Exiled to the Stars Read Online Free PDF

been confiscated from previous colonists. Ron was glad Manny had managed to get the practice rig for the laser. He hadn't fired one in years, and he was certain Vlad had never even seen one, let alone handled it. Blasters were much less precise weapons, and more forgiving of inexperienced users. But he anticipated that both of them would be spending many hours practicing with all the weapons.
    They'd have to move them, of course. They couldn't afford to let Manny know the location of almost ten thousand credits worth of weapons!
    By the time they got back to the dorm, "lights out" had sounded, and the dorm was dark. They would have to wait until the next morning to visit the other dorms.
    The occupied portion of the ship consisted of a 500-meter-diameter globe housing 12 decks.
    The top four decks were "crew country." The Deck 1 contained the Bridge, Captain's quarters and office, and senior officer quarters. Decks 2 and 3 were crew quarters. Deck 4 housed most of the ship's operational spaces, such as labs, offices and workshops. Not coincidentally, it also served as a barrier between the crew and the colonists; direct links with the colonist decks required use of elevators utilizing retinal locks. Even the deck itself was thicker than the rest. EarthGov did not trust its outcasts.
    Decks 5 and 6 were primarily colonist dorms and ancillary nodes for the computer. Bureaucracy becomes its own reason for being; there was no law or regulation that required Undie dorms be on one deck and Drones on the other, but typically deck 5 was the "Undie deck," and deck 6 the "Drone deck." Since the segregation was unofficial, it was also flexible. If there were not enough Undies to fill deck 5, the shortage was made up from among the Drones. In this case, there were several Drone dorms on deck 5, but Ron felt safer seeking refuge on deck 6.
    Directly below colonist quarters in the very center of the ship was an armored, sealed globe extending two decks downward, housing the computer and associated memory on decks 7 and 8. Circuits and mechanical interfaces that permit the computer to control the supply delivery system and the VR training rooms surround this globe. These are themselves surrounded by supply storage facilities, which also extend to deck 9 and part of deck 10. Most of Deck 10 is occupied by the ship's hydroponics installation. The rest of that deck is oversized. It contains the heavy equipment the colony would need, such as bulldozers, cranes, heavy construction equipment, tractors, plows, and farming equipment.
    Decks 11 and 12 are the engineering spaces, including the normal space drive and life support systems. They also include fully equipped workshops and machine shops intended for the colony. The equipment on these decks is designed to be easily salvaged after the ship's arrival on a planet.
    Ron and Vlad were up early and skipped breakfast the next morning, so they could hurry to the cache and recover their weapons before Manny sold someone their location. They placed the weapons in one of the boxes that previously had contained their supplies, and hid the weapons temporarily in a service conduit.
    Then they went "down" to Deck 6, and began visiting the nearby dorms. As they entered each, children with their hands out mobbed them, hoping for coins. And at each, Ron would select one boy or girl and whisper to them. At the first two, Ron was apparently disappointed with the children's reactions.
    At the third, though, the boy he had selected nodded vigorously and grabbed at his hand, pulling him into the dorm. Ron told Vlad to follow, and allowed the boy to pull him to a bunk section near the far end.
    The Drone dorm was a madhouse, crammed with people talking, arguing, gesticulating, laughing, and everything in between. Some simply drifted, looking miserable and clutching airsick bags. The boy eeled through the tight-packed horde with amazing ease. The westerners, less skilled, bumbled slowly along in his wake, trying