Jupiter sure looked small from here.

It was an insignificant yellow dot, sometimes with two, three or four moons like tiny stars next to it, shifting position from day to day, even from hour to hour. There were bigger worlds for sure, but Van Yang had never visited them, and never wished to. Five years he'd spent orbiting the monster planet at close quarters, the sky filled with its stormy bands, the Great Red Spot glaring into the darkness. It had been his whole universe, over-powering and dominant. Planets shouldn't be that big. It was much better out here, among the Trojan asteroids. Here he could see stars, worlds were manageable, and came in chunks that could be shifted around, sorted and mined. Out here space was pure and life was quiet.

Something heavy and metallic fell to the floor in the next room. A female voice swore. Another voice yelled back:

'Turn the gravity down then!'

Van waited for a moment until he felt himself go lighter as the rotation of the Shepherd Moon slowed. He did a little bounce on his toes: about 0.7g. Enough to satisfy the complainant next door, at least, as there were no further demands. Of course, to the Helots, it didn't really matter what the gravity was set at—they could work under a couple of g's, some of them, especially the new model, the Serfs. There were a couple of them among the workers, and they displayed amazing strength and tenacity. The two species seemed to get on, which was a blessing, although conversation was limited because of the rules. At least there had been no actual fights break out yet.

He finished his coffee, crunched the paper cup and tossed it into the recycler. Making sure his radiation tag was secure on his belt, he pulled on a jacket and headed out of the door. It was grimy and squalid in the corridor outside his office, but then it always was. Shana Martinez, the slave-boss, was more efficient if left to her own methods.

It was she who had sworn, of course. In the room next door some Helots were shifting heavy equipment. Shana emerged and ran her hand over her close-cropped hair.

'Fuckin' morons,' she said.

'What the matter?'

'These bastards are piss weak. "Turn the gravity down". Fuck me.'

Van smiled. So it was just the slaves she was complaining about. Not his problem, then. Not directly, anyway. 'You could make them work in zero g,' he suggested, not for the first time.

'Fuck that. There's delicate equipment in there. They'd be breaking it just so they don't have to do any more work.'

She was right, of course. Shana always was when it came to slave behaviour.

'Look, I have to head down to Tower One today,' he said. 'I'll need a couple of helpers. Who can you spare?'

Shana consulted her fone. 'Sissy and Bashful aren't scheduled for anything. She's had a wrist injury but should be all right by now. He's on rest leave but we can shorten that. I need the others.'

He nodded. 'They'll do.' Nicknames for the Helots were easier than trying to remember their real names in their own language, the use of which was of course forbidden on board.

He passed along to the kitchen and ordered eggs. The Helot assigned to that day's galley duties, a guy called Sniper because his upper left eyelid was weak and made the eye look half-closed, fetched a plate of fried eggs and bacon from the AI, put them onto a plate and shunted it onto the table. Van ate in silence as he stared at the grey wall opposite. Some joker had stuck a sign next to the window with an arrow pointing at it. Under the arrow were the words, You are here. He didn't get it.

There was a stack of messages on his fone but he turned it off to get a few minutes peace: no sense in starting work any earlier than necessary. He chewed the eggs slowly because he liked the flavour.

After the eggs he ordered another cup of coffee. It was better than the stuff the AI in his quarters served, since Sniper had some talent in the kitchen and had to eat his own cooking. Van drank the coffee slowly, then patted his pockets looking for a cigarette and sighed as he remembered for the third time that morning that he was giving them up.

Some days were rougher than others.

The slick head of Shana appeared in the door. 'When are you leaving?'

'When I'm ready. What about the Helots?'

'When are you back?'

He kicked back in the chair. 'Anxious to get rid of me?'

'Sure. We're going to party until you return.' The woman came into the room and put a foot up on the chair opposite Van, leaned her forearm on one knee. 'Drugs. Booze. Porn.'

Helot porn—that must be about the least sexy idea in the galaxy. He started to reach into his pocket for a cigarette but stopped himself in time, using the hand instead to straighten his jacket lapels. His fone beeped and he turned his wrist to look at the holo.

'Monk,' he said.

'Shit. And?'

'There's a fault all right.' The Helot engineer, Monk, wouldn't lie about that. The ordinary Helot couldn't be trusted with engineering tasks, but Monk was no ordinary Helot. Van had to admit the little guy had brains, and a knowledge of space ship engines that Van sometimes envied.

'I'll go check it out,' said Shana. 'You get to Tower One. I'll have Bashful and Sissy load the dinghy.'

Van rose and pushed the dirty plate of eggs aside. Sniper scuttled from the corner and scooped the plate and other used items up and slipped them into the dishwasher. Neither of the Sapes took any notice of him.

'This is all we need,' muttered Van, scanning the details of the fault on his fone. Shana did the same, and whistled. One of the main fusion reactors had shut down, proof that something had caused it to overheat. They were back to using bypasses from the other reactors; that had been the situation for days now. He and the third Sape on board, George Cossard, had investigated the fault themselves, but it was hard to do out here in interplanetary space. They left the job to Monk.

'You don't think Monk has anything to do with it?' Shana asked.

'What do you mean?'

'How long has he been aboard?'

'About six months. What are you implying?'

As the slave boss, it was, of course, Shana's job to be wary of her charges' actions. Revolt or mutiny were constant worries, but there was no need to become paranoid. He glared at Shana as if daring her to voice her suspicions.

After a moment she shrugged. 'I don't know. But if it's the same fault as before I'm going to kick the little bastard's backside.'

Van threw her a thin smile as he headed for the door. The work at Tower One would take the whole day. By that time Monk might have solved the problem and Shana would be in a better mood when he returned. If there was a major problem, maybe they could all score some shore leave on Ganymede.

'Good luck,' he said.

'Fuck off.'

Van returned to his office and climbed into his space suit. As he entered the long tunnel at the core of the ship the gravity fell away to nothing. There were bars and grips along the length of the core which he used to haul himself to the dinghy bay. As he started to unseal the door to the nearest dinghy two Helots appeared in front of him, both in space suits, floating far enough away to avoid accidental physical contact. Bashful and Sissy.

Each Helot carried a pack of supplies for the day; Van already had his gear stowed in the dinghy. He cracked the hatch open and waited while the slaves passed through and took their seats in the back of the craft. Then he followed and strapped himself into the pilot's chair. He brought the AI online, which launched the dinghy towards the asteroid a hundred kilometres away.

He looked out of the forward window: the asteroid was a smallish lump of rock and iron called Gerhard, tumbling over and over through space in the wake of mighty Jupiter. In the rear window—really just a porthole—the Shepherd Moon shrank steadily as they crossed the gap between it and the asteroid.

The ship was fairly new and looked sleeker than most asteroid miners. Three hundred metres long, it consisted of two cylinders linked by girders and access tubes. What was different about this ship to the other miners was the small sphere off to one side: a Void engine that could carry the ship and its cargo across the solar system in hours instead of months. The whole assembly spun slowly to create the illusion of gravity. The ship shrank in size as they crossed the distance between it and the surface of Gerhard. Van ordered the dinghy to orbit the asteroid once so he could inspect the arrangement of the manoeuvring towers and the main drive engine on the surface. All seemed satisfactory, at least as far as placement was concerned, but Van had had suspicions about the firmness of Tower One. He wasn't satisfied that the engine was secure enough on the bedrock of the asteroid for it to withstand the forces of its journey through Void.

'Land the dinghy twenty metres from Tower One,' he told the AI.

Behind him, Bashful and Sissy sat strapped in their seats, looking out at the wheeling lump of iron below them. Van thought he could detect a weary sigh from Sissy.

He agreed. It was going to be a long day.

***

Shana watched the door close behind Van and then headed back along the corridor and down several metal ladders to the reactor room. George Cossard was bent over the control panel of the faulty fusion reactor. He looked up and shook his head.

A couple of slaves were there, too. One was Monk. The other was one of the new species, the Serfs. They were shorter and stockier than the Helots, with a lower brow, although they were actually more intelligent. This one was female they'd nicknamed Frank for some obscure reason. Both of them looked tired, but then slaves always did.

Shana didn't speak to George. She fronted Monk, towering over him, hands on hips.

'Well?'

Monk nodded and grinned. 'It's the same problem as before.'

'Show me.'

The Helot already had an access panel open. 'It's near the third terminal, just like last time. I think it's a fault in the secondary AI; it keeps going offline. I tried asking diagnostics, but it seems to have no idea either.'

'What the fuck? Even the diagnostics are out? George, what's going on?' She glanced over, but George had his head down—literally—talking to Frank.

Shana peered into the panel, reached in to access the keydisc of the diagnostics. There was a sharp sound behind her.

She knew the sound. It was the sharp metallic click of a harpoon gun used to fire bolts and crampons into the surface of asteroids.

One thing she didn't know was the way her body slumped to the floor at the base of the access panel. She was dead by then, with a harpoon through the back of her neck.

***

Van nodded to the two Helots as they eased open the door of the dinghy. The craft was too small for an airlock, so the cabin air was removed and he stepped straight out onto the dry, sterile dust of the asteroid. Through his hard boots, he imagined he could sense the razor-sharp splinters and edges of pure iron underneath. It was like standing on a set of upturned blades. He straightened up from the door and looked around: a hill of nickel-iron to his left, a large crater to his right and, straight ahead, the metal spire of Tower One. Overhead, stars wheeled as the asteroid spun and tumbled over and over through space, one revolution every five and a half minutes.

He turned and attached a tether to the side of the dinghy. It was firmly anchored in the surface of the asteroid and if he went drifting off because of an over-vigorous push of his feet he wouldn't float too far.

'Come on out, Bashful,' he said. 'The weather's fine.' Sissy would stay in the dinghy working the AI while the other two did the physical maintenance on the tower.

Bashful's face appeared in the door. It was always weird seeing a Helot in a space suit. They were short, almost simian in their build, and space suits strained their alteration capacity to fit them. None of them ever looked comfortable in the things. The slave gazed at the flat asteroid surface for a moment.

'Come on, what are you waiting for?' said Van. He opened the cargo hatch and started to take out the trolley of tools, hefting the thing easily in one hand. As the trolley hit the dust, Bashful was still inside.

'Bashful, if you're not—'

The Helot reached out and unclipped Van's safety line. Before the man could react Sissy thrust out a harpoon gun and fired. The thirty-centimetre harpoon smashed into Van's chest, pierced the suit's plastic outer shell, the inner layers of fabric and the water-filled tubes of the cooling system and skewered his heart. He fell slowly, almost gracefully, backwards.

After a moment watching the gases escape from the hole in Van's suit and the peculiar way his blood oozed out under the microgravity of the asteroid, staining the dark surface even darker, the Helots closed the hatch. A minute later, the dinghy launched back into space.

Van Yang's body would still be there in a million years, lying supine on the asteroid wheeling around the Sun, the only passenger on a journey that had no end.