by Holly Lisle
"Hello, Kate," he said. "How goes?"
"Hi, Jack! Hi, Rhea!" Kate said. "About as well as can be expected, I suppose." She popped the automatic locks. "Hop on in and I'll take you over. Oh, by the way, I heard the good news. Congratulations!"
Jack left Rhea the front seat and got in back. Kate pulled out smoothly and headed for the construction yard. "I don't know, Rhea," she said as they left the airstrip. "I'm pushing as hard as I can, but even with Jack's changes, I don't think I can meet your schedule unless I can lay on some more overtime."
Jack saw Rhea tense, an almost imperceptible straightening and tightening of her posture. He wished there were something he could do, but these days it all came down to money. "Do the best you can for now, Kate," Rhea said, "I'm working a few angles, but I can't give you any more dollars yet."
Kate down-shifted and pulled into the yard. "Okay, Rhea," she said, "I just wanted to make sure you knew where we stand. We're 'go' right now, but there's no astrogation or life support."
"Thanks, Kate," Rhea said quietly. "I appreciate everything you've done."
Kate parked the car in front of the Operations hangar. "Will you be able to join me for dinner?" she asked. "I know a place with great baby-back ribs."
"Sorry," Jack said. "We're committed to a promising investor this evening."
"Well, next time, then. And you still owe me a fishing trip, Halloran."
"I haven't forgotten." Jack grinned over at her as they all got out. "But I'll never bet against you again."
"Always a good idea." Kate sighed. "I've got a mountain of government forms to fill out in the ongoing battle to prove we're not a snake pit." She shook her head. "Rhea, I know you'll want to see things firsthand, so why don't you let Jack take you out there. When you're finished, everyone can come back to the office and we'll talk numbers."
Rhea nodded and Kate strode off, her small, quick steps giving the impression of boundless energy barely controlled. "We're lucky to have someone like her willing to work out here in the boonies," Rhea said.
"No argument," Jack agreed. He headed for the nearest access gate, Rhea close behind. "Though she probably thinks of it as closer to the best fishing spots." He keyed in the code, and they stepped through and onto the field.
He heard a small oh! from Rhea, and his breath caught in his chest.
Morningstar Rising could never be called beautiful in the conventional sense. She was no graceful fifties' SF rocket ship, nor yet an aerodynamic deep-space conglomeration of shapes. Instead, she looked like nothing more than a flat-bottomed submarine, but with more windows and no conning tower. Anyone not knowing what she was could justifiably call her ugly, but to Jack, as he watched the light of the late-afternoon sun coruscating off her sides, she was easily the most beautiful machine he'd ever seen.
"Jack, she's wonderful," Rhea breathed, "and she's out of the hangar."
Jack nodded and pointed at the bottom of the hull, which rested on a many-wheeled dolly. "She came out under her own power," he said quietly. "Lateral thrust only, and exactly to spec. I asked Kate not to tell you when I found out you were coming on site today."
"She moves," Rhea said excitedly. "She moves!" To Jack it seemed a shadow passed from her face. Nothing changed, but suddenly she was the old Rhea. She struck a pose, arms spread dramatically above her head and invoked her best Young Frankenstein: "Give my creature LIFE!"
They hugged frantically for a second. Then Jack felt he had to burst the bubble. "She rolls," he said. "That's all we can say for sure. And it's a long way to Alpha C by highway."
"I know that," Rhea said, "but who can stop us now?"
Chapter 65
Glibspet charged out into the lobby, almost running into Mindenhall, who was coming in from a routine divorce surveillance. Something he had gotten considerably less picky about, Glibspet thought.
"Come on, Craig," he said grabbing Mindenhall's arm and spinning him back towards the door.
"Whoa! What's the deal, Dom? I've got some film to develop."
Glibspet hustled him outside, and locked the door behind them. "Never mind that," he said. "We're going driving—we've got to be on the Outer Banks by eight!"
"You're joking." Mindenhall said. When he looked over at Glibspet and realized the devil wasn't joking, he shook his head. "That's really pushing it. There're some little towns and two-lane roads between here and there, and it's an awfully long way." He looked at Glibspet's Lincoln and his Volvo. "Maybe we could take a plane?"
"Don't sweat it," Glibspet said. "A plane wouldn't get us there any faster. I'm driving." Of course, he could be there in an instant if he needed to be, but he'd decided early on that when they got to this point, he wanted to have Craig along.
"It's your license," Craig muttered as they burned rubber out of the parking lot.
They took I-40 east, and I-95 north, never averaging less than eighty-five. Glibspet noted with amusement the point at which Craig stopped flinching, and simply closed his eyes and tightened his seat belt. They left the interstate at Rocky Mount and headed east again, hitting Roanoke Island and Manteo in record time. "You can open your eyes now, Craig," Glibspet told him as they came off the bridge from the mainland.
Mindenhall did so, cautiously, then pried his hand from the armrest. There were deep indentations in it. "Jesus, Dom," he said vehemently, "don't ever do that to me again! It can't be that important."
Glibspet flinched at the oath. It was heartfelt, which gave it some power. Apparently, he still had a lot of work to do on Craig. "Don't bet the store on that," he said mildly.
Glibspet followed Samuels's directions and they soon came to a collection of warehouses on the waterfront of Albemarle Sound.
"Nice view," Mindenhall observed, looking out over the water. "But do you want to fill me in now, Dom?" He touched Glibspet's hand. "We're supposed to be working together," he said and Glibspet knew that he meant on more than the case.
There was a tumbledown shack at the water's edge, set deep in an overgrown lot at the end of an almost completely overgrown driveway. Glibspet eased the Lincoln down the path until the scrub and trees blocked the view from the road. "There's going to be a certain party here at eight, Craig," he told Mindenhall, "and we wouldn't want her to get lonely."
"Who?" Mindenhall asked, looking left towards the almost obscured industrial area. "The Rheabeth person we located?"
"That's the one," Glibspet confirmed. "But she's not Rheabeth Samuels. Rheabeth Samuels was just a convenient birth certificate to start building on." He reached under the seat and pulled out a pair of binoculars. "I tracked her down from your info. We've got undercover police on their way out here for our protection, and you wouldn't believe what all else. She wasn't involved in high-tech anything. That was all a front for a massive gun-running and dope operation. We're here to meet with her. We're going to be heroes, my love."
Mindenhall said, "I thought this was the sort of thing police did all by themselves, without help from people like us."
"I have friends on the force," Glibspet told him. That, at least, was true.
"But I still think we shouldn't be involved in trying to bust open a drug operation."
"Do you know how many people die in eighteen-wheeler accidents each year, Craig?" he asked.
Mindenhall shook his head. "No," he said. "A lot, I suppose."
Glibspet peered through the glasses. The warehouse area stuck out further into the sound than the shack. He could see fairly clearly a man and woman walk into the open hatch of what appeared to be a beached submarine. "No," he said, "I checked." (He hadn't, of course.) "It's not very many at all. Semi drivers are pros, and they watch out for cars better than cars watch out for each other. Don't you think it's a little peculiar that the victim of an accident like that would get her identity stolen? One very unlikely thing happening to someone is a coincidence. Two is a plan."
Mindenhall swallowed. "You're saying the original Rheabeth's death wasn't an accident," he stated.
Glibspet shrugged. "Occam's razor, Craig," he said. "This is one ruthless woman here." He paused. "Have you been keeping up target practice like I asked?"
"You know I hate guns, Dom," Craig said.
Glibspet wasn't about to let him off the hook. "That's not what I asked," he said pointedly.
"Yes. I have."
Nothing further was happening at the site. The woman he'd seen might have been Samuels or might not have been. He knew for sure that she'd be there at eight. He put down the glasses. "Good," he said, "I've got a little firepower in the trunk. I hope we don't need it."
"Firepower?" Craig said incredulously. "Dom, let's leave this to the cops."
"Samuels has agreed to meet with us. Just us. Nobody has been able to get past her goons, but I did. I used an old cover of mine that just paid off big-time. We break this case, it's worth millions to us." He looked at his watch and put the binoculars back in the case. "We have about half an hour before we're supposed to go in. Let's get ready."
Mindenhall glanced down at the floorboard, and suddenly froze. "My God, what is that?" He pointed down at a pink mass of sinew and gristle that lay next to his left foot.
Glibspet picked up the remains of the pigfoot and eyed the mess with studied disgust. "Well," he said. "That's the last time I get my car washed there!"
Chapter 66
Miramuel and Remufel thought their hiding places inside the office with Rheabeth and Jack were perfect. But suddenly both of them were dragged up and out, through the ceilings, into the sky at a tearing pace and, with rapidly increasing acceleration, back up into Heaven.
"Wait!" Mir screamed. "Not yet! Let us go back for another hour, and then you can do what you want!"
Remufel fought and struggled against the unseen hands. "You can't pull us out of this now! They need us!"
And then the two of them were in front of Gabriel, and flanked on all sides by archangels with angry expressions on their faces.
"You already know what you've done wrong," Gabriel said. "How dare you ask to compound your iniquity?"
"But Averial's in trouble," Mir said. She clasped her hands in front of her and said, "Gabriel, you've got to let us help her. If we don't pull her out of this, she's going to end up back in Hell. And Lucifer will destroy her."
"You can only hope your fate when you arrive will not be worse."
Miramuel froze. "You're... sending us to Hell? What about the judgment of the All-Forgiving?"
"Do you beg forgiveness for interfering on Earth?"
"No."
"Do you admit you were wrong in associating with Averial?"
"No."
Miramuel then gave Gabriel and the angels who had snatched them to Heaven her reasons for interfering as she had. She didn't leave out anything: not her feeling that this was her single window of opportunity to rescue her friend, not her certainty that Averial could be prevented from worsening her position in God's eyes, not her love of her lost friend.
Gabriel listened without comment, then turned to Remufel. "What about you?"
"I have nothing else to add. What she said goes for me, too. We did what we thought was best."
Gabriel glanced to the other angels, then back to Miramuel and Remufel. "You'll have plenty of opportunity to think again once you're in Hell." He looked coldly from one to the other. "You knew the rules when you broke them. Your reasons don't matter. God's rules, after all, are rules... and I'm sure that the Glorious Almighty, when He returns, will agree."
And then Miramuel saw a flash of light, followed by unremitting, unbroken darkness, and she felt terrible pain... and unimaginable fear.
Chapter 67
All the construction workers had left at five, and Kate had finally finished her paperwork at seven. So Jack and Rhea were alone in the small suite of offices, waiting for Mr. Glibbens and hoping he wouldn't mind a ride in the company van.
Jack sat on Kate's desk, drumming his heels against the side, and watched Rhea. Rhea watched the clock, shifted from position to position, stood and paced, sat and sighed.
"Nervous?"
She jumped and glanced over at him, then managed a small grin. "Yeah, I guess I am, a little," she said. "We could fly Morningstar Rising right now if we didn't need to navigate—or breathe—but this may be as close as we get, if someone I never heard of doesn't turn out to be a phony or a fruitcake, and if he likes us, and if he's impressed by what we've done, and if..." She waved a hand in the air, indicating a dozen or a hundred other things she'd left unnamed.
"It's that bad, then?"
"Probably worse," Rhea confirmed. "We can't fund another week's work here. I'll be lucky to dodge enough bills to get through two more days." She sighed. "I was hoping to have some brilliant insight here today that would wrap the whole thing up by then, but it just isn't there."
Jack stopped drumming. "Your take on that alternate cable run probably saved at least a day." He paused. "I should have seen that."
Rhea squeezed his hand. "You found a week's worth of shortcuts and streamlining yourself," she said, "It just wasn't possible to find enough."
"Well, then—" Jack sighed. "It's out of our hands." He stood up. "So put it out of your mind, too." He turned on Kate's radio. She had it tuned to a public station, and someone was playing an Artie Shaw record. The clarinet wailed over the solid brass; Jack turned and spun Rhea around in her chair. "Is this dance taken, miss?" he asked.
Rhea laughed. "I thought you said you didn't dance."
"No," he replied, "I just said I didn't know how." He pulled her into his arms and led her off into what he hoped was a foxtrot. At least that was as close as it came to anything he could manage. She tried to match his spirit, but she just wasn't in it.
Jack felt it. He turned off the music and looked into her eyes. "There's more, isn't there? Tell me."
"There's more. I never told you why I came here."
"You were sent during the... exchange program... I thought. Weren't you?"
"No." She gave him a quick, sly smile. "I managed to insert myself into God's initial transfer without actually being included in the count. For over two years, neither Heaven nor Hell knew I was here. Then, not too long ago, I realized Hell had started looking for me. I'd always planned against that eventuality, but I'd really hoped I'd have more time. The record-keeping demons have been known to misplace files for thousands of years. I was hoping..." She stopped and shook her head.
"Thousands of years would have been good," Jack said. "But as long as we know about the problem, we'll deal with it. I de-gremlined my printer. I got rid of those devils with holy water. There aren't many things that good engineering and applied intelligence can't fix. With both of us working together, we'll find a way to outsmart Hell."
He shivered at the hollow, hopeless looks she gave him. "I'd like to think you were right."
"Then think it. Rhea... Celestial... and all this," Jack waved towards Morningstar Rising. "That's hardly low profile. You could probably have hidden a lot longer if you hadn't done all this."
"I was homesick, Jack," she said. "I couldn't have Heaven... I couldn't let go of everything that lay between me and God. But I could have the heavens. Later, I wanted you, all of you, to have it too." She looked out the window at the setting sun. "It's something Lucifer doesn't want you to have, Jack. He likes everybody cooped up here on Earth. There's always the chance you'll all do each other in." She paused and stared out the window, into the moonlit darkness. "I'm not so sure the Almighty wants you to have this either." He could see her frown in silhouette. "There's a grain of truth to the Prometheus legend; you could wreak a lot of havoc out there."
"But?"
"But the stars are your destiny. I've watched you for a long time. Not just you, Jack. Humanity. You're magnificent. Endlessly searching, courageous in the face of destruction, full of love and hope in spite of the certainty of death. In spite of your stupidities as a race, your brutality and backsliding and bullheadedness, you are, right now, more than I ever
was as an angel in Heaven... more than any angel could ever hope to be. And you're ready to be more—but it's going to take the rigors of space to push you to that next step."
Jack held her hands. "And you'll be right there beside us, Rhea."
She shook her head. "I have this horrible feeling that I've run out of time. That all of a sudden, nothing is standing between me and Hell." She stared down at her hands clasped in his, and for a moment she was silent and still as death. Jack's heart felt like it was going to break. When she looked up at him again, her eyes held a resolution that, just for an instant, made him think she'd come up with an answer. But then she said, "I've worked with the lawyers to make sure there won't be any difficulty in transferring command. I signed the papers yesterday. The whole thing is set up so that you don't need anything from me to take over. At the moment that you call our lawyer and tell him that you request transfer of the company—no matter whether I'm sitting at the desk in my office or on vacation in the mountains or missing and presumed dead—Celestial becomes yours." She smiled a tiny smile. "With all the financial woes and disasters that will entail. I'm sorry. I wish the whole enterprise were in better financial shape."
Jack stared at her. She was telling him she'd just given him her company—that all he had to do to take it away from her was ask. She trusted him... in spite of her past, in spite of what she was. She trusted him with the project she'd gambled her eternity on.
She was still talking. He tried to focus on what she was saying. "If they get me, Jack, you have to carry on. You have the hunger. You and I share the same dream. I've given you everything I can—but it won't mean anything if you don't keep it going."
"Don't talk that way," he snapped.
She held his hands tightly. "Promise me, Jack. No matter what happens to me, promise me that you'll get humanity to the stars."
