Privateers (39 page)

But every advantage comes only at a price. The spacecraft lurched and seemed to sway suddenly. Ostrovsky broke into a cold sweat and heard more gagging and moaning from the troops behind him. The pilots were jockeying the ship toward the station’s emergency dock, he knew, a difficult maneuver, especially when no assistance from the space station’s controllers had been asked for or given.

They don’t realize that we’re going to board their station and take control of it, Ostrovsky told himself, hoping desperately that it was true. After this forty-minute bout with the nausea of weightlessness, neither he nor his troops were in any condition for a fight.

With a surge that sent waves of queasiness through him, Ostrovsky felt weight returning. His stomach settled down to where it ought to be. His feet stuck to the floor and stopped trying to float away. He could turn his head without fearing that the world would turn itself upside down.

“Docking maneuver complete,” he heard the captain-pilot’s voice announce over the intercom. “Hatch locked and sealed.”

Gratefully, Ostrovsky unbuckled his seat harness and got to his feet. As he straightened his tan uniform, the squad sergeants bawled orders to the men and the two young, shaven-headed lieutenants-as alike as clones-made their way forward toward their commanding officer. Ostrovsky noted with perverse pleasure that they both looked as gray-faced and shaken as he felt.

The soldiers, under the glaring eyes of their sergeants, scrambled up the ladder at the back end of the passenger module and through the overhead hatch that was now sealed tightly to one of the emergency hatches of the space station. They were under strict orders and knew their objectives. For two weeks they had rehearsed this operation. Ostrovsky had reported to Chairman Malik that his troops could seize Nueva Venezuela blindfolded. Malik had merely nodded and told him that they should keep their eyes open. Now he would show the chairman how well his troops could perform.

Ostrovsky stayed aboard the spacecraft. Instead of following his men into the Venezuelan space station, he went forward, ducking through the small hatch that led into the flight compartment. While the captain-pilot and the electronics technicians stayed in their bucket seats, the copilot squeezed past Ostrovsky and stood in the hatchway, allowing the major to use the right-hand seat as a command post.

There was only one communications screen on the control panel in front of Ostrovsky, but the electronics tech was clever enough to split it into four segments, allowing the major to stay in touch simultaneously with the four elements of his command: the troops from his own ship, the troops from the second ship, the team riding out toward the asteroid and Chairman Malik himself, waiting impatiently at Plesetsk.

It took precisely twelve minutes for the troops to seize complete control of the space station. Squads of soldiers made their way to the communications and the life support centers, both located in the outermost wheel of the station. The other two squads, working “downward” from the station’s hub, took over the landing docks and the electrical power center. Not a shot was fired. The capitalists were caught completely by surprise. Ostrovsky took in the reports from his junior officers and relayed them immediately to Malik.

“The only surprise,” the major concluded, “was that an unscheduled shuttle from Caracas arrived at the main landing dock some fifteen minutes before our own spacecraft rendezvoused there.”

Malik’s face, tiny in the upper right quarter of the small display screen, scowled suspiciously. “An unscheduled shuttle from Caracas?”

“It posed no problem, sir,” the major continued. “Our craft merely docked at the alternate collar and disembarked our troops as planned. The shuttle is still docked there; since our operational plan called for a complete sealing off of the station, I have not permitted it to leave.”

Malik nodded curtly. “Who sent this shuttle? Who was aboard it?”

“Apparently the ship belongs to Astro Manufacturing Corporation. I do not have a list of the passengers yet, but I presume they were Astro employees.”

“I want the names of the passengers. I will be coming up to Nueva Venezuela within the hour. Have the list ready for me when I arrive.”

“Yes, sir. Of course, sir.”

“And Dan Randolph? Where is he?”

“He is safely locked in a holding cell. He was asleep when my men arrested him.”

“Asleep?” A smile crept across Malik’s face. “How poetic.”

“Sir?” Ostrovsky asked. “May I ask about the other mission? The one dealing with the pirates?”

Ostrovsky had wanted to command that mission, of course. There was always more prestige to combat. But it would have meant long hours of zero gravity and he was thankful when Malik chose another officer for the job.

“Completely successful,” Malik replied, his smile broadening. “The pirates have been eliminated, every last one of them.”

The captain-pilot nodded, satisfied, and gave his copilot the thumbs-up sign. There would be promotions in the offing, they both knew.

“A very successful operation, sir,” Ostrovsky congratulated his superior. “Your plan has worked to perfection.”

“It will not be perfection,” Malik replied, “until the capitalist Randolph is swinging from the end of a rope.”

Ostrovsky permitted himself a small grin. “Well, sir, we have him for you. The rest is up to the prosecutors and the courts.”

“Unless,” Malik mused, “he is shot while trying to escape.”

Dan Randolph sat slumped against the wire mesh wall of his makeshift prison cell. A glance at his wristwatch told him that it had been three hours since the Russians had rousted him from his bunk. He had not seen another human being since the soldiers had locked him into this cage.

Malik will be here, Dan told himself. He’ll come up here himself to make sure that they’ve got me. He’ll want to tend to the final details in person.

Dan nodded, certain of what he was going to do. Just let him get within arm’s reach, that’s all I ask. That smiling sonofabitch won’t live to see me executed. I’ll kill him with my bare hands.

He smiled. And waited.

Vasily Malik was not smiling. He felt anger smoldering in his guts as he scanned the list of passengers from the Astro Corporation shuttle. Forty-eight names, nearly half of them Japanese. All of them Astro employees, except for one: M. Hernandez.

Maria de la Luz Hernandez, he knew. Lucita.

He was seated at one end of the horseshoe-shaped desk that dominated the space station’s flight control center. All the controllers’ chairs were empty, their display screens blank. No traffic was coming or going. Nueva Venezuela was sealed off from the rest of the world. The factory orbiting nearby was also shut down. No one allowed in or out. According to Malik’s plan, as approved by the Council of Ministers, the Soviet space forces would have to occupy and search all the other Third World space facilities in their legally empowered drive to root out the space pirates. Within the week, the space stations of India, Polynesia, Africa and the Pan-Arab coalition would all be under Soviet command. Only Japan and China would remain to rival the Soviet Union, and sooner or later they would be driven out of space also.

But at the moment, the vision of Soviet domination was far from Malik’s mind.

He tapped the display screen in front of him. “Who is this Hernandez person?”

Major Ostrovsky, standing at Malik’s right, risked a small shrug. “I don’t know, sir. There is no listing of his status. Apparently he is not an employee of the capitalists.”

“He?” Malik snapped. “Do you know for certain that Hernandez is a male?”

“No, sir, I don’t. I can find out for you, of course, within a minute or two.”

Glowering, Malik said, “Bring Hernandez here, whoever he or she is.”

Ostrovsky started to turn toward the shavetail lieutenant standing at ramrod attention behind him.

“Better yet,” Malik said, pushing himself up from the undersized plastic desk chair, “I will go to the reception area where those new arrivals are being held.”

“Yessir,” said Ostrovsky. As Malik headed for the hatch that led out to the corridor, the major asked, “What should we do about the American, Randolph, sir?”

Malik gave him a look of malicious pleasure, the kind of look a boy might get when he traps a butterfly and pins it, still fluttering, to a tabletop. “Randolph? Leave him where he is. I have seen the television pictures. You have the right man. Let him stew in his own sweat for a while longer.”

With the major two paces behind him, matching stride for stride, and the lieutenant three paces farther back, Malik made his way along the corridor that ran the length of the station’s outermost wheel toward the reception area. To the eye, the corridor sloped upward continuously, but it felt perfectly flat as they walked along it. Doors on either side of the pastel-colored walls led to offices or living quarters, Malik knew. Occasionally the corridor opened up into a lounge area, a small automated fast-food dispensary or an intimate little bistro. All empty now, quiet, as the visitors and crew of Nueva Venezuela had been ordered to their quarters. Capitalist luxuries, Malik told himself. Once we take over these stations for good, we’ll run them for the benefit of the workers, not for the profit of the moneygrubbers.

Still, a small voice inside his head observed wryly, the moneygrubbers produce a much better style of luxuries. Once the people’s servants get their hands on these facilities, the quality of the food and drink will suffer.

Malik shook his head, as if to drive such thoughts from his mind. There were always places where important men could get the luxuries they desired.

When they reached the double doors that opened into the lounge area, Malik stopped and peered through the glass window set into one of them. He thought he recognized the son of Randolph’s friend, the industrialist Yamagata, among the couple of dozen Japanese sitting around the plush sofas and chairs of the lounge. Good! He will make a useful bargaining chip. The process of bringing Japan to heel can begin immediately, perhaps.

But then he saw Lucita, standing by the long curving window, looking out wistfully at the Earth. It is her. Malik’s heart felt encased in ice. She’s come here to be with him, probably to warn him against me. He could feel the cold fury racing through him, spreading along every nerve and blood vessel like an invasion of demons.

Turning to Major Ostrovsky, he said coldly, “The woman by the window. That is Hernandez. Bring her out here to me.”

Something in Malik’s voice frightened the major. He saluted and motioned the lieutenant to come with him. Malik paced away from the doors, wondering why he should feel such rage. She had betrayed him. She had flown to the American. Had he expected anything else? Had he expected her to be loyal to him, to stand by his side, even to love him? And he realized that even though he had never expected Lucita to behave in such a manner, that was exactly what he had wanted. He wanted her loyalty, her love.

My God, he thought. Do I really love her? Have I let my guard down so much that she can make me furious with jealousy? The answer was obvious.

Ostrovsky’s soft “Sir?” made him turn again.

Lucita stood before him, the major on one side of her, the young lieutenant on the other. She looked so small, so helpless, standing there between them like a prisoner.

“I didn’t expect to find you here,” Malik said. His voice sounded tight, almost choked, even in his own ears.

Lucita said nothing, merely stared at him. He tried to determine what was in her eyes. It was not fear, he could see. Nor supplication. Anger. She was burning with suppressed anger, just as furious with Malik as he was with her.

He reached out and grasped her by the arm. Leading her away from the two officers, he walked slowly back down the long sloping corridor in the direction from which he had come. Lucita came along with him, not willingly, but not resisting him, either.

“You came to warn Randolph, didn’t you?” Malik said.

“I came too late,” replied Lucita.

For an instant he wanted to tell her that she herself had sprung the trap on Randolph, that it was her fault he was now under arrest. But he could not bring himself to say the words.

“How quiet everything is,” Lucita said. “It’s as if the whole station has died.”

“I only have sixty men to control the entire station,” Malik said. “More will be sent, but for the time being we must keep everyone in their quarters.”

“When I was here before, after visiting Kosmograd, this place was so alive, so busy and bustling,” Lucita said. “I remember that it shocked me. I was bringing Teresa’s body home …”

Malik felt his jaws clench.

“… and it shocked me that all these people seemed so busy and happy. Now-it’s dead.”

“Only for a short while.”

She shook her head. “No. Once you put your hand on something, Vasily, it dies. You are an agent of death. I don’t think you mean to be, but you are, just the same.”

“That’s very unfair!” he snapped.

She smiled wanly. “But true.”

It made no sense. This was supposed to be victory, yet he felt no triumph. He heard himself say:

“You came here to see Randolph. I will take you to him. You will be the first to visit him in his imprisonment. And the last.”

Without waiting for her to reply, Malik took Lucita by the wrist and led her off toward the storage area where Dan Randolph was locked in a cage. Major Ostrovsky and his lieutenant hurried to follow them.

Nobuhiko paced the length of the lounge, feeling the utter frustration of an energetic young man who has been forced into idleness. There must be something I can do, he told himself over and again. Something.

Each time he reached the wall at one end of the lounge, he eyed the Russian soldiers standing by the doors. Two of them at each end, armed with stubby machine pistols that fired flesh-ripping flechette darts.