Outland Read Online Free PDF

too." He held her tight, smiled thinly. "Just give it a chance. We've only been here two weeks. It'll get better, I promise. Everything's unfamiliar and little frightening at first in a new place. It's only for a year, and the pay . . . you know what we made on the last job. That's one of the big reasons why I okayed this one. Just one more year, one year here and then, well, I might retire."
    She leaned back, stared up at him and shook her head once. "You'll never retire, not you, Bill. Not voluntarily, anyway. You like your work too much."
    "Like it?" He laughed softly. "Hon, I don't like it much at all. But it is my job. It's what I do, and I take pride in doing it well."
    You like it, she thought accusingly, but didn't say anything. Just held onto him and wished, wished, that things were suddenly, magically different.
    "I've got to go. You smell good." He touched her cheek with the back of his hand, ran it lightly over her still soft skin. She pressed it tight against her face.
    Then he was gone. Carol moved into the doorway and stood there staring after him, seeing him turn down the corridor on his way to the next accessway.
    In her mind she traveled outside the accessway, thought she could smell the pungent fumes that burst fitfully into the atmosphere from Io's interior. Sulfur and worse. There was atmosphere on Io, thin and sickly and unfit for anything living to breathe, atmosphere belched out by the unpredictable volcanoes that gradually bled away into space.
    Lucky gases, she thought. She turned from the now empty corridor to check on her son . . .
    The cafeteria was huge, unattractive, and crowded. Workers exhibiting varying stages of fatigue shoved their trays down the long counter backed with pans full of steaming food. Like the tables and chairs that filled the floor, the counter was formed of unadorned gray metal or dull plastics. The light was harsh and even, pouring down from fluorescent slabs attached to the ceiling.
    While the decor was subdued to the point of sterility, the richness of the conversation somewhat made up for it. Clusters of miners swapped dirty jokes as they jostled through the long line or sat eating at individual tables, the peculiar confluence of food and sex as unchanged as it had been for thousands of years.
    Many of the jokes were at least that old. Only the telling varied, the slang terms, the occasional references to weightlessness and canned air. Some of the female workers joined in these laughing groups with their male cohorts while others formed clusters of their own off toward the back of the room.
    Isolated lumps of spice bottles and condiment containers littered the tables. As the food was generaly undistinguished and dull, these spices were provided to enable the workers to adjust the food to individual tastes, which were usually far more varied than the chef's menus. Meat loaf is meat loaf no matter where you find it, but salt and pepper, can make it taste one way and curry powder quite another. The contract workers at the mine were a polyglot lot.
    The men and women continued to file through the entrance, pick up their trays, and shuffle into line. One man did not. He walked in and passed up his turn in line, heading for the eating area.
    He was tall and lean, dark-haired and clean-shaven, in contrast to many of the bearded workers around him. His eyes were sunk more deeply than normal into the head and moved with purpose, as though their owner was constantly hunting for something. His hair was cut very short and was receding from the forehead.
    He scanned the cafeteria, searching for something besides food. Eventually his gaze lit on a small, slim miner seated off to one side by himself whose attention eventually came round to the other's . . . and passed on. Seemingly nothing had happened between them.
    Several minutes went by. The worker at the table concluded some gratuitous conversation with another couple of men seated nearby. He put down his coffee, rose, stretched