warps and bumps revealed as shaded camouflage on a plastic
film.
A cavern yawned below. It was a tunnel, curving just below the surface.
Lindsay picked his way cautiously down the slope and flung
himself into the tunnel. He braced himself against its walls.
Stretching overhead, he pushed against the tunnel's ceiling to
plant his feet.
Sunlight dawned over the tiny horizon and fell into the tunnel.
It was precisely circular and inhumanly smooth. Six tracks of
thin metallic ribbon had been epoxied into place, running
lengthwise along the corridor. In raw sunlight the tracks had the
gleam of copper.
The tunnel apparently girdled the asteroid. It curved rapidly,
like the horizon. Before him, almost hidden by the tunnel's
curvature, he glimpsed the dim sheen of brown plastic. Jumping
and shoving along the walls, he bounced toward it in free-fall.
It was a plastic film with an inset fabric airlock. Lindsay pulled
the zippered airlock tag and stepped in. He zipped it up behind
him, undid a second zipper in the lock's inner wall, and
climbed through.
He was in a cavernous black and ocher balloon. It had been
blown up within the tunnel, filling it tightly.
A figure in a plastic decontamination suit floated upside down
below the ceiling, a bright green silhouette against hand-sprayed
black arabesques on an ocher background.
Lindsay's suit had gone flat, indicating air pressure. He took
his helmet off and inhaled cautiously. It was an oxy-nitrogen
mix, standard air.
Lindsay held his right arm across his chest with deliberate
awkwardness. "I, uh, have a prepared statement to read. If you
have no objection."
"Please proceed." The woman's voice was thin, half muffled.
He glimpsed her face behind the plate: cold eyes, tawny skin,
dark hair held in a green net.
Lindsay read the words slowly, without inflection. "Greetings
from the Fortuna Miners' Democracy. We are an independent
nation, operating under the rule of law, firmly predicated on a
basis of individual civil rights. As emigrants into our national
territory, new members of the body politic are subject to a brief
naturalization process before assuming full citizenship. We re-
gret any inconvenience caused by the imposition of a new politi-
cal order.
"It is our policy that ideological differences be settled by a
process of negotiation. To that end, we have deputized our
Secretary of State to establish preliminary terms, subject to
ratification by the Senate. It is the wish of the Fortuna Miners'
Democracy, as expressed in House Joint Resolution Sixteen,
Sixty-Seventh Session, that you begin negotiation without delay
under the Secretary's aegis, so that the interim period may be as
brief and as secure as possible.
"We extend to our future -citizens the hand of friendship and
warm congratulations.
"Signed, President."
Lindsay looked up.
"You'll want a copy of this," he said, extending it.
The Shaper woman floated closer. Lindsay saw that she was
beautiful. It meant very little. Beauty was cheap among Shapers.
She took the document. Lindsay pulled more from a hip valise,
with his left hand. "These are my credentials." He handed them
over: a wad of recycled printout gaudy with Fortuna foil seals.
The woman said, "My name is Nora Mavrides. The rest of the
Family has asked me to convey to you our impression of the
situation. We feel that we can convince you that the actions
you've taken are rash, and that you can profit by turning your
attention elsewhere. We ask for nothing but the time to con-
vince you. We have even shut down our main gun."
Lindsay nodded. "That's nice. Very good. Should impress the
government very much. I'd like to see this gun."
"We are inside it," said Nora Mavrides.
ABOARD THE RED CONSENSUS: 22-12-'16
Lindsay said, "I played dumb. But I don't think she bought it."
He was addressing a joint session of the House and Senate, with
the Speaker of the House presiding. The President was in the
audience. The Supreme Court Justices were manning the gun
and control room, listening in on intercom.
The President shook his head. "She believed it. Shapers always
think we're stupid. Hell, to Shapers we are stupid" Lindsay said,
"We're tethered just past the outlet of their
launch ring. It's a long circular tunnel, a ring around the rock's
center of gravity, cored just under the surface. It has magnetic
snips for acceleration and some kind of magnetic launch buck-
et."
"I heard of those," said Justice 3, over the intercom. He was
their regular gunner, a former miner, close to a century old. "It
starts with just a little boost, get that bucket up, magnetized.
Rides on a magnetic cushion, then you accelerate it, let it zip
around a while, then brake it just behind the outlet. The bucket
slows but the cargo shoots out at klicks per second."
"Klicks per second?" said the Speaker of the House. "That
could blow us away."
"No," said the President. "They'd have to use a lot of power
for a launch. This close, we'd pick up the magnetics."
"They won't let us in," Lindsay said. "Their Family lives clean.
No microbes, or only tailored ones. And we have Zaibatsu stuff
in every pore. They're going to offer us loot to go away."
"That's not our assignment," the Speaker said.
"We can't judge their loot unless we see their quarters," Rep 1
said. The young Shaper renegade brushed at her hair with
enameled fingertips. She had been dressing well lately.
"We can dig our way in with the excavator," the President said.
"We'll use the sonar readings we made. We gol a good idea of
the closest tunnels to the surface. We could core in in five-ten
minutes, while State negotiates." He hesitated. "They might kill
us for it."
The Speaker's voice held cold certainty. "We're dead anyway,
if they keep holding us off at arm's length. Our gun is short-
range. That launch ring can plaster us hours after we leave."
"They didn't do it before," said Rep I.
"Now they know who we are."
"There's only one thing for it," the President said. "Put it to a
vote."
ESAIRS XII: 23-12-'16
"We're a miners' democracy, after all," Lindsay told Nora
Mavrides. "According to Forluna ideology, we had a perfect
right to drill. If you'd mapped your tunnel network for us, this
wouldn't have happened."
"You risked everything," Nora Mavrides said.
"You have to admit there were benefits," Lindsay said. "Now
that your network has been, as you say, 'contaminated,' we can
at least meet face to face, without spacesuits."
"It was reckless, Secretary."
Lindsay touched his chest left-handed. "Look at it from our
perspective, Dr. Mavrides. The FMD will not wait indefinitely
to take possession of its own property. I think we've been quite
reasonable.
"You keep assuming that we mean to leave. We are settlers,
not brigands. We won't be turned aside by nebulous promises
and anti-Mechanist propaganda. We are miners."
"Pirates. Mech hirelings."
Lindsay shrugged one-sidedly.
"Your arm," she said. "Is it really hurt? Or do you pretend it,
to make me think you're harmless?"
Lindsay said nothing.
"I take your point," she said. "There's no true negotiation
without trust. Somewhere we have common ground. Let's find
it."
Lindsay straightened his arm. "All right, Nora. If this is between just the two of us, role-playing aside, let's hear you. I can