by A. C. Ellis
Again something jarred in Susan’s mind. The solar power satellite had been destroyed three months ago, yet Darcy acted as if that destruction had never occurred.
She said nothing. If he couldn’t believe she remembered his brother alive and well only three weeks ago, he would never believe what she remembered about the satellite.
“This D. I. the waiter mentioned,” she finally asked, “what is it?”
“Department of Insularity,” Darcy said. “Hyatt possessed enough influence in Luna City politics last year to maneuver me into forming it. It’s why you haven’t seen any holo-phones here in Luna City. We stopped using them six months ago. Not only are they manufactured Earth-side, but they consume copious amounts of energy that can be better used to further our push for self-sufficiency. At any rate, that’s the theory.”
Susan had thought the lack of holo-phones was due to the power satellite’s destruction. “There seems to be quite a bit going on here of which I wasn’t aware,” she said.
“Communications beamed Earth-side have been censored for the past six months. Right now, we still need General Fund money to keep going. And if nothing comes of all this—” He shrugged.
The waiter returned with the wine, and their conversation fell into a more casual track. The meal was good, and the companionship even better.
Still, Susan’s mind mulled over what she had just learned. The solar power satellite had not been destroyed, as she remembered. And Hyatt’s group was closer to independence than anyone on Earth might suspect.
She relaxed some at the ballet, for the first time in two days. It was just what she needed. She knew she was taking a chance being out—the latest attacker had proved he would strike in a crowd—but she would probably be no more safe in her quarters; the first assailant back on Fleet Base had used a spore-lock scrambler to get into her rooms.
And somewhere out in the crowd, unseen, Clayton watched.
She pushed those thoughts from her mind and sat back to enjoy the performance. She hadn’t seen a low gravity ballet in almost ten years, and she had nearly forgotten just how much fun it could be. The dancers were considerably more acrobatic than their Earth-side counterparts, able to do things in Luna’s one- sixth standard gravity only dreamed of by those on Earth.
But by the final curtain fear was again gnawing at the back of her mind. There was an assassin out there in the crowd, perhaps more than one, waiting for a chance to kill her. She was making it too easy by taking this night out; there was simply no way she could control the environment sufficiently. At least in her apartment she could exercise some control, and she trusted her own abilities far more than she did Clayton’s.
Besides, with these two new bits of knowledge—that Sam Darcy was dead, and that the solar power satellite still hung in Clarke orbit above Luna City—she had enough to think about.
She had Darcy take her back to her quarters immediately following the performance.
Chapter Twelve
“I had a wonderful evening,” she said as they approached the door to her quarters.
Darcy smiled. “Are you feeling better?”
“I’m fine,” she lied.
He nodded. “I’ll call tomorrow. Maybe we can have lunch.”
“That does sound good.” Susan turned to the door and it irised open. A Fleet uniform lay on the floor, caught in the light slicing into the dark room. Everything had been in order when she left with Darcy, all her clothing unpacked and hanging neatly in the closet.
She stepped away from the door and it irised closed.
“What’s wrong?” Darcy asked. He took Susan by the shoulders and turned her toward him. “What is it?”
“Someone’s been in my rooms?”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes,” she said, then realized that her strange ability had not warned her.
They were silent for a few seconds. Finally, Darcy said, “We’ll go in together. You know the room’s layout—what side is the light switch on?”
“Left.”
“When we enter, step to the left. Flatten yourself against the wall just out of the door’s sensor range. I’ll go to the right. Find the light switch. When the door closes, wait a few seconds, then turn the light on.”
Susan nodded, took a deep breath, then let it out slowly. She would do her best to let him take charge; she had to maintain her cover. Besides, his plan was sound.
Turning from him, she stepped to the door. It irised open again, and she went in quickly and stepped to the left, flattening herself against the wall. Darcy entered immediately behind her and disappeared to the right.
The uniform lay two feet ahead and to her right. It looked like a handless, headless body laying face down on the carpet. Darkness cut it off just below the knees. Then the door closed and the room went dark.
Cautiously, Susan worked her way along the wall to the light switch. She reached out, felt it with the sensitive tips of her prosthetic fingers. After waiting a few seconds, she threw the switch.
The light came on, and she gasped. The closet stood open and empty, her clothing strewn everywhere. All the furniture was overturned. The bed’s mattress had been slashed repeatedly, its stuffing scattered about the room. Even the contents of the small bathroom had been dragged out and dumped in the middle of the bedroom floor.
“What the hell happened here?” Darcy asked from the other side of the door.
Susan put a finger to her lips, then pointed to the bathroom. Although her ability had not warned her, whoever had ransacked the apartment might still be present. Darcy nodded and advanced cautiously toward the darkened room.
He disappeared into the bathroom, and a few seconds later its light came on. “No one,” he said, re-entering the bedroom.
Stepping up to Susan, he took her by the shoulders and held her at arms length. “Now,” he said, his voice suddenly stern, “tell me what’s going on.”
“If I told you, you wouldn’t believe me,” Susan said. “Besides, I can’t.”
Darcy frowned. “What do you mean, you can’t? What are you involved in, Susan?”
She wanted to tell him. She wanted to sob against his chest, blubbering her entire story while he stroked her hair. But she couldn’t. If she told him what was happening, that might somehow jeopardize her assignment. It might be cancelled, and she could not allow that for any reason; this was probably her last chance to get back into deep space. And she couldn’t let anything stand in the way of that.
Besides, she wasn’t entirely sure she could trust him. And even if he wasn’t involved in this, whoever was after her could use him against her.
She shook her head. “I just can’t,” she repeated.
“If that’s the way you want it…”
“That’s the way it has to be.”
Darcy nodded. “One thing is certain: you can’t stay here tonight. They— whoever they are—might return.”
“Someone is expecting to contact me here.”
“You can leave a message. You’re coming home with me tonight, where security is considerably tighter.”
“But—”
“No buts. Make your call, and we’ll leave. And don’t tell them where you’ll be. Just give them this number.” He spoke five digits. “It’s unlisted and private.”
He was right. She would be much safer with him tonight. And she didn’t want to be alone.
She took a step back, out of his grasp, then looked around the room. They had trashed her quarters thoroughly.
Why? What were they looking for?
The pendant.
She fingered the lump of dull gray metal hanging from its chain around her neck. It had to be the pendant. It had saved her once.
But that didn’t make sense. The first attack, in her rooms back on Fleet Base, had occurred before she had possessed the pendant. Yet, why else would her rooms here in Luna City be searched?
The pendant was part of it. Although it probably wasn’t the only cause for what had been happ
ening to her, it might explain some of it.
But why were they after her in the first place? Why did they want her dead?
Perhaps it was her assignment with Survey Service. Those behind Hyatt’s impostor would want her out of the way if they thought she might be sent after him.
And then there was Aldebaran.
She stepped around a pile of clothing, went to the phone and placed a call to the Survey Service duty desk. She kept visual off so they would see neither Darcy nor the condition of the room. They would think she was merely undressed.
She could do nothing to let Clayton know.
Two extremely capable-looking young men in Luna City police uniforms stood guard outside the entrance to the mayor’s apartment. The quarters were large and luxurious, but still without the more expensive wood furnishings.
Susan slept in a guest room, on a huge round bed, beneath an old-fashioned feather comforter, alone. Under ordinary circumstances she and Darcy would have slept together, but Susan was too confused for that now. Too much had happened during the past few days, too much for which she had absolutely no explanation. Darcy understood, and respected her privacy.
Before she went to bed she checked her LIN/C. According to its memory circuits, Sam Darcy was dead. Yet she remembered him being alive only a few weeks ago, when she had watched him give a holo-vid address beamed to Earth from Luna City—a speech condemning lunar independence. Obviously at that time there had been no censoring of news from Luna City. At least, as she remembered it. But her LIN/C had not recorded a holo-vid broadcast originating from Luna City in quite some time.
She checked, as well, what information her LIN/C contained concerning the solar power satellite. Its memory contained no reference to the satellite’s destruction. In her own memory, however, the satellite had been destroyed three months ago.
Chapter Thirteen
The nightmare came, as it had nearly every sleep period for the past ten years, sharp and clear, as if played directly into her mind through her LIN/C.
Heat. The stifling rage of fire in a confined space. Smoke. And the choking fumes of burning insulation.
She approached the air-tight door to Engineering Department’s crew’s quarters and brought the back of her hand to within a few inches of its polished metal surface. It radiated sufficient heat to instantly blister her flesh.
Searching by feel, she groped for the dogging wrench she knew should be in its rack beside the door. Twice her hand came off the bulkhead minus skin before she found it. She put it to one of the dogs and strained. The dog moved grudgingly, but finally gave.
Another dog…Another…Six in all. All tight due to metal expanding in the tremendous heat.
Finally, after what seemed a lifetime, they were all loose. Using the dogging wrench, she pushed the door inward.
Flames leaped out at her, singeing her hair and blistering the flesh on her face and the backs of her hands. Through the wall of fire she saw others, men and women, rushing toward the open hatch, then forced back by the heat and flames.
They were members of her crew. And they were trapped in there.
Movement to her right, beyond the wall of flames in a dark corner of the compartment, caught her attention. She turned toward the movement.
Then nothing…
Susan woke in the middle of the night, screaming, the charred and twisted bodies of nearly three hundred dead hanging before her eyes. The nightmare had been particularly bad this time. And, as always, it had been incomplete.
Had she jumped through that wall of flame in an attempt to save those others? That was the scenario which had emerged during her court-martial, but she could not be sure. She simply couldn’t remember. For all she knew, she might have turned and ran. The last thing she remembered was turning toward sudden movement in a corner of the compartment. Then nothing.
And she couldn’t use her LIN/C to verify the occurrence. For some reason, the device had not recorded any events her conscious mind had not registered. The technicians couldn’t explain it, but there was simply no record.
Chapter Fourteen
She spent most of the following two days in Darcy’s apartment, studying the chips Karl had supplied, familiarizing herself with the LIN/C reports of four of the best operatives the Survey Service had ever produced. In spite of their impressive abilities, they had not succeeded in apprehending Hyatt’s impostor, and all four had died.
Several hours both days were spent leaning on the catwalk railing overlooking hangar four, gazing down at the small spacecraft huddled in one corner under brilliant overhead lights. The technicians no longer crawled over its outer hull. Now, the hatch stood open and an occasional white-clad tech entered, laden with instruments, only to emerge empty handed minutes or even hours later.
As she watched, she had to continually remind herself that the ship was being readied for her. After ten years, she would again pilot a ship. That ship was not a massive Fleet cruiser, or even a destroyer, but it was hers, and it would again take her beyond Luna’s orbit.
Late the second day, she received a call from Clayton. “You’re hard to reach,” he said as his image materialized on the flat screen in front of her. Behind him she recognized the wall of a pay phone booth.
“There’s good reason.” She told him about her ransacked apartment.
“Then they were searching for something,” he said.
“So it appears. I think it might be the pendant.”
Clayton nodded. “I have to talk to you. Meet me in your quarters in half an hour.” He clicked off without another word.
Chapter Fifteen
Clayton sat in the jumbled chaos of Susan’s apartment as she entered, his huge frame nearly overflowing the room’s only chair. But he no longer looked sloppy-fat, simply large. And he no longer wore the soiled and tattered jumpsuit she had last seen him in. Instead, he was dressed in the powder blue of the Survey Service, silver captain’s stripes sewn on his sleeves. The beard, too, was gone.
“This is quite a mess,” he said, looking around the trashed room. “I can see why you moved.”
Susan almost smiled, but stopped herself. She went to the bunk and sat on its edge. “You’ve been on the Survey Service compound. What did you learn?”
“It was difficult, but I gained access to Survey’s computer. I now have Hyatt’s personal access code. And I know your assignment—the mission out to the Crab Nebula.”
The Crab Nebula! Susan thought. So that’s where she would be going. But it was also where the proprietor of the curio shop back on Fleet Base had said the pendant had originated. Could it be a coincidence? She doubted it.
At any rate, it seemed Clayton was unaware she did not know what her assignment would entail. Should she admit her ignorance to him? Should she tell him Hyatt was giving her information only a little at a time?
No. It was probably best he did not know how little she knew.
“Is that how you got Darcy’s unlisted number,” she asked, “from the Survey Service computer?”
“That’s right.”
“Are you going to try to stop my mission?”
“I hope that won’t become necessary. But I will if I have to.”
“I understand. But you must know how important this assignment is to me.”
Clayton nodded. “When are you scheduled to leave?”
She would have to admit her ignorance on this point. “I don’t know yet,” she said. “If it wasn’t in Survey’s computer—”
“Maybe Hyatt hasn’t decided yet,” Clayton finished for her. “When will you be ready to leave?”
“That’s hard to say. Hyatt’s techs aren’t finished with the ship yet, and he won’t let me onboard until they are.”
“You’ll be on your own then, you know. I can no longer protect you after you leave Luna.”
“You won’t be out there with me?” Susan joked.
“We tried to get someone on your crew, but the ship’s a single-seater.”
“You�
��re serious. You really think I’ll still be in danger after I leave Luna—alone in deep space.”
Clayton nodded. “Think about it. Whoever is after you is determined. They’ve already tried twice, and did this.” He motioned around the cluttered room with a sweep of his arm. “Is there any reason to think they’ll quit now?”
“No, I guess not.”
“Who recommended you for this assignment?” Clayton asked.
“Admiral Renford.”
He was silent for a few seconds. Finally he said, “We’ve uncovered evidence that points to the Admiral as being behind these attempts on your life.”
Susan remained silent for a few seconds, her mind numbed with the shock of what she had just heard. Finally she said, “You can’t seriously think Admiral Renford is behind this. You can’t think he’s trying to kill me.”
Clayton shrugged.
Standing, Susan paced before the bunk. Again she thought about telling him how little she knew about her assignment, and again decided against it. The less he knew about her ignorance, the better.
After a few seconds, she turned to Clayton and asked, “Have you learned anything about my first two attackers?”
“Nothing about the one you say attacked you outside the curio shop. We couldn’t even find anyone who experienced that sudden change in atmospheric pressure you described.”
It had been a mistake to tell him about that one, she thought. She should have followed her instincts, telling him only what she knew he could accept.
“What about the one who got into my quarters on Fleet Base?” Clayton had at least acknowledged the existence of that attacker.
“There we’ve made some progress.” He struggled out of the chair and stepped to the phone, then took a memory chip from his breast pocket and placed it in the appropriate slot at eye level below the screen. “Activate display,” he said.
Instantly the flat image of a short man looking off to his left appeared on the screen. Instead of the black Base Security uniform Susan had last seen him in, he wore a civilian jumpsuit of gleaming white. His skin was tanned nearly black, and the livid scar stood out on the left sided of his face.
