by Ben Bova
“You’re good to go,” the male doctor said cheerily, as he scrawled his signature on the processor in his hand.
“Everything looks fine,” added the woman smiling beside him.
You didn’t look into my mind, Raven said silently. You didn’t see the sickness in there.
“You can get dressed and leave,” the man said, “whenever you’re ready.”
“Before five P.M.,” the woman added.
They left Raven sitting on the bed, wondering where her clothes might be. Then she remembered that when Quincy brought her to this hospital she had no clothes on.
The thought of Quincy welled up inside her again. But Raven forced it down, away. He’s dead and there’s no bringing him back. From somewhere deep in her memory she remembered a schoolteacher telling her, “Life belongs to the living. Don’t bury yourself in useless mourning.”
No mourning, Raven told herself. But vengeance, justice, payback—those are worth living for.
The door to her narrow stall opened and Alicia Polanyi stepped in, a capacious handbag on one arm.
“Are you all right?” Alicia asked.
Raven nodded. “So they tell me.”
Hefting the handbag, Alicia said, “I brought you some clothes. Evan gave me the combination to your apartment’s front door.”
“Very generous of him.”
Alicia’s lips twitched in what might have been the beginning of a smile. “He can be generous—when he’s getting what he wants.”
“He wants me back at the office tomorrow,” Raven said, without moving from the bed.
Alicia nodded. “I know.”
“I can’t go back there! I can’t look at his face without wanting to kill him.”
“You’ve got to. If you don’t, he’ll see to it that no one will employ you. You’ll be dumped into the unemployable pool. You’ll end up selling yourself again.”
Raven said, “I’ve been there before.”
“You don’t want to go back there,” Alicia said, her sallow face lit with inner fire.
“I want to kill him.”
“Evan?”
“Evan.”
Alicia stared at her for a long, silent moment. At last she whispered, “So do I.”
Raven blinked at her as she digested Alicia’s words. Then she felt herself smiling.
“Then let’s do it. You and I. Together.”
“Don’t be crazy.”
“I mean it,” Raven insisted. “It won’t be murder. It would be execution. He killed Quincy.”
Alicia nodded again. “Yes, he did, didn’t he?”
“Justice,” Raven murmured.
With a shake of her head, Alicia said, “I couldn’t do it.”
“Why not?”
“He’s too strong. Too powerful. If we tried it and failed … think what he’d do to us.”
“What’s he doing to us now?” Raven countered. “Do you want to spend the rest of your life with him pulling your strings?”
A long silence. Then Alicia whispered, “No. I don’t.”
“Then let’s kill him.”
Alicia’s eyes went wide. “Do you think we could?”
“We could try.”
“But if we fail…”
“We’d be no worse off than we are now. We’re his slaves, Alicia! He points his finger at us and we perform anything he wants.”
“But with Rust it’s all … imaginary.”
“Murdering Quincy wasn’t imaginary.”
“True.”
“And what he made me do.” Raven shuddered at the memory. “It might have been all in my mind, but he watched it somehow. He enjoyed watching it.”
Alicia’s skeletal face went solemn. “He’s enjoyed watching me, too. Many times.”
Raven swung her legs off the bed and stood up. “He’s killing us a centimeter at a time. We’ve got to stop him, once and for all.”
“Do you really think we could do it?”
“Maybe. I don’t know. But we’ve got to try. I’m not going to let him kill me, torture me to death.”
“Me neither!”
The two women clasped each other in a sisterly embrace.
As Raven swiftly pulled on the clothes that Alicia had brought, a sudden thought seared her consciousness.
“Our conversation is being recorded!” she realized. “It’s part of the hospital’s data system.”
Alicia nodded, tight-lipped. “We’ve got to erase it.”
“Can you do that?”
“If we act quickly enough. I’ll go back to my office and erase the record. Then, at the end of the workday, I’ll meet you in your quarters.”
Raven nodded. “I’ll wait for you there.”
PLANNING
Raven returned to her apartment and waited impatiently for Alicia to show up, pacing back and forth through the living room, her mind churning.
Was Alicia able to erase the hospital’s recording of our conversation? Is she really going to work with me or was she lying about it? Is she working for Evan?
That thought sent an electric current through her. Is she so attached to Evan that she’d betray me? Or worse, maybe Evan controls her so completely that she’s spilling her guts to him right now! Raven stopped her pacing and stared at herself in the mirror hanging over the sofa. I’d be better off dead, if that’s the case.
The doorbell buzzed. Raven turned and stared at the screen by the door. Alicia Polanyi. Alone. By herself. No one with her.
“Door open!” she called out.
Alicia stepped into her living room, but not before casting a quick glance back over her shoulder.
Raven realized, “He can see that you’ve come to my quarters.”
Alicia forced a smile. “Raven, there are tons of records from all the cameras installed throughout the habitat. He’d have to spend all his time sifting through them if he intended to keep watch on you.”
Taking in a deep, calming breath, Raven said, “I suppose so.” But then she thought about it. “Couldn’t he set up an automated search system to watch my door?”
“He could,” Alicia answered. “But he’d ask me to do it for him. Evan is smart, but he hardly ever does his own dirty work.”
Raven smiled cooly. “That’s what assistants are for, I guess.”
As she gestured Alicia to the sofa, the phone announced, “Incoming call.”
Both women froze. The phone continued, “From Dr. Tómas Gomez.”
Raven breathed again. “Phone answer,” she said, as Alicia sat tensely on one end of the sofa.
Gomez’s broad-cheeked tan face filled the wall screen on the other side of the room. He looked alarmed, his dark eyes wide, his hair disheveled.
“Raven!” he called, as if he were floundering in a heaving ocean. “I need your help! Right away! This idiot that Waxman assigned to assist me is no good at all. I need you!”
Raven blinked at him. “Tómas, I’ll be happy to help you, but I’ll have to get Mr. Waxman’s permission first.”
“Do it! Please!”
“First thing in the morning,” she replied. “I promise.”
“I’m going to call him now,” Gomez said.
“He won’t answer you, not after office hours. Not unless it’s an emergency.”
“This is an emergency! It’s urgent! All my work will be useless unless I can get someone to help me.”
“I’ll do what I can, Tómas.”
“Please!”
“I’ll speak to Mr. Waxman first thing tomorrow morning.”
“Please,” Gomez repeated.
Raven thought she should ask Tómas to have dinner with her, calm him down, soothe him. Then she glanced at Alicia and decided that it would only cause complications.
“I’ll call you as soon as I’ve spoken with Mr. Waxman,” she said.
“Promise?”
“I promise.”
“Thank you!” Gomez said, as if she had just stepped in front of a bullet aimed at his heart. “Thank you!”
Once the screen went dark, Alicia asked, “Is he always so churned up?”
“His work means everything to him,” Raven replied.
“So he assumes it should mean everything to you, as well.”
Raven realized the truth of it. “I suppose he does.”
“Scientists.” Alicia made it sound like a curse. And suddenly Raven recognized that she was right. It is a curse, she told herself. Scientists like Tómas are truly cursed; they’ve cursed themselves with a curiosity that must be satisfied, if they’re ever to find peace.
Sitting herself down on the sofa next to Alicia, Raven asked, “So what are we going to do about Evan?”
Two hours later they still sat—at the tiny kitchen table—facing each other, the question totally unanswered.
PLAYING WITH FIRE
Raven slowly pulled herself to her feet and started taking the dinner dishes to the kitchen sink. Alicia got up too, as if she weighed ten tons, and cleared the narrow kitchen table of the rest of their dishes.
“This isn’t going to be easy,” she said as she stood beside Raven at the sink.
“We’ll figure it out,” Raven said. “There’s got to be a way.”
“We’re playing with fire.”
Raven almost smiled. “The lessons in anthropology that I’m studying in my sleep showed me that early humans who played with fire changed the course of history.”
Alicia nodded, but said, “Did your lessons show you how many of them got burned?”
* * *
They both returned to their jobs the next morning: Alicia to Waxman’s outer office and Raven to her cubbyhole down the hall. Once Alicia told her that Waxman had shown up, Raven strode to his office, stepped past Alicia at her desk, and rapped on the partially open door to Waxman’s private office. She stepped in before the man could respond.
“Raven!” he said, looking up from his desk. “What a delightful surprise.”
Ignoring his remark, Raven said, “Tómas Gomez called me last night. He was frantic—”
“I know,” Waxman said, his expression souring. “He left a message for me that was more than half an hour long.”
“He needs my help. He’s like a little boy who can’t find his toys.”
“Aptly put,” said Waxman. “How long do you think you’d be away from this office?”
She temporized, “A few days. Maybe a week or so.”
Waxman stared at her for a long, wordless moment. “And we were just starting to get along together so well.”
Standing there before his desk, Raven replied, “That’s finished, Evan. I won’t be taking Rust again.”
He smiled thinly. “That’s not for you to decide.”
“Yes it is. I ordered nose filters just like yours. They’ll be delivered to my quarters this afternoon.” Raven didn’t reveal that it was Alicia Polanyi who scoured through the habitat’s catalogues, found the filters, and ordered them. Plus a pair for herself.
Waxman’s narrow smile disappeared. “Did you now?”
“I did.”
Waving one hand carelessly in the air, Waxman said, “All right, go ahead and drudge for Gomez. I hope you enjoy the work.”
“Thank you, Evan,” said Raven. And she turned and left his office.
As she passed Alicia’s desk, she made the slightest of nods. Alicia smiled slightly.
Waxman’s voice came through the open doorway of his office, “You just make damned certain you’ve cleaned up all the tasks you’ve been working on here before you go start babysitting that astronomer.”
Without breaking her stride, Raven answered over her shoulder, “Of course, Mr. Waxman.”
* * *
Once Raven got back to her own cramped little office, she called Gomez.
Before she could say a word, he asked breathlessly, “Is it all right? Did he give you permission—”
“Yes, Tómas,” Raven interrupted, smiling. “I’ll start working with you tomorrow morning.”
“Tomorrow?” Crestfallen. “But I need you today! Now!”
With the slightest shake of her head, Raven replied, “I’ve got to clean up the work I’ve been doing here, Tómas. It’ll take me the rest of the day and well into the evening.”
“That long.”
“That long,” she confirmed. “But I’ll be at your laboratory first thing tomorrow morning. Without fail.”
He nodded ruefully. Without his expression changing in the slightest Gomez asked, “Can you have dinner with me tonight?”
Raven made herself smile. “I’m afraid not. Too much work to get through. I’ll probably just have a snack here in my office.”
“Oh. All right. Okay.” His face looked miserable. “I’ll see you first thing tomorrow.”
“Without fail,” Raven replied, trying to make it sound as cheerful and bright as possible.
Her desktop screen went blank.
* * *
Evan Waxman leaned back in his plush desk chair and drummed the fingers of both his hands against the thighs of his perfectly fitted trousers.
She thinks she’s getting away from me, he said to himself, his face clouding over. She thinks she can walk out on me.
There are plenty of other fish in the sea, a voice in his head reminded him. Yes, Waxman admitted, but once you let one get away the others will notice it. It will give them ideas.
Raven’s got to be brought under control, he concluded. I can’t let her walk away from me. She’s not leaving until I’m finished with her.
He sat up straight in his chair and called for Alicia.
She appeared almost instantly at his office door.
Eying her gaunt figure, Waxman said, “I want you to set up a surveillance watch on Raven Marchesi while she’s working with Gomez. I want to see everything she and that astronomer are doing together.”
Alicia Polanyi nodded obediently. “Right away, Mr. Waxman,” she said.
COUNTERMEASURES
Slightly bleary-eyed from having slept only a few hours, Raven got out of bed, showered, dressed, and grabbed a sweet bun for breakfast. She was still chewing its last remains as she left her apartment and headed for Tómas Gomez’s quarters, halfway across Haven’s main wheel.
She tapped at his apartment’s door once and it slid open immediately. Gomez was asleep at his desk, head resting on his arms amid a clutter of papers and fingernail-sized video chips.
Like her own quarters, Gomez’s place was not spacious. But he had turned it into his personal laboratory. The living room was filled with diagnostic devices, machines that could display and analyze the recordings that the submersible had made down at the bottom of Uranus’s globe-girdling ocean. Viewscreens covered the walls, all of them blank, silent.
Looking at Gomez’s slumbering form, Raven realized that he must have worked all night. Just as I did, she thought. Worked until he collapsed.
Suddenly Gomez snapped awake. His head popped up and his bloodshot eyes went wide as he focused on Raven.
“You’re here! Thank God!”
Raven smiled down at him and said, “I’m ready for work, Tómas.”
“Thank God,” he repeated.
Gomez was not nearly as disorganized as Raven had feared. It was just the sheer amount of data that his submersible had accumulated and sent to the surface during its mission into Uranus’s sea bottom that had overwhelmed him.
Raven pulled up one of the chairs in front of his desk and started sorting out all the papers and chips. Using the skills she had learned at Waxman’s command, she began to bring some order out of the seeming chaos. By lunchtime Gomez was actually grinning happily.
Smiling back at him, Raven suggested, “Why don’t you go take a shower and get into some clean clothes, Tómas? Then we can have lunch together.”
The astronomer looked stricken. “I must smell pretty bad, huh?”
“I’ve smelled worse,” Raven said. “But you do need a shower and a change of clothes.”
He scrambled out of his d
esk chair. “Yes, you’re right. I’ll get to it right away.”
And he scurried to the bedroom like an embarrassed teenager. Raven saw that his bed was covered with still more chips and printouts. She smiled at his back as he dashed through the door, then she turned to her work again.
* * *
The data she worked with meant nothing to her. Only numbers and alphabetical designations. But she sorted them patiently as her mind drifted to Evan Waxman and his expectations, his demands.
Evan won’t willingly let me out of his control, she knew. How can I make him believe I’m still under his domination without actually giving in to him?
She realized she’d already taken the first step. The nose filters will protect me from breathing in Rust, she knew. Evan won’t like it but there’s nothing he can do about it, not without violence.
Raven had known violence in her earlier life. She’d been beaten and savaged by some of the meanest, toughest thugs of Naples’s dark underworld. She’d survived, but only at the cost of convincing one hood after another that she was willing to do anything for his pleasure.
Evan’s not like that, she understood. He’s smarter. And meaner. Rust is his perfect weapon. It doesn’t harm its victims—except in their minds.
Rust creates fantasies. It makes its victims live out those fantasies in their imaginations. No physical damage. But she remembered the pain of the whips, her helpless agony when the men were having their fun with her.
And somehow Evan participates in those fantasies. He takes part in them. He enjoys them. He invades my mind and plays with me. While I do whatever he wants me to do.
There’s got to be a way out of this, she told herself. There’s got to be an escape route, a countermeasure that I can use to protect myself.
The only countermeasure she could think of was refusal. Refusal to take the Rust. Refusal to play Evan’s game, refusal to allow him to play with her.
But that path led to danger, she knew. He could overpower me easily enough. The imaginary “friends” that he used to work me over could be replaced by real, actual men. And then where would she be?
