In Every Eden (The Heroes We Can Afford)

Chapter 11: The Long Walk

The ventilation in the hallway outside the 'Pit' functioned better than it did inside and the air felt cool and clean by comparison.  Out of the smoke-filled hotbox of the 'Pit', Morgan could feel his head begin to clear.

His head was clear enough to realize that he had no idea how he was going to accomplish any of the things he told Susan he was going to do.  Clear their names?  Prove himself to Khadi?  Maybe even catch the true saboteurs?

No idea.

“Hey there, 'former.  Looking to shake some of that dirt loose?”  Tall and dark and heavy in all the right place, she wore her Conglomerate sex worker's license strapped to her thigh.  And it was a hell of a thigh.  All the way around and then some.

He smiled with real regret, patted her leg and informed her that he had no ready credit.  She returned the smile, no charge, shrugged and walked away, giving him quite a free show.

She paused halfway down the corridor to chat with a pair of Militia officers lounging there.  As they talked, first one officer, then the prostitute, then the other officer, took it in turns to take a surreptitious look down the hall at him.  Morgan wasn't at all surprised.  He'd never been in a mining colony yet where the prostitutes weren't in the pay of the law or visa versa.

Morgan turned his back on the lot of them, stuck both hands in his pockets and started walking, whistling an old song from his childhood.  Let them follow, if they wanted.  He didn't have have any more idea where he was headed than they did.  

He walked in the general direction of 'away'.  One corridor became another.  He turned corners often so that he could catch a glimpse of the khaki-clad Militia officer who always seemed to be strolling about half a hallway behind him.

He enjoyed the stroll.  It was an easy walk.  His feet bounced off of the metal floors, launching him into long, lazy strides in Hunahpu's low gravity.  He passed small knots of miners, with a sampling of every color and build, but predominately of short, but heavily-built heavy gravity natives of the Libran mining worlds, like their boss Vasca.  They barked at each other in a creole of Spanglish and Euskara that Morgan recognized but could only partially understand.  Those words he could make out in passing were the sort he expected from miners, work and food and drink and money and violence.  

As he walked and he whistled, he thought.  It seemed to Morgan that proving he hadn't done something would be just as hard in the here and now as it had been proving it to his mom when he was a kid.  Of course, when he was a kid, the only way he'd ever really gotten out of it was to put the blame on one of his brothers or sisters.  But all of them were at least forty light years distant, so that strategy was no good.

The problem was, it was the only plan he could think of.  To find somebody else to pin it on.  The ones who had actually sabotaged the Mount Safa for preference.  He had a lot of history with the old girl and he was feeling a powerful urge, mellowed only a little by the contact high off the theece he'd breathed in the 'Pit', to give whoever had done it a proper kick in the teeth.

Of course, catching the saboteur or saboteurs would mean out-thinking people clever enough to sneak destructive materials onto a platform under the nose of Khadija Safawa and her hand-picked crew of career terraformers.

He missed a step and stumbled.  He should go back to the 'Pit'.  Get Susan or Hector.  They were the ones with the brains.

Only problem with that was, the ones with the brains didn't care.

He was backed into a corner.  It was Morgan or it was nothing.

And with that, a sudden weight lifted from his shoulders.  He hated to admit it, even to himself, but he liked being backed into a corner.  Forced to fight.  Fighting for something meant that it mattered.  And he missed things that mattered.

He didn't know why anyone would sabotage a terraforming project but what he did know was that they hadn't managed to stop it.  Yet.  Which to his mind meant they would try again.  Or at least he hoped so, it was the only idea he had right now.

He cracked his knuckles, spun around and ran up to the startled Militia officer following him.  The guard's eyes went wide and he reached for his pulse laser, but not fast enough to avoid Morgan's enthusiastic bear hug.  He released the man and gleefully asked where the spare terraforming supplies were kept.  The officer, caught entirely off-guard, told him they were under guard in the industrial docks of the monorail station.

He planted a big, manly kiss on the officer and bound off towards the station.

As he got closer to the station, the knots of miners got bigger and louder.  The speech was shifting too, with 'Xbalanque' and the words for 'grain'  and 'violence' showing up in their conversation.  The miners traded furtive glances and nodded reassurances to each other now.  They slapped each other on the shoulders, building up and then borrowing each others' courage.  He could feel the familiar electricity of a crowd building to action.

A tall, corpse-pale figure in faded military fatigues slapped him in the chest with a leather drinking bag that stank of spoiled milk.

“Kumis?”

“I... what?”

“Kumis, lad!  Courage!  Warmth in your veins and courage to your loins.  Blood and milk and courage.”  Morgan looked down at the drinking bag and realized that it was still sealed.  What he smelled was blowing out of the man's mouth like a foul wind.  The words were in a standard pigeon, but garbled almost beyond recognition in a thick accent that would have marked him as Tritonian even if his unique drink of choice had not.

“And what am I needing courage for?  What's the brawl, mate?”  Morgan gripped the drinking bag in one hand and punched the Triton in the shoulder as hard as he could.

The Triton winced and grinned.

“Don't you shit a shitter, son.  You got the fight in your hands and the fire in your eyes.  You're on your way to the big scrum same as me.  The damn Circle-jerks from over the other moon are holding back the grains and our lads is set to take it.  There'll be blood and light 'afore this is settled and I mean to have my share, one way or 'nother.”

The Triton's smile was the most unpleasant one he could manage.  He tore the bag out of Morgan's hand hard enough to chafe it and drained a long stream of fermented milk, pink with blood just as he'd said, down his throat.  He slapped Morgan on the shoulder hard enough to bruise, gave him a broad wink and ducked into the gathering crowd.

Morgan could hear the general grumble of the crowd building on the other side of the hatch, then there was a shout, the low whine of stun weapons and the sudden roar of a great beast made of a thousand voices.  The knot of miners that he was packed into the corridor with roared back and surged into the monorail station, carrying Morgan along with them.

He could feel the heat of bodies pressed in around him, and of the blood rising in his own face.  In other words, a riot.

A riot.

An opportunity.

If he had been looking for a distraction for the Militia, he couldn't have asked for one better.  Slip in, get the goods, slip out.  This was going to be easy.