The Aftermath (24 page)

Once he had convinced himself that he had lost
Vogeltod,
he called up the navigation program and restudied his options.

I've got to stay farther away from the Ceres sector, he realized. Parasites like Valker must be combing the region, looking for derelicts to scavenge. But that means I'll have to cover a wider arc to have any hope of intercepting Pauline and the kids.

He decided to cruise silently for at least three days before turning on the search radar. Then he decided to make it a week. He didn't want to take any chances of giving Valker or anyone else a signal they could home in on.

*   *   *

Vogeltod
's bridge was a strange assortment of equipment, most of it taken from vessels that Valker and his crew had seized and retrofitted into the old bucket. Valker himself sat in a command chair that had once belonged to Admiral Gormley, the victim of a bloody ambush during the war.

Valker was a big man, almost two meters tall, broad in the shoulders, deep in the chest. He was almost always smiling, a bright devil-may-care smile that showed lots of teeth. Where another man might show tension, even fear, in a dangerous situation, Valker smiled and fought his way through. During the war he'd been a mercenary, first with Astro Corporation, then with Humphries Space Systems.

When the shooting stopped, most mercenaries were at a loss. For years there had been plenty of work for them, and good pay. Not that they fought all the time. Much of their work involved building bases or scouting through the cold emptiness of the Belt, looking for prey. They seldom engaged in battle against other mercenaries. No percentage in that. Instead, they swooped down on hapless cargo ships and smelters, like hawks going after pigeons.

The official end of the war finished that. For the most part. Some mercenaries became outlaws, pirates, still attacking peaceful vessels. But they soon learned that no one would buy the cargoes they captured. Big George Ambrose and the other rock rats busily building their new habitat at Ceres had no time or money to hire a police force to go after the pirates. They simply saw to it that no one in the Belt bought stolen cargoes. The pirates soon realized there was little profit in their piracies. And there was always the risk that Big George's people would execute you without delay.

Valker was smarter than that. When the Second Asteroid War broke out he had just graduated from the University of Pisa with a double degree in economics and marketing. He had been a star on the international soccer team he himself had helped to organize. His plan was to spend three years—perhaps as much as five—in the Belt, working as a prospector, locating asteroids rich in metals and minerals, claiming them as an independent corporation and then selling them to the highest bidder.

The Asteroid War made such ventures far too hazardous. Valker saw that either he joined one of the major corporations or he went back to Earth empty-handed. Or got himself killed. So he became a mercenary—until the war abruptly ended.

While most of the mercenaries found themselves out of work, and flooded back to the Earth/Moon region to look for jobs, Valker realized that there was an economic niche available in the Belt: salvage. There were plenty of vessels abandoned by their crews, drifting through the Belt, there for the taking. He could claim the vessels as salvage, then sell them back to the rock rats for a handsome profit.

He was a born salesman. With his rugged good looks and winning smile, he talked a banker into leasing him a small ship,
Vogeltod.
It wasn't difficult to round up a crew: he picked nine men, all former mercenaries, all quite prepared to stretch the laws of salvage once they were out in the Belt and away from the prying eyes of Big George and the IAA.

They searched for abandoned vessels. Some were battered hulks, little more than junk. Most had equipment in them that could be scavenged. But the real money was in ships that were intact. Valker and his crewmates pounced on lonely vessels deep in the Belt, killed the crews and brought the ships back to Ceres for sale. There were always questions, raised eyebrows, lurking suspicions. Valker smiled his way through and sold the “abandoned” vessels to the highest bidder. There were always newcomers from Earth or the Moon with money in their accounts to invest in a new career in prospecting and mining.

Now Valker sat in Admiral Gormley's old command chair and studied the data splashed on
Vogeltod
's main screen.
Pleiades
was listed back at Ceres as stolen. Its captain and owner, Cheena Madagascar, had even posted a hefty reward for the ship's return. Big George Ambrose had declared the thief, somebody named Victor Zacharias, to be an outlaw and placed a modest price on his head.

“Gesuto,”
Valker said aloud, “we could take this ship and bring it back to Ceres and we'll be heroes, no less.”

The other men on the bridge grinned at him.

“The rewards don't add up to all that much,” he continued, “but the good will could be helpful.”

“He's no fool, though,” said the man at the nav console. “He sprinted away and now he's shut down his main engine.”

“Trying to be invisible,” Valker muttered.

“And doing a good job of it. Radar ain't picking up anything.”

Valker nodded absently. “You're right: he's no fool.” He pecked out a command to the ship's computer on the keyboard set into the armrest of his chair. Let's see what Ceres has on file about this thief. Know your customer, he said to himself. That's the first rule of marketing.

ATTACK SHIP
VIKING
: BRIDGE

Everything stopped as Koop brought the cyborg and the old woman onto the bridge. The two crewmen who were still working at repairs of the equipment Dorn had smashed glanced at him warily, as did the officers at their consoles, two of them with spraytape covering their broken noses. Elverda's face was drawn tight with tension. It was impossible to read any expression on the cyborg's half-metal face.

Tamara, at the comm console, half turned in her chair as Koop led them in. Yuan glared at her, a warning to keep her mouth shut. I'm the captain, he said silently to her, I'm in charge.

“Harbin,” he began, “I want—”

“My name is no longer Dorik Harbin. Please call me Dorn.”

Yuan grimaced. “All right. Dorn. I want you to give my navigation officer the coordinates for the asteroid where the artifact is located.”

Elverda saw that all of them were staring openly at Dorn now: the three bridge officers, the captain, the pair of technicians, even the strapping Hawaiian. For a long moment Dorn said nothing; the bridge was absolutely silent except for the hum of electrical power and the whisper of air from the ventilation ducts.

“It will be very dangerous to go there,” Dorn said at last.

Yuan waved a hand impatiently. “That's for me to worry about, not you. Give my nav officer the coordinates.”

“He may have moved the asteroid to a different orbit, or even destroyed it completely.”

“Just give the coordinates to my nav officer,” Yuan insisted.

Again Dorn hesitated. Then, “I want your promise that Ms. Apacheta will not be harmed.”

“The coordinates, dammit!” Yuan shouted. “Now!”

“I don't care what happens to me, but I want her to be safe.”

Tamara said, “Do you want us to start pulling her fingernails out?”

Clenching his metal fist, Dorn said, “The rest of this bridge will be destroyed if you try that. Some of you will die.” His voice was flat, unemotional, but the others on the bridge shot uneasy glances at one another.

Before anyone could reply, Yuan broke into a forced chuckle. “All right. All right. I won't touch a hair of her head. Does that satisfy you?”

“No,” Dorn said calmly. “I want your guarantee that no harm will come to her, neither by you nor any other member of this ship's crew.”

Elverda complained, “Stop talking about me as if I'm not here.”

Ignoring her, Dorn said to the captain, “You are under orders to kill us both. You can kill me, but let her go free.”

“And what happens when Mr. Humphries finds out I've let her go?”

Dorn smiled with the human side of his face. “Once I give you the coordinates you will go to the asteroid and try to gain control of Humphries through the alien artifact.”

Yuan glanced at Tamara, who nodded minutely.

“If you succeed in getting the upper hand with Humphries, then allowing Ms. Apacheta to go free will be of no consequence. If you fail we will all be killed.”

“Including you,” said Yuan.

“I will die one way or the other. That doesn't matter. The life of this woman does matter. Very much. To me.”

Moving beside him, Elverda said softly, “Dorn, I can't let you throw your life away—”

“If you finish the work we've started, if you find the other bodies and give them decent death rites, then my life doesn't matter. It never did, except to cause agony and death. You can complete my atonement.”

“Atonement?” Tamara blurted. “Is that what you're after?”

“Atonement,” Dorn repeated.

Yuan said, “All right. Ms. Apacheta won't be harmed in any way. Now give the coordinates to my nav officer.”

Without another word, Dorn turned and stepped to the navigation officer's console, then leaned over his shoulder and began pecking on his keyboard with both his hands.

Turning to Tamara, Yuan commanded, “Notify
Viking Two
and
Three
to proceed to Ceres immediately.”

She arched an eyebrow. “You don't want them to go with us?”

“No,” he said. “Do you?”

She thought it over for all of two seconds. “No, you're right. We do this by ourselves.”

Elverda, still standing next to the captain's chair, asked, “What about our ship, the
Hunter?
”

“We don't need it now. Let it drift.”

*   *   *

Valker whistled softly as he read Victor Zacharias's dossier from the computer screen built into the bulkhead at the foot of his bunk.

He was sitting up with the pillows bunched behind his back. His quarters were small but as sumptuous as he could make them, crammed with furniture and fixtures scavenged from salvaged vessels: a massive desk of actual teak filled one corner of the compartment, elephants and monkeys carved into its flanks and front; colorful draperies hung from the overhead; the entire lavatory had been ripped out of a luxurious corporate torch ship and shoehorned into place, gold faucets and all; the rich dark faux leather recliner that had been rammed into the other corner of the compartment had been taken from a prospector's ship, the one luxury its late owner had possessed.

Valker took all that for granted, including the fact that he had to maneuver carefully around his pilfered treasures to get across the jam-packed compartment. His attention was fully focused on Zacharias's dossier. The man had a family—wife and two teenagers—but they'd been lost after being attacked by the same monster who'd wiped out the original
Chrysalis
habitat.

So what's he doing in a stolen ship this deep in the Belt? Valker asked himself. Searching for his family? Valker shook his head. Can't be. It's three years and more since his family disappeared. They're dead by now. Have to be. Only a fool or a madman would still be searching for them. Only an idiot would steal a ship, make himself an outlaw with the rock rats, to go searching through this wilderness for his wife and kids.

“Only a fool or a madman,” Valker repeated aloud, softly.

Why track after a madman? Even if you find him you'll have to kill him; he won't give up that ship without a fight. And even if we do take the ship, once we bring it back to Ceres its rightful owner will claim it. We'll get the reward, but that's peanuts compared to the price the ship would bring.

Why bother? Let him go searching for his family. Let him die out there. Sooner or later we'll run across his ship and take it.

The message light beneath the display screen began to blink.

“Answer,” Valker called out.

His first mate's bearded face filled the screen. “Contact, captain. Looks like a derelict. Seems intact, but there's no beacon, no answer to our calls.”

“Identification?”

“Computer says its radar profile matches one of the ships in its files:
Hunter.
Some woman's listed as the owner, Elverda Apacheta. Sounds like some Latina to me.”

Valker nodded and swung his legs off the bunk, careful not to bang his shins against the big recliner.

“I'm coming to the bridge,” he said.

A derelict, Valker thought as he tugged on his softboots. If she's really intact she'll bring top dollar back at Ceres.

He hurried to the bridge.

ATTACK SHIP
VIKING
: ONE MONTH LATER

“By god, there it is,” said Kao Yuan in a hushed, almost awed voice.

From the navigation console, Koop wondered aloud, “Are you sure?”

Yuan pointed to the main screen. “How many rocks out here have five—no, six ships patrolling around them?”

“
APPROACHING VESSEL, IDENTIFY YOURSELF
.” The voice coming through the comm speaker sounded like a computerized synthesizer.

It had taken a month for Yuan to track down asteroid 67-046. It hadn't been at the coordinates Dorn had given. Sure enough, Humphries had moved the rock to a different orbit that swooped far below and then high above the ecliptic, out of the plane of the usual traffic through the Belt. For an entire month
Viking
followed trajectories that the navigation computer worked out, guesses based on the asteroid's original orbit and the amount of energy it would take to move a rock of its mass.

During those frustrating weeks of searching the dark emptiness, Yuan asked Tamara again and again, “But what do we do when we find the 'roid? It's bound to be protected. Humphries won't let it just sit there without guarding it.”