At the Bottom of a Hole", short story review
First published: Galaxy Science Fiction, December 1966.
Beware there are some spoilers in this piece.
This is the
third in a series of short stories by Niven about the first Martian explorations.
The story starts on April 20, 2112
Humanity has explored The Moon (Luna), Mercury, Venus, Mars & the outer planets like Pluto.
There is a huge community living among the asteroid belt of Earth's solar system (Sol System). They seem to be mostly miners & call themselves "Belters". Born far from Earth, and living most of their lives in the depths of space between Mars & Jupiter, Belters are fiercely independent.
Earth is ruled by the UN (United Nations). Mar's doesn't seem to hold much significance for Humanity. Man last visited the red planet about 70 years ago.
What struck me about Niven's world building was how close his vision is to that portrayed in the Sci Fi series, "The Expanse".
However, in "The Expanse", Mars is a superpower with influence equal to Earth, and the Belters are caught in between.
The main character in this novelette (Muller) is a Belter, so it's useful to know a bit about them.
The Belt possesses valuable ores, which are easy to extract due to the nonexistent gravity. This region was originally under UN control, but is now independent.
Belters live among the asteroids and make their living by mining the ores.
A few quotes from "Bottom of a Hole":
" Belters don't need houses. A Belter’s home is the inside of his pressure
suit".
"In the Belt smuggling is against the law, but
it isn’t immoral. It’s like a flat- lander (man from Earth) forgetting to feed the parking meter. There’s no loss of
self-respect. If you get caught you pay the fine and forget it.”
"Belters learn to avoid
gravity wells. A man can get
killed half a dozen ways coming
too close to a hole. A good autopilot will get him safely around
if, or program an in-and-out
spin, or even land him at the bottom, God forbid". "
This last quote is important. The title of the story is "Bottom of a Hole".
It's kind of a murder mystery tale.
Muller is a smuggler, and a native of the Belt. He is heading towards Luna but finds himself having to visit
Mars in order to evade a government vessel that is chasing him. His ship is damaged on landing and he has to visit the old human settlement of Bubble Town.
He finds the settlement untouched for 70 years. It is strewn with corpses and he tries to unravel the mystery by reading the crew's old journals and doing some personal detective work.
What bother's me about this story is why no one from Earth returned to rescue these early travelers.
Was there no communication from Earth mission control ?
Niven is really good for his Hard Sci Fi. even if modern day discoveries disprove some of scientific knowledge from the 1960s.
He goes into quite a lot of detail about all manner of things such as the Martian surface.
"The dust is like thick oil. The moment I stepped onto it I started to sink. I had to swim
to where the crater rim slopes out
like the shore of an island. It was hard work".
"It's
meteor debris from vaporized
rock. On Earth, dust this fine would be washed down to the
sea by rain and turned to sedimentary rock, natural cement. On the Moon
there would be vacuum cementing, .......But. here, there’s just enough
“air"
to be absorbed by
the dust surface ... to prevent vacuum cementing . . . and not
nearly enough to stop a meteorite. Result: it won’t cement"
Without spoiling too much of the story, Muller does piece together the murder mystery.
He also does meet the local Martian natives. A battle takes place.
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More by Larry Niven:
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sci Fi Index
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