by Ben Bova
“You’re certain that Urbain has approved of this… this stunt?” Wilmot asked.
“The approval isn’t official yet, but Cardenas has worked out an understanding with him.”
Wilmot nodded. “Urbain will notify me when he makes his approval official.”
“Why not ask Berkowitz to join Gaeta’s team, as their full-time publicity manager?”
“Ahh. I see.”
Eberly went on, “Berkowitz would enjoy that, I think.”
“And while he’s enjoying his special assignment, your friend Vyborg can run the Communications Department.”
“He can be given the title of acting director,” said Eberly.
“Very neat. And what happens when Gaeta has performed his stunt and it’s all finished?”
Eberly shrugged, “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.” To himself, though, he said, By the time Gaeta’s done his stunt we’ll have the new constitution in effect and I’ll be the elected leader of this habitat. Berkowitz, Vyborg — even you, old man — will have to bow to my wishes.
But as he left Wilmot’s office, his satisfaction melted away. He was playing with me, Eberly realized, like a cat plays with a mouse. Like a puppeteer pulling my strings. He let me have my way with Berkowitz because he intended to do it all along; he was just waiting to see how I jumped. Berkowitz doesn’t mean a thing to him. It’s all a game he’s playing.
I’ve got to get control over him, Eberly told himself. I’ve got to find some way to bend the high and mighty Professor Wilmot to my will. Make him jump through my hoops.
When is Morgenthau going to find something I can use? There must be something in Wilmot’s life that I can use for leverage. Some weakness. I’ve got to get Morgenthau to work harder, concentrate on his files, his phone conversations, everything he says or does, every breath he draws. I want him in my grasp. That’s vital. If I’m to be the master here, Wilmot’s got to bow down to me, one way or the other.
Holly saw Raoul Tavalera sitting alone in the cafeteria, bent over a sizable lunch. She carried her tray to his table.
“Want some company?” she asked.
He looked up at her and smiled.
“Sure,” he said. “Sit right down.”
Tavalera had invited her to dinner at least once a week since starting work at the nanotechnology lab. Holly enjoyed his company, although he could get moody, morose. She tried to keep their dates as bright and easy as possible. So far, he’d worked up the nerve to kiss her goodnight. She wondered when he would try to go farther. And what she would do when he did.
“How’s it going in the nanolab?” Holly asked as she removed her salad and iced tea from her tray.
“Okay, I guess.”
“Dr. Cardenas treating you well?”
He nodded enthusiastically. “She’s easy to work with. I’m learnin’ a lot.”
“That’s good.”
“None of it’ll be any use when I go back to Earth, though.”
For a moment, Holly didn’t know why he would say that. Then she remembered, “Ohh, nanotech’s banned on Earth, isn’t it?”
Tavalera nodded. “They’ll probably quarantine me until they’re certain I don’t have any nanobugs in my body.”
“There’s a nanotech lab in Selene.”
“I’m not gonna live underground on the Moon. I’m goin’ back home.”
They talked about home: Holly about Selene and Tavalera about the New Jersey hills where he had grown up.
“A lotta the state got flooded out when the greenhouse cliff hit. All the beachfront resorts … people go scuba diving through the condo towers.”
“That’s something you don’t have to worry about in Selene,” Holly pointed out.
Tavalera grinned at her. “Yeah. The nearest pond is four hundred thousand kilometers away.”
“We have a swimming pool in the Grand Plaza!”
“Big fr — uh, big deal.”
Ignoring his near lapse, Holly went on, “It’s Olympic-sized. And the diving platforms go up to thirty meters.”
With a shake of his head, Tavalera said, “You wouldn’t get me up there, low gravity or no low gravity.”
He just wants to go home, Holly saw. He wants to get back home. It made her sad to realize that she had no home to go back to. This is my home, she told herself. This habitat. Forever.
SATURN ARRIVAL MINUS 266 DAYS
If it must be done, Wilmot said to himself, ’twere best done quickly.
It was a dictum that had served him well all during his long career in academia. He often coupled it with Churchill’s old aphorism: If you’re going to kill a man, it costs nothing to be polite about it.
So he invited Gaeta and Zeke Berkowitz to dine with him, in the privacy of his own apartment. Berkowitz was an old friend, of course, and Wilmot was delighted when he showed up precisely on time, before the stuntman.
As Wilmot poured a stiff whisky for the news director, Berkowitz grinned amiably and said, “Must be pretty bad news, to make the first drink so tall.”
Wilmot smiled, a little sheepishly, and handed the glass to Berkowitz. “You still have your nose in the wind, don’t you, Zeke?”
Berkowitz shrugged. “I’d be a lousy newsman if I didn’t know what was going on.”
Wilmot poured an even stiffer belt for himself.
“Rumor is,” Berkowitz said, still standing by the apartment’s compact little bar, “that you’re going to kick me upstairs.”
With a slight nod, Wilmot admitted, “I’m afraid so.”
Before Berkowitz could ask another question, they heard a rap at the door. “That will be Gaeta,” said Wilmot, heading for the door.
Gaeta wore a denim work shirt and jeans, about as formal an outfit as he possessed. He looked serious, almost somber as Wilmot introduced him to Berkowitz and asked the stuntman what he wanted to drink.
“Beer, if you have it,” said Gaeta, still unsmiling.
“Would Bass ale do?” Wilmot asked.
Gaeta broke into a grin. “It’ll do very well, thanks.”
Wilmot steered his two guests to the sitting room chairs. Once they were comfortably settled, he said to Gaeta, “I’ve asked you here because I want to assign Zeke to be your full-time publicity man.”
Berkowitz nodded knowingly. The stuntman looked surprised.
By the time Wilmot carried the dinner tray to the table, though, the two men seemed to be getting along well enough.
“So if Urbain or the IAA or whoever prevents me from going down to Titan, I’ll take a spin through the rings,” Gaeta was saying.
Berkowitz twirled his fork in the air. “Through the rings? Wow. That’d be spectacular.”
“You think you could get me some coverage, huh?”
“A brain-dead librarian could get you coverage for that. I mean, everybody’s seen footage from the automated probes they’ve sent to Titan’s surface. Fascinating stuff, yeah, but it’s been done. Nobody’s been to the rings.”
“No human has set foot on Titan,” Wilmot pointed out.
“I know. But the rings! They’ll salivate over that. I could run an auction right now and gin up enough cash to pay for your whole crew and then some.”
Gaeta leaned back in his chair, looking contented. Wilmot saw that Berkowitz was as happy as a child with a new toy. The professor felt relieved. I can give Eberly and that Vyborg creature what they want without hurting anyone’s feelings. A win — win situation. All to the good.
Pancho Lane could feel her face tightening into a frown as she watched Manuel Gaeta’s message to her.
“So even if I can’t get to Titan, this stunt with the rings oughtta pay you back for the trip with interest.”
Yeah, but what about my sister? Pancho demanded silently.
Gaeta rambled on about his possible stunts while Pancho sat fuming behind her desk. What about Susie? she wondered. Holly, I mean.
At last Gaeta said, “Tour sister’s fine, Ms. Lane. She’s a very bright yo
ung woman. Very intelligent. And very attractive, too. She has lots of friends and she seems very happy here. Not to worry about her.”
But Pancho focused on his “And very attractive, too.” Gaeta had something of a reputation. Handsome chunk of beef, Pancho had to admit. I wouldn’t throw him out of my bed. Is he making it with my sister?
Pancho sighed. If he is, there’s not much I can do about it. I just hope Susie enjoys it. I hope he doesn’t hurt her. If he does, this’ll be his last stunt. Ever.
Professor Wilmot rocked slightly in his desk chair as he dictated his status report to Atlanta.
“It’s interesting to observe the different motivations of these people. Eberly isn’t after power so much as adulation, it seems to me. The man wants to be adored by the people. I’m not certain what Vyborg wants; I haven’t been able to work up the stamina to get close to the man. Berkowitz is happy to be rid of the responsibilities of heading the Communications Department. He’s back to being an active newsman. I understand there’s some friction between him and Gaeta’s technical crew, but that’s perfectly understandable. Quite normal.
“Gaeta himself is fascinating, in his own way. He actually wants to risk his hide on these stunts he does. He enjoys them. Of course, they bring him money and fame, but I believe he’d do them anyway, merely for the sheer adrenaline rush they give him. In a strange way, he’s rather like a scientist, except that scientists enjoy the intellectual thrill of being the first to discover new phenomena, while this stuntman enjoys the visceral excitement of being the first man on the scene.”
SATURN ARRIVAL MINUS 205 DAYS
Night after night Holly spent in her apartment, alone, calling up programs from Earth on forensic medicine. She recalled with perfect clarity the way Don Diego’s crumpled body had looked when she discovered it lying headfirst in the water of the irrigation culvert. She remembered every detail of the medical examination report: no heart attack, no major stroke, nothing unusual except that the heels of his hands seemed slightly abraded, and his lungs were full of water.
What would roughen the heels of his hands? Holly wondered. The concrete surface of the culvert, she decided. Then she began to search for a reason why his hands were bruised. Eventually she came to the conclusion that he was trying to push his head out of the water, trying hard enough to scrape the skin off the heels of both hands.
And why, if he was trying so hard to get up, why couldn’t he lift his head out of the water? Because something — or someone — was holding his head down. Drowning him. Murdering him.
Not trusting her memory, good as it was, Holly called up the medical report and studied it for several nights in a row.No sign of violence. Only the abrasions on his hands.
It wasn’t much to go on. But Holly doggedly pursued that one clue. She thought of it as a clue. She was convinced Don Diego had been murdered.
Why? By whom?
Closing her eyes, she envisioned once again the scene when she found the old man’s body. No signs of a struggle. Nothing disturbing the slope that led down to the concrete except some footprints in the dirt. Boot prints, actually.
Professor Wilmot also spent his evenings watching video displays, as usual. The business of the habitat faded into oblivion as he sat in his favorite chair, swirling his glass of whisky in his right hand, watching his collection of vids about naked women undergoing torture. Sometimes, when a scene was particularly revolting, he felt a twinge of guilt. But that passed quickly enough. It’s all make-believe, he told himself. They wouldn’t produce such vids unless there was a market for them. I’m not the only one who enjoys this sort of thing.
He had run through the collection he’d brought aboard the habitat, seen each of them twice and his favorites more than that. For weeks he fretted about ordering more from Earth. They made new ones all the time, he knew. Fresh faces. New young bodies.
There was a certain danger in calling a supplier on Earth and ordering more vids. Even if he routed his order through a middleman at Selene, sooner or later it would be traced to the habitat. But there are ten thousand people here, he told himself. How would they know it’s me, and not some clerk or farm worker? Besides, I’d wager there are others aboard who have similar tastes and make similar orders.
After weeks of arguing with himself, and watching the same old vids, he sent an order to Earth by the habitat’s tight-beam laser communications link. It was all in code, of course. No one will know, Wilmot reassured himself. After all, who would be tapping the comm links? It’s not as if I’m using my personal phone line. Someone would have to tap every outgoing and incoming message to find my one brief little order. Who would be fanatic enough to do that?
SATURN ARRIVAL MINUS 87 DAYS
“It’s remarkable, really,” Wilmot was saying to his computer. “They have drafted a constitution and are preparing for elections. By the time we establish ourselves in orbit about Saturn, they’ll be ready to transfer power to their new government.”
The computer was automatically encrypting his words for transmission to Earth, to the headquarters of the New Morality in Atlanta, the covert financial backers of the Saturn mission. Wilmot was the only person in the habitat who knew where the funding for this experiment had come from, and he intended to keep the secret entirely to himself. His reports back to Atlanta were private, coded, and sent toward Earth by the automated laser system, not by the habitat’s regular communications links.
“The man Eberly has formed something of a clique around himself,” Wilmot continued, “which is more or less what I had expected. The scientists have formed a countervailing political force, led by Dr. Urbain. Frankly, Urbain seems more interested in personal flattery than politics, but he seems to be the acknowledged leader among the technical types.
“Even the engineers have organized a political bloc, of sorts. Their leader seems to be a Russian exile named Timoshenko, although he insists that he has no interest in politics. Yet he’s allowed the engineers to bruit his name about as a candidate for the chief administrator’s position. Frankly I doubt that he has one chance in a million.
“There have been a few scuffles here and there, but by and large the political campaigning has been remarkably free of the usual hooliganism, which is little short of extraordinary when one considers that the bulk of our population is made up of dissidents and free-thinkers who got themselves into trouble on Earth. I believe the reason is that most of the population doesn’t care a fig about this political campaigning. Most of the people here have absolutely no interest in their own government. In fact, they try rather hard to avoid any commitments of any sort.”
Wilmot leaned back in his comfortable swivel chair and re-read his words from the image displayed above his desk. Satisfied with his report so far, he continued:
“In three weeks we will have the general elections that will bring our new constitution into power and elect the individuals who will form the new government. Eberly is the odds-on favorite. I shall have to install him as the new chief administrator and gracefully retire to the ceremonial role of president. I suspect that Eberly will name Urbain to some important-sounding but innocuous position: probably deputy administrator or some such. I have no idea of how he’ll handle the engineer, Timoshenko.
“Some of the people around Eberly frankly give me the willies. He’s surrounded himself with nonentities who believe themselves to be quite important, such as this Vyborg person who’s now running the Communications office. I know that the Morgenthau woman is a high official in the Holy Disciples. Why she volunteered for this mission is beyond me. And this Kananga fellow! He’s positively frightening.”
Wilmot talked on, bluntly giving his opinions on each of the major players in the habitat’s coming elections. He would have been much less free with his judgments if he had known that every word he spoke was being picked up by molecular-film microphones and recorded for Eberly’s perusal.
Late in the afternoon the cafeteria was quiet, nearly empty; most of the lunchtime crowd
had left, and the dinner rush hadn’t started yet. Manuel Gaeta sat with three others at a table near the holowindow that showed a view of a pristine lake in the Rockies, a picture from distant Earth taken long before the greenhouse warming had driven millions from their flooded cities to makeshift refugee camps in such regions.
Of the four people talking intently together over the remains of their lunches, Gaeta was the only one who looked anywhere near happy.
“We can do it,” Gaeta said firmly.
“It would be awfully dangerous, Manny,” said Kris Cardenas.
Nadia Wunderly nodded her agreement. “It’d be like trying to walk past a firing squad that uses machine guns.”
Gaeta shrugged carelessly. “All I gotta do is go in-between the bullets.” He turned to von Helmholtz. “What do you think, Fritz?”
Von Helmholtz cast a cold eye at him. “Isn’t it enough to do what we came here to do?”
Gaeta said, “We’ll do the Titan gig if we can get the scientists to allow it. But while we’re out here, why not do a spin through the rings?”
“Because you could get killed,” von Helmholtz snapped.
Spreading his hands as if he’d proven his point, Gaeta countered, “That’s why people watch, Fritz. They’re waiting to see if I get killed.”
“What is worse, you’ll ruin the suit.”
Gaeta laughed.
“There’s a really strong chance that you would be killed,” Wunderly said.
“Not if you can pick out the right spot in the rings for me to traverse. A spot without so many big chunks.”
With a sigh, Wunderly explained, “I’d have to study the rings close-up for months, Manny. Years, maybe.”
“We’ve still got a few weeks before we go into orbit around Saturn. Won’t that be enough?”
“I’d need all the computer time we’ve got on board to make any reasonable computations,” she said. “Plus I’d need time on the big ’scopes and Urbain won’t let me near them.”
