Spindrift by Allen Steele Page A

“They’ve accepted him?”
    â€œPretty much so, yes. Only a handful are aware of the nature of his crimes, and they either avoid him or else decided to look the other way. For the rest, he’s just another convict. And he’s volunteered to lead a couple of activities. Teaching astronomy classes, organizing a chess club…”
    â€œTrying to earn points toward parole, I take it.” Shillinglaw didn’t mean to sound cynical, but nonetheless it came out that way. By then, they’d reached the end of the corridor. Another vault door confronted them, with two more Guardsmen watching them from behind an armored window.
    â€œI don’t think you understand.” Torres stopped to let the soldiers open the door. “He’ll never get out, and he knows that. Even if he lives to be five hundred, he’s here for the rest of his life.”
    I wouldn’t be so sure of that , Shillinglaw thought. He kept his mouth shut, yet from the corner of his eye, he saw a knowing smile flicker across Sinclair’s face.
    Â 
    The prison reeked of marijuana.
    The floor of Dolland crater was a little more than four miles in diameter, and nearly every square foot of it had been cultivated with hemp. Acre upon acre of dark green weed, ranging from tiny sprouts nurtured in hydroponics tanks until they reached maturity and could be transplanted to beds of rich brown soil, to mighty giants twice the height of a man, their serrated leaves reaching for the sunlight streaming through the polarized panes of the airtight dome that covered the crater from rim to rim.
    The prison farm grew cannabis for the Union’s lunar colonies. Once the plants were harvested, they were processed for all variety of industrial uses: paper, rope, machine oil, ink, pharmaceuticals, paint, clothing, shoes, anything that could be made from the hardy, easily grown weed. The fact that the female plants had once enjoyed a heyday as a vice was almost forgotten; the underground now had dope half as easy to produce and twice as potent. Of course, those caught manufacturing or distributing these things were often sentenced to Dolland, where they’d find themselves growing hemp until they were sick of seeing it.
    The medium-security inmates lived in cells excavated within the crater wall; every morning they rose to look out upon a vast jungle of weed, and their days and nights were spent with its dank, cloying odor in their noses and mouths. Still, it was preferable to the fate suffered by the maximum-security prisoners; isolated within lava tubes beneath the crater, they saw neither sunlight nor the faces of anyone else save their guards, and spent their time pacing their cells and quietly going mad.
    Shillinglaw found Inmate 7668 on his hands and knees beside a half-grown cannabis bush, carefully pruning vestigial leaves from its underside. He didn’t look up from his work until one of the guards ordered him to stand, and even then he took his time getting to his feet. He put down his blunt-nosed plastic clippers, then slowly rose, casually brushing away the dirt from the knees of his bright orange coveralls. It wasn’t until he turned around that Shillinglaw recognized him.
    Jared Ramirez had changed considerably in the years since his face had been on every netcast and newspage. His wiry frame had thickened slightly in the middle, a testament to a diet of carbohydrate-rich prison food, and his hair, once jet-black and artfully groomed, had become a raggedy grey mop. Yet his eyes remained as sharp as ever, his gaze direct and inquisitive as he regarded his visitors with sullen curiosity.
    â€œYou’ve got visitors, convict,” the closer of the two guards said, his voice formal and yet not unkind. “You can take a break now. Warden says it’ll count toward your work quota, so take your time.”
    â€œThanks. Tell Mr. Torres I appreciate it.” Ramirez ignored Shillinglaw and Sinclair as he