Hellhole (10 page)

The criticism was plain in the mine supervisor’s voice. Despite his annoyance at his aloof father, Cristoph felt he had to make excuses. “He spends most of his time there now. He’s had to participate in a number of important votes with the Council of Lords.”

The answer felt awkward because it was only partly true. Cristoph knew damned well that his father’s priority was not “business.” He hated how much the man had changed, turning his attentions to a hedonistic and carefree life now that the Diadem’s daughter had seduced him from his responsibilities. And, with Lord de Carre abrogating his duties in favor of a sordid affair, Cristoph had to bear more and more responsibility for Vielinger.

His mother had died twenty-eight years ago of a degenerative neurological disease; she’d barely held on long enough to give birth to him. Now that his father was so frequently unavailable, Cristoph wished more than ever that she were still alive. According to the household staff, his mother had been excellent at business, helping oversee the family’s commercial operations. She was sorely needed.

Louis de Carre, on the other hand, had no talent for management. He was a dandy who spent time in various expensive court activities without giving much thought to the family’s commercial operations. It was up to Cristoph to fill the void and keep the de Carre holdings intact.

Raised by a succession of tutors and nannies, Cristoph had never enjoyed a close relationship with his father. Gradually, the young man’s talents as a money manager and business administrator had emerged, but the noble family had problems far more serious than he could handle. Despite the profitability of the iperion operations, previous generations of de Carres had engaged in profligate spending, sinking the family into debt that could not realistically be paid off even during boom times. And already geologists had spotted plenty of telltale signs that the readily accessible veins would be gone soon.

Cristoph watched the efficient remote-controlled skimmers go about their business, stripping molecules from the walls. When their bulbous storage compartments reached capacity, the machines flew to an unloading station, where the filled units were swapped for empty ones. Mine workers handled the skimmers carefully, loading them into padded trays that rode a slow conveyor for stabilization and processing.

When Cristoph finished his inspection, he shook Oberon’s hand and returned to the surface on his own. After changing out of the sealed work suit, he boarded a copter for the flight back to the family estate. On the return trip, he sat glumly by the window, staring out without seeing much of anything.

Cristoph had dug deep into the already strapped personal accounts to fund additional survey missions, core samples, satellite deep-scans in the hunt for heretofore undiscovered iperion. Thus far, they had found only two hair-thin veins in marginally accessible areas. He had instructed that the producing mine tunnels be widened and deepened to tease out additional scraps of the mineral, despite the added cost.

For the short-term, rumors of the scarcity of iperion drove up the price, but the harvesting operations were also more difficult. Even with fears that the iperion would last only another generation at most, Vielinger was a target for greedy nobles. Several rival families had already put forward motions in the Council of Lords to take the planet away from the de Carre family, citing iperion’s “vital nature to the security of the Constellation.” At times, Cristoph considered simply handing over the planet to the Riominis who wanted it so badly. Let them see for themselves that it was a bad investment.

For years, aware that ultimately there was a limited supply of iperion, stringline physicists had been searching for an alternate material that could serve as a quantum marker for the space lanes. Cristoph didn’t doubt they would succeed sooner or later, most likely when prices grew extremely high; desperation drove innovation. As soon as one of the scientists announced an alternative, however, the iperion market would collapse, and no one would want Vielinger anymore.

In the meantime, the Riominis were trying every possible trick to drive Cristoph’s family from their home. It was all a strategy game to them.

Though his father was on Sonjeera during this crisis, Louis did nothing to stand up against the power grab. Lord de Carre was completely oblivious to the true danger. The few messages Cristoph had received from his father in the past three weeks merely complimented the young man on his work and unnecessarily warned him to watch out for saboteurs.

Outsiders criticized the de Carre family, and Cristoph personally, for poor safety conditions and the purported maltreatment of miners, although he maintained a rigorous schedule of inspections and implemented stringent safety protocols. Some conspiracy rumors asserted that the de Carres were intentionally hiding substantial iperion reserves, just to drive up the price.

When representatives of other noble families came to Vielinger like vultures circling, ostensibly under orders from the Diadem herself, Cristoph was required to offer his full cooperation. Pressure was increasing to let other noble families perform independent geological surveys and find new deposits of the dwindling resource, or for the de Carres to relinquish the iperion mines altogether.

For more than a thousand years his family had ruled Vielinger. Some of Cristoph’s ancestors had been diadems, famous philosophers, humanitarians – a family legacy that now seemed to be crashing down around him.

Meanwhile, his father cavorted with the Diadem’s married daughter, without a care in the world. Keana Duchenet was undoubtedly leading him on, duping him, probably as part of a plot with her mother. Cristoph didn’t know why his father couldn’t see it.

N
ight had fallen by the time the static storm passed. Each of Sophie Vence’s warehouses was equipped with cots, a kitchen area, sanitary facilities, and emergency supplies, since her employees had no idea when they might need to ride out an unexpected weather event. While they were cooped up together, she and Devon got to know their guests.

“Can they stay here with us tonight?” he asked his mother. Raised on Hellhole, Devon would never abandon a person who needed assistance.

“They can bunk here, and tomorrow we’ll find them temporary jobs.” She looked at Fernando, Vincent, and Antonia. “There’s plenty of cleanup to do after a big storm.”

“We’d very much like to get established, ma’am,” said Vincent Jenet. “I’m a good employee, and you’ll find me very reliable.”

“We appreciate your hospitality,” Antonia said.

“You can make up for it tomorrow and earn your keep.”

After dark, Sophie left Devon with the others inside the warehouse and ventured out into the dark and quiet streets. Though her line managers Carter and Elbert had transmitted reports to her, she wanted to make her own assessment of the damage done to her buildings and employees.

A bitter-tasting fog crawled through the streets like a miasma of disease. Sophie wore a thin filter over her mouth and nose, but her eyes burned. Alkaline dust coated the windows of the low rounded dwellings, so that only murky orange light seeped out from well-lit interiors.

A blanket of dust also coated her main greenhouse domes, which made the artificially lit hemispheres glow like gigantic luminescent gumdrops. Tomorrow she would sign out a few crane platforms and hoses to blast away the residue from the dust fog.

She walked along the street, greeting the hardy souls who were out and about getting a head start on the cleanup. Some townspeople used brushes to sweep away the corrosive debris or operated high-pressure blowers to clear out the cracks and crannies.

One of the men coughed heavily as he wiped off the transparent flower dome in front of his home, and Sophie clucked at him, “Put on a respirator, Rendy – are you crazy?”

“I only expected to be out here for half an hour.”

“And how’s that working out for you?” He tried to respond, but ended up coughing instead. Sophie gave him a stern frown; sometimes she felt like a den mother to these people. “Listen to me – it’s not a weakness to be sensible about hazards. You should know that by now.”

The man coughed again, his eyes irritated and red. “All right, I’ll get a damn mask.”

Adolphus’s tough leadership kept the colonists safe, but Sophie used a lighter touch. The two made a perfect pair. Their relationship was no secret to most people in Helltown, even though the General believed he was being discreet. Thinking like an administrator and a man, he felt that gossip would be too disruptive for the status quo. To Sophie, that excuse had a whiff of bullshit. She found it ironic that all the way out here in the Deep Zone, Adolphus seemed to be as concerned about appearances as the old Diadem was.

Nevertheless, after her disastrous first marriage she was satisfied with their relationship as it was. Despite the lessons she had learned from hard experience, she still considered herself a romantic at heart.

On Klief, one of the old Crown Jewel planets, she had married a charismatic and ambitious corporate climber, five years older than she. Gregory Vence courted her with talk as convincing as any boardroom speech, and after they were married he was proud, as if it were his accomplishment alone, when she gave birth to their son Devon.

She and Gregory, though, had very different visions of her role in their future. Sophie had planned on a successful business career of her own; while she tended the baby, she continued her studies at home, learning about management, supply chains, and resource allocation. But when, on Devon’s first birthday, she wanted to start searching for a suitable job, Gregory intervened, persuading her that the formative years were vital for their son.

By the time Devon was four and ready to enter early schooling, Gregory still found reasons for her to stay home; convincingly gracious on the surface, he used subtle ways to erode her confidence. When she eventually realized what he was doing, she became angry enough to take matters into her own hands.

Sophie applied for mid-level positions, only to be turned down again and again. After considerable research, she learned that Gregory had been intercepting her applications, poisoning her references, turning potential employers against her. She read confidential reports in which her own husband portrayed her as emotional and unstable; he suggested with saccharine sympathy that Sophie had been away from the real world for so long that she no longer understood it.

Sophie was furious. She filed for divorce and decided to make her own way in life, but by then Gregory Vence had become a well-connected man, and he fought her every step of the way. So much for young romance.

Though the court ordered Gregory to pay child support, he resisted, he refused, he “forgot,” and so Sophie had to fight him on that as well. Never giving up, she eked out a living at low-level jobs and began to work her way up. Despite being sidelined for almost nine years, she was back on track.

Then Gregory filed court papers demanding not only that she be stripped of all rights to child and spousal support, but requesting full custody of Devon as well. That absurd legal action convinced her that as long as she stayed on Klief, she would never be free of Gregory. In spite of all she had lost, she still had her self-esteem and her son.

The Deep Zone planets had opened to new colonization only a year earlier. Hallholme seemed particularly hard and challenging, a place that needed her administrative skills. Sophie didn’t want to go to a planet with an already entrenched bureaucracy. Hallholme would indeed be a challenge, but Sophie decided that it was exactly the sort of place where she could make a difference and find opportunities for herself and Devon. Best of all, Gregory would never bother to follow her to a place like that.

Before the ponderous wheels of the legal system could catch up with her, Sophie packed their possessions, cashed in her small bank accounts, and boarded a stringline hauler with Devon, leaving no forwarding address.

Even with the damned static storms and the smelly air, Hellhole wasn’t so bad compared with the crap she’d left behind. Sophie had done well for herself in Helltown.

After walking the neighborhood, making note of any storm damage. Sophie made her way back to the warehouse to catch some sleep.

The next dawn, Sophie became boss instead of nurturer. She roused Vincent, Fernando, and Antonia from their bunks and told Devon to find suits for the three guests. “My son will show you how to gear up. Wear masks, eye shields, and gloves. After that storm, even long-time Hellhole residents need protection – and as newbies, you’ll react badly to all the junk in the air.”

“How badly?” Vincent picked up the suit Devon had handed him and tried to figure out how to don it.

“Inflammation and rashes. A cough.”

Devon groaned. “The intestinal bug is the worst.”

Fernando never let his optimism diminish. “I’ve got an iron constitution.”

Sophie made several calls, reassigning work crews from regular duties to salvage her precious vineyards. The teams rendezvoused in front of the main warehouse and climbed into flatbeds that rumbled out to low hills covered with a corduroy of grapevines.