Moving slowly and carefully, Illin applied ventral thrusters and steered his ship upward, over the ring of dancing giants. The Thek floated next to him.
He followed the small pyramid out of the thick of the field and back to his vector point. As soon as they were clear, he bounced messages to the beacons: Scout coming in, towing escape pod NM-EC-02, intact, beacon damaged. Thek involved. He grinned jauntily to himself. That short message would have them fluttering on the Platform all right. He couldn't wait to see what a fuss he was stirring up.
Descartes Mining Platform 6 had changed a great deal in the many years since the first modular cylinders had been towed into the midst of the asteroid field and assembled. While the early employees had had to make do with barrackslike communal quarters, families could now claim small suites of their own. Amenities, which were once sold practically out of the backpacks of itinerant traders, could be found in a knot of shops in the heart of the corridors joining the cylinder complex near the entertainment center. With the completion date for the residential containment dome only five years away, Descartes 6 could almost claim colony status. And would.
Ore trains consisting of five to eight sealed containers strung behind a drone crossed back and forth between the ships ranged out along the docking piers. Some carried raw rock from the mining vessels to the slaggers and tumblers whose chutes bristled from the side of the Platform. Some carried processed minerals to the gigantic three-engine ore carriers that were shaped like vast hollow spheres belted top to bottom by thruster points. Those big slow-moving spheres did most of the hauling between the Platform and civilisation. In spite of their dowdy appearance and obvious unwieldiness, the Company had never come up with anything better with which to replace them.
Ships belonging to merchants from the Federated Sentient Planet worlds were easily distinguished from the Mining Company's own vessels by their gaudy paint jobs. They were here to trade household goods, food, and textiles for small and large parcels of minerals that weren't available on their own planets, hoping to get a better price than they would get from a distributor. As Illin watched, one moved away from its bay with four containers in tow, turning toward the beacon that would help guide it toward Alpha Centauri, many months travel from here even at FTL. A personal shuttle with the colours of a Company executive shot out of an airlock and flew purposefully toward a large Paraden Company carrier that lay in a remote docking orbit somewhere over Illin's left shoulder.
Illin transmitted his scout's recognition code as he approached the Platform. The acknowledgment tone tweetled shrilly in his headphones.
"Good day, Romsey. That your Thek behind you there at.05?" Flight Deck Coordinator Mavorna said cheerfully from Illin's video pickup, now tuned to the communications network. She was a heavyset woman with midnight skin and clear green eyes.
"It's not my Thek," Illin said peevishly. "It just followed me home."
"That's what they all say, pumpkin. You've hooked yourself a geode, I hear."
"That's so," Illin admitted. A "geode" was a crystal strike that was seemed promising but couldn't be cracked in the field. Some of them panned out well, others proved to be deeply disappointing to the hopeful miner who found one. "I don't know who's in it. The Thek didn't say. It's still sealed."
"The Thek didn't say-ha, ha! When do they ever? I've got a crew and medics on the way down to the enclosed deck to meet you. Set down gently, now. The floor has just been polished. Remember, wait until the airlock siren shuts off before you unseal."
"Have I got a tri-vid team waiting to talk to me, too?" Illin asked hopefully.
"Sonny, there's more news than you happening today. Wait and see. You'll get the whole picture when you're down and in. I haven't got time to gossip."
With a throaty chuckle, Mavorna signed off. Her image was replaced on the screen with the day's designated frequency for the landing beacon. Illin tuned in and steered up toward the opening doors through which bright simulated daylight spilled. The Thek sailed silently behind him.
Tiny gnats were buzzing near her ears. "Lnz. Lnz. Dtr Mspw."
She ignored them, refusing to open her eyes. Her skin hurt, especially her ears and lips. Gingerly, she put out her tongue and licked her lips. They were very dry. Suddenly, something cold and wet touched her mouth. She startled, and cold stuff ran across her cheek and into her ear. The gnats began whining again, but their voices grew slower and more distinct. "Lunz. Lunzie. Dr. Mespil. That is your name, isn't it?"
Lunzie opened her eyes. She was lying on an infirmary bed, in a white room without windows. Three humans stood beside her, two in white medic tunics, and one in a miner's jumpsuit. And there was a Thek. She was so curious about why a Thek should be in her infirmary ward that she just stared at it, ignoring the others. The tall male human in medical whites leaned over her.
"Can you speak? I'm Dr. Stev Banus. You're on Descartes Platform 6, and I am the hospital administrator. Are you all right?"
Lunzie drew a deep breath, and let out a sigh of relief. "Yes, I'm fine. I'm very stiff, and my head is full of sawdust, but I'm all right."
"Iiiiinnnnnn-taaaaaaaaccct?" the Thek rumbled. The others listened carefully and respectfully, and then turned to Lunzie. It must have been a query directed at her. She wished that she had more personal experience with the Theks, but none had ever spoken to her before. The others seemed to know what it was asking.
"Yes, I'm intact," she announced. She wished it had a face, or any attribute that she could relate to, but there was nothing. It looked like a hunk of building stone. She waited for a response.
The Thek said nothing more. As the humans watched it, the featureless pyramid rolled swiftly toward the door and out of the room.
"What was that Thek doing here?" Lunzie asked.
"I don't know," Stev explained, puzzled. "I'm not sure what it was looking for out there in the asteroid field. They're not easy to communicate with. This one is clearly friendly, but that's all we know. It was instrumental in finding you. It pointed you out to young Miner Romsey."
"I'm sorry I didn't thank it," Lunzie said flippantly. She pulled herself up into a sitting position. The human in white tunics rushed forward to support her as she settled against the head of the bed. She waved them away. "Where am I? This is the Mining Platform?"
"It is." The female medic smiled at her. She had perfectly smooth skin the colour of coffee with cream, and deep brown eyes. Her thick black hair was in a long braid down her back. "My name is Satia Somileaux. I was born here."
Lunzie looked at her curiously. "Really? I thought the living quarters on the Platform were less than fifteen years old. You must be at least twenty."
"Twenty-four," Satia confessed, with a friendly and amused expression.
"How long was I asleep?"
The two doctors looked at each other, trying to decide what to say. Lunzie stared at them sharply. The dark-haired young man in the coverall shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other and cleared his throat. Banus shot him a sly, knowing look out of the corner of his eye and turned to face him. "I haven't forgotten you, Illin Romsey. There's a substantial finder's fee for bringing a pod in, you know that."
"Well," the young man grinned, squinting thoughtfully. "It'll make up for losing that strike. Just. But I'd'a brought her in anyway. If I was shiplost, I sure hope someone would feel the same about bringing me home."