Poor Man's Sky

Table of Contents 1.1 12 November 2052 1.2 13 November 1.3 14 November 2.1 14 November 1.4 17 November 3.1 17 November 1.5 17 November 1.6 18 November 4.1 18 November 1.7 18 November 5.1 19 November 1.8 21 November 1.9 21 November 1.10 21 November 2.2 21 November 1.11 21 November 4.2 21 November 1.12 22 November 3.2 22 November 1.13 22 November 2.3 22 November 1.4 22 November 5.2 22 November 1.15 22 November 1.16 22 November 1.17 24 November 3.3 24 November 1.18 24 November 1.19 24 November 1.20 24 November 1.21 25 November 2.4 25 November 3.4 27 November 1.22 18 December 4.3 24 December Appendix A Appendix B Acknowledgments About the Author POOR MAN’S SKY WIL McCARTHY Baen Poor Man’s Sky Wil McCarthy THE LUNAR MONASTERY TAUGHT PEOPLE HOW TO LIVE IN SPACE . . . AND THEN ONE OF ITS STUDENTS WAS MURDERED Who owns the future? Homicide detective Raimy Vaught is a losing contestant on the biggest reality show ever: the colonization of Mars. Brother Michael is a Benedictine monk who just wants to help the future happen. Andrei Bykhovski is an asteroid miner desperately escaping indentured servitude. Bridget Tobin is a hydroponic farmer studying the greenhouses of Luna. But when a fellow Mars contestant drops dead at a Lunar monastery, these four souls will find themselves on a collision course with forces far beyond the control of trillionaires or nation states. As labor disputes erupt across cislunar space, the actions of individual people will determine whose future will prevail . . . and whose will perish. BOOKS by WIL McCARTHY Antediluvian Rich Man’s Sky Poor Man’s Sky The Queendom of Sol Series The Collapsium The Wellstone Lost in Transmission To Crush the Moon The Waister Series Aggressor Six The Fall of Sirius Flies from the Amber Murder in the Solid State Bloom Once Upon a Galaxy Poor Man’s Sky This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental. Copyright © 2023 by Wil McCarthy All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form. A Baen Books Original Baen Publishing Enterprises P.O. Box 1403 Riverdale, NY 10471 www.baen.com ISBN: 978-1-9821-9234-1 EISBN: 978-1-62579-895-4 Cover art by Dave Seeley First printing, January 2023 Distributed by Simon & Schuster 1230 Avenue of the Americas New York, NY 10020 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: McCarthy, Wil, author. Title: Poor man's sky / by Wil McCarthy. Identifiers: LCCN 2022046599 (print) | LCCN 2022046600 (ebook) | ISBN 9781982192341 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781625798954 (ebook) Classification: LCC PS3563.C337338 P66 2023 (print) | LCC PS3563.C337338 (ebook) | DDC 813/.54—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022046599 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022046600 Printed in the United States of America Electronic version by Baen Books www.baen.com 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 This book is dedicated to the monks of Saint Benedict’s Monastery. POOR MAN’S SKY 1.112 November 2052 Orlov Petrochemical Compressed Gas Cargo Landing Vehicle #14 Lunar Orbit Andrei Bykhovski had been tied up for sex a time or two, and he had once been in a helicopter crash. His present circumstance was a bit like doing both of these things at the same time. The ground below him was getting bigger and closer and bigger and closer, and he was strapped securely, facedown, arms down, feet down. But instead of a blindfold he had a fogged-up spacesuit visor, dripping with condensation as the water droplets stopped being weightless and started being pulled downward along the clear plastic. Instead of pillows or flight seat hardware underneath him, he had the metal struts and tanks and pipes of the gas delivery lander, poking up uncomfortably against the padding of his suit like the bars of a miniature jungle gym. And the ground rising up to meet him was the dusty-cratered surface of the Moon, which provided no sense of scale. He’d been strapped to this thing for hours, and he really didn’t know if it could land properly with him onboard, and he also couldn’t tell how close he was to touchdown. Seconds? Minutes? Another hour? All he could say for sure was that there were craters rolling by, getting slowly bigger as they went. It helped that he’d put himself in this situation. It helped that he was escaping indentured servitude, in search of sweet freedom. It helped that he was an experienced astronaut, with literally hundreds of EVA hours in his logbook. But his oxygen consumption was high—very high—because he was hyperventilating, because this was way more terrifying than he’d allowed himself to expect. He was tempted to lean on the chin switch that would activate his radio on the emergency channel. He was tempted to call for help, but who could help him? What could they do? What would he even say? Andrei Bykhovski fell from the sky like a tank of cyanogen, like the tanks of asteroid-harvested carbon-nitrogen gas he’d pulled out of the lander a couple of hours ago, replacing them with his own body weight. He fell from the sky cramped and cramping and half-blinded, thinking this was the dumbest thing he’d ever tried, and also quite possibly the last. And yet, as bad a day as he was having, he was out here for a reason. He had to remember that, while he panted away his oxygen. Had to remember that Grigory Orlov, by refusing paid shore leave for the workers at Clementine Cislunar Fuel Depot, while also refusing to accept any resignations, had effectively made serfs of them all. Without breaking any laws! It was intolerable, and somebody had to do something. Then again, the spasms in Andrei’s back and shoulders were also intolerable. He might almost welcome a fatal crash if it meant an end to this. Would it hurt if he died on impact? Would he even know it happened? The forehead of his