Icehenge Read Online Free PDF Page A
Author: Kim Stanley Robinson
puts us in danger.â
Andrew didnât like that either. âWe should fight! Sitting here passively would be helping them, and the Committee will know it.â He squinted at me suspiciously. âYouâre close friends with Swann, arenât you? Didnât he ever tell you what was going on?â
âNo,â I said, feeling myself blush. They all watched me.
âYouâre telling us he just let you walk into this situation without any kind of warning or anything?â Duggins said.
âThatâs right,â I snapped. âYou saw me in the radio room, Duggins. I was as surprised as anyone by the mutiny.â
But Duggins was unconvinced, and the rest of them looked skeptical as well. They all knew Swann was a considerate person, and it didnât make sense to them that he would have deceived a good friend so. There was a long, uncomfortable silence. Duggins stood up. âIâll talk to some of you another time,â he said, and left the lounge. Suddenly angry, I left too. Looking back at the confused, suspicious people in the lounge, grouped in a disconsolate circle with their colored drink bulbs floating around them, I thought, They look scared.
When I got back to my room, two people were moving into it. A Nadezhda Malkiv, and a Marie-Anne Kotovskayaâboth BLSS engineers, both members of the Soviet branch of the MSA. The other two ships were being emptied so that they could be worked on freely, they told me. Nadezhda was 124 years old, a specialist in the gas exchange; Marie-Anne was 108, a biologist whose study was the algae and bacteria in the waste recycling system. They were both from Lermontov, which they said, had been in the asteroid belt nearly four months before the MSA took over, broke radio contact with Mars, and circled around to the rendezvous behind the sun.
Shocked into a stiff silence by this new development, I went back into the halls, and then to the small lounge around the corner from my room. There I met the leader of the non-MSA people from Lermontov, a dour man named Ivan Valenski. He had been the Committee police leader aboard, until the mutiny. I did not like himâhe was a sort of dully furious Soviet bureaucrat, a petty man used to giving orders and being obeyed. He seemed as little impressed by me as I by him. Duggins, I thought, would be more to his taste. They were men scarred by so many years of authority that they actively worked for its continuanceâto justify their lives up to this point, perhaps. But how was I different from them?
I returned to my room. My new roommates left me the top bunk; the bottom, which I had used as a convenient counter, was occupied by Nadezhda. Marie-Anne planned to sleep in the corner where the walls met the ceiling. Their belongings were strapped all over the floor. I talked with them for a while in English, with some fumbling attempts on my part at Russian. They were nice women, and after the earlier meetings of the day I appreciated the company of calm, undemanding people.
That night Swann came by my room, and asked me if I wanted to eat dinner with him. After a momentâs thought I agreed.
âIâm glad you arenât still angry with me,â he babbled, ingenuous as ever. Although I had to remind myself that he had been high in the councils of the MSA for as long as Iâd known him. So how well had I known him?
âShut up about that and letâs go eat,â I said. Somewhat subdued, he led the way to the dining commons through the dark halls.
Once there I looked around at the place, imagining it as the dining commons of the starship. People in neutral-toned one-piece suits walked up to the food counter; there they pushed the buttons for the meal they desired, most of them never looking up at the menu. The foods grown on shipâsalads, vegetable drinks, fish or scallops or chicken or rabbit, goat cheese, milk, yoghurtâwere supplemented by non-renewable supplies:
Andrew didnât like that either. âWe should fight! Sitting here passively would be helping them, and the Committee will know it.â He squinted at me suspiciously. âYouâre close friends with Swann, arenât you? Didnât he ever tell you what was going on?â
âNo,â I said, feeling myself blush. They all watched me.
âYouâre telling us he just let you walk into this situation without any kind of warning or anything?â Duggins said.
âThatâs right,â I snapped. âYou saw me in the radio room, Duggins. I was as surprised as anyone by the mutiny.â
But Duggins was unconvinced, and the rest of them looked skeptical as well. They all knew Swann was a considerate person, and it didnât make sense to them that he would have deceived a good friend so. There was a long, uncomfortable silence. Duggins stood up. âIâll talk to some of you another time,â he said, and left the lounge. Suddenly angry, I left too. Looking back at the confused, suspicious people in the lounge, grouped in a disconsolate circle with their colored drink bulbs floating around them, I thought, They look scared.
When I got back to my room, two people were moving into it. A Nadezhda Malkiv, and a Marie-Anne Kotovskayaâboth BLSS engineers, both members of the Soviet branch of the MSA. The other two ships were being emptied so that they could be worked on freely, they told me. Nadezhda was 124 years old, a specialist in the gas exchange; Marie-Anne was 108, a biologist whose study was the algae and bacteria in the waste recycling system. They were both from Lermontov, which they said, had been in the asteroid belt nearly four months before the MSA took over, broke radio contact with Mars, and circled around to the rendezvous behind the sun.
Shocked into a stiff silence by this new development, I went back into the halls, and then to the small lounge around the corner from my room. There I met the leader of the non-MSA people from Lermontov, a dour man named Ivan Valenski. He had been the Committee police leader aboard, until the mutiny. I did not like himâhe was a sort of dully furious Soviet bureaucrat, a petty man used to giving orders and being obeyed. He seemed as little impressed by me as I by him. Duggins, I thought, would be more to his taste. They were men scarred by so many years of authority that they actively worked for its continuanceâto justify their lives up to this point, perhaps. But how was I different from them?
I returned to my room. My new roommates left me the top bunk; the bottom, which I had used as a convenient counter, was occupied by Nadezhda. Marie-Anne planned to sleep in the corner where the walls met the ceiling. Their belongings were strapped all over the floor. I talked with them for a while in English, with some fumbling attempts on my part at Russian. They were nice women, and after the earlier meetings of the day I appreciated the company of calm, undemanding people.
That night Swann came by my room, and asked me if I wanted to eat dinner with him. After a momentâs thought I agreed.
âIâm glad you arenât still angry with me,â he babbled, ingenuous as ever. Although I had to remind myself that he had been high in the councils of the MSA for as long as Iâd known him. So how well had I known him?
âShut up about that and letâs go eat,â I said. Somewhat subdued, he led the way to the dining commons through the dark halls.
Once there I looked around at the place, imagining it as the dining commons of the starship. People in neutral-toned one-piece suits walked up to the food counter; there they pushed the buttons for the meal they desired, most of them never looking up at the menu. The foods grown on shipâsalads, vegetable drinks, fish or scallops or chicken or rabbit, goat cheese, milk, yoghurtâwere supplemented by non-renewable supplies: