It takes a certain toughness to make a new life in a very difficult environment, but some people see opportunities instead of the misery.  Sophie Vence is a no-nonsense businesswoman, a single mother with a 19-year-old son.  Here is her background of how she came to Hellhole.

painting by Stephen Youll

SOPHIE VENCE

Despite the lessons she had learned from hard experience, Sophie still considered herself a romantic at heart.

On Klief, one of the old Crown Jewel planets, she had married a charismatic and ambitious corporate climber, five years older than she.  Gregory Vence courted her with talk as convincing as any boardroom speech, and after they were married he was proud, as if it were his accomplishment alone, when she gave birth to their son Devon.

She and Gregory, though, had very different visions of her role in their future.  Sophie had planned on a successful business career of her own; while she tended the baby, she continued her studies at home, learning about management, supply chains, and resource allocation.  But when, on Devon’s first birthday, she wanted to start searching for a suitable job, Gregory intervened, persuading her that the formative years were vital for their son.

By the time Devon was four and ready to enter early schooling, Gregory still found reasons for her to stay home; convincingly gracious on the surface, he used subtle ways to erode her confidence.  When she eventually realized what he was doing, she became angry enough to take matters into her own hands.

Sophie applied for mid-level positions, only to be turned down again and again.  After considerable research, she learned that Gregory had been intercepting her applications, poisoning her references, turning potential employers against her.  She read confidential reports in which her own husband portrayed her as emotional and unstable; he suggested with saccharine sympathy that Sophie had been away from the real world for so long that she no longer understood it.

Sophie was furious.  She filed for divorce and decided to make her own way in life, but by then Gregory Vence had become a well-connected man, and he fought her every step of the way.  So much for young romance.

Though the court ordered Gregory to pay child support, he resisted, he refused, he “forgot,” and so Sophie had to fight him on that as well.  Never giving up, she eked out a living at low-level jobs and began to work her way up.  Despite being sidelined for almost nine years, she was back on track.

Then Gregory filed court papers demanding not only that she be stripped of all rights to child and spousal support, but requesting full custody of Devon as well.  That absurd legal action convinced her that as long as she stayed on Klief, she would never be free of Gregory.  In spite of all she had lost, she still had her self-esteem and her son.

The Deep Zone planets had opened to new colonization only a year earlier.  Hallholme seemed particularly hard and challenging, a place that needed her administrative skills.  Sophie didn’t want to go to a planet with an already entrenched bureaucracy.  Hallholme would indeed be a challenge, but Sophie decided that it was exactly the sort of place where she could make a difference and find opportunities for herself and Devon.  Best of all, Gregory would never bother to follow her to a place like that.

Before the ponderous wheels of the legal system could catch up with her, Sophie packed their possessions, cashed out her small bank accounts, and boarded a stringline hauler with Devon, leaving no forwarding address.

Even with the damned static storms and the smelly air, Hellhole wasn’t so bad compared with the crap she’d left behind.  Sophie had done well for herself in Helltown.

HELLHOLE is in stores tomorrow, March 15