Random Chance and the Paradise that is Earth by Shawn Michel de Montaigne Read Free Book Online Page A

whatever else miners
needed to keep their operations going. The shaft glowed softly
green, with the occasional bright white guide lights passing
by.
    Vesta was known as the “nuclear rock”
because of the abundance of uranium found deeper within the mantle.
Close to twenty percent of all fine-grade uranium used by humanity
came from Vesta and Ceres. As such, both asteroids were considered
a vital resource, which meant that both the Oligarchy and the
Governments of Earth, collectively Parliasolis, constantly fought
over them.
    Vesta City, located twenty-five kilometers
deep in the mantle, was the asteroid’s only municipality. Shaft
18A, which led directly to it, was almost like an archeological
record or a deep canyon with sediment layers. Random watched it
rise and pass out of sight. He’d been here before, and the old
airlocks and mining boats and personnel carriers fascinated him.
Most were inhabited by what the citydwellers called “countryfolk”:
people who didn’t enjoy crowds and the hustle and bustle of city
life. They’d find an old lateral shaft or large airlock or
abandoned vessel and fix it up and move in kilometers away from
Vesta City itself. Others populated old domes on the surface,
though those were more expensive to renovate due to their age and
the extra solar radiation shielding needed. Lots of richies up
there.
    Mia lived almost exactly halfway to Vesta
City—thirteen kilometers down. She and several friends had bought
and renovated a five-hundred-year-old cargo transport originally
built for thirty. Random had loaned her the bulk of the cash needed
for the work, which, he considered, he wouldn’t have done so easily
or happily with the girls in the other ports he occasionally
visited.
    So, he thought to himself for what had to be
the millionth time, what was it about Mia that separated her from
the others? She wasn’t the prettiest girl he knew. She wasn’t the
richest (which wouldn’t have mattered to him anyway), nor was she
the one keenest for sex or for having a good time, for drunkenness
and partying or even for having the lightest moods.
    She was very comfortable in her own skin, he
considered. She did nothing to impress anybody, including him. She
had little use for those who didn’t accept her as she was. As a
consequence, she knew few and had even fewer friends.
    He met her on Mars. She was one of five
human receptionists at Radimer’s largest hotel, which meant that
she dealt exclusively with only the wealthiest guests. Purely by
coincidence, she told him later, she saw his name on the guest
registry and knocked on his door. She had known his father, she
told him. He had treated her very kindly, and had tipped her so
generously that she remembered his name. She was hoping he was with
Random, and was very sad to hear of his execution.
    Random asked her out for a drink. She
accepted, but said they would have to meet at another hotel, as
this one frowned on employees fraternizing with guests outside work
hours. They met at a less upscale inn a short taxi ride away and
watched the Martian sunset through the biodome. They parted, and
Random knew he wanted to keep in touch. She accepted with a mellow
smile and gave him her SolarWeb address.
    That was six years ago. They’d
kept in steady touch. She wasn’t like so many others who said
they’d call and never did, and he appreciated that. There was a
year when she got involved with a man who took exception to her
friendship with him, and the waves diminished somewhat, though they
never went completely away. When she ditched the man (Random never
met him), she went back to waving him once a week, sometimes more.
Random, making a life aboard The
Pompatus , wasn’t immune to the loneliness
deep interplanetary space sometimes engendered, and was grateful
for the chance to communicate with someone, even after Hewey became
conscious.
    The other girls … he suspected they liked
him because he had money. He wasn’t a violent or selfish