"What I am going to ask you now is very important." She rattled out the words, before Bat could reach explosion point. "You met Jinx Barker. Did you ever reveal to him the location of this place?"
The question was curious enough to distract Bat's anger temporarily from their uninvited arrival. He peered at Lola from within the cowl of his robe and stood thinking hard for several seconds. At last he shook his great round head. "I met Jinx Barker three times, each of them a brief encounter. I am sure that I did not hint in any way at the location of the Bat Cave."
"Good." Lola sat down uninvited on another chair that swallowed her up in its depths. "That means we don't have to run for it right this minute."
Bat glared at her, but he gradually sank back into his own padded seat. "Since you are not a Puzzle Network member," he said, "and you do not therefore prize paradox for its own sake, I accept your statement at face value. However, I suggest that an explanation is in order."
"That's why I'm here." Lola sighed, and suddenly felt faint from hunger. She glanced across to the long stove, where three black pots simmered over a low heat. She had eaten nothing since her dinner with Jinx Barker—how long ago was that? A lifetime and a half, from the feel of it. "Do you suppose . . ."
Bat had seen her starved and longing look. It aroused his deepest sympathies. He rose and went across to the kitchen counter. "If you can eat and talk simultaneously, I can certainly eat and listen. You are most fortunate. This is my special five-cheese fondue."
"Do you have enough?" Lola saw Bat's reproving expression. "I guess you do. Yes, I can eat and talk at the same time. It will take a while to tell you everything."
"Leave out nothing." Bat brought over a low table, placed a bubbling black pot where all three of them could reach it, and gestured to Lola to help herself. "Nothing," he repeated. "Remember, the details matter."
Lola nodded. She took a first mouthful, burned her tongue, and began to talk. It was the third time she was telling it, and she could finally distance herself a little from what she was saying. The shock of seeing a tender lover turn murderer had not faded, but now she could see how easy she had made things for Jinx Barker. With anyone else she would have asked questions. At the very least she would have made sure that she could be reached in case of emergency, before diving two thousand kilometers—for dinner, no less—into Ganymede's unknown interior. She had been lucky. Like Jonah, she had been into The Belly of the Whale and returned to talk about it.
Bat asked only two questions and made one comment. "You are sure of the name, Jeffrey Cayuga, for the man who supposedly gave instructions to Alicia Rios?"
"Yes. Do you know him?"
Bat shook his head. "Who was the other man, the one who talked to Alicia Rios at the First Family party?"
She ought to know that. But after a day and a half without sleep her brain could not produce a name. "He was descended from someone on the first Saturn expedition," she said. "I'm sure of that. I'll try to remember his name later."
"Do so." Bat spoke as though he were her senior and she was the teenager. Lola swallowed her exasperation. She had not yet told him that she wanted Spook to stay in the Bat Cave until she was sure of their safety.
"It seems clear that Bryce Sonnenberg is somehow at the heart of this," Bat went on, "since there is otherwise no logical reason for killing both of you. And, as Spook and I have discovered, Sonnenberg is himself an abundant source of mystery. He is not what he seems. His stated background and his recorded background do not match. Although I am beginning to have suspicions, they still lack coherence."
He subsided thoughtfully into his chair, a great mass of flesh and swaddling clothing. One of the pots had been emptied, and a second was down to the sticky residue at the bottom. Lola had eaten too much, and now she was feeling an overwhelming weariness. She told herself that she had to leave the Bat Cave in the next ten minutes, or fall asleep on the spot.
She stood up. "I have to get back home." She realized that it wasn't just weariness. She was afraid to return to her office, afraid of Jinx Barker, even when he was tightly bound. If he was tightly bound. "He ought to stay unconscious for another three or four hours, but I dare not risk that. If once he wakes up, I know he'll find a way to free himself."
"I am forced to agree with you." Bat was nodding. His face behind the hood of his robe seemed almost pleased. Lola had presented him with a new puzzle. "Barker awake presents a threat," he continued. "You must return to him before that threat can materialize. Meanwhile, there is work to be done here. The central banks should certainly contain information concerning Jeffrey Cayuga. Also, we must trace the name of every descendant of every member of the original Saturn expedition."
We must trace the name. He must be including Spook, rather than insisting that her brother leave with her. Lola was around the black partition before he could change his mind. She poked her head back just long enough to croak, "Thanks for the food, you're a great cook," and hurried toward the front of the Bat Cave. With her eyes adjusted to the low lighting level, she could pick her way more easily across the crowded floor, but the battered equipment and cabinets seemed no less like old junk.
War relics, said her exhausted brain. Like Spook, Bat was obsessed with the awful war. Maybe that was a good thing. Who was it—Santayana?—who said that if you didn't remember the past, you would have to repeat it. Unfortunately, that told only half the story. When you dealt with humans, it seemed that even if you did remember the past, you still had to repeat it. How many "Great Wars" had there been, wars that for a few years were supposed to end all wars? And even if all-out war one day became a matter of history, there would still be the Jinx Barkers, the professional assassins. Death was no less final whether you died alone or at the same time as nine billion others.
Lola's return was a dream journey—hurrying along dimly remembered corridors, ascending hundreds of meters in high-speed lift chutes, hesitating before making a choice of a transit slideway. She needed to get there as fast as she could, but at the same time she was dreading the thought of her arrival. She had to turn Jinx Barker over to Ganymede Security, but what if they did not believe her? What had he done, that she could actually prove? Nothing criminal. Shown personal interest. Made love to her. Taken her out to dinner. He could claim to be the one with the right to complain. She had bound him mentally and physically, drugged him and questioned him, and then left him tied up for hours.
They would let him go. What they might do to her was another matter.
By the time that she arrived at the final corridor her stomach was tight with tension. Rather than going directly into her office she went along to the next entrance and into her apartment. The interconnecting office door was closed, and she tiptoed along to it and stood listening. She heard not a sound. Jinx Barker must still be unconscious.
The door opened away from her. She eased it open, inch by inch, and stepped inside. Barker ought to be exactly where she had left him, on the reclining chair at the other side of her desk.
She took one pace into the room, craning her neck to look for him. As she cleared the doorway, she was grabbed from behind. Before she could cry out, a hand came up to cover her mouth. She was pulled back hard into the space behind the open door.
20
Lola felt again the terror of a strong hand gripping her by the neck. She kicked backward and heard a grunt of pain.
"Ooh!" said a pained voice in her ear. She was turned—hard—and found herself staring into Bryce Sonnenberg's startled face. He took his hand away from her mouth. "Keep quiet. I didn't know who you were when I grabbed you, or I wouldn't have been so rough. Look at that."
He turned her again, this time toward her desk. Beyond it she saw Jinx Barker, exactly as he had been when she left him. She breathed a huge sigh of relief.
"Good, he's still there. My God, but you frightened me."
"You should be frightened." He took her by the arm and walked her forward to stand by the reclining chair. "Did you do this
to him?"
"Do what?" And then she saw it. Barker looked different. His eyes bulged beneath half-open lids, and his face was livid. He did not seem to be breathing. "I didn't mean to—the drugs I gave him, the doses were the same—"
"Not drugs." Bryce Sonnenberg looked different, too. The puzzled young man who had walked into her office a few weeks ago had gone. The replacement was older, tougher, and far more knowing.
"He's dead but he didn't die of drugs," he went on. "He died of asphyxiation. Somebody suffocated him while he lay there."
"Were you here when it happened?"
"No. I arrived ten minutes ago. He was like this when I walked in."
"Then how do you know?"
"Trust me. I've seen this sort of thing before." Bryce did not explain, but walked them steadily toward the door. It was just as well that he kept his grip on her, because Lola's legs wanted to buckle.
"Somebody came and killed him." She felt dazed. "I didn't kill him. Yesterday he tried to kill me. It makes no sense."
"It makes excellent sense." They were at the door of the outer office and Bryce pointed to the lock, where a thin line had been burned through the metal. "That's how they got in. You are seeing somebody covering their tracks. Jinx Barker was hired to kill you by Alicia Rios, but he failed to do it. So he was killed himself. And she has been killed, too, and all her records destroyed. You and I are still in danger. The difference is that now we have no idea where the attack might come from. Until we know that, we can't possibly stay here. They could return any minute." He glanced along the corridor in both directions. "We seem to be all right for the moment. Where's Spook?"
"He's safe."
"Then let's go."
"I can'tjust leave here. Jinx Barker—and my patients—"
"You know how to reach them. Tell them you won't be able to treat them for a while. Give them the name of another haldane if you have to. But don't do any of that here and now—do it when we reach a safe place. Same with Jinx Barker. We don't call Security until we have a place to hide."
"Your apartment?"
"Definitely not. Remember, I was on Jinx Barker's list as well as you."
"Where, then?"
"I don't know." They had reached the end of the hallway and he turned for a last look back along the corridor. "Still seems quiet. We'll have to do a few double loops in case they use some fancy tracking gear, but we'll start that when we're a bit farther away. The big question is, Where do we go?"
Lola sighed. As the new adrenaline drained out of her she was ready to fall apart. The idea of combing Ganymede for another safe haven was quite beyond her.
"I know a place," she said. "Just don't expect the welcome mat to spread out for you when we get there."
* * *
Bat did not kick and scream and throw a fit. It was not his way. He simply looked at Bryce, then glared at Lola in stony accusation.
"As before," he said, "I suggest that an explanation is in order."
It was, but Lola didn't have the strength to provide it. She was at the absolute end of her tether. She had lost track of how long it had been since she had slept. She waved toward Bryce, slumped down into one of the Bat Cave's enormous easy chairs, and closed her eyes. Whatever had to be done would be done without her.
She was vaguely aware of Bryce Sonnenberg talking, with Bat and Spook listening and asking occasional questions. Something that Bryce had said to her earlier registered for the first time. He was convinced that Alicia Rios was dead, and that she had been murdered.
"Which brings us to Jeffrey Cayuga," said Bat. That name brought Lola to partial awareness. "After Spook arrived here, the two of us searched the data banks. Jeffrey Cayuga is in there as an entry. He is also dead."
"Cayuga, too?" Bryce Sonnenberg perched himself on the edge of Lola's chair. "That's it, then. Every single lead we had is gone."
"But Cayuga didn't die in the last few hours," Spook added. Lola recognized that tone of voice. It was wobbly and in danger of cracking—not with fear, but with excitement.
"He's not like Jinx Barker or the Rios woman," Spook continued, "because he died weeks ago—that's why the death's already reported in the bank. See what it says."
He called for a stored file, and the brief announcement rolled into the display: The death was reported today of Jeffrey Cayuga, leader of the fifth, sixth, and seventh Saturn expeditions . . .
Bryce pointed to the end of the message. "What about the nephew they mention, Joss Cayuga?"
"Most unpromising," said Bat. "For one thing, he is much younger than all the other individuals we have so far encountered in this matter. For another, he is apparently a recent arrival in the Jovian system. According to the record, he was born in the Belt, was fortunate enough to survive the war, and shipped out to join the most recent Saturn expedition less than two months ago."
"So that's it. The story's over, except for one thing." Bryce pointed to Lola, completely asleep now in the chair next to him. "Someone is still out to get her and to get me. We don't know who, and we have no idea how to stop them. And I don't see why that's anything to look pleased about."
"My apologies." Bat did his best to appear contrite. "I am not at all unsympathetic to your plight, even if I appear to be. However, you must understand that this has all the ingredients of a complex and fascinating puzzle. One that can surely be solved, given a little more information. And might I suggest that some of that information is contained there?" He pointed a pudgy finger. "Right there, with an individual named Bryce Sonnenberg, who may originally have been completely honest with Lola Belman, and even with himself, but who has recently, I am now convinced, become rather less so."
* * *
"It was never good odds, you see," Bryce said, "but it was a whole lot better than no odds at all." He, Bat, and Spook had moved to a dark corner of the Bat Cave, leaving Lola to sleep where she sat. Bryce was leaning over a battered piece of metal, which had originally formed a broad, flat hoop with hundreds of tiny filaments on its top edge. "Yeah, you're quite right. This is part of one, same thing as I had."
"A brain-coring experiment?" Bat sank for a moment into his own personal war nightmare, of lumbering, sightless men and women and isolated, cored brains.
"Not like you're thinking." Bryce was rubbing his fingers thoughtfully over the tangle of thin neural filaments. "You've probably heard stories from the war-tribunal hearings, and that sort of thing did go on in some of the Belt labs. Pretty gruesome. But there was another side of it, straight commercial. If you had money—and I had plenty—you could take out a sort of life insurance. If you died with your brain intact and well preserved, it would be hustled into ultra-cold storage, and assuming they had a donor available in the Belt, you'd wake up—if you were lucky—in a new body."
"Bryce Sonnenberg," said Spook. "Died on Hidalgo of a brain hemorrhage. Natural causes, seven years ago."
"Which is a relief to me." Bryce put his hand up to his head. "I never asked, but I did sometimes wonder when I first woke up if he had been, how shall I put it, 'helped along' on the way to becoming my body-transplant donor. I'd made my plans soon after I escaped from Earth to Mars, but of course I never had any idea when I might require the service. So there was no way to make sure a donor would be available if I needed one."
"The memories that the haldane treatment tapped." Bat pointed in the direction of the sleeping Lola. "The casino, and the submersible, and the dark-haired young woman— they were of your life on Earth?"
"Those ones were. That was Danny Clay's life—my life. Being starved and beat up as a young kid is Danny, too. Dying on Mars, though—that was Julius Szabo." Bryce shook his head in a puzzled way. "Something else about Julius, before the fall. But I can't quite get to it. It's strange, bits and pieces of memory drift back in and I have no control of when or what. I guess Danny's me, and Julius is me, and I'm me, but I feel like we're still sorting out the territory. I don't know who I am any more. It didn't mention anything like this when I b
ought the policy."
"I am not surprised," Bat said. "It seldom does. I suspect, however, that there was a statute of limitations. You are unlikely to be eligible for a refund."
Bryce stared at Bat, not quite sure that he was joking. "That's one way to put it. But I can't blame the group that did the transplant, unless you can also prove they started the whole damn war. They told me the ground rules up front. If I got zapped on Mars but my brain came through in one piece, I'd be popped into a donor. But that would be just the beginning. No point in sitting inside a body you can't control, and nerve tissue is tricky stuff. It can be re-grown with the right hormones, but it's a slow job and a delicate one. I was warned, there would be a five-year period of treatment and convalescence before I was back to normal, even if things went exactly right."
"And long before that, the war began between the Belt and the Inner System."
"Right. I'd been there only a couple of years. So I was screwed. Or I was superlucky, depending on how you look at it. Most of the other people in the transplant center with me had been there just a few months. Their brains and bodies had hardly made contact. Me, I guess I managed to get to the surface and onto one of the escape ships when Hidalgo was hit, but when I was done my lungs were ruined and my brain wasn't fit to make cabbage soup. I was sent to a place on Callisto."
"The Isobel Busby Sanctuary for War Victims," said Spook. "I went there, but they wouldn't let me in."
"That right?" Bryce stared at him in surprise. "Well, you did better than I did. They wouldn't let me out. And the whole place was packed with madmen. I know, because I was one of them. The staff did their best, but of course they had no idea what had happened to me—nor did I. They re-grew my lungs, and they regrew my hair and toes, and they treated me for 'war psychosis,' whatever that is. But they didn't have the neural feedback equipment I needed, so for the first couple of years I got worse and worse. I only began to get better when they gave up on the treatment and left me alone. After I could walk and talk and stopped wetting my pants, they wired me up and gave me the best set of planted memories that they could conjure up from my records. Three years of that, and I knew who I was again. Of course, most of my memories were bogus, but that didn't matter as long as there was no competition inside my head. I was released, thought I knew who I was, started to live my life—and then things really went to hell. I began to get real memories. That's when I came to Lola and she started picking my brain apart." He stared thoughtfully back toward the partition. "She's a sexy young woman, you know. No wonder Jinx Barker liked his assignment." He saw Spook's expression, and added hastily, "The first part of it, I mean."
The Ganymede Club Page 24
