The Graveyard, Outskirts of Mercuria

Planet Irkalla, Survivor’s Refuge

4452.2.24 Interstellar

Mick was as good as his word, accompanying them toward the vertical airlocks as soon as they’d grabbed a few essentials from the buggies. He chatted as they walked across the dust and debris, pointing to one group or another and explaining how the different groups of Marcuria worked. “See those shoulder pads, the neon blue and black stripes that look like a hazard marker painted in coolant fluid? Those are the Electronaughts. They process most of the chips and boards that come out of salvage, as well as batteries, MFCs, fuel cells, caustics, radioactives, and anything that might explode during disassembly.”

“Why?” Janus asked.

Mick shrugged. “Someone has to do it, and they’ve got the equipment to handle it. As for what they use it for, they refurbish what they can, but a lot of it goes toward making explosives. Most of the permanent settlements expand by digging into the bedrock, and not everyone can afford Prime Dome-certified mining charges.”

“How often do they blow themselves up?” Lira asked.

“Rarely enough that they’re still in business, often enough no one’s tried to take their place,” Mick answered.

So there was some kind of organization here, Janus thought, but the amount of valuable materials and parts just lying in increasing piles made him want to grab these people and shake them. Even if Mercuria was a free-for-all where only strength and the protection of the strong allowed the roving gangs of scavengers to reclaim at least part of the wealth sitting outside their doors, there was so much potential being wasted…

It made him think of Ryler. His friend would have known what to do to turn the chaos of the Mercuria junkyard into order. Within weeks, he would have sectors of the dump assigned to different groups based on their skills, or maybe set up a rotation to strip each part of the wreckage down until everything was put to use. Janus had always thought Ryler’s pastime of finding new uses for the unusable was something dome admin permitted because he was part of an important family, until he’d discovered Ryler was some kind of wayfinder for the Cult of the Survivor. Here, though, his friend’s genius could have reached its full potential.

Thoughts of Ryler came with no small amount of sadness as well. Janus had been cold at their parting. It had been too sudden, too sinister when combined with Nikandros’s presence and Uncle Ivan’s repeated warnings. And why Ryler of all people? Wayfinders usually found their adepts among the outcasts and those who couldn’t fit in, people more comfortable with machines and statistics than each other. Had Ryler and his family been devout? Sure. But Janus expected that devotion to be a kind of show, a statement of allegiance that wouldn’t really change things when real life took over.

If anyone should have joined the cult, it should have been Janus.

If it hadn’t been for Uncle Ivan, maybe he would have.

“Mudrakers,” Mick pointed out as six people in brown and black void suits shuffled by. “They usually work underground, digging new passages, selling space and life support. They must be fetching a shipment.”

“That doesn’t sound as dangerous as the Electronaughts,” Janus said.

“As long as things are quiet,” Mick said. “The Muds recruit among the poor and the desperate, and there’s a lot of them. They’re okay as long as they’re kept fed, housed, and liquored.”

“That doesn’t sound like much to live for,” Lira said.

Janus threw a backward glance at the group. It was around the time he’d have been heading out for early shift. Fed, housed, and liquored. Sometimes his family had lived for less.

They reached the largest of the three airlocks. The rad shielding looked damaged, the viewing window grimy, and there were signs of corrosion on the metal—a sure sign oxygen was escaping the seal.

“Welcome to Mercuria,” Mick said, cycling the outer door.

***

The first thing that struck Janus when he unsealed his helmet on the first sublevel of Mercuria was the smell. “Ooh, that is not good.”

Lira made an openly disgusted face.

Mick beamed. “Perfectly fine on a short-term basis. No worse than breathing generator exhaust fumes.”

“You’re not supposed to breathe generator exhaust fumes,” Janus said, eyes scanning their surroundings before returning his attention to Mick. “I’d be more comfortable if we had respirators.”

“My nose would be more comfortable,” Lira agreed.

Mick shrugged, the cheerful smile never leaving his face. It was Janus’s first time seeing the Hunter with his helmet off, and Janus was surprised to find the veteran trilith killer was no older than him—possibly even younger, but certainly out of his teens. He was lean rather than bulky but stood with the confidence of an older, more dangerous man. His eyes crinkled with amusement at Janus’s examination, and he ran a hand through his short, chestnut hair. “I’m not that sort of escort, mate.”

Lira snorted.

Janus blushed. “Sorry, you’re the first Hunter I’ve met.”

Mick winked at him. “No worries. Truth be told, wouldn’t have minded getting a closer look at that suit you’re wearing if you had the time for it—that outer-coating looks like it could stop a knife, although a trilith’d chew right through it. Now, where do you want to go? I’m on the clock, and I want to make sure you get your money’s worth.”

Janus was about to admit he had no idea when his VI self-activated. “You’re in Mercuria,” his mother said. “Hold on while I access the local network for updated schematics.”

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“What’s he doing?” Mick asked Lira.

“He has some sort of program that tells him about other settlements,” Lira answered.

Janus looked at her in shock.

“What?” she asked. “Your eyes glow blue every time we reach a new location. I’m not an idiot.”

“Never thought you were,” Janus said, relieved she didn’t actually know he had a VI of his dead parents acting suspiciously like an AI running around his firmware with functions and memory storage he didn’t control. “Is there anything you need to get done?” he asked Lira.

Before she could answer, they saw a group of kids snatch clothing off a vendor’s racks and run. They didn’t get three steps before there was a loud snap and they collectively yelped and either dropped the goods or fell to the ground convulsing.

“Security tags,” Mick explained. “Little idiots. We were saying?”

“We should see if we can trade up for our cargo,” Lira answered. “Those air filters I picked up have about four times the useful life of the local variety, and they’re easier to clean. Getting credits shouldn’t be too hard, but I’d like to see if we can find anything our next stop might pay up for.”

“The ’Naughts, the Crashers, or the Pit Vipers will take those off your hands. Where are you headed next?” Mick asked.

Lira hesitated.

“Beta Station,” Janus answered.

Mick looked at the two of them, then nodded at Lira. “I wouldn’t have answered that in Mercuria, either.”

Lira gave Janus a pointed look.

“But since you did…” Mick said with a grin, “Beta Station is short on capacitor banks and sealing material. They can fabricate their own, but they’re low on feedstock, so if you carry a half-half carbon nanotubes and half nylon-urethane load, it might not be as valuable as machined parts, but you’ll have more bargaining leverage.”

“And you just happen to know where we could buy those materials, right?” Lira asked suspiciously.

“Nah,” Mick said. “Me and Trace don’t do much trading. We travel light. But you’ll want to talk to the Muds. They have enough bodies to venture farther from the doors and carry back basic mats to break down. It’s about keeping people busy and breaking even for them; the other gangs don’t bother.”

“Can you introduce us?” Janus asked.

“Right this way,” Mick answered.

***

The Mudrakers were pretty much what Mick had described, a group that recruited the poor and put them to work doing tasks no one else would do. Their enforcers were big brutes carrying claw-hammers, sledges, and hydraulic mauls. Hammers and symbols of hammers were worked into what little ornamentation they put on their gear, although what flesh Janus saw sported tattoos or crude scars.

Mick got them past the guards and into Overseer Micah’s office.

Micah was a powerful brute, his arms as thick as supporting struts, his hands big enough to crush a human skull. All of his hair had been either shaved or burned off. He looked up at Lira from his undersized desk and said, “We don’t take small orders.”

Janus saw the words hit, saw Lira’s brows come together like a clamp. “Stop!” he said.

Both Lira and Micah looked at him in surprise.

“I think it might be better if you sat this one out, Lira,” Janus said.

“Excuse me?” she answered.

“We’re both exhausted and wired on Hunter stimulants. Trust me. Micah here is my kind of people.”

Lira’s eyes flicked to Micah, and her eyes turned even colder. “On that, we agree.”

“We can both wait outside,” Mick said, giving him a wink.

It was possibly the only thing that could make Lira angrier, but she walked out with her hands balled into fists and Mick in tow. Janus quietly thanked the Survivor that Mick was with them to stop her from getting into a fight while he was negotiating.

Micah set his stylus down and looked at Janus. There was a keen intelligence hidden beneath the shadow of his brows. “You in charge, then?”

“I’m in charge,” Janus answered, taking his respirator off in spite of the smell. He met the giant’s eyes without challenging him or backing down. “Name’s Janus Invarian.”

“Micah,” the giant answered, standing to shake Janus’s hand. His grip was firm but not grinding. His skin was like rough burlap. “You’ve got a working man’s hands.”

“Journeyman mechanic,” Janus said with a grin. “I work in reclamation. Working people like us have to stick together, you know?”

Micah sat down, his chair groaning in protest. “What can I do for you, Janus from reclamation? I’d offer you a job, but that suit tells me you’ll be moving on.”

“A trailer load of feedstock, half nano and half ny-thane,” Janus said, sitting across from him. Micah hadn’t offered, but they were mechs talking shop and Janus tried to act the way he would with Barry back home—respectful of Micah’s knowledge and seniority, but equal in all other regards.

“You’d be better off carrying graphene,” Micah finally said. “Half-again the density, and the Beta Station printers can turn out better tubes than anything we can produce.”

Janus hid his surprise that Micah knew their destination. He was either well informed or he’d guessed from their payload. “Anything you need?”

Micah crossed his arms and gave Janus a long look. “Skilled workers, clean water and air, more and better food… The only thing we have in abundance are willing hands, space, and raw materials.”

Janus thought of the way the air smelled, even in this office, and wished he could help. The Mudrakers were the lowest formal class in Mercuria; he’d been an outsider in Prime Dome. What Micah was describing was a simple structural problem. It didn’t take much to solve, only time. Given a couple years—and maybe some help from Callie—Janus could teach some basic mechanic courses and structured things so they would start a virtuous cycle of reduced parts failure, and that would lead to a world in which it was possible to rise, or to escape.

Micah chuckled and crossed his arms. “I’ve seen that look before. Had it myself. You find a few promising Muds, train ’em up, and the other gangs recruit them—forcefully if necessary. We could fight back, but they have better weapons than hammers. The best Muds hide in the dirt, save some credits or indenture themselves to one of the caravans, and get out of Mercuria. All we can do is keep people safe and trade for enough to get by.”

“You stayed,” Janus pointed out.

Micah gave a shrug that was like a mountain moving. “They tried to ‘recruit’ me, too. It didn’t take.”

Janus nodded. He knew what it was like to be on the bottom of the pile. At the same time, he thought of the Sector Six riots after the airlock blew. The downtrodden would only stay down as long as getting stepped on beat the alternative. “I have a load of Zenchan air filters I need to get rid of.”

Micah winced and put his palms on his knees. “I wish I could take them off your hands, but I can’t afford them.”

Janus frowned. “They’ll save you money. They last longer, and they have polarized blades you can clean by—”

“I know how they work, son. I just don’t have the cash. Even if I did, I can’t spend it on parts that will just get stolen.”

Janus rubbed his chin. He’d seen situations like this in Prime Dome, where the strong abused the weak and the poor. He’d felt some of it under Craig and Lira’s bootheel, although nothing as egregious as what Micah was describing. Maintenance was centralized, and dome-sec would have stepped in, if only to stop one group of outsiders from gaining too much power. “What if I sell you part of it, just enough for the families you trust?”

“They’ll sell the parts themselves.” Micah shook his head. “You’ve got good intentions, Janus Invarian, but if it was that easy, I’d’ve done it myself long ago. You sell the parts to who can pay, and we’ll buy their castoffs. What we can’t fix will go into the pit, as will we all until it spills over.”

Janus looked into Micah’s eyes, but there was no scorn or despair there, just another mechanic explaining how the machine worked. It didn’t matter that Janus wished it were different. The gears turned, and anything that got in their way was ground to dust.