Free Against Infinity by Gregory Benford Page A

pay to have it shipped slowboat from Ganymede. They still needed food, but the loss to Ganymede was about 30 percent of their total export.
    The Settlements were big farms which had made a steady profit from food, selling their already-separated fluids as a lucrative sideline. That trade trickled to nothing within a year of the MKX 349 discovery. Along with it went the little extras the Settlements bought to soften their lot They still ate well, but did without the latest 3D programs, Lunatic fashions for the women, and carbide-stressed additions to their tunnel-homes.
    The long-term prospects were worse. With MKX 349 to mine, the McKenzie asteroids planned to begin large, whole-world farming. Whether they could compete with the Settlements would hinge on economies of scale and how well the Ganymede biosphere worked. Economists predicted a protracted struggle, decades long. The Settlements had the early advantage, and there were fair odds that they might be able to knock the McKenzies out of business if they improved their own profit margins quickly. Everyone knew this, and prepared.
    “It’s not a matter of working harder,” Colonel López told his son, “it’s working smarter.”
    “Don’t see why that means deffies.”
    His mother looked up from her threading. “I do not like to hear that word in our home.”
    The Colonel said sternly, “They are not deformed. They are men, women, children who have been unlucky. They were badly injured. Some even died for a while.”
    “They’re in boxes,” Manuel said sullenly.
    “Servo’d, yes.”
    “Like animals.”
    His mother said, “I do not want my boy to think of animals when he sees them. Suppose it was your sister—remember when she broke her leg on the tractor? Suppose it had been worse? She might be servo’d. And you would call her that name?”
    Manuel pressed his lips together and said nothing. His mother spoke quietly, but for her to say that much meant a lot. He had better cut his losses and not mention the deffies again. Anyhow, he didn’t have to work with them. They were better than animals, faster too, and worked by themselves, the Major had said. He resolved to ignore them.
    As it turned out, he couldn’t. One drew assignment in the same tunnel. That was not so bad, even though when it worked inside there was a rank smell from it unlike any animal he had ever known, and far worse. Even that he got used to. Then he got a call on his morning shift and was told to help out with a special job, this time outside, on the surface.
    There was a carry-module standing on a splash-melted landing grid, the last of a cargo run from Hiruko Central. Old Matt was there. He waved Manuel over to the side of the module. The boy said, “We got to move that; I’ll get the forklift from—”
    “Come here.”
    There was a network of bars on the far side of the module. Manuel bent down and peered in and saw something red and gunmetal blue and coming at him fast. It was already in the air when he bent down, and it crashed into the bars. The whole module rocked. The bars of the lattice—which the boy saw were of steel, and a good idea, too—rang with the impact. Then it was down, scrabbling, and abruptly smashed into the bars again, without seeming to have taken any time to gather itself. It growled or spoke—he could not tell—and thrashed against the bars. Two blue servo’d hands gripped the steel and tried to tear it free. The thing grunted and heaved against it for a moment and then abruptly let go and crashed into the bars again, furious without letup.
    “Back off,” Old Matt said. “Give it a rest.”
    They walked away, followed by the steady, heavy thumps, the module shaking each time. “What is it?”
    “Human. Badly damaged in some accident—up there.” Old Matt gestured toward the pinpoints of orbiting stations. “Been years getting it this far.”
    “A man ! I don’t—”
    “Human. Could be a woman. Nobody at Hiruko said. He, she, it lost a lot