by Ben Bova
With no little bit of irony, Dorik Harbin considered his position as he stood on the bridge of Shanidar. A man who treasured his solitude, who had never wanted to be dependent on anyone else, now he was the commander of an entire fleet of spacecraft: attack ships, tankers, even surveillance drones that were spreading across the Belt seeking one infinitesimal speck in all that dark emptiness: Lars Fuchs.
Although he far preferred to work alone, Harbin had been forced to admit that he could not find Fuchs by himself. The Belt was too big, the quarry too elusive. And, of course, Fuchs was aided covertly by other rock rats who gave him fuel and food and information while they secretly applauded his one-man war against Humphries Space Systems. Probably Astro Corporation was also helping Fuchs. There was no evidence of it, Harbin knew; no outright proof that Astro was supplying the renegade with anything more than gleeful congratulations on his continuing attacks.
But Humphries himself was certain that Astro was behind Fuchs’s success. Diane had told Harbin that Humphries was wild with rage, willing now to spend every penny he had to track down Fuchs and eliminate him, once and for all. This armada was the result: its cost to Humphries was out of all proportion to the damage that Fuchs had done, but Humphries wanted Fuchs destroyed, no matter what the cost, Diane said.
Diane. Harbin reflected soberly that she had become a part of his life. I’ve become dependent on her, he realized. Even with the distance between them, she protected him against Humphries’s frustrated anger. She was the one who had convinced Humphries to give Harbin command of this all-out campaign against Fuchs. She was the one who would be waiting for him when he returned with Fuchs’s dead body.
Well, he thought as he surveyed the display screens showing a scattering of his other ships, now I have the tools I need to finish the job. It’s only a matter of time.
The surveillance probes were already on their way to quarter the Belt with their sensors. Harbin gave the orders to his fleet to move out and start the hunt.
Satisfaction showed clearly on Martin Humphries’s face as he sat down at the head of the long dining table in his mansion. Diane Verwoerd was the only other person at the table, already seated at his right.
“Sorry I’m late for lunch,” Humphries said, nodding to the servant waiting to pour the wine. “I was on the phone with Doug Stavenger.”
Verwoerd knew her boss expected her to ask what the call was about, but she said nothing.
“Well, he’s done it,” Humphries said at last, just a little bit nettled. “Stavenger’s pulled it off. We’re going to have a peace conference right here at Selene. The world government’s agreed to send their number-two man, Willi Dieterling.”
Diane Verwoerd made herself look impressed. “The man who negotiated the Middle East settlement?”
“The very same,” said Humphries.
“And the rock rats are sending a representative?” she prompted.
“Three people. That big Australian oaf and two assistants.”
“Who’ll represent Astro?”
“Probably Pancho,” he said lightly. “She’s the real power on the board these days.”
“It should be interesting,” said Verwoerd.
“It should be,” Humphries agreed. “It certainly should.”
Lars Fuchs scowled at his visitor. Yves St. Claire was one of his oldest and most trusted friends; Fuchs had known the Quebecois since their university days together in Switzerland. Yet now St. Claire was stubbornly refusing to help him.
“I need the fuel,” Fuchs said. “Without it, I’m dead.”
The two men stood in Nautilus’s cramped galley, away from the crew. Fuchs had given them orders to leave him alone with his old friend. St. Claire stood in front of the big freezer, his arms folded obstinately across his chest. When they had been students together he had been slim and handsome, with a trim little pencil moustache and a smooth line of patter for the women, despite his uncouth accent. In those days his clothes had always been in the latest fashion; his friends joked that he bankrupted his family with his wardrobe. During his years of prospecting in the Belt, however, he had allowed himself to get fat. Now he looked like a prosperous middle-aged bourgeois shopkeeper, yet his carefully draped tunic of sky blue was designed to minimize his expanding waistline.
“Lars,” said St. Claire, “it is impossible. Even for you, old friend, I can’t spare the fuel. I wouldn’t have enough left to get back to Ceres.”
Fuchs, dressed as usual in a black pullover and baggy slacks, took a long breath before answering.
“The difference is,” he said, “that you can send out a distress call and a tanker will come out for you. I can’t.”
“Yes, a tanker will come out for me. And do you know how much that will cost?”
“You’re talking about money. I’m talking about my life.”
St. Clair made a Gallic shrug.
Since the attack on Vesta Fuchs had survived by poaching fuel and other supplies from friendly prospectors and other ships plying the Belt. A few of them gave freely; most were reluctant and had to be convinced. Amanda regularly sent out schedules for the prospectors, miners, tankers and supply vessels that left Ceres. Fuchs planted remote transceivers on minor asteroids, squirted the asteroids’ identification numbers to Amanda in bursts of supercompressed messages, then picked up her information from the miniaturized transceivers the next time he swung past those rocks. It was an intricate chess game, moving the transceivers before Humphries’s snoops could locate them and use them to bait a trap for him.
Humphries’s ships went armed now, and seldom alone. It was becoming almost impossibly dangerous to try to hit them. Now and again Fuchs commandeered supplies from Astro tankers and freighters. Their captains always complained and always submitted to Fuchs’s demands under protest, but they were under orders from Pancho not to resist. The cost of these “thefts” was submicroscopic in Astro’s ledgers.
Despite everything, Fuchs was badly surprised that even his old friend was being stubborn.
Trying to hold on to his temper, he said placatingly, “Yves, this is literally a matter of life and death to me.”
“But it is not necessary,” St. Clair said, waving both hands in the air. “You don’t need to—”
“I’m fighting your fight,” Fuchs said. “I’m trying to keep Humphries from turning you into his vassals.”
St. Clair cocked an eyebrow. “Ah, Lars, mon vieux. In all this fighting you’ve killed friends of mine. Friends of ours, Lars.”
“That couldn’t be helped.”
“They were construction workers. They never did you any harm.”
“They were working for Humphries.”
“You didn’t give them a chance. You slaughtered them without mercy.”
“We’re in a war,” Fuchs snapped. “In war there are casualties. It can’t be helped.”
“They weren’t in a war!” said St. Clair, with some heat. “I’m not in a war! You’re the only one who is fighting this war of yours.”
Fuchs stared at him. “Don’t you understand that what I’m doing, I’m doing for you? For all the rock rats?”
“Pah! Soon it will be all over, anyway. There is no need to continue this… this vendetta between you and Humphries.”
“Vendetta? Is that what you think I’m doing?”
Drawing in a deep, deliberate breath, St. Clair said more reasonably, “Lars, it is finished. The conference at Selene will put an end to this fighting.”
“Conference?” Fuchs blinked with surprise. “What conference?”
St. Clair’s brows rose. “You don’t know? At Selene. Humphries and Astro are meeting to discuss a settlement of their differences. A peace conference.”
“At Selene?”
“Of course. Stavenger himself arranged it. The world government has sent Willi Dieterling. Your own wife will be there, one of the representatives from Ceres.”
Fuchs felt an electric shock stagger him. “Amanda’s going to Selene?”
“She is on her way, with Big George and Dr. Cardenas. Didn’t you know?”
Amanda’s going to Selene, thundered in Fuchs’s mind. To Selene. To Humphries.
It took him several moments to focus his attention again on St. Clair, still standing in the galley with him, a bemused little smile on his lips.
“You didn’t know?” St. Clair asked again. “She didn’t tell you?”
His voice venomously low, Fuchs said, “I’m going to take the fuel I need. You can call for a tanker after I’ve left the area.”
“You will steal it from me?”
“Yes,” said Fuchs. “That way you can make a claim to your insurance carrier. You’re insured for theft, aren’t you?”
DOSSIER: JOYCE TAKAMINE
Joyce was quite content living on the Moon. She lived alone, not celibate, certainly, but not attached to anyone, either. She had achieved most of what she had dreamed of, all those long hard years of her youth.
She was a mature woman now, lean and stringy, hardened by years of physical labor and cold calculation, inured to clambering up the ladder of life by grabbing for any rung she could reach. Now that she was at Selene, with a well-paying job and a secure career path, she felt that she could relax and enjoy life for the first time.
Except—she soon felt bored.
Life became too predictable, too routine. Too safe, she finally realized. There’s no challenge to this. I can run my office blindfolded. I see the same people socially every time I go out. Selene’s just a small town. Safe. Comfortable. Boring.
So she transferred to the Humphries operation on Ceres, much to her supervisor’s shock, and rode out to the Belt.
Ceres was even smaller than Selene, dirty, crowded, sometimes dangerous. Joyce loved it. New people were arriving and departing all the time. The Pub was rowdy, raucous. She saw Lars Fuchs kill a man there, just jam a power drill into the guy’s chest like an old-fashioned knight’s spear. The guy had admitted to killing Niles Ripley, and he tried to shoot Fuchs right there at the bar.
She served on the jury that acquitted Fuchs and, when the people of Ceres finally started to pull together a ragtag kind of government, Joyce Takamine was one of those selected by lottery to serve on the community’s first governing council. It was the first time she had won anything.
CHAPTER 49
Humphries gave a party in his mansion for the delegates to the peace conference. Not a large, sumptuous party; just an intimate gathering of the handful of men and women who would meet the next morning in a discreet conference room in Selene’s office tower, up in the Grand Plaza. Pancho Lane was the first guest to arrive. Humphries greeted her in the sprawling living room of his home, with Diane Verwoerd at his side. Diane wore a glittering floor-length sheath of silver, its neckline plunging almost to her waist. Pancho was in a lavender cocktail dress accented with big copper bangle earrings and hoops of copper at her wrists and throat.
Humphries, wearing a collarless burgundy jacket over a space-black turtleneck shirt and charcoal slacks, smirked to himself. Pancho had learned a lot in her years on the Astro board, but she was still gawky enough to show up at the party precisely on time, rather than fashionably late.
Soon enough the other guests began to arrive, and Humphries’s servants showed them into the lavishly furnished living room. Willi Dieterling came in with two younger men flanking him; his nephews, he told Humphries as they exchanged introductions.
“May I congratulate you, sir,” Humphries said, “on your successful resolution of the Mideast crisis.”
Dieterling smiled in a self-deprecating manner and touched his trim gray beard with a single finger. “I cannot take all the credit,” he said softly. “Both sides had run out of ammunition. My major accomplishment was to get the arms dealers to stop selling to them.”
Everyone laughed politely.
Dieterling went on, “With the Mediterranean threatening to flood Israel and the Tigris—Euphrates rivers washing away half of Iraq, both sides were ready to cooperate.”
“Still,” Humphries said as a waiter brought a tray of champagne flutes, “your accomplishment is something that—”
He stopped and stared past Dieterling. Everyone turned toward the doorway. There stood Big George Ambrose with his shaggy red hair and beard, looking painfully ill at ease in a tight-fitting dinner jacket. On one side of him was Kris Cardenas, in Selene for the first time in more than six years. On George’s other side was Amanda, in a plain white sleeveless gown, accented with a simple necklace and bracelet of gold links.
Humphries left Dieterling and the others standing there and rushed to Amanda.
His mouth went dry. He had to swallow hard before he could croak out, “Hello.”
“Hello, Martin,” said Amanda, unsmiling.
He felt like a tongue-tied schoolboy. He didn’t know what to say.
Pancho, of all people, rescued him. “Hi, Mandy!” she called cheerfully, walking toward them. “Good to see ya.”
Humphries felt almost grateful as Pancho introduced Amanda, Cardenas, and Big George to Dieterling and his nephews. Then Doug Stavenger came in, with his wife, and the party was complete.
While his guests sipped champagne and chatted, Humphries called one of the waiters over and instructed him to change the seating in the dining room. He wanted Amanda at his right hand.
Two minutes later his butler came up to him and whispered in his ear, “Sir, Doctor Dieterling is supposed to be sitting at your right. Diplomatic protocol—”
“Protocol be damned!” Humphries hissed. “Rearrange the seating. Now!”
The butler looked alarmed. Verwoerd stepped in and said, “Let me take care of it.”
Humphries nodded to her. She and the butler headed off to the dining room. Humphries turned back to Amanda. She seemed to glow like a goddess among the chattering mortals arrayed around her.
Dinner was long and leisurely. Humphries was certain that the conversation was sophisticated, deeply significant, a fine way for the delegates to tomorrow’s meeting to get to know each other. Bursts of laughter showed that considerable wit sparkled around the table. Humphries heard not a word. All he could see was Amanda. She smiled now and then, but not at him. She chatted with Dieterling, seated on her other side, and with Stavenger, who was across the table from her. She said hardly a word to Humphries and he found it difficult to talk to her, especially with all these others surrounding him.
After-dinner drinks were served in the library-cum-bar. As midnight tolled on the antique grandfather clock in the corner, the guests began to make their farewells. Amanda left with Cardenas and Big George. Pancho stayed until everyone else had gone.
“First in, last out,” she said, once she finally put her glass down on the bar. “I never want to miss anything.”
Humphries let Verwoerd escort Pancho to the door. He stepped behind the bar and poured himself a stiff single-malt, neat.
Verwoerd returned, a subtle smile creasing her sultry lips. “She’s even more beautiful in person than her on-screen image.”
“I’m going to marry her,” Humphries said.
Verwoerd actually laughed. “Not until you get up the nerve to speak to her, I should think.”
Anger flared in his gut. “Too many people around. I can’t say anything meaningful to her in a crowd like that.”
Still smirking, Verwoerd said, “She didn’t have much to say to you, either.”
“She will. I’ll see to that.”
Picking up her half-finished drink from the bar, Verwoerd said, “I noticed that the other woman didn’t have much to say to you, either.”
“Doctor Cardenas?”
“Yes.”
“We’ve had our… differences, in the past. When she lived here at Selene.”
“She used to run the nanotech lab, didn’t she?”
“Yes.” Kris Cardenas had been shut out of her lab because of Humphries. He was certain that Verwoerd knew it; the feline smile on her face told him tha
t she knew and was enjoying his discomfort over it. And his inability to say more than a few words to Amanda. She’s enjoying watching me turn myself into knots over the woman I love, he fumed silently.
“It’ll be interesting to see what they have to say tomorrow, if anything,” Verwoerd mused.
“Tomorrow?”
“At the conference.”
“Oh, yes. The conference.”
“I’m looking forward to it,” said Verwoerd.
“You won’t be there.”
Her eyes went wide for just a flash of a second, then she regained control of herself.
“I won’t be at the conference? Why not?”
“Because you’ll be in the medical lab. It’s time for you to be implanted with my clone.”
Verwoerd’s self-control crumpled. “Now? You’re going to do that now, with the conference and—”
He had just made up his mind. Seeing the smug superiority on her face had decided him. It’s time to show her who’s in charge here; time to make her realize she’s here to do my bidding.
“Now,” Humphries said, enjoying her shock and confusion. “I’m going to marry Amanda and you’re going to carry my baby.”
CHAPTER 50
So it boils down to this, Dorik Harbin said to himself as he read the message on his screen. All this effort and maneuvering, all these ships, all the killing, and it comes down to a simple little piece of treachery.
He sat in his privacy cubicle and stared at the screen. Some flunky who had once worked for Fuchs had sold out. For a despicably small bribe he had hacked into Fuchs’s wife’s computer files and found out where Fuchs had planted communications transceivers. Those little electroptics boxes were Fuchs’s lifeline, his link to information on where and when he could find the ships he preyed upon.
Harbin smiled tightly, but there was no joy in it. He opened a comm channel to his ships and began ordering them to the asteroids where Fuchs’s transceivers lay. Sooner or later he would show up at one of those rocks to pick up the latest intelligence information from his wife. When he did, there would be three or four of Harbin’s ships waiting for him.
