Chapter 3:
Already Dead
Venus Run
DATE: Year 308-B, Sol 427
LOCATION: Aboard The Marley (en route to Venus)
One thing Phoenix knew. Being a fleet commander stunk, starting with the coffin-sized pod he shot himself from ship to ship with. He put the Mighty Sparrow on a tow behind the Marley, another can kicking behind the sorry figure of a flag ship.
It stank literally too, of unwashed bodies, recycled air running too hot, and the sharp tang of fear. The Marley wasn't designed to carry two thousand five hundred people. It was an ore hauler, a hollowed-out steel cavern meant for silent, uncomplaining rocks. Now, its cargo holds were a vertical slum of scaffolding, hammocks, and desperation. This was the way humans lived in a lot of the constructed spaces, stationary or mobile, across the solar systems. Some ships had peeled off from the fleet after the memorial, looking to disappear on orbits less travelled. Still, Phoenix wanted the fleet to be even smaller, to bring everyone on board the Marley, to make that work.
Phoenix stood on the upper gantry again, overlooking one of the smaller cargo bays. His left arm, the massive hydraulic loader claw, twitched.
Below him, the mob was surging.
-Back up, a voice screamed.
-The ration is by weight! Not by headcount!
It was a dispute at the Slurp dispensary. A group of flippers from Jupiter who followed Market when they ditched the Sagan Cities and the plans they had set up for them, were arguing with some of the fannies, old-school belt miners who’d fought with the EZM for years and weren’t interested in membership in the New Earth Consortium, which, for the fanatics, Market and the Saganite Zionists represented.
-Go back to Mars and make your New Earth, you wanted us in the NEC so much. It’s not even getting us to Earth, one of the miners spat out, shoving one of the boys.
The flipper stumbled back, spilling his tray of green paste. The crowd roared. A fist flew. Then another. In the low half G of the thrust gravity, the fight was slow, ugly, and dangerous. If someone cracked a seal or punctured a water line, they were all dead.
Phoenix sighed. He tapped his comms bead.
-Bit. Drop the hammer.
The service elevator behind the crowd hissed open.
Heavy, rhythmic footsteps shook the deck plates. THOOM. THOOM.
The crowd froze. They turned.
Towering over them was Hap. The HA-1 Android was a wall of chipped industrial orange paint. It stood eight feet tall on its rocket-thruster legs. Its hydraulic arms, thick as tree trunks, hung low. Phoenix and Bit had started reprogramming him to be more useful.
Bit sat perched on the robot’s shoulder, wearing his yellow drone helmet.
Bit tapped the robot’s head.
-CAUTION, Hap buzzed. The voice was so deep it vibrated in the listeners' chests.
-UNSAFE WORK ENVIRONMENT DETECTED. PLEASE RETURN TO DESIGNATED ZONES.
The miner sneered. He pulled a pry-bar from his belt. It’s just a dumb loader bot. Scraps.
He swung the bar at the robot’s leg.
Hap moved with terrifying, mechanical speed. It caught the pry-bar mid-swing. The servo in its hand whined. CRUNCH. The steel bar bent like a straw.
-VIOLENCE IS A VIOLATION, Hap stated flatly. COMPLIANCE IS MANDATORY.
The miner dropped the bent metal. He looked up at the sensor strip painted with the faded smiley face. He stepped back.
Phoenix leaned over the rail.
-The robot is right, he shouted. His voice echoed through the bay.
-Violence burns calories. You don’t have any to spare.
He jumped down from the gantry, his mag-boots absorbing the impact. The crowd parted for him. They looked at him with a mix of fear and hunger.
Phoenix walked to the food dispenser. He picked up the spilled tray of Slurp. He scraped it back into the cup with his gloved finger.
-You want to fight? Phoenix asked the miner. Fine. Do it outside the airlock. In here, nobody bleeds. We don't have the water to spare for cleaning it up.
He handed the cup to the flipper who had been shoved.
-Eat, Phoenix ordered. Then get back to your bunk. We’re cutting the ration by ten percent starting tomorrow.
-Ten percent? someone shouted. We’re already starving.
-We have twenty-eight days to Venus, Phoenix said, his voice hard. The tanks are dry. The hydroponics are dead. If we don't ration, we run out of food three days before we hit the atmosphere. You can be hungry for a month, or you can be dead before you get to Venus. Or you can start killing each other. But pick one and stick to it.
The silence was heavy.
Phoenix looked at them. He saw the anger. He saw the doubt. They were looking for Himalaya Market. They wanted a sermon. Phoenix was all they had left.
-Clear the deck, Phoenix said.
Slowly, the crowd dispersed.
Phoenix watched them go. He felt a tug on his sleeve. Bit had climbed down from Hap. The kid looked tired. His yellow helmet was scuffed.
-What’s Earth? Bit asked.
Phoenix looked at the boy. The question caught him off-guard. It’s easy to forget what kids don’t know. He answered it like any other inquisitive question the child had had so far.
-It’s the planet humans originally come from.
-I’m from Phobos, Bit said, a hint of pride in his voice.
-And I’m from New Paris, Phoenix responded. But don’t tell anyone that.
-Then who’s from Earth?
-Our parents’ parents’ parents’ parents’ parents’ parents, a long, long time ago.
-And they want to go back? Bit asked, pointing down at the crowd.
-In a way. It’s not going back if you’ve never been, but something like that. But Earth isn’t habitable anymore. We destroyed it.
-Who?
-Our parents’ parents’ parents’ parents’, a long time ago too. Now we’re just here, Phoenix said with a smile and a shrug, patting the child’s head.
-They’re scared, Bit whispered.
-Everyone’s scared, Phoenix muttered.
He looked at Hap. The robot was standing motionless, awaiting orders. Its yellow standby light pulsed.
-Good work, Hap, Phoenix said. Go guard the water reclamation room. Nobody goes in without a token.
-AFFIRMATIVE. HYDRATION IS CRITICAL.
Hap lumbered away, the deck shaking with each step.
Phoenix rubbed his eyes. He needed sleep. He hadn't slept since the escape. But he couldn't rest. He had to check the fuel calculations again. He had to figure out how to land a ship this heavy on the atmosphere of Venus where the sky cities lay.
He walked toward the docking tube that contained the coffin he travelled the fleet in. He needed to be off this ship. He needed the quiet of his own cockpit.
As he walked, he checked his pad to scroll through some of the bulletins that had come in through the latest packets from the radio beacon they had passed a day earlier. Informational bulletins were transmitted across these beacons as they passed each other, and ships receiving them could sometimes pass them along too. In this way information propagated through the solar system unevenly and in spurts.
Phoenix stopped in the docking tube. With an estimated human population of just four million across the solar system, every death bulletin was tough to see. Mass casualties were gruesome, and had been happening more often in recent years.
A navigational collision in a debris field, near the Checkpoint Zone, sounded like a shift after they had made their escape from the Earth system on a vector to Venus, running and gunning it with not enough gas. 2,100 dead. But it was the Marley and the ships that were still traveling with it.
-Not yet, Phoenix grumbled.
LOCATION: Aboard The Marley (en route to Venus)
One thing Phoenix knew. Being a fleet commander stunk, starting with the coffin-sized pod he shot himself from ship to ship with. He put the Mighty Sparrow on a tow behind the Marley, another can kicking behind the sorry figure of a flag ship.
It stank literally too, of unwashed bodies, recycled air running too hot, and the sharp tang of fear. The Marley wasn't designed to carry two thousand five hundred people. It was an ore hauler, a hollowed-out steel cavern meant for silent, uncomplaining rocks. Now, its cargo holds were a vertical slum of scaffolding, hammocks, and desperation. This was the way humans lived in a lot of the constructed spaces, stationary or mobile, across the solar systems. Some ships had peeled off from the fleet after the memorial, looking to disappear on orbits less travelled. Still, Phoenix wanted the fleet to be even smaller, to bring everyone on board the Marley, to make that work.
Phoenix stood on the upper gantry again, overlooking one of the smaller cargo bays. His left arm, the massive hydraulic loader claw, twitched.
Below him, the mob was surging.
-Back up, a voice screamed.
-The ration is by weight! Not by headcount!
It was a dispute at the Slurp dispensary. A group of flippers from Jupiter who followed Market when they ditched the Sagan Cities and the plans they had set up for them, were arguing with some of the fannies, old-school belt miners who’d fought with the EZM for years and weren’t interested in membership in the New Earth Consortium, which, for the fanatics, Market and the Saganite Zionists represented.
-Go back to Mars and make your New Earth, you wanted us in the NEC so much. It’s not even getting us to Earth, one of the miners spat out, shoving one of the boys.
The flipper stumbled back, spilling his tray of green paste. The crowd roared. A fist flew. Then another. In the low half G of the thrust gravity, the fight was slow, ugly, and dangerous. If someone cracked a seal or punctured a water line, they were all dead.
Phoenix sighed. He tapped his comms bead.
-Bit. Drop the hammer.
The service elevator behind the crowd hissed open.
Heavy, rhythmic footsteps shook the deck plates. THOOM. THOOM.
The crowd froze. They turned.
Towering over them was Hap. The HA-1 Android was a wall of chipped industrial orange paint. It stood eight feet tall on its rocket-thruster legs. Its hydraulic arms, thick as tree trunks, hung low. Phoenix and Bit had started reprogramming him to be more useful.
Bit sat perched on the robot’s shoulder, wearing his yellow drone helmet.
Bit tapped the robot’s head.
-CAUTION, Hap buzzed. The voice was so deep it vibrated in the listeners' chests.
-UNSAFE WORK ENVIRONMENT DETECTED. PLEASE RETURN TO DESIGNATED ZONES.
The miner sneered. He pulled a pry-bar from his belt. It’s just a dumb loader bot. Scraps.
He swung the bar at the robot’s leg.
Hap moved with terrifying, mechanical speed. It caught the pry-bar mid-swing. The servo in its hand whined. CRUNCH. The steel bar bent like a straw.
-VIOLENCE IS A VIOLATION, Hap stated flatly. COMPLIANCE IS MANDATORY.
The miner dropped the bent metal. He looked up at the sensor strip painted with the faded smiley face. He stepped back.
Phoenix leaned over the rail.
-The robot is right, he shouted. His voice echoed through the bay.
-Violence burns calories. You don’t have any to spare.
He jumped down from the gantry, his mag-boots absorbing the impact. The crowd parted for him. They looked at him with a mix of fear and hunger.
Phoenix walked to the food dispenser. He picked up the spilled tray of Slurp. He scraped it back into the cup with his gloved finger.
-You want to fight? Phoenix asked the miner. Fine. Do it outside the airlock. In here, nobody bleeds. We don't have the water to spare for cleaning it up.
He handed the cup to the flipper who had been shoved.
-Eat, Phoenix ordered. Then get back to your bunk. We’re cutting the ration by ten percent starting tomorrow.
-Ten percent? someone shouted. We’re already starving.
-We have twenty-eight days to Venus, Phoenix said, his voice hard. The tanks are dry. The hydroponics are dead. If we don't ration, we run out of food three days before we hit the atmosphere. You can be hungry for a month, or you can be dead before you get to Venus. Or you can start killing each other. But pick one and stick to it.
The silence was heavy.
Phoenix looked at them. He saw the anger. He saw the doubt. They were looking for Himalaya Market. They wanted a sermon. Phoenix was all they had left.
-Clear the deck, Phoenix said.
Slowly, the crowd dispersed.
Phoenix watched them go. He felt a tug on his sleeve. Bit had climbed down from Hap. The kid looked tired. His yellow helmet was scuffed.
-What’s Earth? Bit asked.
Phoenix looked at the boy. The question caught him off-guard. It’s easy to forget what kids don’t know. He answered it like any other inquisitive question the child had had so far.
-It’s the planet humans originally come from.
-I’m from Phobos, Bit said, a hint of pride in his voice.
-And I’m from New Paris, Phoenix responded. But don’t tell anyone that.
-Then who’s from Earth?
-Our parents’ parents’ parents’ parents’ parents’ parents, a long, long time ago.
-And they want to go back? Bit asked, pointing down at the crowd.
-In a way. It’s not going back if you’ve never been, but something like that. But Earth isn’t habitable anymore. We destroyed it.
-Who?
-Our parents’ parents’ parents’ parents’, a long time ago too. Now we’re just here, Phoenix said with a smile and a shrug, patting the child’s head.
-They’re scared, Bit whispered.
-Everyone’s scared, Phoenix muttered.
He looked at Hap. The robot was standing motionless, awaiting orders. Its yellow standby light pulsed.
-Good work, Hap, Phoenix said. Go guard the water reclamation room. Nobody goes in without a token.
-AFFIRMATIVE. HYDRATION IS CRITICAL.
Hap lumbered away, the deck shaking with each step.
Phoenix rubbed his eyes. He needed sleep. He hadn't slept since the escape. But he couldn't rest. He had to check the fuel calculations again. He had to figure out how to land a ship this heavy on the atmosphere of Venus where the sky cities lay.
He walked toward the docking tube that contained the coffin he travelled the fleet in. He needed to be off this ship. He needed the quiet of his own cockpit.
As he walked, he checked his pad to scroll through some of the bulletins that had come in through the latest packets from the radio beacon they had passed a day earlier. Informational bulletins were transmitted across these beacons as they passed each other, and ships receiving them could sometimes pass them along too. In this way information propagated through the solar system unevenly and in spurts.
Phoenix stopped in the docking tube. With an estimated human population of just four million across the solar system, every death bulletin was tough to see. Mass casualties were gruesome, and had been happening more often in recent years.
A navigational collision in a debris field, near the Checkpoint Zone, sounded like a shift after they had made their escape from the Earth system on a vector to Venus, running and gunning it with not enough gas. 2,100 dead. But it was the Marley and the ships that were still traveling with it.
-Not yet, Phoenix grumbled.
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