She stood at the window of her room in the habitat Chrysalis, in orbit around Ceres, and gazed out at the empty sky. There were no moons to be seen, no Earth hanging huge and tantalizingly close. Here in the Asteroid Belt, beyond the orbit of Mars, even giant Jupiter was merely another star in the sky, brighter than the rest but still little more than a distant speck of light against the engulfing dark.
Slightly wider than a thousand kilometers, Ceres was the largest of the asteroids. Still, its gravity was so minuscule that its underground caverns and tunnels were always thick with dust; the slightest movement stirred the choking black soot, and it hung in the air for hours before finally settling—only to be stirred up again by the next person’s movements.
The rock rats who tried to live in that perpetual haze of lung-rotting dust eventually assembled this makeshift habitat out of abandoned or secondhand spacecraft linked end-to-end in a rough Tinker-toy circle.
Chrysalis had a spin-induced gravity, just like the larger man-made habitats in the Earth-Moon system. But its induced gravity was very light, even lighter than the Moon’s. The hotel manager who had personally shown jade to her room had smilingly demonstrated that you could drop a fragile crystal vase from your hand, then go fill a glass of water and drink it, and still have time to retrieve the vase before it hit the carpeted floor.
Twenty-one years old, Jade mused to herself as she stared out at the dark sky. Time to make something of yourself. Time to leave the past behind; there’s nothing you can do to change it. Only the future can be shaped, altered. Everything else is over and done with.
She lost track of how long she stood at the window, sensing the cold of the airless eternity on the other side of the glassteel. Perhaps time passes differently here, with no worlds or moons in the sky. Nothing but stars endlessly spinning through the sky. Never any real daylight, always the darkness of infinity. This little habitat is like the ancient Greek idea of the afterlife: gray twilight, emptiness, a shadow existence.
It took a real effort of will for Jade to pull herself from the window. You’ve got a job to do, she told herself sternly. You’ve got a life to lead. Then she added, Once you’ve figured out what you want to do with it.
The message light on the phone was on. She walked past the bed carefully in the light gravity; everyone in the hotel wore Velcro slippers and walked across the carpeting in a hesitant low-g shuffle.
Jade smiled when she saw Jim Gradowsky’s beefy face fill the phone screen. He was munching on something, as usual.
“Just a note to tell you that Raki got promoted to vice president in charge of special projects. Thanks mostly to the Sam Gunn stuff you beamed us, and the interview with Rick Darling. You’re on full salary, kid. Plus expenses. Raki is very happy with you. Looks like he’ll be getting a seat on the board of directors next.”
But Raki himself did not call, Jade said to herself. Then she thought, Perhaps it’s best that way.
“Oh, yeah,” Gradowsky went on. “Monica says hello and happy birthday. From me, too. You’re doin’ great work, Jade. We’re proud of you.”
The screen blanked but the message light stayed on. Jade touched it again.
Spencer Johansen smiled at her. Jade’s breath caught in her throat.
“Hey there, Jade. I’m sending this message to your office, ’cause I haven’t a clue as to where in the solar system you might be. How about giving a fella a call now and then? I mean, I’d like to see you, talk to you. Maybe I could even come out to wherever you are and visit. You know, this old habitat feels kinda lonesome without you. Send me a message, will you? I’d like to see you again.”
Jade sank down slowly onto the edge of the bed, surprised that her knees suddenly felt so weak. Would Spence come all the way out here just to see me? No, it wouldn’t be fair to ask him. I’ll be leaving as soon as my interview comes through, anyway. And then out to Titan. It could be another two years before I see him again.
And why would he want to leave Jefferson and come out to see me? Jade asked herself. Is he a romantic fool or—suddenly she remembered Raki’s cruel words: “The thrill is in the chase. Now that I’ve bagged her, what is there to getting her again?”
She shook her head. No, Spence isn’t like that. He’s not. I know he’s not. But what if he is? an inner voice demanded. What if he is? Good thing there’s several million kilometers between you.
Still, that did not mean she could not send him the message he asked for. Jade leaned forward and touched the phone’s keyboard. She was stunned to find that two hours had elapsed before she ran out of things to say to Spence Johansen.
Space University
Regal was the only possible word for her.
Jade stared in unabashed awe. Elverda Apacheta was lean, long-legged, stately, splendid, dignified, intelligent—regal. The word kept bobbing to the surface of Jade’s mind.
Not that the sculptress was magnificently clad: she wore only a frayed jumpsuit of faded gray. It was her bearing, her demeanor, and above all her face that proclaimed her nobility. It was an aristocratic face, the face of an Incan queen, copper red, a study in sculptured planes of cheek and brow and strong Andean nose. Her almond-shaped deeply dark eyes missed nothing. They seemed to penetrate to the soul even while they sparkled with what appeared to be a delight in the world. The sculptress’ thick black hair was speckled with gray, as much the result of exposure to cosmic radiation as age, thought Jade. It was tied back and neatly bound in a silver mesh. Her only other adornment was a heavy silver bracelet that probably concealed a communicator.
“Yes, I knew Sam well,” she replied to Jade’s lame opening question, in a throaty low voice. She spoke English, in deference to Jade, but there was the unmistakable memory of the high Andes in her accent. “Very well indeed.”
Jade was wearing coral-colored parasilk coveralls with the stylized sunburst of the Solar Network logo emblazoned above her left breast pocket and the miniature recorder on her belt. She was surprised at her worshipful reaction to Elverda Apacheta. The woman was renowned as not only the first space sculptress, but the best. Yet Jade had interviewed other personalities who were very famous, or powerful, or notorious, or talented. None of them had been this breathtaking. Did this Incan queen affect everyone this way? Had she affected Sam Gunn this way?
The two women were sitting in the faculty lounge of the minuscule Ceres branch of the Interplanetary Space University. Little more than an extended suite of rooms in one of the interlinked spacecraft that made up the orbiting habitat Chrysalis, the university was mainly a communications center where Cerean workers and their children could attend classes through interactive computer programs.
The lounge itself was a small, windowless, quiet room tastefully decorated with carpeting of warm earth colors that covered not only the floor but the walls as well. The ideal place for recording an interview. Must have cost a moderate-sized fortune to bring this stuff all the way out here, Jade thought.
The sculptress reclined regally on a high-backed armchair of soft nubby pseudo-wool, looking every inch a monarch who could dispense justice or mercy with the slightest arch of an eyebrow. Jade felt drab sitting on the sofa at her right, despite the fact that her coveralls were crisply new while Apacheta’s were worn almost to holes.
“I appreciate your agreeing to let me interview you,” Jade said.
Elverda Apacheta made a small nod of acknowledgement.
“Many other of Sam’s … associates, well, they either tried to avoid me or they refused to talk at all.”