[ TT ] `` You do what 's right . I do what 's required . ''

You did n't get to twelve million people living on a ball of rock in space without bending a few fundamental rules of human nature. Cain had seen this place grow. Watched the dock hands turn to more profitable cargo when the ice haulers had decided it was cheaper to slingshot around Eros. Seen the flesh dens turn kids into commodities. 
 
 Twelve million people, stuck in a metal tomb, with only the air and water they brought on board. But it was home. His home. 
 
 `` Corporate is saying they're going to defer bonuses if Mikkels does n't stop the feeds from broadcasting. Like we can do anything about the tunnel rats humping relays through the mech shafts.'' 
 
 Roalh had been his partner for three months but unlike Cain he was born at the bottom of a gravity well, a place where the oxygen was held close to the planet and would n't escape through the smallest crack leaving you exposed to whatever shitty radiation from the Sun could reach you this far out. But more than that, he was an optimist, used to the rule of law. 
 
 On Earth and her worlds, law was all. You walked on the grass in a park-floor? Six months indentured to a exonational corporation. Do n't make the same mistake twice bucko. But here? Law was an idea, something you know you should be doing but just ca n't bring yourself to follow through on, up there with cycling the dishes or scrubbing the filters. You only cared about it when not doing it would put yourself in danger. 
 
 `` Mikkels wants us to speak to Halso again.'' 
 
 `` Later,'' Cain said. 
 
 `` You got somewhere else you need to be?'' 
 
 The tunnels were at the lull between third and fourth spins. The shuttle link rattled up and disgorged its few passengers. To a new-worlder like Roalh the smell was still fresh, a combination of too many people, not enough ventilation and a sizeable population who had traded water rations for something with a bit more of a kick to it. 
 
 `` Word on the rockfloor is that there's a new shipment coming in,'' Cain said. 
 
 `` Hell no. They pay us to keep that shit off the station.'' 
 
 `` And that's what I'm gon na do. Make sure it just slides on back out on the next transpo,'' Cain said, one hand sliding over the other. `` For a fee.'' 
 
 `` I ai n't having no part of it.'' 
 
 `` You make, what, ten-k? Maybe get some free miles so you can head back down the well and say hi to the folks every few years?'' 
 
 `` It's not about the money.'' 
 
 `` Never is. Dockie selling fuel rods, it's about getting water creds for his pregnant wife. Muchaffo siphoning off coolant to make'shine so he can get his kids some g-meds. It's always about what they need. Money's just a means to an end.'' 
 
 `` Is that what this is to you?'' Roalh said, grabbing a pole in the shuttle to block Cain's view of the broken ad-screen. `` A means to an end. You're just gon na take your creds and go home and spend'em? Whatever happened to protecting the people? Doing what's right?'' 
 
 Cain laughed. In the small shuttle it felt like an atomic bomb going off. Roalh could see the man, see the patch he wore with the company logo emblazoned like a sherrifs badge, but he realised he'd never seen the madness. 
 
 `` Right?'' Cain said, in between bouts of laughter and breathing, breathing and laughter. `` Oh, that's a good one. You really swallowed up all that crap they showed in the training videos kid.'' 
 
 `` Fuck you Cain,'' Roalh said. 
 
 Before he could comprehend what had happened, Roalh found himself flat on his ass, handing sliding through the piss on the floor of the shuttle as Cain smacked the emergency stop button. Roalh glared up from the ground and for one fleeting moment let his hand rest on the butt of his service weapon. 
 
 `` Do it kid.'' 
 
 `` I'm not like you.'' 
 
 Cain knelt, letting his shoulder rest against a pole as if he were weary of even the weak gravity on a station like this. 
 
 `` Not yet. You'll break though kid. You'll try and arrest a pimp who's timesharing a catamite between freighters and then you'll be told to just drop it because he's connected to someone up high, the kind of power that does n't come from just being rich. 
 
 `` Only you wo n't drop it, because it ai n't right. You'll find the snivelling piece of shit and you'll break his legs and he'll just smile at you because there ai n't nothing you can break he ca n't fix. So you put him in an airlock and he's still smiling because you ai n't got the balls for it, lawman. He's smiling right up until the point you space that muchaffo.'' 
 
 Roalh was silent on the floor. Cain had n't told this story for a very long time. Had n't needed to, a station as small as this one. It was common law, part of the rockfloor. 
 
 `` You go home to your wife, still sleep at night. Maybe just. One less piece of shit in the System, no one's going to miss them. Except they do. Next month, a heavy trawler comes in and two guys have been paid a little extra in their wage packet to take your wife for a ride before they get back on their own. 
 
 `` You find her. Same airlock only the airs all gone. Real slow like. Eyes bloody.'' Cain's animated now, his eyes closed as Roalh watches on. `` They wanted her to feel it. But most of all, they wanted you to know it too.'' 
 
 The emergency radio came on, some garbled static about not screwing with the network and then they were rolling again, bounding down the rock tunnels. Roalh was still silent. 
 
 `` You do what's right,'' Cain said. `` I do what's required. Those bastards ever come back here? I'm going to be the one greeting them on the dock, just some simple lawman waiting for his cut until the moment they take their hands off their weapons.''
