Outland Read Online Free PDF Page B

and headed unhurriedly for the back of the cafeteria, exiting through the rear door.
    Another minute and the man with the deep-set eyes casually began to make his way through the noisy crowd, ignoring the occasional greeting or conversational gambit. Then he also left via the rear doorway.
    Beyond the mess hall was the central locker room, a labyrinth of narrow aisles that formed canyons between endless ranks of high metal lockers. The benches, hangers, and storage cylinders were made of the same material as the tables and chairs in the cafeteria. The room's function might be different, the shapes altered, but all were born of some drifting chunk of nickel-iron halfway between Jupiter and Mars. It was sobering to think that some asteroid had waited billions of years, swimming in emptiness, only for an anthill of inventive bipeds to come along one day and turn it into, among other things, sewer pipe and clothes' hangers.
    If anything, it was slightly quieter in the locker room than in the cafeteria. There was no food here to stimulate conversation. Also, the changing room was designed to facilitate business, not recreation.
    Men were changing into or out of enviroment suits. Nearby the female miners had their own locker room.
    Those slipping their suits on talked rapidly and with a nervous edge to their voices, trying to cover their anxiety at having to expose themselves once more to the surface of Io. Those taking suits off chattered rapidly and with a nervous edge in their voices to cover their feeling of relief at having completed yet another shift successfully.
    There was barely enough room in the cramped confines of the aisles to manipulate the bulky suits but everyone managed. Here it was better to be small. You could move more easily and outside, your emergency oxygen reserve would last longer if you ever had to use it.
    The man who'd abandoned his coffee back in the cafeteria made his way down an empty aisle to his own locker. It took him seconds to activate the combination and the door clicked open.
    Having accelerated through the back of the cafeteria, the dour-visaged worker who'd crossed eyes with him was barely seconds behind. They stood next to the gaping locker and chatted quietly, though one couldn't say amiably. There was an exchange of some kind.
    Then the coffee sipper had slipped some thing into his locker and was climbing into his suit, preparatory to going Outside. His taller visitor had circled the far end of the aisle and was making his way back toward the cafeteria.
    It all took only a few seconds . . .

III
    The worker's cafeteria was not the only place in the mine that served food. The other was nearby, but spiritually it was a light-minute away, and was barely a quarter the size of the cafeteria.
    The tables were light and airy in design, giving the room an open feeling the claustrophobic cafeteria never enjoyed. There were napkins and formal table settings. One has to be familiar with interspatial shipping costs to realize the meaning of such mundane items as silverware and napkins on a place like Io.
    The lighting did not waterfall down from directly overhead but was recessed, illuminating the Ward Room with a gentle glow.
    There were even people to clean the tables.
    At the moment some forty people occupied the room. They sipped at coffee (real coffee) or tea, or soda. There were two long tables joined to form a U-shape by a third. People sat on both sides of the long tables, chatting as they drank or smoked. A few glanced at the large readout which always kept tabs on the position of the weekly shuttle. The far end of the room was dominated by the massive company logo, a series of concentric circles that extended left and right in a rectangle, with the letters CON-AM inside.
    At the far end of one table sat a man at first glance no different from any of the other occupants of the room. He was a bit larger than most and bald beneath the company cap. His beard and eyes were dark, his attitude