“Then why doesn’t she just come out and say that? Why be indirect?”
Lainey smiled. “Women can be like that at times. But you might be on the right track. Maybe it is something else, and not her work at all. I’ve watched you two together, and talked with you enough to think that maybe you need to back off a little, Devv. Maybe you put too much pressure on Sonya. She could feel smothered by your constant attentions.”
“Did she tell you that?”
“No, but I bring this up because I’ve been wondering the same thing about my own behavior toward Billy, if I’ve been pushing him too hard, not giving him enough space. It could be, so I’m wondering if you and I are both making the same mistake.” She paused. “I can’t say for sure if that’s what either of us are doing wrong, if anything, but it’s just a thought.”
He shook his head. “No, I think she has other reasons. I’ve been getting reports on Sonya from my officers, so I know she’s flirtatious with some of the men on the ship, including her own students. Perhaps it is all innocent, but she is playing with fire, especially with her physical beauty.”
“I’ve never seen her doing anything like that.”
“Actually, I have confirming videos taken by robots on my force. Her flirtations are mild, at least in public, but they do exist. I’m not making it up.”
“I see. It sounds rather, uh, French? Or Italian? Innocent flirtations are a way of life in some societies, and Sonya’s father was French, wasn’t he?”
“Yes, you could be right. Maybe I’m reading too much into it. But I always think of the old adage, ‘where there’s smoke there’s fire,’ so I’m going to keep my eye on her. Both eyes, in fact.”
“You are a policeman, after all, among your duties for the security of Skyship.”
Devv nodded.
“She is awfully pretty,” Lainey said, “so other men naturally take notice of her. Tall and blonde with blue eyes. You have your hands full.”
“You and I are both suffering from unrequited love,” Devv said, ruefully. “Maybe we should get involved with each other and forget those other two.”
“We’re good friends, Devv. You know that. Just good friends.”
He sipped his coffee as he stood there, made a face as if it didn’t taste good and slipped it into a waste processor chute, generating a brief noise of machinery.
“Yeah,” he said. “I know that. Anyway, thanks for the talk. Now I gotta get back to work.” He turned and walked away, crossing the practice floor.
It seemed to Lainey that something was not quite right about Devv Jeeling; she’d been thinking this way for some time now, without knowing exactly what it was that bothered her. She had no evidence that anything was wrong with him, not in the slightest, except for a nagging tickle in her brain that wouldn’t go away, a sense that something was slightly off about him, something he wasn’t revealing to her.
He could not possibly be a danger to Billy, because he was the great man’s son and heir apparent, and Billy had always treated him extremely well. Devv had never complained to her about Billy, and had always challenged anyone who dared to make even the slightest negative comment about his father.
She knew, as well, that Devv had saved his father two years ago from an attempt on his life, when a pair of assassins managed to get past several levels of security, and were apprehended when Devv saw the scan reports on them, and noticed their suspicious behavior. He later said he only sensed something about them, that they were not really the legitimate businessmen they had been portraying themselves to be, and were not actually there to discuss making a large financial donation to Billy’s pet project.
Devv had sensed something then, just as Lainey was sensing something about him now. She felt absolutely certain that he posed no danger to Billy. So, it had to be something else. But what?
CHAPTER 11
Skyship is a money-making machine for Billy Jeeling.
The only question is, where is he hiding all of his ill-gotten treasure?
—Connor Luxor, formerly a trusted Jeeling adviser, now considered a traitor by the JeeJees
It was a clear, sunny day, with the sky the prettiest shade of blue that Maureen Stuart had ever seen. Wearing a black helmet with a golden emblem, she stood by a rocket cycle outside Imperial City, waiting to board it as a passenger, while its pilot went through a safety check. They were at one of Jonathan Racker’s many industrial sites, a private landing field for company executives. Her sprained wrist was feeling better, but she had not removed the wrap from it yet.
The rocket cycle was long, bright blue and sleek, with black, swept-back wings, tight by the frame, and two seats, one in front of the other. It was one of the larger models. Each seat had a storage compartment underneath, containing capsules filled with anti-Jeeling leaflets. The cycle’s canopy was swung open now, and the pilot—a young Asian man in a rumpled gray suit and blue helmet—was examining it closely, checking the locking devices. She’d been wanting to go up in the air on one of these machines for some time now, because she liked to experience all aspects of the campaign against Billy Jeeling, so that she could offer more reasoned opinions on everything to her superiors.
Maureen did not particularly enjoy working against the man who had created Skyship. In her mid-forties now, she recalled being a child and admiring him and his exploits, and she had family members who had been saved by his amazing environmental actions. At least that was what her Uncle Eddie had told her, based upon having lost two brothers and his mother to environmentally-caused cancers, in the time before Billy restored the ozone layer, removed pollutants, and made other atmospheric improvements. Her family, with roots tracing back to Ireland and Scotland, were all fair-skinned, with reddish hair—traits that were said to make them more susceptible to sunburns and serious skin conditions. Maureen had lost her favorite little cousin, Sandy, to melanoma.
In her teens Maureen had even fantasized about marrying Billy one day, just one of millions of girls and women who’d felt that way. He was so handsome, and such a gallant, heroic figure. But all that changed when Maureen was hired by Jonathan Racker and Paul Paulo to analyze the contracts Jeeling had entered into with the AmEarth government, granting him a monopoly on all skymining and atmospheric restoration work. It was then, upon digging into the legalese and into other details about Billy’s business dealings, that she began to share the same feelings as his detractors. Any good the man had ever done in his life was not worth the monopoly he held, a dynasty in effect, as his son Devv was slated to take over after Billy was gone.
Growing up, she’d only been able to see the good in Billy, even though she vaguely remembered criticisms of him, even then. Now it was the exact opposite; she couldn’t see much, if anything, good about him—at least not the way he was behaving now—and she was convinced that he had exploited a good cause to advance himself and his family, at the expense of the citizens of AmEarth. He was not the first to hide behind a good cause for personal gain; there had been many historical examples. But he seemed like the worst of all.
“It’s safe to board now, ma’am,” the pilot said, after introducing himself as Hiroki Iwakuma. He was quite good looking, with light brown skin, alert eyes, and a nice smile. Knowing it was her first time on a rocket cycle, he helped her into the seat behind his own, showed her how the safety restraints worked as he connected them into place. Not that they would do much good if this thing crashed, she thought. But she wasn’t in the least bit afraid. He looked attentive and competent, the machine was almost new, and she enjoyed adventure. He closed the visor of her helmet over her face, secured it in place, and smiled confidently.
There were missionaries like Iwakuma all over the world, dispatched on rocket cycles to spread negative information about Billy Jeeling and everything he did, business or personal. Admittedly, some of the material involved distortions and innuendos, even some outright lies—but Maureen had vetted everything legally, and given her blessings. Let him sue the organizers of the c
ampaign, one of her bosses had said to her, Jonathan Racker. The uber-wealthy industrialist actually seemed to welcome legal action, saying it would only increase the amount of bad publicity against Jeeling—because most of what they had been saying about him was true, or based on truth, and Jeeling wouldn’t win that battle for his reputation. Even if he recovered monetary damages for libel or slander, he would lose in the end, because so much of the truth would come out, and he would not look good in the bright light being cast on him. Without any doubt, Billy had fabricated his family history, and had probably lied about his education and early work experience as well.
Iwakuma was in his seat ahead of hers now, and he fired up the twin jet engines, producing a smooth, powerful purr. The canopy clicked shut over them.
“Hang on,” he said across a speaker inside her helmet. He glanced back over his shoulder, around his high seat back. “You ready for this?”
“Of course,” she said. “Don’t hold anything back on account of me.”
“Knowing you’re a lawyer, maybe I should have had you sign a legal release,” he quipped. But he didn’t wait for her reply, and hit the jets.
Maureen’s head jerked back against her seat, and for several seconds she closed her eyes. The sensation of speed was more sudden and extreme than anything she’d ever experienced before.
Feeling invigorated, she shouted into her helmet, “Can’t you make this thing go any faster?”
“You’re kidding, ma’am. We’re at top acceleration now, and from the look on your face that I see on my screen, you’re more than a little scared.”
She didn’t reply, held onto a bar in front of her as the cycle banked right and left, then shot almost straight up and then abruptly down, as the pilot was apparently trying to get her to scream out in fear.
Maureen grinned, hoped he was looking at her on the screen now. She might have felt a little trepidation moments ago, but she didn’t feel any at all now, and was confident that her facial expression showed this.
“You’ve got a lot of guts, ma’am. Have to give that to you.” Iwakuma chuckled as the craft settled into steady flight at a more moderate speed, skimming over the rooftops of apartment buildings below. “I wouldn’t want to be a passenger if you were at the controls, though. Pardon me for saying so, but you might be a little bit crazy.”
“You’ve got me figured out perfectly,” she said. “A thrill seeker, that’s what I am.” She wasn’t really that, at least not to an extreme. But it amused Maureen to say it. She touched a button in front of her, as he’d told her to do when she wanted, and watched one of the canisters shoot out of the side of the craft. Looking down, she saw it open in midair and spread leaflets over the neighborhood below.
The message was yet another demand for Billy Jeeling to turn the operation of Skyship over to the Imperial government—quotes from leading officials saying this, including Prime Minister Renaldo Yhatt. Public opinion against Billy was mounting rapidly, and if it kept going like this, his detractors would soon be in the majority. Now it was still a slim majority in Billy’s favor, but not so long ago his approval rating had been more than 90%. That was before the concerted campaign to get him to quit, a campaign that was producing good results.
Admittedly, it was an ugly smear campaign, and might not be totally fair to the man. She’d used that term to her superiors, and they’d said that was exactly what they wanted. Take him from beloved hero to despised goat, from point A to point B as quickly as possible. That’s how they projected the end of Billy’s career, calling it “an unfortunate necessity.” Already his popularity was plummeting, and soon it would crash.
She and Iwakuma released the rest of their canisters. Then the pilot turned around in a sharp u-turn, and headed back to the landing field.
CHAPTER 12
The process of learning—of really learning about a thing—is one of the great challenges of life, and for me the most rewarding.
—Branson Tobek, opening entry in his laboratory journals
Following the secret instructions of Branson Tobek, Billy Jeeling had supervised the construction of a high walkway, a sky bridge in the shape of an immense Cross of Jesus, stretching half the length of the great ship, laid on the tops of several high-rise buildings, directly beneath the matching arrangement of clear exterior domes that looked out into space. When the lights on the cross were activated and illumination was thrown into the domes, the symbol glowed so brightly that it could be seen from the heavens—and from AmEarth when the great ship was geostationary and tilted toward the planet. The unusual walkway and its central maglev track was a favorite retreat for Billy, and he often spent time meditating there, thinking about his many challenges.
He had other places to go as well, such as a secret room at the pinnacle of Skyship, a spot that was even more elevated than the domes—but he only went up there on rare occasions, because his maglev chair could not get him to the pinnacle, though he still had an alternate, less comfortable way of getting there.
Billy was the only one who operated a maglev unit on the high walkway and track—in his case the unique high-speed chair—but he did allow a small number of managers to utilize the narrow walkways on either side of the track, for getting from one building to another, and for conducting business with him.
It was late night now, and Billy sat alone in his unique custom chair, at the crux of the cross, the heart of the great religious symbol. With the lights of the cross switched off, he gazed upward, into the starlit sky. He identified the constellations he was seeing, having learned them by name from Tobek, and had memorized them. Billy and the old inventor had not taken many breaks, as both of them worked very hard—but on occasion they had taken time off together, and invariably they used such occasions to come up here and gaze out into the majesty and mystery of the universe.
Yet when Billy thought about it after Tobek’s death, it occurred to him that constellation names were worthless, since they were merely human reference points, for mortal purposes. God did not need anything like that. The Supreme Being knew where everything was in the cosmos, and could journey to any destination, anytime He chose to do so. Or, perhaps He already occupied each of those places simultaneously—and was not a bearded old man in the sky at all. Yes, Billy rather liked the thought of a deity that was simultaneously everywhere at the same time. It might be the God of Christianity, or an all-inclusive deity that was an amalgamation of the beliefs of all major religious faiths.
Billy had never considered himself to be a Christian. And even Tobek’s religious beliefs seemed to be on the fringes of Christianity, in Billy’s view, because Branson had never attended church, and had not done the things that Christians customarily did. He just had this Christian symbol, this huge cross, and had never answered questions put to him about it. Billy thought it was spectacular, though, and a perfect setting in which he could seek and find calmness.
To Billy, the giant cross symbolized something far broader than one religious faith, and even more than the combination of all major religions, because such concepts were limited by human perception. It didn’t take much of a leap in thinking to realize that there had to be other perceptions out in the galaxy, beyond anything involving AmEarth and its self-serving, plundering Empire. Here at the heart of the great symbol, alone at night and gazing into the heavens, he felt a deep, all-inclusive spirituality.
But this evening, in the smallest portion of himself, his human self, he also felt a deep sense of hopelessness, that he was being whipped one way and another by events on the surface of the planet beneath him, and could do little or nothing to influence them. Things were turning against him too quickly for him to keep up.
He had devoted most of his life to the welfare of AmEarth. His eyes misted over in sadness. Despite all he’d done for the benefit of humankind, he had kept no financial benefits for himself, and lived very simply, rather like an austere priest, it seemed to him. Billy had never accepted invitations to appear in parades, had never agreed
to receive the numerous medals, honorary degrees and ribbons that had been offered to him. He had sanctioned no ostentatious statues, no plaques, no world holidays in his name, no honoraria of any kind... though all had been offered at one time or another, and a great deal more. Each time he’d ever heard about anything like that, he’d always let it be known that he did not want it, and had taken steps to prevent it.
People seemed to have forgotten that.
He realized now that he might have done better if he’d allowed the monuments to go up, if he’d received all the honoraria. It would have strengthened and enhanced his public image, his legend. Yet, that was not something he’d ever sought, so perhaps it was for the best that he had avoided such trappings.
And he did have great riches after all, earned from Skyship. These riches were of tremendous value, though they were not monetary. Instead, they amounted to his personal fame and the positive feelings this had given him for decades, and to his tacit “ownership” of Skyship, and the ability to pass it on to his son, Devv. To some extent, he understood what riches his enemies were after. Perhaps he had sinned by enjoying his fame too much, and by designating Devv as his successor. But when he named Devv, it was not what anyone thought. Not at all. They would be surprised if they knew the real reason, very surprised.
There were endless secrets surrounding the workings of Billy’s inner mind, and his activities, compartmentalized so that one person knew certain things and another did not. He thought of all the secrets Branson Tobek had kept from him, and which perplexed him to this day. Those secrets were vitally important, and Billy wondered why they had been kept from him. He’d always assumed that Tobek had intended to reveal them eventually, but had died too soon.
Why, if Tobek was not a practicing Christian, did he make the statement of placing a giant cross high inside the vaulted interior of Skyship? Billy had asked him that very question several times, and had made other inquiries about his religious and spiritual beliefs, and always Branson had said that his beliefs were his own, and not easily explained in words. It had almost sounded Zen to Billy, like a wordless truth. But the old inventor had wanted the huge Christian cross, and gone to great pains to make certain it was built according to his exact specifications.
The Assassination of Billy Jeeling Page 9
