The Aftermath gt-16

by Ben Bova

  The image on the screen froze. Victor scowled at the man’s face. He had a thick mop of sandy blond hair, a strong jaw, big teeth. Broad shoulders beneath a nondescript tan shirt. His smile had a hint of the predator about it. Victor thought of a shark.

  Salvage? Victor asked himself. Are there enough abandoned or wrecked ships out here to make a salvage operation profitable? There must be, he decided.

  If I don’t answer him, he’ll board me. I’m just one man; he’s probably got a crew of least four or five people. Maybe more.

  But if I do answer him he’ll figure out pretty quickly that I’ve stolen this ship. Then he can board me, take over and bring me back to Ceres. Back to Cheena. And Big George.

  Victor glowered at the frozen image in his comm screen. Damned if I do and damned if I don’t.

  * * *

  Kao Yuan leveled a finger at Tamara. “Do you realize what you’re proposing to do?”

  “Yes,” she said, delighted, enthusiastic. “We’re going to find that alien artifact.”

  “If Humphries hasn’t destroyed it,” Dorn said.

  “Destroyed it? He wouldn’t do that! He couldn’t! Why would he destroy it?”

  “Because he hates it,” said Elverda, from across the galley table.

  “Worse,” Dorn amended. “He fears it.”

  Undeterred, Tamara said, “He hasn’t destroyed it, I’m certain of that.”

  Yuan shook his head, more in wonder than contradiction.

  Leaning slightly toward Dorn, Tamara said, “You know the asteroid’s coordinates, Harbin. You’re going to lead us to it.”

  “And if I refuse?”

  She gestured toward Elverda. “We’ll kill your friend.”

  “Now wait!” Kuan said, brows knitting. “I’m the captain here, not you.”

  Tamara smiled at him, coldly. “I report directly to Mr. Humphries. I outrank you, Kao.”

  “Not on this ship.”

  “Why do you want to see the artifact?” Elverda asked.

  Her smile thinned. “Martin Humphries is the most powerful man in the solar system, right? Well, this artifact, whatever it is, can give me a lever on him. If I can control the artifact I can control Humphries! It’s that simple.”

  “It may be a lot of things,” Yuan said, “but it’s not simple. All you’re going to accomplish is getting yourself killed. And me along with you.”

  “Don’t be a chick, Yuan. We’re talking about real power here!”

  “You’re crazy.”

  Her smiled winked out. “Listen, captain,” she mocked, “I’d prefer to do this with you, but I can do it without if I have to. Koop can replace you easily enough.”

  “You’re talking mutiny,” Yuan growled.

  “Yes, I am,” said Tamara.

  ATTACK SHIP VIKING:

  INFIRMARY

  Yuan escorted Elverda and Dorn back to the infirmary, looking decidedly unhappy.

  “You’ll be comfortable enough here,” he said, motioning them through the open hatch. “This ship isn’t built to accommodate passengers.”

  Elverda thanked him and stepped through; Dorn followed her. Yuan closed the hatch and left them alone.

  “She’s mad. Insane,” Elverda said as she went to her bed and sat on it. Three sides of the bed were partitioned off.

  “Is she?” Dorn wondered, standing next to her. “She seems to understand how powerful the artifact can be.”

  “But how can she hope to control Humphries through it? If he hasn’t already destroyed it he must have it heavily guarded, sealed off from the rest of the world.”

  “Perhaps. But she’s a gambler, and she’s willing to play for the very highest stakes.”

  “Our lives.”

  “And her own. If she’s wrong about controlling Humphries, he’ll snuff her out like a candle flame.”

  Elverda felt tired, bone weary. Yet… “Perhaps there’s some way we can use the artifact to bargain for our lives.”

  “Your life,” he said. “I’m ready to die.”

  “No!”

  He looked away from her. In a voice so low she could barely hear it, he said, “Today I realized how brittle this facade is. I could have killed her—all of them.”

  “That was the drugs.”

  “In my body,” he retorted. “My brain. My mind. I could have killed them all. I wanted to.”

  “But you didn’t.”

  He shook his head slowly. “I don’t want to go through that again. I want to be released from all this… this… living.”

  Elverda searched for something she could say to help him, to ease his pain, to bring him back from his despair. But she found nothing.

  * * *

  With the enormous reluctance of a man who knew he would regret his decision, Victor keyed his comm console.

  “This is the cargo ship Pleiades,” he said, trying to keep his voice firm, unruffled. “We are not in trouble. I repeat, not in trouble. We do not require assistance. Thank you.”

  Hardly a moment later the smiling young man’s face appeared on Victor’s comm screen.

  “You’re not emitting a tracking beacon, Pleiades,” he said. “We thought you were abandoned.”

  Victor could see a glint of sunlight off a ship’s hull on his main display screen. Vogeltod was still too far away for the cameras to show its shape.

  “No, we’re not abandoned.”

  “But you’re running silent, eh?”

  “For the moment, yes.”

  The man’s toothy grin widened. “My name is Valker. What’s yours?”

  Thinking swiftly, Victor said, “Kaneaz.”

  “Kaneaz?” Valker echoed. “What’s that, German?”

  “Greek.”

  “Ah! That’s why I didn’t understand it. It’s Greek to me!” Valker burst into a hearty laugh.”

  Making himself smile back at the man, Victor said, “Well, thanks for your offer of assistance. I’ll be powering up soon and heading deeper into the Belt.”

  Valker’s handsome face turned crafty. “Wait a minute. According to the IAA register on my screen, Pleiades is captained by Cheena Madagascar. Can I talk to her?”

  “The captain gave orders she’s not to be disturbed.”

  “Did she?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, you’d better wake her up, Greekie. We’re coming aboard.”

  Victor’s main screen showed a flash of rocket exhaust against the starry background. He hesitated a bare fraction of a second, then punched his main propulsion controls. Pleiades lurched into acceleration.

  Sinking back in the padded command chair, Victor said to himself, Now it’s a question of who’s faster. And better armed.

  * * *

  Kao Yuan went from the infirmary straight to the bridge. Koop was in the command chair, Tamara leaning over him in whispered conversation.

  “Koop,” Yuan called. “Come with me.”

  The big Hawaiian looked like a guilty little boy as he pulled himself to his feet.

  “You too, Tamara,” he said.

  It was crowded in the captain’s quarters with the three of them there, but Yuan slid his door shut and leaned against it for a moment, eying them. Tamara went directly to the double-sized bunk and sat on its edge. Koop looked at the flimsy desk chair, decided against it, and remained standing.

  “Take the recliner,” Yuan said, pointing to the cushioned chair.

  “It’s okay, captain,” Koop said. “I’ll stay on my feet.”

  “We’ve got a command crisis here,” Yuan said, without moving from the door. “Tamara thinks she can give the orders aboard my ship.”

  “I report directly—”

  “To Humphries, I know,” said Yuan. “But I’m the captain of this ship. Like Ahab said, there’s one god in heaven and one captain of the Pequod.”

  Koop’s chunky face screwed up in bewilderment. “Pequod?”

  “You hold the balance of power here,” Yuan said to his first mate. “Whose orders are
you going to follow, hers or mine?”

  “Yours,” the Hawaiian answered without hesitation.

  “You’re certain?”

  “Sure, captain. You’re the captain and that’s it.”

  “Even if she goes to bed with you?”

  Koop’s face flamed red. Tamara actually smiled.

  “We’ve already been in bed together,” she said, her smile turning into a self-satisfied smirk. “It was very enjoyable.”

  “I see,” Yuan said tightly.

  “That’s got nothin’ to do with who’s captain,” Koop said.

  Yuan looked into his steady brown eyes. “This is important, Koop. I can’t have her going over my head.”

  “You’ve made your point, captain,” Tamara said. “I’ll follow your orders without question.”

  “No calling back to headquarters behind my back,” Yuan said.

  Smiling again, she replied, “I won’t go over your head, or behind your back, or under your toes.”

  “All right, then.”

  “But we are going to find the artifact, aren’t we?” she added.

  Yuan hesitated. He knew that she wouldn’t want to tell headquarters that she knew anything about the artifact. Humphries wants the renegade and the sculptress killed because they know about it. He’ll kill all of us if he knows that we know.

  Impatient with his silence, Tamara went on, “We have Harbin and the artist. Our mission is completed once we eliminate them. But if we can get the artifact—”

  “We could get ourselves killed,” Yuan snapped.

  “Or be in control of the most powerful force in the solar system,” she purred.

  CARGO SHIP PLEIADES:

  BRIDGE

  Victor kept the fusion drive accelerating at one full g and watched Vogeltod dwindling in his wake. Nodding to himself, he thought, Scavengers like Valker aren’t looking for a long and difficult chase. They want easy pickings, and there must be lots of them scattered around the Belt: ships that were blasted in battle during the war, ships that are abandoned, or their crews killed.

  It wasn’t until Vogeltod had disappeared altogether from his screen that the frightening thought hit him. What if a scavenger finds Syracuse before I do?

  What if that bastard Valker follows me and finds Syracuse because I lead him to her?

  No. He shook his head to clear the idea from his mind. It’ll take months, maybe years before I find Pauline and the kids. Valker won’t have that kind of patience. He’s looking for prey, he wants to feed himself and his crew, he can’t wait that long. His own crew would slit his throat first.

  Still, Victor shut down the main engine and used the cold-gas maneuvering jets to shift Pleiades away from the outbound vector it had been following. He kicked Pleiades into a trajectory that climbed well above his original course. Most ships travel close to the ecliptic: that’s where the asteroids are. He might not think of looking up. Go silent again, don’t leave a trail for him to follow, he told himself. Don’t take any chances.

  Once he had convinced himself that he had lost Vogeltod, he called up the navigation program and restudied his options.

  I’ve got to stay farther away from the Ceres sector, he realized. Parasites like Valker must be combing the region, looking for derelicts to scavenge. But that means I’ll have to cover a wider arc to have any hope of intercepting Pauline and the kids.

  He decided to cruise silently for at least three days before turning on the search radar. Then he decided to make it a week. He didn’t want to take any chances of giving Valker or anyone else a signal they could home in on.

  * * *

  Vogeltod’s bridge was a strange assortment of equipment, most of it taken from vessels that Valker and his crew had seized and retrofitted into the old bucket. Valker himself sat in a command chair that had once belonged to Admiral Gormley, the victim of a bloody ambush during the war.

  Valker was a big man, almost two meters tall, broad in the shoulders, deep in the chest. He was almost always smiling, a bright devil-may-care smile that showed lots of teeth. Where another man might show tension, even fear, in a dangerous situation, Valker smiled and fought his way through. During the war he’d been a mercenary, first with Astro Corporation, then with Humphries Space Systems.

  When the shooting stopped, most mercenaries were at a loss. For years there had been plenty of work for them, and good pay. Not that they fought all the time. Much of their work involved building bases or scouting through the cold emptiness of the Belt, looking for prey. They seldom engaged in battle against other mercenaries. No percentage in that. Instead, they swooped clown on hapless cargo ships and smelters, like hawks going after pigeons.

  The official end of the war finished that. For the most part. Some mercenaries became outlaws, pirates, still attacking peaceful vessels. But they soon learned that no one would buy the cargoes they captured. Big George Ambrose and the other rock rats busily building their new habitat at Ceres had no time or money to hire a police force to go after the pirates. They simply saw to it that no one in the Belt bought stolen cargoes. The pirates soon realized there was little profit in their piracies. And there was always the risk that Big George’s people would execute you without delay.

  Valker was smarter than that. When the Second Asteroid War broke out he had just graduated from the University of Pisa with a double degree in economics and marketing. He had been a star on the international soccer team he himself had helped to organize. His plan was to spend three years—perhaps as much as five—in the Belt, working as a prospector, locating asteroids rich in metals and minerals, claiming them as an independent corporation and then selling them to the highest bidder.

  The Asteroid War made such ventures far too hazardous. Valker saw that either he joined one of the major corporations or he went back to Earth empty-handed. Or got himself killed. So he became a mercenary—until the war abruptly ended.

  While most of the mercenaries found themselves out of work, and flooded back to the Earth/Moon region to look for jobs, Valker realized that there was an economic niche available in the Belt: salvage. There were plenty of vessels abandoned by their crews, drifting through the Belt, there for the taking. He could claim the vessels as salvage, then sell them back to the rock rats for a handsome profit.

  He was a born salesman. With his rugged good looks and winning smile, he talked a banker into leasing him a small ship, Vogeltod. It wasn’t difficult to round up a crew: he picked nine men, all former mercenaries, all quite prepared to stretch the laws of salvage once they were out in the Belt and away from the prying eyes of Big George and the IAA.

  They searched for abandoned vessels. Some were battered hulks, little more than junk. Most had equipment in them that could be scavenged. But the real money was in ships that were intact. Valker and his crewmates pounced on lonely vessels deep in the Belt, killed the crews and brought the ships back to Ceres for sale. There were always questions, raised eyebrows, lurking suspicions. Valker smiled his way through and sold the “abandoned” vessels to the highest bidder. There were always newcomers from Earth or the Moon with money in their accounts to invest in a new career in prospecting and mining.

  Now Valker sat in Admiral Gormley’s old command chair and studied the data splashed on Vogeltod’s main screen. Pleiades was listed back at Ceres as stolen. Its captain and owner, Cheena Madagascar, had even posted a hefty reward for the ship’s return. Big George Ambrose had declared the thief, somebody named Victor Zacharias, to be an outlaw and placed a modest price on his head.

  “Gesuto,” Valker said aloud, “we could take this ship and bring it back to Ceres and we’ll be heroes, no less.”

  The other men on the bridge grinned at him.

  “The rewards don’t add up to all that much,” he continued, “but the good will could be helpful.”

  “He’s no fool, though,” said the man at the nav console. “He sprinted away and now he’s shut down his main engine.”

  “Trying to be invisible,” V
alker muttered.

  “And doing a good job of it. Radar ain’t picking up anything.”

  Valker nodded absently. “You’re right: he’s no fool.” He pecked out a command to the ship’s computer on the keyboard set into the armrest of his chair. Let’s see what Ceres has on file about this thief. Know your customer, he said to himself. That’s the first rule of marketing.

  ATTACK SHIP VIKING:

  BRIDGE

  Everything stopped as Koop brought the cyborg and the old woman onto the bridge. The two crewmen who were still working at repairs of the equipment Dorn had smashed glanced at him warily, as did the officers at their consoles, two of them with spraytape covering their broken noses. Elverda’s face was drawn tight with tension. It was impossible to read any expression on the cyborg’s half-metal face.

  Tamara, at the comm console, half turned in her chair as Koop led them in. Yuan glared at her, a warning to keep her mouth shut. I’m the captain, he said silently to her, I’m in charge.

  “Harbin,” he began, “I want—”

  “My name is no longer Dorik Harbin. Please call me Dorn.”

  Yuan grimaced. “All right. Dorn. I want you to give my navigation officer the coordinates for the asteroid where the artifact is located.”

  Elverda saw that all of them were staring openly at Dorn now: the three bridge officers, the captain, the pair of technicians, even the strapping Hawaiian. For a long moment Dorn said nothing; the bridge was absolutely silent except for the hum of electrical power and the whisper of air from the ventilation ducts.

  “It will be very dangerous to go there,” Dorn said at last.

  Yuan waved a hand impatiently. “That’s for me to worry about, not you. Give my nav officer the coordinates.”

  “He may have moved the asteroid to a different orbit, or even destroyed it completely.”