accomplished nothing. All you’re doing is rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

But there was something tickling the back of his mind. A hazy thought, a vague idea was prodding him. Yet he could not form a clear picture of it.

Lord, he prayed silently, show me the way.

As he started on his next circumnavigation of the passageway, he listened for God’s wisdom.

In vain.

Vincente Zworkyn looked up from his cluttered desk and saw Tómas Gomez standing at his door, grinning uncertainly as he leaned on a silvery cane.

Bouncing up from his chair, Zworkyn beamed a smile at the younger man. “Tómas! They let you out!”

Gomez stepped stiffly into the office/workshop, his free arm outstretched, a wide grin on his tan face. “I am officially released from the hospital.”

“Wonderful!” said Zworkyn, ushering Tómas to his desk. “How do you feel?”

“Like I’m a hundred and fifty years old. My leg’s not accustomed to walking long distances yet.”

“You walked all the way here from the hospital?”

“Yes,” said Tómas, as he eased himself into the chair in front of Zworkyn’s desk. “Ahh. It feels good to sit.”

Zworkyn went back around the desk and sat himself down. “Abbott was as good as his word. I got a call from the Farside Observatory this morning. They’re sending the Schmidt data to us. Should be here by lunchtime.”

“Good. Then we’ll have some work to do.”

Zworkyn nodded happily.

Kyle Umber was halfway through his fourth trip around Haven’s central passageway when it hit him.

Gandhi! he thought. Mohandas K. Gandhi. The liberator of India, back in the twentieth century.

Umber stopped in his tracks and stood stock-still in the middle of the crowd of men and women walking through the passageway.

“Gandhi,” he said aloud. “Nonviolence.”

Gandhi was so revered that the Indian people dubbed him “Mahatma”: holy one. His campaign of nonviolent protest against the British forces that had occupied India for several hundred years eventually forced the Brits to leave India and allow the Indian people independence and the right to form their own government.

Could it work here? Umber turned around and hurried toward his office, back in the habitat’s administrative tower. Gandhi, he kept repeating to himself. Nonviolence.

Once he reached his office he slid into his desk chair and asked his computer to pull up everything it had on Gandhi.

Well past the dinner hour, he was still at his desk, watching ancient newsreel films of the frail, wizened little man who freed his people from British domination.

He saw snippets of Gandhi’s description of the nonviolent approach to political freedom.

The term Satyagraha was coined by me… the computer spelled out over a scene of police beating unresisting Indian men and women in old, grainy, black-and-white newsreel footage. Its root meaning is “holding on to truth,” hence “force of righteousness.” I have also called it love force or soul force…. I discovered in the earliest stages that pursuit of truth did not permit violence being inflicted on one’s opponent… for what appears truth to the one may appear to be error to the other. And patience means self-suffering. So the doctrine came to mean vindication of truth, not by the infliction of suffering on the opponent, but on one’s self.

Umber sank back in his desk chair and stared at the words of Gandhi. Eyes wide with discovery, he told himself, That’s a form of Christianity! Not by inflicting suffering on one’s opponent, but on one’s self.

That is the way to deal with Waxman and the people around him. Satyagraha. The force of righteousness.

He raised his eyes to the ceiling of his office and his vision seemed to penetrate through it and out into the limitless depths of space.

“Lord, help me in this quest for righteousness.”

He heard no reply, but he neither expected to nor needed to. He had found his way and was fully committed to it, mind and heart and soul.

Yet a thin, hard voice in his mind asked, All right, then. What’s your first step?

THE FIRST STEP

“Please come in, Reverend,” said Raven, gesturing her visitor into her living room.

Reverend Umber stepped somewhat hesitantly into Raven’s apartment. Alicia Polyani was already there, sitting on the sofa beneath the view of Uranus turning serenely on its axis.

“Thank you,” said Umber. “It’s good of you to see me.” He went to the sling chair in front of the sofa and lowered himself carefully into it.

Before either of the women could say anything, Umber began, “I’ve come to ask the two of you to help me organize a cabal, a protest against what Evan Waxman is doing to our habitat.”

Raven glanced at Alicia, then turned back to Umber. “A protest?”

“A nonviolent protest that could break Waxman’s control of Haven.”

“That sounds… interesting,” said Raven.

“It sounds dangerous,” Alicia murmured.

“This is like looking for a needle in a haystack,” complained Zworkyn.

“It’s there,” said Tómas, sitting on the edge of the sofa in Zworkyn’s living room. The wall screen across the room showed views of the stars from one of Farside Observatory’s wide-field Schmidt telescopes.

“It’s there,” Tómas repeated, without taking his eyes off the star-littered screen. “We just have to find it.”

“A tiny needle in a huge haystack. A minuscule needle in an enormous haystack.”

Tómas shook his head stubbornly. “We’ve estimated what its magnitude should be. We just have to search until we find it.”

Zworkyn stared at the younger man. “Look, Tómas. We’ve set the parameters. We’ve estimated the range of magnitudes that the moon would show, we’ve calculated how far from our solar system it would be. And we’ve found nothing. Nothing even remotely similar to what we’re looking for.”

Tómas nodded absently, still staring at the screen. “All right, so it’s not in this view. We still have six other Schmidt images to look at.”

“It’s dinner time,” Zworkyn grumbled. “Past dinner time.”

“Go ahead and eat. I want to look at the next display.”

Zworkyn shook his head unhappily, but didn’t move from the sofa.

“Passive resistance?” Alicia asked.

“Yes,” said Umber. “It’s the way to break Waxman’s control. It’s a hard way, a difficult way. It requires enormous self-control, enormous sacrifice—”

“But you expect the people of this habitat to set themselves down in front of the manufacturing tower and let the security police beat them?”

Umber nodded silently.

Raven murmured, “That’s asking a lot from them. Maybe more than they can give you.”

“They wouldn’t be giving it to me,” Umber corrected. “They’d be giving it to themselves. To each other. They’d be winning back control of this habitat.”

“You expect them to allow themselves to be beaten to a pulp?”

“Yes,” said Umber. “And I’ll be the first one in line.”

“I don’t think it would work,” Alicia said. “They’d break and run as soon as the police started hitting them.”

Umber sighed. “Perhaps they would.”

“I would,” said Alicia.

“Umber’s been in there for a long time,” said Sergeant Jacobi.

The viewscreen in Evan Waxman’s living room showed the passageway outside Raven Marchesi’s apartment. Occasionally someone walked past. But what was going on inside the apartment?

Feeling frustrated, Waxman wondered, “What’s he doing in there with the two women?”

“Getting laid.”

Waxman looked sharply at the sergeant. “Not him. I think he’s impotent.”

“H’mmph.”

Waxman got up from his desk chair. “We should have bugged that woman’s apartment.”

“Now you think of it.”

Shaking his head disconsolately, Waxman said, “Umber wouldn’t let me. He said that people’s private quarters should remain private.”

“Great humanitarian thinker,” Jacobi sneered.

“Well, it’s too late—”

“Hey! Here he comes.” Jacobi pointed to the wall screen, which showed Kyle Umber leaving Raven’s apartment.

Waxman studied the reverend’s face as he started up the passageway. “He looks very serious. Very somber.”

Jacobi huffed. “He didn’t get laid.”

PLANNING

“Let them hit me?”

Raven nodded.

“But that’s crazy.”

“It’s passive resistance,” she said. “It’s worked in the past, back on Earth.”

Raven was sitting on the sofa in the living room of her quarters, Alicia beside her. Sitting on the sling chair facing them was Syon Shekhar, head of the habitat’s plumbers guild. Small, thin almost to the point of emaciation, dark of skin, hair and eyes, his face was set in an expression of dismayed disbelief.

“You want me to tell my people to go out and sit on the lawn in front of the Chemlab Building and allow the security guards to beat them?”

Raven nodded, tight-lipped.

“Get real,” Shekhar snapped. “That’s crazy.”

Alicia repeated, “It’s called passive resistance.”

“It’s called lunacy,” said Shekhar.

“It originated in your country,” Raven coaxed. “Gandhi used it—”

“My country is South Africa,” Shekhar interrupted. “For the past eleven generations.”

“Whatever,” said Raven, undeterred. “Passive resistance can work. It’s worked in the past.”

Shaking his head, Shekhar objected, “So you expect my people to go out and sit in front of the Chemlab Building and let the security goons split their skulls?”

“I’ll let them split my skull,” said Raven.

“And mine,” Alicia added.

“You’re both crazy.”

With a slow smile creeping across her face, Alicia coaxed, “You mean you wouldn’t be willing to do what the two of us intend to do? You’d let us show more guts than you would?”

“You’ll show more guts, all right,” Shekhar countered, getting to his feet. “And brains. And blood.”

Raven stood up too, barely as tall as Shekhar’s thin shoulders. “Will you at least tell your people about it? Will you do that much?”

With a resigned shrug, Shekhar answered, “Sure, I’ll tell them. But they’re not going to go for it, I can tell you that right now.”

“Maybe,” Raven admitted.

“So how many do we have?” Kyle Umber asked the two women.

The minister was in his own private quarters, sitting in front of the viewscreen that took up most of the far wall of his living room. Raven and Alicia sat huddled together on the sofa of Raven’s living room.

“Not many,” answered Alicia.

“Most of the group leaders were surprised when we told them about it.”

“Shocked.”

Umber bit his lower lip. “This will only work if we have a big turnout.”

“I know,” Raven replied. “But the idea seems to shock them.”

“It’s too new. Too different,” said Alicia.

“Maybe if I tried to explain it to them,” said Umber. “Show them what we’re trying to accomplish.…”

Raven shook her head. “We can’t have you meeting with all the habitat’s group leaders. Waxman would catch on to what we’re trying to do.”

Alicia nodded minimally. “Benjamin Franklin said three people can keep a secret—if two of them are dead.”

Umber nodded back at her. “I just hope Waxman’s not tapping into our communications with each other.”

“No,” said Alicia. “I asked the leader of the communications group and he told me no one has asked to read private messages.”

“Not yet,” breathed Raven.

“Evan would have to bring any such request to the Council for a vote,” Umber said. But his voice did not sound certain about the idea.

“Why couldn’t you record a speech, Reverend Umber,” asked Raven, “so we could give copies of it to the various group leaders.”

Umber’s expression changed from doubt to a glimmering hint of possibility. “A speech,” he said, savoring the idea. “A short, strong speech.”

The next morning, Umber sat at the desk in his living room, staring at the viewscreen on the wall opposite his sofa. The screen was broken into half a dozen scripts, quotations from brilliant, successful speeches of the past.

“When you decide to steal,” Umber muttered to himself, “steal from the best.”

Leaning back in his comfortable desk chair, Umber began reading. These are the times that try men’s souls. He paused momentarily, then went on. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.

He stopped and stared at the words of Thomas Paine that he had just quoted. They were good enough to rally the upstart American colonists against the world-girdling British Empire, he thought. Maybe they’ll help to raise the residents of this habitat against Waxman’s tyranny.

He fervently hoped so.

DISCUSSION

When in doubt about what to say, Gordon Abbott always unconsciously tugged at his moustache. He was pulling it now hard enough to make himself wince.

Reverend Umber’s image filled his office’s wall screen, looking uncertain, worried, almost fearful.

Abbott jerked his hand away from his face and asked, “You want me to contact the Interplanetary Council and ask them to give you a hearing?”

Nodding slightly, Umber replied, “So that we can apply for membership to the Council.”

Blinking anxiously at the reverend, Abbott asked, “Why don’t you call them yourself?”

His round face showing obvious distress, Umber admitted, “Because my calls are blocked.”

“Blocked? By whom?”

“Evan Waxman.”

“Your own chief administrator?”

With a lugubrious nod, Umber explained, “Evan has taken control of the habitat’s council. He’s running Haven, not me. He won’t let me contact Earth under any circumstances.”

Abbott pondered that admission for several long, silent moments, consciously keeping his hands folded tightly on his desktop.

“He’s controlling this habitat’s government, then?”

“To a large degree, yes.”

“I see,” said Abbott. He pursed his lips, glanced up at the ceiling of his office, squirmed uncomfortably in his desk chair.

At last he said, “Actually, I’m here at your habitat at your request. I’m not a citizen of Haven. I shouldn’t get involved in your politics.”

“But this wouldn’t involve you in our politics,” Umber replied. “All you would be doing is sending a message from me to Harvey Millard, the IC’s executive director. Let him know that I want to converse with him.”

“And you think that Waxman will let my message go through to him?”

“I hope so. He can’t be blocking all of the habitat’s communications with Earth.”

“You think not?”

“I hope not.”

Abbott stared at Reverend Umber’s round, pinkish face. The man seemed sincere enough. More than that. He looked determined, desperate.

“I know Millard,” he said. “He’s a decent chap.”

“Then you’ll call him?”

“It might be better if I didn’t try to reach Millard directly. I’ve been sending progress reports to my people Earthside. I’ll slip your request into one of them. My next one, in fact. It’s due to go out tomorrow.”

Umber broke into a grateful smile. “God bless you, Dr. Abbott! God bless you!”

Syon Shekhar hated it when his meetings broke into a hassle of individual arguments. He stood in front of his twelve local organizers, who packed his living room, taking every chair in his quarters and even sitting on the carpeted floor. Hands on his narrow hips, he watched his subordinates gabbling at one another.

Like a pack of stupid chickens, he thought. This idea has unsettled them all. It’s like nothing they’ve ever heard of.

Despite his distaste, he let them squabble for a full five minutes before calling the meeting to order again.

Standing before them, he said, “There’s nothing much to argue about.” The twelve men and women looked up at him with expressions of surprise, uncertainty, even outright fear on their faces.

“Just sit there and let them hit us?” cried one of the men.

“We could get hurt!”

“Or killed!”

Shekhar waved them to silence. “You saw Reverend Umber’s vid, same as I did. He’s asking for our help. Do we give it or not?”

“We can’t order our people to let themselves get beaten!”

“No,” agreed Shekhar. “It’s all got to be completely voluntary.”

One of the women, her voice quavering, said, “Just sit there and let them hit us?”

“That’s what Reverend Umber is asking of us. He’s asking all the people in the habitat. What’s our answer going to be?”

“I think it’s crazy!”

Another of the women scrambled to her feet. “Listen. The security goons are people like you and me. They’re not going to kill us.”

“No, they’ll just make us wish we were dead.”

Shekhar realized this debate could go on indefinitely. Raising his hands, he asked, “All right, all right. Will you tell your people about this? Ask them to show up when Reverend Umber wants us to?”

They reluctantly agreed. Very reluctantly.

SUSPICION

“I don’t like it,” said the security chief. He was sitting at his desk, as usual, but the expression on his hard-bitten face as he stared at his office wall screen showed suspicion, doubt, worry.

“They’re up to something,” the chief muttered.

Sergeant Jacobi, sitting in front of the chief’s desk, nodded agreement. “Yeah, but what?”

The wall screen showed a section of the habitat’s main passageway filled with men and women walking along. But instead of their usual pairs or individuals, most of them were clustered in groups of five or six or more. They were chattering among themselves, too low for the security microphones set into the ceiling to pick up more than a random snatch of a phrase. Worse, they would occasionally glance up at the cameras and microphones and lower their voices even more.

“They’re up to something,” the chief repeated, his chiseled features set in a grim, hard expression.

Jacobi suppressed an urge to ask again, But what?

The chief focused his steel-blue eyes on Jacobi. “What have you heard?”

With a shrug, the sergeant replied, “Not a helluva lot. Something’s in the wind, that’s for sure. But what it is…” Again he shrugged. “…we don’t know yet.”

“Your informers haven’t picked up anything?”

“I’ve picked up a few hints about ‘passive resistance.’ But what the hell that is and how it fits into the situation here is pretty much a mystery.”

“Passive resistance,” the chief repeated. “Doesn’t sound very dangerous.”

“Maybe not. But just about everybody in the whole damned habitat seems to be in on whatever the hell they’re buzzing about.”

“Everybody except us,” the chief growled.

“We could pick up a couple people at random and squirt ’em with truth serum.”

“And have Umber come howling down on us?” The chief shook his head.

“Maybe if we question the reverend himself…”

“On what grounds? We still have to follow the law. We can’t start an investigation before we know what we’re looking for. This isn’t Chicago, for God’s sake. Or Hitler’s Germany.”

Jacobi didn’t answer. But he was thinking, Umber knows what’s going on. If we could just squeeze him a little, he’d spill his guts.

“So what do we do?” Jacobi asked.

Obviously unhappy, the chief said, “We watch and wait. And lean on our informers.”

We follow the law, Jacobi said to himself. The hoi polloi can keep secrets and we have to try to find out what the hell they’re up to without stepping on any of their precious goddamn rights.

Raven felt the man’s presence, skulking along the passageway behind her. She had put in a full day’s work with Alicia at the boutique, trying hard to keep their plan a secret. Many of the women who came into the place wanted to talk about the passive resistance plan. Raven hushed them and told them to talk to their neighbors in the privacy of their quarters.

Now, as she and Alicia walked along the passageway toward their quarters, Raven said quietly, “We’re being followed.”

Alicia started to turn her head but Raven said, “No! Don’t let him know!”

“You’re sure somebody’s following us?” Alicia whispered.

“He’s been trailing along behind us since we left the shop.”

With a tight little grin, Alicia said, “Well, let’s see what he wants.”

“No!” Raven snapped.

“We’re not doing anything wrong. Let’s ask him why he’s following us.”

Alicia stopped walking and turned to stare at the man approaching them. He was slim, dark-haired, good-looking except for an oversized nose.

He stopped a dozen paces behind the two women, looking suddenly embarrassed, confused.

Alicia called out to him, “Are you following us?”

He coughed once, glanced down at his shoes, then admitted, “Yes, ma’am. I was.”

“What for?” Raven burst. “What gives you the right—”

“Reverend Umber told me to make sure you got home okay. With nobody bothering you.”

“Reverend Umber?”

“Yes, ma’am. I’m one of his assistants. He thought that with tomorrow being the big day and all, he didn’t want anything to happen to you two.”

Alicia admitted, “You frightened us… sort of.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to.”

“It’s all right. We’re nearly home,” said Alicia.

Raven added, “We can make it on our own from here.”

“You sure?” the young man asked.

“We’re sure,” Alicia said, with a smile.

In the surveillance center, surrounded by the viewscreens that watched every square centimeter of public space in the habitat, Sergeant Jacobi pulled the earphones off his head.

Tomorrow’s the big day, he said to himself. But where? What for? I’d better tell Waxman about this right away. And get every able body we have on the force into uniform tomorrow morning, ready for anything.

CONFRONTATION

It seemed like an ordinary weekday morning. Instead of opening their boutique, though, Raven and Alicia marched with determination to the grassy open park space in front of the Chemlab Building. But not before leaving a sign in the shop’s window advising customers to join them in the protest.

Raven saw a half-dozen men and women already there, sitting on the grass. One was staring intently at the pocket-sized reader she had propped on her folded legs. Another was stretched out on his back, seemingly napping.

“Why don’t we sit here?” said Alicia.

Raven nodded her agreement, and the two of them sat down on the grass along the edge of the paved walkway that led into the building.

“Now what?” Alicia asked.

With a tiny shrug Raven said, “Now we wait.”

More people were coming to the little park in groups of three and four and sitting down quietly. A few spoke to one another. Most sat tensely, expectantly, some fearfully.

“Not many people,” Alicia said.

“It’s early,” Raven replied. Then she pointed, “Look, here come some more.”

Within fifteen minutes, Raven counted forty-three bodies sitting or lying on the grass. A uniformed security guard came out of the building’s main entrance, frowning as he looked around, then popped back inside again.

A middle-aged man carrying a briefcase approached the building, found his path blocked by a handful of people, and bent down slightly to talk to them. He didn’t seem to be angry or alarmed, just puzzled.

Raven watched their conversation, too far away to hear their words. The middle-aged man pointed to the building’s entrance. The younger men and women blocking the path to the entrance said something to him, shaking their heads.

Raven guessed it was, “Sorry, the entrance is closed.”

Even at this distance, Raven could see the surprise on the older man’s face. Then it turned to anger. He reached into his jacket and pulled out a pocket phone.

“Now it starts,” Raven said to Alicia.

In the security department headquarters, Sergeant Jacobi reached across his desk and touched the ANSWER button on his intercom phone.

“Jacobi… What? Blocking the entrance? Who is? The entrance to what?”

Evan Waxman had just slipped into his desk chair when his phone buzzed.

“Good mor—What? Blocking the entrance to the Chemlab Building? Who is?… Well, clear them out of there! That’s what your job is!”

With a snap of his fingers, he silenced the phone. Blockading the Chemlab Building? he thought. So that’s what they’re up to.

Feeling more relieved than alarmed, he commanded his wall screen to show the entrance to the Chemlab Building.

Reverend Umber pushed himself up from his desk chair as he watched the mounting confrontation in the minipark in front of the Chemlab Building. Security police were streaming in from the main passageway, armed with electroshock wands. A gaggle of people—including a trio of the building’s security guards—were arguing heatedly, arms waving, mouths yammering.

I should be there, the reverend said to himself. I should have been the first one out there this morning.

Get moving, he told himself. You’re supposed to be their leader. Get out there and lead.

He strode purposefully away from his desk, toward the exit of his office domain, heading for the Chemlab Building. He could feel his pulse hammering in his veins.

Sergeant Jacobi hustled down to the locker room and picked up his riot gear, slinging it over one shoulder as he headed for the exit and the Chemlab Building. Shaking his head as he adjusted the strap over his shoulder, he said to himself, riot gear. Never thought I’d have to use this stuff. So that’s what they’re up to. That’s what “passive resistance” means to them. Target practice. They want to let themselves get whacked, we’ll whack ’em.

He hurried to the security cruiser waiting in the passageway outside.

Raven and Alicia got to their feet, their eyes fixed on the confrontation in front of the building’s entrance.

Three red-faced security guards were arguing heatedly with a dozen or so of the demonstrators. More of the demonstrators were getting up off the grass, looking uncertain, alarmed. In the distance, more security guards were running toward the entrance area, brandishing wicked-looking black batons.

One of the demonstrators—young, curly-haired, beefy-cheeked—was nose to nose with one of the building’s guards, obviously trying to outshout the guard, who was doing the same to him.

The youngster shoved the guard with both his ham-sized hands. The guard staggered backward, then fell onto the seat of his pants.

“Come on!” the youngster shouted to the men and women around him, waving one arm over his head.

“No!” Raven shouted. “Don’t move!”

The young man looked surprised as Raven rushed up to him.

“Sit down,” Raven commanded, gesturing with both her hands. “Just block the entryway. That’s all we want to do.”

Looking surprised, perplexed, the youngster sank down onto the paved walkway. As did the handful of men and women around him.

Two other guards hauled the fallen policeman to his feet. Another security guard popped out of the building’s entryway, a black baton in one hand. “What the hell’s going on here?”

“They’re blocking the entrance,” replied one of the guards.

“Well, clear ’em out of the way. Now!”

The trio of guards stood uncertainly, looking around at the growing crowd. Raven could see dozens of other people joining the demonstrators, walking into the crowd and sitting down on the pathway and the grassy area.

She also saw several security cruisers gliding to a stop and dozens of guards pouring out.

“Clear the area!” shouted a guard with sergeant’s stripes on his blue sleeve, as he loped through the growing crowd from one of the cruisers to the building’s entrance. “That’s an order! Clear the area! Now!”

The sitting men and women looked at each other, some puzzled, some grinning. None of them got up. Raven felt a thrill.

Sergeant Jacobi climbed past the sitting protestors and reached the building’s entrance.

“You’re blocking a public walkway,” he shouted. “Disperse. Now!”

No one moved.

“I’m warning you!” Jacobi bellowed, raising the black nightstick in his hand.

The crowd stirred, but did not get up. Raven saw that they were turning to look at a new arrival striding purposefully toward the building’s entrance.

Reverend Umber.

Everyone seemed to freeze in place as Umber weaved through the sitting protestors. He was wearing his customary suit of pure white, with the black button of a loudspeaker clipped to the jacket’s collar.

Umber stopped in front of Sergeant Jacobi, panting slightly from his exertion. The sergeant let his arm drop to his side.

The reverend pointed to the building’s entrance and said, “These people are peaceably assembled to protest an inequity that is being perpetrated inside this building.”

His amplified voice carried across the grassy square.

Jacobi said, “They’re blocking a public walkway.”

“And they will continue to block it until this building is closed permanently,” said Umber.

ACTION

For several breathless moments, Jacobi stood in silence, glaring at Reverend Umber. Umber stood as immobile as a statue, hands on his hips, still puffing slightly.

Tapping his truncheon into the open palm of his hand, Jacobi said, “You’d better tell them to disperse, Reverend. Otherwise there’s going to be bloodshed.”

Umber seemed to draw himself up a little taller. “On your head be it, then.”

Jacobi nodded slowly. “No, Reverend, it’s gonna be on your head.” And he jabbed Umber in the midsection with the end of his baton.

Umber oofed and staggered back a couple of steps. The whole crowd of demonstrators clambered to their feet.

“No!” Umber shouted, his amplified voice ringing across the plaza. “No violence!”

The crowd stood uncertainly, shifting on their feet, waiting for the next blow.

Jacobi raised his nightstick over his head, held it there for an endless moment, while Umber squeezed his eyes shut and hunched his shoulders, waiting for the blow.

At last Jacobi opened his fingers and let the bludgeon fall, clattering to the ground.

“The hell with it,” he muttered, turning around and walking past the other guards, into the Chemlab Building’s entrance.

The crowd stood frozen, unmoving. The remaining security guards slowly retreated toward the building’s entrance. When the last one entered the lobby, the glass doors swung shut.

Raven turned to Alicia, standing breathlessly beside her. The two made their way through the crowd to where Reverend Umber stood, looking surprised, dumbfounded.

“They just… went away,” Umber said, almost in a whisper.

“And we’re still here,” said Alicia.

Raven turned to the crowd and made a sitting motion with both her hands. “Sit down,” she shouted. “This isn’t over yet.”

Evan Waxman rose slowly from his desk chair, the scene from the entrance to the Chemlab Building filling his wall screen.

“Get back out there, you idiots!” he yelled at the screen. “Get rid of them! Drive that rabble out of there!”

But the security guards remained inside the building, the demonstrators out on the grassy park ground.

Whirling toward his desktop phone, Waxman shouted, “Security chief. Now!”

The security chief’s hard-edged face appeared on the wall screen, three times larger than life.

“Did you see what just happened?” Waxman demanded.

The chief nodded, tight-lipped.

“Well, what are you going to do about it?”

“Not much I can do.”

“I want that sergeant broken, fired, thrown out!”

“And what good would that do?” the chief asked.

“You find somebody who knows how to obey orders!”

The chief shook his head slowly, almost sadly. “Mr. Waxman, think for a moment. My guards are citizens of Haven, just like the people you want them to hurt. They’re not storm troopers. They’re not even Green Berets. They live with those people. They’re part of this habitat’s population, just like you and me.”

“And they can get away with refusing to follow orders?” Waxman bawled.

“Looks that way,” said the chief.

Umber was the only person standing. The crowd dotting the little park was sitting, or crouching, their eyes on him.

So far, so good, Umber thought. He could see more people coming into the area and sitting down on the grass or the paved walkway.

He spread his arms and said, “We may be here for quite a while. I suggest you pick people from among yourselves to go out for meals and bring them back here.”

“And then what?” a deep male voice called from the crowd.

“And then we wait here until Evan Waxman agrees to shut this narcotics factory down. Permanently!” He shouted the last word.

The crowd stirred. No cheering, but they were obviously moved.

Raven turned to Alicia, sitting on the grass beside her. “We’re going to be here for a long while,” she said.

So that’s what he’s trying to do, Waxman said to himself as he watched Umber’s performance.

Shut down the narcotics manufacturing. Stop producing Rust. Cut off this habitat’s main source of income.

He smiled grimly as he stared at his wall screen. So we’ll just have to wait him out. Let his followers sit there and twiddle their thumbs. Sooner or later they’ll get tired of this charade and go home.

Time is on my side, he told himself.

NIGHTFALL

“This isn’t very exciting,” Alicia said to Raven.

In the orbiting habitat of Haven, the cycle of day and night was artificially controlled. The habitat’s lights dimmed to a twilight level at a predetermined time, then went down to evening and finally the darkness of night—all controlled by the habitat’s automated lighting system.

The two women were still reclining on the grass in front of the Chemlab Building. The crowd of demonstrators was still sprawled all around them. The lights had dimmed to their twilight level more than ten minutes earlier, but hardly anyone had left the park.

Reverend Umber was sitting with them, gnawing on the last bit of faux chicken meat that one of the demonstrators had brought from the habitat’s cafeteria.

“How much longer will we have to stay out here?” Raven wondered.

Umber shook his head. “Until they capitulate.”

Alicia said tightly, “Or until our people get tired of this and go home.”

Umber frowned slightly. “Several people have already left,” he said.

“Can’t say I blame them,” Alicia replied. “After all, they do have homes. With beds.”

“And bathrooms,” Raven added.

“Some of them have come back, though,” Umber pointed out.

“But our numbers are dwindling,” said Raven.

Umber shook his head. “They’ll grow again tomorrow morning, you’ll see. We’ll get stronger.”

“From your mouth to God’s ear,” said Alicia, without a trace of reverence in her voice.

Evan Waxman was still in his office, still watching the scene on his wall screen.

Stalemate, he grumbled to himself. We can’t get our technicians into the building; production today has been zero.

But, he reasoned, they can’t leave the entrance area. Once they do, we can move in our people and start up the production lines again.

If that idiot sergeant hadn’t caved in to those demonstrators this would all have been over and done with hours ago, Waxman fumed.

The security chief studied Jacobi’s hard-bitten face as the sergeant stood unhappily before his desk.

“What happened out there, Franco?” the chief asked.

Obviously uncomfortable, Jacobi frowned as he answered. “I just couldn’t do it. Whack Reverend Umber? Knock him down? Bloody his head? You try it.”

For several long moments, the chief remained silent. At last he said, “So that’s how ‘passive resistance’ wins. It depends on the decency of the people they’re resisting.”

“I suppose,” Jacobi muttered.

“Waxman’s pissed with you,” the chief said. “Wants you boiled in oil, at least.”

Jacobi nodded silently.

“I’m placing you on administrative leave until this mess gets resolved. You’ll get half pay. No duties. Just report in every morning.”

“Okay.” Tightly.

“Stay away from the demonstrators.”

“Yeah.”

“That’s all.”

Jacobi half turned toward the door, but quickly spun back again to face the chief. “I just couldn’t do it! I mean, Reverend Umber! I couldn’t whack the guy! The whole crowd would’ve swarmed us. It would’ve been a riot!”

The chief made a reassuring motion with his hands. “I know, Franco. I understand. But Waxman wants your balls pinned to his wall. Give me a couple of days to make him happy again. Cool yourself down. Stay out of Waxman’s way.”

Evan Waxman, meanwhile, was still at his desk, fuming at the image on his wall screen. Hundreds of men and women were sitting in front of the Chemlab Building, relaxed and chatting with one another, eating and drinking as if they were participating in a mammoth picnic.

The security guards were nowhere in sight. Most of them were still inside the building, cringing like sheep, while the crowd outside showed no signs of dispersing. A few of the guards had picked their way through the protestors and disappeared from view. Cowards, Waxman thought. Miserable weaklings who shrank from doing their sworn duty.

And there sat Kyle Umber, in the midst of the demonstrators, speaking intently, earnestly to those nearest him.

Waxman recognized Alicia Polanyi sitting next to the minister, and Raven Marchesi next to her. They’ll pay for this, he told himself. I’ll make both of them wish they’d never been born.

His phone buzzed. The screen showed that it was the security chief calling him. A glance at the clock on the screen’s face showed it was eleven thirty. Almost time to put the plan into action.

Without preamble, Waxman asked, “Is everything arranged?”

The chief nodded solemnly. “The guards inside the building are armed and ready. Six mobile units are assembling on the edges of the park area.”

“Good,” said Waxman. “Tell them to be ready.”

“Yes, sir.”

Waxman killed the chief’s image and then reached out and touched the button that activated the habitat’s public address system.

“Good evening,” he began. “This is Evan Waxman, chief administrator of Haven. Those of you now loitering before the Chemlab Building have until midnight to leave the area and return to your homes. At midnight the security guards will forcibly eject anyone remaining in the area in front of the Chemlab Building.”

MIDNIGHT

“We have until midnight,” said Alicia.

“Don’t move,” Umber told her, his amplified voice carrying across the little park. “We must all stay where we are.”

Pointing to a handful of people who had gotten to their feet and were leaving the plaza, Raven muttered, “Tell them.”

Umber made a philosophical shrug. “The weak are always among us. Let them go in peace.”

A tense silence descended across the plaza. Raven saw that most of the protestors were still in place, sprawled across the grass and the walkway. A few had risen to their feet.

Raven glanced at her wrist. Almost twelve o’clock. Several police cruisers glided to a stop on the outskirts of the plaza.

Midnight.

The Chemlab Building’s glass doors banged open and a phalanx of guards marched out, helmets on their heads, truncheons in their hands.

“Time’s up!” shouted their leader. “Up and out. Now!”

Umber sat with his arms around his knees. No one got to their feet. The few who had been standing dropped to the ground. Raven saw that the crowd of protestors outnumbered the security guards by about five to one.

“Stay where you are,” Umber told them, his amplified voice booming across the plaza. “Don’t move. Don’t resist.”

The leader of the guards came up to Umber. “On your feet, Reverend.”

Umber looked up and smiled at him. But did not move.

“Haul him up!” the guard leader commanded. Two of the guards hefted Umber by his armpits to a standing position, but as soon as they let go of his arms the minister sank to the ground again.

“Up!” the guard leader shouted, his face reddening. “And get him the hell out of here.”

The guards dragged Umber’s limp form off toward the edge of the crowd.

“And the rest of ’em,” shouted their leader.

A pair of guards grabbed Raven by her arms and hauled her to her feet. She winced at their gruff handling but said nothing. She saw Alicia being hefted too. Side by side, the two of them were dragged toward the edge of the crowd.

One of the guards whispered to Raven, “Hey, you wanna have dinner with me tomorrow night?”

She didn’t even turn her head to look at him.

Raven saw that Reverend Umber was dropped like a sack of cement onto the paved walkway that circled the outer edge of the plaza. As the guards who had carried him there walked back into the still-seated crowd, Umber got to his feet and walked back behind them.

Once the guards deposited her on the outer walkway, Raven also got to her feet and headed back toward the Chemlab Building’s entrance. Alicia did the same. So did the other demonstrators that the guards had carried away.

It was almost farcical. The guards were hauling away the demonstrators, who got to their feet as soon as they were dropped off and headed back to where they’d been picked up.

Umber smiled and nodded encouragement to the demonstrators. Passive resistance, thought Raven, with a smile. We could keep this going indefinitely.

But it ended suddenly. One of the guards, his face twisted with frustration and rage, smashed Reverend Umber on the side of his head with his truncheon. The minister dropped to the ground, moaning.

For an instant everything stopped. Then the demonstrators who were still sitting scrambled to their feet with an animal roar.

“They’ve killed him!” a woman’s voice screamed.

The unarmed demonstrators leaped at the security guards. Truncheons flashed through the air, striking flesh and bone, but the demonstrators far outnumbered the guards and swarmed over them. The plaza became littered with fallen bodies. Women as well as men attacked the guards with fists and teeth and wild, maniacal fury.

Raven leaped onto the back of the guard nearest her, reaching across his face to scratch at his eyes. Alicia kicked a guard in the groin and smashed both her knees against his back as he fell. Another guard cracked his truncheon into the back of her head and she slumped to the ground, unconscious.

Time lost all meaning. The plaza had turned into a battleground as the demonstrators pummeled the guards, grabbing their truncheons and swinging them against the unifomed men.

Raven struggled to her feet, ducked under a guard’s panicked swing, and crawled to Reverend Umber’s fallen form. His face was split open from temple to jaw, his eyes glassy, unfocused. But he was breathing. He was alive.

With the guards disarmed, one of the men picked up a discarded truncheon and pointed at the entrance to the Chemlab Building.

“Tear it down!” he shouted.

Howling their fury, the angry mob followed him, surging through the entrance and into the building.

Raven saw Alicia sprawled on the grass, unmoving. She screamed into her wrist phone, “Medics! Medical help needed at the Chemlab Building. Immediately!”

Most of the crowd was pouring through the building’s entrance. Raven went to Alicia and lifted up her head slightly. No reaction. Umber was groaning, his legs moving slightly, slowly, his eyes fluttering.

Raven knelt on the grass between Alicia and Umber. She heard sounds of shouting and breaking glass from inside the Chemlab Building. The plaza was littered with fallen bodies. Ambulances were gliding to a stop, white-coated medics scrambling out of them.

This is what a riot looks like, Raven said to herself. Utter confusion. Mayhem. Hell on Earth.

AFTERMATH

It seemed to take hours. The medics bent over the injured slumped across the plaza’s grass and walkways. Men and women tottered out of the Chemlab Building, many glassy-eyed, staggering. Only a handful of security guards were still on their feet, disarmed, dazed by the ferocity of the protestors’ attack.

Slowly, slowly order was restored. Most of the protestors stumbled through the carnage and staggered toward their homes. Ambulances carried away the injured, then came back for more.

Reverend Umber had sunk into unconsciousness as the medics lifted him carefully, tenderly, onto a stretcher and bore him to the nearest ambulance.

Raven sat next to Alicia, who hadn’t moved at all. She lay on the grass, eyes closed. Raven could not tell whether she was breathing.

A tendril of smoke was twisting out of one of the Chemlab Building’s shattered upper windows. Raven looked up at it with bloodshot eyes. Her back felt stiff, sore. Somebody must have hit me there, she thought dully.

Looking across the plaza at the medics carrying the injured to the waiting ambulances, Raven muttered to herself, “I guess we won. I guess we shut down the Rust production.”

The still unfinished Haven II habitat orbited around Uranus’s huge blue ball alongside the original Haven. In its completed section, where the scientists from Earth were housed, Tómas Gomez was roused from a blissfully deep sleep by his phone announcing, “Big Eye imagery has arrived.”

His eyes snapped open and he sat up in the desk chair he’d been using.

“On screen, please,” he commanded.

The wide-angle views from Farside Observatory’s Schmidt cameras had picked up three objects that might be former moons of Uranus, driven out of their orbits around the planet and hurled into the depths of interstellar space. Now the Big Eye telescope’s much more detailed view came up on the bedroom’s wall screen.

Sitting bolt upright in the desk chair, Gomez stared at the imagery.

Centered in the picture was an irregular, misshapen chunk of rock. The figures on the bottom of the screen showed it was just short of two hundred seventy kilometers across.

Tómas stared at it, goggle-eyed. That’s one of them! he shouted silently. That’s one of the moons of Uranus that was bounced out of its original orbit and is now coasting through interstellar space!

Glancing around the darkened living room, Tómas asked himself, Where’s Vincente? Then he saw that the apartment’s bedroom door was shut. He’s asleep. In bed, sleeping.

Tómas went to the bedroom door and pounded on it. “Vincente!” he shouted.

Mumbles and grumbles from the other side of the door. A thump and a string of what was obviously swearing.

Then the bedroom door slid open.

Zworkyn’s bleary-eyed face stared at Tómas.

“We’ve got one!” the younger man exclaimed.

Vincente’s eyes widened, and he croaked, “You’re sure?”

Tómas’s excitement evaporated. Very steadily, he replied, “Pretty sure. We’ve got to get its trajectory parameters and see if they lead back to Uranus.”

“Right,” said Zworkyn. “Let’s get to work.”

Raven sat in the hospital corridor outside Reverend Umber’s door. The hospital staff had given the minister an entire room to himself. The rest of the hospital was filled to bursting with demonstrators and security guards who had been beaten senseless or breathed in Rust or other narcotic vapors once they started shattering the Chemlab Building’s processing glassware.

Doctors and nurses and orderlies were hurrying past Raven’s sitting form. Bodies of men and women—unconscious, raving, struggling, or blank-eyed and docile—paraded past her. But all Raven could see was Alicia’s dead body, the back of her skull crushed by a truncheon’s blow, bits of bone and brain dotting her blood-stained dress.

She’s dead, Raven kept repeating silently. Alicia is dead. Killed. Murdered.

As the habitat’s lighting system brightened to its full daytime level, Gordon Abbott studied the starry image on his office wall screen, and the alphanumerical symbols running across the screen’s bottom.

“The data seem rather convincing,” he said into his desktop phone. “That chunk of rock probably did originate in orbit around Uranus.”

Tómas Gomez’s voice sounded more tired than triumphant. “Mr. Zworkyn and I agree,” he said. “The numbers point to that conclusion.”

“This is extraordinary,” Abbott said, consciously resisting the urge to tug at his moustache.

“It is,” Zworkyn’s voice concurred. He sounded much more buoyant than Gomez.

“Two million years ago,” Abbott muttered.

“That’s when the latest ice age started on Earth,” said Gomez.

“Incredible.”

In the makeshift analytical laboratory that had originally been Zworkyn’s living room, the engineer beamed happily at Tómas. “You’ve done it, lad. You’ve proved that the Uranus system was shattered and sterilized two million years ago.”

“But how? By natural causes? Or alien invaders?”

Zworkyn smiled. “That’s going to keep this entire generation of cosmologists busy for the rest of their lifetimes. And probably their children’s, too.”

“It’s a helluva way to find extraterrestrial intelligence,” Tómas muttered.

The engineer’s smile faded. “If this wasn’t a natural event… if it was caused by intelligent creatures…”

His voice died away.

“If it was caused by aliens,” Tómas finished the thought, “they might return some day and do the same to us.”

Zworkyn simply stared at Tómas, wide-eyed, suddenly frightened.

CONSEQUENCES

Tómas shuddered, like a man trying to forget a nightmare. Looking at the clock numerals in the corner of the computer’s screen, he saw that it was well past 7:00 A.M.

“We’ve worked the night through,” Zworkyn said, then yawned. “I need to get back to sleep.”

“Do you think you can sleep?” Tómas asked.

With a shrug, Zworkyn replied, “I’m sure as hell going to try.”

Tómas nodded as he pulled his pocket phone from his trousers. “I should call Raven.”

Zworkyn made a bitter smile. “Ah! True love.”

“You should try it some time.”

“I did. Wasn’t so great.”

Raven’s face appeared on the phone’s screen. Tómas saw the bustling commotion of the hospital in the background.

“What’s going on?” he asked. “Where are you?”

“In the hospital,” Raven said.

“The hospital?”

“We had a demonstration in front of the Chemlab Building. It turned into a riot. Reverend Umber was beaten unconscious. Alicia…” Raven struggled to hold back tears. “…Alicia was killed.”

She broke into sobs.

“Are you all right?”

“Yes, yes. But Alicia… she’s dead.”

Tómas forgot everything else. “I’ll be there as soon as I can get a shuttle. I’ll be there, Raven!”

Evan Waxman had turned off his wall screen hours earlier. He sat in his silent office as the habitat’s outdoor lights slowly turned up to their morning level.

It’s gone, he kept repeating to himself. They’ve smashed everything. I’m ruined.

I can’t stay here on Haven, he told himself. Umber will organize a group of citizens and boot me out. Then, with a shudder of comprehension, he realized, But I can’t go back to Earth! They’ll kill me! I owe them deliveries of Rust that I can’t make good! Dacco and his bosses will want me dead!

The hospital had quieted down. Its corridors were crowded with people on stretchers—bandaged, battered, sedated—nurses and orderlies bending over them, administering medications.

But where is Raven? Tómas wondered as he searched through the crowded hallways.

A beefy orderly loomed before him. “I’m sorry, sir, but you can’t go roaming through the corridors. We have a lot of work to do—”

“I’m looking for my fiancée,” Tómas replied. “Raven Marchesi.”

“Is she among the injured?”

“I don’t think so. I don’t know!”

The orderly fished his pocket phone from his rumpled white trousers. “Ms. Raven Marchesi. You have a visitor—”

Past the orderly’s burly shoulder, Tómas saw Raven walking up the corridor toward him, her hair disheveled, her dress spotted with blood, her face tired but still beautiful.

She saw Tómas and broke into a run. He pushed past the orderly and opened his arms to her.

They enfolded each other.

“You’re all right?” he asked. “Not hurt?”

“I’m fine,” she gasped. “Now.”

The orderly broke into a grin. “All right. Will the two of you please clear out of here and let us do our work?”

Arm in arm, Raven and Tómas walked to her quarters. The habitat’s passageways seemed strangely empty; the usual clusters of pedestrians were few and far between.

“Everybody’s gone home,” Raven said softly. “There’s been enough excitement. Too much.”

Tómas asked, “Alicia?”

Raven had to take in a breath before she could reply, “One… one of the guards smashed her head in. It was gruesome. Terrible.”

He fell silent for several paces, then asked, “But you’re all right?”

Reaching to rub her back, “I’ve got a pain back here, but otherwise I’m okay.”

“You could’ve been killed.”

“But I wasn’t.”

“Thank God.”

She blinked at him. “I thought you were an atheist.”

“I am,” he said with a boyish grin. “But every now and then I wonder if I might be wrong.”

Raven smiled and twined her arms around his neck. They kissed passionately, there in the middle of the empty passageway.

Nearly empty. A teenaged boy came skimming by on a pair of jetskates and made a 180-degree turn as he zipped past them, grinning hugely.

Tómas frowned. “Are they allowed to run on jets in the passageways?”

“Who cares?” said Raven.

QUESTIONS

Reverend Umber was sitting up on his hospital bed, one side of his face covered by a bandage from his temple to his chin.

Evan Waxman stood at the foot of the bed, his head hung low, both his hands clutching the bed’s railing as if it were a safety buoy in the midst of a churning, frothing sea.

“They destroyed the Chemlab facilities,” Waxman was saying, in a low dismal tone. “Everything’s smashed.”

Umber started to nod, winced with pain. “So I’ve been told.”

“It’s all gone,” said Waxman.

“And good riddance to it.”

Drawing himself up a little straighter, Waxman said, “There was nothing illegal about it. We have no laws against narcotics here in Haven.”

“That was my oversight,” Umber responded. “I should have had the Council outlaw narcotics.”

“I saw to it that none of it was sold here. The local population—”

“Rust was used here, Evan. Don’t try to deny it.”

Waxman’s head sank lower.

Umber said gently, “You know I can’t keep you as chief administrator.”

“I didn’t do anything illegal.”

“But immoral.”

Waxman raised his head and stared into Umber’s eyes. “You didn’t care about that as long as I was bringing in the money to keep this habitat going!”

“Yes, that’s true enough. I share the responsibility.”

“So?”

“So we’ll start over. Clean and new.”

“And be bankrupt before the year is out.”

“The Lord will provide.”

Waxman’s expression soured. “Kyle, you can’t expect people to eat hope. Haven is heading for catastrophe.”

For a long moment Umber said nothing. Then, in a whisper, “I know it.”

“What are you going to do about it?”

“I don’t know… yet.”

“You’re a dreamer! A hopeless dreamer!”

“I am a dreamer,” Umber admitted. “But I’m not without hope.”

Waxman shook his head.

“But what about you? I presume you’ll return to Earth.”

For the first time, Waxman’s face showed fear. “I… I don’t know. I don’t think so.”

“I can’t give you much of a recommendation.”

“They’ll kill me!” Waxman burst out. “I owe them a shipment of Rust that I can’t deliver now. If I return to Earth they’ll have me killed.”

Umber’s eyes went wide. “Kill you?”

“Yes.”

“What kind of people have you been dealing with, Evan?”

With a bitter smile, Waxman replied, “Not your churchgoing type.”

Gordon Abbott frowned at the image on his office wall screen. It showed Harvey Millard, executive director of the Interplanetary Council, sitting in his office in Copenhagen, on Earth.

He doesn’t think the data are conclusive, Abbott almost growled to himself.

The distance between Uranus and Earth made normal conversation impossible. It took more than two hours for light to travel one-way between the two. Abbott fidgeted with impatience as he tried to do some work on the report he was writing while he waited for Millard’s response to his message.

In the image frozen on his screen, Millard was smiling slightly. He was a smallish man. Even seated in his desk chair he looked undersized, diminutive: shoulders slim, torso slender, trim little moustache. But the expression on his face was intelligent, inquisitive, with light brown eyes alert and probing.

Abbott knew that one does not become executive director of the IC through family connections or the good will of friends. Beneath his nearly frail appearance, Harvey Millard was a veritable lion.

“Not conclusive,” Millard replied at last. “Not entirely. Very suggestive, of course, but the astronomers aren’t going to rip up their cherished theories without overwhelming evidence.”

“Gomez and Zworkyn are working night and day to provide the evidence,” Abbott said, somewhat testily. “They could use some help.”

And then the inevitable wait. Abbott had been at this “conversation” since early morning. It was maddening.

At last Millard nodded minimally. “So I understand. But your facilities out there at Uranus are rather limited, aren’t they?”

Before Abbott could frame a reply, Millard went on, “Pity.” Pursing his lips momentarily, he went on, “I suppose I should take a jaunt out to where you are and look things over for myself.”

“You’d come all the way out here?” Abbott blurted.

And then waited.

At last Millard replied, “I believe I have to. See the evidence, talk with this Gomez fellow and the engineer. They’ve stirred the pot rather vigorously, haven’t they?”

Abbott nodded wordlessly.

“Very well, then,” Millard said, with just the hint of a grin touching his lips. “It’ll do me good to get away from the office for a while. I should be able to reach Uranus within a week.”

Within a week, Abbott echoed in his mind. When the IC’s executive director wants to go someplace, he has one of the commission’s private ships at his beck and call.

I’ll have to tell Reverend Umber about this right away, Abbott thought. And Waxman. We’ve got to—

Millard interrupted his thoughts. “My people will fill you in on my schedule, Gordon. See you in a week or so.”

The wall screen went blank.

Well, Abbott said to himself, he’s not one to waste words.

Kyle Umber was sitting up on his hospital bed. The bandage that had covered his left cheek was gone, replaced by a translucent covering that clearly showed the scar running from his temple to his jaw.

“Harvey Millard is coming here?” he asked.

Standing at the reverend’s bedside, Gordon Abbott nodded vigorously. “He’s already on his way.”

“Because of this discovery that Gomez and Zworkyn made?”

“Yes.”

“Is he bringing many people with him?” Umber asked. “Will we have enough space to house them all?”

Abbott replied, “Knowing Millard, he’s probably coming alone, or with one or two aides, at most.”

“We can accommodate them on Haven II then.”

“I should think so.”

“Good.”

“He’s scheduled to arrive the day after tomorrow.”

“I’ll have to get up from this bed to greet him.”

Abbott held himself back from shaking his head. “Millard isn’t a great one for formalities.”

“Still… he’s the Interplanetary Council’s executive director.”

“True enough.” Abbott took a step back from the bedside and turned to leave.

But Umber stopped him with, “This discovery that Gomez has made, what does it mean, Gordon?”

Abbott paused and turned back to face the minister. “It might mean that our solar system was visited by an intelligent alien race some two million years ago.”

“An intelligent alien race,” Umber repeated.

“And they sterilized Uranus. Completely sterilized the entire planet.”

“My God.”

“That’s what Gomez thinks.”

“Do you believe it?”

Abbott shrugged wearily. “It’s an outlandish hypothesis, on the face of it. But it accounts for the facts that we’ve uncovered.”

“My God,” Umber repeated.

HARVEY MILLARD

The trip to Uranus should have seemed like a vacation to Harvey Millard. He was away from his office; underlings were handling the niggling details of the day-to-day affairs of the Interplanetary Council. But he realized that he was heading into a new problem, a question that might well involve the future of the entire human race.

As he stood in the otherwise empty observation blister of the spaceship Icarus racing out to Uranus, he stared at the universe of stars emblazoned across the black infinity while the enormity of the situation weighed on his slim shoulders.

All life on Uranus was wiped out, extinguished some two million years ago. How? By alien invaders? The idea was preposterous on the face of it.

But is it right? He remembered a bit of wisdom from his university days: Just because an idea sounds crazy doesn’t mean it’s wrong.

But is it right?

Millard shuddered in the chilly emptiness of the observation blister. Could there be an alien race out there that sterilized Uranus? How? More important: Why?

Will they return? Will they want to drive us into extinction?

He stared out at the stars. And found no answer.

Evan Waxman sat in his office, unconsciously counting the minutes he had left to live.

I can’t stay here on Haven, he told himself for the thousandth time. Umber will force me to leave. To go where? Back to Earth? Dacco and his bosses will want me dead. Returning to Earth will be a death sentence. Even Mars or the research stations orbiting Jupiter and Saturn won’t be safe for me.

Maybe I should just kill myself and get it over with.

But he didn’t move, couldn’t move, could not force his hands to open the desk drawer and pull out the vial of Rust he had cached in it.

It won’t be a bad way to go, he thought. Drug overdose. You’ll be floating on a cloud when the end comes.

Still, he could not force his hands to open the desk drawer.

Raven opened her eyes slowly. Tómas was already up and dressed, she saw: a steel-gray tunic over darker slacks. He looked handsome, she thought. His face so serious, so intense.

As he stood before the mirror, smoothing down the tunic he had just put on, he noticed her stirring in the bed. And smiled.

“Good morning.”

“You’re up early,” Raven said.

“You’ve slept late,” he answered.

In a mock-accusative tone, Raven replied, “You kept me up half the night.”

A wide grin flashed across Tómas’s face. “I could say the same about you.”

Raven tossed a pillow at him.

He stepped to the bed, bent over and kissed her.

“I’ve got to go,” Tómas said, almost apologetically. “The IC’s executive director will be arriving tomorrow, and we’ve got to be prepared to show him our findings.”

Raven nodded. “I suppose I should open the boutique. It’s been shut since the riot.”

“You’ll need help, won’t you?”

“I’ll find somebody.”

“Sure. Good luck.”

“Same to you, Tómas,” said Raven.

He went to the bedroom door, turned and blew her a kiss, then departed. Raven sat on the rumpled bed, telling herself she should get up and start the day. Yet she didn’t move.

The phone buzzed. “Phone answer,” she called out.

Reverend Umber’s round, slightly pinkish face appeared on the screen. Raven pulled the bedclothes up to her armpits. Then she noticed that the left side of the minister’s face was covered by a translucent bandage.

“Raven…” He hesitated.

“Yes, Reverend,” she said. “What can I do for you?”

Umber was silent for a moment, then he answered, “I need your help.”

Raven showered and dressed quickly, then hurried to Umber’s office. The minister was alone amidst the ornate furniture and decorations, sitting at his desk, looking somewhere between worried and expectant. A livid scar ran down one side of his face. Raven tried to keep from staring at it.

As soon as she took one of the chairs in front of his desk, Umber said, “I need an assistant.”

“An assistant?”

“The executive director of the Interplanetary Council will arrive here tomorrow, and I need someone to help me with the arrangements… and the agenda for our meeting.”

“Isn’t that what Mr. Waxman does for you?” she asked.

“Evan has resigned,” Umber said. Then he amended, “Actually, I expect him to resign. I’m sure he’s going to.”

“But I’m not trained to do his job,” Raven protested. “I don’t know a fraction of what he knows about how to run your office.”

“You can learn,” said Umber, his face dead serious. “And you have one important trait that I find indispensable.”

“Indispensable?”

“I can trust you.”

ARRIVAL

Harvey Millard sat in the bridge of the Icarus, the Interplanetary Council ship that had carried him from Earth orbit to the twin habitats orbiting Uranus. He watched as the ship’s six-person crew went through the final moments of countdown to the berthing at the orbiting station.

In the bridge’s sweeping display screens, Millard could see the rim of the bluish-gray planet and the two circular man-made habitats hanging side by side in orbit around it.

Millard felt tense as the ship approached the docking port. Haven II was obviously unfinished, bare skeletal metal ribbing making up half its circular structure. He saw flashes of what must have been welding torches here and there along the structure.

Then they passed Haven II and aimed at the original station, Haven.

From his command chair at the focal point of the bridge’s control stations, the ship’s captain announced, “Rendezvous in six minutes. Confirmed.”

The six-person crew sat at their stations, relaxed, at ease, as the ship’s master computer guided it into the docking berth of Haven.

Seated behind the crew members, Millard nodded, even though none of the crew had turned to look at him. His palms felt sweaty, his fingers gripped his thighs rigidly. Although he enjoyed traveling, even over interplanetary distances, this business of docking a spaceship with a rotating habitat was something he had never been able to feel comfortable about.

The time stretched interminably, then Millard felt a barely noticeable tremor and finally a slight thump.

“Docking confirmed,” announced the master computer.

The captain turned in his seat and smiled at Millard. “That’s it, sir. We’re docked.”

The crew all got to their feet, grinning at one another. Each was dressed in a ceremonial uniform, black with silver trim. The captain’s shoulders were heavy with braid. Millard, in a civilian’s undecorated jacket, turtleneck shirt and slacks, pushed himself to his feet, happy that he hadn’t wet himself during the approach.

Reverend Umber was determined to stand when he met Millard. Sitting in a hospital-provided wheelchair, with a fresh-faced doctor and an even younger nurse behind him, Umber tensed as the reception area’s hatch swung open.

Gordon Abbott stood at one side of the minister’s chair, wearing a crisp hip-length sky-blue tunic and sharply creased darker slacks. On Umber’s other side stood Raven Marchesi, in a simple buttercup-yellow sleeveless mid-thigh dress.

The first man through the hatch was the ship’s captain, smiling and looking splendid in his black-and-silver uniform. Right behind him was a civilian, modestly dressed, smiling gently.

Abbott stepped forward and put out a beefy hand. “Harvey,” he said, loud enough to have his voice echo off the reception area’s metal walls. “Good to see you again! Welcome to Uranus and Haven.”

Millard allowed Abbott’s hand to engulf his. “It’s good to see you, Gordon.”

Umber pushed himself to his feet as Abbott half turned and introduced the minister. “This is the Reverend Kyle Umber, founder and leader of the Haven habitat.”

As he shook hands with Umber, Millard said, “Please sit down, sir. There’s no need for formalities.”

Umber smiled at the smaller man. “I prefer to stand, actually. I’ve been sitting far too much.”

Millard dipped his chin in acknowledgement. “As you wish.”

“You’re alone?” Umber asked. “No staff?”

Millard grinned, almost maliciously. “‘He travels fastest who travels alone,’” he quoted. Then he added, “I can reach my staff when I need to.”

The ship’s captain and crew were led toward a shuttle that would take them to Haven II as Umber introduced Raven. Scarcely taller than Raven, Millard took her hand in his and smiled radiantly at her. Raven muttered a greeting.

Turning back to Umber, Millard glanced at the scar running down his cheek and said, “I heard you had some unpleasantness here a fortnight ago.”

Umber nodded as he pointed toward the moving stairs that led down into Haven’s living quarters. “My attempt at a nonviolent demonstration turned bloody,” he said, his voice going low, guilty. “Thirty-eight persons were killed.”

“Something about narcotics?” Millard asked.

His face grim, Umber said tightly, “Yes,” as he slowly, haltingly led Millard and the others to the moving stairs.

Millard listened in silence as Umber—clearly embarrassed—explained Waxman’s drug manufacturing and sales.

By the time they reached Umber’s offices, the minister was saying, “Unfortunately, we never outlawed narcotics here in Haven. It never crossed my mind. I thought that the refugees we took from Earth would want to be free of drugs here in Haven. And most of them did! The only real trouble we’ve had has come from the top, not from the refugees but from my own staff!”

Millard nodded sympathetically. “That’s often the way. The rich don’t really believe that the law applies to them.”

DISPOSITIONS

Once the little group reached Umber’s office, the reverand sank gratefully onto his desk chair while Millard ensconced himself on one of the comfortable armchairs in front of the minister’s desk.

“Now where is this man Gomez? I want to hear what he has to say.”

As if answering a cue, Tómas and Zworkyn entered Umber’s office. Umber introduced them and they sat down.

Without preamble, Millard asked, “You believe you have evidence that several of Uranus’s moons were torn from their orbits around the planet some two million years ago?”

“Conclusive evidence,” said Gomez.

Millard raised an eyebrow. But he smiled as he said, “Show me.”

Nearly two hours later, Millard was nodding agreeably as he said, “I’ve got to admit, you seem to have it nailed down quite conclusively.”

“Thank you,” said Zworkyn.

“Of course, I’m not an astronomer. We’re going to have the real stargazers look over your evidence.”

“I am an astronomer,” said Gordon Abbott, sitting at Millard’s side. “They’ve convinced me.”

“Uranus’s moons were disturbed just two million years ago,” Millard mused.

“Give or take a few millennia,” said Zworkyn, with a wily grin.

Dead serious, Millard went on, “By alien invaders.”

“That’s one possibility,” Zworkyn said.

“The most likely one,” Gomez added.

“Fantastic.”

Abbott said, “This has enormous consequences. If it was an alien invader…” His voice faded away.

“But why Uranus?” Millard asked. “Why didn’t they strike any of the other planets?”

“Maybe they did,” Gomez said, in a low, anxious voice.

Millard fixed him with a hard stare. “What do you mean?”

“The last ice age on Earth started about two million years ago.”

“Ice age?”

From behind his desk, Umber disagreed, “Surely you’re not suggesting—”

“That the ice age was caused to wipe out the ape-like creatures that had arisen on Earth,” Gomez said, in a near whisper. “That’s exactly what I’m saying. The aliens tried to prevent the human race from being born.”

Kyle Umber’s elaborate office went dead silent.

Meanwhile, in his own office a few paces down the passageway from Umber’s, Evan Waxman was contemplating his future.

The safest place for me is right here, in Haven. Even if Kyle gets the Interplanetary Council to accept this space habitat as a member nation, I’ll be protected here. I’m an important man here, respected. There’s no reason for me to run away.

Unless Kyle Umber banishes me, he realized. I’ve got to prevent that. I’ve got to convince Kyle that I can still work for him. That I’ll follow his rules.

Then it struck him. I’ll become a penitent! I’ll beg him for my life. I’ll swear to be a good, upstanding, rules-following citizen.

I’ll throw my life at his feet. He won’t be able to cast me into the outer darkness. That would be the same as killing me. He’s too softhearted for that.

I hope, Waxman said to himself. And he noticed that perspiration was beading his forehead.

Raven sat silently in Reverend Umber’s office as Tómas, Zworkyn, Abbott and the newcomer from Earth discussed the consequences of Tómas’s discovery.

In her mind she understood what the men were saying. But it didn’t seem real to her. Alien invaders sterilized Uranus two million years ago? They caused the ice age on Earth to prevent the birth of the human race?

It was too fantastic, too outlandish to be believed. Where are these murderous aliens now? she wanted to ask. Do you have any shred of evidence that they really exist?

But she kept silent. She noticed that Reverend Umber had also lapsed into silence as the scientists tossed ideas and discoveries at one another.

It’s too crazy to be believed, a voice in her mind insisted. Destructive aliens swooping through the solar system two million years ago, killing and destroying?

Then she looked again at Tómas’s face. He believes this with all his heart, she realized. He’s positive that he is right, that he’s discovered an enormous threat to the human race. A threat to all the life on all the worlds in the solar system.

What if he’s right?

DECISIONS

Kyle Umber felt weary. Millard and the others had left his office hours earlier, still debating Gomez’s idea that the solar system had been invaded some two million years ago. Now Umber sat alone at his ornate desk, pondering, worrying.

Gomez’s discovery is just too big to be believable, he told himself. Alien invaders sterilizing the planet Uranus. Causing an ice age on Earth to prevent the birth of the human race. Fantastic! Unbelievable!

Yet, deep within him, he feared that Gomez might be right. Abbott believes it and he’s an astronomer. Millard seems to believe, although he says he wants to see more evidence.

If it is right, it means that somewhere out there among the vast clouds of stars there is an alien race that is our implacable enemy.

A superhuman force of evil. The devil incarnate. All the superstitious terrors of the human race made real, living, waiting to strike us again. Maybe they’re already on their way here, coming to smash us again!

Despite himself, he shuddered. All the ancient fears of the human race come alive. It was too much to be believed. Too much not to believe.

His desk phone buzzed. Almost happy to have his morbid train of thought interrupted, Umber glanced at the screen.

Evan Waxman was calling.

“…and he wants me to be his assistant,” Raven was saying, smiling with excitement, “to work with him and learn how to help him run the whole community.”

Tómas Gomez grinned at her. “You’re coming up in the world.”

The two of them were sitting across from one another at the tiny fold-out table in Raven’s kitchen. They had hardly touched the dinner plates set before them. They were both too excited to eat.

Her happy grin fading just a little, Raven continued, “I don’t know if I can do it, though. It’s an awful lot to learn and—”

“You can do it,” Tómas assured her. “You’re a smart woman, Raven. You can do anything you set your mind to.”

She glowed. “Do you really think so?”

“I’m positive.”

“I’ll have to find somebody to run the boutique,” she mused. “It’s doing too well to shut it down now.”

Tómas nodded and leaned across the table toward her. “You’re going to be an important person, Raven. Reverend Umber’s personal assistant.”

“And you, Tómas,” she said. “You’ll probably have to go back to Earth, at least for a while.”

“No,” he said firmly. “I’ll stay here. If anybody on Earth wants to talk to me, he’ll do it by video conferencing. Or they can come out here.”

“But suppose—”

Reaching out to clasp her hand, Tómas whispered, “It’s taken me all my life to find you. I’m not going to be separated from you. Ever. Not by anyone or anything.”

Raven put her free hand atop his.

Then Tómas straightened and said, “We should talk to Reverend Umber about marrying us.”

Raven gulped with surprise, but agreed, “I suppose we should.”

This is going to be uncomfortable, Reverend Umber said to himself. But it’s got to be done.

He was sitting alone amid the greenery and fancy furniture of his ornate office, frowning at the lavish ostentatiousness of it all. It’s too much, he told himself. You’re a man of God, not some oriental potentate.

His desktop phone buzzed.

Startled out of his self-incrimination, Umber said, “Phone answer.”

The phone’s screen lit up and announced, “Evan Waxman is here, Reverend.”

Umber drew in a deep reluctant breath, but answered, “Send him in, please.”

His office door slid open and Waxman stepped in, slowly, almost hesitantly. His eyes cast downward, he walked to Umber’s desk and stopped in front of it, hands folded in front of him, still staring at the floor.

Umber got to his feet, yet Waxman did not look up at him.

“Have a seat, Evan,” Umber said softly, gently, as he sat down again in his capacious desk chair.

Waxman sat, still avoiding Umber’s eyes.

“I suppose this isn’t going to be easy for either one of us,” Umber said.

“No,” Waxman replied, in a near whisper. “I suppose it’s not.”

WAXMAN AND UMBER

Sitting tensely in his desk chair, Umber said, “The Chemlab Building is a total wreck.”

Waxman nodded mutely.

“I’ve decided to let it stay that way, at least for the time being,” Umber went on. “To serve as a reminder for all of us.”

“But there was nothing illegal about its operation,” Waxman protested, in a soft, almost whining voice.

“Legalities aside, it was immoral.”

“I suppose so,” Waxman admitted.

A cold silence descended upon the two men.

At last Umber stated, “Tomorrow I’m going to ask the Interplanetary Council’s executive director to admit Haven as a Council member.”

Waxman nodded.

“Once we are admitted we’ll have to obey the laws that all the other member worlds obey. Including the law prohibiting the manufacture and sale of narcotics.”

Waxman’s expression shifted slightly. “Kyle, you know that I decided to manufacture and sell narcotics as a means of supporting this habitat.”

“It was an unacceptable means.”

“But you took no steps to stop it.”

Pointing to the scar running down his cheek, Umber said, “Until last week.”

“Yes. Until last week. At the cost of thirty-eight lives.”

Umber’s sudden intake of breath told Waxman he had hit home.

“No one blames you for that,” Waxman quickly added, meaning just the opposite.

“I feel the guilt,” the minister said, his voice low, miserable.

“So do I,” said Waxman, in an equally low voice.

Reverend Umber studied Waxman’s downcast face. It was a picture of defeat, humiliation.

“I’m sorry it’s come to this,” Umber said.

Waxman nodded silently.

“Are you returning to Earth?”

“I suppose I’ll have to.”

“Will it be safe for you?”

Waxman smiled slightly and shook his head. “No. It will be the death of me.”

“You really believe that they’ll try to kill you?”

Locking his eyes with the minister’s, Waxman replied, “They will try, Kyle. And they’ll succeed. It’s people like Dacco and his ilk that led you to build this habitat, to get away from them and their evil.”

For a long moment Umber did not reply. At last he murmured, “Yes, I suppose that’s true.”

Suddenly Waxman burst, “Give me another chance, Kyle! Please, please, I beg of you! Don’t send me off to my death. They’ll kill me! At least here on Haven I have a chance to survive. Your colonizers are screened, scanned. You reject the violent ones, the dangerous ones.”

Umber nodded slowly. “I’ve tried to make this habitat a true haven for the downtrodden people of Earth. I dreamed of bringing millions of them here, to this new world, where they could live in decency, where they could build new lives for themselves, a new world.”

“And you can still do that, Kyle! Your dream isn’t dead. You can go ahead with it. Build more habitats. Take in Earth’s weary, poor, downcast people.”

“Yes, I can still do that,” Umber replied. “But what about you? What am I to do with you, Evan?”

“Let me help you! Let me continue as your strong right hand. Let me live!”

Umber leaned back in his chair, as if driven by the force of Waxman’s plea.

“You told me that Haven will be bankrupt within a year,” he said.

“We can survive! We can adopt an internal economic system, like the early colonies in the New World on Earth. We can grow our own food, manufacture all that we need—”

“Would that be possible?”

“I’ll make it possible! You’ll see, Kyle. We may drop down to a subsistence economy, but we can survive. And as newcomers arrive, our economy will grow! Just as the Americans and Australians and other colonists on Earth survived and prospered.”

“Could we create a self-sustaining economy here?” the minister wondered. “Without importing goods from Earth?”

“But if you’re accepted into the Interplanetary Council you could establish trade links with Earth and the other worlds. Haven could prosper, eventually.”

“You could make that happen?”

“I’ll work night and day to make it happen!”

Umber nodded. “That would be a magnificent undertaking.”

“We’ll make it happen, Kyle,” Waxman said. “You and I, working together.”

“Working together,” Umber repeated. He nodded again. But then his fleshy face settled into a hard frown.

Waxman saw the change in the minister’s expression.

“What is it, Kyle?”

“Quincy O’Donnell,” said Umber.

“Quincy…?”

“He was murdered.”

“By a robot,” Waxman claimed.

With a reluctant sigh, Umber replied, “By a robot that was programmed to tear off his space suit’s helmet.”

“Programmed?”

“Robots do not spontaneously attack people, Evan. We both know that.”

“But—”

“But that particular robot attacked O’Donnell and killed him. Who programmed the robot to do that?”

“Nobody! The damned machine went wild. That’s why we destroyed it.”

“You destroyed it so that no evidence of your programming remained for anyone to find.”

“Kyle, that incident is over and done with. I—”

“That incident was cold-blooded murder, Evan. You murdered O’Donnell.”

Waxman sat frozen in his chair, his face white with shock, his lips parted, as if trying desperately to breathe.

“I… but…”

“The Interplanetary Council’s penalty for murder is cryonic freezing,” said Umber, his voice low but implacably unyielding. “You’ll be frozen until medical science learns how to eliminate the violence in your brain.”

“No… please, Kyle. Forgive me.”

“Only God can truly forgive you. I’m merely His representative here on Haven.”

Waxman slid off his chair, crumpled to his knees. “Please, Kyle. Please!”

Umber had to get to his feet to lean over his desk to see Waxman’s kneeling form. “Evan, you’re going to have to stand trial for murder. I will recommend leniency to the judges. If they grant it, you can resume your duties as executive director—but with Raven Marchesi as your assistant. She will work side by side with you every moment of the day.”

Clawing his way clumsily back into his chair, Waxman said, “Yes, yes, that would work out. I could live with that.”

As he resumed his chair, Umber repressed an urge to smile at Waxman’s unintended pun.

“The mark of Cain is upon you, Evan. I don’t know if it can ever be expunged.”

“God is merciful! I’ve heard you say that a thousand times.”

“Let us hope so.”

THE BARGAIN

“He murdered Quincy?” Raven gasped.

Kyle Umber nodded solemnly from behind his desk. “He programmed the robot that killed the man.”

“And you’re recommending leniency?”

“Yes.”

Sitting in front of Umber’s desk, Raven stared at the minister’s stony features for several silent moments.

Then, “I can’t work with him.”

“You must, Raven. We must all help to redeem Evan’s soul.”

“Redeem his soul? I’d rather send him to hell!”

Umber shook his head sadly. “No, Raven. We’re not here to condemn or to punish. Waxman’s soul should be saved, if we have the strength and the grace to save it.”

Raven felt hot anger simmering within her. The bastard murdered Quincy, and the reverend expects me to work with him, to forgive him, to help him?

As if he could read her thoughts, Umber said, “I know it won’t be easy for you. Vengeance is a very deep emotion. But forgiveness is better, Raven, far better.”

“I don’t know if I can forgive him.”

With the slightest hint of a smile, Reverend Umber replied, “This will be a test for you, then. A test for all of us.”

A test, Raven thought. We’re all being tested: Waxman, myself, even the reverend.

“Will you try to work with him? Please?”

Raven heard herself say, in a barely audible voice, “If that’s what you want.”

Umber responded, “I believe with all my heart that it’s what God wants.”

Raven suppressed an urge to shake her head in denial. Instead she said, “God doesn’t make it easy for us, does He?”

Glad to have the Waxman business behind him, Reverend Umber watched Raven leave his office, her face clouded with suspicion and doubt. He settled himself back in his desk chair and saw that his next visitor was to be Harvey Millard, from the Interplanetary Council.

Millard arrived precisely on time. Umber rose from his chair once again, as Millard—slim, elegant, wearing an ordinary suit of light brown jacket and darker slacks—entered his office and went straight to one of the chairs in front of the reverend’s desk.

Before the IC’s executive director could say anything, Umber asked, “What do you think of Gomez’s theory? Truly.”

Millard’s light brown eyes widened with surprise. “I’m not an astronomer—”

“Neither am I,” Umber interrupted. “But I would appreciate your honest opinion of the idea.”

“That Uranus was sterilized by an alien invader some two million years ago? It sounds fantastic to me.”

“But is it right?”

Shrugging his frail shoulders, Millard answered, “We don’t know. It could be. It fits the available evidence. But…”

“But?”

“It’s too big to be swallowed in one gulp. We need more evidence, more facts, before we can definitely decide if it’s right or wrong.”

Umber nodded unhappily. Scientists, he thought. They always want more evidence. Then he remembered that Millard was a civil servant, not a scientist.

“More facts,” the reverend muttered.

“Which is why I asked to speak with you, actually,” said Millard.

“Oh?”

“I want to discuss the possibility of having the Interplanetary Council rent your Haven II habitat.”

“Rent it? The entire habitat?”

With a single nod, Millard explained, “I’ve discussed this with my colleagues back on Earth. They agree that we should set up a research station here at Uranus. Your habitat, Haven II, is a godsend for us.”

“The entire habitat?” Umber asked again.

“Yes, all of it,” said Millard. “It will be the base from which we direct the dredging of the buried Uranian civilization. We will also establish an astronomical station here to study the stars for possible evidence of an extraterrestrial civilization.”

“Really?”

“Really. Your Haven II is going to become a first-rate research center, my friend.”

Umber blinked with confusion. “But Haven II is being built to house refugees, Earth’s poorest peoples.”

“You can build other habitats,” said Millard. “Our rental fees will help finance them. We can even bring construction teams out here to teach your people how to build them. You’ll be able to expand much more quickly than the pace you’ve reached so far.”

“Do you mean that the Interplanetary Council will join us in our effort to create new abodes for Earth’s downtrodden people?”

Millard hesitated only a moment before answering, “Yes. I believe we can get the IC to help finance your noble work.”

“That… that would be… wonderful.”

A big smile broke out on Millard’s thin face as he extended his hand across Umber’s desk. “We can accomplish a lot together.”

“Together,” Umber agreed, clasping Millard’s hand warmly.

CEREBRATIONS

Hardly a dozen people sat in the church. The décor was nondenominational, the walls bare, the altar equally lacking any paintings or statues.

The tiny group of people waiting for the wedding ceremony to begin sat in hushed silence as simulated sunshine poured through the arched windows of the nave.

Harvey Millard felt well satisfied as he sat staring at the undecorated altar. We’ve got the foundation of a research station, he told himself. Haven II has to be renamed, something more appropriate to a scientific facility, but it’s there for our taking. Reverend Umber seems more than pleased with the rental fee we’ll be paying for the habitat. It’s a win-win situation.

Looking into the future, Millard saw a thriving research establishment orbiting Uranus, probing the remains of the planet’s destroyed civilization, searching the stars for evidence of an intelligent race of extraterrestrials.

A shiver of apprehension gnawed at his self-satisfied mood. Can it be true? he asked himself. Did an alien race sterilize Uranus and cause the ice age on Earth? Might they return someday? Is the human race in danger?

We’ll have to handle the information we release to the general public very carefully. Very carefully. We don’t want to start a panic.

Lord, he thought, if we’re not careful we could have the old UFO scare on our hands again.

Sitting several persons away from Millard, Evan Waxman was going through the motions of praying. Kyle will be watching me, he reasoned. Not right at this moment, most likely, but he’ll have videos of this entire ceremony at his desk tomorrow morning. I’ve got to show him that I’m penitent, that I’m going to be well behaved.

Briefly he thought of Raven Marchesi. The little tramp has come a long way in a short time. From a whore to the assistant to the habitat’s executive director. Umber’s snoop, planted in my office to make sure I stay on the straight and narrow.

Well, Waxman said to himself, when handed a lemon, make lemonade. I’ll stay on the straight and narrow. I’ll help Umber to make his retreat for the poor into a huge success. We’ll fill up Haven with Earth’s castoffs and build more habitats for more of them.

I’ll become Kyle’s shining star. His right-hand man. Hell, I might even enjoy it.

Suddenly organ music filled the church. In the tiny vestibule to one side of the altar, the Reverend Kyle Umber turned to Tómas Gomez with a soft smile and said, “It’s time.”

Gomez nodded and fell in step behind the minister, with Vincente Zworkyn behind him.

As they walked out to the altar, Tómas thought, This is a big step. Marriage. A big commitment. Will I be a good husband to Raven? Can I make her happy?

And what of my work? Am I right? Did a race of aliens actually sterilize Uranus, totally extinguish its civilization? Did they cause the ice age on Earth? Try to prevent the human race from coming into being?

Then he saw Raven stepping down the aisle in a measured pace, with Cathy Fremont—the woman she had picked to run the boutique—behind her. Raven was wearing a white sleeveless mid-calf dress and clutched a bouquet of flowers in both hands. She looked solemn, unsmiling.

Raven marched slowly up the aisle, trying to keep in time with the organ music. The meager audience rose from their pews as she approached them.

As Raven strode along the aisle, she wondered, Can I really take on the responsibility that Reverend Umber has placed on my shoulders? Do I have the strength, the intelligence to do it?

Then she looked up and saw Tómas standing there, waiting for her, smiling at her. And she knew she would do anything in the world for him.

As Reverend Umber stood at the altar with Tómas and his best man to one side of him, he tried to clear his mind of the thoughts swirling through his consciousness.

Waxman is devilishly clever, he told himself. Throwing himself on my mercy like that. Depending on my being too softhearted to throw him to the wolves. I’ll have to be careful with him, watch him every step of the way. I hope I haven’t pushed Raven into a job that’s beyond her capabilities. Evan is very clever, he might run rings around her.

Standing there at the altar, he suppressed an urge to shake his head. This will be a test for Raven. She’s intelligent, sharp. But will she be able to keep Evan in line?

With an inner sigh, Umber said to himself, We’ll see. With the Lord’s help, perhaps she’ll prevail.

And these murdering aliens that Gomez believes swept through our solar system two million years ago. Is he right? Are they real? Abbott seems to think so.

Raven stepped up to the altar and Tómas took his place beside her.

Reverend Umber tried to push all other thoughts out of his mind as he smiled at them. This is what’s important, he told himself. The union of a man and woman. The procreation of the human race.

Despite everything else, Umber told himself, the human race will persevere, will expand out to the stars, will face our ancient enemies if we must. With God’s help, we will not only survive: we will grow and learn and prosper.

With a benign smile on his fleshy face, Reverend Kyle Umber raised his hand and intoned:

“Dearly beloved, we are gathered here this day to join this man and this woman in holy matrimony.”

The habitat Haven continued in its circling orbit around the planet Uranus. The stars shone across the spangled sky as they had for billions of years.

Life went on.