IN SPACE, ONLY GOD CAN HEAR YOU SCREAM.
It stunk inside Ryson's spacesuit. He checked the regulator on his wrist for the tenth time. MISSION CLOCK read four hours forty-eight minutes. OXYGEN read thirty-three percent. Plenty of air for another couple hours' work. Still, the suit seemed unusually foul tonight. He inhaled deeply through his nose. Maybe if he saturated his olfactory nerves it would lessen the stench.
“Yo, Ryson!”
The suit-to-suit intercom scratched to life in his helmet. “Go ahead, Larry.”
“Shorten your stream, man. I don't want my face ripped off.”
Ryson quickly checked the PRESSURE and VELOCITY of his hose. Both had gotten away from him during his preoccupation with the day-old sweat stench inside his spacesuit. “Sorry.”
“No problemo, boss. What say we call it a day? My old lady kept me up damn near half the night if you know what I mean. I'm beat.”
“You wanna knock off early?” Ryson thumbed the RECALIBRATE button on his nozzle and the stream of plasma shooting from his ore gun focused. The gun kicked in his hands a few times as the pressure stabilized. He tried to relax his hands. At the start of the shift, he'd told the new guy Schillers to hold on to the rifle as if his life depended upon it, because it did. In his mind he heard Dave’s voice, a sing-song lilt calling to him from the grave, “Firm but light. Like you're twirling a lady around the dance floor.” Since the accident, Ryson had stopped using the dancing analogy with the newbies.
Ryson rechecked the MISSION CLOCK on his regulator. Maybe Larry was right. It was Friday night. If they called it a day and hauled ass back to the rig, they could double-time it back to the colony. They could get cleaned up and go out for a cold beer. Maybe even find some action.
All in all, Ryson liked working graveyard. The rock had a quietness to it at night. It was peaceful. And you couldn't beat the money. After you factored in hazard pay plus the typical overtime, working the graveyard shift paid nearly twice the swing shift and three times the salary of the eight-to-fivers. Ryson started off working swing but soon grew weary of being at work when everyone else was punching out and going home to their families. Not that he had a family to go home to. His one-bedroom efficiency apartment and his tank of gee-fish didn't exactly constitute the typical family on Sagan Seven, but it was still Home Sweet Home to him. It was cheap and it was clean. Since the accident, he seemed to have become obsessively clean. He often found himself scrubbing the toilet and floors wearing nothing but earplugs, caught in a manic, naked housekeeping frenzy begun while exiting the shower and noticing a spot of the fuzzy red mildew that thrived on Sagan Seven. The earplugs allowed him to escape the daily nuisances of apartment living. On his hands and knees with scrub brush in hand, orange foam plugs protruding from his ears, he didn't have to listen to the rhythmic thumping and ultrasonic squeals of passion above him, nor the fists-on-flesh torment of domestic violence beside him. Clutching his old, grisly toothbrush, he scrubbed furiously at the stubborn space mildew clinging defiantly to the rim of the urinal. He told himself over and over again it wasn't his fault, there was nothing he could have done, Dave wouldn't be angry with him, he should keep working, he would be a millionaire before he was forty. He scrubbed faster, unable to believe his own lies.
After a couple months of zombie-like drudgery, he'd requested a shift change. The new schedule had suited him and in only three months he'd been promoted, put in charge of a typical crew of seven. They worked in three pairs, plus the Pilot-Surveyor who worked alone back on the rig. Ryson found spending eight hours alone in the rig to be mind-numbingly dull. Apart from the thrill of actually flying the massive rig, the Pilot-Surveyor sat staring at a bank of computers, monitoring vitals that never changed while waiting for catastrophe to strike. Ryson found this much worse than the risks of suiting-up every day and working in a freezing vacuum. He preferred the dusty crunching of rock beneath his heavy-tread boots, the distant hiss of the ore gun. He liked leaning forward, finding the perfect balance against its recoil. He liked feeling Vega's warmth on his face each morning as he and his crew trundled back to the rig on their rover, weary from a long night's digging, quietly satisfied with a hard night's work, proud of their contribution to the colony, to America. He always chose the hell seat, the rear-most seat on the rover, so named because it perched the occupant in the rear of the vehicle, directly above the rear axle, facing backward. Despite the buggy's four-wheel independent suspension, it still made for a bumpy ride. A ride spent looking backwards, staring at kilometers of gray-brown rock stretching out beneath the blue-black blanket of silent space and the sea of stars like diamonds twinkling from so far away, the distance so great it made his heart ache. Ryson liked watching the diamonds melt into the blackness as Vega rose for a new day. It was like evading bad memories one more time.
Standing inside his musty suit, he decided Larry was right. It had been a long week. They’d blasted out nearly thirty-three million kilos of ore, once again besting all of the other mining crews. And without any further accidents. To see a person beheaded or cut entirely in half by the powerful blue plasma streaming out of an ore rifle was among the more horrific sights Ryson had ever witnessed.
* * *
His crew had teamed up with Dave Cherry's crew. The twelve men were charged with stripping a particularly thick band of sedimentary rock in a massive crater one hundred twelve kilometers south of the colony. The rock proved to be even harder than anticipated. Ore guns were set to maximum and plasma sprayed even colder than usual. Every man had to be at his best.
They paired off, doubling-up on the rock, hitting it hard with two streams at once, blasting it out of the crater wall through sheer force of will. The excavators were turned up to full-speed to keep pace with the blasting. Streams of blue plasma cut esses in the old, cold rock. Ryson and Dave felt confident their crews would remain ahead of schedule and if they were lucky, maybe even under budget. Just the type of thing new young crew bosses like themselves could take to management when it came time to re-up. Four years on the rock with no accidents and record ore counts spelled promotion. The jump from Crew Boss to Sector Commander meant not only a hefty pay raise but also a decrease in hours. It was a win-win situation and Ryson and Dave planned to stick together. They spent many mornings in Sharkey's, strategizing over tobasco-scrambled eggs and a cold space beer, telling jokes and getting to know each other, dreaming of taking their crews straight to the top.
Until one morning in December. Two more crew were out with the insidious asthma-like illness the folks in the craters had taken to calling Rock Fever. Ryson was forced to call the company dispatcher and request reinforcements. He and Dave hoped to stay ahead of schedule. They were on-track to turn in some solid numbers before it came time for Christmas bonuses. Ryson asked for a couple veterans from Sector Four, John Boston's sector. Boston's crews also had an impeccable safety record. Boston’s crew was in the middle of a week-long delay due to excavator malfunctions and Ryson was hopeful of stealing two of John's cutters for a day or two until his own could be replaced by some new meat.
What Ryson got was two newbies fresh off the lunar transport. He and Dave stood in the base of the crater, exchanging worried glances as they watched the newbies fumble with their gear. Ryson finally took charge of the trainees himself. The new guys stumbled around the crater, kicking up dust as they dragged their hoses about. They seemed oblivious of their muzzle sweeps. Over and over again Ryson chastised them. He grabbed hold of their rifles and shook them. “Are you listening? Do I have your attention? Don't point your pecker at anything you're not willing to pulverize. Do you understand?” He stood close to them, his face shield occasionally bumping against theirs as he looked back and forth between them. “I'm sure you know the plasma rifle is one hell of a tool. It can also be one hell of a weapon. Keep both hands on the gun at all times. Do not trigger until your field of fire is clear and until you are absolutely ready. Lean into it. Expect it to kick some, and be firm but relaxed.”
“Just like you're twirling a lady around the dance floor,” called Dave.
“Right,” said Ryson. “Watch me.” He took a bead on a nearby band of rock. The orange striations in the rock meant fallout from a meteor strike. Ryson guessed it was no more than a few million years old, judging by the relatively shallow depth of the striations. Despite the iron content, it would be soft by comparison, requiring only a gentle squirt of plasma. He lined up on it, took a deep breath, and exhaled as he squeezed the triggers, one for each index finger, like an old two-handed Tommy-gun from the 1920s. Blue plasma spat from his rifle. Like a painter stroking gently across the canvas, he painted the orange rock in a smooth arc. He released the triggers and the orange rock crumbled. The autonomous excavators gobbled it up and loaded the rock onto the rig to be taken back to the colony for processing into the essentials for the colony's survival: oxygen, water, building materials. “See how it's done?” said Ryson.
Both newbies smiled, their grins self-conscious inside the white orbs of their helmets. They nodded, indicating they understood. Their suits bobbed as they moved their heads. They could have been laughing at one of the countless tasteless, sexist jokes tossed around on intercom during the shift.
“You give it a shot,” said Ryson.
One of the newbies stepped up and took aim at the same orange rock.
“Take your time,” said Ryson. “Remember, safety first. Fire when ready, kid.”
Ryson took a step to the side, watching the new kid line up for his first live-fire exercise. The company did its ardent best to get its new hires ready for life in the craters but there was something different about actually being down in one for the first time, swaddled in your brand new sparkling white pressure suit, rifle in hand, breathing the dry, stale air, trying to keep your attention focused as streams of deadly plasma unfurled all around you, filling the crater with its eerie blue glow.
Ryson remembered being so nervous he'd nearly had to vomit. The first time he squeezed both triggers and the gun exploded to life in his hands he'd nearly been knocked over backwards.
“Don't forget to lean into it.” Ryson hoped he sounded reassuring. “Give yourself a three-count and let 'er rip.”
The newbie leaned forward and Ryson could see the kid was anything but relaxed. He could almost see the kid's spacesuit shaking. The kid pulled the trigger.
“Nothing happened,” said the kid.
“It's a safety feature,” said Ryson. “You gotta squeeze 'em both at once. Remember? Just like in training. No one-handed cowboy shit out here. This is the real deal. You're doing fine. Try again whenever you're ready.”
The kid lined up again. He fired. Nothing.
“Squeeze,” said Ryson, his voice tinny and breathy inside his own helmet.
“I am,” said the kid.
“Harder,” said Ryson.
The ore gun sprang to life like a copper dragon spraying blue fire into the black sky. The recoil knocked the kid over backwards, wrenching the ore gun from his hands. Just before the gun ripped itself out of his grip, the plasma stream arced up and over, coming down first on the other new guy's head, killing him instantly, then on top of Dave, cleaving his shoulder like a mighty sword. The merciless plasma cut Dave in half from shoulder to hip. A millisecond later, he exploded inside his torn pressure suit as the pressure inside his body exceeded the vacuum of space. Ryson watched Dave's blood and guts spray out of his suit. It coalesced in the airless light, a cloud of red rain boiling and sizzling. Dave's frozen, unrecognizable body was gone in an instant. His nearly-empty spacesuit collapsed into the fine powdery regolith beneath his size-eleven boots.
* * *
“Boss?” Larry droned.
Ryson looked at Larry and released both triggers on his gun. He let the rifle hang, his shoulder harness taking the weight. Larry continued to dig, the thin stream of plasma snaking back and forth. Larry was good. He'd joined Ryson's crew just three months ago and already he made the job look effortless. Like twirling a woman around the dance floor.
Dave's remains were taken back to Earth by his beautiful young wife Mathilda. Mathilda walked away from her job as a schoolteacher. Dave was buried in Arlington, given a hero's funeral, all paid for by the company, Deep Core, Incorporated. Mathilda was invited to the White House, where she spent a night alone in the Lincoln Bedroom. Crying. Dave's death made national headlines not because his accident was unique. Far from it. Plasma mining in the craters on Sagan Seven claimed an average of two lives per month. If an errant stream of plasma shot by a rookie miner didn't get you, chances were good Rock Fever would, despite the assurances by Deep Core that the mandatory vaccinations were safe and effective.
What made Dave's death unique was that Mathilda was the great granddaughter of Canary Cherrolet, the wealthiest media tycoon on Earth. Mathilda's threats to go public with the actual numbers of mining fatalities on Sagan Seven forced Deep Core to play ball.
The way the suits saw it, they could let the widow have her day in court and watch the entire multi-trillion dollar colony operation crumble or they could give her what she wanted: the proper recognition for her dead husband.
The way Mathilda saw it, Dave was a hero. He died in the service of mankind, working tirelessly, selflessly on the first off-world colony ever established. When robotic mining equipment proved too costly and unreliable, Dave had been among the first to heed the call for volunteers to ride a rocket to Sagan Seven, strap-on a heavy ore rifle and ride out to the nearest dig site, proud of his ability to contribute to mankind's expansion into the universe. A devout Baptist, Dave had gone fearlessly into the far reaches of space with an anxious young Mathilda in tow.
In the end, Mathilda did go public with the actual figures on Deep Core's Accident-Fatality records. She used her settlement money and her family influence to wage a private war against Deep Core, Inc.
Once the story broke, it failed to cause much stir, despite being splashed all over the headlines. When it came right down to it, the people of Earth proved largely apathetic toward the corporate shroud of secrecy on Sagan Seven, a tiny planet in the next-closest star system. To them, Vega was a blurry speck somewhere in the night sky. Most people could look up into the stars with no idea whatsoever which star was Vega. As long as the shipments continued to come, few bothered themselves with their origin.
After Dave's funeral and her lonely night in Washington, Mathilda retired to an upscale condominium community in Rio de Janeiro. She met and married a wealthy real estate broker. She bore him two beautiful children, one boy and one girl. The boy she named David.
In the only letter Ryson received from her, she enclosed a photograph of her new family. Though she appeared happy, having put the tragedy behind her, Ryson saw the strain in her smile, the pain in her eyes. She still blamed him. He saw it there, in her eyes. The accusation was unmistakable. It was as if her new family was a lesser simulacrum, her new husband a substandard replacement for Dave, her children jewels less precious than those she could have had with Dave. See what happened because of you.
Ryson tried to write back to Mathilda. He didn't know what to say. After several crumpled sheets of paper, and his usual twelve-pack of beer, he gave up. That was over a year ago. He hadn't heard from Mathilda since.
As for the poor kid who killed Dave and the other rookie, Deep Core put his ass on the first transport home. Ryson heard he'd been paid off as well, trading his silence for more money than he could ever spend.
In an act of historical irony, he became Deep Core's canary, paid handsomely not to sing, not to cry out and warn the miners of the dangers all around them in a manner similar to that for which canaries were traditionally used in the coal mines on Earth. Supposedly the kid got a job washing windows at Sky City West, the western-most section of the monolithic three-towered sky-scraper megastructure in Kingdom City, near Manhattan. Sky City's record as the biggest, tallest, most impressive building on Earth still stood nearly sixty years after its construction trumpeted the defiant success of capitalism and the American Way. The Japanese tried to give Sky City a run for its money but just two years into construction an earthquake rattled the man-made island on which stood the first hundred floors of their gleaming, half-risen monolith. The entire structure collapsed into Tokyo Bay. So much seawater was displaced that it completely wiped away the Rainbow Bridge, flooded the nightclubs in Shibuya, and weakened so severely the foundation of the magnificent Tokyo Tower that engineers were forced to condemn the Eiffel-esque beauty, putting up a fence around its entire perimeter. The physical damage to the city paled in comparison to the lives lost that day. The disaster devastated the already-threadbare ultra-nationalistic Japanese morale, dealing what most economists considered to be the death-blow to Japan's ailing economy. They said not even the trillions of dollars of cash infusions by the Americans would save Japan now.
Ryson stood watching Larry gracefully carving out a zebra-striped band of rock. He wondered for the millionth time why the kid, who certainly had not intended to kill Dave, hadn't simply taken the money and run. Perhaps to someplace warm and tropical, where his money would buy him all the drugs, liquor, and women he could need to forget about what happened on Sagan Seven. Why go through all the hassle and red tape of convincing the Powers That Be at Sky City West to give him a job cleaning windows only to ride one of the dozens of freight elevators to the top of the building to find a place from which he could leap to his death?
Ryson quickly performed the calculations in his head again. If the kid weighed-in at about seventy-five kilos, roughly one hundred sixty-five pounds, and he fell nearly two thousand feet at nine-point-eight meters per second squared, that meant it had taken about twelve seconds for the kid to hit the ground. What had gone through his mind? Other than his ass, as the company guys often joked when congregating after work at Sharkey's. Just about everyone turned up in Sharkey's at one point or another, ready to drown their sorrows in a pint or three of space beer. Ryson had always believed the desire to be inebriated to be one of man's greatest follies. That the special space beer was one of the principal exports to Earth was further proof of this hypothesis.
Ryson wondered if the poor kid had been inebriated when he leaped to his death from two-thousand one-hundred-sixty-three feet above Kingdom City. Despite his connections within the company, Ryson had been unable to procure the toxicology report made at the time of the kid's autopsy. He had heard, however, that the impact had been so great as to shatter every bone in the kid's body. He lay puddled in the middle of Eighth Avenue like a big bag of water. Five people were needed to scoop the kid into the body bag before they chucked him into the back of the ambulance. For the time being, he was regarded as just another nameless jumper, maybe a New Wall Street loser or a loony vet living in Kingdom City Municipal Park. Good riddance to bad rubbish most likely. Until some nosy reporters dug up his identity as a miner from Sagan Seven fired by Deep Core.
Did the kid feel anything? Was he conscious as he fell? Was he scared? During the twelve seconds of free-fall, did he change his mind? Did he spend his last moments tormented by the finality of his mistakes?
Ryson often lie in bed at night, drunk, clutching the photograph of Mathilda and her new family, his eyes tightly closed for twelve seconds. It was a long time. A long time to lie there and imagine falling. A long time to lie there feeling the cold scrutiny of a widow 148.6 trillion miles away. A long time to think it should have been him instead of Dave. A long time to think about the kid's suicide. Twelve seconds was a long time to lie there alone in the dark, listening to the soothing bubbling of the aquarium, unable to escape the notion that Mathilda was right, it should have been him to have his body rent by plasma, to have his blood boiled-off into the airless vacuum of Sagan Seven's burgeoning atmosphere. All because of what Deep Core's internal investigation chalked-up to being the result of a rookie's improper supervision.
Twelve seconds was a long time to lie there contemplating suicide.
“Boss?”
Ryson looked up. Larry stood there, rifle in hand, waiting.
“Yeah?”
“I said do you want me to round up the guys, so we can load up and get out of here?”
“Sure. Why the hell not?”
“Now you're talkin', boss! First round of space beer is on me.”
Larry brought the crew in from the perimeter of the crater while Ryson stowed his own gear on the rover, placing his stuff on the hell seat as usual. They secured the excavators and safed all the ore rifles. In no time at all, Larry had everyone seated and buckled in on the rover. Ferdinand drove while Canning, Scott, and the new guy Schillers sat behind him. Larry rode shotgun as always. And, as always, Ryson assumed his place in the hell seat while Ferdinand—("Ferdy" as he was called by the guys, much to his chagrin)—got the rover underway.
“Hey, boss,” said Larry, his deep voice even deeper on intercom, “maybe today's the day you let me drive the Vette?”
“Maybe,” said Ryson. Such was their litany. Ryson didn't know what had first possessed Larry to ask to drive the car, but somehow it just didn't seem right. The Corvette had belonged to Dave.
“You have a Corvette?” asked Schillers. The new guy squirmed around in his seat and looked back at Ryson, his brand new pressure suit still clean and glowing white in the light of Vega. Ryson didn't bother to look back at Schillers.
“The only one on Sagan Seven,” proclaimed Larry. “Shipped the entire one hundred forty-eight-point-six trillion miles from Earth.”
“Wow. That must have cost a fortune,” said Schillers.
Ryson had to give the kid credit. It was an astute observation. Freight on the Vette had been more than a month's worth of Dave's pay. A fact for which Mathilda had never truly forgiven him. She always said that money was for their future, not for driving fast. Mathilda hated the Corvette. She never drove it. Sometimes she even refused to ride in it, especially if they were going to church on Sunday mornings.
“Dave's old lady had the Vette hand-delivered to Ryson's apartment,” said Larry. “Isn't that right, boss?”
“That's right,” said Ryson. It was a Tuesday. He came home from work and found the car waiting for him. What no one else knew was that pinned to the black leather steering wheel by a sharp paring knife was a note: “Dave would have wanted you to have this. I hope you kill yourself in it.” She hadn't even bothered to sign her name. She never said goodbye. The last time Ryson saw Mathilda was in the hospital a few hours after the accident. A sheriff and a chaplain escorted Mathilda, along with one of Deep Core's myriad attorneys. Mathilda stopped when she saw Ryson on his way in from Sharkey's, his eyes red and droopy with space beer. She carried a small box containing Dave's personal effects. Slowly, carefully, she handed the box to the chaplain. She removed her wedding ring and slapped Ryson hard across the face with her left hand. Ryson tasted blood. She replaced her ring, took the box from the chaplain the way a mother accepts her newborn from the nurse, and walked away. She never said a word.
Ryson sat in the hell seat. Ferdy drove up the steep makeshift road they'd carved into the rim of the crater. Ryson looked down into the giant crater and remembered the ride out after the accident. It was a crater similar in diameter and depth to this one. Deep Core's Salvage and Rescue Team was spread too thin that morning and Ryson and the guys had to load up the bodies. What was left of them.
Before the kid had landed on his back in the ashy powder, two people were dead, one of them Ryson's best friend. Ryson ran to Dave's deflated spacesuit. The inner surface of the face shield was coated with frozen, crystallized goop.
“Dave! Dave!” cried Ryson. He shook the shoulders of the suit, feeling almost no weight at all, knowing Dave was gone but calling out to him nonetheless. Ryson grabbed the shredded fabric destroyed by the plasma. He pulled the suit open, as if somehow Dave might be inside, still breathing, still alive.
Reality hit and Ryson dropped the lifeless pressure suit and sat down hard. He looked at his hands, at his articulated gloves. The powdery dirt worked into the fabric mixed with Dave's blood, creating a dark red mud.
The rover hit a bump and Ryson looked around. The bump had been a change in the rover's pitch as they crested the rim of the crater. Ryson looked back down at his hands in his lap. His gloves still had Dave's blood on them. The dark red was muddied now by more powdery grime acquired in the past year. But it was still there. It would always be there.
They drove through the shadow of Mount Improbable and reached the rig. Dawkins had the preflight already completed and sat with engines at idle, ready to take off. He cleared the route with STC and lifted off before the giant cargo bay doors had finished closing. Hardly textbook procedure for piloting a company rig according to Deep Core, Inc.'s Pilot-Surveyor Handbook, with which Ryson was all-too familiar. Normally he'd have chewed Dawkins a new one but it had been a long week.
He sat in the co-pilot’s seat beside Dawkins and pulled both shoulder belts down over his body like retractable suspenders and clicked them into his lap belt. He couldn't get his thoughts of the past out of his mind. Particularly the kid who jumped. Ryson couldn’t stop himself from imagining the moment when the kid had actually done it, actually stepped off the roof. Twelve seconds. An eternity. He desperately wanted a beer.
Dawkins keyed his radio. “Sagan Seven Tower,” he said, “this is Rockbiter Four, inbound with the booze news.”
Ryson always got a kick out of Dawkins's radio technique. Dawkins was the typical outgoing, cocky, gregarious pilot-type. Like Larry, Dawkins was in the third month of his contract and still pretty green. But there was no question about his piloting skills. His judgment as a Surveyor was still developing, however. Ryson often had to help him find a suitable Landing Zone for the rig when they went out on a dig. With very few distinct landmarks on the horizon, depth perception was negated almost entirely. The ability to gauge size and distance was often impossible. If not for the distance and ranging software embedded in the flight control systems on the rig, fatalities due to "Controlled Flight Into Terrain" would be astronomical. There was no question about Dawkins's raw piloting skills, however. Plus, the Space Traffic Controllers loved him. Maybe it was his always new, always unexpected radio personas. Maybe it was his attitude. He was friendly and fun but professional.
“Roger, Rockbiter, radar contact,” the Tower controller came back. “Understand you have A.T.I.S. information Whiskey. You are number two behind a Falcon Heavylifter. Expect I.L.S. number seven direct, L.Z. three-four. Expect delay of two-five minutes for the Heavy.”
“Roger that, Tower,” said Dawkins, “I.L.S. number seven direct, L.Z. three-four.” He let go of his talk switch. “Sorry boys,” he called out to the guys strapped in on the passenger deck behind and slightly below the flight deck, “looks like a half hour or so to get on the ground.” This news was met with a cacophony of groans and profanity.
Ryson silently echoed their sentiments. Christ he needed a beer. “Two-five minutes, my ass,” he said. He keyed his talk button. “Tower, this is Rockbiter Four. I've got a belly full of thirsty miners here. I have the field in sight and can turn short-final now if able, pardner.”
“Uh, roger, Rockbiter,” said the Tower controller, “standby.”
“We don't have the field in sight,” Dawkins said quietly.
“I do,” said Ryson.
“Dude, we're, like, ten nautical miles out. I can't see shit. You got cat eyes or hawk eyes?”
“Something like that,” said Ryson.
“Rockbiter Four,” the controller came back, “understand your boys have had a long night. I can help you get 'em to Sharkey's, pronto. Cancel I.L.S. Turn right, heading three-four-zero, descend and maintain one-thousand, at or below two hundred knots. Cleared to land L.Z. three-four.”
“Three-four-zero, one-thousand, and two hundred knots, clear to land L.Z. three-four,” said Ryson. “Thanks, Tower. I'll rustle you up a cold one.”
“Catch you on the flipside, Rocky. Go to ground on one-three-three-point-niner.”
“One-three-three-point-niner,” Ryson repeated. He released his talk button and looked over his shoulder, down at the guys. “We are inbound with the booze news, fellas. Expect intoxication in one-five minutes.”
Cheers and applause erupted from the passenger deck.
Ryson looked back to find Dawkins staring at him.
“Don't look at me like that,” said Ryson. “Like you never bullshit the controllers.”
“I gotta roll my pants up really high because the bullshit is getting thick. That was damned impressive, boss.”
“Thanks.”
“I guess an old dog can perform new tricks.”
“You’re good, kid, but there are still some things you don’t know. Get me on the ground in one piece and the first round is on me.”
“The first round is on me!” called Larry.
“And don't hit the mountain,” added Ryson.
“What mountain?” asked Dawkins.
“That mountain.” Ryson pointed off to his right. Mount Improbable loomed in the light of Vega. “Please tell me you didn’t actually fail to notice the tallest object on Sagan Seven.”
“I saw it,” said Dawkins. “I just didn’t realize we were getting so close to it.”
“A three-four-zero heading is going to take us right past it. We're cleared to fly at or below one thousand feet. Mount Improbable is over ten-thousand meters high. That's taller than Mount Everest the last time I checked. If we're flying at one thousand feet, there's twenty-nine thousand feet of solid mountain above us for you to fly right into. You've heard of Controlled Flight Into Terrain, right?”
“C.F.I.T.?” said Dawkins, “of course.”
“So if you fly us into that mountain under controlled flight conditions I will personally kick your ass.”
“Understood, boss.” Dawkins was quiet for a time. “Boss, can I ask you a question?”
“Shoot.”
“Why do we measure altitude in feet but the company measures everything in kilotons of ore and meters or kilometers of rock?”
“Because the Metric System is a much less complicated method of measurement.”
“So why don't we switch?”
“Because Americans are damned stubborn.”
“Amen!” shouted Canning from the crew deck.
They rode in silence as Dawkins took them on their assigned route. They flew through the shadow of Mount Improbable. Ryson looked up at its summit. He had to lean forward to see it.
“You've been on this rock the longest,” Dawkins said, looking over at Ryson, “ever been to the top?”
“Up there?” Ryson pointed to the mountain. “Nope. Few have.”
“Want me to take us over there?”
Ryson looked at Dawkins. “You're kidding, right?”
“Hell no,” said Dawkins. “We can make it.”
“No way,” said Ryson. “Company won't allow it. The first team to try was a survey crew. They crashed up there. A second team was sent to rescue them. They crashed, too. No one knows why. The company cut its losses and declared the whole site off-limits. That was about fifteen years ago.”
“You mean there's still bodies and wreckage and stuff up there?”
“Affirmative.”
“That's creepy.” Dawkins craned his neck to see the top. “Is there any other way up there?”
“Supposedly there's a road to the top,” said Ryson. “Actually it's more like a trail. Every few years some drunk, stupid teenagers make a run at it like it's the Pikes Peak Hill Climb or something. But you can't carry enough oxygen to make it there and back. They usually die before the rescue team finds them. Deep Core doesn't have any ground-based vehicles fast enough that could handle the terrain. It would be a one-way trip. A suicide mission.”
“I bet your Corvette could make it,” said Larry.
Ryson looked over his shoulder. Larry and the other guys sat looking up at him.
“You mean Dave's Corvette.”
“Is he your friend who got killed?” asked Dawkins.
“Let it go, Dawkins,” said Larry.
“It was an accident, right?” asked Dawkins. “From what I heard, it could've happened to anyone. It wasn't your fault.”
“Just fly the damn ship, okay?” said Ryson.
“But boss-”
“I said drop it!”
Dawkins didn't say another word. He flew the rig past Mount Improbable and onto the spaceport. "Rockbiter Four cleared to land?" he droned into his mic.
"Rockbiter Four, cleared to land," replied the Tower controller.
Dawkins guided the rig gently down toward the ramp, the shutdown checklist ready on the kneeboard tablet strapped to his thigh. Ryson watched the Heavylifter arrive and begin making its descent as well. The Heavylifters were huge vehicles. They moved very slowly around the spaceport environment. Less maneuverable aircraft had the right-of-way.
“What do those things do, anyway?” asked Dawkins, following Ryson's gaze. “It looks like a pregnant whale.”
“They tend to arrive on the field early in the morning or late at night,” said Ryson. He was sorry he'd snapped at Dawkins and was glad to have something to talk about. “I'm accustomed to finding a way around them.”
Dawkins grinned. “Yeah, I'll definitely remember that one.”
“They primarily shuttle ore from Sagan Seven to the Moon, where it's transferred to the massive elevators for the drop shipment back to the United States,” said Ryson.
“Tell the kid how it all works, boss,” called Larry.
“With the global economy as bad as it is, it's our space program, begun way back in the nineteen sixties, that ultimately put us ahead of the rest of the world. As Earth's natural resources have continued to dwindle, prices have gone up on everything from water to toothpaste to fuel. The only solution lay in pioneering off-world planets. The same mentality that drove the likes of Christopher Columbus, Ferdinand Magellan—”
“That's who I'm named after!” shouted Ferdy.
“—and Ponce de Leon to explore the oceans for other continents pushed people to move west from the New England colonies of seventeenth and eighteenth-century America. In the twenty-first century, it pushed us deeper and deeper into the unknown reaches of space. It wasn’t cheap and a lot of people died. But now, if you want grain or rice or rock or clean water, you ask us. Our gargantuan ore refineries drive the only remaining healthy economy. With possession being nine-tenths of the law, we own not only the Moon but Sagan Seven as well. Everything you see belongs to us.” Ryson looked out the broad windshield of the rig as Dawkins set it down on the ramp and quickly ran his checklist. Ryson looked over his shoulder at the crew below, “You guys keep your butts strapped in until Dawkins gets this heap secured.”
“Aw, come on, boss,” said Larry.”
“I mean it,” said Ryson. “No overriding the safety harness release, either. If one of you trips and falls and busts your teeth out, it'll be my ass, not yours.”
“Did somebody mention ass?” said Ferdy.
“You have a one-track mind, Ferdy,” said Canning.
“Don't you think we should try to help the other poor countries of the world?” asked the new guy Schillers.
“Buy me a beer and we can talk,” said Ryson. “Until then, let's just keep our mouths shut while Dawkins gets this thing shut down.”
No one argued. They waited quietly while Dawkins finished his shutdown procedures and finally hit the CREW button on the dash. The red lights on everybody's seat harness switched to green and they began releasing the buckles.
They exited the rig and made their way to the terminal, through the airlock to the ready room and from there into the locker room. Both were empty this time of night, as the nine-to-fivers wouldn't be in until Monday morning.
Ryson hurriedly removed his spacesuit. He showered quickly, washing the musty smell off his skin and out of his hair. He scrubbed vigorously at his hands.
He and the other guys exited the terminal and entered the open expanse of the geodesic dome. The colony had been constructed in a series of massive domes, all connected by tunnels with airlocks that could be individually sealed in the event of an accident. Each dome was essentially a self-sufficient, self-contained habitat, a city unto itself, categorized by a simple alphanumeric system. The terminal was part of Alphadome, the first structure built almost thirty years ago. It was far smaller than most of the other domes, particularly the newest Julietdome, which boasted new, upscale single-family residences, mostly occupied by Deep Core executives and their families. Ryson's crummy little bachelor pad was on the far side of Alphadome, within walking distance of Sharkey's. Alphadome was scheduled for a facelift, though Ryson didn't see much attempt to clean it up. The company seemed to be hard at work on Kilodome, the newest structure on Sagan Seven. It was the largest dome yet. Word had it that Kilodome was going to cater mostly to tourists. It was supposed to have an amusement park and a slew of ritzy hotels with an upscale shopping district, plenty of trees, and two golf courses. Alphadome didn't have a single tree. It was a concrete jungle. But it was home.
Ryson opened the door to his Corvette. Larry, Dawkins, Schillers, and the other guys approached the shiny red sports car.
“This is it, huh?” asked Schillers.
“This is it,” said Larry. “Two-thousand-fifty Corvette Stingray. Eight hundred-seventy rear-wheel horsepower from a five-point-nine liter non-aspirated twelve-cyclinder circumelectric hydrogen motor connected to a six-speed pseudo-manual transmission coupled with a butter-smooth gearbox. Sixty-two miles per gallon street, seventy miles per gallon highway. Top speed two-hundred-forty-seven miles per hour. Less than three thousand miles.”
“Don't jerk yourself off too much, Larry,” said Ferdy.
“You seem more excited about it than the boss does,” said Schillers.
“That's because I recognize a true work of art when I see one,” said Larry.
“What's that on the hood?” asked Schillers.
“That's our Lord and Savior, you moron,” said Ferdy.
“I can see that,” said Schillers.
On the hood was an enormous lifelike rendering of a crucified, nearly naked Jesus Christ, depicted with his bloodied, stigmata hands outstretched. A crown of thorns stabbed his head. A halo of golden light surrounded him. Blood sprayed from a gash on the right side of his ribcage.
“What better way to decorate your automobile than by painting Jesus on the hood?” said Canning.
“Why is he all bloody and stuff?” asked Schillers.
“You don't know?” asked Dawkins.
“No, man,” said Schillers, “my parents are atheists. I was raised agnostic. I don't know anything about Jesus.”
“You don't know anything about the Son of God?” asked Ferdy.
“Are you deaf? I just said I don't know.”
“Cool it, you guys,” said Dawkins. “Boss, would you care to explain?”
Ryson sighed. “Dave used to say 'The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away.' He said God allowed him to have this car, so he wanted to honor His generosity. And he hoped it would make Mathilda want to ride in it with him.”
“Did it work?” asked Dawkins.
“No,” Ryson replied.
“But why is he all bloody?” Schillers asked again.
“Dave said it symbolized the suffering Jesus endured to absolve us of our sins,” said Ryson. “And that even though it isn’t pretty, the reality of Jesus's suffering shouldn't be ignored. Plus Dave paid a Catholic Mexican tattoo artist from Charliedome to paint the car. Once it was on there, Dave said to leave it because this is the image God wanted on the car.”
“Why don't you paint over it?” asked Schillers. “Or sell it? Or just buy another car?”
“You don't listen too good, do you?” asked Canning. “The man just said this is the image God wanted on the car. You gonna try and argue with God the Father Almighty?”
“Didn't I just say I was agnostic?” said Schillers.
“You don't believe in God?” Canning demanded.
“Hell, I don't know. My dad says God is a man-made construct invented to make people feel better about dying,” said Schillers.
“How do you explain the fact that virtually every culture on Earth, no matter how primitive, worshipped gods or deities or a single God?” asked Canning.
“You don't listen too good, either, do you, Canning?” said Schillers. “Like I just said, my parents always said it's a way for mankind to feel better about the pathetic uncertainty of life. Plus it gives people someone to be pissed at when bad shit happens that they can't explain. Like hurricanes and tornadoes and Rock Fever and your friends getting cut in half by a plasma rifle.”
Ryson saw everyone look at him, awaiting his reaction. Ryson fought to appear calm. Inside he was thinking about the instant Dave exploded. It took a lot less than twelve seconds.
“Boss?” said Larry.
“Yes, Larry?”
“You're an educated man and the oldest one here. What do you think?”
“I think you’d better get your ass in the goddamn car if you're coming with me.”
Nobody moved. His crew stood looking to him now for an answer, the way they did out in the craters.
Finally, he relented. “I tried to sell the car,” said Ryson. “Even had some takers, a couple yuppie suits from Julietdome. But in the end I just couldn't do it. It just didn't seem right. You’re asking do I believe in God? Do I think God sent Dave a Corvette all the way from Earth just to have it detailed with a suffering Jesus shortly before he got cut in half by plasma, making the car my responsibility so we could all stand here and debate theology? I don't know. I'm tired. Right now, I just want to get drunk. Anybody who wants to join me is welcome.”
“So, boss, can I drive her to Sharkey's?” Larry asked. “I promise I'll keep it under one-fifty.”
“Not today,” said Ryson.
Larry turned to the guys as he opened the passenger-side door. “He always says that. See you guys over there.”
“I'm going home,” said Schillers. “I'm beat.” Schillers yawned as if on cue.
“Me too,” said Scott.
“Me three,” said Canning.
“Let me guess, Ferdy,” said Ryson, “you're broke and don't like charity so you're going home, too.”
“Sorry, boss, but that's about the size of it.”
“It’s nice you send money to your family but you ought to keep some for yourself,” said Ryson. “You could get killed here. You should at least enjoy life.”
“I enjoy sending my money home,” said Ferdy. “It does them more good than it does me.”
“Suit yourselves,” said Ryson. He looked at Dawkins. “You coming?”
“I’ll tag along,” said Dawkins. He fished keys out of his pocket and hopped on his small electric scooter. “Race ya.” Dawkins twisted the throttle and the little red scooter popped a wheelie. Dawkins rode down the street with the front tire spinning lazily in the air.
Ryson got in the Corvette, followed by Larry. The other guys turned and walked away, dispersing in different directions.
Ryson drove toward the saloon. His mind buzzed with a dozen different thoughts, and yet none at all. “Too bad the other guys went home.” What he meant was that he hated drinking alone. Larry was usually good for about three beers, and then he’d get sleepy and start blathering about missing his pillow. Dawkins was an unknown quantity. He was still in his probationary period and had only come to Sharkey’s a couple times.
“Boss?”
Ryson looked around. He hadn’t been paying attention to the road. They were approaching Ryson’s apartment, not far from Sharkey’s. “What?”
“You know all that stuff you said about America being the sole leader of global industry and all that?”
“Yeah.”
“Do you think we should try and help the poor countries of the world?”
“Nah. Fuck them,” said Ryson. “We tried all that shit long before you and I were even born. All we got was shit on. We played Big Brother to the poor and downtrodden people of the Earth. Even when we had no real economic interest in doing so. Look at all the dough the government pumped into Africa, Asia, Russia. Even Eastern Europe and the Middle East. What did we get for our trouble? The rest of the world shitting on us. Accusing us of geopolitical imperialism. Turning their backs while we went after the rogue states bent on eliminating capitalism, democracy, freedom. I know we had to cut some corners and do some things we aren't proud of–”
“Aren't proud of?” Larry interrupted. “You mean like toppling nation after nation based on a pack of lies and allegedly poor intelligence? Excuse me while I check both legs to see which one is being pulled. I don’t know about you but I don’t like the idea of one country running the whole damn world.”
“History has shown that there is more peace and less war and death during periods of empirical rule. Look at the Roman Empire, the British Empire.”
“Well, I still don’t like it.”
“Well goddamnit, what's the alternative? You want our country to go to hell along with the rest of the shitty, judgmental world? Christ, at least we all have jobs and money and food and a place to live, a place to sleep, a place to make love to our wives.”
“I'm not married yet.”
“A place to jerk off then. I'm not married either but at least we have the option. We don't wake up every day fighting for our survival.”
“I hate to break it to you, boss,” said Larry, “but we do fight for our survival every day. What's worse, we don't even have the comfort of knowing we don't have a choice, that if we don't find food and shelter we'll die. No, we spend each day working in an environment far more dangerous and less forgiving than a third-world desert town. The worst part is we do it for money.”
“You know what I mean. Being here is still better than being down there. How can you not agree?”
“Come on, boss, you're the one with the Savior painted on the hood of your car.”
“And if it wouldn't desecrate the memory of the man who gave it to me, I would’ve had it painted the day after I got the car. You think I don't have enough on my mind trying to keep you monkeys from hacking each other to pieces with your ore guns? Everywhere I go someone knows me, knows the car, or knows Dave. Knew Dave, that is.”
“Be proud of it,” said Larry. “Maybe the answer to your problems is not to escape the Lord, but to embrace Him.”
“He can embrace my lily-white ass,” said Ryson.
They arrived at Sharkey's and he found an empty parking slot next to Dawkins’s scooter.
They went inside and rode the elevator up to the saloon. Sharkey's was mostly empty. Dawkins was already at the bar, munching on peanuts out of a little wooden bowl. Ryson and Larry sat next to him. Larry bought the first pitcher of space beer and Big Sam filled a cold, frosty pitcher from the tap. The space beer frothed up a thick, foamy head, and Sam scraped it off.
They drank in relative silence, seldom speaking. Ryson looked through the massive windows at the sprawling urban decay of Alphadome. He could see the spire of the Space Traffic Control Tower. Beyond it loomed the massive peak of Mount Improbable.
“I think I’m going to head home,” said Larry.
“We just got here,” said Ryson. “Our first pitcher isn’t empty yet.”
“You guys finish it,” said Larry. “I’m going to go home and be depressed and drunk by myself. See you Monday.”
“Don’t you need a ride?” said Ryson.
Larry smiled and shook his head. “Feel like walking. Later, fellas.” He went to the elevator and smiled again as the doors closed.
“And then there were two,” said Dawkins. “Bunch of pussies.” He emptied the pitcher into Ryson’s tumbler. “Sammy! Another pitcher, if you please! And more nuts!”
Sam brought the pitcher and another bowl of peanuts.
Ryson drank his beer and looked out at Mount Improbable.
“What do you think happened up there?” asked Dawkins, considering the giant brown mountain. “Why’d they crash?”
“No one knows.”
“Didn’t the controllers hear anything?”
“Nope. It was like one minute they were flying right, the next minute they were gone. Same with the rescue ship.”
“So no black boxes, huh?”
“Nope, they’re still up there.”
“What about drones?”
“They sent three. Each one crashed.”
“What about the families?” asked Dawkins. “They must’ve demanded some kind of explanation.”
“I’d probably be killed, or at least seriously fired, if anyone found out I told you this but there were funeral services for the people who died up there. Deep Core arranged the whole thing. The families thought they were getting their loved one’s remains and a lavish funeral paid for by the company. What they got was a casket full of someone else’s corpse. Some other poor slob who had an accident out in the craters or maybe didn’t bounce back from Rock Fever.”
Dawkins looked horrified. “How can they do something like that?”
“The success of this colony is of paramount importance,” said Ryson. “There’s a substantial, and I do mean substantial, dollar amount attached to this operation. Deep Core would never allow a couple dozen fatalities to stand in the way of the greatest development project in the history of mankind.”
“That’s deplorable,” said Dawkins.
“Is it?” Ryson asked. “The Earth is one big war-torn, rat-infested slum. It’s dying. We all need this fifty-trillion-dollar experiment to work. If lying to a few dozen people about their loved ones and burying the truth is what has to be done, then I say do it.” He chugged the rest of his beer and filled his glass again.
“I suppose you have a point,” said Dawkins. “Sometimes the good of the many must come before the good of the few. Still, I think the families should’ve been told the truth. Deep Core compensated them very generously anyway, so why not be honest and tell them what happened? I think they would’ve appreciated that. I know I would’ve.”
“The truth shall set you free?” asked Ryson.
“Something like that.”
Ryson emptied the pitcher into Dawkins’s glass and ordered a third.
Then a fourth.
Sam brought the fifth pitcher and set it on the bar. “You guys are walking home, right?”
“But of course we are,” declared Dawkins, affecting an English accent. “I am far too drunk to risk the life of my trusty steed.” He pointed out the window at the red scooter parked on the street below, next to the gleaming red Vette bathed in the blue neon glow of the Sharkey’s sign.
Ryson laughed and looked at his bleary self in the mirror behind the bar.
Dawkins sat turned half-sideways on his barstool, craning his neck toward the windows. He eyed the red Vette.
“You’re gonna break your neck lookin’ at that thing,” said Ryson.
“Can’t help it,” said Dawkins, “she’s gorgeous. Except for that Jesus shit on the hood. You gotta paint over that. Cover it up.”
Ryson gulped the last two swigs of his beer, then belched loudly. “No way. That’s Dave’s car. I can’t change nothing. Ain’t that the truth.” He shook his head at his self-awareness.
“Bullshit,” said Dawkins. He refilled Ryson’s glass, pouring with the slow, deliberate motion of a drunk person doing his best not to spill. “That’s your car now. You can do whatever you want to it. You can cut the whole fuggin’ roof off if you want, make it a drop-top Jesus. Cut the top right off. I’ve got a real nice laser saw back at my place. It’ll cut through anything. We could cut Jesus out of the hood. Then put in a big, clear piece of plastic you can see through so people can look at the engine without having to pop the hood to have a go under the old bonnet.” Dawkins resumed his accent. "Look, I have a stiff uppah lip!” He stuck his drunken saliva-soaked lips out. He looked like he was trying to kiss a woman much taller than himself, or perhaps an ostrich; ostriches were rather tall.
“What are you talking about?” asked Ryson.
“Oh come now, mate, I mean bloke, let’s get my laser saw and have a little go at old Jesus on the bonnet of your auto-mobeel. In fact, let’s just go outside and stand on the hood and we’ll urinate on Jesus. We’ll piss all ovah him. It’ll be a gas. What do you say?”
“Hell no.” Ryson looked at himself all twisted and warped in the mirror behind the bar. The tall skinny yellow pyramid bottle of Galliano liqueur stood with its top near the reflection of Ryson’s mouth, as if ready to pour itself down his throat and numb him; he need only open his mouth and it would help him forget. Forget the Sunday rides up Interstate 80 to Placerville with Dave and Mathilda, the Golden Cadillac cocktails poured with the yellow anise-vanilla sweet Galliano for which Poor Red’s was famous, famous enough to make the little red roadhouse the number one buyer of Galliano in the continental United States. “I’ve done a lot of stupid shit in my time,” said Ryson, “but I would never, ever piss in the face of Jesus. I mean, what is wrong with you?”
“He don’t exist so it ain’t no big deal. It’s like pissin’ on Mickey Mouse.”
“You don’t piss on Mickey Mouse, either! You don’t piss on anyone. Jesus said for us to always do our best to have love in our heart at all times and to do our best to love one another and help one another. And what did I do? I dragged Dave up here away from Earth and got him killed. I ruined a lot of lives. I don’t deserve to live. Dave should be alive and well and living with Mathilda back on Earth, raising the family they should’ve had together. But instead he followed me up here to this God-forsaken place. I can’t blame Mathilda for being angry. I know I would be. It should’ve been me who got cut in half by that poor kid’s plasma, instead of Dave. I don’t deserve to live. The company was right, I didn’t supervise that poor kid like I should’ve. I don’t deserve to live.”
“If that’s how you feel, do something about it,” said Dawkins.
“Like what?”
“Like waste yourself. Have it over with.”
Ryson looked at Dawkins. “Kill myself?”
“Sure!” Dawkins drank from his beer.
Ryson looked at Sam, standing at the far end of the bar, pretending not to listen. But for the three of them, Sharkey’s was empty.
“Don’t tell me you’re scared of dyin’,” said Dawkins.
“Course I am. It might hurt. And what happens after that?”
“Oh bullshit,” said Dawkins. He slammed his glass on the bar and beer sloshed out of it. “You work in the most inhospitable place in the solar system. You face death every day. So don’t give me any of this I’m-scared-of-dyin’ bullshit.”
“Aren’t you afraid of dyin’?”
“Me? Hell no. What’s to be afraid of?” Dawkins swooped his glass off the bar, spilling beer onto the floor. Sam shook his head and went on drying glasses.
“Don’t you believe in God?” asked Ryson.
“Nope. I’m an atheist, like Schillers’ mommy and daddy. Religion is the greatest show on Earth. How else would so many millions and billions of people go willingly to their deaths, if not fighting for the god they profess to be so wonderful and mighty? It’s all a bunch of codswallop if you ask me. So let’s go piss on your Jesus!” Dawkins slid off the barstool and nearly fell before righting himself. He stood expectantly, waiting for Ryson.
“We’re not pissing on Jesus. It’s not right. Besides, it’s sacrilegious. And that’s Dave’s car and Dave gave it to me because he loved it and I know I’m a piece of shit who doesn’t deserve to live but the least I can do is honor Dave’s last wish and take care of his car.”
“Well then, let’s take it for a spin.” Dawkins smiled, proud of his idea.
“We’re both too drunk to drive.”
“I won’t tell if you won’t.”
Ryson looked at Sam, done drying glasses and hunched over his latest issue of Sagan Seven Smut. Sam stared at a glossy spread of a blond half-wearing a space suit and holding an ore rifle, her pink tongue curled near the muzzle.
“Where’re we going to go?” asked Ryson.
“Up there, of course!” Dawkins pointed to Mount Improbable. “You said there was a road. Let’s find it. The Vette can make it. I know it can.”
“No way,” said Ryson, “the terrain is too rocky.”
“Then let’s take the rig. We’ll load the Vette into the back and fly up there, then we can drive around. We’ll fill it full of beers and see how fast it can go.” Dawkins carefully blinked his wide, excited eyes.
“We’ll probably kill ourselves,” said Ryson.
“Exactly,” said Dawkins. “I’ll bet you five bucks we kill ourselves.”
“I’m not going to kill myself over five bucks.”
“A month’s pay, then.” Dawkins held out his left hand and gulped from the beer in his right hand.
Ryson shook Dawkins’s hand awkwardly and they stumbled to the elevator. Sam never looked up from the bronze blonde in his magazine, now wearing only her mining boots.
Thirty minutes later, Ryson and Dawkins had the rover offloaded from the rig, with the Vette parked in its place in the cargo bay. Dawkins opened his book of checklists.
Ryson grabbed the book and tossed it over his shoulder and into the crew compartment below. "We don't need that shit." He powered up the rig and lifted off, working from memory. "The tower's closed 'til morning but we'll turn off the transponder, just in case."
He flew slowly until they were away from the space port, then continued at low altitude. Mount Improbable remained fixed in the rig’s windshield. Ryson flew straight at it.
Ryson and Dawkins were each on their fifth can of space beer when the distance-and-ranging systems lit up like Christmas trees.
“What the hell is that?” said Dawkins.
“It’s the flight computer saying, ‘Hey, fuckface, there’s a big mountain in front of you. Look out!’" Ryson deactivated the computer. "That's for pussies."
Both men laughed. Dawkins spilled beer on himself.
Mount Improbable grew steadily larger. Then larger still.
“Is it a volcano?” asked Dawkins.
“It’s a mesa. See how the top is flat? Mesa means table in Spanish.”
“Voulez-vous coucher avec moi, ce soir?”
“That’s French, dipshit,” said Ryson.
Both men laughed again. Dawkins spilled more beer.
“Let’s fly into the side of the mountain,” said Dawkins.
“C.F.I.T.?” asked Ryson.
“Fuck yes! C.F.I.T.!”
“No way,” said Ryson. “The rig is company property. Deep Core would sue us and take all our money to cover the cost of destroying it. Besides, I want to see what’s up there.” He pointed his can of space beer at the flat top of Mount Improbable. With his other hand he applied backpressure to the yoke and the rig slowly pitched up, angling toward the giant mountain and the vast mesa.
“At what point did those two other ships crash?” asked Dawkins.
“Not sure,” said Ryson. “Rumor has it they misjudged their ascent and crashed into the edge of the rock. A couple of hundred-million-dollar ships and dozens of bodies, splattered all across the mesa. But don't worry, we'll make it.”
“Shit, I ain’t worried.” Dawkins upended his beer and drained its contents into his mouth. He crushed the can and tossed it over his shoulder. It clanked hollow and empty on the metal grid floor of the lower deck. He reached between the seats and grabbed another beer out of the map storage compartment they’d crammed full of beer.
“How’s the Vette doing?” asked Ryson.
Dawkins looked past the crew deck to the cargo bay, where the Vette was secured with fat, dirty yellow nylon tie-down straps ratcheted snugly over all four massive tires. “She’s doin’ fine, boss. Let’s get on the ground and get her unloaded. I’m achin’ to see what she’s got.” He popped open his beer and drank heartily. He surveyed the horizon through the windshield, craning his neck to see the top of Mount Improbable, the lip of the mesa. “Looks like a perfect night to die.”
“You really don’t believe in God?” asked Ryson. “Hand me another beer.”
Dawkins handed the beer to Ryson. “I don’t know, man,” said Dawkins. “I’ve seen so much fucked up shit in my time. I don’t see how a God worth his weight in salt can let people kill each other and rape each other and molest little kids and rob liquor stores and shoot old ladies. I think we’re born, we live, we die. And that’s it.”
“That’s it?” Ryson popped his beer and drank.
“That’s it.”
“Guess we’re going to find out, huh?” Ryson saw Dawkins whip his head toward him. “Unless you changed your mind.”
“Hell no,” said Dawkins. “Let’s off ourselves. I’ve had a good life. I’ve lived and worked on another planet, for Christ’s sake. I’m ready to die.”
Brown rock steadily filled the windshield as the lip of the mesa grew nearer. Ryson increased his backpressure, increased his throttles. He waited for the rig’s rate-of-climb to increase. The proximity warning systems began Bloop-bloop-blooping loudly and flashing their lights. Ryson tapped the main display, silencing them.
They approached the lip of the mesa. Ryson felt himself leaning back in his seat, sitting up straighter, anticipating the rise. He could see Dawkins doing the same.
“You sure we’re gonna make it?” asked Dawkins.
“No.”
“Shit. Oh fuck."
A straight brown line of rock cut across the windscreen, contrasted with the blackness of space.
“Oh fuck,” said Dawkins.
Ryson felt himself applying more backpressure, pulling on the yoke more than he needed to, but he couldn’t help himself.
The rig angled upward, its pitch attitude increasing. Groans of metal echoed through the rig. Ryson heard the Vette pulling and creaking against the dirty yellow tie-downs as the car tried to slide backward. Its sleek red nose pointed upward at the lip of the mesa looming in the windshield.
“Oh fuck,” said Dawkins.
The lip grew closer and closer. It was impossible to judge their distance from it, impossible to discern if they were going to clear the rock, or fly right into it. C.F.I.T.
“Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck . . .” Dawkins chanted.
Ryson drank from his beer. He felt the cold aluminum can against his lips and the cold, bubbly beer sharp in his mouth and glugging down his throat. He watched the lip grow closer. Closer. The brown rock rushed toward them, giant brown crags and deep, dark fissures, any one of which their rig could crash into and be lost in forever. Ryson swallowed more and more beer. Watching. Waiting. Dawkins cursing beside him. The sounds of metal fatigue echoing all around them. The ship creaking and groaning.
The ridge lay directly ahead, so big and wide Ryson could see the striations in the ancient rock.
"Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck!" Dawkins yelled.
Ryson pressed the cold can hard to his mouth and chugged the beer in great painful gulps.
They cleared the ridge. The rig sailed over the lip of the mesa.
“We made it!” cried Dawkins. “I knew we would! Great flying, boss! Cheers!” Dawkins held out his beer and Ryson bumped it with his own. Both men drank. Dawkins finished his beer, crushed it as he had the one before it, and tossed it over his shoulder. He fished a fresh beer from the storage box, popped it open, and handed it to Ryson. Ryson crushed his empty can, chucked it over his shoulder with the rest, and took the beer. He exhaled a sigh of great relief and sipped at the fresh beer. It tasted marvelous.
Ryson released his backpressure on the yoke. The rig leveled off. Dawkins popped the top on a fresh beer for himself and together they looked at the vast, flat mesa for the first time.
The debris field was enormous. Chunks and shards of bent, twisted metal glinted in Vega's yellow-white light. The spilled guts of two ships. And it was everywhere.
“Is that them?” asked Dawkins. “Is that the two ships that crashed?”
“I’d say that’s them.”
Dawkins whistled long and low. “It looks like a tornado went through a trailer park. What the hell happened? Why’d they crash?”
“Don’t know.”
“Let’s find the black boxes and find out,” said Dawkins. “We can solve the mystery. We’ll be heroes!”
“I thought we were here to kill ourselves in that goddamned Corvette.”
“Oh yeah. Well, let’s be heroes first and kill ourselves second.”
“Let’s start with getting this rig on the ground. Then we can unload the Vette and have a look around.”
“Where should we set down?”
“Right over there.” Ryson pointed through the windshield.
Ryson guided the rig toward the surface, bleeding off airspeed and altitude as he went. He found a wide area clear of debris and landed the rig. He held his breath until he felt the rig’s massive landing gear touch down, the giant feet crushing the rock, the long suspension struts taking the ship’s weight.
Ryson and Dawkins took long, much-needed turns visiting the head, after which they donned their pressure suits. Ryson said the beer slowed this normally mundane task; Dawkins said the beer accelerated it.
They untied the Vette and Ryson reversed it slowly down the cargo ramp. He felt the wide tires roll onto the powdery rock and wondered what the hell they were doing.
Dawkins opened the passenger door and climbed in. “Ready?” He looked at Ryson through the oversized bubble of his helmet, smiling and drunk. “Let’s do this.”
Ryson shifted into first gear and stomped on the accelerator. The engine roared and all eight-hundred-seventy horsepower poured into the rear tires. Two giant fans of brown dirt and rock rooster-tailed into the air. The rubber bit into the rock and the car leaped forward, its rear-end fishing side-to-side, back and forth.
Ryson spun the steering wheel in his hands, trying to keep the nose of the car pointed toward open ground. They picked up speed and the car came under control. Ryson upshifted, turned away from the rig, upshifted again, and headed off into the distance. Within seconds the speedometer projected in the Heads-Up-Display in the windshield showed their speed ticking rapidly upward. One hundred miles per hour came and went. One-thirty. One-forty. One-fifty. One-seventy-five. One-eighty. One-ninety.
“Oh fuck oh Christ!” said Dawkins.
Ryson glanced at him and saw Dawkins sitting rigid in his seat, one hand on the dash, the other clutching the door handle.
Two hundred miles per hour. Two-ten. Two-twenty. Two-thirty. Two-forty.
Ryson pressed on the gas pedal as hard as he could. Kept his boot mashed to it.
Two-fifty. Two-sixty.
“Holy fuck!” cried Dawkins. “I thought it only went two-forty-seven!” He shouted over the noise of the powder and rock rushing all around them, the steady roar of the exhaust, the perfect pumping of all twelve cylinders screaming under the hood, beneath the heart-wrenching image of the sacrificial Christ.
“That was back on earth!” Ryson shouted. “We’re on another planet.”
“How fast will it go?”
Two-seventy came and went.
Two-seventy-five.
Two-eighty.
Ryson kept his foot on the gas.
“How fast?” shouted Dawkins.
“I don’t know!”
“Should we slow down?”
Ryson thought about it. Dawkins was probably right. They were screaming across the mesa at nearly three hundred miles per hour, tearing through the debris field. It was only a matter of time before they hit something, a piece of fuselage, torn-off landing gear, a dead body. What they were doing was suicide.
Ryson kept the wheel straight, held tight with both hands. The steering wheel felt thick and far away through his gloves. Gloves caked with ancient gray powder and Dave’s blood. Ryson kept his foot hard on the gas pedal.
Two-eighty-five. Two-ninety.
Giant pieces of unidentifiable debris raced by. Huge metallic chunks as big as houses.
Two-ninety-five.
The debris was coming less frequently. They cleared the debris field and raced through open ground.
Somewhere in the distance lay the edge of the mesa.
3 0 0 ticked across the windshield, bright red digits, crisp and electric.
Somewhere in the distance lay a sheer cliff. It was impossible to determine where. It didn’t matter. They were going over the edge. Twelve seconds was a long time to fall. Ryson hoped it lasted much longer than twelve seconds. He hoped it lasted an eternity. An eternity of pain. It was what he deserved.
3 0 5.
3 1 0.
“Okay, okay, okay!” screamed Dawkins. “That’s fast enough. Slow down!”
3 1 5.
Ryson held his boot to the floor. He pulled on the steering wheel, pressing his foot down hard.
3 2 0.
How fast would Dave’s car go?
How much power did Corvette Jesus have?
321, 322, 323, 324. 325. 326.
The edge was approaching. Ryson could feel it. Sense it. The black expanse of space grew larger and larger. Less and less brown rock remained before them. The end was coming, coming fast.
“I’m sorry!” screamed Dawkins. “I don’t want to die! I don’t want to die! I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry….”
Ryson heard Dawkins breaking down, lamenting his past, but he didn’t dare look at him. He pressed hard on the gas, held tight to the wheel. He saw the bloody, suffering Jesus on the hood of the car, fixed there, unmoving, clearing the path ahead of them as they hurtled across the mesa, hurtled through space and time and past and present, through fear and pain and joy and sorrow, the red Corvette running smooth and perfect, like a drop of blood shed for someone who didn’t deserve it, someone who ran from his mistakes, someone who lied and hid behind greater and greater lies, a coward through and through, a coward steering himself toward the black void, toward the cliff from which he could never return.
And there was Jesus, painted on the hood, surrounded by deep red, unmoving, unflinching, as the cliff approached. As the cold, empty void came steadily on. If Ryson was going to drive himself off the cliff, Corvette Jesus was coming with him. They were inseparable.
Ryson eased his foot off the gas.
He couldn’t do it, couldn’t destroy the beautiful car Dave loved and cherished, couldn’t kill himself, couldn’t take his own life and that of Dawkins, poor drunk weeping Dawkins in the passenger seat.
The car began to slow, winding down from its frenzy.
300, 220, 150, 100 . . .
The dust and rock and roar of the exhaust subsided.
75, 50, 30, 20, 10, 5 . . .
The Vette eased to a stop.
Silence atop the mesa.
Dawkins sat very still. His eyes were closed inside his helmet, his body rigid.
Ryson opened the door and got out. He walked around the front of the car. The eerie glow of Vega shone down on him, on the car and the brown rock all around. Ryson walked a few paces to the edge of the mesa. He looked over the lip of rock and down into an endless drop. At the base of Mount Improbable lay an immense black void, like a sea of the blackest ink, blacker than the space between the stars. Probably it was a crater cast in shadow by the mountain. It looked like the gaping mouth of Hell. And Ryson had nearly driven himself directly into it.
Ryson turned away from the crater or pit or whatever it was. He walked back to the car. The gleaming red car with Jesus and his outstretched arms painted on the hood with care. Painted on the hood with love.
Thank you for your time and interest in this tale.
It was written in the fall of 2009, during the writing/planning of The Pillow Book, from which it is excerpted. I’ve always loved the idea of people living on another planet, utilizing the local ecology to create industry, and how this would relate to a future-Earth.
The everyday lives of the people who would live and work in such a place are equally fascinating. Especially because people are people, no matter where they go and what they do, and they take their hopes, dreams, fears, and insecurities with them.
And, in the case of “Corvette Jesus,” they also bring along things like faith and sports cars. I found this to be a compelling notion to situate on another world.
Readers have expressed interest in an expanded version of “Corvette Jesus.” This idea intrigues me as well, and perhaps Sagan 7 will be a place I shall visit again one day. I am indeed quite curious as to what Ryson did next, once he returned to the Vette, where Dawkins still sat with his eyes closed, wondering if he was dead.
If you’d like to see more, please leave a comment. And if you think this type of story is your cup of tea, please subscribe. There’s a lot more where this came from. Again, thank you.
Great world building! I really enjoyed the depth of the characters. And am curious about the mystery of Mount Improbable and why those other ships crashed..