Then a tiny dark speck appeared against the blue-gray clouds.
“There she is!” someone shouted.
“No, that’s just—”
But even as the people stared at the screens, the cameras in orbit around the planet zoomed in on the unmistakable image of the spherical submersible rising above Uranus’s clouds and heading for the habitat.
“She’s made it!”
“She’s coming home!”
The crowd roared. People swarmed around Gomez, grabbing for his hand, pounding him on the back. Women kissed him. Men grinned and laughed as if they were responsible for the submersible’s return. Raven stood aside and let Tómas bask in his moment of glory.
But after a few moments the big grin on his face faded. He nodded good-naturedly at the crowd and said, “Now we must examine the samples from the seabed that the sub has carried to us. Now we have to find out whether or not the planet is truly sterile.”
That didn’t diminish the crowd’s enthusiasm one iota. Raven watched them as they smiled and nodded and pawed at the astronomer. One woman stepped up to Tómas, brazenly wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him squarely on the lips. Gomez sputtered and gulped for air, half delighted, half embarrassed.
Standing off at the edge of the crowd, Raven realized that Tómas was right: his real work was just beginning.
QUINCY O’DONNELL
Eventually the crowd broke up into knots of men and women talking, discussing, gesticulating while they slowly walked out of the auditorium. Raven watched Gomez as the crowd gradually melted away from him. Your fifteen minutes of fame have ended, she said to him silently.
Gomez seemed to understand. He turned and headed for the nearest exit, without even a nod toward Raven. Heading back to work, heading for his real love, his urge to uncover the mysteries of Uranus.
Despite herself, she sighed. But when she turned and started for an exit she saw Quincy O’Donnell standing a few steps away from her, big, hulking, the expression on his face halfway between expectant and cringing.
Raven made herself smile at him. “Hello, Quincy.”
“Hello, Raven,” he said, his eyes glancing this way and that. “How are you?”
As Raven headed slowly toward the nearest exit, she replied, “I’m fine. And you?”
Walking beside her, Quincy asked, “Are you busy tonight? Can I take you to dinner?”
Raven hesitated. She saw the big oaf’s anxiety in his deep blue eyes. Why not? she asked herself. Keep him on the leash.
“That would be nice,” she said, as she extended her hand toward his.
Raven spent the day in her quarters, studying. Precisely at 7:00 P.M. she heard a tap on her door. The viewscreen next to the door showed O’Donnell out in the passageway, wearing a sharply creased pair of new-looking trousers and a powder-blue hip-length shirt, nervously biting his lip.
He’s dressed up for me, she thought.
She cleared the wall screen she’d been working with, got to her feet and commanded the door to open. O’Donnell stood there uncertainly, like an oversized child wondering what was expected of him.
“Come in, Quincy,” said Raven. As he entered, Raven turned toward her bedroom and said over her shoulder, “I’ll only be a minute.”
O’Donnell led Raven to the habitat’s fanciest restaurant. She wore a form-hugging outfit she had created from one of the shapeless uniforms in her closet; it complemented his outfit nicely.
As they sat off in a corner of the restaurant, at a table for two, Raven asked, “What are you up to these days?”
A wide grin broke across his rugged, ruddy face. “I’ve been promoted, I have. I’ll be supervising one o’ the teams of robots buildin’ the new wheel.”
“Really? That’s wonderful. Congratulations.”
And for the rest of their dinner, O’Donnell described his work on the extension of Haven’s habitat. The new wheel they were constructing would double the station’s capacity.
“It’ll be a duplicate of this structure, right down to the last weld,” he said happily.
As the robotic waiter delivered their desserts, Raven said, “I didn’t know you were an engineer.”
Still beaming happily, O’Donnell responded, “I wasn’t, not until last Friday. I been studyin’ in my sleep, y’know, learnin’ structural engineering—at least, enough to qualify for a supervisor’s slot. I’m risin’ up in the world, I am!”
Raven realized she wasn’t the only one using hypno-learning to advance herself.
She said, “Quincy, that’s wonderful.”
“On this job, we’ll be workin’ outside, you know. Out in space. It won’t bother the robots, of course, but I’ll have to wear a space suit, just like the astronauts!”
“That’ll be exciting,” Raven enthused.
“One o’ these days I’ll be a full-fledged engineer, with a diploma and everything.”
“That will be grand,” Raven said, feeling honestly delighted for him.
“It will,” he said happily. “It will.”
He walked her back to her quarters. Raven stopped at her door, stood on her tiptoes to give him a peck on the lips, and said, “Thanks for a lovely dinner, Quincy.”
He beamed happily.
“And congratulations again on your new position.”
He nodded, fidgeting uncertainly before her closed door.
“Good night, Quincy.”
For a moment he was silent, staring down at her. Then, “Good night, Raven.”
He turned and started down the passageway. Raven stared after his shambling, hulking form for a moment, then swiftly opened her apartment’s door, stepped inside, and slid it shut again.
She leaned against the closed door, thinking, The higher he gets in the engineering field, the harder it will be to control him. Remember that.
THE DRUG TRADE
Morning after morning, Raven went to Evan Waxman’s office, past the piercing cold blue eyes of Alicia Polanyi, and learned more about the intricacies of managing habitat Haven.
More than four thousand people lived in Haven, almost all of them refugees from the slums and villages of Earth. They were the forgotten ones, the voiceless ones, bypassed in the surging rush for wealth, for pleasure, for opportunity that their more fortunate brethren pursued. Most of these poor, downtrodden men and women were trying to better themselves, striving for education, for a new place in this new world.
“We don’t seem to have many children here,” Raven said to Waxman, as she stood in front of his desk.
Leaning back in his desk chair, Waxman said carelessly, “No, we don’t. By design.”
“By design?” Raven echoed, surprised. “But I would think that families—especially families with small children—they’re the ones who need our help the most.”
Waxman replied casually, “You’d think that, wouldn’t you?”
“Don’t you?” she asked.
He shook his head. “It’s too late for them. We don’t want to become a charity ward for young families. For women without husbands and a half-dozen brats clinging to their skirts.”
“But they’re the ones who need the most help!”
“Maybe they do, but they’d soak up most of our resources. And for what? So that they can go out and make more children? We’re not running a family clinic here. We want single, unattached men and women who can learn and grow, who can manage themselves positively and help this habitat to prosper.”