The Sol System Renegades Quadrilogy by Felix R Savage

Author:Felix R Savage [Savage, Felix R]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: science fiction space opera
Publisher: Knights Hill Publishing
Published: 2019-11-20T07:00:00+00:00

viii.

Elfrida sat in a toilet stall in one of the women’s restrooms in the R&D village. The restroom was a freestanding prefab structure. Human waste caked the suction toilets. The tragedy of the commons. On the battered inside of the door, cutter-laser strokes spelled out Lydia hearts Greg.

I can’t do it.

Four days had passed since Dr. Hasselblatter broke the news that she had to evict the UNVRP community.

Her official orders had come through last night, quantum-encrypted, festooned with CLASSIFIED watermarks.

It was true.

Everyone had to go.

The Phase Five mining operation was to be 99.9% automated.

The only people to remain would be a skeleton crew of engineers and telepresence operators.

The rest? Well, that was up to her. They could go to Eros, maybe. Midway? Hygiea? Europa? Ceres?

“This is wrong,” she whispered. ”It isn’t fair.”

But she hadn’t thought twice, in the past, about uprooting people from their homes so that the Venus Project could have their asteroids.

She knew she was a hypocrite. But she liked these people. And she was more than half in love with the world they’d built. This was the closest she was likely to get to Venus in her lifetime, and she couldn’t bear the thought of its destruction.

“I want to stay here. I want to stay here.”

It’s not all about you, she told herself.

No. It was about cost-efficiency. She’d spent all day yesterday crunching the numbers. The community here was costing the UN taxpayer a bundle. Three-quarters of the people in the test hab were freeloaders and / or dependents who contributed nothing to the Venus Project. Why should UNVRP continue to support them?

“Because we’re the UN, doggone it,” Elfrida whispered into her hands. “We’re not in this to turn a profit.”

She remembered a former acquaintance of hers, Captain Martin Okoli of the Kharbage Can, saying, The UN’s just another corporation. Only difference is, it’s the biggest one.

Had he been right?

“Oh, God,” she moaned. “I didn’t sign up to be the bad guy!”

But from the point of view of countless colonists, that’s what she always had been.

The door of the toilet stall rattled. “Ellie?”

“Sorry, Cyds, yeah, I’m in here.”

“This place stinks. Are you OK?”

“Fine!”

She inhaled and strained. She wasn’t just sitting in here for privacy; she had been constipated since they arrived on Mercury. Ahhhh! Better. She wiped. The smart toilet seat unsealed itself from her bottom and gulped down its contents with a whoosh.

Using the suction toilet made her remember 4 Vesta, the rover … and Mendoza. She tried not to let her thoughts go there. She had had an affair with John Mendoza on their way back from 4 Vesta. It had been totally out of character. She didn’t even like men—not like like them.

But she’d done it anyway. And Cydney had never forgiven her for it.

When she came out of the toilet cubicle, Cydney was gone. Elfrida padded back through the dark alleys to their sandcastle. Cydney was editing vid clips for her feed. “You’ll be late,” she said without looking up from her tablet.

“Mike will wait for me.

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