The Navigator looked like a pool of fat in his wheelchair, his small features and short, weak limbs mere addenda to his crushed bulk. Rees, with some effort, helped him raise a tube of water to his lips. The Navigator dribbled; the water scattered over the ruin of his coverall and droplets hit the iron floor like bullets. Cipse smiled apologetically. “I’m sorry,” he said, wheezing.
Rees shook his head. “Don’t worry about it.”
“You know,” Cipse said at length, “the physical conditions down here are poor enough; but what makes it unendurable is… the sheer boredom.”
Rees nodded. “There has never been much to do save supervise the Moles. They can make their own decisions, mostly, with occasional human intervention. Frankly, though, one or two experienced miners can run the whole kernel. There’s no need for so many of us to be down here. It’s just Roch’s petty way of hurting us.”
“Not so petty.” Cipse’s breath seemed to be labored; his words were punctuated by pauses. “I’m quite concerned about the… health of some of the others, you know. And I suspect… suspect that we would actually be of more use in some other role.”
Rees grimaced. “Of course. But try telling Roch.”
“You know I’ve no wish to appear insulting, Rees, but you clearly have more in… common with these people than the… the rest of us.” He coughed and clutched his chest. “After all, you are one of them. Can’t you… say something?”
Rees laughed softly. “Cipse, I ran out of here, remember. They hate me more than the rest of you. Look, things will get better, I’m sure of that; the miners aren’t barbarians. They’re just angry. We must be patient.”
Cipse fell silent, his breath shallow.
Rees stared at the Navigator in the dim light. Cipse’s round face was white and slick with sweat. “You say you’re concerned about the well-being of the others, Navigator, but what about yourself?”
Cipse massaged the flesh of his chest. “I can’t admit to feeling wonderful,” he wheezed. “Of course, just the fact of our presence down here — in this gravity field — places a terrible strain on our hearts. Human beings weren’t designed, it seems, to function in… such conditions.”
“How are you feeling? Do you have any specific pain?”
“Don’t fuss, boy,” Cipse snapped with the ghost of his old tetchiness. “I’m perfectly all right. And I am the most senior of us, you know. The others… rely on me…” His words were lost in a fit of coughing.
“I’m sorry,” Rees said carefully. “You’re the best judge, of course. But — ah — since your well-being is so vital to our morale, let me help you, for this one shift. Just stay here; I think I can handle the work of both of us. And I can keep Roch occupied. I’m afraid there’s no way he’ll let you off the star before the end of the shift, but perhaps if you sit still — try to sleep even—”
Cipse thought it over, then said weakly, “Yes. It would feel rather good to sleep.” He closed his eyes. “Perhaps that would be for the best. Thank you, Rees…”
“No, I don’t know what’s wrong with him,” Rees said. “You’re the one with bio training, Grye. He hardly woke up when it came time to return him to the surface. Maybe his heart can’t stand up to the gravity down there. But what do I know?”
Cipse lay strapped loosely to a pallet, his face a bowl of perspiration. Grye hovered over the still form of the Navigator, his hands fluttering against each other. “I don’t know; I really don’t know,” he repeated.
The four other Scientists of the group formed an anxious backdrop. The tiny cabin to which they’d all been assigned seemed to Rees a cage of fear and helplessness. “Just think it through,” he said, exasperated. “What would Hollerbach do if he were here?”
Grye drew in his stomach pompously and glowered up at Rees. “May I point out that Hollerbach isn’t here? And furthermore, on the Raft we had access to dispensers of the finest drugs — as well as the Ship’s medical records. Here we have nothing, not even full rations—”
“Nothing except yourselves!” Rees snapped.
A circle of round, grime-streaked faces stared at him, apparently hurt.
Rees sighed. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Look, Grye, there’s nothing I can suggest. You must have learned something in all the years you worked with those records. You’ll simply have to do what you think best.”
Grye frowned, and for long seconds studied Cipse’s recumbent form; then he began to loosen the Navigator’s clothing.
Rees turned away. With his duty fulfilled claustrophobia swiftly descended on him, and he pushed his way out of the cabin.
He prowled the confines of the Belt. He met few people: it was approaching mid-shift and most Belt folk must be at work or in their cabins. Rees breathed lungfuls of Nebula air and gloomily studied the over-familiar details of the little colony’s construction: the battered cabins, walls scarred by generations of passing hands and feet, the gaping nozzles of the roof jets.
A breeze brought him a distant scent of wood, and he looked up. Hanging in the sky in tight formation was the flight of trees which had brought him here from the Raft. The bulk of the supply machine was still slung between them, and Rees made out Pallis’s overseer tree hovering in the background. The elegant trees, the faint foliage scent, the figures clambering through the branches: the airy spectacle was quite beautiful, and it brought home to Rees with a sudden, sharp impact the magnitude of what he had lost in returning here.
The rotation of the Belt swept the formation over a horizon of cabins. Rees turned away.
He came to the Quartermaster’s. Now the smell of stale alcohol filled his head and on impulse he slid into the bar’s gloomy interior. Maybe a couple of shots of something tough would help his mood; relax him enough to get the sleep he needed — The barman, Jame, was rinsing drink bowls in a bag of grimy water. He scowled through his gray-tinged beard. “I’ve told you before,” he growled. “I don’t serve Raft shite in here.”
Rees hid his anger under a grin. He glanced around the bar; it was empty save for a small man with a spectacular burn scar covering one complete forearm. “Looks like you don’t serve anyone else either,” Rees snapped,
Jame grunted. “Don’t you know? This shift they’re finally going to offload that supply machine from the trees; that’s where all the able bodies are. Work to do, see — not like you feckless Raft shite—”
Rees felt his anger uncoil. “Come on, Jame. I was born here. You know that.”
“And you chose to leave. Once a Rafter, always a Rafter.”
“Jame, it’s a small Nebula,” Rees snapped. “I’ve seen enough to teach me that much at least. And we’re all humans in it together, Belt and Raft alike—”
But Jame had turned his back.
Rees, irritated, left the bar. It had been — how long? a score of shifts? — since their arrival at the Belt, and the miners had only just worked out how to unship the supply device. And he, Rees, with experience of tree flight and of Belt conditions, hadn’t even been told they were doing it…
He anchored his toes in the wall of the Quartermaster’s and stretched to his full height, peering at the formation of trees beyond the far side of the Belt. Now that he looked more carefully he could see there were many people clinging awkwardly to the branches. Men swarmed over the net containing the supply device, dwarfed by its ragged bulk; they tied ropes around it and threw out lengths that uncoiled toward the Belt.
At last a loose web of rope trailed from the machine, Tiny shouts crossed the air; Rees could see the pilots standing beside the trunks of the great trees, and now billows of smoke bloomed above the canopies. With massive grandeur the trees’ rotation slowed and they began to inch toward the Belt. The coordination was skillful; Rees could see how the supply machine barely rocked through the air.