THE BELTERS' WAR, CHAPTER 3

THE BELTERS’ WAR

Christopher Stasheff

CHAPTER 3

Spindrift managed to look pleasantly surprised. "Good morning, Mr. Flanagan."

Joan looked up, interested—and caught Flanagan's eye. Her own widened, and she went through the slight-blush-eyes-downcast routine again. Flanagan gave her a slow smile and a very obvious look up and down, undressing her with his eyes.

Spindrift watched, interested. Kit seethed.

This time Swayne couldn't even pretend not to notice. He reddened, his shoulders squaring and his jaw firming.

Spindrift saved him the trouble of talking. "I thought you'd made a mistake and tried to sell me Commission asteroids."

"No, not that parcel!" Flanagan forced his gaze away from Joan. "I had the coordinates wrong—comes from buying and selling too often. The right one is 32-54-357."

"'Scuse me." Trail eased himself back to the side of the young man.

Flanagan saw him coming and scowled. "Don't listen to Trail—he'll sell you ice and tell you it's rock."

"Really, now, Mr. Flanagan!" Trail said. "When have I ever done anything like that?" Without waiting for an answer, he told Spindrift, "I'd have a lawyer check the title on that parcel if I were you."

"Well, he's not you!" Flanagan snapped. "Besides, where's he gonna find a lawyer this far out?"

"Right here." Trail turned back to Swayne. "Mr. Flanagan, Mr. Spindrift, meet Alexander Swayne, Esquire."

Flanagan stared. "Where'd he come from—your pocket?"

"I could take offense at that," Swayne said, "if I hadn't just stepped off the Ceres shuttle." He took his keypad out of his jacket and unfolded it. "What were those coordinates?"

"32 - 54 - 357." Kit couldn't let her beloved be swindled.

Flanagan glared at Trail, but he spoke to Spindrift. "You're cozying up to the wrong people, young man, and you'll be sorry for it!"

The holographic read-out appeared in front of Swayne for all to see, but for those who couldn't read backward, he said, "That parcel belongs to a Castor Roberts as of 0957 hours this morning."

"Castor Blaster?" Kit said, surprised. "Saw him not half an hour ago!"

"Selling the same parcel twice, Flanagan?" Trail asked.

Flanagan reddened at the loss of the ‘Mr.’ "Must've been a data entry error. Try that again with 32 - 54 - three eighty-seven."

Ignoring the rudeness of the dropped honorific and courtesy, even of his name, Swayne cleared the read-out and typed in the number. They watched as a new record came up. "Joseph Flanagan, right enough."

Flanagan gave Spindrift an ingratiating smile. "Happens when you do so much buying and selling—you lose track of which number goes with which parcel."

Another legend appeared in red letters, below the name and number. The drovers' breath hissed in; they didn't need to read it to know what it said.

"Mined out," Charlie said.

"Nothing left there with any ore in it," Kit interpreted.

Flanagan's glare took them all in, but he spoke to Swayne. "Not a good idea to start out making enemies your first day in the Belt, young man."

"I should hope I haven't," Swayne said, "since it was only a data-entry error."

Flanagan gave him a curt nod. "Better not try shopping in my store." He turned and stumped away.

"Does he really think the whole Belt is his personal store?" Swayne asked.

"No, he means his general-merchandise emporium," Trail explained. "Sells everything from needles to burro-boats. Only one between here and Ceres, unless you count the Flame Furnace and Blazer’s Smelter."

Joan blanched. "You mean if he takes a dislike to us, I won't be able to buy anything?"

"Personally, I ship it all in from Ceres," Trail explained. “Whatever I need. Why pay the middle-man, especially if he's Flanagan?"

"Yes, there's a great deal of profit to be made," Joan said, a glint in her eye. "What keeps other people from starting such a store?"

"Three things," Trail said. "Help, capital—and Flanagan."

"Is everyone so much afraid of him?"

"Mr. Trail isn't," Kit boasted.

Trail gave her his easy smile. "True enough, I'm not afraid of him, and I have the capital—but who am I going to get to run the place?”

"Here!" Joan gave Swayne's shoulder a push. "You don't even have to have your name on it—does he, Alex?"

"Hadn't thought of myself as a storekeeper," Swayne said slowly, "but I expect I could learn. Flanagan's already taken against me, anyway."

"You can find drovers who'd be glad to work a shift or two," Charlie said. "They want to get off their sleds and find firm footing."

"Tired of dodging rocks, Charlie?" Kit asked with a grin.

"Five years hauling asteroids with nothing to show for it," Charlie told her, "except a few thousand credits on deposit with Mr. Trail."

"Let me guess," Swayne said. "Flanagan owns the bank, too."

Trail nodded. “It's part of his store.”

"He really won't like the competition, will he?"

"I'm not afraid," Charlie said.

"Neither is Alex." Joan took hold of her husband's arm with both hands.

"Let's talk about it over lunch," Trail said. "After all, Mr. Spindrift still needs to buy a parcel."

"If this Castor Roberts is willing," Spindrift said slowly, "I might buy his."

Trail turned to him with a frown. "That wouldn't be a very good idea."

Spindrift looked up in surprize. "Why not, Mr. Trail?"

"Because Flanagan is a rock-thief." Trail held up a palm. "No, no, I can't prove it. He's careful, makes sure his drovers never get caught, but everybody knows it."

"I'm sure I can defend my own."

"Too right you can!" Kit rested a hand on her laser.

"Yes, well, it might be better if you didn't have to. If Roberts wants to take on Flanagan, let him do it. I've got another parcel I can sell you next to Blaster's."

"Why do you think Roberts will succeed where I won't?"

"Two things," Trail said. "One—he doesn't care if his boulders have iron or slag, just wants to hunt for gold that isn't there. He retired from the Belt Rangers last month and wants something to do. Two—he hates Flanagan."

"Oh yes, because he's Belt Rangers and Flanagan's Navy."

Kit grinned—her true love had been listening, hadn't he?

Trail didn't smile as he explained his offer—almost against his will, it seemed. "If I sell you a parcel next to Blaster's, he'll be a buffer between you and Flanagan."

Spindrift frowned. "I don't like hiding behind another man, Mr. Trail."

"Kinda hard to hide anything, in the Belt." Trail's easy smile returned. "After all, Blaster doesn't really care about making money, just putters around. There's no secret his parcel's worthless."

"You mean he won't mind if he owns only ice and silica?"

Trail nodded, and Kit's heart skipped a beat—maybe her beloved wasn't just a pretty face after all.

He even drew a conclusion. "So Roberts won't care about my asteroids and will be a good neighbor."

Trail nodded. "I suppose, as long as you keep him between you and Flanagan. Everything considered, though, you might do better to put your money into Mr. Swayne's new store."

Spindrift smiled. "Why not both?"

"Youth and its boundless optimism," Trail sighed. "Still, diversifying your investments isn't a bad idea. Come on, then—let's go register the sale."

They strolled into the courthouse. Charlie caught Kit's eye, then Jessie's. The three of them followed Trail and Spindrift.

Trail looked up, saw his three shadows, and smiled with amusement and affection. When they came out, he shook the young man's hand and said, "Congratulations, Mr. Spindrift—you're in business."

"Or I shall be, as soon as I've some drovers and equipment," Spindrift answered, grinning.

"I'll order the equipment from Ceres for you," Trail said. "Your tab, of course." He turned to the trio of self-appointed bodyguards. "Seems Mr. Spindrift's going to need drovers. Anybody interested?"

"Me!" Kit and Jessie said at the same instant, then glared at one another.

"I'll go along," Charlie said.

Scurly, Agatha, and Lucky signed on too, leaving Trail with a dozen hands. There would be more signing on—all the drovers in the Belt knew Trail was a good boss. Spindrift would need more, too, as his operation grew, but six would surely get him started.

* * *

The Asteroid Belt was a ring of boulders that could have been a fifth planet orbiting the sun between Mars and Jupiter, Before it had a chance to coalesce out of a cloud of plasma, thought, it was torn apart by tidal stresses. The wreckage ranged in size from grains of sand to small mountains, pitted and cratered by collisions with one another. Some of them were only silica—granite or basalt or other rocks—and many others were ice, but most were nickel-iron. Those were the ones the miners sent their drovers to bring in. Terra and its colonies on Luna and Mars had already used up their supplies of iron ore and were willing to pay through the nose for more. There were trace elements too, some of them metals far more valuable pound for pound than nickel or iron.

A sector was one degree of the Belt—but that was one degree out of 360, and it was 627,750,000,000 miles out from the sun. It was like a slice of pie with the tip cut off, but that "slice" was 23,250,000 miles thick.

Only a very rich man could afford a whole sector—a very rich man, or a corporation. Ordinary miners had to content themselves with a parcel or two—a fraction of a sector.

Hundreds of miners lost their lives when huge space-mountains came crashing together, but such incidents were very rare, and a few miners became wealthy, such as Trail and Flanagan, both of whom were determined to become filthy rich. They were bound to lock horns.

The difference between them was that Trail lived by the few rules there were, laws left over from the high seas of old Earth and transplanted to space by action of the United Nations—but impossible to enforce. Flanagan cared only about getting what he wanted, and if a law got in the way, he ignored it. He wasn’t worried about the Rangers when he had the Navy Police to run interference—there were simply too many cubic kilometers of tumbling rocks and too few Rangers to police them. That was why the Navy did its own peace-keeping for thousands of miles around its bases on Ceres and the other giant asteroids that, like Port Alice, served as regional centers. Like Trail and Flanagan, The Rangers and the Navy Police were bound to come into conflict, so if they locked horns over Flanagan, that was all to the better for him. They’d be so busy fighting each other that they’d forget about him.

* * *

Spindrift’s drovers selected a large asteroid at the tip of the parcel for the home rock. Spindrift had enough sense to stand back and let them do their work; he was new to this sector of the Belt, and was content to take his time learning its ways.

Kit and Agatha gathered small rocks from the east; Jessie and Charlie gathered boulders from the west. Both teams hauled their rocks to the home asteroid, stacked them in walls, and sat their sleds on top to keep those walls in place while Lucky and Skurly heated them with their lasers until the metal flowed and fused the rocks together. Spindrift stood by and watched in admiration as they unloaded the furniture he had bought on Ceres. They hauled in the force-field generator, attached it to the solar panels, and threw the switches. Nothing seemed to have happened except at the crest, where the eye had to look through two thicknesses of force field and saw a rainbow edge from the bending of the light.

Charlie came up grinning. "Start the big house now, Mr. Spindrift?"

"No, no reason for that," Spindrift told him. "I'll bunk in with you drovers until we sell our first load."

Kit looked up, startled. That wasn't good news, since she'd been planning to sneak into Spindrift’s bedroom first chance she got. Of course, there was nothing to stop her from slipping into his bed in the bunkhouse, but she didn't really think sex should be a spectator sport—at least, not the first time.

That reminded her of Jessie, for whom it would be anything but the first time. She stole a quick glance through the other woman's faceplate and saw a look of frustration that might as well have been on her own face—in fact, probably was. It made her angry, but sorry, too. Jessie had always been her friend, somebody she could talk to—but not about their new boss.

"After all," said Spindrift, "I'll be doing the same work... What are you looking so doubtful for?"

Charlie reddened, caught in a breach of manners. "No offense, Mr. Spindrift, but you are a newbie."

"Not so new as you might think," Spindrift said. "I worked as a drover on the other side of the belt before I decided to commit so much money into starting my own place."

"Oh. Didn't know that." Charlie was clearly aching to ask why Spindrift hadn't set up his own operation where he had worked. So was Kit, but that wasn't the way of things in the Belt—you never asked anyone where they'd come from, or why they'd left. Most of them didn't want to be reminded. In the Belt, life was dangerous, painful, and frequently short, but it was new. A man who'd failed back home or run afoul of the law could have a fresh start here—but that meant leaving the old self behind.

Kit came up beside them, equally curious but determined not to show it. "Now it's got a bunkhouse, it needs a name."

"That it does." Spindrift went back into the burro-boat and brought out a bottle. The drovers stared at one another in alarm; did he mean to waste good wine?

"I name you First Base." Spindrift smashed the bottle across the corner of the cabin. The bottle broke cleanly in half, and the wine floated free as a wobbling ball of liquid. "Catch it and you can drink it!" Spindrift called.

The drovers whooped, pulled pouches off their belts, and chased after the pale yellow globe.

"Time enough for a big house when this sector's showing a runaway profit every year,” Spindrift said. “You've put the table and chairs in there—let's eat.”

* * *

The next morning, Spindrift was the first one awake, brewing coffee for them all—real coffee, a luxury in the Belt, and the drovers decided they'd chosen right when they'd decided to work for him.

As they mounted their sleds and took off, Kit hung behind, trying not to notice that Jessie and Agatha had done the same. Agatha beat her to the question. "You sure you don't need a check-out, Mr. Spindrift?"

Kit wasn't worried about Agatha, who was good company but plain. Jessie, though, was another matter.

"Oh, I don't think so, Ms. Agatha," Spindrift said with a genial smile. "I really have harvested asteroids before." He kicked the anchor-latch free of the runner, and the sled drifted up off the surface of First Base. When it was three feet up, he touched the throttle and the sled moved forward. "Stand clear!"

All three of the women swung legs over their own sleds and lifted off. "Clear!" Kit called, and Jessie and Agatha echoed her. "Clear!" "Clear!"

Spindrift gunned his sled and it shot forward after Charlie and the others. The women were right behind them.

They were young, Agatha twenty-one, Jessie and Kit eighteen, of an age with the boys, except for Charlie, who was twenty-five. By thirty, a drover had either saved enough money to buy his own sector, moved back to Ceres or Mars to open a business—or was dead. The Belt was no place to raise a family.

Lucky’s voice yodeled over Kit's helmet phones: "Strike! Ten feet!"

"Coming!" answered a chorus of voices, and the drovers converged on the rock, presser beams pushing against one another to hold it steady. "What logo do you want on it, Mr. Spindrift?" Kit asked.

"One like this." Spindrift's laser flared, tracing curves of fire on the surface of the asteroid. When the beam cut off, they could see a fiery spiral above a V. Kit frowned, trying to puzzle it out, then grinned. "It's spinning! The spiral is spin!"

"And the V is a rift," Jessie said from the boss's other side.

"Spin - rift." He grinned, nodding. "People can imagine the D."

"Don't like leaving people to figure things out." Charlie's tone held a frown. "I could carve a D around it all."

"By all means," the boss said. "Let it never be said that I stopped one of my people from doing extra work."

Charlie carved the big D; then everyone shot off to look for another asteroid worth catching.

They spent the morning carving Spindrift's logo into sizeable rocks, leaving them to drift until after noon, when they would haul them in to the force-pen at First Base. They anchored their sleds and went into the bunkhouse so they could eat with their helmets off, then went back to work herding rocks. Charlie and Scurly unrolled the net of steel cables to sweep up the pebbles that made the force fields of the sleds into minor fireworks displays. With the gravel out of the way, they could haul decent-sized rocks more easily. They dispersed, looking for likely specimens.

Kit hung back with Spindrift, racking her brains for an excuse to have a private talk with her boss. She fell back on an idle dream she’d toyed with during slack times. “What d’ you suppose will happen out here when we’ve smelted all the asteroids and swept up all the space dust, Mr. Spindrift?”

“Hard to believe that could ever happen,” Spindrift said, “when the main belt alone makes a five A.-U.-wide circle around the sun—but with billions of human beings being born every year and a million or more of them already in space, it’s bound to occur sooner or later.”

Kit shuddered at the boundless vista his words conjured up.

“Not that we’re apt to see it,” Spindrift temporized. “It will take centuries, I’m sure—but it will happen; our species is tremendously greedy.”

“And when it does?”

Spindrift shrugged. “It will make space navigation safer—not that there’s much to fear now, with thousands of meters between asteroids. Still, there will be the rare chance of a collision—and no danger to the colonies on Mars and Luna, not to mention all the grand old cities of Terra.”

“Yeah.” Kit frowned. “That’s what killed off the dinosaurs, isn’t it? A giant meteor strike.”

“And meteors are asteroids that come too close to Earth and are caught in its gravity.” Spindrift nodded. “The easiest way to guard against that is to melt all the big asteroids down into metal ingots and building blocks.” He grinned at her. “Let that inspire you, Ms. Kildare – you’re doing your bit to protect humanity. A noble calling—and profitable.” He gunned his sled. “Let’s do our part to save old Earth.” His rocket roared between his thighs and he shot off toward the drifting rocks.

Thrilled by his words, Kit raced after him. The man was educated, you could tell that by the way he talked—definitely high-class. And he had talked to her alone! She was elated for a good half-hour. Even seeing him hover next to Jessie couldn’t dampen her spirits. She knew it was herself he fancied.

It was a good harvest; by noon, they had a dozen rocks in the force-pen at First Base, ranging from a foot and a half to ten feet across.

Then Scurly let out a hoot. "Thieves!"

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