Death Wave (6 page)

Castiglione was only slightly taller than Halleck, but his broad shoulders and slim waist gave the illusion of an imposing figure. His face was finely sculptured, and his green eyes sparkled with merriment. Rumor had it that he'd used stem cell therapy rather than plastic surgery to remodel his once-prominent nose.

He was wearing a golden brown leather jacket over a deeper brown open-necked shirt, dark form-fitting slacks, and highly polished midcalf boots.

Looking him over, Halleck realized all over again that he was a handsome devil. And she knew from personal experience that he was a lighthearted rogue, capable of doing deeds others would blanch at with an unscrupulous smile on his face.

“Sorry for the attire, Anita. I was skiing when your call came through.” As he bussed her on both cheeks he added, “Damnably hard to find decent snow these days. The artificial stuff just isn't the same.”

Halleck disengaged from him and slipped behind her desk while Castiglione casually dropped onto one of the burgundy leather armchairs in front of it. He leaned back and crossed his legs, completely at ease.

“I need your advice,” she said, without preamble.

“Something to do with this fellow who's come back from Sirius?”

“How prescient you are.”

He made a self-deprecating little smile. “You met with him this afternoon, I know.”

“The whole Council met with him.”

“And?”

“He could be troublesome.”

“Oh? In what way?”

Halleck outlined the results of the morning's meeting.

“Instantaneous communications?” Castiglione whistled. “That could be worth several fortunes.”

“It could help to weld all the human settlements throughout the solar system into one united community.”

“With you at its head.”

Halleck shot him a mock frown. “With the World Council directing it.”

“Of course,” said Castiglione.

“But it won't be easy getting the details of their technology, Rudy. Kell is obsessed with this so-called death wave. He wants us to build starships and go out to save other worlds.”

“Sounds expensive.”

“Extravagant.”

“The man's an idealist.”

“Exactly.”

With a sardonic grin, Castiglione said, “I understand you've been working hard to keep him away from the news flaks.”

Halleck nodded minimally. “Oh, he's been cooperative enough, so far. He doesn't want that alien wife of his to be the object of their attention.”

“Smart fellow. They'd hound her to death.” Castiglione arched a brow. “She's a pretty little thing. I wonder if she's really as human as he claims she is. Might be fun to find out.”

“Curb your enthusiasm, Rudy,” Halleck mock-growled.

“So why'd you call me?”

“I'm trying to plan ahead. Kell is all worked up over this idea of a death wave sweeping toward us.”

“Not for another two thousand years, from what I understand.” With a knowing smirk, he added, “Why, you might be retired by then.”

Halleck was not amused. “Be serious, Rudy. Kell wants us to send missions to other worlds, planets that are much closer to the death wave. He wants to save the alien civilizations he claims are in danger.”

“Very noble of him.”

“Very expensive—a half-dozen starships. Or more.”

“We can't afford it, is that it?”

“It would throw our budget seriously out of kilter.”

With a disapproving shake of his head, Castiglione muttered, “We can't have that.”

Leaning forward in her desk chair, Halleck said, “I know Kell. If we refuse to mount these star missions he'll go to the news media. He'll turn his pretty little alien wife into an interplanetary celebrity and try to work up the public to force us to build the ships and send them out to the stars.”

“A holy crusade, eh?”

“An extravagance we can't afford.”

“So you don't want him arguing with you in public, is that it? Are you afraid he might end up replacing you as head of the Council?”

Castiglione smiled charmingly as he said it, but Halleck flinched almost as though he'd slapped her in the face.

Recovering almost instantly, she said, “That's why I need your help, Rudy. I can't have this madman running wild and upsetting all our plans for the next hundred years. He'll ruin everything!”

“So he's got to be muzzled.”

“One way or another.”

Castiglione steepled his long fingers and brought them to his lips, almost as if he were praying. “I see,” he murmured.

“Can you do it?”

“What's in it for me?”

“The gratitude of the World Council and its chairwoman.”

He looked unimpressed. “Couldn't you make it something more, er … tangible?”

Halleck said nothing for a long moment. Then, with a completely straight face, she replied, “I understand you're having some unpleasantness over unpaid taxes.”

He shrugged. “A tax prosecutor who hasn't stayed bribed.”

“With what you owe and the penalties attached, it comes to a considerable sum.”

“More than I can pay.”

“I could make the tax department settle for ten percent of what you owe.”

“You could make them drop the prosecution altogether.”

She sighed dramatically. “I suppose I could.”

“And I suppose I could make Jordan Kell disappear. Him, and his pretty little wife.”

Halleck nodded agreement.

 

DECISION

Jordan hardly glanced at the squat, four-armed robot valet as it carefully packed his clothes into his one travel bag. Another robot, equally efficient and silent except for a barely audible buzzing, was packing for Aditi.

It was midmorning, the day after the World Council's meeting. After finishing their packing, Jordan intended to have a quick lunch and then leave Barcelona, heading for his home in Cornwall.

The world has changed so much, he thought: almost-human robots, whole continents reshaped by the greenhouse floods, the World Council acting as a benevolent authority that muzzles the news media and tries to keep the public from being alarmed about the death wave. But Cornwall will be the same as ever; the rocky beaches and the eternal sea won't have changed. At least, the sea level rise apparently hasn't swamped the cliffs altogether.

And from Cornwall I can reach the news media. I can make my case to the public about the death wave and the worlds that need to be saved from it.

Looking around the bedroom, he realized that Aditi was nowhere in sight. Where is she? He stepped into their sitting room and saw her standing by the soundproofed windows, staring across the plaza at the ornately carved façade of the cathedral. The high sun cast vivid shadows across the figures of saints and angels, frozen in stone.

He stepped up behind her and clasped her shoulders gently.

“It's magnificent, isn't it?” Aditi murmured.

Staring at the intricately carved stonework, Jordan replied, “Nearly a thousand years old.”

“We have nothing like that on New Earth.”

“The cathedral was built when religion offered the only explanation for life's mysteries.”

“They built it by hand, without power tools or computers or robots.”

“Human sweat.”

“But someone planned it. Someone had a vision of what it should look like when it was finished.”

“I suppose so,” Jordan said, “although it took several generations to finish it. You know, across the city, the new Cathedral of the Holy Family was only finished a hundred-some years ago. It took more than two centuries to complete it—even with computers and power tools.”

“Religion is a powerful force among your people.”

Jordan nodded as he turned Aditi to face him.

“I'm afraid I have to change the subject, dearest.”

“Oh?”

Walking her to the colorful sofa, Jordan said, “Halleck and the World Council are not going to build the starships we need.”

She sat primly beside him, but there was steel in her voice as she said, “Then we must withhold the energy screen that can shield this world from the death wave.”

Jordan shook his head slowly. “I'm afraid that tactic won't work.”

“Why not?”

Raising a finger, Jordan explained, “First, they know that they have two thousand years before the gamma wave arrives here. For them, that's an infinity. They're in no hurry to face the problem.”

“But they've got to, sooner or later.”

“They'll choose later. Second, they don't really need our help. Thanks to Mitch, the people of Earth know how to build energy screens.”

“But a system that can protect the whole planet—and the other human habitations in your solar system—that's a different order of magnitude from the baby screens Mitch has been dealing with.”

“Same physics,” Jordan countered. “The real secret of the energy screens is that it's possible to make them. When the time comes, human scientists and engineers will figure out how to shield our worlds.”

Before Aditi could reply, Jordan went on, “Besides, they'll know that we couldn't withhold the information if they needed it. We couldn't consign the human race to extinction. I know I couldn't. Could you? Could Adri?”

She hesitated a heartbeat, then slowly answered, “No, of course not.”

“Any threat we make to withhold the information they'd need to save themselves would be hollow, and Halleck and her ilk would understand that.”

“Then what can we do?”

“That depends more on you, dear, than it does on me.”

“What do you mean?”

Jordan took a deep breath, then plunged in. “I've been cooperating with Halleck to avoid publicity. I haven't wanted the news media to turn you into a center of their attention, an object of curiosity. And that's what they'll do, if I try to make a public issue of the death wave.”

“An object of curiosity?”

Grimly, Jordan explained, “They'll want to know everything about you. You won't have a moment to yourself. Once you allow yourself to become the focus of their attention, your life won't be your own. They'll be at you every minute of the night and day.”

“But the Council's security guards…”

Shaking his head, Jordan warned, “You have no idea how frenzied the news media can become. Public figures have been literally hounded to death by paparazzi and their ilk. Once you open yourself to their attention, the security people won't be able to protect you. I doubt that they'll even try.”

Aditi thought that over for a moment. Then, “That seems a small price to pay for saving the planet.”

“Easy enough to say now, dearest, but once those wolves begin hounding you, you won't have any privacy at all. Not a moment's worth.”

Aditi shrugged her slim shoulders. “I'm willing to face that, if it's necessary.”

Jordan looked into her warm brown eyes and saw that she was completely serious.

“I don't think you understand what you'll be letting yourself in for.”

She gazed back at him, unwavering. “If that is what it takes to save your people…”

He hesitated. Jordan knew that she was right. Yet he knew that he was also right: her life would be torn apart once they opened themselves to the news media. My life, too, he realized.

“Perhaps you should ask Adri about this,” he suggested.

Nodding, Aditi said, “I will.”

He got to his feet, thinking, We could stay in Cornwall and live quietly. Sooner or later Halleck and her successors will realize that they'll have to protect the human race from the death wave.

But what about those other worlds, those other races who'll be wiped out if we don't help them? Can we stay quietly in Cornwall and allow whole intelligent races to be extinguished?

He knew they couldn't.

 

ACTION

The door buzzer sounded. Jordan turned and looked at the video screen that showed who was outside their door. A pair of security guards, from the stern, youthful looks of them: one man and one woman. The man was fiddling with his wrist communicator.

Jordan looked down at his own wrist. It's too early to start for the airport, he saw. What do they want?

He opened the door.

“We're not finished packing yet. Give us a few minutes more—”

The two security agents pushed past him, into the sitting room. “We've had a warning of an attack on you,” the woman said, her voice flat and tense.

“An attack?” Aditi echoed.

“Get away from that window, ma'am,” said the male agent, pulling a slim pistol from beneath his jacket.

The woman also had a gun in her hand, Jordan saw.

“Who's going to attack us?” he demanded. “Why?”

As if in answer, the window blasted inward, blowing shards of plasticized glass across the room. Aditi was knocked to the carpet, covered with bits of glass. Jordan dived toward her.

A pair of black-clad men swung through the open window on cables suspended from above, shouting, “Kill the aliens! Kill the invaders!”

The female security guard dropped to one knee and shot the nearer of the two attackers, who toppled over backward and slumped to the floor beside Aditi. As Jordan covered Aditi with his body, the guard's partner shot the other one.

Aditi's eyes were wide with shock, but as far as Jordan could see, she was unharmed. Strangely, although she was covered with slivers of glass, Jordan could not see any cuts on her bare arms or legs.

The male security guard pulled Jordan to his feet, then they both bent down to help Aditi stand up.

“Are you all right?” he asked her.

“Yes, I think so,” Aditi gasped. Looking down at the attackers, she breathed shakily, “They … they wanted to kill us.”

Jordan felt glacially calm inside. He realized this was frequently his reaction to physical danger: cool, deliberate self-control. The anger, the rage, came later.