by Ben Bova
Dorik Harbin scowled at his display screens. His first shot should have taken out the ship’s habitat module, but they’d increased their spin just a split second before he’d fired. He’d hit something, he was certain of that, but it wasn’t a fatal hit.
It had taken a few minutes for the big laser to recharge; this had given Harbin enough time to choose his target carefully. He had the full schematics of Waltzing Matilda on one of the screens, courtesy of Humphries Space Systems. Their intelligence data was well-nigh perfect. Harbin knew where to find the ships he went after, and what each ship’s layout was.
Not much of a challenge to a soldier, he thought. But then, what soldier wants challenges? When you put your life on the line, the easier the job the better. For just the flicker of a moment he thought about the fact that he was shooting at unarmed civilians. Perhaps there was a woman aboard that ship, although the HSS intelligence data didn’t indicate that. What of it? he told himself. That’s the target and you’re being paid to destroy it. It’s a lot easier than killing people face to face, the way you had to in Delhi.
That had been a mess, a fiasco. One battalion of mercenary troops trying to protect a food warehouse against a whole city. That idiot commander! Stupid Frenchman. Harbin still saw the maddened faces of the ragged, half-starved Indians, bare hands against automatic rifles and machine guns. Still, they nearly swarmed us down. Only when he was foolish enough to let one of the women get close enough to knife him did his blood-rage surge and save him. He shot her point-blank and led a howling murderous charge that sent the mob running. He stopped firing into their backs only when his automatic rifle finally jammed from overheating.
He pushed the nightmare images out of his mind and concentrated on the job at hand. By the time he was ready to fire again, Matilda’s spin had moved the hab module enough so that it was partially shielded by the big slabs of ores the miners had hung on their central propulsion module. But their main comm antenna was in his sights. He squeezed off a shot. The laser’s capacitors cracked loudly and he saw a flash of light glance off the rim of the antenna. A hit.
Now to get the auxiliary antennas, he said to himself. I’ll have to move in closer.
“Shooting at us?” Nodon’s voice went high with sudden fright.
“Fookin’ bastard,” George growled. “Get into your suit. Quick!”
Nodon bolted from his chair and went to the hatch. He tapped out the keyboard code swiftly and the hatch swung open all the way.
“The air pressure is falling,” he called over his shoulder as George followed him down the passageway toward the airlock.
George was thinking, If we had the bloody laser on board we could give the bastard a taste of his own medicine. But the laser was sitting on the asteroid and its power pack was recharging; at least, it had been until the generator had been hit.
As they scrambled into their suits, George said, “We’d better power down the ship. Save the batteries.”
Nodon was already pulling his bubble helmet over his head. “I’ll go to the bridge and do it,” he said, his voice muffled by the helmet.
“Turn off everything!” George yelled after his retreating back. “Let ’em think we’re dead!”
He added silently, It won’t be far from wrong, either.
Nodon returned from the bridge as George was closing the neck seal of his helmet. Leaning toward the kid so their helmets touched, he said, “Don’t even use the suit radio. Play dead.”
The kid looked worried, but he forced a sickly grin as he nodded back to George.
They got to the airlock and went out together. George grasped Nodon’s suited arm and, without using his jetpack, pushed off toward the big slabs of ores attached to Matildas fusion engine. Get into the shadow of those chunks, he thought. Huddle up close to ’em and maybe this fookin’ killer won’t see us.
Perspective is tricky in microgravity. Once George and his young crewman got to the nearest of the slabs, it seemed as if they were lying on a huge hard bed, side by side, looking up at the slowly-revolving shape of their habitation module as it swung on its long tether.
The other ship glided into George’s view. It was small, little more than a hab unit set atop a fusion engine and a set of bulbous propellant tanks. It looked almost like a cluster of mismatched grapes. Then he recognized the bulky shape of a high-power laser hanging just below the hab module. This ship was meant to be a destroyer, nothing else.
The guide beam from the ship’s auxiliary laser played over Matilda’s habitation module. George watched as the smaller ship maneuvered leisurely, the evil red spot of the guide beam sliding away from the hab unit. For a moment it was lost in the depth of space, but then George’s heart clutched in his chest. The red spot was moving across the slab to which he and Nodon were clinging.
He knows we’re here! George thought, sweat breaking out on his face. He’s gonna slice us!
But the red spot slid across the slab more than ten meters below their boots. It stopped on the bell-shaped nozzle of their fusion engine, then walked slowly up to the throat of the nozzle. A light flashed there. George blinked against the sudden, unexpected glare.
Nodon bumped his helmet against George’s. “The engine!” he whimpered.
Another flash. This time George saw shards of metal fly off the rocket nozzle, glinting briefly in the pale sunlight as they spun out of sight, into the endless darkness.
Again the laser fired. This time it hit the piping that fed cryogenic hydrogen into the nozzle’s cooling capillaries. Fookin’ bastard knows his business, George thought grimly. He’s disabled the engine with three bloody shots.
The attacking ship maneuvered leisurely, drifting out of George’s sight, beyond the edge of the slab on which he and Nodon hid. For moments that seemed like hours, the two men lay there unmoving. What are we gonna do? George wondered. How can we get home without the main engine?
In the darkness, George felt Nodon’s helmet touch his again. “Do you think he’s gone?” the young man asked.
Before George could answer, he caught another glint in the corner of his eye. Pushing slightly away from the slab, he saw that their attacker was punching holes in their propellant tanks. Thin cold jets of cryogenic hydrogen and helium-three hissed noiselessly into the vacuum, brief whitish wisps of gas that dissipated into the emptiness of space in an eyeblink.
“We’re movin’,” George muttered, even though Nodon could not hear him. Like a child’s balloon when he lets the air out of it, the gases escaping from the punctured tanks were pushing Matilda slowly away from the asteroid.
“We’re gonna get a fookin’ tour of the solar system,” George said aloud. “Shame we’ll be too dead to enjoy the sights.”
CHAPTER 19
“I’m surprised he hasn’t had us thrown out of this hotel already,” Fuchs said morosely.
Pancho Lane tried to smile encouragingly. Lars and Amanda both looked so down, so—bewildered was the word for it, Pancho decided. Overrun by events and their own emotions. “Hey, don’t worry about the hotel,” she said, trying to sound cheerful. “Astro’ll pay for it if Humphries reneges.”
Fuchs was still in the light gray business suit he’d worn for his meeting with Humphries. Amanda was wearing a pale turquoise knee-length frock, modest enough, but she still made Pancho feel gawky and shapeless, as usual. Mandy didn’t mean to, but whenever Pancho was near her she felt like a beanpole standing beside a vid star.
“We’re going back to Ceres,” Amanda said. “Back to prospecting.”
The two of them were sitting glumly on the sofa set beneath a hologram of Valles Marineris on Mars: the grandest Grand Canyon in the solar system.
“What about Helvetia, Ltd.?” Pancho asked. “You’re not gonna let Humphries muscle you out of business, are you?”
Fuchs grunted. “What business? Our inventory went up in flames.”
“Yeah, but the insurance oughtta cover enough of it to get you started again.”
Fuchs shook
his head wearily.
“You got a lot of good will out there on Ceres,” Pancho urged. “Shouldn’t oughtta let that go to waste.”
Amanda’s brows rose hopefully.
“Don’t want to let Humphries get a monopoly, do you, Lars ol’ buddy?”
“I’d prefer to strangle him,” Fuchs growled.
Pancho leaned back in her chair, stretched her long lean legs. “Tell you what: Astro’ll advance you the credit to restock your warehouse, up to the limit that the insurance will pay you.”
Fuchs looked at her. “You can do this?”
“I’m learnin’ how to play the board of directors. I got a clutch of ’em on my side. They don’t want Humphries to monopolize the Belt any more’n you do.”
Amanda asked, “Is your group strong enough to let you do what you just offered to do?”
Nodding, Pancho replied, “Take my word for it.”
Turning to her husband, Amanda said hopefully, “Lars, we could start Helvetia all over again.”
“With a smaller inventory,” he grumbled. “The insurance won’t cover everything we lost.”
“But it’s a start,” Amanda said, smiling genuinely.
Fuchs did not smile back. He looked away from his wife. Pancho thought there was something going on inside his head that he didn’t want Mandy to see.
“I’m going back to prospecting,” he said, his eyes focused on the far wall of the sitting room.
“But—”
“I’ll take Starpower back as soon as the current lease on her is finished.”
“But what about Helvetia?” Amanda asked.
He turned toward her once more. “You’ll have to run Helvetia. You can stay on Ceres while I take the ship out.”
Pancho studied them. There was something going on between them, some hidden agenda someplace, that she couldn’t fathom.
“Lars,” said Amanda, in a very soft voice, “are you certain that this is what you want to do?”
“It’s what I must do, darling.” His voice sounded implacable.
Pancho invited them both to dinner at the Earthview Restaurant, off the hotel’s lobby.
“Strictly a social evening,” she told them. “No talk about Humphries or Ceres or any kind of business at all. Okay?”
They agreed, halfheartedly.
So naturally they talked about business through the entire meal. Pancho’s business.
The standing joke about the Earthview was that it was the finest restaurant within four hundred thousand kilometers. Which was perfectly true: the two other eateries in Selene, up in the Grand Plaza, were mere bistros. Two levels beneath the lunar surface, the Earthview featured sweeping windowalls that displayed holographic views from the Moon’s surface. It was almost like looking through real windows at the gaunt, cracked floor of the giant crater Alphonsus and its worn, slumped ringwall mountains. But the Earth was always in that dark sky, hanging like a splendid glowing jewel of sparkling blue and glowing white, ever changing yet always present.
The Earthview prided itself on having a human staff, no robots in sight. Pancho always felt that a truly top-rate restaurant should use tablecloths, but the Earthview used glittering placemats made of lunar honeycomb metal, thin and supple as silk.
None of them had changed clothes for dinner. Fuchs was still wearing his gray suit, Amanda her turquoise knee-length dress. Pancho, who favored coveralls and softboots, had started the day in a business outfit of chocolate-brown slacks, pale yellow sweater, and light tan suede vest. Amanda had loaned her a light auburn Irish lace stole to “dress up your outfit.”
Once their handsome young waiter had brought their drinks and taken their dinner order, an awkward silence fell over their table. They had agreed not to talk business. What other topic of conversation was there?
Pancho sipped at her margarita and watched the waiter’s retreating back. Nice buns, she thought. Wonder if he’s married?
“So what have you been doing lately, Pancho?” Amanda finally said, more to break the silence than any other reason.
“Me? I’m followin’ up on something Dan Randolph talked about years ago: scoopin’ fusion fuels from Jupiter.”
Fuchs’s ears perked up. “Fusion fuels?”
“Yeah. You know, helium-three, tritium, other isotopes. Jupiter’s atmosphere is full of ’em.”
“That’s a steep gravity well,” said Amanda.
“Tell me about it,” Pancho said. “You know I’ve been approached by some nuts who want to go skimmin’ Jupiter’s atmosphere as a stunt? They even brought a network producer with ’em.”
“Insanity,” Fuchs muttered.
“Yeah, sure.” Pancho pronounced the word shore. “But then there’s a gaggle of scientists who wanta set up a research station in orbit around Jupiter. Study the moons and all.”
“But the radiation,” Amanda said.
“Tight orbit, underneath the Jovian Van Allen belts. Might be doable.”
“Astro would fund this?”
“Hell no!” Pancho blurted. “Universities gotta come up with the funding. We’ll build the sucker.”
“And use it as a platform for mining Jupiter’s atmosphere,” Amanda added.
Pancho smiled at her. Sometimes I forget how smart she is, Pancho thought. I let her sweet face and nice boobs fool me.
Then she looked at Fuchs. He sat with his drink untouched before him, his eyes staring off into some private universe. Whatever he’s thinking about, Pancho realized, he’s a zillion kilometers from here.
WALTZING MATILDA
Once they got back inside the ship, it took George and Nodon hours to patch the holes punched through the hull by the attacker’s laser and check out all the systems. They were both dead tired by the time they were able to take off their spacesuits and clump wearily, fearfully to the bridge.
George took the command chair, Nodon slipped into the chair at his right.
“You run a diagnostic on the power generator,” said George. “I’ll check the nav computer and see where th’ fook we’re headin’.” They worked in silence for another twenty minutes. At last Nodon said, “I can repair the generator. He knocked out one set of electrodes. We have spares.”
George nodded. “Okay, then. If you can get the generator back on line we won’t hafta worry about electrical power for the life support systems.”
Nodding, Nodon said, “That is good news.”
“Right. Now here’s the bad news. We’re up shit’s creek without a paddle.”
Nodon said nothing. He held his bony face impassive, but George saw that even his shaved pate was sheened with perspiration. It sure isn’t the temperature in here, George told himself. In fact, the bridge felt decidedly chilly.
With a heavy sigh, George said, “He knocked enough holes in the propellant tanks to send us jettin’ deeper into the Belt.”
“And the main engine is beyond repair.”
“Prob’ly.”
“Then we will die.”
“Looks that way, mate. Unless we can get some help.”
“The comm system is down. He must have lasered the antennas.”
George nodded. “So that’s what the soddin’ bastard was doing.”
“He was very thorough.”
Sitting there, staring at the control panel with half its telltale lights glowering red, George tried to think.
“We’re okay on life support,” he mused aloud.
“Once the generator is running again,” Nodon corrected. “Otherwise the batteries will run out in…” He glanced at the displays “…eleven hours.”
“Better fix the generator, then. That’s our first priority.”
Nodon started to get up from his seat. He hesitated, asked, “And our second priority?”
“Figurin’ out if we can nudge ourselves into a trajectory that’ll bring us close to Ceres before we starve to death.”
CHAPTER 20
Amanda would have preferred to stay in Selene for just a few days more, but Fu
chs insisted that they start back for Ceres as soon as possible. He learned from Pancho that an Astro ship was due to depart for Ceres the next day, carrying a load of equipment that Helvetia had ordered before the warehouse fire. “We’ll go back on that ship,” Fuchs told his wife. “But it’s a freighter. It won’t have passenger accommodations,” Amanda protested.
“We’ll go back on that ship,” he repeated. Wondering why her husband was so insistent on returning as quickly as possible, Amanda reluctantly packed her travel bag while Fuchs called Pancho to beg a ride.
The next morning they rode the automated little tractor through the tunnel that led out to Armstrong Spaceport and climbed aboard the spindly-legged shuttlecraft that would lift them to the Harper. The ship was in lunar orbit, but rotating at a one-sixth g spin. Fuchs felt grateful that he would not have to endure weightlessness for more than the few minutes of the shuttlecraft’s flight.
“Newest ship in the solar system,” said her captain as he welcomed them aboard. He was young, trim, good-looking, and stared openly at Amanda’s ample figure. Fuchs, standing beside her, grasped his wife’s arm possessively.
“I’m afraid, though, that she’s not built for passenger service,” the captain said as he led them down the habitat module’s central passageway. “All I can offer you is this cabin.”
He slid an accordion-pleated door back. The cabin was barely large enough for two people to stand in.
“It’s kind of small,” the captain said, apologetically. But he was smiling at Amanda.
“It will do,” said Fuchs. “The trip is only six days.”
He stepped into the compartment, leading Amanda.
The captain, still out in the passageway, said, “We break orbit in thirty minutes.”
“Good,” said Fuchs. And he slid the door shut.
Amanda giggled at him. “Lars, you were positively rude to him!”
With a sardonic grin back at her, he said, “I thought his eyes would fall out of his head, he was staring at you so hard.”
