by Ben Bova
“How far to the farms?” Gaeta asked.
“Not far now.”
“How far?”
She wrinkled her brow for a moment, then answered, “Less than three kilometers.”
“You certain of that?”
“I’ve got all the tunnels memorized,” Holly told him.
“All of them? Every one? Every kilometer?”
“Every centimeter.”
He laughed. “All up in your head, huh?” he teased, tapping his own temple.
Holly pulled her handheld from her tunic pocket and pressed the locater key with her thumb. The screen showed a schematic of the tunnels that threaded beneath the habitat’s landscaping, with a blinking red cursor identifying their location.
Gaeta peered at the little screen over her shoulder. She could feel his warm breath on the back of her neck, sense his body heat.
“I’ll be damned,” he said, slightly awestruck. “You were right on the button.”
“I told you, didn’t I? I’ve memorized the whole layout of the habitat. Every centimeter of it.”
Gaeta placed his hand on his heart and made a little bow. “Perdone me, senorita. I apologize for doubting you.”
“De nada,”said Holly, which just about exhausted her knowledge of Spanish. She promised herself she would learn more.
Their adventure had started just before lunch, when Gaeta had popped into Holly’s office asking about authorization for an excursion outside the habitat.
“Gotta test the suit,” he explained. “We’ve made half a dozen modifications to it and we need to test it in hard vacuum.”
Looking up at him from her desk chair, Holly noticed that his eyes were the darkest brown she had ever seen.
“You need to see the Safety Department about that,” she said. “This is Human Resources.”
Gaeta made a small shrug. “Yeah, I know, but I thought maybe you could help me with it. I don’t know any of the people in the Safety Department, and at least you and I have met before.”
She thought that sounded something like a lie. Or maybe an excuse to see me? Holly wondered. With hardly a moment’s thought, she phoned the Safety office and made an appointment for Gaeta to talk with them.
Then he asked her to lunch and they began chatting about his plans for getting down to the surface of Titan and living in the habitat and before she knew it Holly was telling him her life story, or as much of it she remembered.
“Let’s take the afternoon off,” he suddenly suggested.
Holly sipped at her coffee, thinking that there was too much work waiting at her desk even though Manny was kind of handsome in a beat-up way and when he smiled like that those dark, dark eyes lit up like candles on a birthday cake.
“And do what?” she asked.
He spread his hands and grinned at her. “Nothing. Just loaf. Take it easy for a few hours.”
“I have a better idea,” Holly said, putting her coffee cup down with a tiny clink.
“What?” he asked.
“Let’s go exploring,” said Holly.
So she led him to one of the access hatches built into the back of the administration building and down the metal ladder into the utilities tunnel.
“Like going down to the Morlocks,” he muttered as they clambered down the ladder.
“Oarlocks?” Holly asked, puzzled.
Gaeta just laughed.
As they walked along the tunnel, talking, looking, discovering, Holly realized that here she was all alone with this guy and nobody knew where she was. What’ll I do if he starts to come on to me? she wondered. And another part of her mind asked, What’ll you do if he doesn’t come on to you?
He’s a stallion, all right, Holly thought as they prowled along the tunnel. Not much taller than she, but strong, muscular. She had never had the chance to do any sexual experimenting while under her sister’s watchful eye, although according to what Pancho had told her she’d had her share of toy boys — and even serious lovers — when she’d been in school before she’d died.
Could I make Malcolm jealous? she wondered. He hasn’t paid any attention to me at all. Maybe if he finds out I’m seeing this stud, he’ll take some notice. Maybe -
“How well do you know Dr. Cardenas?” Gaeta asked as they paused at a fork in the tunnel.
Holly hesitated a moment, picturing the tunnel layout in her mind. “That way,” she pointed, “leads out to the farms. This way goes to the factories.”
He scratched his chin. “We gonna walk all the way back to the village?”
“Sure. It’s only three, four klicks.”
“There’s no transportation?”
Holly laughed. “Don’t tell me you’re tired!”
“Naw, not really. I was just thinking it’s getting close to dinnertime and I ought to take a shower, you know, and get into some fresh clothes.”
Holly felt her pulse speed up. Is he trying to get me to his apartment?
“I got a dinner date with Dr. Cardenas,” he explained, “and I oughtta look decent for her.”
Holly’s face fell. “With Dr. Cardenas?”
He must have seen her disappointment. She realized that a blind man could have seen it.
“It’s the only time we can talk about how she can make the nanobugs to decontaminate my suit,” he explained. “She’s so damn’ busy setting up her lab the only chance I get to talk with her is at dinner.”
“Oh.”
“It’s strictly business.”
“Yeah. I click.”
Gaeta gave her a sheepish little-boy look. “You wanna come, too? Bring a friend — we can make it two couples.”
With a start, Holly realized she didn’t have a friend she could call for a dinner date. She had plenty of acquaintances, but most of them were from the office. Ever since coming into the habitat she had spent all her time, all her thoughts, on Eberly. Until this day when Gaeta had popped into her office.
And now this.
“No,” she said firmly. “Thanks anyway. I have a lot of work to catch up on.”
He nodded glumly. “I’ve taken you away from your work, huh?”
“That’s all right,” Holly said. “It was a fun afternoon.”
She started back down the tunnel in the direction they had come from. Gaeta quickly caught up with her.
“Maybe you could have dinner with me tomorrow?” he suggested.
Holly brightened. “Tomorrow? Sure, why not.”
“Great,” he said, smiling at her.
When Gaeta got back to his apartment he stripped, showered, and decided the depilatory was still working well enough so that he didn’t need to shave yet. As he pulled on his clothes, one eye on the digital clock by his bed, he commanded the phone to send a message to Wendell Sloane, in Selene.
“Mr. Sloane,” he said, slightly uncomfortable at being so formal. “Progress report on Ms. Lane. Nothing much new to report. She’s still working in the Human Resources Department. Doesn’t appear to have any personal attachments; no boyfriends, not much of a social life at all. I had lunch with her this afternoon. She’s really a fine young lady: very bright, very sharp. She seems happy in her work here in the habitat. Tell her sister she’s got nothing to worry about as far as she’s concerned. But I’ll keep on looking out for her, just like you want. Just wanna let you know there’s no problems here.”
That oughtta keep the suits back in Selene satisfied for a while. Without their backing, this whole Titan stunt would go down the tubes. Astro Corporation was the major funding source for Manuel Gaeta and his team.
Sammi Vyborg sat rigidly at his desk, looking past the open door of his cubbyhole office at the larger office across the corridor. It belonged to his immediate superior, Diego Romero.
Vyborg glanced at the numerals of the digital clock flashing away in the corner of his desk. Every day it’s the same routine, Vyborg grumbled to himself. He spends the morning pretending to work, takes his lunch, then goes out for the afternoon. I sit here buried in d
uties and chores and he spends every afternoon out of the office. The number two man in the department, and he only puts in half a day, at best.
Don’t get mad, Vyborg reminded himself. Get even. It’s time to set this lazy old incompetent against the director. With a bit of luck, I can bring them both down.
Romero stepped out into the corridor and slid his office door shut. Turning, he noticed Vyborg watching him.
“Buenos tardes,”he said, with a smile and a slight bow.
Vyborg smiled back at him, sourly.
As soon as Romero was gone, Vyborg got up from his desk and walked down the corridor to the office of the Communications Department’s director, Zeke Berkowitz. He rapped once on the half-open door, making it rattle against its track.
“Come on in,” Berkowitz called. As Vyborg slid the door all the way open and stepped into the office, Berkowitz smiled and said, “Ah, Sammi. What can I do for you?”
Amiable was the word for Berkowitz. The man had spent a long and successful career in the video news business, first as a local reporter, then as a network anchorman, and finally as a global executive. He never made an enemy, although in the cutthroat world of news broadcasting many people had tried to chop him down, stab him in the back, or even forcibly retire him. He survived it all with a smile and a homily about Christian charity, liberally sprinkled with self-deprecating Jewish humor.
When he reached mandatory retirement age, the still-youthful Berkowitz moved into academia, happily teaching a new generation of would-be journalists and public relations flacks the realities of the communications business. It was at an international conference that he met James Wilmot, the famous anthropologist; the two men became instant friends, even though they lived and taught on opposite sides of the Atlantic Ocean. Years later, when Wilmot invited Berkowitz to be head of the Communications Department on the Saturn-bound space habitat, Berkowitz — recently a widower after fifty years of loving marriage — accepted the opportunity to get as far away from his memories as he could.
Now he sat back in his desk chair, handsome and suntanned, slightly chubby, a series of holograms on the wall behind him showing him at tennis tournaments and on golf courses. He smiled warmly at the dour, pinch-faced Vyborg.
“What’s the matter, Sammi?” Berkowitz asked jovially. “You look as if you swallowed something ugly.”
Taking the chair in front of Berkowitz’s desk, Vyborg began, “I don’t enjoy bringing this to your attention—”
“But you’re going to do it anyway. Must be important.”
“I think it is.”
“Okay. Out with it.”
“It’s Romero.”
“Old Don Diego? What’s he done that bothers you?”
Vyborg hesitated just long enough to show Berkowitz that what he was doing was distasteful to him. “It’s very difficult for me to say this, since he’s my direct superior, but… well, he’s simply not pulling his own weight.”
“He isn’t.”
“No, he isn’t. He spends only half a day in the office and then he’s gone. How can he do his work?”
“That’s why we’ve got you, Sammi.”
Startled, Vyborg blurted, “What?”
Berkowitz put on his most amiable grin and, clasping his hands prayerfully on the desktop, said, “Diego Romero is a wonderful old coot, a great teacher with a very distinguished career behind him.”
“Behind him,” Vyborg echoed.
“He’s in this department more or less because Wilmot wanted him aboard this habitat and had to find a place for him somewhere. So he’s working with us.”
“But he’s not working,” Vyborg snapped. “He’s hardly ever at his desk.”
“That’s okay, Sammi. I haven’t given him much to do. I rely on you to get the work done. Leave Don Diego alone. He’s going to be very valuable to this habitat — as a teacher.”
“A teacher?” Vyborg gasped. “They got rid of him in Mexico because he was teaching unauthorized garbage. Do you want him teaching his blasphemies here?”
Berkowitz’s smile diminished by less than a millimeter. “Freedom of thought is not blasphemous, Sammi. He’s a great teacher.”
Vyborg muttered, “Yes, and he’s teaching the rest of the office staff how to get by without working.”
“If you find anybody goofing off in this department, you tell me about it. Pronto. Don Diego’s a special case. Leave him alone.”
Admitting defeat, Vyborg nodded and rose from his chair. “I understand. I’m sorry to have bothered you.”
“No bother at all,” Berkowitz said grandly. “My office door is always open to you, Sammi.”
Vyborg looked around the director’s office. It was much more spacious than his own. It even had a window that looked out onto the park and the shimmering lake beyond. Without another word he turned and walked out, thinking, I’ll have to get rid of them both, somehow.
By the time he got back to his own office, Vyborg had brightened considerably. Berkowitz wants to allow Don Diego to teach heretical ideas, he realized. That makes Berkowitz just as guilty as the old man himself. Perhaps I can get them both in one swoop.
But as he sat at his desk again his mood darkened once more. That means I’ll have to wait until we’re established at Saturn. Much too long. I can’t wait all those months, more than a year, actually. I want to get rid of them now.
DEPARTURE PLUS 318 DAYS
When Holly got to her office the next morning there was a message on her screen:see me immediately. morgenthau.
It still bothered Holly to see Ruth Morgenthau sitting at Eberly’s desk. Even though nearly two months had passed since Eberly had left the office, Holly always expected to see Malcolm there. Instead, when she opened the director’s office door, Morgenthau was behind the desk, her fleshy face dark and ominous.
Even before Holly could sit down, Morgenthau demanded, “Where were you yesterday afternoon?”
Holly stiffened. “I took the afternoon off. I caught up on my work from my quarters, after dinner.”
Morgenthau asked, “Were you ill?”
Holly thought that a simple lie could end this conversation. Instead, she replied, “No. I — I just needed some time away from the office, that’s all.”
“Do you think you’re working too hard?”
“I enjoy my work.”
Morgenthau drummed her chubby fingers on the desktop. Despite the dress code they had agreed to, the woman’s fingers were heavy with jeweled rings, and her tunic ablaze with colors. Holly noticed that the desk was littered with papers. Malcolm had always kept it immaculately clear.
“Sit down, please, Holly,” Morgenthau said.
Holly took one of the chairs in front of the desk, feeling resentment simmering inside her. I’m entitled to take an afternoon off if I want to, she said to herself. I’m running this warping office. I’m doing all the work. I can go off and have a little fun if I want to. But she said nothing and meekly sat down.
Morgenthau stared at her for a long moment, then said, “You know, and I know, that you are really running this office. I’m just a figurehead covering for Malcolm while you do all the real work.”
Holly almost blurted out her agreement, but she managed to keep silent.
“I don’t mind that arrangement,” Morgenthau continued. “In fact, I find it quite satisfactory.”
Holly nodded warily, expecting worse to come.
“But,” Morgenthau resumed, “you don’t have to rub my face in it. You must show at least some outward respect for my position.”
“I do!”
“Yesterday you did not. It is not proper for you to take the afternoon off without informing me. Actually, you should ask my permission, but I don’t want to be a stickler. Still, how does it look when someone like Professor Wilmot asks me a question and I tell him that my assistant will look up the information and my assistant isn’t at her desk? Isn’t even in the office? And I don’t know where she is?”
“You could
have called me. I always carry my comm.”
“You should keep me informed of your whereabouts at all times. I shouldn’t have to search for you.”
Holly’s temper was rising. “You don’t like me very much, do you?”
For an instant Morgenthau looked surprised, almost startled. Then she admitted, “You are not a Believer. And, worse, you’re a reborn. I find that…” she struggled for a word, “…distasteful. Almost sinful.”
“It wasn’t my decision. My sister did it when I was too sick to know what was happening to me.”
“Still. You tried to avoid God’s judgment on you. You tried to cheat death.”
“Wouldn’t you?”
“No! When God calls me, I’ll be happy to go.”
The sooner the better, Holly snarled silently.
“But my religious beliefs are not the subject of this conversation. I want you to keep me informed of your whereabouts at all times.”
Holding back her anger, Holly replied, “I understand.”
Breaking into a smile that looked forced to Holly, Morgenthau added, “During office hours, of course. What you do when the office is closed is on your own conscience, naturally.”
“Of course.”
“Unless it involves Dr. Eberly.”
So that’s it! Holly realized. She’s clanked up because she can see that I’m interested in Malcolm. Maybe she knows more than I do. Maybe she can see that Malcolm’s interested in me!
“Dr. Eberly is much too busy for personal involvements of any kind, Holly. You should stop trying to distract him.”
She’s trying to protect him. She’s standing between Malcolm and me.
Holly got to her feet. “I should have told you I was taking the afternoon off,” she said coldly. “It won’t happen again.”
“Good!” Morgenthau smacked her hands together loudly enough to startle Holly. “Now that that’s out of the way — I’ll be out of the office all day. You’ll be in charge.”
Surprised at her sudden change in tone, Holly asked, “Where will you be?”
Morgenthau laughed lightly and waggled a finger in the air. “No, no, it’s not necessary for me to tell you where I’m going. I’m the department chief, remember. I can come and go as I wish.”
