Voyagers III - Star Brothers

by Ben Bova

  Koku whimpered with Lela’s fear. And his own.

  The scramjet flew so high that its cabin bore hair-thin filaments of superconducting wire on its outer skin to create a magnetic field around the plane that deflected incoming cosmic radiation particles. Streaking along at Mach 10, the plane arced across the North Pacific, entered Soviet airspace slightly above the Kamchatka Peninsula, and skirted the shore of the Arctic, heading for the Ural Mountains and the broad plains of Russia.

  Jo Camerata paid no attention to the geography spinning by below her. Most of it was covered by clouds, anyway. She sat in a wide padded leather chair swivelled to face the display screen of the console built into the side of the cabin.

  “I agree fully,” Sir Harold Epping was saying from the screen. “Hsen is making his play for the board of directors. His agents have even tried to recruit me to his side.” One of Sir Harold’s gray eyebrows rose nearly a millimeter; for him, such a ruffling of his normally unflappable exterior was an admission of surprise and disdain.

  “You’re the first board member to tell me about it,” Jo said.

  “I’m sure others will call you,” said the Englishman. “Hsen’s being very careful. He knows that if he tips his hand too soon you’ll counterattack.”

  “He’s got at least six board members on his side.”

  “Perhaps you should mount a campaign to take over Pacific Commerce.”

  Jo frowned at the image in the screen. “An unfriendly takeover? That would leave a lot of blood on the floor. And there isn’t enough time before the next board meeting to get it going properly.”

  “Yes,” Sir Harold admitted. “Perhaps.”

  The message light to one side of the display screen began blinking amber.

  “Harold, I’ll get back to you in a day or so,” Jo said. “In the meantime, would you play along with Hsen’s people and pump them for all the information you can get?”

  “Of course, dear girl. I’d be delighted to match wits with the wily orientals.”

  “Thank you so much, Harold. You’re a true friend.”

  “My pleasure,” he said, smiling genuinely.

  The screen went blank for an instant, then a message scrolled across it, telling Jo who was calling and from where. With a slight sigh of irritation she touched the keyboard pad that accepted the call.

  Cliff Baker’s pouchy, puffy-eyed features filled the screen.

  “We’ve got to convene an emergency meeting,” said the chairman of the IIA. “I’m polling the members to pick the best time and place.”

  “I don’t have time for an emergency meeting, Cliff,” Jo protested. “My schedule looks like a disaster area as it is!”

  He made a grin that would have been charming ten years earlier. “Jo, luv, there’s not much either one of us can do about it. Everybody’s scared shitless about this epidemic. The Asian bloc want a meeting this week, without fail.”

  “Can’t you put them off?”

  “Varahamihara himself has asked for it.”

  Jo felt the steam go out of her. The Great Soul of India. No one could deny him a request.

  But she heard herself asking, “This is a health problem, Cliff. Why bring it to the IIA?”

  “Because the medical blokes are going to need money, and lots of it. The World Health people are asking the UN for a special appropriation, but all the national health organizations need more funding too. That’s why India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Vietnam—all of ’em are screaming for a special meeting soon’s possible.”

  Recognizing defeat when it stared at her, Jo acquiesced with a heavy sigh. “Okay. What looks like the best time and place?”

  “This Sunday, in Sydney, at local noon.”

  Tapping the data into her computer file, Jo realized that the entire weekend would be shot if she attended the meeting in person.

  “I’ll probably use the videophone, Cliff.”

  Baker’s face took on a slightly pouting expression, but he said, “I imagine most of the members will come in electronically. Wouldn’t want to spoil their weekends just because there’s a plague threatening to wipe out half the world, would we?”

  “Don’t be an ass, Cliff.”

  He grinned again. “Good girl. Wouldn’t be a proper talk between us if you didn’t call me an ass or something worse.”

  “You ask for it, you get it,” Jo snapped. She was tired of Baker’s deliberate goading, his perpetual game of good little poor people beset by evil big rich people.

  “Sunday noon then, Sydney time,” he said.

  “Right.”

  Instead of signing off, Baker asked curiously, “Where the hell are you now?”

  “On my way to Moscow for a funeral.”

  “A funeral? H’mp.”

  “Good-bye, Cliff.”

  “Ta. See you Sunday noon.”

  The screen went dark. Jo leaned back in her chair and listened for a moment to the muted howl of the scramjet engines. Suddenly she snapped up straight. That bastard Cliff! Sunday noon in Sydney. He can stay on his own clock and even sleep late! The lazy scheming sonofabitch!

  Baker was always playing one-upmanship games. Gazing through the tiny window at the gray featureless clouds below, Jo’s tense expression relaxed into a smile. In another hour or so she would be with Keith again. And she would take him home, where he’d be safe.

  His message had been terse. Just his flight’s arrival time in Moscow. And the fact that he was travelling with two Hungarian scientists. That woman we met in Moscow must be one of them, Jo said to herself. Must be.

  And it was, she saw, when Stoner strode out from the access ramp into the gate area at Sheremetyevo Airport. The same Ilona Lucacs, wearing practically the same outfit: tweed skirt and jacket, mannish off-white blouse, hardly any makeup or jewelry at all. Still she was beautiful. Stunning. Jo felt old and ostentatiously overdressed in her Russian-style red blazer, loose black slacks, and glossy high black boots.

  Keith was wearing his usual denims. The man walking beside him, stretching his legs almost painfully to keep up with Keith, wore an old-style business suit that had seen better days. His barrel-shaped body seemed out of proportion to his pipestem arms and legs, but his moon-round face was all intensity and grim purpose, lips pressed into a thin line, deep-set eyes looking up at Keith like a caged wolf waiting to be released by its keeper. Dark hair down to his collar, little fringe of a beard that was meant to look intellectual. An academic, Jo decided swiftly. She did not trust academics; but then, she did not trust anyone until they had proved their loyalty.

  All that happened in the flash of a second. Before she could draw another breath, Keith dropped the tiny bundle he was carrying, ran to her, and picked her up in his arms. Jo kissed him as hard as he kissed her, winding her arms around his neck and not letting go until he deposited her back on the carpeted floor.

  Other passengers from the airliner passed by, grinning or turning away according to their personal feelings about two clearly middle-aged people exhibiting passion in the midst of a crowded airport terminal.

  Stoner whispered into Jo’s ear, “No questions until we’re alone.” Then he released her and turned to introduce Zoltan Janos.

  Jo shook the scientist’s limp hand, confirming her original opinion of him, and said hello to Ilona Lucacs. She looks tense, wired, Jo thought now that she saw the young woman close up.

  A uniformed gate attendant picked up Stoner’s bundle of clothes and handed it to him with a smile that beamed approval of romance, even among older men and women. Stoner thanked her, then slid his arm around Jo’s waist and started down the long busy corridor.

  “Hard to believe it’s only been a couple of days,” he said to her. “Seems like weeks since I’ve seen you.”

  A bald man in a gray suit pushed his way toward them against the flow of the exiting crowd. Jo recognized Markov’s former aide from the Academy of Sciences, Rozmenko. At least he’s alone this time, Jo thought. No policemen with him.

  “D
r. Stoner, Mrs. Stoner,” Rozmenko said, out of breath as if he had run all the way through the airport. “I only learned of your arrival half an hour ago.”

  Stopping in the middle of the crowded corridor, Keith shook hands with the chunky bureaucrat and introduced Janos to him. He already knew Ilona, however briefly. Jo nodded to Rozmenko with ill-concealed impatience as streams of other travellers flowed around them like rushing water lapping past a rock.

  Looking almost ashamed of himself, Rozmenko said to the Stoners, “I am afraid a problem has arisen about Professor Markov’s funeral.”

  “A problem?” Keith asked.

  “It concerns his will. If you could be at my office tomorrow I will explain it to you.”

  “How long will the funeral be delayed?” Jo asked.

  Rozmenko shrugged his shoulders. “Perhaps indefinitely. Professor Markov’s body is being frozen.”

  Keith frowned at the Russian. “But Kir specifically said he didn’t want to be frozen.”

  With a puzzled frown of his own, Rozmenko asked, “When did he say that?”

  “When we visited him at the hospital, day before last.”

  Rozmenko shook his head. “In his last will and testament he—well, if you will come to my office tomorrow I will have the proper people there to explain everything to you.”

  “What time?” Jo wanted to put an end to this pointless conversation.

  “At your convenience, of course.”

  “Ten o’clock.”

  “Very good, Madam. I will expect you at ten.”

  Jo led them away from Rozmenko, who stood uncertainly in the middle of the busy corridor, and to the Vanguard limousine waiting at curbside. They were whisked off to the corporate offices and living quarters in the heart of Moscow. On the way, Stoner asked his wife to make arrangements for clothing for his two Hungarian friends. With only a slight reluctance, Jo picked up the phone handset and called the manager of the Moscow office.

  “What do you think the problem is with Kir’s will?” Jo asked once she put the phone down.

  “I haven’t the foggiest idea. But I don’t like the idea that they’re freezing him. That’s not what Kir wanted.”

  Realizing that Ilona and Janos had no knowledge at all of what they were talking about, Jo and her husband dropped the subject temporarily.

  They had dinner brought in to the Vanguard conference room, on the top floor of the office building. Jo pulled the drapes back so they could see Moscow’s dazzling skyline, with the river snaking through the heart of the city and the towers and turrets of the old Kremlin brilliantly lit.

  Stubby little robots carried trays of laden dishes to the end of the long, polished conference table where the four humans sat. Silently the robots waited for further instructions, and silently they glided across the thick carpeting when given orders. They poured wine, removed plates, replaced silverware while the four people largely ignored their presence, except when they wanted something that was not at hand. Stoner found himself thinking that the robots were better than all but the very best of human waiters. The best human waiters anticipated the diner’s needs. The fork was there before you realized you were going to need it. The robots had not been programmed to anticipate. But at least they’re right there when you want them, he thought. Then, grinning to himself, he added, And they don’t bother you with the fake-friendliness routine.

  Ilona Lucacs grew noticeably edgier as the dinner progressed. By the time dessert was served by the silent little robots she pushed her chair back from the table and said, “I…I don’t feel very well. Please excuse me.”

  Stoner stood up. “Ilona. I had intended to help wean you gradually, but it looks as if you’re going to have to make a clean break.”

  Janos stared off at the lights of the city, looking as if he wished he were someplace else. Jo watched the interplay between her husband and the Hungarian woman.

  “Sit down, Ilona, and try to relax.”

  As if in a daze, she did as he told her.

  “There’s no physical dependence to direct brain stimulation,” Stoner said softly, soothingly. “It’s an emotional dependence. You don’t need a machine to make you feel loved, Ilona. We love you. I love you.”

  Jo felt her teeth grating, but she said nothing. Direct brain stimulation! The girl’s addicted. What do they call it? A juicer, I think. Immediately Jo catalogued the fact in her mind as something that might be useful in handling this beautiful young woman.

  Ilona was shaking her head. “Words are only words, Dr. Stoner. Nothing but air that drifts away and disappears.”

  He pulled his chair close to Ilona’s and grasped her wrist. “Remember Hamlet’s advice to his mother,” he said softly.

  Ilona blinked at him, puzzled.

  With a smile, Stoner quoted, “‘Refrain tonight; and that shall lend a kind of easiness to the next abstinence; the next more easy; for use almost can change the stamp of nature, and either curb the devil, or throw him out with wondrous potency.’”

  The tawny-eyed young woman smiled back at him and said sadly, “Hamlet’s Ophelia went mad and committed suicide. For lack of love.”

  And her gaze drifted toward Janos, who sat red-faced and utterly uncomfortable, trying to pretend none of this was happening, trying to ignore it all or to make himself disappear altogether.

  She loves the jerk and he doesn’t even give her a goddamned smile, Jo said to herself. For the first time she felt a surge of sympathy for Ilona Lucacs.

  They took the elevator down to the living quarters, five floors below the conference room. Jo stayed beside her husband as they walked Ilona and Janos to their rooms. They were adjacent, but had no connecting door. Just as well, thought Jo.

  “Get a good night’s sleep,” Stoner told Ilona. Jo knew it was a suggestion that was practically hypnotic.

  They bid a more formal goodnight to Zoltan Janos and then made their way to the suite at the end of the corridor. In every Vanguard office complex, no matter what city in the world, Jo maintained an apartment suite that was exactly the same. Duplicates of everything, from hairbrushes to computer terminals, so that she could simply reach out her hand and find what she wanted no matter where she happened to be.

  Now, as they prepared for bed, Stoner told her the whole story of Ilona Lucacs’s addiction, of Janos’s work on biochips, and President Novotny’s lust for the power that nanotechnology could give him.

  “And you gave it to him?” Jo asked, sitting on the edge of the bed as she tugged off her glossy high boots.

  From the bathroom, where he was brushing his teeth, Stoner replied, “It seemed like the logical thing to do. He wanted the power, but he had no idea of what was involved.”

  “It drove him crazy?”

  Stoner rinsed his mouth and came back into the bedroom. “To outsiders it looks as if he’s had a nervous breakdown. Incapable of functioning. Paralyzed emotionally. What’s really happened is that for the first time since childhood he sees that there are other human beings on Earth. He realizes that he’s not alone, that he’s part of the whole. He’ll never be able to rule again. He’ll never be able to see others as tools for his personal use and aggrandizement.”

  “You’ve brought him back into the human race,” said Jo.

  “Maybe. We’ll see. But he certainly doesn’t have the personality, the mental capacity, the soul to be a great leader. He was only a little shit trying to make himself bigger. Now he understands who and what he’s been, and it’ll be years before he learns to live with that knowledge.”

  Jo leaned back on the bed, still fully dressed except for the boots. “See why I don’t want you to give me some of the aliens?”

  He went to the bed, leaned over and kissed her lightly. “You know I don’t agree. The symbiotes wouldn’t change you that much—except maybe to make you see things from other people’s point of view, now and then. Might make you a little less ruthless.” He grinned. “Could be an improvement, you know.”

  She returned
him a malicious smile. “I enjoy being ruthless now and then.”

  Laughing, “Better get your kicks while you can, though. The game will be over soon.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “I’m positive,” he answered seriously. “I don’t know how it’s going to end, but it’s coming to a head. Soon.”

  “And then?”

  He was silent for a long while. Finally he said, “And then we see what kind of spacecraft we’ve got waiting for us at Delphi.”

  In the basement of the Vanguard building a hatchet-faced man in a security guard uniform put in a call through one of the public telephones on the wall outside the men’s room.

  “Stoner is here,” he said when a recorded voice answered. “Came in this evening. I don’t know how long he’ll be here. His wife is with him.”

  GENEVA

  “ALL RIGHT, let’s go through it one more time.”

  The man was in his shirtsleeves and they were rolled up above his elbows. He had kicked off his moccasins hours earlier and now his bare feet were planted on his desk top, gnarled toes hovering over the crumbs and litter of the makeshift supper they had hastily gobbled hours earlier.

  Three others sat around his desk in the small office: two women and a man. One wall of the office was a series of twelve display screens, like a double row of windows. Each screen was crammed with data, photomicrographs, charts, brightly-colored maps, chemical equations.

  On the wall behind the desk hung the blue and white symbol of the World Health Organization.

  “God, I’ve got to get some sleep,” said one of the women, gray haired, matronly. “I’ll never be able to keep my eyes open tomorrow morning.”

  “This morning, honey,” the man behind the desk corrected. “We’ve got just over seven hours to get all our facts straight for the council meeting.”

  The others grumbled and muttered.