Up Against It - M. J. Locke [145]
Just because the rock had lots of tunnels did not mean that all those tunnels would be filled with ice. But you had to start somewhere. So you always started with a gravitational survey, and subtracted that measurement from the original-claim gee.
The general rule was: over two-thirds, holdin’ a turd. Sugar-rock prospectors didn’t bother going any further with a claim, unless its tapped-out gravity was below about sixty-five or seventy percent of the original. It took a lot more disassembler to process rock than it did ice, and when the number of pores was too few, the amount of energy needed to mine the ice was greater than the energy locked up in it.
If the tapped-out stroid’s gravity was substantially lighter than the original survey gee, on the other hand, this was a big flag that the rock had sugar-rock potential. They would then expect him to do seismic testing to calculate how much of the rock’s void space was filled with ice. And those results would be exceedingly difficult to falsify. No, the simplest way to shut this expedition down would be to falsify the stroid’s gravitation. And Xuan knew of a way. As long as he could make the sleight-of-hand work.
Xuan felt the deceleration and vibrations that meant they were approaching their target; a lurch and a thud meant they had touched down. Mr. Mills radioed Xuan, instructing him to suit up and meet the others in the cargo bay. When he got there, Mills was nowhere to be seen. The pilot and the four—well, cargo workers, Xuan supposed he should call them, though he was unable to think of them now as anything other than thugs—were there, however. And it did not escape his notice that they all carried sidearms. As they gathered Xuan’s field equipment and stacked it at the hatch, Xuan sensed the pilot looking at him, as if daring him to say something about the weapons. Xuan played dumb.
“Are you expecting trouble from claim jumpers?” he asked.
“Yeah,” the pilot said.
Xuan refrained from rolling his eyes. “Do stay sharp, then, won’t you? This will take a while, and I certainly don’t want any trouble.”
“We will. Wait here. We’re going to check things out first.” Which was an odd thing to do—at least for a claim they had permission to test. Xuan figured it was best not to bring this up.
“All right—um, what is your name?” Xuan asked.
“Jesse.”
“Jesse. And you may call me Professor Xuan.”
The young man seemed uneasy. “You wait here, then, Professor Xuan, till I give you the all-clear.”
Xuan finished suiting up and turned on his air. The pilot bled out the cargo bay air, and then opened the side hatch all the way and extended the ramp. The five men left. Xuan perched on a cargo container and waited. Near the back of the bay he saw racks filled with stacks of crates labeled “Glock” and “KBR.” K. B. Rand was a Martian weapons and tactical systems manufacturer. They made missiles and bombs. Glock specialized in rifles and handguns.
Xuan sank against a crate, appalled. What had he gotten himself into?
The pilot reentered ten minutes later and told Xuan it was safe to come out. He joined Jesse at the head of the ramp. The hired hands had posted themselves at positions where they could see the entire site, as well as much of the surrounding terrain. They had their weapons out.
Xuan left Jesse at the top of the ramp, and bounded down onto the stroid to find a good spot to set up. As he would expect of an abandoned mine, all was quiet. Near the shuttle’s nose stood the mine entrance, which was fitted with a metal bulkhead and an entry port. Portions of the stroid’s interior were likely habitable, then. At least,