Abbott leaned back in his chair and studied his words. Yes, that sums up the problem and the potential solution very neatly. Harvey can take it from there. He’ll get the credit for solving the problem, of course. But I’ll get the pressure off my back.
With a satisfied nod, Abbott told the computer,
“Send.”
That should do it, he said to himself.
The Reverend Kyle Umber rose from his knees slowly. His left knee throbbed with a sullen pain. Praying and arthritis don’t go together well, he told himself.
With great reluctance, Umber had canceled the shipment of two hundred more refugees from Earth. Waxman had told him he had no choice, the Astronomical Association had commandeered the vessel, stranding the poor people in a makeshift shelter so that a team of astronomers and other scientists could fly out here and disturb everything.
Well, they’re not going to disturb this sanctuary, Umber told himself firmly. They’ll occupy Haven II for a while, but they won’t set foot in Haven itself. As far as I’m concerned, those scientists will be living completely separately from us.
Waxman has apparently agreed with that decision, Umber thought. But I’ll have to watch him closely. Evan smiles and nods and then goes off and does what he wants to. Well, that’s going to end. I’m going to step up to my duties as the spiritual head of this community. Even if it means a conflict with Evan.
He stumbled to his desk, his knee aching, and sat down heavily in his sculpted chair. The knee’s throbbing eased, but did not stop altogether.
OPENING SHOP
Raven and Alicia stood side by side in the entry of their boutique. Behind them hung rows of women’s clothes, outfits of bold colors and striking styles, displays of shoes, blouses, underwear.
Alicia was staring at her wristwatch, counting off the seconds. “Eight… seven… six…”
Raven peered through the blinds that covered the shop’s front door. She couldn’t see anyone out there. All the work we’ve put in, all the advertisements we’ve put on the video network, and nobody’s come to our opening? She felt a surge of bitter anger. The clods. The stupid clods.
“…four… three… two… one…”
Raven unlatched the door and swung it open. Out in the passageway one lone person was walking past, a middle-aged man.
“Hi!” he said, with a shy wave.
“Hello,” said Raven.
The man looked less than handsome: his hair was peppered with gray, his belly strained the front of his light tan shirt.
“This the new shop?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“You sell joolery?”
Before Raven could answer, Alicia said from behind her, “Yes, we do. Come on in and see.”
“Uh, no. Not now. Gotta get to work. How late you open?”
“Until six,” said Raven and Alicia, in unison.
“That’s gonna make it tough. I wanna bring my sugar to look over your joolery. She wants some kinda ring.”
“We could stay open later,” Alicia said.
“Seven, seven thirty?”
“Sure.”
“Okay. See you then.” And he walked away.
“Our first customer,” Raven said.
“Maybe.”
“We really don’t have much of a selection of jewelry, do we?”
Alicia grinned. “We have the best selection in the habitat. The best selection this side of the Earth-Moon system.”
The day wore on slowly. Several women came into the shop during the morning, poked around among the dresses and blouses, bought nothing and left.
Raven went to the nearest cafeteria at noontime and brought back a pair of prepackaged lunches. As they were sitting behind the counter, chewing morosely on their sandwiches, two youngish women came into the boutique and started thumbing through the dresses hanging on display.
“You got anything my size?” asked one of them. She was tiny, only as tall as Raven’s shoulder and elfin slim.
Raven quickly put her sandwich down and stepped around the counter. “The smaller sizes are over here,” she said, leading her deeper into the shop.
It took nearly an hour, but the diminutive young woman finally picked a short-skirted dress and a pair of shoes to go with it. Her companion smiled as she studied herself in the mirror.
“Andy will love it,” the companion approved.
The woman nodded and, with a shy smile, extended her arm for Raven to record her credit account from her wristwatch. Alicia wrapped the dress and Raven boxed the shoes and the two women left the boutique chattering happily.
“Tell your friends about us!” Raven called to their departing backs.
“We will!”
As Raven turned back toward the counter, Alicia breathed, “Our first sale.”
“The first of many,” said Raven.
Then they both said, giggling, “From your mouth to God’s ear.”
Evan Waxman stared at his desktop screen. “You’re coming here?”
The man on the screen wouldn’t hear the question for more than two hours, Waxman knew. He frowned inwardly at being so stupid.
The man was saying, “…so I talked Millard into appointing me as the official news representative to accompany the first team of scientists going out to your cabin in the sky.”
His name was Noel Dacco. He was a news reporter with the Central African Journalism Organization (CAJO). A big-shouldered black man with lustrous dark eyes and an infectious laugh, his head shaved bald, his chin rimmed with a sparse beard, he was Waxman’s chief link with the international high-society celebrities and VIPs who were a significant part of the market for Rust.
Waxman frowned at his desktop screen. Noel can’t come here! I need him on Earth, handling my contacts with the wholesalers and distributors.
As if he could read Waxman’s mind even over the interplanetary distance that separated them, Dacco smiled widely and explained in his deep, rich baritone voice, “Everything is fine at this end, Evan. Everything is going as smoothly as clockwork. I thought it would be fun to ride out there and see your operation firsthand. I am a newsman, after all. I won’t get in your way, I promise. This is going to be like a vacation for me.”
Vacation, Waxman grumbled inwardly. There’s more to this than a vacation. He’s coming all the way out here for a reason. Are the distributors on Earth trying to move in on me? Take over the production end, as well as distribution and sales?
Waxman stared at Dacco’s smiling image on his desktop screen. This is going to be trouble, he told himself. I’ve got to be prepared for him.
VINCENTE ZWORKYN
Zworkyn felt a surge of fatherly pride as he gazed at the wall screen. It showed segments of four extensive circles, linked by straight lines. All buried beneath nearly a hundred meters of stones and sand.
“It’s a city,” said Tómas Gomez, sitting beside him, his voice hushed with awe.
“It was a city,” Zworkyn agreed. “Or whatever the Uranians’ equivalent of a city might have been.”
The two men were sitting side by side on the sofa in Zworkyn’s makeshift office, which was crammed with computers and analytical sensors.
Gomez nodded without taking his eyes from the image. “How old is it? When was it destroyed? What destroyed it?”
“Good questions,” said Zworkyn. “Let’s hope we can find some answers.”