The store was in the High Quarter
of the city, an enormous hemisphere cut out of the rock hundreds of
meters below Elysium Planitia. The ceiling was painted blue and lit
by concealed floods, creating an illusion of a wide-open sky
stretching above the stores. Lines of ornamental bushes and
decorative flowers ran down the center of the neat, clean streets.
Mara had never been in the High Quarter before, had never seen
anything even remotely resembling it except in vids of Lost Earth –
everyone knew the elite lived well, but the sheer scale of
luxury they had achieved astonished her, made her very conscious of
the new silver epaulets on her new black uniform, signifying her as
personal aide to the MuniPrin. The street was paved with a white
plastic looking like stone, obviously intended for no traffic heavier
then the packbot trailing behind her. The shops were ferociously
reserved, tinted black windows looking onto the bright street
betraying no sign of advertising, no trace of their occupants except
a modest iron plaque with their name and Guild affiliation.
She reached her destination all
too soon, a shop set in a narrow alley off the main street that
lacked even windows. The plaque read “Ger Fibrati,
Polymerologists' Guild.” The door opened to a wave of her pass
card, and she stepped inside, the packbot humming cheerfully after
her.
The interior was the absolute
antithesis of the street outside, dark and cramped and lit only by a
single amber worklight revealing a plastic counter and stacks and
stacks of merchandise set against the walls. A chime rang in the
back, and a voice called out, “just a minute!” She held her
pass card from the MuniPrin and waited, trying not to look too
obviously at the mysteries in bales and piles around her.
A squat, orange man snaked his
way towards her through the maze of merchandise. He was balding,
whole patches of his skin bare of fur, and he wore a stained
workman's jumpsuit that seemed shockingly out of place. But he had
a smile on his face that made her want to like him. “What can I
do for you?” he asked.
“I'm here to pick up an order
for MuniPrin Lee Ludei,” she said. She handed him her pass, with
the MuniPrin's codes on it.
He waved it in front of a
terminal, then handed it back to her along with a stack of something
wrapped in plastic. “One thousand sheets of white cellulosic
fiber,” he said cheerfully. “Always a pleasure doing business
with the Prince.”
“Thank you.”
“I read the MuniPrin's book,”
the man added. “Quite something. Have you been up there, to
that mountaintop of his?”
“I have,” she replied
cautiously, not sure where he was going.
The man leaned towards her over
the counter. “I liked the book myself,” he said quietly, as
though making a confession. “It's about time someone did
something like this. And I'm not the only one. I know it must
seem that way, but he's got more support then it looks.”
“Um, thank you,” Mara
replied.
“Anyway, I've work to do. You
take care, and let me know when you need more.”
- - - - - - - - - - - - - -
On the way back to the crawler
port, Mara became aware that someone was following her.
It was hard to miss. Two big,
blocky soldiers in grey MuniDef uniforms with rifles over their backs
and black optical bands covering their eyes, the sort of bruisers you
saw guarding nobles when they had business in the slums. They kept
a few dozen meters behind her, making no real effort to stay hidden.
The crawler garage was only a
kilometer from the carefully-tended gardens of the High Quarter, but
otherwise a world apart. Here the street ran just below the
surface, the dim light from the narrow window strips in the ceiling
augmented by the occasional garish shop sign or luminescent graffiti,
or the headlights of perstrans running from one factory to another.
It wasn't a slum – there was grime but little garbage on the roads,
no long line of dolees waiting for their handouts – but it was
pretty close, an industrial zone filled with Guild-run factories and
warehouses and dormitories for the unbonded workers who ran them.
Mara considered ducking down an
alley, trying to lose her pursuers, but this was a surveilled zone;
there was no real way to lose them here. She settled for ignoring
them as well as she could.
The garage was unpressurized, but
at least brighter, the setting sun sending light right through the
open portal. Ermon was waiting for her next to the carryall, and
not wearing his usual attitude of sneering superiority. Instead, he
looked worried.
“I was followed on my way
here,” he said by way of greeting.
“So was I. Two soldiers in
MuniDef greys.”
“Nuts,” he cursed. She
started to load the back of the crawler from the packbot while he
stared into the distance, thinking. Eventually he came to a
decision of some kind and climbed into the crawler cab. She joined
him – to her private joy, her promotion meant she would no longer
be riding in the back on overland trips.
Ermon started the engine and
programmed the navigator, and they eased out of the big garage
towards the road leading to Elysium Mons, the big mountain lurking in
the distance like a threat.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Half an hour from Elysium, the
sun finally dipped below the horizon, and Mara decided to take a
risk.
“I have a question,” she
said.
Ermon grunted.
“Is there a lot of opposition
to the observatory, politically?”
Ermon glared at her, his
expression scornful. “Yes.”
His tone made it clear this
should be obvious, but Mara persisted. “Why?”
“People are stupid. And
they're scared. They've tried to shut us down three times by now,
but the prince's one of the autarch's favorites, and he fought that
off.”
Mara decided not to press
further.
Ahead of them, the stars started
to appear in the sky. Mara looked for Earth, found it. Someday...
Behind them, but just far enough
that they didn't see it, two crawlers trailed them.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - -
They arrived at the observatory
around midnight, and Mara went straight to bed.
Two hours later, she woke to the
sound of shouting. Others in the dormitory were stirring as well.
She pulled on her jumpsuit and was heading to the door of the
dormitory when it burst open, the light from the hallway revealing a
woman in a MuniDef uniform pointing a gun at her, two more soldiers
right behind her. “Everyone up and out!” the woman shouted.
“You're all under arrest!”
No comments:
Post a Comment