E.C Tubb - Nectar of Heaven

Chapter One

All night the wind had droned over the workings dying at dawn when a pale yellow sun had illuminated a world transfigured by cold. Ice coated the mounds and gullies, frosted the humped buildings, gave a transient beauty to the harsh lines of functional machines. A thin, white blanket covered the torn and ravaged soil, snow filling hollows and softening peaks, a dry powder which held treachery.

"Dangerous." Hart Vardoon kicked at the accumulation, a white dust flying from his boot. "Be careless and you could slip, break a leg, maybe." He glanced at the humped machines. "Worse, even."

Dumarest glanced at the mechanisms; tall, their fronts set with curved teeth, the whole moving on wide treads. The operators sat back and to one side guiding the tearing action of the grabs which tore into the dirt and sent it in massed lumps to one side. If a worker should slip and fall the chances were high he would be unnoticed, his body joining the dirt in a red-stained mass.

"A freak." Wiess had joined them. He stood shivering, his face pinched beneath the surrounding fabric of his hood. "It's too early for snow. Once the sun gets high it'll thaw the stuff to water. Dry it out too," he added quickly. Sodden ground was impossible to work. "A couple of hours should do it."

"You sure about that?"

"Take my word for it, Earl." Wiess shivered again and beat patched gloves against his chest. "This is my third season and I've seen freak storms before. We've got weeks yet, a month at least."

Vardoon shook his head as the man walked off toward his position. Behind him one of the machines woke to strident life, others following, metal grating as treads joined grabs in preparatory movement. Within minutes the workings would be in full operation.

"What do you think, Earl? Has Wiess got it right?"

"You saw his clothing."

"Too thin and too worn. A blast would go right through it and he hasn't the fat to fight cold. A gambler too."

"One who loses."

"As I've noticed." Vardoon scowled, scar tissue bunching on his face, turning it into a mask of savage ferocity. "Three seasons," he said. "Stuck on Polis for that long and he still lacks decent clothing. What do you think, Earl?"

Dumarest studied the sky, the pale orb of the sun fogged by high-drifting cloud. The wind had fallen but the air held a fresh, astringent odor together with the bite of chill. Far to the north rested a dullness; massed cloud laced with paler hues. Against them a flight of birds arrowed toward the south.

"Well?" Vardoon was impatient. "Have we a month or what?"

Dumarest said, "I'm a stranger here, Hart, like yourself, but if I had money owing I'd collect it now."

"I'm not fool enough to lend. So-" He broke off as an overseer yelled his anger. "We'd better get to work before he blows his top. See you later."

He moved off and Dumarest set to work. The workings were open-cast mining, the machines ripping into the surface of an ancient seabed, the lumps of dirt cascading from the grabs containing nodules of manganese. With long-hafted hammers Dumarest and the other scudgers broke up the lumps and searched for the mineral. Pay was based on what they found.

It was hard, unremitting labor, today harder than usual. The chilled ground yielded too slowly to the impact of the hammers, the dirt taking too long to crumble. But, if nothing else, the activity generated body heat.

Dumarest straightened, throwing back the cowl of the thermal garment he wore over his own clothing, feeling the sweat dry on his face beneath the touch of a gentle wind. To the north the clouds were darker than before, the sun a little more hazed. Turning, he saw a raft lift from the administration area, the transparent canopy sealed, shimmering with reflected light as it caught the sun, the shapes within humped and indistinct.

Vardoon joined him as the craft vanished toward the south.

"The top brass," he said. "On the run. They must know something we don't."

"Maybe not."

"They've left, haven't they? The engineers, the assayers, the rest." Vardoon slammed his hammer against a lump of dirt and grunted as the head did nothing but indent the surface. "Three hits to do the work of one. Five times as long to check for nodules. How many have earned the price of a meal as yet? Now that raft-what's the answer, Earl?"

It came during the noon break. Hunched in his furs, the supervisor was curt.

"We're closing down. Hand in your tools before dark. Tomorrow you get paid. Transportation to town will be provided at noon."

A man chose to object. "Hell, why the hurry? It's early yet."

"That's right." The supervisor nodded. "If things were normal there'd be five or six weeks before winter closed us down. But things aren't normal. A storm's brewing and we want out while the going's good."

"Can we take a chance?" Wiess? Dumarest looked and saw another just like him, one just as desperate. "Work on for a couple of weeks at least? Hell, man, we've had storms before."

"Sure, but it's too close to winter. We're closing down."

Dumarest reached for his stew as the protests continued. It was thick, rich with synthetic meats, laced with spices, hot and warming to throat and stomach. Top-brass food but he could afford it. As he tore a morsel from a crust Vardoon slipped into the seat at his side.

"So now we know." He set down his own bowl and reached for his spoon. "It's time to move on." He frowned at the continued noise. "Listen to them howl. Crazy-did they think the job would last forever?"

Dumarest shrugged. The noise was born of desperation, of those who had hoped to accumulate a stake so as to move on from the trap that was Polis. A futile hope-the pay was too little to provide other than sustenance. Now they had lost even that. But, tonight, the sharks would be hungry for a final killing.

"Beldo's planning a game," said Vardoon. "Cash or paper against pay. Want in?"

"No. How's he going to make sure he collects?"

"A list from the office and a few goons to take care of trouble." Vardoon tore at his bread. "They can be handled. You've run a table before, Earl, right? Maybe we could make a killing."

As Beldo hoped to do, as Imman, as Tai'Hun and a couple of others. Predators who would skin the stupid and the desperate with marked cards, loaded dice, fixed games. A part of camp life no matter what the world. Leeches tolerated by the authorities for the kickback they provided.

"Did you hear that?" Wiess came to join them. He was trembling. "Down and out-just like that! How am I going to get by? It takes money to gain the shelter of town, more to eat and if I fall sick-what the hell can I do?"

"Pray," said Vardoon. Dumarest was more helpful.

"Offer yourself on contract," he advised. "You'll get food and shelter in return for work."

"Sure." Wiess was bitter. "Twenty hours a day and sleep in a corner. Winding up with a debt I won't be able to pay. So next season I get sold to the owners as a drudge." His hand lifted to pull at his tunic, the imagined collar around his throat. "I'd end up a damned sight worse than I am now."

"You'd be alive," said Dumarest. His bowl was empty and he pushed it aside. Hours of daylight remained and should not be wasted.

That night the wind was gentle but the ice remained and the clouds to the north were higher, darker, closer than before. Masses of vapor in tormented balance, turbulence which created vortexes, temperatures balanced on a delicate edge. High-flying craft could have seeded the mass with chemicals and artificially created eletro-compounds to trigger the mass into release and quietude but the operation took money and materials the mine owners were unwilling to spend. The profits were too small as it was, the season closing, why waste effort for so little reward?