Read Online Refugee by Piers Anthony - Free Book Online Page A

through this zone at night. But it would have been night by day also, near the dome, if you see what I mean.
    It's really more complicated than that, because Callisto's day is the same as its period of revolution around Jupiter: sixteen and two-thirds Earth days. One face—Halfcal's—always faces Jupiter; the other always faces space. So we have eight and a third days of continuous light, and then a night just as long.
    We humans don't like that; it doesn't match our biological rhythm. So we exchange light with a sister city around the globe: San Pedro, in the Dominant Republic. San Pedro is always in darkness when Maraud has light, and vice versa, so there's always sunlight one place or the other. We never have clouds or bad weather, of course, the way Earth does; in fact, we have no weather at all. When Maraud is in sun, we use it for twelve hours, then refract it around the planet, in the form of a concentrated light beam, using a chain of vertical gravity lenses, to San Pedro.
    In this manner we have our night in the middle of the Callistian day, while they have their day in the middle of their night. When they are light, they send us twelve-hour segments of daylight. This is the most fundamental and absolute system of cooperation between the two nations of our planet, and is inviolate.
    If Halfcal and the Dominant Republic went to war with each other—and sometimes, historically, it has come to that, for we are a bickering culture—neither would abrogate the light exchange. Without it, life as we know it would be virtually impossible on Callisto. We depend on the sun for almost all our energy, for we have no great deposits of oil or uranium and lack the technical and industrial base to establish a hydrogen-fusion power plant.
    But my glancing was wasted, for the huge elevated gravity lens was not visible. Not only did it operate only in daylight, it was not physical at all. It was generated in space, forming between key points. There was nothing to see. Still, my eye sought it out, much as it sought the gaze of a person in a picture looking in another direction. This foolishness is inherent in my nature; I seek constantly to relate to people and things directly, even when I suspect it is unwise or impossible.
    My attention wandered to the other large moons of Jupiter, all closer in than ours. Ganymede, off to the side of the Colossus, its brightness at three-quarter face; it was almost halfway in toward Jupiter, from our vantage. That is, its orbit is just over one million kilometers out, while Callisto's is just under two million. We would pass that inner orbit on our way to Jupiter, but would not pass close to Ganymede itself, because it revolved about the planet more than twice as fast as we did and would rush to the far side when our bubble passed, as if avoiding us. Just as well; the recent political revolution there seemed to have made things even worse for peasants than before. As the ancient poet Coleridge put it: “They burst their manacles and wear the name / Of Freedom, graven on a heavier chain!” But of course Europa was little better, while the innermost big moon, Io, zooming all the way around Jupiter in less than two Earth days, was hardly habitable, even with terraform domes. No, no hope for us on the other moons.
    Down near the horizon behind us I spied a speck of light I didn't recognize. It wasn't a star, for it was moving, shifting somewhat erratically above the landscape, as if guided by some human hand.
    “Saucer!” I exclaimed. “What's it doing out here at night?” For there was very little interdome travel by night, as Callisto is essentially a hinterworld with no major industry, other than agriculture. Unlike the hyperactive denizens of major worlds, we preferred to sleep at night.
    “The Maraud authorities wouldn't chase us, would they?” Spirit asked. My parents were consulting with each other, helmet to helmet, but I couldn't hear their dialogue, to my annoyance.
    “Shouldn't,”