Acts of Conscience Read Free

wants to go for a little joyride. “Bring up nav displays please.”
    The whole undersurface of the display dome flickered, very dim yellowish light, letting me know the subsystems were very badly in need of renormalization, nothing to worry about, not my job, then the stars came out.
    It was as if we were floating free in space. This way the Sun, that way Earth and Moon. There. Red fleck Mars. White spark Venus. Yellow dot Mercury. Bright, orangish Jupiter. Yellow-white Saturn. Pale blue Uranus. Royal blue Neptune. Picked out like rich jewels, strung along the necklace of the ecliptic.
    A little swarm of dust motes, a flattened ring reaching around the whole sky. Piazzi’s Belt between Mars and Jupiter. A thicker, more diffuse swarm out beyond Uranus, beginning to fill the sky beyond Neptune, Kuyper’s Belt, Pluto-Charon a fat double-dot out there, no more than first among its kin.
    Hundreds of little green wedges all around the sky, concentrated along the ecliptic plane. Interplanetary shipping in transit, as reported by Space Traffic Control. The suit whispered, Vidnet link is down. This display is more than three weeks old.
    I could feel the throttle under my hand.
    Light the field modulus device then. Pale blue fire flickering around this half-dismantled D-1 prime mover. Work Control calling over the link, What the hell do you think you’re playing at ?
    Shove the throttle forward. Ship sliding from its berth, falling down into the planetary deeps.
    Reasonable, I suppose. This ship’s main purpose is to haul heavy cargoes around the solar system. They gave it big, strong legs with which to do that job, but I could use them to run, faster, faster than any conceivable wind, fiery wind from the Sun, out beyond the Oort, out to the fixed stars. Out where the big ships go.
    Of course, I’d starve to death and/or suffocate in just a couple of weeks, but what the hell.
    1220 .
    Better go get a little snack now, while I’ve got the chance.
    o0o
    Shop messhall. A three-tiered, mezzanine-style dining room under about one-tenth standard gee. Just enough so you can sit and eat, not enough to stop you from flying an equilibrimotor. Self service. Food just sitting in steamtable piles. Most of it already gone. Caesar salad, wilted and slimy under its dressing, croutons getting soft. A cold bottle of grape-tinged ice tea. I looked at the big bowl of banana pudding, cookies crumbled, bananas turning dark, custard starting to weep some kind of clear stuff.
    I flew up to the table where I usually sit, set my tray down, unhooked my equilibrimotor harness and leaned it against the wall, near some others. Sat down with the people I usually sit with. Looked at the crap in my tray. Why did I think I was going to eat this shit?
    Across and diagonal from me, Layla Garstang looked up from her tray. “Hey, Gaetan, you still coming with us next week? We need to know for sure. Zell’s got to sign out the camping permits tonight.”
    I lifted off my diadem, pulled the space helmet from my head, dropped them beside my tray. “Sure. Already turned in my vacation voucher.”
    Garstang grinning, a nondescript woman with an open, boxy face. Blue eyes. Pale pink lips. Freckles on light, neutral Caucasian skin. “All right, that makes six.”
    Zell Benson, tall, heavily built, bullet-headed, dark brown face more or less empty, said “OK. You and Phil. Me and Millie. Rua Mater... and du Cheyne.”
    I used to wonder about these people. I always thought they didn’t want me here, but then... Hell, before she took up with Phil Hendrickx, I even fucked Garstang a few times. Maybe enough times to think we’d gotten something... started. How long’s it been? Six years? Something like that. Maybe I fucked her five or six times, and it seemed all right to me. Worth continuing, anyway. Not worth it to her, apparently. I still have a distinct memory of things from those few nights. The way she smelled. The way she felt, on my fingers, on my prick.
    She