The Coin Giver, page 14
Soon, the hall was packed, and people were shoving tables against the walls to make more room. A woman with only one leg scrambled onto a tabletop and began picking a tune on a curious three-stringed instrument. A skinny juvenile boy joined her with a musical pipe, and they launched into a lively dance tune. Several people starting beating a background rhythm on overturned buckets. It was the strangest music Dominic had ever heard. All around him, the miners made rude jokes and threw chairs and howled and punched each other. Beer flowed freely, and when the cups ran out, they drank foamy ale from their helmets.
Then someone blew a shrill whistle, and Benito clambered up Dominic's back. The barrel-chested man they'd rescued was standing on a table in the center of the hall, and the celebrating miners bunched around him, lifting then-cups. Dominic staggered over and joined them. Everyone wanted to get close to the barrel-chested man. They yelled toasts and called him "Chief." Then he hollered loudest of all.
"Boys, it's good to be alive!" He lifted his enormous cup and drank heavily. His Adam's apple bobbed up and down, and beer streamed down his jaw. Everyone cheered.
"There I was," he went on. "I'd just finished drillin' the cross-cut, and everything was lookin' fine, when right above my head, I see a lateral fault in the strata. Krishna Christ, if she didn't drop right down in my lap. Haw haw haw!"
The chief upended his cup again and chugged a pint of ale in one go. Several miners offered their own full cups to replace his empty one.
He smacked his lips. "If I hadn't dug through that wall with my freakin' fingernails, Liu and Dalesco would still be suckin' rocks." He took the nearest cup with a self-satisfied grin. "How long did it take me to dig out, huh? Anybody time it?"
"Five minutes, Chief. If that," someone said.
"Haw, haw!" His thick hair hung in sweaty ringlets over his forehead, and curly lashes fringed his brown eyes. A handsome cleft bisected his heavy chin, and his whole massive head glistened. Dominic couldn't guess his lineage. American bloodlines were always confused. At that moment, the chief noticed Dominic staring at him.
"Who the sweet Jesus are you?"
"A volunteer," Dominic said. "I assisted with your rescue." Calmly, Dominic sipped his ale, then handed what was left to Benito, who was sitting on his shoulders.
The chief wiped his gashed cheek with the back of his hand. "You a freakin' college man?"
Dominic noted the animosity. "I'm a negotiator."
"College man. Half-ass worker, half-ass boss. That makes you one complete asshole." The chief winked at his audience, and they howled at his joke. "So what the sweet Jesus you doin' down here in the slime 'assisting with my rescue'?" He mimicked Dominic's pure Net English accent.
"Back away, son. They have you outnumbered," the NP urged.
Dominic pushed through the crowd and stepped closer. "You invited me."
"Sereb, he helped with the buckets," the brawny woman said.
"Keep out of it, Djuju. I like to hear him talk. Go on, college. Tell me when I invited you."
Dominic quoted from the miners broadcast, raising his voice so everyone could hear. "All human beings evolved from the same gene pool, so we have the same rights to move around as free agents and make our own choices." Then he pointed a finger at the chief. "Aren't those your words?"
The chief jumped down from the chair, and the miners parted to make a path. For a stocky man, he moved with surprising grace. He stepped close, and though he stood a head shorter, he seemed to face Dominic eye to eye. "You're the banker."
Dominic froze. The man must have recognized his face from the Net.
"Run for it!" the NP said. "They'll slaughter you!"
They were standing so close, Dominic could count the pores on the chief's round nose. He couldn't run anywhere. The miners closed in behind him, and in any case, he'd spent his last reserve of energy. It took all his will just to stay on his feet. Abruptly, the chief's face crinkled in a mass of smile lines.
"Boys, meet the banker. This sorry-ass used to hand out coins for a living. Can you believe it? Like a machine. The execs sent him to college so he could count change."
The miners roared with laughter again, and Benito tightened his grip. Dominic held himself rigid. Normally, insolence from a prote would have incensed him, but now he merely waited through the insults and focused on remaining upright, not giving in to fatigue.
When the chief slapped him on the back, he nearly toppled forward. "Boys, get this sorry-ass another beer. Yer among friends now, banker."
Cups of beer sloshed at him from many directions, and someone gave him a helmet brimming with foam. From sheer thirst, he leaned back to drain it, and Benito grabbed his ears to keep from falling. Then the barrel-chested man thumped him in the chest.
"Call me Sereb. I'm crew chief. Is that yer son?"
"We met by accident," Dominic said without thinking.
Instead of listening to the answer, Sereb seized Dominic's hand and turned it palm up. Deep angry cuts lacerated all ten fingers, and the patch of redness between his fingers had spread. "Look at that. Pitiful. Big man like you with hands like a baby. That's what comes of countin' coins all yer life."
Sereb held Dominic's bleeding palm high for everyone to see, and Dominic gazed dully at the miners' sweaty grins.
"No more of that shit. From now on, you'll have respectable work." Sereb dropped Dominic's hand, spun on his heels and waded away through the crowd. "See the banker drinks his fill tonight, boys. Say, where's them fiddle-players? I wanna dance."
Later, Dominic remembered finding a chair and trying to sit in it. The rest of the evening would forever be a blank.
He woke up with Benito sitting on his chest, tugging at a clean white bandage wrapped snugly around his little brown hand. When Dominic's vision cleared, he saw a drop of blood seeping through Benito's bandage, and he tried to recall how the boy had hurt his hand. In the next moment, he elbowed the boy away, rolled on his side and vomited. There was so little in his stomach, the spasms seemed to rip his viscera out. Then his brain quaked inside his skull.
"Son, you got a mother-bitch hangover." The NP chuckled. "Sometimes I miss physical sensation. Then again, sometimes I don't."
Dominic realized both his own hands were swathed and padded in white gauze. His fingers were bound together, and when he flexed them, he gasped aloud. Oh yes, the bucket handles. He wondered who had given him med care. With a grunt, he sat up and held his white paws in his lap. Something hard poked his thigh, so he lifted his leg. It was Penderowski's torch.
"You wanna know how long you slept?" the NP asked.
"Just tell me how soon the oxygen runs out." Dominic pushed the torch away.
"Twenty-one hours, zero minutes, eight seconds and counting, unless that prote engineer starts dicking with the oxy mix."
Less than a day! Dominic bolted up. He must be over a hundred meters deep below the seafloor. He had to start climbing! Then he swayed and fell and swallowed hard to keep from vomiting again.
Light tubes banded the ceiling like glaring white ribbons. He was still in the room called "Mess." The tables and chairs had been put back in neat rows, and other than a few wet stains on the stone floor, no evidence remained of the beer party. Except for himself and the boy, the room appeared empty. His first impulse was to run into the corridor and search for any ladder leading up, but each time he moved, he felt as if a jackhammer were trying to tear its way out of his skull.
"Benito," he whispered hoarsely, "is there any water?"
"Faucet in the ceiling," a female voice said.
Dominic wedged his elbow into a chair seat and pushed himself up where he could see who spoke. On the tabletop beside him sat the brawny miner woman called Djuju. Her legs were crossed in lotus fashion, and she held a strange artifact, which at first he couldn't identify. Then he recalled an image from a history site. That thing she held was a book. He'd browsed video about books. They were readonly, plain-text datafiles made of plant fiber. Fragile, impermanent, of no practical use—yet prized by collectors and therefore valuable. Dominic was surprised to find such a rarity here, but even more bizarre, Djuju actually seemed to be reading it.
With a sigh, she clapped the book shut and stowed it in the bosom of her uniform. "Okay, coin man. You got a name?"
"Nick," he said. "And this is Benito."
"Me and yer son are old friends. Sereb told me to look out for you today. You'll be on my crew."
"I can't," said Dominic, just as the NP whispered, 'Tell her you can't."
He tottered to his feet and searched the ceiling for the faucet. When he twisted the valve open, a thin stream trickled into his mouth. It tasted warm and vaguely sour, and he drank for a long time. "Benito, you want some?" he asked.
"Stop playing nursemaid to the brat!" the NP's barked. "Ask this prote for directions."
"Shut up," Dominic subvocalized.
"That soft-headed streak, I swear I don't know where you got it." White sparks burst across Dominic's eye, and he blinked.
Djuju watched him. She slung one muscular leg over the table's edge and kicked her boot rhythmically against the chair. Her glance was dry and appraising. She seemed to be waiting for him to explain himself.
Dominic smiled, and in a smooth tone, he said, "I have urgent business on the Dominic Jedes. How about a barter? If you'll give me directions to the bridge, then I'll—I'll—" But his mind was still fogged by alcohol.
"Tell her the brat will stay and work," said the NP.
"The boy will stay and work." Even as Dominic repeated the phrase, the words jarred him. When Benito shot him a questioning frown, he had to look away.
Djuju sniffed. "You want breakfast?"
Before he could answer, the NP said, "Give her the con job. You do it so well."
An ache shot up Dominic's back, and he realized his muscles were knotted with tension. He rolled his shoulders and almost in a monotone, he recited the lie he'd used with Penderowski. "Djuju, your colony's running out of air. I'm bringing an offer of trade. Respirator equipment, fuel and supplies. I have to meet your council on the Dominic Jedes' bridge."
Would it work this time? She lifted her chin and studied him. "This trade, what do we give in return?"
Penderowski hadn't asked that question. Dominic forced his mind to work. "Debenture bonds."
Djuju narrowed her eyes. Her boot stopped swinging.
"I'm offering a straight loan package," Dominic continued, hoping to confuse her with jargon. "You'll pay prime plus two for a standard term, with a balloon option. You won't find a better deal."
"Money," she said.
"Yes, money." Dominic didn't know if he'd given the right answer or the wrong one.
"Humph." Djuju got down from the table and put her hands on her hips. Her eyes narrowed, and for a long moment, she studied Dominic's face. Then she picked up Penderowski's torch. 'Take yer flashlight. You'll need it. And take yer son, too. Mines ain't no place for children."
She led them back through the unfinished corridor, to the ladder he'd been descending before the tunnel caved in. The directions she gave matched Penderowski's to the letter. He still had to descend a little farther before he could start climbing up toward the Dominic Jedes, but she said he could easily reach the bridge in a couple of hours.
"Another sucker," the NP gloated.
Right, Dominic thought, another trusting fool. He peered down the ladder shaft. When he turned to thank Djuju, she was gone. Only the boy stood there, puffing out his brown little cheeks and fluttering air through his lips. Dominic ruffled the boy's hair.
"Nineteen hours, fifty-two minutes and counting," the NP said testily. "Dump the kid. He's slowing you down."
"Right, Benito. Let's go."
Dominic told himself he was bringing the boy along as an act of defiance. He had little enough margin to defy the NP, but he would make the most of it. The truth, though, was different. From the moment he'd offered to trade the boy, he'd been picturing Benito working in the mines, bending under a heavy load of rocks. He couldn't get that image out of his mind.
The bandages restricted his hands like oversized mittens, so he loosened them and worked his fingers free. Then he stuck the torch between his teeth and followed the boy down the ladder. They descended six levels without stopping to rest, and just as Djuju had promised, they found a solid steel loading dock with a heavy reinforced door. Pale light gleamed through a spy hole, but Dominic couldn't see in. The lens was made to look outward. His muscles were still weary, and it took him several tries to crank the lever open.
When the hatch seal released, a horrible, sweet, rotten smell nearly knocked him over. Had he counted the levels wrong? He must have stumbled into the mortuary! His first impulse was to close the door fast, but before he could react, Benito dashed between his legs and ran through.
"Splendid," he said aloud. "Benito, come back here!" Then he had no choice but to go and look for the boy.
CHAPTER 11
CONSUMABLES
THE sweet rotten stench made Dominic gag. He held his nostrils and shielded his eyes from the harsh light. Penderowski's torch was no longer necessary. Scores of bare fluorescent tubes crisscrossed the ceiling in a vast grid-work that hung just at eye level, flooding every object below with a deathly greenish glare, while leaving the space above in obscurity. The light tubes intersected in two-meter squares, and Dominic had to stoop to walk under them.
"This can't be right. That miner gave you the wrong directions," the NP said. "Turn around and go back."
Dominic couldn't see Benito anywhere. As his eyes adjusted, he noticed scars on the stone floor where partition walls had been ripped out to expand the space. Scraps of metal paneling still clung to bare support beams, and a disconnected duct was left to dangle in the breeze. The breeze. Yes, Dominic felt a distinct movement of air drying the sweat on his skin, and he heard slowly revolving rotor fans in the distance.
Then he saw the coffins. Hundreds of them. Row upon row of deep metal boxes, unlidded, steaming with gaseous decay. They stretched to the farthest walls in perfect alignment like chips on a board. But they were huge, much longer and wider than the dimensions of a human body. Were these coffins meant for mass burial? He dreaded to look inside, but a morbid curiosity drew him to the nearest one. It stood on a platform, waist high, and he ducked under the light grid to see it.
"Get away from there!" A tall, buxom Euro woman came marching down an aisle between the coffins. At every third step, she bobbed her head to pass under a light tube, as if from years of practice. In her right hand, she carried a long-handled rake, and her expression was grim. "Who said you could come in here? This place is off-limits! Get out, you filthy prote!"
"Prote? I'm not—Who are you?"
Dominic stood to his full height between the light tubes and strained to see the woman's face. Then he noticed her uniform. Instead of the faded gray coverall of a protected employee, she wore the smart dress blues of an exec. Dominic squinted in the harsh light. Yes, there was the braided insignia, the Nord.Com logo.
"An exec," Dominic said. "Incredible. You're still here."
He ducked under the grid and hurried to meet her. Before he could stand upright again, the woman swung her rake and knocked him sharply in the jaw. He staggered off balance and dropped his laser torch.
"Get out, you stupid oaf! You'll contaminate the food!"
She swiped at him again, but this time, Dominic grabbed the rake before she could hit him. Crouching low, he twisted it out of her hands and turned it against her. "Madam, I'm not your enemy. Listen to me. I'm—"
"You're covered in dirt! Can't you see this is a sterile environment? Food has to be kept sanitary. Sanitary! Do you even know the word? These are biochem vats. These yeasty bugs make our food. They're extremely sensitive. Oh, you're too stupid to grasp the simplest concepts!"
The woman snatched at the rake, but Dominic dodged behind a coffin. Her cheeks darkened. "Ill-bred slacker! I work around the clock to maintain these vats. You can't possibly appreciate the fragile balance. I'm the only one with the training!"
She darted around the vat, and under the bright light, Dominic noticed a rash covering her cheeks. Her graying blonde hair looked greasy, and her hands were chapped. He'd never met an exec with such poor grooming habits. Worse, she seemed on the point of tears.
"Put down that rake! You're getting smutty prote germs all over the handle."
"Madam, I—"
She lunged toward him, and he circled farther around the vat. His jaw was starting to smart where she hit him, and he was losing patience. It didn't help when the woman shook her fists and screeched at him. "See this uniform? I know what's best! You're supposed to do what I say!"
