DOMINIC switched on Penderowski's laser torch and carried it in his teeth. Its beam danced crazily over the dark stone wall as he descended. They'd been climbing down only a short while when the shaft went palpably silent. The air quit moving, and small vibrations that had been singing unnoticed in metal pipes came to a stop. Dominic gripped the ladder and listened. Another power failure. Life support had shut down. Benito continued shuffling down the rungs below, until Dominic whispered, "Wait."
When the ladder stopped shimmying, the only sound was the boy's breathing and his own. He counted seconds. A minute passed. The other blackouts hadn't lasted this long. Sweat beaded on his forehead and ran down his neck. "Let's keep going, Benito."
The sound of the boy's quick, light movement comforted him. He puffed out his cheeks and blew hard, then reseated the torch between his jaws, grasped a rung and lowered himself down through the silence.
Without warning, a thunderous explosion blew out a section of the shaft wall above them. "Jesus Krishna Christ!" the NP yelled. Lurid sparks flared above. Then bloodred flames. And dust. A thick cloud of dust billowed down the shaft. Backlit by fire, the dust cloud glowed orange, and rock chips rained down like missiles, slicing Dominic's shoulders and back. The boy yelped. Then shouts echoed overhead, and the drumming of many feet jolted the ladder. Dominic sensed an army was coming down the ladder right on top of him.
"Benito! Hold tight!" he yelled.
As the ladder shook violently, he swung down and covered the boy with his own body to shield him from the falling rock. Then he flashed the laser torch to search for a landing below.
"We'll climb down to that catwalk—you see? Hurry. We'll let these people go by us. You stay between me and the ladder."
The army was descending fast. Lurid dust silhouetted their jostling limbs, and their mingled shouts grew louder. When Dominic shot his torch beam up, all he could see were boot soles. He grabbed the boy and tried to slide down the ladder one-handed, but he slipped and nearly lost his hold.
Then the ladder shook with a new, heavier weight below, and a different noise erupted as dozens of white laser beams sliced up through the shaft. When Dominic looked down, he saw sweaty devilish faces shining in the orange light, and the beams were shooting straight out of their foreheads! Finally, he grasped that they were wearing helmets with headlamps.
"Damn me, it's the miners!" The NP chuckled. "I was beginning to think they didn't exist."
The miners below were climbing up fast, while the miners above were climbing down with equal speed. Dominic was trapped in the middle. Just as the two groups converged, he clutched Benito to his chest and leaped onto the catwalk. The miners followed right behind, shoving him against the steel door like a piece of rubbish bashed into shore by the tide. Miners soon mobbed the catwalk, and three of them elbowed him aside to get the door open. Among the shouting, Dominic distinguished phrases. "Cave-in!" "Tons of rock." "Three people trapped!"
When the door fell open, the crowd pushed Dominic through, and his only course was to stay on his feet and run. Benito clung like Velcro. After a chaotic race in semi-darkness, the army constricted through another small portal, and Dominic bloodied his left shoulder on the door flange as they shoved him ahead. Then he was climbing another ladder, ramming his head into the boots of the miner above because the miner below was ramming into him. Benito's fingers dug into his flesh.
They entered a tunnel where the dust was so thick, Dominic thought he might choke to death. A few miners wore plastic face masks, but most breathed through rags tied over their mouths and noses. As soon as the space widened out, Dominic flattened himself against a wall and placed Benito on the floor between his knees. Then he tugged off his tee shirt and ripped it in two. "Here, breathe through this." Benito didn't seem to understand, so Dominic quickly tied one cloth over his own nose and mouth, then did the same with the other rag for the boy. The improvised breathing masks helped a little.
Someone shoved a work tool into his hand, and after a moment, he recognized it as a bucket. It was large and full of rock chips, heavy as lead. Farther along the tunnel, the miners were digging like fiends at a pile of rubble and forming a bucket line to transfer the rock. "Move it!" shouted a short, bandy-legged man wearing a red bandana.
"Let's get the fuck outta here," the NP advised. "I'm scanning that support structure, and it's not stable."
"I don't exactly have a choice." Dominic adjusted the cloth over his nose, then bent to whisper in Benito's ear. "Stay against the wall."
Someone handed him a second bucket weighted down with rock, so he stepped up and handed both buckets to the next person in line. "Keep the rhythm," the miner said. Dominic noticed she was a stout, dark, muscular woman with gray hair. Other miners quickly queued along the wall, and the buckets passed from hand to hand.
'This is prote work," the NP said. "You should refuse."
Dominic didn't bother to reply. The buckets kept coming, mounded high with rock and dust. Each one weighed thirty kilos at least, and the bucket handles cut into his soft hands like wire. His arms were soon beyond aching. His muscles trembled. When he staggered and dropped a bucket, the woman beside him kicked it away and elbowed him to grab the next one. Then she started singing.
She sang in a strong steady rhythm to the swinging buckets, and her lyrics were guttural grunts in some American patois Dominic didn't recognize. Soon the whole line picked up the tune.
"Crude," the NP said. "You want me to translate?"
By that point, Dominic didn't have enough energy to subvocalize, much less speak aloud. More buckets. More. Would they never stop coming? Was this how miners spent their days? Dominic trained in the executive gym, but he'd never exerted himself like this. Sweat ran down his back, and his heart beat like a piston. When the skin on his fingers flayed off, he hardly felt the pain. He would never have believed himself capable of such labor. After a while, he began to grunt aloud to the woman's song. The pounding heart rate was affecting his brain. He felt inebriated, almost jolly.
"You're overexerting, son," the NP said.
At that moment, a shout louder than all the others rang through the mine, and a ray of light filtered through the rubble blockage. As one, the miners dropped what they were doing and rushed forward to dig with their hands. Dominic tripped headlong over his bucket, and in the melee, someone stepped on his back. If he hadn't curled up and rolled toward the wall, he might have been trampled. Benito was still huddled there, sucking his little hand. Dominic hadn't even gotten his bearings before the boy crawled into his lap.
"Huah!" the miners cheered. They were celebrating. He could see them raising their fists in the dusty air.
Now they were leading the survivors out. Dominic rested against the wall with the boy in his arms and watched the strange procession. At its head sauntered a round-faced man with curly hair and a broad, burly chest. Pale dust covered him like a coat of paint, and he strutted with his chin thrust forward as if proud of the blood coursing down his cheek. Right behind him came the short, bandy-legged man in the red bandana, grinning and sweat-soaked. Next came two others in torn gray uniforms layered with dust. One cradled a broken arm. After them followed the whole united array of miners, men and women, filthy, sweating, euphoric, their headlamps shooting beams through the thick air. They numbered only a dozen, Dominic was surprised to find.
"You comin', doggo? Chief's buying drinks all around." The brawny woman from the bucket line stood frowning at him with her hands on her hips. Her face was broad and flat and heavily lined. She had quick dark eyes and leathery brown skin, and her gray hair was chopped very short. "Hey, you ain't no digger."
Dominic lumbered to his feet and sagged against the wall. His muscles were already beginning to lock up. Benito scrambled for a perch on his shoulders. He said, "I suppose we're lost."
"New people." The woman looked him over. "Humph. You did yer share. Come get yer drink. They ain't many free drinks, these days."
Dominic hadn't lied about being lost. He considered asking this woman how to find the Net link, but the firm set of her jaw told him she might not be as gullible as Penderowski. He decided to wait for a better chance. Meanwhile, her offer of a drink made his throat quiver.
On stumbling legs, he followed her down a ladder to a lower deck. Benito stayed close as they picked their way along a half-finished corridor already clogged with settlers and finally entered a wide hall with a sign over the door marked, "Mess." Scores of rough tables and chairs filled the plain, utilitarian room, which seemed to have been hewn by hand from solid rock. When Dominic looked closer, he noticed the furniture was made of hammered sheet metal. And someone had carved a scene in one of the rock walls, something historic, a line of jagged palm trees with a cone-shaped mountain in the background spewing smoke. There were strange birds with long sweeping tails, and luscious fruit hanging in the palm trees, and primitive nudes of both sexes lying on the beach. The image was bawdy, but Dominic found the draftsmanship rather good.
As more miners filtered in, the bandy-legged man wiped his dirty hands on his red bandana and started dispensing warm ale from a hose nozzle. Though Dominic could barely hold the plastic cup between his chafed, bleeding hands, he gulped it down like water and got a refill for Benito.
Soon, the hall was packed, and people were shoving tables against the walls to make more room. A woman with only one leg scrambled onto a tabletop and began picking a tune on a curious three-stringed instrument. A skinny juvenile boy joined her with a musical pipe, and they launched into a lively dance tune. Several people starting beating a background rhythm on overturned buckets. It was the strangest music Dominic had ever heard. All around him, the miners made rude jokes and threw chairs and howled and punched each other. Beer flowed freely, and when the cups ran out, they drank foamy ale from their helmets.
Then someone blew a shrill whistle, and Benito clambered up Dominic's back. The barrel-chested man they'd rescued was standing on a table in the center of the hall, and the celebrating miners bunched around him, lifting then-cups. Dominic staggered over and joined them. Everyone wanted to get close to the barrel-chested man. They yelled toasts and called him "Chief." Then he hollered loudest of all.
"Boys, it's good to be alive!" He lifted his enormous cup and drank heavily. His Adam's apple bobbed up and down, and beer streamed down his jaw. Everyone cheered.
"There I was," he went on. "I'd just finished drillin' the cross-cut, and everything was lookin' fine, when right above my head, I see a lateral fault in the strata. Krishna Christ, if she didn't drop right down in my lap. Haw haw haw!"
The chief upended his cup again and chugged a pint of ale in one go. Several miners offered their own full cups to replace his empty one.
He smacked his lips. "If I hadn't dug through that wall with my freakin' fingernails, Liu and Dalesco would still be suckin' rocks." He took the nearest cup with a self-satisfied grin. "How long did it take me to dig out, huh? Anybody time it?"
"Five minutes, Chief. If that," someone said.
"Haw, haw!" His thick hair hung in sweaty ringlets over his forehead, and curly lashes fringed his brown eyes. A handsome cleft bisected his heavy chin, and his whole massive head glistened. Dominic couldn't guess his lineage. American bloodlines were always confused. At that moment, the chief noticed Dominic staring at him.
"Who the sweet Jesus are you?"
"A volunteer," Dominic said. "I assisted with your rescue." Calmly, Dominic sipped his ale, then handed what was left to Benito, who was sitting on his shoulders.
The chief wiped his gashed cheek with the back of his hand. "You a freakin' college man?"
Dominic noted the animosity. "I'm a negotiator."
"College man. Half-ass worker, half-ass boss. That makes you one complete asshole." The chief winked at his audience, and they howled at his joke. "So what the sweet Jesus you doin' down here in the slime 'assisting with my rescue'?" He mimicked Dominic's pure Net English accent.
"Back away, son. They have you outnumbered," the NP urged.
Dominic pushed through the crowd and stepped closer. "You invited me."
"Sereb, he helped with the buckets," the brawny woman said.
"Keep out of it, Djuju. I like to hear him talk. Go on, college. Tell me when I invited you."
Dominic quoted from the miners broadcast, raising his voice so everyone could hear. "All human beings evolved from the same gene pool, so we have the same rights to move around as free agents and make our own choices." Then he pointed a finger at the chief. "Aren't those your words?"
The chief jumped down from the chair, and the miners parted to make a path. For a stocky man, he moved with surprising grace. He stepped close, and though he stood a head shorter, he seemed to face Dominic eye to eye. "You're the banker."
Dominic froze. The man must have recognized his face from the Net.
"Run for it!" the NP said. "They'll slaughter you!"
They were standing so close, Dominic could count the pores on the chief's round nose. He couldn't run anywhere. The miners closed in behind him, and in any case, he'd spent his last reserve of energy. It took all his will just to stay on his feet. Abruptly, the chief's face crinkled in a mass of smile lines.
"Boys, meet the banker. This sorry-ass used to hand out coins for a living. Can you believe it? Like a machine. The execs sent him to college so he could count change."
The miners roared with laughter again, and Benito tightened his grip. Dominic held himself rigid. Normally, insolence from a prote would have incensed him, but now he merely waited through the insults and focused on remaining upright, not giving in to fatigue.
When the chief slapped him on the back, he nearly toppled forward. "Boys, get this sorry-ass another beer. Yer among friends now, banker."
Cups of beer sloshed at him from many directions, and someone gave him a helmet brimming with foam. From sheer thirst, he leaned back to drain it, and Benito grabbed his ears to keep from falling. Then the barrel-chested man thumped him in the chest.
"Call me Sereb. I'm crew chief. Is that yer son?"
"We met by accident," Dominic said without thinking.
Instead of listening to the answer, Sereb seized Dominic's hand and turned it palm up. Deep angry cuts lacerated all ten fingers, and the patch of redness between his fingers had spread. "Look at that. Pitiful. Big man like you with hands like a baby. That's what comes of countin' coins all yer life."
Sereb held Dominic's bleeding palm high for everyone to see, and Dominic gazed dully at the miners' sweaty grins.
"No more of that shit. From now on, you'll have respectable work." Sereb dropped Dominic's hand, spun on his heels and waded away through the crowd. "See the banker drinks his fill tonight, boys. Say, where's them fiddle-players? I wanna dance."
Later, Dominic remembered finding a chair and trying to sit in it. The rest of the evening would forever be a blank.
He woke up with Benito sitting on his chest, tugging at a clean white bandage wrapped snugly around his little brown hand. When Dominic's vision cleared, he saw a drop of blood seeping through Benito's bandage, and he tried to recall how the boy had hurt his hand. In the next moment, he elbowed the boy away, rolled on his side and vomited. There was so little in his stomach, the spasms seemed to rip his viscera out. Then his brain quaked inside his skull.
"Son, you got a mother-bitch hangover." The NP chuckled. "Sometimes I miss physical sensation. Then again, sometimes I don't."
Dominic realized both his own hands were swathed and padded in white gauze. His fingers were bound together, and when he flexed them, he gasped aloud. Oh yes, the bucket handles. He wondered who had given him med care. With a grunt, he sat up and held his white paws in his lap. Something hard poked his thigh, so he lifted his leg. It was Penderowski's torch.
"You wanna know how long you slept?" the NP asked.
"Just tell me how soon the oxygen runs out." Dominic pushed the torch away.
"Twenty-one hours, zero minutes, eight seconds and counting, unless that prote engineer starts dicking with the oxy mix."
Less than a day! Dominic bolted up. He must be over a hundred meters deep below the seafloor. He had to start climbing! Then he swayed and fell and swallowed hard to keep from vomiting again.
Light tubes banded the ceiling like glaring white ribbons. He was still in the room called "Mess." The tables and chairs had been put back in neat rows, and other than a few wet stains on the stone floor, no evidence remained of the beer party. Except for himself and the boy, the room appeared empty. His first impulse was to run into the corridor and search for any ladder leading up, but each time he moved, he felt as if a jackhammer were trying to tear its way out of his skull.
"Benito," he whispered hoarsely, "is there any water?"
"Faucet in the ceiling," a female voice said.
Dominic wedged his elbow into a chair seat and pushed himself up where he could see who spoke. On the tabletop beside him sat the brawny miner woman called Djuju. Her legs were crossed in lotus fashion, and she held a strange artifact, which at first he couldn't identify. Then he recalled an image from a history site. That thing she held was a book. He'd browsed video about books. They were readonly, plain-text datafiles made of plant fiber. Fragile, impermanent, of no practical use—yet prized by collectors and therefore valuable. Dominic was surprised to find such a rarity here, but even more bizarre, Djuju actually seemed to be reading it.
With a sigh, she clapped the book shut and stowed it in the bosom of her uniform. "Okay, coin man. You got a name?"
"Nick," he said. "And this is Benito."
"Me and yer son are old friends. Sereb told me to look out for you today. You'll be on my crew."
"I can't," said Dominic, just as the NP whispered, 'Tell her you can't."
He tottered to his feet and searched the ceiling for the faucet. When he twisted the valve open, a thin stream trickled into his mouth. It tasted warm and vaguely sour, and he drank for a long time. "Benito, you want some?" he asked.
"Stop playing nursemaid to the brat!" the NP's barked. "Ask this prote for directions."
"Shut up," Dominic subvocalized.
"That soft-headed streak, I swear I don't know where you got it." White sparks burst across Dominic's eye, and he blinked.
Djuju watched him. She slung one muscular leg over the table's edge and kicked her boot rhythmically against the chair. Her glance was dry and appraising. She seemed to be waiting for him to explain himself.
Dominic smiled, and in a smooth tone, he said, "I have urgent business on the Dominic Jedes. How about a barter? If you'll give me directions to the bridge, then I'll—I'll—" But his mind was still fogged by alcohol.
"Tell her the brat will stay and work," said the NP.
"The boy will stay and work." Even as Dominic repeated the phrase, the words jarred him. When Benito shot him a questioning frown, he had to look away.
Djuju sniffed. "You want breakfast?"
Before he could answer, the NP said, "Give her the con job. You do it so well."
An ache shot up Dominic's back, and he realized his muscles were knotted with tension. He rolled his shoulders and almost in a monotone, he recited the lie he'd used with Penderowski. "Djuju, your colony's running out of air. I'm bringing an offer of trade. Respirator equipment, fuel and supplies. I have to meet your council on the Dominic Jedes' bridge."
Would it work this time? She lifted her chin and studied him. "This trade, what do we give in return?"
Penderowski hadn't asked that question. Dominic forced his mind to work. "Debenture bonds."
Djuju narrowed her eyes. Her boot stopped swinging.
"I'm offering a straight loan package," Dominic continued, hoping to confuse her with jargon. "You'll pay prime plus two for a standard term, with a balloon option. You won't find a better deal."
"Money," she said.
"Yes, money." Dominic didn't know if he'd given the right answer or the wrong one.
"Humph." Djuju got down from the table and put her hands on her hips. Her eyes narrowed, and for a long moment, she studied Dominic's face. Then she picked up Penderowski's torch. 'Take yer flashlight. You'll need it. And take yer son, too. Mines ain't no place for children."
She led them back through the unfinished corridor, to the ladder he'd been descending before the tunnel caved in. The directions she gave matched Penderowski's to the letter. He still had to descend a little farther before he could start climbing up toward the Dominic Jedes, but she said he could easily reach the bridge in a couple of hours.
"Another sucker," the NP gloated.
Right, Dominic thought, another trusting fool. He peered down the ladder shaft. When he turned to thank Djuju, she was gone. Only the boy stood there, puffing out his brown little cheeks and fluttering air through his lips. Dominic ruffled the boy's hair.
"Nineteen hours, fifty-two minutes and counting," the NP said testily. "Dump the kid. He's slowing you down."
"Right, Benito. Let's go."
Dominic told himself he was bringing the boy along as an act of defiance. He had little enough margin to defy the NP, but he would make the most of it. The truth, though, was different. From the moment he'd offered to trade the boy, he'd been picturing Benito working in the mines, bending under a heavy load of rocks. He couldn't get that image out of his mind.
The bandages restricted his hands like oversized mittens, so he loosened them and worked his fingers free. Then he stuck the torch between his teeth and followed the boy down the ladder. They descended six levels without stopping to rest, and just as Djuju had promised, they found a solid steel loading dock with a heavy reinforced door. Pale light gleamed through a spy hole, but Dominic couldn't see in. The lens was made to look outward. His muscles were still weary, and it took him several tries to crank the lever open.
When the hatch seal released, a horrible, sweet, rotten smell nearly knocked him over. Had he counted the levels wrong? He must have stumbled into the mortuary! His first impulse was to close the door fast, but before he could react, Benito dashed between his legs and ran through.
"Splendid," he said aloud. "Benito, come back here!" Then he had no choice but to go and look for the boy.