It took her a moment to put her finger on what was wrong with the view. There was a thick haze hanging around the mountains’ shoulders, up around the four-thousand-meter level. And farther down, a wash of bright oxygenated green swept the feet of the cliffs. When Li had last seen those cliffs they were above the atmosphere line, bathed in the dull orange of native lichens. This wasn’t the planet she’d left behind, and the sheer breadth of the human encroachment in that fifteen years was chilling.
Compson’s World was the great joke of the interstellar era: all the anticipation, all the apprehension, all the first-contact planning, and on thirty-eight planets in twenty-seven star systems, Compson’s coal and condensates were the only sign of complex life humans had ever found in the universe. And by the time humans reached Compson’s, there was no life left on the planet but the high, windswept algae tundra.
Li looked down at the spreading human footprint on the planet and thought of the thronging life that had laid down its bones to make the coal seam. The first humans to set pickax and shovel to the planet had been paleontologists, not miners. There was a whole exploration literature from that time—books Li had read eagerly lying in her cramped bedroom in Shantytown.
The scientists had fought terraforming, of course. But the first Bose-Einstein strike killed any chance they had. The mines had come, and the genetics labs, and from the day the first atmospheric processor went up, Compson’s World was a walking ghost. Now Li thought back on the dozens of terraformed, self-consciously balanced and controlled planets she’d seen in her tours of duty, and wondered if she might be one of the last people in the universe to know an untamed world.
Haas was talking to her, she realized. She snapped back into the present, wondering what she’d missed.
“Your average Shantytown witch is a pure fraud,” he was saying. “I’ve known three witches, tops, who could actually strike live crystal. And two of the bastards never turned a strike over to AMC until they’d given every Pat and Micky they ever got drunk with a crack at it. Fucking bootleggers.” He jerked his safety harness tight in preparation for landing. “Underground democracy, my ass. It’s theft!”
Li grunted noncommittally.
“Hey,” Haas called to the pilot. “Can we get some livefeed back here?”
The pilot scanned the channels and accessed what looked like local spin from the planetary capital in Helena. A suited commentator was interviewing a young man in miner’s gear.
“So,” the interviewer asked, “what is your reply to AMC’s claims that the union’s safety-related demands are merely a pretext for a pay raise?”
The camera panned back to the interviewee, and Li realized she’d misread him. He wasn’t a miner, despite the worn coveralls and well-used kit. His haircut was too expensive, his teeth and skin too healthy for a Shantytowner. And that was a Ring-sider’s face. A human face. He looked like he should be lounging in a café on Calle Mexico drinking maté de coca, not trashing his unadapted lungs in the Trusteeships.
“I’d say two things,” the young man answered in an accent that sounded like the product of generations of fancy private schooling. “First, that anyone who doubts the reality of the safety issues in this case needs to look at the statistics; the death rate among miners in AMC’s Trinidad vein over the past six months is higher than the death rate in most front-line military units during the Syndicate Wars. Second, I’d remind viewers that, though Compson’s company towns may have opted out of the Human Rights Charter, the multiplanetaries themselves—and the planetary legislators—remain subject to the court of public opinion. Every consumer has a responsibility to vote with his credit chip when he sees a corporation that blatantly disregards basic humanitarian—”
“Turn that shit off!” Haas shouted.
The feed shut off with a hollow click, and the passengers fell into an uncomfortable silence. Li rested her forehead against the window and watched Saint Elmo’s fire lick at the shuttle’s wings as they free-fell toward the ravaged planet.
Pit 3 was still burning; the pilot skirted the smoldering ruins and set the shuttle down on a remote, booster-scarred helipad stranded in a wasteland of rutted caterpillar tracks.
The crew donned their rebreathers and helmets and clumped unenthusiastically down the shuttle gangway. Alongside the helipad, pyramids of empty chemical barrels rusted to brown lace under their jaunty green-and-orange Freetown decals. The ground beyond was yellow and acrid-smelling, littered with the monstrous carcasses of stripped-out mine trucks. No one had come to pick them up, so they straggled off toward the Pit 4 headframe-breaker complex, a rickety, wind-blasted jumble of aluminum-sided geodesics that crouched over the shaft like a drunken spider.
Li hadn’t bothered to hook up her rebreather yet, just clipped the mouthpiece to her collar to keep it out of the way. Haas and the witch had done the same, she noticed. As they walked, she began to regret her choice; one of Compson’s dust storms was on the rise, and the wind blew acid-tasting red dog into her mouth at every stride.
A large, thickly printed fiche hung next to the headframe office door. Haas rapped on the wall beside it with a closed fist, setting the siding rattling, and Li saw a notary swipe at the bottom of the fiche.
“Skim and scan,” Haas said, but just to be stubborn she read every word before palming the scan plate.
PIT RULES: THE FOLLOWING ARE THE RULES OF THIS PIT. EMPLOYEES AND VISITORS ARE REQUIRED TO ACCEPT AND ABIDE BY THESE RULES AS A PRECONDITION FOR ENTRANCE. ENTRANCE CONSTITUTES: (I) A RELEASE OF ANACONDA MINING CORPORATION AND ITS SUBSIDIARIES, AFFILIATES, AND ASSOCIATES FROM LIABILITY; (II) A FULL WAIVER OF ALL RIGHTS AND REMEDIES UNDER LAW, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO UNITED NATIONS MINE SAFETY COMMISSION REGULATIONS AND THIS OR ANY OTHER JURISDICTION’S WORKER’S COMPENSATION LAWS.
1. ALL PERSONNEL AND VISITORS MUST LOG IN AND OUT AT THE PITHEAD OFFICE AND PIT BOTTOM FIRE OFFICE.
2. THE CAGE WILL BE RAISED AND LOWERED ON DEMAND WITHIN 1 ⁄2 HOUR OF EACH SHIFT CHANGE. THE CAGE WILL NOT BE RAISED OR LOWERED AT ANY OTHER TIMES EXCEPT ON DIRECT ORDERS OF THE PIT MANAGER.
3. A FULL SHIFT IS TEN HOURS. A FULL WORK WEEK IS SIXTY HOURS. FAILURE TO WORK A FULL SHIFT/WORK WEEK WILL RESULT IN DOCKED PAY AND/OR DISMISSAL.
4. AMC IS A UN-APPROVED MINEWORKS OPERATING UNDER A VOLUNTARY COMPLIANCE REGIMEN PURSUANT TO UNMSC REG. SECTION 1.5978-2(C)(1)(II) ET SEQ. UNMSC SAFETY REGULATIONS ARE POSTED AT PITHEAD AND PIT BOTTOM. FAILURE TO ADHERE TO POSTED REGULATIONS WILL RESULT IN DOCKED PAY AND/OR DISMISSAL.
5. WORKINGS WHERE METHANE OR CARBON MONOXIDE IS PRESENT ARE MARKED ON THE CHECK DOORS. NO PERSON OTHER THAN THE PIT BOSS OR FIRE BOSS MAY PASS A CHECK DOOR WITHOUT PRIOR AUTHORIZATION. AMC TAKES NO RESPONSIBILITY FOR MINERS WHO ENGAGE IN UNAUTHORIZED CUTTING OR LOADING BEYOND MARKED CHECK DOORS.
6. NO LAMPS BUT SAFETY (DAVY) LAMPS ARE ALLOWED BELOW GRADE UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES. ALL LAMPS MUST BE HANDED IN TO THE FIRE BOSS EACH SHIFT END FOR INSPECTION. THE COST OF REFILLING LAMPS WILL BE DEDUCTED FROM PAY. THE COST OF REPAIRING OR REPLACING DAMAGED LAMPS WILL BE DEDUCTED FROM PAY.
7. NO DOGS ALLOWED BELOW GRADE WITHOUT PROOF OF CURRENT RABIES AND BORDATELLA.