Saturn gt-12

by Ben Bova

  “Diego Romero. He was murdered.”

  “Murdered?” The strength seemed to leak out of Eberly’s legs. He sank down onto the sofa.

  Taking the closest chair to him, Holly said, “I’m positive. It wasn’t an accident. He was trying to push himself out of the water and somebody held him down.”

  Eberly swallowed visibly, then asked, “You have proof of this?”

  “I have evidence. The abrasions on his hands. They couldn’t have happened any other way.” Picturing the scene in her mind once again, she added, “And there were boot prints in the dirt, too many prints for one person to make.”

  “But who would want to kill that gentle old man? Why would someone want to murder him?”

  “I don’t know,” Holly said. “That’s why I need your help. There ought to be an investigation.”

  He sat in silence for a moment, obviously thinking furiously. “Holly, this is a matter for the Security Department. You should tell them about your evidence.”

  “Security? That means Kananga, doesn’t it?”

  “He’s in charge of security, yes.”

  Holly wrung her hands. “I don’t think he’d take me seriously. He’s… he wouldn’t think my evidence is enough to start a real investigation.”

  Eberly leaned back in the sofa. “Colonel Kananga is an experienced police officer. He’ll know what to do.”

  “Malcolm, he scares me,” she confessed.

  He said nothing for several heartbeats, looking at Holly with those startling blue eyes of his. Then he smiled gently. “Holly, would you like me to go with you to Kananga?”

  Her heart clutched within her. “Would you?”

  “For you, Holly, of course.”

  “Oh, great. Cosmic!”

  Eberly’s smile grew warmer. “I’ll call Kananga first thing in the morning.” His eyes shifted to the digital clock across the room. “Which is only a few hours from now.”

  She shot to her feet. “Oh, jeeps, I’m so sorry to bother you at this time of night, Malcolm. It’s just that I can’t get to see you anytime else, you’ve always got so many people around and—”

  Eberly rose and grasped her shoulder lightly. “I know. I’ve been so terribly busy. Too busy. But I’ll always make time for you, Holly. Simply call me here at my quarters. Leave a message and I’ll get back to you so we can meet together, in private.”

  She didn’t know what to say, except utter an awed, “Cosmic.”

  Eberly guided her to the door. “I don’t want you to worry about a thing, Holly. We’ll meet with Kananga tomorrow. And from now on, whenever you want to see me, simply leave a message on my private line, here.”

  “I will, Malcolm. I surely will.”

  As she walked homeward, feeling almost light-headed, Holly realized how wrong, how stupid, Pancho had been. Malcolm could’ve taken me to his bed and I’d have hopped in like a rabbit on aphrodisiacs, she thought. But Malcolm was too much of a gentleman to even think about that. And the guy Panch hired to protect me screws me whenever he feels like it. Some bodyguard.

  MIDNIGHT II

  Manuel Gaeta did not go to sleep, either. By the time he reached his own quarters he had decided he should call Kris Cardenas and tell her everything.

  “Can I see you, Kris?” he asked to her image floating in the middle of his one-room apartment. She was still wearing the slacks and blouse from earlier in the evening. Then Gaeta realized she wasn’t in her apartment; the phone had tracked her to her laboratory.

  Cardenas looked slightly bemused. “Sure, Manny. When?”

  “Tonight. Now.”

  “Now?” She seemed to think it over for a few moments. “Okay. Come on over to my lab. I’ll wait for you.”

  “Great!”

  Halfway there, Gaeta remembered Holly’s crack about Kris developing nanobugs that ate testicles. He laughed to himself. Hey man, he said to himself, you live with danger. That’s the life you’ve chosen.

  Cardenas wasn’t laughing, though, when she opened the locked door to her lab. She looked bright and perky, despite the late hour, but utterly serious.

  “What’s on your mind, Manny?” she asked as she led him past a row of lab benches and spotless, gleaming plastic and metal equipment. “You are,” he said.

  Cardenas perched herself on a high swiveling stool and pointed to a hard straight-backed chair for Gaeta. He remained standing.

  “So you’re thinking about me at—” she glanced at the clock on the far wall, “ — twenty-eight minutes before one o’clock in the morning.”

  Gaeta folded his arms across his chest. “Come on, Kris, cut the crap. Holly told me that you know about her and about Nadia.”

  “I imagine you’re bragging to all your buddies about your hit parade.”

  “I haven’t said a word to anybody. You grow up where I did, you learn to keep your mouth shut.”

  She eyed him, disbelief clear in her expression. And something else, he thought. Curiosity? Maybe even regret?

  “I just want you to know,” he said, “that you’re the only one who means anything to me. You’re the one I don’t want to lose.”

  That shocked her. “You’re joking!”

  “No joke, Kris,” he said. “I’ve never said this to anybody else in my life. I think I love you.”

  Cardenas started to reply, then closed her mouth, pressed her lips together tightly.

  “I mean it,” Gaeta said. “I never said that to anybody before.”

  At last she replied, so softly he could barely hear her, “I never thought I’d hear anyone say that to me again.”

  Ruth Morgenthau wanted to sleep, but she had hours and hours of vids to watch and phone taps to listen to. Eberly was pressing her for results, and she was determined to go through all of the material that Vyborg had amassed on Professor Wilmot’s communications. So she sat in her padded recliner, resisting the urge to crank it all the way back and drift off to sleep. I’ve let this material pile up so much, she realized. I’ve got to wade through it; otherwise it will just get worse.

  Why not let Vyborg do this? she asked herself wearily as the hours ground on. He’s put the taps in place, his people have set up the cameras in Wilmot’s quarters and office. Why not let him drudge through all this drivel? She knew the answer: it was because if Vyborg found something, Vyborg would get the credit in Eberly’s eyes. Morgenthau shook her head ponderously. No, that will never do. If anyone is going to bring Wilmot low, it must be me. Eberly must see that I did it. No one else but me.

  She worried about Eberly’s devotion to their cause. He seems more interested in being admired than in furthering the reach of the Holy Disciples. He’s an American, of course, and they’re all infatuated with their own individuality, but still he’s subject to the judgments of their New Morality.

  Another reason to see this job through, she thought. If I can bring him something to use against Wilmot, it will make Eberly see that he needs me. Vyborg and that murderous Kananga can help him in some ways, but I must make him realize that he is dependent on me. One word from me can put him back in prison, yet he treats me as just another of his underlings. He’s smart enough to call my bluff on that. If I send him packing, our whole mission here will be destroyed. Urbain or that growling Russian will be elected leader of this habitat and I’ll have failed miserably.

  Eberly has no respect for my abilities. He thinks I’m lazy, incompetent. Well, let me bring him the goods on Wilmot and his opinion of me will have to change.

  Silently Morgenthau prayed for help, for success. Let me find something that we can use against Wilmot, she prayed. For the greater glory of God, let me find a way to bring the professor to his knees.

  The only answer she received was hour after hour of watching Wilmot at his desk, listening to his phone conversations, reading the reports he wrote before he encoded them to send back to Earth. Each evening the professor sat watching vids for hours. Morgenthau fast-forwarded and skipped past them. She could not see them clearly
from the vantage point of the camera set in Wilmot’s sitting room ceiling, and she couldn’t hear the sound tracks because he listened to the vids through a miniature plug he wormed into his ear. Hour after hour, he watched the indecipherable vids.

  And hour after hour, Morgenthau skimmed past them, looking for something tangible, something sinful or illegal or merely embarrassing, something that could hurt Professor Wilmot.

  Utterly bored and weary, Morgenthau yawned and rubbed her heavy-lidded eyes. I can barely stay awake, she said to herself. Enough is enough.

  She turned off the display, still showing Wilmot staring at his entertainment vid in rapt concentration, and started to push herself up from her recliner when she remembered to check if Wilmot had sent any messages out of the habitat, to Earth. Each week he sent a coded report to somewhere in Atlanta, she knew. Very cryptic, even once the computer decoded them. A strange coincidence that whoever Wilmot was reporting to resided in the same city as the headquarters of the New Morality. Morgenthau shrugged it off as merely a coincidence.

  Already half asleep, she pulled up the file of his outgoing messages.

  Aside from the usual brief report to Atlanta, there was an even shorter message to some address in Copenhagen. And he had sent it not through the usual radio channel, but by a tight-beam laser link.

  Suddenly Morgenthau was wide awake, calling the same number in Copenhagen, tracing Wilmot’s message.

  “She knows?” Vyborg asked, startled.

  Eberly, walking along the curving path between Vyborg and Kananga, replied, “She suspects.”

  To a casual observer the three men seemed to be ambling slowly along the flower-bordered pathway out beyond the edges of Athens. Late morning sunlight streamed through the habitat’s solar windows. Bees hummed among the hyacinths and hollyhocks. Butterflies fluttered. Vyborg, short and spare, hunching over slightly as he walked, was scowling like a man who had just swallowed something vile. Even tall, regal Kananga, on Eberly’s other side, looked displeased, perhaps even worried.

  “And she came to you for help,” Kananga said.

  Eberly nodded slowly. “I have volunteered to bring her to your office.”

  “Not my office,” said Kananga. “Too many eyes watching there. We’ll have to meet somewhere more secluded.”

  “Where?” Eberly asked.

  Vyborg suggested, “How about the scene of the crime?”

  Kananga smiled gleamingly. “Perfect.”

  Eberly glanced from one man to the other. They’re drawing me into their crime, he realized. They’re going to make me a party to another murder. What alternative do I have? How can I keep clear of this?

  Aloud, he said, “I’ll tell her to meet me at the scene of the old man’s death, but I won’t be there when she arrives.”

  “I will,” said Kananga.

  “She’s got to disappear entirely,” Eberly said. “We can’t have another dead body to explain.”

  Vyborg said, “In a habitat as large as this, there must be thousands of places where she could run off to.”

  “I don’t want her body found,” Eberly repeated.

  “It won’t be,” said Kananga. “That’s what airlocks are for.” Looking past Eberly to Vyborg, he said, “You’ll be able to erase the airlock security camera record, won’t you?”

  Vyborg nodded. “And replace it with perfectly normal footage that will show absolutely nothing.”

  “Good,” Kananga said.

  Eberly drew in a deep breath. “Very well. When shall we do it?”

  “The sooner the better.”

  “This afternoon, then.”

  “Fourteen hundred hours,” Kananga suggested.

  “Make it earlier,” said Vyborg, “while most of the people are at lunch.”

  “Yes,” Kananga agreed. “Say, twelve-thirty hours.”

  “Good.” Vyborg smiled, relieved.

  “I don’t like any of this,” Eberly said.

  “But it’s got to be done.”

  “I know. That’s why I’m helping you.”

  “Helping us?” Vyborg challenged. “What will you be doing to help us? The colonel here is doing what needs to be done. You’ll be in your office, establishing an alibi.”

  Eberly looked down at the smaller man coldly. “I’ll be in my office amending Holly Lane’s dossier to show that she is emotionally unstable, and has attempted suicide in the past.”

  Kananga laughed aloud. “Good thinking. Then her disappearance won’t look so suspicious.”

  “Just be certain that her body isn’t found,” Eberly snapped.

  “It won’t be,” said Kananga, “unless someone wants to get into a spacesuit and search a few million kilometers of vacuum.”

  SATURN ARRIVAL MINUS 19 DAYS

  Holly and Eberly walked past the orchard’s neat rows of trees, heading for the spot along the irrigation canal where Don Diego had drowned. Holly didn’t need a map or a marker; she remembered the exact location perfectly.

  “But what did Kananga find?” she asked.

  Eberly shrugged his rounded shoulders. “I don’t know. He said he didn’t want to talk about it on the phone.”

  “Must be something important,” she said, quickening her pace. “Must be.” Eberly touched his comm, in the breast pocket of his tunic. Vyborg was supposed to call him, give him an excuse to leave Holly and head back to his office. Why hasn’t he called? Is he trying to make certain I’m involved personally in this? Trying to make me a witness to Holly’s murder? An accomplice?

  Holly was oblivious to his nervous behavior. “Wonder what it could be?”

  “What what could be?” Eberly asked, with growing impatience. “Whatever it is that Kananga found.”

  Your death, he replied silently. He’s going to kill you, and make me a party to it.

  “Wait,” said Eberly, reaching out to grasp Holly’s arm. “What is it, Malcolm?”

  He stood there, feeling cold sweat beading his upper lip, his forehead, trickling down his ribs. I can’t do it, he realized. I can’t let them draw me in this deep.

  “Holly, I…” What to say? How can I get out of this without telling her everything?

  His comm buzzed. Almost giddy with relief, Eberly fished it out of his tunic pocket and fumbled it open.

  Instead of Vyborg’s dark, sour face, Morgenthau appeared on the miniature screen. She was smiling broadly. “I’ve found it,” she said, without preamble. “His entertainment vids. They’re—”

  “I’m out here in the orchard with Holly,” he interrupted, his voice as strong and imperative as he could make it without shouting. “What is it that you’ve found?”

  Morgenthau looked flustered for a moment, then she seemed to understand what he was trying to tell her. “It’s an important break through,” she temporized. “Too complicated to discuss over the phone. I must show you all the details, so that you can then discuss them with Professor Wilmot.”

  “Is it urgent?” he prompted.

  “Oh, yes, quite urgent.” Morgenthau took her cue. “I suggest you come to my office immediately. This can’t wait.”

  “Very well,” he said sharply. “I’ll meet you at your office.”

  He clicked the handheld shut and looked up at Holly. “I’m afraid I’ll have to go back. You go on to your meeting with Kananga. I’ll join you as soon as I can.”

  Holly was clearly disappointed, but she nodded her understanding. Without another word, Eberly turned around and started walking quickly back toward the village, practically loping through the trees. Puzzled, Holly turned back and headed for the irrigation culvert. Then she realized she would have to see Kananga by herself. The prospect didn’t please her, but she was determined to find out what the security chief had learned about Don Diego’s death.

  No, not death, Holly reminded herself. Murder.

  For one of the rare times in his life, Manuel Gaeta felt awkward. As he walked down the corridor toward Nadia Wunderly’s cubbyhole office, he actually felt ner
vous, like a teenager going out on his first date. Like a guilty little kid going to confession.

  The door markedplanetary sciences staff was wide open. The area inside looked like a maze constructed of shoulder-high partitions, filled with quietly intense scientists and their assistants. Gaeta had been there often enough to know the way, but this particular morning he got confused, lost, and had to ask directions. Everybody seemed to know who he was and they smilingly pointed him in the right direction. The women seemed to smile especially warmly, he noticed.

  None of that now, he told himself sternly.

  Feeling a little like a mouse in a psychologist’s maze, Gaeta finally made it to Wunderly’s cubbyhole, which was about as far from the front door as it could be.

  “Good morning, Manny,” she said, barely looking up as he hesitated by the entryway.

  “Hi,” he said as brightly as he could manage. “You got the results for me?”

  She nodded without smiling. Unasked, Gaeta took the squeaky little plastic chair at the side of her desk. Suma friadad, he thought. A man could freeze to death in here.

  Wunderly projected a set of tables on the blank partition that formed the back wall of her cubicle. “These are the frequencies of particles bigger than ten centimeters in the brightest belt, the B ring,” she said, her voice flat, as unemotional as a machine. “And here are the deviations that they—”

  “I don’t blame you for being sore at me,” he interrupted.

  She blinked her big gray eyes slowly, solemnly.

  “I know you and Kris talked.”

  “Holly, too.”

  He conceded with a shrug and a weak attempt at a boyish smile. “Yeah, and Holly too.”

  “And God knows who else.”

  “Now wait,” he said, raising a hand defensively. “It’s bad enough, don’t go making it worse than it is.”

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” Wunderly said.

  “I owe you an apology.”

  She glared at him for a moment. Then, “I don’t want to talk about it. Ever again.”