Men and women were jammed four deep at the bar and sitting at all the tables spotted across the place like stalagmites rising from the stone floor, four or five men to every sheila. A dozen or more stood along the back wall, drinks in their hands. A pair of women and another bloke were sitting at the same table as George, but he hardly knew them and they were chatting up each other, leaving him alone with his beer.
A strange crowd, he thought. Prospectors and miners ought to be rough, hard-handed men, outback types like in the old videos. These blokes were college boys, computer nerds, family men and women with enough education and smarts to operate spacecraft and highly automated mining machinery. Not one of ’em ever used a pick or shovel, George knew. Hell’s bells, I never did meself. Lately, though, a different sort had been drifting in: snotty-looking yobbos who kept pretty much to themselves. They didn’t seem to have any real jobs, although they claimed they worked for HSS. They just hung around, as if they were waiting for something.
Off in the far corner of the cave a couple of blokes were unpacking musical instruments and connecting their amplifiers. Niles Ripley walked in, loose-jointed and smiling at his friends—just about everybody—with his trumpet case in one hand. George pushed himself to his feet and shambled to the bar for a refill of his platypus brew. Several people said hello to him, and he made a bit of chat until Cindy slid the filled mug back to him. Or was it Mindy? George could never tell the twins apart. Then he went back to his table. Nobody had swiped his seat. That’s the kind of place the Pub was.
As the music began, low and sweet, George found himself thinking about his life. Never dreamed I’d be out here in the Belt, digging ores out of fookin’ asteroids. Hard work, but better than prospecting, poking around the Belt for months on end, looking for a really rich asteroid that the corporations haven’t already claimed, hoping to make the big strike so you can go home and live in luxury. Life takes weird turns.
The Ripper, who had been playing along with the other musicians, finally stood up and tore into a solo that rocked the cave. His trumpet echoed off the stone walls, bringing everyone to their feet, swaying and clapping in time to his soaring notes. When he finished they roared with delight and insisted on more.
The evening flew by. George forgot about the ship that he owed money on, forgot about getting up early tomorrow morning to finish the repair job on Matilda’s main manipulator arm so he could get the hell out of Ceres and finish the mining job he’d signed up for before the contract deadline ran out and he had to pay a penalty to Astro Corporation. He just sat there with the rest of the crowd, grooving on the music, rushing to the bar along with everyone else when the band took a break, drinking all night long yet getting high on the music, not the beer.
It was well past midnight when the band broke up, after several encores, and started to pack their instruments and equipment. People began to file out of the Pub, tired and happy. The twins had disappeared, as usual. Nobody laid a hand on them, except in virtual reality. George plowed through the crowd and made his way to the Ripper.
“Lemme buy you a beer, mate?”
Ripley clicked his trumpet case shut, then looked up.
Smiling, he said, “Maybe a cola, if you can afford it.”
“Sure thing, Rip. No worries.”
A few determined regulars still stood at bar, apparently with no intention of leaving. George saw four of the new guys there, too, grouped together, bent over their drinks and talking to one another in low, serious tones. They all wore coveralls with the HSS logo over their name tags.
“Another beer for me and a cola for the Ripper, here,” George called to the barkeep.
“A cola?” sneered one of the yobbos. The others laughed.
Ripley smiled down the bar at them. “Can’t have any alcohol after midnight. I’m working on the habitat in the morning.”