The Aftermath gt-16

by Ben Bova

  “That will be wonderful,” Pauline said.

  Valker grinned at her. “Always happy to help a lovely lady in distress.”

  He waved and stepped into the airlock. Theo punched out the code that sealed the hatch and started the airlock cycling.

  Once the hatch shut and the panel lights indicated the ’lock was pumping down to vacuum, Pauline swung around and slapped her daughter on the face, hard.

  Angela was too stunned to cry. Theo saw the stinging marks of his mother’s fingers on Angie’s face, white against her reddened cheek.

  “Talking about sex!” Pauline hissed. “Are you crazy? Ten sex-starved men and you make them think…” Her voice faltered.

  “I didn’t mean…” Angela said, her voice quavering.

  Theo tried to get his mother’s attention. “I couldn’t refuse his help. They’d just come aboard anyway.”

  Pauline said, “Thee, get your sister out of sight. Find a place to hide her. I don’t want those men to get a glimpse of her while they’re on board our ship.”

  “What about you, Mom?”

  “I can take care of myself,” Pauline said. “It’s Angie I’m worried about.”

  Theo started to object. Before he could, though, Pauline said in a softer tone, “I’m an old lady, Thee. You saw the way that man was staring at Angie. He had no interest in me.”

  “I’m not so sure, Mom. He—”

  “Thee, we don’t have time to debate the issue. Get Angie to a safe hideaway, quickly. Before they all come aboard.”

  * * *

  Back in Vogeltod, Valker’s crew crowded around him as soon as he stepped through the airlock hatch.

  “What’s the word, skipper?”

  “What’s goin’ on over there?”

  “How big a crew?”

  “What about the women?”

  Valker silenced them with a gesture, then broke into his widest grin. “Just like he said over the radio. One crewman, a teenaged kid. And two women, a mother and her daughter. Both good-looking. The daughter’s hot to trot, too.”

  They all laughed.

  Nicco asked, “What about the mother?”

  “Good-looking, like I said. Elegant. Tries to be cool, but it’ll be fun melting her down.”

  SELENE:

  HOTEL LUNA

  Alex Humphries personally escorted Yuan and Tamara Vishinsky to the Hotel Luna. Although the hotel’s formal entrance was up in the Main Plaza, a wide powered stairway led down to the lobby, past sheets of genuine liquid water that slid glistening down tilted slabs of granite quarried from the lunar highlands.

  “The water’s recycled, of course,” Alex said as they glided down the stairway. “It looks pretty impressive, though, here on the Moon.”

  Yuan nodded appreciatively and noticed that Tamara was standing as close to Humphries as she could without climbing into his clothes.

  There were pools of limpidly clear water on either side at the bottom of the stairway, with fish swimming in them.

  “Aquaculture,” Humphries commented. “Selene gets more protein per unit of energy input from fish than from meat animals.”

  “You mean people eat those fish?” Tamara asked, her eyes wide and fixed on Humphries.

  He nodded. “You can pick one out for your dinner.”

  She laughed appreciatively.

  The hotel lobby was bigger than any Yuan had ever seen, lavishly carpeted and decorated with oriental tables and comfortable leather-covered easy chairs. Ornate displays of artificial flowers sprouted from imitation Ming vases.

  Humphries walked them to the reception desk, where a bowing assistant manager led them to adjoining rooms two levels below the lobby.

  “This is our bottom floor,” the slightly pudgy man said in a self-effacing whisper. “Our very best.”

  He opened a door and motioned Yuan inside. Impressive, Yuan thought. Roomy without being too big. Nice decorations. One entire wall was a smart screen that showed, at the moment, a satellite view of the Grand Canyon on Mars.

  “Thanks,” he said to Humphries.

  “You’re comped for everything,” Alex told him. “For three days. Then we leave for the Belt.”

  “May I add,” murmured the assistant manager, “that our shops up on the lobby level offer the very latest designer fashions and a complete line of accessories.”

  Yuan realized the man was telling him that he needed some new clothes. He nodded wordlessly and closed his door.

  “And your room is here,” the assistant manager said, opening the next door.

  Tamara looked inside. “Very luxurious,” she said to Humphries.

  The assistant manager handed her the key chip, glanced at Humphries, then bowed and scurried down the corridor.

  “I think you’ll be comfortable,” Humphries said.

  Tamara realized he was several centimeters taller than his father, clone or no clone. Looking up at him, she asked, “Would you like to come in?”

  He smiled. “I don’t think that would be wise.”

  “Really?” she breathed.

  “Look,” he said, “I’ve pulled you out of a cesspool full of trouble. My father isn’t happy with you—”

  “It wasn’t me who let Harbin and the old woman go,” Tamara said. “Yuan did that.”

  “But you killed Commander Bolestos, didn’t you? He didn’t just conveniently drop dead. You stuck a knife in his ribs.”

  Humphries could see sudden anger flare in her eyes. But she controlled it immediately.

  “It was wrong, I know,” she said contritely. “But he wouldn’t have allowed us to see the artifact.”

  “That’s no reason to kill a man.”

  “You’re right,” she murmured, her head drooping. She looked up at him through lowered lashes and added, “I realize that now… since the artifact.”

  “There’s been enough killing,” Alex Humphries said. “Too much. Now we’re going out to the artifact and try to understand it, learn from it.”

  “If that’s what you want.”

  “That’s what I want,” he said fervently. “My father doesn’t want the IAA or the universities near it, and I think he’s right about that. But he can’t stop me.”

  “Of course he can’t.”

  “I’ll need your help. Yours and Yuan’s.”

  “I’ll do whatever you want me to,” Tamara said, her head still lowered.

  Alex tucked a finger under her chin and lifted her face. “You will?”

  “Anything,” she whispered.

  He stepped into the hotel room with her and pushed the door shut. She realized that this man was his father’s clone, after all.

  CARGO SHIP PLEIADES:

  BRIDGE

  “You’re talking to yourself,” Victor Zacharias muttered. “That’s not a good sign.”

  So who else do I have to talk to? he asked silently. I’m a wanted thief in Ceres, I can’t chat with anyone there.

  He got up from the command chair and strode the four paces it took to go from one end of the bridge to the other. Then back again. Maybe I should go to the gym, work up a sweat. Instead he returned to the command chair and turned on the comm console.

  He scanned the news channels constantly, desperately hoping for some word about Syracuse. For months he had plotted possible trajectories for his ship, paths through the Belt that were based on little more than guesswork. I don’t have a firm fix on what her position was when I left the ship, and I have no idea of what Pauline might have done with the propulsion fuel we had left in the tanks. Or how much fuel was left. Or how she might try to swing into a trajectory that’ll bring them back toward Ceres.

  It was madness to attempt to calculate where Syracuse might be, but it was a madness that kept Victor sane. Otherwise he would be cruising blindly through the Belt, a single ship trying to find another speck of a ship in the enormous vast emptiness.

  His dreams were racked with nightmares. He saw one disaster after another: The ship struck by an asteroid t
hat ripped her apart, Pauline and the kids flung into the vacuum, their eyes bursting from their heads, their screams piercing his skull. Or drifting out to Jupiter, the ship’s systems failing one by one, dying of hunger, of thirst, suffocating as the air recyclers failed and they all choked to death, emaciated and helpless.

  The broadcasts from Ceres were strictly utilitarian, traffic reports for the most part. No word of a lost ship found, no word of his wife and children saved.

  Still he listened. And watched the broadcasts from Earth and the Moon. And checked the frequency that Syracuse would use to beam out its beacon and telemetry data.

  “Maybe Theo’s fixed the antennas,” he hoped aloud. “Maybe they’re signaling for help.”

  Nothing. Only the crackle of interference from the depths of space. No word from his lost family.

  * * *

  “I’m going to have to stay in the storm cellar?” Angela complained.

  She had changed into strictly utilitarian coveralls, but still Theo noticed how well his sister’s body filled the gray jumpsuit. As he pulled the heavy hatch open, Theo said, “Seal this hatch once you’re inside. Don’t open it for anybody, understand?”

  “Just because Mom’s afraid—”

  “Stuff it!” Theo snapped. “Mom’s got a right to be afraid and if you had any sense you’d be scared out of your skull.”

  Angela fell silent.

  “Ten men who haven’t seen a woman in who knows how long,” Theo went on. “You want to be gang-raped?”

  “Theo!”

  “That’s what they’ll do, Angie.”

  “That nice Captain Valker wouldn’t let them hurt me.” But she stepped inside the cramped radiation shelter.

  “Valker would be first in line.”

  “That’s crazy, Thee.”

  “Listen to me,” he said. “There’s food and water in here. You can stay here for a week if you have to. Seal the hatch and don’t open it for anybody. Not until I knock on it like this.” And he rapped his knuckles on the hatch’s metal face three times in rapid succession, then a second’s pause, then three more quick raps.

  “Got it? One-two-three, wait, one-two-three.”

  “Like a waltz,” Angela said.

  “A waltz? Yeah, I guess maybe it is.” Theo ducked down a bit to survey the interior of the metal-walled shelter. Cabinets stocked with supplies, food freezer and microwave, water tank half full.

  “That’s it, then,” he said at last. “You’ll be okay in here until we get rid of Valker and his crew.” Silently he added, I hope.

  * * *

  Pauline was in the command pod, fretting about the irony of the situation. We’re found by a gang of scavengers, she said to herself. I suppose that’s only to be expected. Who else would find a damaged ship drifting through the Belt?

  But the way that man stared at Angela. And she enjoyed his attention! She’s letting her hormones do her thinking for her. I’ve got to protect her. And Theo too. They’ll murder Thee if they think he’s getting in their way.

  How can I pull us through this? How can I get them to repair the ship without hurting us? Without killing us? Valker said they’re salvage operators; that means they want our ship. But to get it…

  She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to blot out the vision that she foresaw. They’ll kill us all. But only after they’ve had their fun with Angie and me. Maybe even with Thee. Then they’ll take Syracuse back to Ceres and sell her for salvage. Or scrap, more likely.

  One teenaged boy and two women against ten scavengers. Angie’s out of their sight but they can find her easily enough if they want to. And poor Thee, they’ll kill him right off if he tries to fight them.

  What can I do? Pauline asked herself again and again. How can I stop them?

  Valker, she thought. He’s their captain, their leader. He can control them, maybe. If I can control him.

  SALVAGE SHIP VOGELTOD:

  AIRLOCK

  “I don’t get it,” said Kirk, almost in a snarl. “Why don’t we just go over there and take that ship? Push the kid out an airlock and screw the two women until our cocks fall off.”

  Nicco, standing beside Kirk, laughed and agreed. “Yeah, why not?”

  Valker smiled benignly at his two crewmen. “Because I say we’re not going to do it that way, that’s why.”

  “If we put it to a vote the crew would go my way,” Kirk retorted.

  “Now listen,” said Valker, planting his fists on his hips. “I don’t pull rank often, but I am the captain of this woebegone crew and you’ll follow my orders.”

  “Why should we?”

  “Because I say so. That ore bucket will fetch us a decent price back at Ceres, but once we show up with her in tow what’s the first thing the rock rats’ inspectors will ask?”

  Before either Kirk or Nicco could reply, Valker answered his own question. “What happened to the owners?”

  Kirk shrugged. “How should we know? We found the vessel abandoned and adrift.” Turning to Nicco, “Right?”

  “Right!”

  “It’s not that simple,” Valker insisted. “It never is.”

  Scratching intently at the scar along his cheek, Nicco said, “I don’t know what’s wrong with just taking their ship and the two women, bang! Like that.”

  “We’re going to do it my way, share and share alike.”

  “That’s what I’ve been saying,” Kirk argued, with a smirk.

  “Just like in the army,” said Valker. “The officers and the enlisted men share everything fifty-fifty.”

  “Only there’s a hundred enlisted men for every officer,” Nicco grumbled.

  “That’s right. And there’s nine of you apes and only one of me. But we’ll share everything fifty-fifty.”

  “Yeah?” Kirk asked, suspicious.

  “Two women. The nine of you mugs in the crew get one and the captain gets one. Fair enough, eh?”

  “The hell it is!”

  “All right,” Valker said, laughing. “Suppose I appoint you two to be officers? My first and second mates.”

  “Then the other seven—”

  “They get one of the women and the three of us get the other one.”

  “And the kid?”

  “We push him out an airlock—after he rebuilds the ship’s antennas. I’m not towing a vessel into the Ceres sector that’s deaf, dumb and blind.”

  Kirk looked at Nicco, who made an affirmative shrug.

  “Fair enough?” Valker asked them.

  “Fair enough,” said Kirk, grudgingly. Then he added, “Uh, which of the women do we get? Or do we take turns with the two of ’em?”

  * * *

  With Valker directing them, Kirk and Nicco set up a flexible access tube that connected Vogeltod’s main airlock with the zero-g hub of the wheel-shaped Syracuse. Now they didn’t need space suits to transfer from one ship to the other. Valker was the first to glide through the spongy tube and enter Syracuse, with his two crewmen close behind him.

  Without much enthusiasm Theo greeted them as they floated through the inner hatch of Syracuse’s airlock. Speaking hardly a word he led them along the tube tunnel to the lockers that fronted the main airlock, where Pauline was waiting for them.

  “Welcome aboard, gentlemen,” she said, forcing a minimal smile.

  “Where’s your lovely daughter?” Valker asked, his teeth showing.

  “She’s been taken ill,” said Pauline. “Some sort of a fever. I’ve confined her to her quarters.”

  Valker’s grin didn’t diminish by a millimeter. “That’s too bad. Awful sudden, wasn’t it?”

  Looking more serious than ever, Pauline said, “I don’t know what it could be. I’m hoping it’s not contagious. Once you get an antenna working I can query the medical people at Ceres about her.”

  Valker nodded understandingly. Turning to his two crewmen, he ordered, “All right, you heard what the lady said. Let’s get the materials aboard and start building a new set of antennas.”

&
nbsp; Neither man moved.

  Then he said to Theo, “You’d better get into your suit, son. We have a lot of work ahead of us, outside.”

  “Right,” said Theo. He turned to the row of lockers and began pulling out his own hard-shell space suit.

  “Still using those?” Valker asked.

  Pauline replied, “We’re not rich enough to afford the nanosuits, I’m afraid.”

  “Too bad. If I had an extra one I’d loan it to the lad.”

  Theo sat on the bench and began tugging on his leggings.

  “Nicco, give the boy a hand. Kirk, you get back to our ship and start transferring the antenna materials.”

  Kirk started to say something, but a glance at Valker made him shut up and head back to Vogeltod.

  Theo obviously did not appreciate being called a “boy” or a “lad,” but he said nothing as he reached for his thick-soled boots.

  “I useta work in a suit like this,” Nicco said, tapping his knuckles on the torso of Theo’s suit, still hanging in the locker. “The nanosuits are a lot better.”

  “I suppose they are,” Theo said guardedly.

  Valker said to Pauline, “I can get a diagnostic handset from our infirmary, maybe find out what’s ailing your daughter.”

  “I think not,” said Pauline. “If she has something contagious I don’t want you and your crew coming down with it.”

  “I understand,” Valker said, thinking, You don’t want me to see the girl in bed, eh?

  Nicco held the space suit torso high enough for Theo, crouching, to get his head and arms into it.

  “You take care of him,” Valker told his crewman, “then go back to Vogeltod and help Kirk bring up those supplies.”

  With a sly grin, Nicco touched one finger to his brow and said crisply, “Aye, skipper.”

  To Pauline, Valker said, “I’ll have to see your communications setup if we’re going to rebuild your antennas.”