The Precipice gt-8

by Ben Bova

  It wasn’t a sexual dream. Strangely, when he dreamed of Amanda it was never sexual. They were on a yacht this time, sailing across a calm azure sea, standing up by the prow and watching dolphins leaping across the ship’s bow wave. He felt nervous on the water, unable to shake the fear of drowning even in this idyllic setting.

  Amanda stood by the rail, wearing a lovely pale blue dress, the soft breeze tousling her hair. She gazed at him with sad eyes. “I’ll be leaving soon,” she said unhappily.

  “You can’t leave me,” Humphries said to her. “I won’t let you leave.”

  “I don’t want to, darling. But they’re forcing me to. I must go. I have no choice.”

  “Who?” Humphries demanded. “Who’s forcing you?”

  “You know who, dearest,” said Amanda. “You know. You’re even helping him.”

  “It’s Randolph! He’s taking you away from me!”

  “Yes,” Amanda said, her eyes pleading with him to help her. To save her.

  And then the damned phone woke him up.

  He sat up in his bed, blazingly angry. “Phone!” he called out. “On the art screen.” A reproduction of a Picasso cubist nude disappeared to reveal the somber face of his security chief.

  “Sorry to wake you, sir,” the man said, “but you said you wanted to be personally informed of Ms. Cunningham’s movements.”

  With a glance at the digital clock on the nightstand, Humphries demanded, “Where’s she going at four in the fricking morning?”

  “She’s apparently asleep in her room, sir, but—”

  “Then what are you bothering me for?” Humphries bellowed. The security man swallowed visibly. “Sir, her name has just appeared on a flight manifest.”

  “Flight manifest?”

  “Yessir. She and three other people are scheduled to go to the Star-power ship, up in orbit.”

  “Now? Today?”

  “Scheduled for eight this morning, sir.”

  Four hours from now, Humphries realized. “And this flight manifest just came up on the launch schedule?”

  “About an hour ago, sir.”

  “Why are they going to Starpower 1?” Humphries wondered aloud.

  “That vessel is scheduled for launch on a test flight at nine o’clock, sir.”

  “I know that,” Humphries snapped. “It’s an unnamed long-duration flight.”

  “Perhaps they’re going up for a last-minute checkout, before the ship is launched out of orbit.”

  “Three other people going with her, you say? Who are they?” The security chief read off the names. “P. Lane, command pilot; L. Fuchs, mission scientist; and C. N. Barnard, flight surgeon.”

  “I know Lane,” Humphries said. “Who are the other two?”

  “Fuchs is a graduate student from Zurich Polytechnical Institute. He just arrived in Selene a few days ago. Barnard is apparently a medic of sort.”

  “Apparently?”

  Looking uncomfortable, the security chief replied, “He’s an Astro employee. We have no background data on Barnard, sir. No ID photo, either. All that we’ve been able to pull up from Astro’s files are his name, his position, and his fingerprints and retinal scan.”

  “Dan Randolph,” Humphries growled. “It’s an alias for Randolph!”

  “Sir?”

  “Check those prints and retinal scan against Dan Randolph’s file.”

  “Yessir.”

  “And send a couple of men to Amanda Cunningham’s quarters. Bring her here, to me.”

  “Right away, sir.”

  The wall screen went blank for an instant, then the Picasso image reappeared. Humphries paid no attention. He leaped out of bed, snarling aloud, “That fucking Randolph thinks he’s going to zip off to the Belt and take Amanda with him. Like hell he will!”

  Dan was already up and dressed in a white flight suit, the kind of coveralls worn by members of Selene’s medical staff. “C. N. Barnard” was one of the extra identities he had stored in Astro’s personnel files, a hangover from the days when he’d been up to his armpits in international skullduggery. He still had modest bank accounts scattered here and there on Earth under various aliases, just in case he ever needed to disappear for a while.

  He grinned to himself as he started for the tunnel that led to the spaceport. I’m going to disappear for a while, all right. Completely out of the Earth — Moon system. Past Mars. Out to the Asteroid Belt. The IAA will go apeshit when they find out we’re on board Starpower 1. Humphries’ll have a fit. And Astro’s stock ought to shoot up when we claim mining rights to a nice, rich asteroid or three. The lawyers may squabble over the details, but a few billion dollars worth of high-grade ores will start a feeding frenzy among the brokers. And the publicity will help, too.

  His grin disappeared as he reached the entrance to the tunnel. An electric cart sat waiting to take him to the spaceport, but neither Pancho nor Amanda was in sight. Dammitall to hell and back, Dan fumed. They were supposed to meet me here at five sharp. Women!

  “Come on, Mandy,” Pancho urged. “Dan’s prob’ly waitin’ for us already!”

  “One more minute,” Amanda said, from the lav. “I’ve just got to—” Somebody pounded impatiently on the door.

  “Oh, hell!” Pancho said.

  Amanda came out of the lavatory. “I’m ready, Pancho. Sorry to keep you waiting.”

  Pancho opened the door. Instead of Dan Randolph, two strangers stood out in the corridor. Both were men, wearing identical dark gray business suits. One with long blond hair and a nice full moustache, the other a taller, darker man with a military crew cut. Both were big-shouldered and stone-faced. They looked like cops to Pancho.

  Shit! Pancho thought. They know I hacked into the flight schedule.

  But the blond said, “Amanda Cunningham? Come with us, please.” Pancho hiked a thumb over her shoulder. “That’s her. And she’s not goin’ anywhere with you. We’re late for work already.”

  They pushed past Pancho and entered the room. “You’ll have to come with us, Ms. Cunningham,” the blond said.

  “Why? On whose authority?”

  “Mr. Humphries wants to see you,” the buzz cut said. His partner frowned at him.

  Pancho said, “Now wait a minute—”

  “Don’t interfere,” the blond said sharply. “Our orders are to bring Ms.

  Cunningham to Mr. Humphries’s residence. That’s what we’re going to do.”

  “Call security, Mandy,” Pancho said. “These guys are workin’ for Humphries.” Amanda started around the bed to the phone on the night table between their two beds, but the blond moved faster and blocked her way. “We don’t want to get physical,” he said to Amanda, “but we’ve got a job to do and we’re going to do it.”

  “How rough we get depends on you,” said the darker man, grinning at Amanda.

  She stared at them, wide eyed, somewhere between confusion and terror. The blond took another step toward Amanda. “Come along now, honey. We don’t want to hurt anybody.”

  Mandy stumbled back, away from him. Pancho saw that both men were focused on her. She swiftly bent down and peeled Elly from her ankle. “Here, wiseass,” Pancho said as she hurled the bright blue snake at the blond. He turned just fast enough to see the krait sailing in lunar slow motion toward his face. Instinctively he raised his arm to shield himself.

  “What the hell!”

  Elly bounced off the guy’s arm and fell to the floor. She reared up, hissing angrily.

  “Jesus Christ, what is it?”

  The buzz cut was tugging at something inside his jacket. Pancho chopped at the back of his neck and he sagged to the floor. Elly slithered toward him. The blond seemed frozen with fright, staring at the snake.

  Pancho gestured to Amanda, who stepped past the goggle-eyed blond and came to her side.

  The guy on the floor pushed himself up on one elbow and saw the snake rearing a bare ten centimeters in front of his face, its beady eyes staring at him. “Aaaggh,” he moaned.
/>   The blond pulled a small pistol from the holster beneath his jacket. Pancho saw that his hand was shaking badly.

  “Loud noises annoy her,” she said. “Just be quiet and don’t move.” The blond glanced at her, then returned his stare to the snake. The buzz cut was sweating as Elly stood before him, her tongue flicking in and out. “D-do something,” he whispered hoarsely.

  “Better drop your gun on the bed,” said Pancho to the blond. “If you shoot and miss her, she’ll bite him for sure.”

  The blond tossed the gun onto the bed. “Get it out of here,” he pleaded. Pancho started to lean forward, slowly, carefully, bending toward Elly. But the buzz cut’s nerve broke. He swung blindly at the snake and tried to scramble to his feet. Elly sank her fangs into the meaty side of his hand. He screamed and sagged back to the floor, unconscious. Pancho bent over and scooped Elly up, careful to hold her so the krait couldn’t twist and bite her. “He’ll be dead in an hour ’less you get the antiserum into him,” Pancho said quickly.

  The blond stared at his partner helplessly.

  “Take him to the hospital!” Pancho shouted.

  She headed for her travel bag, still on her bed, next to the blond’s discarded gun. Still holding Elly, she rummaged in the bag until she found the vial of antiserum and tossed it to the blond.

  “Get him to the hospital! Now! Tell ’em what happened and give ’em this. It’s the antiserum.”

  Then she grabbed her still-open travel bag and headed for the door. Amanda came right behind her, then rushed back in to get her own bag. As they hurried down the corridor together, Pancho glanced back over her shoulder and saw the blond lugging his unconscious partner in the other direction, toward the hospital. “Good girl, Elly,” she said. The krait had wrapped itself contentedly around Pancho’s wrist.

  When they got to the spaceport tunnel Dan Randolph was pacing angrily.

  “Where the hell have you been? We’re running late.”

  “I’ll tell you all about it, boss,” Pancho said as they climbed aboard the cart.

  “It’s Martin,” Amanda said, her voice low.

  “Humphries?” asked Dan.

  “He wants Mandy, and I think he knows we’re tryin’ to get out of here.”

  “What the hell happened?” Dan demanded.

  Pancho told him as the automated cart rode down the tunnel to the spaceport. Martin Humphries sat at his desk, staring coldly at the frightened, worried face of the blond security agent. The man was sweating and nervously brushing at his moustache with a fingertip.

  “So you let her get away,” Humphries said, after the man had explained his failure for the third time.

  “My partner was dying!” the blond said, his voice ragged. “That motherfucking snake bit him!”

  “And you let Ms. Cunningham get away,” Humphries repeated, icily.

  “I had to take him to the hospital. He would’ve died otherwise.”

  “You didn’t phone me, or security, or anyone who might have prevented her leaving.”

  “I’m phoning you now,” the blond said, with some heat. “They’re just about making their rendezvous with the Starpower ship. You can call the control center and have them abort the mission.”

  “Can I?”

  “There’s still time.”

  Humphries clicked off the connection. Stupid clod, he thought. I send him to do one simple thing and he fucks it up completely.

  “Abort the mission,” he said aloud. Then he shook his head. I should call the control center and tell them that Dan Randolph is hijacking my vessel and taking the woman I love alone with him. That would be a lovely item for the scandal nets. Everyone would laugh themselves sick at me.

  He leaned back in his contoured chair, but its softly yielding padding failed to soothe him. Amanda’s running off with Randolph. He’s probably been hot for her all the time, just waiting to get her away from me. Well, now they can be together. She prefers him to me. So she can die with him.

  His teeth hurt. With some surprise, Humphries realized that he’d clamped his jaw so tight it was making his whole head ache. His neck and shoulders were painfully stiff with tension. His fists were clenched so tightly he could feel his fingernails cutting into his palms.

  Amanda’s gone off with him. I’ll acquire Astro, but I’ve lost her forever. They’ll die together. It’s not my fault. I didn’t want to kill anybody. They’re doing it to themselves. She’s killing herself.

  He wished he could cry. Instead, he glanced at the list of major Astro stockholders that was displayed on his desktop screen. And he punched his right fist into the screen, exploding it in a shower of sparks and plastic shards.

  STARPOWER 1

  Fuchs met them at the spaceport, wondering why the four of them were going to the ship a bare hour before it was due to leave orbit and head out to the Belt. “There’s been a change in plans, Lars,” Dan told him. “We’re going along, too.” The young man’s dark brows lifted halfway to his scalp. “The IAA has approved this?”

  “That doesn’t make any difference,” Dan said as Amanda and Pancho clambered into the tractor waiting to take them to the jumper out on the launch pad. “We’re going.”

  Fuchs hesitated, standing in the open airlock hatch of the tractor.

  “We’re going,” Dan repeated. “With you or without you.” A slow smile spread across Fuchs’s broad face. “With me,” he said, and hopped up into the tractor, clearing its six steps with ease.

  Dan grinned and resisted the urge to imitate the younger man’s athleticism.

  Amanda and Pancho had taken the two rear seats, Fuchs the one next to the hatch. Dan sat behind the driver’s seat as the driver herself closed the airtight hatch and then checked out the cab’s pressurization. She got behind the wheel and slipped on her headset.

  She’s waiting for authorization from the controller to go out, Dan knew. If they’re going to stop us, this’d be the easiest time for them to do it. But after a few moments’ wait, she put the tractor in gear and rolled to the garage’s airlock. A few minutes later they were at the jumper, connecting the flexible access tube from the tractor’s hatch to the airlock hatch on the jumper’s crew module. In their flight coveralls, the four of them stepped carefully along the springy plastic of the narrow tube, hands touching the walls, heads bent slightly to keep from brushing the low ceiling.

  Small as it was, the jumper’s lab module was better than the claustrophobic tube. It was little more than a few square meters of metal deck enclosed in a glassteel bubble. A control console stood up front on a waist-high pedestal. Pancho went to the control console and pulled on one of the headsets hanging there; Amanda took up her post on Pancho’s right.

  “Better use the foot loops,” Dan said to Fuchs. “We’ll be in zero-g for a few minutes.”

  Fuchs nodded. He looked tense, expectant, his thin lips tightly closed. They can stop us at any time, Dan told himself. But as each second ticked by, he felt better and better.

  “Five seconds and counting,” Pancho told them. She hadn’t bothered to turn on the speaker built into the console.

  Just as Dan reached out to clasp one of the handgrips along the curving inner surface of the bubble, the jumper leaped off the ground with a single short, sharp bang of its ascent rocket. Dan’s knees flexed, but Fuchs nearly buckled. Dan grabbed his arm to steady him.

  “I… I’m sorry,” Fuchs apologized. “I didn’t expect it.”

  “It’s okay,” said Dan, impressed by the hard muscle he felt. “This is only your second launch, isn’t it?”

  Fuchs looked pale. “My second from the Moon’s surface. I also rode the shuttle from the Zurich aerospace port.”

  Dan saw that zero-g was making Fuchs queasy. “Are you going to be okay?” he asked. Nothing worse than having the guy next to you upchucking all the way to rendezvous.

  With a weak smile, Fuchs pointed to his well-muscled biceps. “I took the precaution of wearing a medicinal patch.”

  “Good,” D
an said.

  “And also these.” He pulled a thick wad of retch bags from the thigh pocket of his coveralls.

  “Smart man,” Dan said, hoping that Fuchs wouldn’t have to use them. Under control from the ground, the jumper made rendezvous with Starpower 1 and docked with the fusion ship’s main airlock hatch. Dan felt the slightest of thumps as the jumper’s adapter section locked onto the ship’s hatch. “Confirm docking,” Pancho said into her pin-mike. “You guys did a good job. I didn’t have to touch the controls once.”

  Whatever the controller said back to her made Pancho laugh. “Yeah, I know; that’s why you drag down the big bucks. Okay, we’re goin’ aboard now.” Turning to Dan, Pancho said, “I’ll set her up for automatic separation and return to Selene.”

  “Right,” said Dan, lifting free of his foot restraints and floating to the hatch. As far as the controllers back at Armstrong spaceport were concerned, the four of them were to be aboard Starpower 1 only for a final checkout before the ship was launched out of orbit. They were expected to return to Selene on the jumper. “They’re gonna be kinda surprised when this li’l buggy lands and nobody’s in it,” Pancho said with a mischievous grin.

  Dan went through the jumper’s hatch and into the coffin-sized adapter section. He tapped out the entry code to open the fusion ship’s airlock hatch. “Okay,” he said, once the hatch had swung open. “Let’s get aboard the Beltline express.”

  “You first, boss,” said Pancho. “You’re the owner.”

  He grunted. “One-third owner. I imagine at least one of the other two is going to be mighty slammed once he figures out what we’re doing,”

  “But he must have figured that out already,” Amanda said. “Right,” Pancho agreed. “Why else would he send those goons after Mandy?” Dan felt his brow furrow. “Then why isn’t he raising a howl? Why isn’t he trying to stop us?”

  Fuchs looked back and forth from Amanda to Pancho to Dan, clearly baffled by their conversation.

  “Well, let’s get aboard before he does start hollerin’,” Poncho said, making a shooing motion toward Dan with both her hands.