Tumbler Read online

  A pragmatic part of her mind clicked into gear, and she decided she'd have to buy a plant, or else, replacement air. She would run out eventually unless - no. She didn't have any money. First money, then air. Another shudder ran through her. First money, then air? How much trouble was she in where she had to think about saving money for breathing?

  She'd come out here to mine, but nobody showed up to tell her how. That man at the bar, Ted, talked about machinery, but she wouldn't know what kind she needed, or what she would do with it when she got it. She thought there would be some kind of class or tutorial, or someone who would show her the ropes first.

  Libby hadn't come out here thinking it would be easy, but she didn't expect to be dumped on a rock in the middle of nowhere, with no friends, no home, not a thing to her name. How could they expect anyone to build off of this?

  Then she sat upright as a new thought hit her. They didn't expect her to build off of this. Of course there was a tutorial. There had to be some kind of class where they taught new miners what to do, showed them how to use the tools, that sort of thing. Woody was just showing her to her bunk, that was all. And sure, it wasn't a huge rock, so they were embarrassed about it, but it could be worse. Once she learned how to mine, she would be able to slice the floor right out from under this place, and she'd sell the ore to buy a better rock. Of course they didn't give her the best material. She had to begin with a starter rock. This was the rock she'd use to prove that she belonged here!

  Libby stood up from the table with renewed purpose. First, she had to find out where the classes where, how she could sign up, and most of all, what she could do about money until then.

  She put on her helmet and cycled the door. As she stepped out, the universe collapsed around her, rushing toward her and past her and around her wildly. Her knees buckled as she grabbed the door frame in terror. She shut her eyes tight, and tried desperately not to throw up. Libby didn't know much about living in space, but she knew she didn't want to throw up inside a spacesuit.

  She crouched next to the shack, with her eyes pressed shut, waiting for the feeling to pass. With no gravity to worry about, she'd forgotten how fast the rock spun in space. For that brief moment, it looked as though all the stars were shooting down on her, in a kaleidoscope of huge, spinning planetoids.

  She held on to the handle of the door, and thought about the ocean. The ocean roils, but in the distance remains steady and constant. After a moment, she opened her eyes, looking straight down at the rock. She wasn't ready to look at the sky again, but she decided to get there slowly by looking at the rock first. Staring at the ground, she saw something next to the door.

  There were cuts on the ground outside her door. They looked regular, not craggy like the rest of the rock. As she twisted her head around, she saw that there were letters, upside down from her vantage point. Without letting go of the door handle, she turned around, and read "Roger Smith".

  She frowned at the words. Who was Roger Smith? The man who built the shack? As she looked at it, she noticed another name carved into the rock just to the right of that name. "Jubilation T. Jones". Near it was another name. She looked at it, holding on to the shed. "Sven Boardman." As her eyes moved from that name, she saw another, and another. She looked around the small rock and found it covered in the scratchings. One name after another. She crawled over the surface of her rock, examining the surface. One name after another. Names covered the whole surface of the rock. On the opposite side of the rock, away from the shack, Libby found one bare patch, standing out against the tapestry of names around her.

  She frowned at it, uncomprehending. She felt a vague dread from the names, and even moreso from the bare spot. She frowned at it, then decided she'd just have to ask about it later. Maybe she'd ask someone in the mining classes.

  She stood up again, and looked directly at the runabout. By concentrating only on the runabout, she was able to sit in it, and figure out the simple controls. A joystick controlled the direction, with a button to control thrust. She untethered the vehicle, and headed back to town.

  Luckily, her little spinning rock was close enough to town that she could see the huge hemisphere almost instantly, and she guided the runabout toward the loading bay without too much trouble. She marveled at the fact that, while everyone tethered their vehicles to the outside of the bay, no one bothered to secure them with locks or anything. If it didn't bother them though, it didn't bother her. She cycled through the bay, and joined the throng of pushing, rushing people, winding her way back to the Hail Mary.

  Once she got in, she immediately looked for Woody. He was watching her from the bar, frowning. She smiled and headed for him. As she crossed through the room, she heard a loud group of revelers suddenly start laughing.

  One of them held up a glass of beer in a mock salute to her, and said, "Tumbler! How'd you fare?" A round of laughter erupted. She could see the boy, Mike, standing near the group, scowling in anger, with his hands balled into fists by his sides.

  Another drinker turned to face her, "Did ya need a vomit bag, Tumbler? I got two bits, says you did!" Laughter rang through the place. Libby ignored them as she walked over to the bar. She didn't quite know what they were talking about, but she could tell it was aimed at her, and wasn't friendly.

  Although she was smiling as she first headed for Woody, she was frowning by the time she reached him. A young child was bouncing on the barstool next to Woody, chattering at him, while he nodded appreciatively. When Libby reached them, he turned to face Libby. They stared at each other for a long time until she said, "So how do I do it?"

  He took a deep breath, "First, you gotta get it outta the ground. That means you get it surveyed. You hire one of the boyos to come out and run his little thumper all around your rock, and then he'll tell you what you've got, how much, and where it's the closest to the surface."

  Her frown deepend, "I can't do that myself?"

  He shook his head slowly, "Without equipment? Hell, I've been doing this forty years, I got a sense about the metal so good I can smell the ore through my suit, but even I couldn't do what they do without equipment." The young girl bobbed her head in agreement.

  "So how much do they cost?"

  He looked at her for a long moment, "After you got it surveyed, you strip off the top layer. You pick the point that's closest to the ore, and you start cutting furrows using whatever tools you can find. Most rock needs a diamond-bit stone cutter, but if you've got the time, you can do it with just a pick and a shovel."

  She nodded, "Well, my rock's so small, I would probably be okay with that."

  The girl sitting next to Woody piped up, "You gotta make good furrows. Long lines on the ground, and they have to go from the top all the way down to the ore. A really good digger'll give you furrows that go right to the ore, without cutting any ore out. Otherwise, you're losing big money.”

  The girl hugged her knees to her chest as she continued rocking on the barstool. “Anyway, after you put in your furrows, then you get a real cutter to come in and break off sheets of your rock crust. It's a huge monstrous machine that grabs the furrows, cracks them off at the right point, and gives you workable flat sheets of rock to use for building houses and stuff."

  Libby frowned again, "Okay, so, more equipment, more cost, more time. What next?"

  Woody took a deep breath, "Well, at that point, you get a digger to come in and slice out the ore. It don't have to be exact cubes, but the more square it is, the better price you'll get."

  He ran a hand through his whiskers, tugging on the ends over his chin, "Then, you gotta get it refined. That process is going to be different for almost every type of rock, but you can usually get away with saying you want to purify for one element or another, which means you burn off the cheaper impurities in favor of whatever the main ore type is."

  The girl picked up as he dwindled off, "After that, you have to sell it at the virtual market. You pay the auctioneer to put your ore out there, then they get a scientist t
o test it and say how pure it is." She wrinkled up her nose, "You have to pay for the scientist too. Then, the auctioneer gets on the line with Earth, and they haggle over a fair price for it, and you gotta hope it will be more than it costs to ship it to Earth."

  Libby sat, slack jawed and unbelieving, "So, I have to pay to have the rock removed, to have the ore cut out, to have it refined, tested, and auctioned off, and after all that, it may not be worth enough to ship home?"

  The girl nodded vigorously, "Yup. Sucks, don't it?" She bounced over to Libby and stuck out a hand, "I'm Dora, by the way."

  Libby didn't take the hand, she just kept looking at Woody. She thought about what she'd expected to find, what help she had hoped to gain, and she finally asked, "There's no tutorial, is there?"

  He seemed to think about that for a moment. Then he said, "I don't expect there ever is."

  She shook her head, "They want me to just jump in and start mining?"

  He turned back to the bar and looked down at his drink, "No. I don't guess they do."

  "But they signed me up with no experience, no skill, no equipment. They knew I couldn't do the job? Why would they do that?"

  Woody downed his drink without looking at her, "They have to. It's only fair."

  Miriam breezed past them wordlessly, and an Ice Tea appeared in front of Libby, "What's fair about this?"

  He shrugged, "They have to give you a chance. You don't have to take it. All the company wanted was to get you out here, so you could work."

  Libby sipped at the tea, "What about money? There's no way they could expect me to come out here and pay for all that work, without some kind of assistance or stipend."

  He smiled sadly, "Nobody gets assistance on the frontier. Not from the company, anyway."

  "Not even meals? They just dump me out here to starve?"

  The old man looked at her for a long time, "How many people, do you think, have owned that rock you're living on?"

  ***

  Libby staggered off the barstool and ran out of the bar, with loud, braying laughter coming from the hecklers. She tripped and fell on the doorstop, falling to her knees. Crawling, she reached the side of the Hail Mary, and sat down with her back against the wall, trying to calm her breathing. She was shaking, staring blankly into the distance. There had to be another way.

  She needed money to mine the rock, that was clear. She needed to mine the rock before she could get any money, and even then it was a long shot if she could cover the losses. What kind of chance was this? It just wasn't fair.

  Libby squeezed her eyes shut, and she remembered the names. Names covering her rock. How many other people had owned that rock? There must have been thousands of people who had come out here with the promise of opportunity. Where were they now? Did they find a way to make it? Did they wash out and go home? Did they . . . just die? Left alone and penniless in an airtight tin prison of hopelessness.

  With that thought, her distraught expression started to change. Her eyebrows dropped as her mouth formed a sneer. Her lips moved in silence, "Not me." She would not be one of them. She was not going to just die out here. She was made of sterner stuff than that. There was a way, there had to be, and she was going to find it.

  But for just a moment, a small voice inside her asked, "Is that what all of them thought when they got here?"

  She shook her head slowly. “I will not let it end like this. I will not be a statistic. I will not be one of them”. Her eyes popped open as she remembered something. The bare patch on her asteroid, the one spot where no name was written on her rock. There was just enough space left for one more name.

  ***

  "Okay!" she shouted as she burst through the doors of the Hail Mary. She sprinted to the bar and spoke out to anyone who would listen, "Okay, you win, I lose. I give up. How do I get out?"

  Woody looked up at her, but after a moment, returned to his drink. Miriam moved over to her and said softly, "What's wrong, honey?" Her voice had a calming affect that was strengthened by a little tinge of menace, warning Libby to keep her voice down.

  "What's wrong? I can't win here!" She caught herself, and sat down, lowering her voice. "I can't even break even here. If I'm going to mine, I need money. But I can't get any money without a really successful mine already started. I've got no money, no equipment, and a pretty crappy rock that was made to fail."

  She swiveled in her seat to face Woody, "So I get it, I understand. The company made a deal. And according to that deal, they have to let everybody have a shot. So they stick me with the worst possible land." She jabbed a finger at the crowd of revelers, "That's why they called me 'Tumbler' isn't it? It's just a name for people who have come out here without any skills, and ended up dying on a spinning, tumbling rock! They don't need to know my name, because I'm just the new Tumbler, right? Just the next in a series of losers who never got a chance!"

  No one met her eyes after that, so she continued, "So they give me the short end of the stick, which means I have to give up and go home with my tail between my legs, is that it?"

  Woody looked shrunken, and suddenly seemed much older. He shrugged, and she continued, "So, okay. They win. I lose. I go home. All I want to know now is how can I do that? Where do I sign up to go home?"

  Miriam leaned in, her face drawn, "Honey, a trip to Earth is very expensive. I don't think you could afford it."

  Libby opened her mouth, then shut it again. She fell back against the chair, and sat there for a moment, stunned. She looked at all of them, uncomprehending. "But . . . I mean, I just don't get it. They ship me out here, they know I can't work, they know I can't mine, they know I don't have enough money to mine, but they won't ship me back? It's murder!"

  Woody's voice came through quietly, with a rasp like sandpaper over chalk, "Mining for yourself ain't the only way to make a buck."

  Libby sat for a moment, letting that work itself out in her head. Then she asked, "What else can I do?"

  Miriam shrugged and said, “Well, you're a pretty girl. You could always -”

  Libby stopped her, pointing one finger in the air between them, “No. I won't take any job that starts with 'you're a pretty girl.' I may be flat broke and destitute, but I will not -”

  Woody interrupted without raising his voice, "Mine for somebody else."

  She bristled at that for a moment, but only a moment. Then she started nodding slowly, "Okay. So, I can find work, and save up enough for a ticket home. What are salaries like out here?"

  Miriam took a deep breath, her bosom swelling like a frog's air bladder. She got a faraway look in her eyes, "I'd say you could fetch, oh, five hundred dollars a week, easy. In fact, I know a guy who's looking for unskilled labor. You might get some training as well."

  Libby nodded, although she could care less about the training. In the past few minutes, she had given up all interest in mining. She just wanted whatever could get her home fastest. "Okay, great. So, how much does a one-way ticket to Earth cost?"

  Miriam's face clouded again, "I'm sorry, honey. But that runs about twenty thousand dollars."

  Chapter 5

  Libby wrapped her arms over her head as it rested against the table. She clutched at her hair and shook her head without looking up, the hard plastic feeling cool against her forehead, "No, no no. This is stupid."

  She sat up suddenly, hair billowing around her head in a dark, wavy flash of low gravity. Her eyes were bloodshot, her head pounding. "Why? Why, Dora. Just answer me that. What's the point?"

  The little girl sat across from her, bouncing in her seat happily. A stack of thick books sat between them, with one standing open in front of her, like a castle gate. Libby could barely see the girl from behind that book. Her long braid bounced behind her like a whip as she nodded, "You gotta know it. It's a lock. Gotta be on the test."

  Libby put her hands flat on the table, and slowly said, "I know it's on the test. I've been studying for this test for the last three months. What I don't know, and what nobody seems to want to
tell me, is why we would ever need to know this."

  Dora's cocked her head to one side and frowned at her, as though confused. "It's geology. You're a miner. You want to be a good miner, you learn geology. Duh."

  Libby shook her head slowly, "No. I get that. I know that rocks are important to geology. I mean this -" She stabbed at the book in front of her, "this is stupid. Thirty-seven different types of rare minerals. Why would a miner ever need to know them? Why should I know their names? Why should I know their boiling points? Why should I care?"

  "Because you like money." The dry cackle came from behind Libby, and she spun around to face Woody.

  She stared at him for a moment, then asked, "What? I mean, why? Rare minerals are rare. Meaning, you don't see them. Most of these minerals have only been found on Earth. So what's the point in studying them?"

  One side of his face curled up in a grin, "Rare don't mean you never see them. Rare means you see them . . . rarely."

  Libby grabbed two fistfuls of hair again, "Exactly! So what's the point of studying them?"

  Woody was sitting at the bar with his back to it, elbows resting on the rail behind him, "Because, Tumbler, if or when you do see 'em, you'll be gawpin' at something rare. Rarity's value. Value's money. Now, do you wanna be the dummy who threw away the golden goose because you wanted to get at it's iron eggs?"

  Dora frowned at him, brows furrowing, "Wow. You really messed up that analogy."

  Libby pointed at him, "Okay, no. I get it. Right. I learn about the stuff I'll never see, because if I do see them, I need to be able to recognize them, because they're worth a fortune!"

  Dora nodded, "Yeah, that's one reason."

  Libby turned to her and frowned, "Okay, what's another?"

  Dora shrugged, "Well, it's cool. I mean, seriously, there's only so many different types of rock out there. Not as many as most people think." She started swirling her hands around each other as she stared in between them. "But you put them together, sometimes they react with each other, sometimes they crush each other, sometimes they just turn into something . . . " her hands opened as she kept staring at the air between them, "I dunno. Beautiful."