It takes a special type of person to be a Belter; tough, brave, adventurous, canny as well as cunning are just a few of the epithets you will find on the hundreds of thousands of burial plaques that commerate the men and women who dared to tame this frontier zone.  However if you want to know the true stories behind some of these wanderlusters there is only one place to go - The Rook's Branch Tavern.

  The Lost Dutchman's Asteriod  Issue 2 page 11

Most of the miners here are independents like me, Haephaestus Smith, Smithy to my friends and a hundred other variations to my enemies. I've been at it for well over a century.  There aren't too many of us old timers still around.

When settlers first came to the Belt, they thought it would be the new El Dorado. And for some of the first, it was. Like the Dutchman, nobody knew what that rock pecker's real name was, but he only answered to Dutch.

"Now, young fella, before I go on any further, there's a tradition in the Rook's Branch Tavern that's been honored for the better part of two centuries. A million tales have been told in this very establishment, and something more than a million drinks have been bought and paid for by the listeners. You need to decide if it's worth it to you, but an appreciative listener never lets a storyteller's throat go dry.

I'm glad you see it my way."

 [more information on the search for gold bearing asteriods].

"Artemis... Bring me a silver comet, and my newfound friend here whatever he asks for, since it's his credit."

"Now, son, don't go slack jawed like that in front or Artemis. Not that she's not used to it.  You ever see anything so beautiful in all your life?  Most constructs are.  Just to put your heart to rest, could I do this to a real woman?  See, there's nothing there but a hologram and some hardware underneath.

Why don't you go ahead and order? Gawk too long, and everybody's going to know you're a newcomer to these parts.

Good choice.

Let me just wet my whistle, before I get started. Ahhh! There ain't nobody who makes a better silver comet.  It's got real silver dust in it, you know.

Some people say the Dutchman had a falling out with his wealthy father back home.  Others say he left when the love of his life married another man.  And I heard once that he'd been a Marine and was so tired of killing, he wanted to find a place where he'd never even see the business end of a gun.

Whatever happened, there's no disputing that he came into some real credit before he made his way out of her in '37.  He bought the fastest shuttle 
and a heavy duty mining droid before he struck out on his own.

There must have been about a million asteroids out there, and a body's only got so much tine to sink a core into each one.  Some of them are so big, you could plant a fair sized country on their backside.  Others are so small, they could hide behind a speck of dust on the lens of your telescope.

Most of the prospectors that hit it big worked on large chunks of rock.  Everybody knows the greater the density, the better the payload.  You could find just about anything on one or those, but iron and nickel were our bread and butter.  If you didn't bring in a million credits a year off your claim, then someone else had just as much right to it, and there was a real race to make a profit before the big boys arrived six years later.

December 31st back on Big Blue is what we all set our tickers by. That's the day every rock pecker in the Belt brings in their load.  And come that day back in '37 the Dutchman showed up at the New World Interstellar Bank.  He had a small barge in tow wrapped with some kind of molecular sheeting, followed by a tethered mining droid.  Seemed a bit strange to Belters; most prospectors like to show their wares as they belly up to the bank.  It's the closest thing we've got to a fancy parade. But there's all kinds out here, and you never find two Belters that match, so no one paid him much mind.

Next Story

Contents

Back To Our website

 Jeff Cates' lives in Visalia, California.  His  'Tales From The Rooks Branch Tavern' is  one of Colonies most popular regular features.  There will be more tales next issue with the first instalment of a two part story about the annual St Patrick's Day reunion.  But this being the Rook's Branch Tavern things probably won't go exactly to plan.

Other Tales From The Rook's Branch Tavern:
 
 

"She was kind of an average woman to look at, but average is pretty good in this part of the system" --  The Tavern Storyteller.

"The Church probably had a monopoly on wealth in the belt, but when a priest hears of a way to refill the collection dish a hundred times over he gets a little excited."