Space Stations

…Among the leading destinations for travelers of this era were the newly independent stations, beginning with Thromberg and Hamilton. These cities in space not only hosted immigrants en route to the new colonies and tourists eager to experience deep space, but also became thriving communities in their own right, attracting commerce through their advantages of location, a skilled and motivated labor force, and abundant energy resources. Governor Pavel Romanov, of Hamilton Station, is credited with being the first extra-Solar politician to obtain contracts limiting involvement in station internal affairs by the System Universities and TerraCor, agreements signed, legend insists, in a bar called Sammie's….

FOLLOW THE SKY

by Pamela Sargent

Pamela Sargent has won the Nebula Award, the Locus Award, and has been a finalist for the Hugo Award. She is the author of several highly-praised novels, among them Cloned Lives (1976), The Golden Space, (1979), The Alien Upstairs (1983), and Alien Child (1988). The Washington Post Book World has called her “one of the genre's best writers.”

Sargent is also the author of Ruler of the Sky (1993), an epic historical novel about Genghis Khan. Her Climb the Wind: A Novel of Another America published in 1999, was a finalist for the Sidewise Award for Alternate History. Child of Venus, in Sargent's Venus trilogy, called “masterful” by Publishers Weekly, came out in 2001. Her latest short story collection is The Mountain Cage and Other Stories.

ALONZA'S earliest memory of her mother was also her last.

They crouched together in a shadowed space near a wall, Alonza and her mother Amparo, looking out at a brightly lighted corridor filled with people. Men and women hurried past them, a few chattering at the people nearest them, others striding along without speaking while staring straight ahead. On the other side of the corridor, holo images of meat pies, pastries, fruits, flatbreads, and colorful bottles appeared over the heads of the passersby, hung there for a few seconds, then vanished. Occasionally, a hovercar filled with people floated past, scattering the crowds with a sharp whistling sound.

Amparo clutched a small satchel. Her hand trembled slightly as she handed her daughter a bracelet. “Listen to me,” she whispered to Alonza, leaning closer. “Hang on to that bracelet for now—don't drop it.”

Alonza tried to put the bracelet on, but there was no clasp, and she was unable to bend the thin band of metal tightly enough to secure it around her wrist. “It won't stay on,” she said.

“It doesn't have to go on. Put it in your pocket—just make sure you hang on to it until

—”

“Amparo,” Alonza said, suddenly afraid. Her mother's forehead glistened with sweat, and she was panting, gasping for air. Maybe she was ill. Alonza thrust the bracelet into one of the side pockets of her tunic.

“Listen to me, child,” Amparo said. “Go down this corridor, and look for a bin. Make sure no one sees you when you ditch the bracelet, then keep walking. When you get tired, sit down somewhere and act like you're waiting for somebody. I'll find you later.

Got that?”

Alonza nodded.

“Then go.” Amparo pushed her toward the stream of people.

Alonza darted among the forest of trousered legs, and was almost struck in the face by an arm swinging a small bag. There was no clear path through the throng. She slowed her pace, but kept going, breaking into a sprint whenever a space opened up, then slowing down again.

Amparo had sent her after the woman whose satchel they had taken. Alonza had gone up to the woman to distract her while Amparo got ready to grab the stranger's bag, but this time something had gone wrong. Amparo had moved too quickly, knocking the woman to the floor. The woman had tried to get up and had struck Amparo in the knee, and then Amparo hit her over the head with the pouch full of small stones and pebbles she usually carried in case she had to stun somebody from behind with a quick blow. Alonza remembered her mother standing over the woman's still body, looking angry and then frightened.

Sometimes Amparo just grabbed a duffel or a bag from her target right away. Sometimes she waited nearby while Alonza pleaded with the mark for directions to a gateway or whimpered that she was lost and couldn't find her mother, and then Amparo swiped the bag while her mark was still talking to Alonza. Once in a while, Amparo was able to back someone into a corner and threaten her victim into giving up an identity bracelet and personal code before knocking the mark out with a drug implant slapped against an arm. That kind of job was riskier, but often more rewarding.