Half Way Home by Hugh Howey Read Free Book Online

the length of the table, past all the somber faces, at her. She held my gaze as the chatter among the diners resumed, everyone drowning each other out. Her eyes fell down to her hands.
    “What do you mean?” I asked her, raising my voice to be heard.
    She glanced up at me, then peered down into her bowl, which she gently cradled in both hands. “This metal is too soft,” she said, holding the bowl up for emphasis. “You don’t build stuff out of this unless there’s nothing else.”
    We stared at each other while those between us continued to argue over our chances of survival.
    “Two weeks, max,” I heard someone say.
    Mica and I continued to stare at one another. Her face was expressionless, none of the worry and crinkled brow everyone else wore. She looked very matter-of-fact.
    I fought to remember what her profession was; she had mentioned it earlier that morning.
    “I give the rocket even worse odds,” someone said.
    I saw Mica frown. Then I remembered: hadn’t she introduced herself as a geologist?

• 6 • The Rocket
    The rocket grew right on the landing pad, as if planted there by a seed. A giant cylinder of steel rose up amid a lattice of scaffolding. Tanks from the fuel depot had been converted into the body. They were split open, some of their plates had been removed, and then the rest was welded back into a tighter cylinder. Several of the other tanks had been converted to store the liquid oxygen and hydrogen that would propel the thing into orbit. These propellant tanks had been buried to help insulate them and were lined with refrigerant pipes.
    Over the next week, I learned more engineering science over meals of green paste than I figured could be crammed into a month of training modules. Still, as I watched sparks fly from cutting torches, and the column grew ever higher, no part of me thought the thing would ever fly. How could it? It was being built by teenage refugees.
    Besides, our enthusiasm for the project waned steadily after Stevens died. Hickson had taken over for enforcing the Colony’s will and did so in a manner that demanded more—and thus received less. Already, I could see people shirking duties to steal a nap or idle away their time. It was a psychological failing I knew well from my studies and was beginning to recognize in myself. One night, lying on the hood of the tractor that had become our official home, Kelvin, Tarsi, Oliver, and I talked about it.
    “It’s the free rider problem,” I told Tarsi, who couldn’t understand how the efforts to survive could decline even as the need grew stronger.
    “The what ?” Oliver asked.
    “Free rider,” I said, turning to him. “It’s a problem in game theory, one of the last things I was learning for my profession.”
    Kelvin laughed. “For all we know, you would’ve found out a year from now that some other theory proved that one all wrong.”
    Tarsi slapped him playfully in my defense, since she and Oliver were between us. I dropped the matter, assuming nobody cared, and tried to enjoy the warmth of the overworked engine as it soaked into my back.
    “Aren’t you going to finish?” Tarsi asked.
    I cleared my throat. “Well, the problem arises when people figure out they can take a little more than they’re putting in and nobody will notice. It makes sense, actually, for each individual to think this, but when everybody does it, you get problems.”
    “How do you stop it?” Tarsi asked.
    “Hypnotherapy,” Kelvin said.
    All of us laughed except for Oliver, who had turned to the side, expecting a real answer from me.
    “I have no idea,” I admitted. “I think one of the guys in my group has some economics training. He might know. All I know is resentment theory, which deals with people like us.”
    “Those of us overworked and bitching?” Kelvin asked.
    “Pretty much.”
    Tarsi stood up and stretched, groaning with exhaustion. She had her bottoms on, but had been using her top as a pillow. I watched her body