The Aftermath (23 page)

The radios built into the ship's space suits were low powered, barely strong enough for crew members to chatter back and forth. Their signals faded away into the background hiss of the stars at only a few kilometers' distance.

But on Earth there are powerful radio telescopes, antennas that can pick out the microwatt signals from robot spacecraft way out in the Kuiper Belt and beyond. Antennas that had been listening for signals from extraterrestrial civilizations, until the religious fanatics that controlled most of Earth's governments had shut down almost all of them.

But the antennas are still there, Victor thought, listening to the signals from the outposts orbiting around Venus and Jupiter and Saturn. Communicating with the power satellite project at Mercury. And some of those scientists were sneaking time to listen for ET signals, too, Victor was certain.

If Theo was smart enough to use the suit radios to call for help, or just to identify
Syracuse
's position … If, Victor thought. If.

The timer on his wrist comm pinged, making him flinch with surprise. I've been out here two hours!

He lifted the diagnostic tool from its magnetic grip on the ship's hull and ran it over the squat little robot he'd been repairing. Its lights blinked green. Nodding, satisfied, Victor activated the robot itself. It trundled off along its track, spindly arms unfolding, ready to repair any damage to the meteor bumper from impacts. Just as if it had never malfunctioned, Victor said to himself. No memory at all. Almost, he envied the simple little machine.

He clambered through the airlock hatch, unsealed the space suit and hung it up neatly in its rack, then went to the galley for a sandwich and a beer. Cheena set a good table, he thought. The galley's well stocked.

Ducking into the bridge, Victor was startled to see that the ship's sensor log showed that
Pleiades
had been pinged by a powerful radar pulse seventeen minutes earlier. And the yellow message light was blinking on the communications console.

“That can only be bad news,” he growled. He'd been running silent: no tracking beacon, no telemetry to identify himself. He hadn't yet turned on the search radar he'd worked so hard to upgrade. He didn't think Cheena Madagascar would be chasing him, but he was taking no chances.

“No harm in listening to it,” he mumbled. He sat down in the command chair, the mug of beer still in his left hand, and touched the
REPLAY
key.

A handsome cheerful face smiled brightly from the display screen.

“Hailing unidentified vessel,” he said, in a crisply confident tone. “This is the salvage ship
Vogeltod.
If you are in need of help, we will assist you. If we receive no reply, we will assume you are a derelict. In that case we will board you and claim you as salvage.”

The image on the screen froze. Victor scowled at the man's face. He had a thick mop of sandy blond hair, a strong jaw, big teeth. Broad shoulders beneath a nondescript tan shirt. His smile had a hint of the predator about it. Victor thought of a shark.

Salvage? Victor asked himself. Are there enough abandoned or wrecked ships out here to make a salvage operation profitable? There must be, he decided.

If I don't answer him, he'll board me. I'm just one man; he's probably got a crew of least four or five people. Maybe more.

But if I do answer him he'll figure out pretty quickly that I've stolen this ship. Then he can board me, take over and bring me back to Ceres. Back to Cheena. And Big George.

Victor glowered at the frozen image in his comm screen. Damned if I do and damned if I don't.

*   *   *

Kao Yuan leveled a finger at Tamara. “Do you realize what you're proposing to do?”

“Yes,” she said, delighted, enthusiastic. “We're going to find that alien artifact.”

“If Humphries hasn't destroyed it,” Dorn said.

“Destroyed it? He wouldn't do that! He couldn't! Why would he destroy it?”

“Because he hates it,” said Elverda, from across the galley table.

“Worse,” Dorn amended. “He fears it.”

Undeterred, Tamara said, “He hasn't destroyed it, I'm certain of that.”

Yuan shook his head, more in wonder than contradiction.

Leaning slightly toward Dorn, Tamara said, “You know the asteroid's coordinates, Harbin. You're going to lead us to it.”

“And if I refuse?”

She gestured toward Elverda. “We'll kill your friend.”

“Now wait!” Kuan said, brows knitting. “I'm the captain here, not you.”

Tamara smiled at him, coldly. “I report directly to Mr. Humphries. I outrank you, Kao.”

“Not on this ship.”

“Why do you want to see the artifact?” Elverda asked.

Her smile thinned. “Martin Humphries is the most powerful man in the solar system, right? Well, this artifact, whatever it is, can give me a lever on him. If I can control the artifact I can control Humphries! It's that simple.”

“It may be a lot of things,” Yuan said, “but it's not simple. All you're going to accomplish is getting yourself killed. And me along with you.”

“Don't be a chick, Yuan. We're talking about real power here!”

“You're crazy.”

Her smiled winked out. “Listen,
captain,
” she mocked, “I'd prefer to do this with you, but I can do it without if I have to. Koop can replace you easily enough.”

“You're talking mutiny,” Yuan growled.

“Yes, I am,” said Tamara.

ATTACK SHIP
VIKING
: INFIRMARY

Yuan escorted Elverda and Dorn back to the infirmary, looking decidedly unhappy.

“You'll be comfortable enough here,” he said, motioning them through the open hatch. “This ship isn't built to accommodate passengers.”

Elverda thanked him and stepped through; Dorn followed her. Yuan closed the hatch and left them alone.

“She's mad. Insane,” Elverda said as she went to her bed and sat on it. Three sides of the bed were partitioned off.

“Is she?” Dorn wondered, standing next to her. “She seems to understand how powerful the artifact can be.”

“But how can she hope to control Humphries through it? If he hasn't already destroyed it he must have it heavily guarded, sealed off from the rest of the world.”

“Perhaps. But she's a gambler, and she's willing to play for the very highest stakes.”

“Our lives.”

“And her own. If she's wrong about controlling Humphries, he'll snuff her out like a candle flame.”

Elverda felt tired, bone weary. Yet … “Perhaps there's some way we can use the artifact to bargain for our lives.”

“Your life,” he said. “I'm ready to die.”

“No!”

He looked away from her. In a voice so low she could barely hear it, he said, “Today I realized how brittle this façade is. I could have killed her—all of them.”

“That was the drugs.”

“In my body,” he retorted. “My brain. My mind. I could have killed them all. I
wanted
to.”

“But you didn't.”

He shook his head slowly. “I don't want to go through that again. I want to be released from all this … this … living.”

Elverda searched for something she could say to help him, to ease his pain, to bring him back from his despair. But she found nothing.

*   *   *

With the enormous reluctance of a man who knew he would regret his decision, Victor keyed his comm console.

“This is the cargo ship
Pleiades,
” he said, trying to keep his voice firm, unruffled. “We are not in trouble. I repeat, not in trouble. We do not require assistance. Thank you.”

Hardly a moment later the smiling young man's face appeared on Victor's comm screen.

“You're not emitting a tracking beacon,
Pleiades,
” he said. “We thought you were abandoned.”

Victor could see a glint of sunlight off a ship's hull on his main display screen.
Vogeltod
was still too far away for the cameras to show its shape.

“No, we're not abandoned.”

“But you're running silent, eh?”

“For the moment, yes.”

The man's toothy grin widened. “My name is Valker. What's yours?”

Thinking swiftly, Victor said, “Kaneaz.”

“Kaneaz?” Valker echoed. “What's that, German?”

“Greek.”

“Ah! That's why I didn't understand it. It's Greek to me!” Valker burst into a hearty laugh.

Making himself smile back at the man, Victor said, “Well, thanks for your offer of assistance. I'll be powering up soon and heading deeper into the Belt.”

Valker's handsome face turned crafty. “Wait a minute. According to the IAA register on my screen,
Pleiades
is captained by Cheena Madagascar. Can I talk to her?”

“The captain gave orders she's not to be disturbed.”

“Did she?”

“Yes.”

“Well, you'd better wake her up, Greekie. We're coming aboard.”

Victor's main screen showed a flash of rocket exhaust against the starry background. He hesitated a bare fraction of a second, then punched his main propulsion controls.
Pleiades
lurched into acceleration.

Sinking back in the padded command chair, Victor said to himself, Now it's a question of who's faster. And better armed.

*   *   *

Kao Yuan went from the infirmary straight to the bridge. Koop was in the command chair, Tamara leaning over him in whispered conversation.

“Koop,” Yuan called. “Come with me.”

The big Hawaiian looked like a guilty little boy as he pulled himself to his feet.

“You too, Tamara,” he said.

It was crowded in the captain's quarters with the three of them there, but Yuan slid his door shut and leaned against it for a moment, eying them. Tamara went directly to the double-sized bunk and sat on its edge. Koop looked at the flimsy desk chair, decided against it, and remained standing.

“Take the recliner,” Yuan said, pointing to the cushioned chair.

“It's okay, captain,” Koop said. “I'll stay on my feet.”

“We've got a command crisis here,” Yuan said, without moving from the door. “Tamara thinks she can give the orders aboard my ship.”

“I report directly—”

“To Humphries, I know,” said Yuan. “But I'm the captain of this ship. Like Ahab said, there's one god in heaven and one captain of the
Pequod.
”

Koop's chunky face screwed up in bewilderment.
“Pequod?”

“You hold the balance of power here,” Yuan said to his first mate. “Whose orders are you going to follow, hers or mine?”

“Yours,” the Hawaiian answered without hesitation.

“You're certain?”

“Sure, captain. You're the captain and that's it.”

“Even if she goes to bed with you?”

Koop's face flamed red. Tamara actually smiled.

“We've already been in bed together,” she said, her smile turning into a self-satisfied smirk. “It was very enjoyable.”

“I see,” Yuan said tightly.

“That's got nothin' to do with who's captain,” Koop said.

Yuan looked into his steady brown eyes. “This is important, Koop. I can't have her going over my head.”

“You've made your point,
captain,
” Tamara said. “I'll follow your orders without question.”

“No calling back to headquarters behind my back,” Yuan said.

Smiling again, she replied, “I won't go over your head, or behind your back, or under your toes.”

“All right, then.”

“But we are going to find the artifact, aren't we?” she added.

Yuan hesitated. He knew that she wouldn't want to tell headquarters that she knew anything about the artifact. Humphries wants the renegade and the sculptress killed because they know about it. He'll kill all of us if he knows that we know.

Impatient with his silence, Tamara went on, “We have Harbin and the artist. Our mission is completed once we eliminate them. But if we can get the artifact—”

“We could get ourselves killed,” Yuan snapped.

“Or be in control of the most powerful force in the solar system,” she purred.

CARGO SHIP
PLEIADES
: BRIDGE

Victor kept the fusion drive accelerating at one full g and watched
Vogeltod
dwindling in his wake. Nodding to himself, he thought, Scavengers like Valker aren't looking for a long and difficult chase. They want easy pickings, and there must be lots of them scattered around the Belt: ships that were blasted in battle during the war, ships that are abandoned, or their crews killed.

It wasn't until
Vogeltod
had disappeared altogether from his screen that the frightening thought hit him. What if a scavenger finds
Syracuse
before I do?

What if that bastard Valker follows me and finds
Syracuse
because I lead him to her?

No. He shook his head to clear the idea from his mind. It'll take months, maybe years before I find Pauline and the kids. Valker won't have that kind of patience. He's looking for prey, he wants to feed himself and his crew, he can't wait that long. His own crew would slit his throat first.

Still, Victor shut down the main engine and used the cold-gas maneuvering jets to shift
Pleiades
away from the outbound vector it had been following. He kicked
Pleiades
into a trajectory that climbed well above his original course. Most ships travel close to the ecliptic: that's where the asteroids are. He might not think of looking up. Go silent again, don't leave a trail for him to follow, he told himself. Don't take any chances.