Free Pushing Ice by Alastair Reynolds Page B

interested. “Go on.”
    “Head office sent Craig into the Shalbatana bore project. There’d been reports of corner-cutting, dangerous working practices, questionable accounting.” Bella lit a cigarette, taking her time. She always enjoyed spinning out a story. “Craig uncovered a viper’s nest of high-level corruption. At every turn he met with obstruction and hostility, mostly from hands-on types like you and me. Physical violence, death threats, the lot — but Craig sorted that mess out. He turned Shalbatana around. Within six months they were digging faster than any of the other bore sites, and they had the best safety record on Big Red.”
    “I heard he made a lot of enemies on Mars.”
    “Enough that head office decided the only way to keep him on the payroll — and in one piece — was to move him onto another project. Hence Rockhopper . But don’t give Craig a hard time because he has a grudge against tool-pushers. Good ol‘ tool-pushers sabotaged his suit, tried to throw him down a service elevator, threatened to get to his family.”
    Svetlana looked down. “I didn’t know he had a family.”
    “There’s a lot we don’t know about each other,” Bella said. “And he’s wrong about us, of course — this is as tight and well-run an operation as any in DeepShaft. But you can’t blame him for carrying some suspicion over from his last assignment. It’ll just take a bit of time to rub his corners off. Then he’ll fit in, I’m sure of it.”
    “Okay, I’ll try to be patient,” Svetlana said. “But I still want to see him getting his share of homework.”
    “Don’t worry, that’s taken care of. He’s got a list of high-school science questions as long as my arm.”
    Svetlana patted the stack of printouts on her lap. “I’m glad we can talk like this… I mean openly, without any barriers.”
    “And I’m glad I can dump on you, when needs arise.” Bella sucked on the cigarette. “Like you said: what else are friends for?”

    * * *

    On the eighth day Bella called an emergency meeting of the chiefs. She gathered them in her office and sat impassive, wondering what they imagined the problem to be and secretly relishing their squirming discomfort.
    “What is it?” Svetlana asked, the first of them to break the silence.
    Bella stood up and peeled her flexy from the wall. It came to life in her hands. She held up the brightening panel to her audience.
    “This,” she said.
    “There’s a problem with ShipNet?” Nick Thale asked, looking — like all of them — at the top-level menu.
    “There’s nothing wrong with ShipNet,” Bella said. “That’s functioning normally. The problem’s more obvious than that. It’s staring you in the face.”
    They looked, and looked. They still couldn’t see what she was talking about.
    “Do you think the menu structure needs to be reorganised to take account of our new mission profile?” Regis asked.
    “Perhaps, but that’s not why you’re here. Look .”
    “The flexy needs regenerating?” Parry offered.
    “Yes, it does, but that isn’t the problem either.” Bella sighed: they weren’t going to get it. “The problem is the mascot. The problem is the penguin?”
    “I don’t —” Svetlana began. “Oh, wait a minute. You don’t think — Oh, Christ. Why didn’t we think of this before?”
    Parry looked at Svetlana. “I still don’t get it. What’s the problem?”
    “You really don’t see it?” Bella asked incredulously. “Don’t you see what that mascot actually looks like?”
    “It looks like a penguin to me.”
    “And what’s the nice penguin doing, Parry?”
    “It’s holding a drill… a jackhammer… Oh, hang on.”
    “Look at it through alien eyes,” Bella said. “The way that penguin’s grinning: don’t you think it looks just a tiny bit fierce? It even has teeth . Whose funny idea was it to put teeth on it, anyway? And that drill: don’t you think there’s a danger it might be mistaken for some kind of