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“What took you guys so long?” Tabby needled without malice. Cycle lock, she instructed her AI. The door we had entered closed behind us. The entire room rotated so we would be oriented correctly with the inside of the station. The room filled with atmospheric gasses. The entire process took less than twenty seconds.

  The inner door opened to a narrow, pale-yellow hallway. The letters L-1 were stenciled in black at eye level, indicating we were in a lock zone only one door from space. It was generally accepted (and even mandated on the Perth mining colony) that suits were to be worn in L-1 space. It was acceptable to have your face shield open, but in the case of depressurization, the suit needed to be able to seal quickly.

  There were several well-marked locks on our right side as we ran down the hallway. The locks had L-0 in bright red letters on their door frames. They led to an open interior bay for the launch pad. After jogging for 250 meters, we came to a door with a green L-2 stenciled on the frame. The lock opened for us as we approached and we all filed into a large square room. Since there was no pressure difference between L-1 and L-2, the opposite door opened as we entered. Years of traversing these locks allowed us to flow through without ever breaking stride.

  We released our helmets so they draped around our necks. Electrical stimulation of thin fibers kept the suit's helmet rigid when it was being worn, but once released, the fabric lost its shape and draped limply.

  The corridors we jogged through were generally ten meters wide and six meters tall. The size was a matter of convenience since the mining drill had a ten meter diameter. The remaining four meter tall arc beneath the floors were used to run electrical, sewage and atmosphere conduits. P-Zero's asteroid had a lot of iron deposits making it suitable for hollowing out and a ready source of materials for habitat construction.

  We had a couple of kilometers to travel to get to the school complex in the center of the asteroid. The final long hallway had a small overhead rail on each side with gondolas hanging from it. We were in luck and found a car waiting for us. The gondolas didn't normally take long to arrive but we were already a little late. Once everyone was in, I instructed, We're all in, let's go. The gondola doors closed, then it lurched forward and up. The track was lower where we jumped in, but within a few meters it raised up to follow along the ceiling, allowing for pedestrian traffic to pass easily below.

  When we neared the school complex, the gondola slowed, and lowered back to the floor. I was relieved to see there were still a number of other kids arriving at the last minute. There were over two hundred kids between six and eighteen years of age attending school at the complex for three hours each day. This education was mandated in order to work a claim or be allowed employment on the Perth colony.

  For Nick, Tabby, myself, and nine others, this would be our last day of school if everything went well. This afternoon we were entered into a colony pod-ball tournament and tomorrow was the big test. I'd made plans to stay overnight on the station with Nick, so I pushed off worrying about my sled for at least one more day.

  A quick stop in the locker room and we peeled off our vac-suits, then exited straight into the chamber where we played pod-ball and gathered for events. The stands were already packed with students, but we found a place to sit, even though it required a bit of shuffling from younger students.

  The speaker at the podium was already into his speech. I had hoped to enter unnoticed, but my mom, Silver Hoffen, caught my eye and gave me a slightly disapproving nod. I had to look away so she wouldn't see my grin.

  “Claim 40000.001 was originally sold to a cooperative group of miners and settlers as the Perth Mining Colony. The original twenty million shares of Class A stock were sold to one hundred and thirty five parties. Eighty-three years ago a convoy consisting of over a hundred ships carried the intrepid beginnings of this humble …”

  I thought I might go crazy if I had to hear Superintendent Harry Flark's 'Humble Beginnings' speech one more time. I caught myself and chuckled, realizing this would be my last time.

  The assembly lasted nearly an hour, a third of the entire school day. The school had been built for several hundred students but enrollment had steadily declined over the last couple of decades following the decline of the colony’s general population. Many of the richest claims were played out or bought up by speculators who weren't working them. The highly profitable claims on the biggest rocks were owned by large corporate interests and worked by hired hands.

  It was ironic that the objective of the Colony's original inhabitants was to escape to the wide open frontier and be free from the corporate interests. Now, most found themselves working for a corporation, barely making enough to slide along. My dad, Big Pete Hoffen, didn't work for a corporation, but he wasn't doing any better than anyone else. Each year it seemed things just got worse for us. The equipment got a bit older and we had to lay off more employees. At this point we were down to just Big Pete, Mom and me. Worse yet, I really despised asteroid mining.

  We filed out of the pod-ball court with the rest of the students. Nick and I left together, with Jack following close on our heels. Neither of us minded Jack's quiet company. He didn't have many friends of his own and enjoyed following along in his much smaller, but older brother's wake.

  “Hoffen, are you guys entered into the tournament today?” Beagil Chen, one of my senior classmates, asked from behind us. Beagil was the captain of one of the school's other pod-ball teams, Paradox Blue.

  Before I could answer, Tabby's angular shape sliced through the small knot of people eddying around Beagil and me. “We’ll be there, Mutt,” punctuated with a push to Beagil’s shoulder. Beagil's nickname was Mutt due to the similarity of his first name to a breed of Earth animal that were kept as pets. Pets were extremely rare on a colony, although Old Millie had recently received a kitten named Spaz from the last M-Cor visit. It was a stowaway and the captain of the freighter had threatened to space it. I had never seen a dog in anything other than a vid, much less a beagle. But like most nicknames, this one stuck easily.

  “What gives?” Beagil asked.

  “Ah, don’t be such a baby. Make sure you are suited up and ready for practice at 1200, Hoffen,” Tabby said.

  I was distracted by her change of clothing, although it was pretty standard for her. She was dressed in tight blue jeans, a pressed but loosely-fitted white blouse. Her long straight coppery hair was neatly braided to one side and pulled forward over her shoulder. Everything in place and in order.

  My gaze lingered momentarily. Tabby was tall and thin like most spacers. Over the last couple of years, while she hadn’t lost her tomboy attitude, somehow her body hadn’t gotten the message. Her always-tight jeans showed new curves and her loose blouse … well, I didn't like to admit how much I thought about all of that. It was one thing when she was in her ore sled playing tag or on the pod-ball court navigating through low-g. There she was just Tabby. But here in the hallway I felt off balance. I saw Tabby's fingers snapping in front of me and I realized with some amount of shame that I had been caught staring.

  “Eyes front and center, Hoffen.” Tabby simply didn't mince words. It was one of my favorite things about her, although in this case it proved to be embarrassing.

  MARS COMPETENCY TEST

  The pod-ball tournament went pretty much as expected. Beagil and his two older brothers were strong, agile, and worked well together. They provided our only real competition. We obliterated the other two teams quickly. Our team, Loose Nuts, gave up strength for endurance and raw speed. Tabby was by far the most aggressive, and my role was to keep her reigned in until the right moment. Once unleashed, she was devastatingly fast and had very little concern for anything other than scoring.

  The tournament ended well past 2300 and I slept on the couch in Nick's mom's apartment. Wendy was used to me staying over, since my family lived in a habitation dome thirty minutes away on an asteroid near the claim Big Pete and I were working.

  The next morning we made our way over to school for our last offi
cial act of secondary education.

  “Are you set for the MCT today?” Nick asked on the way to the classroom.

  “I didn't think we were supposed to study for that one.” I said, feigning indifference.

  “Well, they have practice tests. I hear Tabby went over to Fundus 12 for a prep course over break.”

  Tabby caught up and pushed her way between us, tossing an arm around both of our necks. Man, did she smell good.

  “Talking about me again boys? Don't be jealous, not everyone can have looks and brains." She squeezed my shoulder. Maybe she squeezed Nick's too, but I chose to believe it was all for me. "Good game yesterday, by the way. Sorry, I had to bolt out of there so quickly. Had to get some last minute studying in." She squeezed my shoulder again. "Speaking of studying, let me guess. You haven't thought about it until just now, Hoffen.”

  I managed to squeak out, “Uh, well, I guess I’ve been too busy. On break dad had me over on O-92 working to clear off that shelf. The mag-scans are showing strong pos’ for precious.”

  “Well, precious metals or not, I want offa this sand-pile. I'm gonna get accepted to the Naval Academy,” she replied briskly.

  “Good luck with that.” My words came out more bitter than expected.

  We entered the testing room and I sat down in a daze and logged into the terminal panel embedded in the desk's surface. I hadn't forgotten about the MCTs (Mars Competency Tests) and had run through a couple of practice tests. School came easily for me, but I wasn't even sure that it mattered. I came from a long line of miners and would probably die in this sand pile.

  An hour and a half into the three hour test, I reached the final question. I had always been quick on tests and while I considered reviewing the questions, I was still convinced it couldn't possibly matter. I would grow old out here making little rocks out of big ones. The future was nothing I could get excited about.

  Just outside the classroom, I looked up and down the familiar hallway and felt a strange sense of no longer belonging. My last official act here had been to take the MCT. With my back to the wall, I slunk down into a seated position and stared at the floor.

  Thirty minutes later Nick exited the room. “So, how do you think you did?” he asked.

  “Eh, oh, not too bad, you know, not that it makes a difference to anyone. Hey, you guys have time to help me tow my sled in? I thought maybe we could get it running before dad has an embolism or something.”

  “Yeah, let me find Jack. We have a couple of deliveries, but if you help, we can finish faster and then use the hauler to bring your sled back to the shop.”

  As if on cue, Jack came loping around the corner, grinning widely. I acknowledged him by lifting an eyebrow and giving a quick head nod. Jack already had his suit on and had energized his helmet.

  Instead of heading for the powder blue cruiser, we grabbed the first upward elevator we could find. Since the school was in the centermost complex, it was the safest structure in the entire colony. Such was the protective nature of miners with their children.

  Station security against asteroid collision was a continual investment and one of its largest budgetary expenditures. Scattered around in nearby space, several thousand small detectors were linked into a distributed computer processing array that measured all strikes and warned of anything big enough to threaten the station. In some cases, asteroids were allowed to strike if they were determined to be sufficiently small and slow moving. Other times, the station's massive engines fired up and nudged it out of the way. And once in a while, other asteroids were flung into the path of the approaching disaster.

  Even so, every few years something would make it through and cause a breach. A small miscalculation would allow a perfectly aimed rock anywhere between the size of your big toe and a large melon, to strike a poorly seated window, causing a section of the station to instantly decompress. Station building codes had limits on how large any open space was allowed to be. If you were perfectly unlucky, you could be standing close enough to the event to be sucked out into space without a suit. A slightly less unlucky person might be struck by that same object, killing them instantly. This happened every once in a while and had the effect of convincing the station's inhabitants that wearing a vac-suit in an L-1 section was important. It was one of several hazards of living in a mining colony.

  SLED REPAIRS

  After what seemed like an E-year (Earth year), the elevator’s air-lock opened automatically, depositing us on the Mercantile. Initially, just a deep crater in the top of the station's asteroid, the Mercantile was the first and oldest settled area.

  The original inhabitants had set up refining operations on the lip of the two hundred meter diameter hole. It had taken them less than two months to establish positive pressure by building the first of several transparent domes across the opening. Storefronts and apartments soared up from the base of the circular courtyard to the giant transparent dome.

  The storefront we approached was filled with all sorts of different pieces of equipment. An old sign hung over the main doors and read “James On-Time Rentals.” A quaint old bell rang as we pushed through the store's airlock doors.

  Nick walked behind the counter and snagged a pouch of soda from the cooler and tossed it to my waiting hand. He then grabbed an oversized reading pad and swiped his gloved hand across the top. “Looks like Mom added two deliveries. One is on the way, the other is in the station.” Nick said at his normal rapid fire pace, then said to his brother, “Jack, grab the blue vac-bot and run it over to Bab's Carpet Emporium.”

  Jack stared at Nick, looking lost.

  “Here, give me your arm.” Nick made a pinching gesture at his clipboard as if picking up a tissue from the display. He dropped the imaginary tissue onto a small display panel on the forearm of Jack's vac-suit and a map of the station appeared, with a well identified path between the rental shop and Bab's. Jack grinned and loped off to the back room, only to return a moment later with a blue robot the size of a twenty liter bucket. Once he cleared the front door, he set off at a jog.

  “He's a good kid.” Nick said.

  “I can't believe he can run with that thing.” I replied with amazement, watching Jack through the transparent doors. When Nick didn't reply I turned to watch him disappear through a door in the back.

  I jogged to catch up. A large cavern behind the store housed bulky mining machines that required much more space. A warning chime sounded and the display on my arm pulsed with an orange glow. I punched an escape sequence acknowledging my arrival in an L-1 section. I had thirty seconds before I would have to acknowledge the warning again, but I wasn't ready to put the helmet on. I did, however, set it to rigid so I could quickly activate the face shield.

  “Grab one of those big grav-carts. I think we can get it all in one trip,” Nick directed. He donned his own helmet and darted down an aisle, out of sight.

  I grabbed the handle of a large hovering cart. A couple of aisles over, I heard the sounds of heavy objects being moved around and pulled the cart in the direction of the noise. The sight of Nick's small frame wrestling with a grinding machine that easily out-massed both of us was hilarious, but I stepped in to help. Together, it took us nearly thirty minutes to get the cart loaded with the various machines on Nick's list.

  Just as we finished loading, Jack returned through the back door with an amiable grin.

  “We need to get this onto the big hauler and then we can go rescue your sled,” Nick said.

  He led the way through another set of doors, while Jack and I followed, pulling the loaded grav-cart onto an old beat-up lift. Once the doors closed behind us, Nick started giving directions. Lift Control Nick James. Verify seals, Jack James, Nick James, Liam Hoffen. Vent Atmo. Surface.

  The seal around each of our helmets pulsed green and I heard a quick whoosh as the station attempted to reclaim the atmosphere before it opened the surface seal. We were on a very old industrial elevator Nick's mom had been lucky enough to purchase from a salvaged freigh
ter. It was slow and banged up, but was rated to carry items well beyond anything they would ever have in the shop. I often wondered what sort of things this old elevator had seen in its lifetime.

  Once it came to a stop, we found ourselves on top of the station overlooking James’ Rental’s exterior yard. Drilling lasers, dusters, combiners, oxy-shovels, screeners and all manner of large equipment lay on the deck of the yard.

  “Jack, you guys take the sled to container eight. I think it is empty. But grab two more of the big sleds and put them in first.”

  Jack pointed toward a standard ore container they used to haul larger equipment. It only took a couple of minutes to load the container with the equipment and empty carts. Just as Jack and I were finishing, a sled hovered down to our position.

  “Clear out guys,” Nick's disembodied voice directed as he landed the James’ Rental sled. “Oh, and grab a couple of come-alongs too, Jack.”

  The design of the hauler wasn't significantly different than that of an ore sled. The cabin sat on top of a long spine with long, spindly legs. Nick deftly rested the spine down on the container. Automated systems made fine adjustments, allowing docking pins to neatly attach and then lock, drawing the container snugly up to the ship.

  With Jack not far behind, I scrambled up into the cabin of the container hauler. It was close quarters for three of us, but wasn't the first time we had squeezed in. Physically spent from lugging around the equipment, we made the delivery rounds in silence, except for Nick's spat-out commands at each stop. It was interesting to see how easily he took charge. He was small enough that he wouldn't play pod-ball with us, but out here he was large and in charge.

  With the deliveries complete, Nick made his way to the asteroid that held my ore-sled hostage. We piled out to inspect the damage and then pulled three large mechanical winches out of the back of the hauler. We attached them strategically to the hauler on the side closest to my ore sled. I moved between the units and touched a button on each of them in sequence instructing the AI: Synchronize come-alongs, A, B, C.