“I'm Shadow Jack,” the boy said, “and this's Bird Alyn. We come from Lansing.” He waited.
“But that's where we're going—” Clewell began.
“Why?” the girl said, blinking.
“Because it's the government center for Heaven Belt.” Betha looked back at her sharply. “Your capital must have come on hard times.”
“You really are from Outside, aren't you?” Shadow Jack folded his legs like a buddha, somehow managing not to flip over backward. “There hasn't been any Heaven Belt for two and a half gigasecs.”
“What?”
He stared, silent; Clewell gestured threateningly at the cat.
“There was a war, the Civil War. Everything got blown up, all the industry. Nobody can keep anything going anymore, except the Demarchy and the Ringers. They're the only ones far enough out to have snow on some of their rocks. Lansing is capital of zero, nothin'; most everybody in the Main Belt's dead by now.”
“I don't understand,” Betha said, not wanting to understand. Oh, God, don't let our very reason for coming here have been pointless.… “We heard that Heaven Belt had the perfect environment, that it had a higher technology than any Earth colony, than even Old Earth.”
“But they couldn't keep it goin'.” Shadow Jack shook his head.
Betha saw suddenly the fatal flaw the original colonizers, already Belters, must never have considered. Without a world to hold an atmosphere, air and water—all the fundamentals of life—had to be processed or manufactured or they didn't exist. And without a technology capable of the processing and manufacturing, in a system without an Earthlike world to retreat to, any Dark Age would mean their extinction.
As if he had followed her thoughts. Shadow Jack said, “We'll all be dead, in the end, even the Demarchy.” He looked away, forcing out the words, “But our rock is out of water now. Everybody there'll die if we have to go around Heaven again without it. And we don't have a ship left that'll take us to the Ringers—to Discus—for hydrogen to make more. We've got to find enough salvage parts to put one together. That's why we were out here. It's a gigasec before we'll be close enough to Discus to make the trip again.”
“You trade with Discus for hydrogen?” Clewell broke her silence.
“Trade?” Shadow Jack looked blank. “What would we trade? We steal it.”
“What happens if the—Discans catch you in their space?” Clewell reached under the panel for his covered drinking cup, pulled up on the straw.
Shadow Jack shrugged. “They try to kill us. Maybe that's why they attacked you: they thought you came from the Demarchy. Or maybe they wanted your ship; anybody'd want this ship. Can you run it all with only two people—?” His mismatched eyes wandered speculatively.
“Not two untrained people,” Betha said, “in case you still have any ideas. It's not even easy for us. There were five more people in our crew; the Discans killed them all.” And all for nothing.
He grimaced. “Oh.” Betha saw the girl flinch.
“One more question.” She took a deep breath. “Tell me what this ‘Demarchy’ is, that everyone seems to confuse with us.”
Shadow Jack glanced away, suddenly oblivious, as Clewell finished his drink. Bird Alyn licked her lips, rubbed her mouth with a misshapen hand.
Out of water.… A memory of her own children, too far away, too long ago, dimmed their hungry faces. She looked down at her own hands, at thin golden rings, four on the left hand, two on the right. “Well?”
Shadow Jack cleared his throat, his eyes daring her to offer water. “The Demarchy—it's in the trojan asteroids sixty degrees ahead of Discus. It's got the best technology left now. They made the nuclear battery that runs our electric rocket; they're the only ones who can make 'em anymore.”
“If they're so well off, why do they have to rob the Discans?”
“They don't have to. Usually they trade, metals for the processed snow, for water and gases and hydrocarbons. Sometimes things happen, though—incidents. They both want to come out on top. I guess they think someday they'll build up the Belt again. They're wrong, though. Even if they'd quit fightin' each other, it's too late. Anybody can see that.”
“Not exactly a cockeyed optimist, are you, boy?” Clewell said.
Shadow Jack frowned, scratching. “I'm not blind.”
“Well, Clewell.” Betha felt Rusty snuffling against her neck, settled the cat on her shoulder. Claws hooked cautiously into the weave of her denim jacket. “What do you think? Do you think it's the truth? Did we—come all the way to Heaven for nothing?”
He rubbed his face with his hands. She saw his own wedding bands reflecting light, three on the left hand, three on the right. “I guess it's possible. It's so insane, it's the only way to explain what we've been through.”
She nodded, glanced at the haggard faces of the waiting strangers: Not exactly angels. Victims, of a tragedy almost beyond comprehension; a tragedy that had reached into her own life, and his, to destroy the dreams of another people as it had destroyed its own. This Heaven, like all dreams of heaven, had been a fragile thing; perhaps none of them had ever been meant to be more than a dream.… She lit her pipe, calmed by its familiarity, before she searched the two tense, expectant faces. “I'll make you a proposition. Shadow Jack, Bird Alyn. You said Lansing needs hydrogen for water; we need it for fuel. We're going after it now. Come with us and tell us things we need to know about this system, and if we succeed we'll share what we get with you.”
“How do we know you'll keep your word?”
Betha raised her eyebrows. “How do we know you've told us the truth?”
He didn't answer, and Bird Alyn frowned at him.
“If you're honest with us, we'll be honest with you.” Betha waited.
He looked at Bird Alyn; she nodded. “I guess anythin's better than our chances alone.… But what about the Lansing 04? We can't junk it—”
“We can take your ship with us. It's possible we can repair your shielding.”
His mouth opened; he shut it, embarrassed. “We—can we radio home, Lansing, and tell 'em what happened?”
“Yes.”
“Then it's a deal. We'll stick with you, and tell you what we know.” They relaxed visibly, together, hanging like rag dolls in the air.
Clewell folded his arms. “Just keep one thing in mind—that the captain meant it when she told you it takes training to run the Ranger. We'll be accelerating at one gravity. Even if you took over the ship and contacted your people, they'd never catch up with you. All you'd get out of it would be a one-way journey to forever.”
Shadow Jack started to answer, kept silent.
“I'll see to your ship, then. Clewell, will you take them below? Maybe, ah …” She looked back; tactfulness eluded her. “They could use a shower.”
“A shower of what?” Bird Alyn murmured.
Betha paused, inhaling smoke. “Well … water.”
“Unfortunately we're out of champagne.” Clewell pushed off for the doorway.
Shadow Jack laughed uneasily. “Enough water to wash in?”
She nodded. “Use all you want; please. We have plenty. And soap. And clean clothes, Clewell—”
“With pleasure.” He led them eagerly out of the room into the echoing stairwell; Rusty floundered after them. For a moment Betha drifted, listening, her eyes taking in the grass-greenness of the rug, the dust-blue sky color of the walls, that had been designed to keep seven people from going mad during more than three years tau of close confinement. She realized the vast and pernicious emptiness that had filled the room, the entire ship, in the past few days; like the greater desolation beyond its hull. Realized it, now that suddenly it was no longer true. She heard the sprayers go on, and faint yelps of excited laughter.