Chapter One

Dara was on her way out. She felt like she'd seen what the colonies had to offer, and she was old enough to make her own plans. Sixteen was mature enough to pick a career, she'd complained often enough to her mother. Mature enough to follow a dream. She'd been born on Garonic, and although there were many who would never leave, both Above and Below, she was determined that she would not be one of them.

The dome clung like moss on the side of the asteroid, and although they'd been drilling for fifty years, they still hadn't mined all its minerals. She'd been taught to memorize the names of the carbonaceous chondrites, the silicates and basaltic olivines, and the nickel-irons which made up most of the trade of the belt. In classes she'd scoffed that they called it mining, when a planet had been flayed into a million little pieces with each layer there for the picking, but as she grew to know more about the trade, she began to appreciate the vast distances and how difficult it was working in the Dark.

For many, a good job on Garonic was the way up. They imagined themselves running the Above and wasting resources on comfort. Dara had caught glimpses through the hatch of those whose mothers worked in administration. They knew enough to keep their secrets, but they also realized that the daughter of a scientist could only dream about their daily life.

Although it wasn't a topic of discussion, and in fact it was rude to broach the topic, Garonic was an intensely stratified society. The admins wore purple like kings of old, and directly under them were the police and military in brown. Scientists like her astronomer mother were in white while the Reds were teachers. They weren't as highly prized as the scientists. The Blues, those who handled transport and logistics, might have thought they were in control of Garonic, but most people associated them with mechanic orange. The miners in grey, who were responsible for the commercial enterprise which was the colony, were higher than the Greens. Everyone acknowledged that the farmers were necessary, but some of their workers were made up of people from Below. That alone would have relegated them to the lowest status, even if the colony prized the people who fed them.

Jurri's mother ran the farm, and even if she could have worn purple, she wouldn't have. She thought of herself as a Green, and worked alongside those from Below as well as people who espoused the views of Lifers. Their mystical views made no difference to her as long as they kept the crops growing and the colony fed.

There was nowhere to run in the colony, and Dara had a different goal. She would go so far and so fast that they wouldn't be able to wrap her in anything. She picked at her yellow shirt. A student. Not forever.

When she saw Jurri in the corridor she bumped her with her shoulder. "I'm leaving," she told her. Jurri would understand.

Jurri's eyes flickered to the side, but no one was listening. People let the noise of conversation flow around them. It was too crowded to do anything else. Jurri saw her face, and sighed. "Set up your own rock?" That was the dream of the Epiphytes. The day you earned your own ship and claimed one of the tumbling asteroids as a home. But the belt was claimed out. Nothing left but boulders now. At least that's what people said. Some hopefuls still wandered the blank spots of the Dark for the untold wealth a decent sized asteroid could offer, but the chance of success was as remote as their distant ships.

Jurri couldn't imagine where Dara would want to go. She'd known her since she was born, and realized that Dara was as persistent as a diamond drill hitting quartz. Dara thought her hair interfered with her work and she cut it off, and never grew it long again. Jurri couldn't help but think that affected her chances.

"More than just digging. I mean I'm really going to get off this rock." Referring to the dome where you lived as a rock was at least rude, and some would call it treasonous. Dara was swinging her arms and getting angry looks. Everyone knew to keep their arms at their side, except maybe those from Below.

"In-system?" That was another dream, even more remote than setting up a claim. No one left the belt for the inner planets, although they'd both heard about the long-haul routes that took the ice miners from Venus and Mars and back out to Saturn and beyond.

They weaved through the crowd of workers and staff in the maze of tunnels and corridors which split the dome into hundreds of kilometres of hallways and shafts. Garonic was a recent colony, founded two generations before they were born, but it was already crowded. When they saw someone they knew they half-waved from the hip. No gestures wild enough to hit others, and most of the colonists were so socially sensitive that they picked up on anything from crinkled eyebrows to clear enunciation.

Jurri had also been fed the dreams of Earth and the inner planets; she'd heard the same call. But she also knew that no one who left their family would have any success. "A chain is made of links," she reminded Dara as they entered the eating hall.

Dara paused at the wide hatch, looking over the crowd. The tables were on long conveyers, and they moved with glacial slowness to the wall where they were automatically cleaned. It limited the time anyone could spend, unless they wanted to shuffle along with the table or keep hauling on their bowl. Shuffling had become an expression for doing nothing, and Dara had used it herself. Nearly every table was taken.

"Busy today." Jurri's jaw muscles bunched as she imagined the meal, and despite her mood Dara almost laughed.

"I know what you're thinking. Not the inner planets either. It's over for them. Population out of control and the Corps running the consortium? No thanks. And no ice mining."

"There's nothing else. Look," Jurri pointed with her chin. Small tables were a rarity. They walked quickly as they could without stumbling over casually inconvenient feet that reminded them to be civil.

Their trays almost didn't fit the table. "There's lots." Dara sidled closer, as if they would be overheard above the gaggle of four hundred Epiphytes in the full throes of lunch. The staggered workday had been proposed, but had been universally panned. "We only look as far as the Kuiper. But there are a lot more possibilities out there."

Even though there wasn't extra room, a few students in yellow drifted by seeking their own seats. With only two chairs at their table and Dara's hand curled into a fist, they knew enough not to interrupt. She watched them go, Tevery and Kitet, already talking about the space vids. They were Dara's guilty pleasure too. More than once she'd stayed up too late trying to find out what happened with the alien tech on a distant planet, but she would never have admitted that to them.

"You ever wonder if they talk about anything else?" She pointed with her eyes.

Jurri laughed. "They're harmless. And we've all been there. Not into the space stuff myself, but I can see the attraction. Love in space and all." Jurri wasn't shy talking about the vids she watched, in which plucky kids her age solved crimes and went on adventures. And fell in love. That was her main interest.

"Like I said"--Dara paused to glance at the diners near them--"there are lots more options. And not just in the Kuiper."

"That's the big secret? The Oort?" Jurri had heard the hype about the Oort cloud. Millions of rubble piles and spent comets on long haul million-year drifts until they were flung around the sun. If they survived the trip in-system they would be relegated to the cold again, dirty snowballs twisting in wide ellipticals in the Dark. The thought made her shudder.

"Promise to close the hatch?"

Jurri mimed locking, her elbows at her side. She wouldn't tell anyone.

"I heard about a planet," Dara whispered although Jurri could barely hear her. The lunchtime crowd was filled with the high voices of Yellows their age, already working on projects and at practicums, and buzzing with the chance to prove their worth.

Jurri lowered her voice. "The planet X thing again? Even if we ever find it, there'll be nothing but a rubble pile. Or two bodies, messing up the orbital mechanics. You watch. You should know. Your mum's working on it."

No one knew quite what Parata's job description was, but she wore the white coat of the scientists and taught physics and worked as an astronomer. Jurri's mother ran the farm. A Green. That was a profession someone could understand. Parata kept a whiteboard in their unit. Jurri had seen the calculations slowly change over time, although if they were meant to represent math, there never seemed to be a resolution.

Dara shook her head. "Farther out. And bigger." She signed for quiet and Jurri glanced back at her tumbled pile of shredded vegetables. "It's getting cold," she complained loudly.

"So what are you girls planning?" Snave wasn't liked, partly because he was the son of a Purple, but mostly because he couldn't help but get into everyone's business. His secrets were both prurient and addictive, and that also didn't endear him to Dara or Jurri. His knowledge of private matters was largely thought to come from listening at the hatch of a counselor, and some said he'd ripped his stories straight from the dreams of the fearful. They claimed that his grey skin made it so he could blend against a painted wall, but Jurri always thought tormenting him was cruel. There was something wrong with him, but it wasn't his small teeth and stooped shoulders.

"Hating on the food," Dara said blandly. Then she looked toward the hatch as though someone important had arrived. The gesture was sensed rather than seen, for Snave was already turning, his small eyes like those of a rat looking for its next scrap. "We were just saying that we could boost productivity on the farm by modifying the hydroponics. That with a little more carbon dioxide in the air and some nitrogen, we could fix the productivity problem."

Jurri said nothing. She knew more than Dara about growing food but she let her friend lead. She silently noted corrections in case Dara was interested once Snave drifted off.

"God I hate him," Jurri said once Snave twisted between the tables and along the racks. "Always where he's least wanted. If it wasn't for his mother . . ." She watched him visit, watched as some heads turned away and others bent him down for a quick whisper. "I'm not sure why anyone listens to him."

"That's why no one--" Dara's voice went flat. "No one likes him."

Jurri looked for the source of the venom and saw the older man who kept following Dara. "Who is he anyway? Get back to the shop?"

"Yep," Dara grabbed her bag and moved nearly as quickly as Snave.

"Speaking of hate," Jurri gestured over her shoulder. "You should report him."

"I told Mum. Anyway, who the hell has a father? I mean, what kind of?"

Jurri sympathized. She knew how she would feel if some sperm donor came sniffing around the progeny. It was a source of constant embarrassment for Dara but no one teased her about it. When a kid acts weird it's one thing, but the actions of adults were a real embarrassment.

The family system was organized around mothers and Reds, the people who were willing to teach children. Some of them were men, but they never claimed to have a special attachment to those under their care. They kept to their job, helped with the kids, and never questioned where their sperm had ended up. Only perverts wanted to know.

Jurri saw Dara's face darken so she tried to lighten it by asking, "What were you saying? Earlier? About getting away?"

"Meet at the spring?"

At Jurri's nod Dara threw a glance over her shoulder for the lumbering idiot who kept bawling about being her father, and shuddered her way through the hatch. She was posted in the metals shop; that's where she'd begun to think about an exit strategy.

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