"What about her?"
"Are you offering her a job as well?"
"My father offered her a job before the invasion. She threw the offer back in his face. He'd never allow me to bring her on after a move like that. And anyway, she's not an engineer, which is what I need."
"I'm not an engineer either."
"You don't have a degree maybe, but you know the principles better than most. I'd rather hire you than ten stuckups with Ph.D.s."
It was a tempting offer. Victor liked Benyawe. And it was the kind of work he had always wanted to do. Meaningful, inventive work. Most of the repairs he had made on El Cavador were fairly mindless--putting sprocket A back with sprocket B. But occasionally the work had required him to throw out a part entirely and build something new from scratch. A better part. A more efficient design. A machine that did everything the previous part did but which required less energy or produced less heat. That was the work he had enjoyed: the meticulous disassembly of something to understand how it operated, followed by the careful application of those principles to build something new. It was exactly what Lem was offering.
The only problem: It was Lem who was offering it.
"I appreciate the offer, Lem, but right now I can't."
Lem nodded. "Six months to a year from now, after you've helped your family, maybe you'll change your mind. Contact me then."
"I will."
Lem sat in the recliner by the bed and leaned back with his hands behind his head. "I'm also here to inform you that the charges against you from the Lunar Trade Department have been dropped, including the charge of fleeing from custody, which is a serious felony. Charges against Imala were dropped as well. It wasn't hard to do. We simply showed the LTD how their rejection of your evidence of the invasion was the primary reason why Earth was so unprepared. They locked you up and buried your evidence in red tape when they should have announced you immediately to the world. When we threatened to file suit, claiming that their willful negligence resulted in the destruction of a good portion of our corporate fleet and personnel, they did whatever we asked." He shrugged. "Of course, we'll probably end up suing them anyway."
"Thanks for clearing my name."
"Lawyers are the deadliest of weapons, Victor. Make sure the best ones are always on your side."
There was a knock. Imala stepped into the room. "The nurses told me you were awake."
"Awake and talking nonsense," said Lem. "I offer him a decent job, and he turns me down. Talk some sense into him, Imala."
"He doesn't have any that I'm aware of," said Imala.
Lem turned back to Victor. "We're reinitiating cargo shipments to the Belt. Tell me when you want to leave, and I'll get you passage."
"Thank you."
Lem offered his hand, and they shook. "Keep the sun at your back, space born."
"You too."
Lem walked out.
Ima
la came and stood by the bed, her expression flat. "So you're heading to the Belt. You've made your decision."
"My family needs me, Imala."
"Your mother doesn't want you to come, Vico. She said as much. She wants you to stay here. To go to a university."
"I can't get into a university, Imala. We've been over this. I have no diploma, no birth certificate, no citizenship--"
"You can take tests to get a diploma, Vico. And Lem could help you acquire the other necessary papers."
Victor scoffed. "Yeah. Illegally."
"Maybe not. Maybe he has connections in immigration. And anyway, so what if he does it illegally? You deserve to go to school, Vico. You deserve it more than anyone. If you go back to your family, you'll end up becoming a..."
"A what, Imala? A free miner? Is that what you were going to say?"