Escape from 196 Askadar

196 Askadar had been mined for two years and still had over a million metric tons of ore to be recovered. The asteroid was pulled into Earth orbit in 2081 by the tractor ship Aegeus and once stabilized by attaching and activating six nuclear thrusters to keep it in the same orbit as the moon, a mining ship was launched from the lunar refinery on the rim of the Peary Crater. The crater itself is in shadow for most of the lunar day, but the rim receives nearly continuous sunlight and makes it ideal for the solar furnaces necessary to refine the minerals taken from 196 Askadar. Iron and the other common metals go to the ship fabrication sites on the Moon. Gold, silver, and platinum go back to Earth.

The first mining ship, the Browhudar, carried on it's nose a circular rasping plow a hundred meters in diameter that dug a circular ring into the flattest side of 196 Askadar. Once the resulting planar surface had been completed, the Browhudar backed away from 196 Askadar and returned to the space port at Peary Crater. The rasping nose was replaced with a hemisphere of steel and diamond glass with a docking station on the side. This hemispherical structure was designated by The Lunar Mining and Extraction Corporation as an Environmental Sustaining Enclosure, or ESE for short.

The Browhudar returned to 196 Askadar and placed the rim of the ESE into the rasped ring, and workers in EVA suits attached the hemisphere to 196 Askadar with two thousand iron/cobalt alloy anchor bolts. More workers sealed the rim with a cement mixture manufactured from lunar soil and water obtained from ice trapped in craters at the south pole of the moon. Once the seal was complete and inspected, the Browhudar disconnected from the docking station and returned to Peary Crater.

The next piece of infrastructure to be installed was a nuclear powered electromagnet secured to 196 Askadar on the side opposite that of the ESE. The large magnet would generate enough magnetic force to generate the feeling of gravity because of the boots the subsequent work crews and later on, the mining crew would wear. That same magnetic force would prevent any stray clumps of ore from the mine from floating around and potentially damaging the integrity of the ESE.

Container ships from the gas generation plant at the lunar south pole then brought a mix of oxygen, carbon dioxide and nitrogen to the hemisphere and filled it with an atmosphere suitable for human habitation. An automatic atmosphere controller with a carbon dioxide scrubber and reserve tanks of oxygen, carbon dioxide and nitrogen was started to maintain the appropriate concentrations of each gas once human miners occupied the ESE. It would also add atmosphere as the mine became enlarged. That let the miners work without EVA suits.

Another container ship and more workers installed two emergency escape pods in the side of the ESE at ground level. These were required by Earth law to have enough fuel and food to carry two people each back to Earth, and a further supply of food for a week in case the pod had to land somewhere besides a lunar spaceport. Normally, the inhabitants would go back to the moon if something happened to the ESE or to the asteroid, but there was always a risk that an asteroid explosion would make the moon bases uninhabitable. That had happened once in the early development of asteroid mining. A hundred and twenty three employees of LMEC were killed and it took five years and two billion in Earth currency to put the infrastructure back in place. There were another two hundred similar pods at Copernicus Space Port, Peary Crater and at the gas generation plant at the lunar south pole to evacuate all the lunar personnel should that become necessary.

Other ships brought materials and workers who established a habitat, storage facilities, and placed mining equipment inside the ESE. After six Earth months, 196 Askadar was prepared for mining activities. A ship docked at the ESE and unloaded supplies for three for a year and three men -- an asteroid mining engineer and two miners.

On that mining mission to 196 Askadar, they also unloaded a robotic sex surrogate. The psychiatrists of LMEC's research department predicted isolation from women for the year-long duration of the miner's stay on an asteroid would result in friction among the men and loss of productivity. The expense of transporting the miners from the ESE to the lunar colony on any sort of regular basis was prohibitive. The sex surrogate was the answer to that problem.

Lucy, as all sex surrogates furnished to the eighteen asteroid mining sites were named, was blonde, beautiful, and programmed to fulfil the needs of the miners. Her design had been developed after numerous studies of male preferences as to hair color, breast size and what the robot engineers had dubbed "tube constriction". That name meant they designed her sexual apparatus to automatically accommodate a range of male organ sizes so no miner would feel she was too tight or too loose.

Most miners were happy with Lucy at first. She wouldn't refuse any request and was available at any time. Although some miners wanted to indulge in her capabilities at the same time, most preferred to be alone with her. Lucy had her own quarters in the habitat to facilitate both requests.

After a year of mining though, many miners complained that Lucy's actions were becoming predictable and therefore boring. By the eleventh month of their stay on an asteroid, the miners were becoming easily upset and a few fights had even ensued. The engineers at LMEC increased Lucy's memory capacity and programmed an additional hundred thousand motions and responses into her database.

After the second crop of miners had served their term in the ESE's of the asteroids circling the moon, it became apparent that Lucy was still not an acceptable substitute for a human female. The miners complained about dryness and looseness. Examination of several Lucys revealed the mechanisms for lube dispensing and tube tensioning were somewhat prone to failure due to the number of components and the complexity of the assemblies.

The engineers at LMEC were still working on the problem when I was assigned to 196 Askadar as the asteroid mining engineer. My job was to instruct the miners where to drill, the size of the hydrogen/oxygen demolition charges to use and how to place them, and to inspect the quality of the ore removed from the asteroid. In addition, I was the man in charge of the operation, the third man who would mediate any disputes and the one who would control the schedule of the sex surrogate.

When we gathered at the spaceport at Copernicus, I assumed another Lucy would be accompanying us to 196 Askadar. I was surprised to see a slender redhead standing there dressed in LMEC issued coveralls. I figured they'd just changed Lucy's hair color for some reason. It looked like her breasts were a little smaller too, although it was hard to tell because the coveralls didn't fit her very well.

Before we climbed into the shuttle, my boss walked up and held out his hand. That was a little different, too. I'd never known Jack to go to the space port before a mining contingent left. I shook his hand and he smiled.

"Let's go in the conference room. I have some information you need to know."

When we sat down, he smiled again.

"Tom, you'll have to be careful up there with your demolition charges. When Robby came back last week, he said he'd seen fissures developing in the working face of the mine. He wasn't too worried about them, but he said anything much bigger than a hundred joules might cause them to open enough to proliferate. I don't have to tell you what that would mean. Just use your experience. Robby's only worked at a mine twice, so he may just be exaggerating due to inexperience.

"There's one other thing. I saw you looking at the redhead. She's not a sex bot. She's a real woman, well, as real as we wanted to make her. Her name is Barbara, and she's a clone, but with some important differences from an actual woman."

I couldn't believe what I was hearing as Jack handed me a thin booklet.

"It's all in this manual, but I'll give you the important stuff. She has memories we gave her from her childhood up until this morning. She thinks she was born on Earth in Idaho twenty years ago, and came to the moon with her mother and father when she was sixteen. We implanted images of her father and mother into her memory. They're just composites, but she believes they're real. She also believes they died two years ago.

"We gave her a strong libido by increasing her production of the required hormones, but didn't give her the ability to reproduce for obvious reasons. She'll be no different than any other woman as far as the complaints we've received from the miners from past tours.

"She can speak English, Spanish, French, Japanese, and Mandarin, so there shouldn't be any language difficulties, and to a certain extent, she can learn. Your men will have to teach her what they like, but she'll accommodate them once she learns what that is.

I ask Jack what "to a certain extent meant".

"We gave her the basic knowledge of sex, but she'll have to learn how to do what your men want. She can do that if they're willing to teach her. Just make sure they know they have to teach her and not force her to do something. If they force her, she'll start becoming selective and we can't have that."

"What she can't learn is because we genetically engineered away that part of her brain for things like loyalty and love. She'll treat each of you like you were the only one, but she really doesn't think that. She thinks of you as all the same and she can't learn to think any differently.

"One other thing you should know about Barbara. She looks human, but by a strict definition she isn't. Barbara doesn't have any emotions, and we've engineered her to prevent her from developing any. She doesn't have a conscience or a sense of self. It's very important that none of you get too attached to her because of what we'll have to do with her when you bring her back.

"What does that mean?"

Jack frowned.

"We had to make her intelligent enough she'd be able to properly respond to a lot of different men. We just don't know, but we're afraid she might be smart enough she could learn about our mining process. That process is one of the most carefully guarded secrets NMEC has. It's what makes asteroid mining profitable enough to pay for the infrastructure we've built here on the moon, the ESEs, and the equipment you'll be using. If a competitor should get hold of her, we could lose everything. When you bring her back, she'll be...deactivated, so to speak."

"You mean killed?"

Jack sighed.

"I was afraid you'd think something like that. No, it won't be murder, not legally. Like I said, she doesn't have a sense of self, therefore, she's no different than a sexbot. We'll just put her to sleep and she won't wake up. I know, you're thinking we could just reprogram her like we would a sexbot. We've tried that and it doesn't work. Once a clone learns something, it's there until they die. We don't understand why yet, but that's how it is. Deactivation is the only way."

I was still a little dumbfounded by what Jack was telling me.

"You've done this before? I thought it was illegal to make a human clone. The World Congress outlawed that over fifty years ago, didn't it?"

"Barbara is the fourth prototype. The others gave us the information we needed to tweak the cloning process. Yes, the World Congress did outlaw cloning of humans, but by their definition of a human clone, Barbara really isn't human. To fall within their definition, she would have to have a sense of self and be capable of learning right from wrong. I already told you she doesn't have a sense of self and she can only learn certain things. A normal person would have learned right from wrong at a very early age. We didn't give her those memories."

"That really sucks, Jack. You make a person and then kill them when you're done with them."

"She's not a person, Tom, and you can't let yourself start thinking she is. I know it sounds cruel, but we had to do something. Half our miners have gone to our competition already because of the sexbots, and we're having trouble recruiting more. We can't afford to put real women on a mining site like our competition does."

When I boarded the shuttle, I still wasn't happy. A lot of things had changed pretty rapidly in the world during my thirty years of life, but this was too much too fast, and Jack's reasoning was based on some pretty questionable legal interpretations. I could understand his point and his motives, but I didn't like either.

I didn't really have a choice. My contract with LMEC said I had to go where they sent me and do what they instructed me to do. If I'd said he could stuff it up his ass, Jack would have just replaced me, and I'd have been on my way back to Earth with no job, no money, and probably not much of a chance of getting either in the asteroid mining field again.

After two hours in the shuttle, it locked up with the ESE and we took the elevator down to the surface of the asteroid. It took the rest of the day to unload our supplies and put them in storage and then to get settled in to the habitat. The shuttle undocked and went back to Copernicus Space Port, but another from Peary Crater would return in three Earth days to pick up the first load of ore. Once I was done, I took the elevator down into the mine to have a look at the fissures Bobby had reported.

They weren't as bad as I'd thought they might be. Most of these asteroids large enough to be of commercial value have their own weak gravity and are just a bunch of huge rocks held together by that gravity. There are cracks between those rocks, but for the most part, gravity holds them together so tightly they're effectively a solid mass. The gravity-simulating electromagnet further strengthened that bond. The fissures Bobby had seen were a little bigger than the normal cracks, but they still looked sound enough to tolerate some small charges.

I made a mental note to instruct Walt and Mack to not use anything over five joules per charge and to not use more than five at a time. That would still yield as much ore as we could collect and bring to the surface in one Earth day. It was probable we'd be able to work our way around the fissures at some point and then up the energy of the charges.

I didn't know Walt or Mack. I'd talked to them a little, but not enough to get a feel about what kind of men they were. All I knew about them is they'd worked together on several asteroids over the past ten years. I asked Barbara to stay in her room and then called Walt and Mack into the living area to explain what I'd found with the fissures and to set up a schedule for Barbara.

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I got us all a beer and then asked them to sit down at the table.

"OK, I looked in the mine while ago because it was reported there were fissures developing in the rock. I did find a few, but they don't look all that bad to me. Still, just to be safe, we'll stick with five joule charges and no more than five charges per blast. That should let us work around the fissures and back into solid rock. Then we'll take out the column with the fissures and up the charge size. I don't think I have to tell you two much else. You've been mining asteroids for a lot longer than I have."

Walt frowned.

"You're gonna limit us to five joules and only five at a time? Fuck, that'll take forever to get that shit in small enough pieces the loaders can handle it. We'll be busting our asses with hand crushers to do it. You sure about those fissures?"

"Yes, I'm sure. The risk is small, but you don't want to be in the mine if one opens up. The pressure difference would strain you through the crack like shit through a goose."

Mack tried another option.

"What if we just use three, ten Joule charges? That's about the same energy but it'll bring down more rock at a time and in smaller pieces."

I shook my head.

"No. With five, five joule charges, we can space them out so there's no big energy release in any one spot. If we do what you want, I'm pretty sure one of those fissures will start opening up. We might not see it because it'll be opening toward the outside, but once it starts, it won't stop until it breaks through."

Walt looked at Mack and grinned.

"Well, Mack, I guess the engineer knows best. He's probably never set a charge, but these college men know what they're doing."

I'd caught the sarcasm, but didn't want to start things out on the wrong foot. I had to live with these two for the next year. Instead of replying, I explained about Barbara.

"The woman who boarded the shuttle with us isn't a sexbot. She's a woman, but she doesn't know very much about anything. She understands about sex, but she won't know what you like. You'll have to teach her, but make sure you're teaching and not forcing. If you force her to do something, she'll probably not want to be with you again and I'll have to honor that."

Mack looked at me and frowned.

"You mean I have to teach her how to fuck?"

"No, she understands that, but it's mostly the mechanics of sex she understands. What you'll have to teach her is how you like to have sex."

Walt grinned.

"Does she know how to suck a cock? I always want my cock sucked for a while before I fuck."

"Yeah, me too", said Mack. "How about fucking her in the ass? Does she do that?"

I was starting to not like either Walt or Mack. I'd sort of gotten my head around what Barbara was, but dammit, I still thought of her as a woman and they were talking about her like she was some silicone sexbot they could do anything with. Walt's comment about college men was still bothering me too. I also decided it was time to remind them I was in charge.

"I wasn't told about either. All I was told is she'll do what you want once she understands what that is. You'll have to teach her, and I want to emphasize the word 'teach'. If I learn that either of you has forced Barbara to do anything, anything at all, I'll have your contract cancelled and you'll end up back on Earth trying to figure out what you're going to do next. Is that clear?"

Both men mumbled something about me being an asshole but they said they'd do as I'd instructed.

"OK, now that we understand each other, how do you want to set up the schedule with Barbara? We can let the main computer do the schedule or I can just pick. Which do you want?"

They wanted the computer, so I input our names and the dates we'd be on site. In about two seconds, the screen showed the schedule. Mack drew that night, Walt the next night, and I was last. The schedule repeated like that for the rest of the year. Mack grinned.

"Well, I'll see you guys in the morning. Barbara and I have some learning to do. Walt, I'll be sure to tell her you have a little cock so she won't be surprised."

The first two days went about like I'd planned. We made one blast each morning and then spent the rest of the day using the loaders to pick up the ore and put it into bins and then transporting the bins to the surface. The hand crushers were required a little, but not as much as Walt feared. The bins would be packed into the shuttles that docked every other day.

I didn't see much of Barbara. I was either down in the mine or she was with Walt or Mack. The third night was my time with her, and I was more interested in finding out if she was really like Jack said than in having sex.

Barbara ate with us just as she had the two previous nights, then went to her quarters. I followed about half an hour later. When I knocked on the door, I heard her say, "Come in."

I wasn't ready for what I saw. Barbara was laying on her bed, naked and with her legs spread wide. She looked at me and smiled.