Saturn

by Ben Bova

  Kananga was silent for so long that Vyborg thought the man was going to refuse. But at last he said, "There are no surveillance cameras down in the culverts where he spends so much of his time, are there?"

  Vyborg realized he was right.

  SATURN ARRIVAL Minus 328 Days

  All the department heads were seated around the oval conference table. Wilmot sat on one side, in the middle, flanked by Urbain and round-faced, dark-haired Andrea Maronella, head of the agro group. Eberly, sitting exactly across the table from Wilmot, still thought of the woman as a glorified farmer.

  One by one, the department heads gave summaries of their weekly reports. Eberly felt utterly bored. Why doesn't Wilmot record one of these meetings and simply play it back each week? he wondered. It would save us all an hour or two and the results would be just about the same.

  "Well, that seems to be it," Wilmot said, once the last speaker had finished. "Any new business?"

  Eberly said, "Raoul Tavalera has accepted a position in the Maintenance Department. He's now working on repair and refurbishment assignments, so I'm told."

  Tamiko O'Malley, the stubby Japanese head of maintenance, nodded vigorously. "He's not a half bad technician, actually. Although he really wants to get back to Earth as soon as possible."

  Wilmot turned his gaze back to Eberly. "What about that, Dr. Eberly?"

  "We're making arrangements for him to leave with the video team, once they've finished their excursion to Titan."

  Urbain slapped his palm on the table top. "They will not be allowed to land on Titan! Never!"

  Eberly said mildly, "Their team leader is under the impression that he will be allowed—"

  "Never!" Urbain repeated, louder.

  Wilmot placed a soothing hand on the scientist's arm. "I thought Dr. Cardenas was helping him solve the contamination problem."

  "With nanomachines?" Urbain snapped. "I will believe that when I see it demonstrated, not before."

  Eberly said, "It's going to be difficult to refuse him permission. I mean, this man Gaeta is a media hero. He rescued that injured astronaut. Everyone in the habitat respects him for that."

  Before Urbain could reply, Wilmot said, "We must set up a demonstration of Dr. Cardenas's nanomachines. A demonstration that is done in complete safety. I don't want to take the slightest chance that nanobugs might run rampant in this habitat."

  Urbain nodded and smiled thinly. "Zero risk," he murmured, and his smile told Eberly that he knew zero risk was an impossibility.

  "Very well," said Wilmot. "Are we finished, then?"

  Several department heads started to push their chairs away from the table. But Eberly cleared his throat loudly and announced, "There is one more item, if you please."

  Wilmot, halfway out of his chair, thumped down in it again, looking anything but pleased. "What is it?" he asked peevishly.

  "My committee has drawn up a draft constitution. I've reviewed it and now I think it's time for the people at large to see it and vote on adopting it."

  A flash of something like suspicion flickered in Wilmot's eyes.

  One of the department heads complained, "You've already got everyone arguing about naming things. Now you're going to start another debate?"

  But Wilmot brushed his moustache with one finger and said, "Let me see your draft document first. Then we'll have all the department heads review it. After that, we can show it to the people at large."

  "Fine," said Eberly, with a gracious smile. It was exactly what he had expected Wilmot to do.

  Several days later, Holly got up from her desk and walked to Morgenthau's door. She no longer thought of the office as Eberly's; she hadn't seen Eberly for many weeks, except for brief encounters and then always with other people present. He doesn't care about me, she told herself, desperately hoping it wasn't true, wondering how she could make him care for her as much as she cared for him.

  She tapped at the door, and Morgenthau called, "Enter."

  Holly slid the door back halfway and said, "I'll be out of the office for the rest of the day. I'm going out to—"

  Morgenthau looked apprehensive, almost startled. "Holly, I was going to tell you earlier but it slipped my mind until this very moment. I need you to bring Dr. Cardenas's dossier up to date."

  "Up to date? I thought we had a complete file on her."

  Morgenthau tapped at the handheld resting on her desk. Cardenas's file and photo appeared above it. Morgenthau scrolled down rapidly, the words blurring before Holly's eyes. It made no difference; Holly remembered the complete file, word for word, from her first reading of it.

  "There. There is a break in her record. She ran the nanolab at Selene for several years, and then abruptly quit. A few months later she went to Ceres, but she did not engage in nanotechnology research there, as far as the record shows. I want you to clear this up with her."

  Holly said, "It doesn't seem that cosmic, does it?"

  With a hardening expression, Morgenthau said, "My dear Holly, everything about nanotechnology is important. Something happened to abruptly change Cardenas's career. She quit nanotech work for several years, and now she wants to resume her research here, among us. Why? What is she up to?"

  "Kay," Holly said. "I'll call her."

  "Invite her out to lunch. If she refuses, go to her lab and don't leave until she's explained herself to you."

  "You make it sound like a police investigation."

  "Perhaps it should be."

  Wondering why Morgenthau was so worked up, Holly said, "Kay, I'll give her a call before I go out."

  Raising a chubby finger, Morgenthau said sternly, "Now, Holly. I want this done now. Have lunch with her now, today. I want your report about this in Cardenas's dossier first thing tomorrow morning."

  Holly's first inclination was to tell Morgenthau to jump out an airlock without a suit. But then she realized that the woman had never been so flaming insistent on anything before. She's really notched up about this, Holly realized. Maybe this nanotech stuff is scarier than I thought.

  Don Diego straightened up slowly, painfully. The back is a weak spot, he told himself, trying to rub the stiffness away. If we ever get to the point where we can truly redesign the human body, much attention will have to be paid to improving the back.

  He walked slowly, carefully, along the sloping embankment of the canal. The ache was in the small of his back, where his hands could not easily reach. He sighed. At least this stretch of the canal is nearly finished, he said to himself. He stopped and admired the haphazard growth of flowering bushes. Perhaps some cactus along the next stretch of the canal, he thought. I wonder if there is any cactus available in the habitat?

  He had expected Holly to join him; she had said she'd be out this afternoon. He wanted her to see how well this little bit of wilderness was shaping up.

  Someone stepped out from behind a tree, up at the edge of the culvert, and walked slowly down the dirt slope toward him. A tall, gangling black man with a shaved scalp and a thin beard tracing his jaw-line. His polished boots will be tarnished by the soil, Don Diego thought.

  "Good afternoon to you," he called to the stranger in English. "What brings you to this quiet place?"

  The stranger smiled brightly. "You are Diego Romero, of the Communications Department?"

  "I am he," said Don Diego, thinking that this man must be from the office. Someone must be complaining about his long absences. Or...

  "Might you be from the Maintenance Department?" he asked, almost timidly.

  The black man stepped closer, still smiling. "No. You have nothing to fear on that score."

  As ordered, Holly was having lunch with Kris Cardenas in the Bistro. But it wasn't going well.

  "I know it's sort of prying," she said apologetically. "But my boss is clanked up about nanotech and there's this kind of gap in your dossier...."

  Cardenas put her fork down and took a sip of lemonade. Then she looked out across the tables scattered over the grass, most of them empty,
and finally returned her gaze to Holly. Her brilliant blue eyes looked sad, not angry; they seemed to be looking beyond Holly, peering into a painful past.

  "I don't want it on the record," she said. "I'll tell you about it, but only if you promise to keep it out of my dossier."

  Holly was about to agree when she realized, "I'll have to tell my boss about it."

  Cardenas shook her head. "Then forget it. I'll tell you about it, Holly, but I don't want it to go any farther. If you tell your boss, they won't let me do any nanotech work here."

  "Why not?"

  "Because I helped to kill a man," Cardenas said, flat and hard and cold.

  Holly felt her jaw drop open.

  "I didn't do it on purpose," Cardenas explained. "But what I did was bad enough."

  As if an emotional dam had burst, Cardenas told Holly her entire story. How she'd been exiled at Selene, unable to return to Earth because of the nanobugs swarming inside her body. How her husband had refused to come up to the Moon, how her children turned against her, how she had never seen her grandchildren. Her anger. Her pain and tears and the bitter, searing rage against the fools and self-satisfied know-nothings who used the people's fear of nanotechnology to destroy her life.

  She told Holly of Martin Humphries's offer. "He said he'd get me back to Earth if I helped him sabotage a rival's spacecraft. God knows he was rich enough to buy anything. I thought he'd help me. I didn't think damaging a spacecraft would cause a man's death. So I let Humphries buy me and his biggest rival died when the spacecraft malfunctioned."

  "Did you ever get back to Earth? See your family?" Holly asked, her voice low, hollow.

  "Never," Cardenas said. "When I heard that Dan Randolph had died because of what I'd done, I told Selene's leaders everything. I even tried to commit suicide, but I flubbed that. My punishment was to be locked out of Selene's nanotech lab. So I went out to Ceres, to the frontier, and worked with the rock rats for years. No nanotech work. I swore I'd never do any nanotech research again."

  "But you're doing it now. Here."

  Cardenas nodded, still dry-eyed but looking as if the weight of the world was crushing her. "I decided I'd done enough penance. I can help you people here. I want to start my life over again."

  Holly murmured, "Sort of like me."

  "We're two of a kind, in a way."

  "I guess."

  Cardenas fixed her with those bright blue eyes of hers. "So what are you going to tell your boss?"

  Holly didn't have to think for even a millisecond. "Nothing," she said. "I'll just say that you decided of your own free will to go to Ceres and work with the rock rats. Which isn't really a lie, is it?"

  For the first time, Cardenas smiled. "No, it's not a lie. It's not the truth, not the whole truth, at least. But it's not a lie."

  Still smiling, Kananga stepped to within arm's reach of Don Diego. "No, I'm not from the Maintenance Department," he repeated.

  "I plan to inform the Maintenance Department of my work here," Don Diego said, "but I haven't—"

  With the swiftness of a pouncing leopard, Kananga punched the old man squarely in his solar plexus. Don Diego collapsed with barely a sound.

  Kananga caught the old man in his arms and lifted him easily. No drag marks, he thought. No evidence of foul play.

  He carried the gasping, dazed Don Diego down the dirt embankment to the concrete edge of the canal. The old man coughed and moaned, his legs moved feebly, his eyes fluttered open.

  Kananga knelt and pushed him face down into the canal, holding the back of his head carefully, almost tenderly, to keep him in the water. Don Diego sputtered a bit, flailed weakly, then went limp. The water bubbled a little, then became still. Kananga continued to hold him, counting slowly to a hundred, before he let go.

  Satisfied that Diego Romero was dead, Kananga got to his feet. Not bad, he thought, looking around. No gouges in the dirt, no scuff marks on the concrete, no signs of a struggle.

  No one will ever know.

  SATURN ARRIVAL Minus 323 Days

  Holly discovered the body. She left Cardenas at the Bistro and headed out to the canal where Don Diego had been working. At first she saw no sign of him. Then she spotted his body sprawled down at the bottom of the embankment, half underwater.

  She did not scream. She did not even cry until hours later, in the privacy of her own quarters, long after she had dragged the old man's body out of the canal and the emergency medical team had pronounced him dead.

  She dreamed that night of the father she could not remember. Sometimes, in her dream, he was Don Diego; sometimes he was a shadowy, faceless figure of a man, huge and almost menacing. At one point the faceless male had his back to her and she was a little child, barely able to walk. Pancho was somewhere in the dream with her but what Holly wanted more than anything was to have her father turn around so that she could at last see his face. She tried to call to him but no sound would come from her throat. She reached out for the man and when he finally did turn to face her, she saw that it was Malcolm Eberly staring coldly down at her.

  Holly sprang up in her bed, suddenly awake, the disturbing dream slowly dissolving like a cloud on a summer day. She showered and dressed quickly, skipped breakfast, and went straight to the habitat's small hospital to see the doctor who had examined Don Diego's body. She knew she should call Morgenthau and inform her that she'd be late for work, but she didn't bother.

  The hospital was quiet, calm, unhurried. The habitat's personnel were mainly in good physical condition, youthful physically despite their calendar ages. The main medical problems were accidents and psychological ailments. And the sudden death of a ninety-eight-year-old man, Holly added mentally.

  Dr. Yañez's normal happy smile disappeared once Holly explained that she wanted to know about Don Diego.

  "Very unfortunate," he said. "Very sad. He was a wonderful man. We had many long talks together."

  He grasped Holly gently by the elbow and led her to the doors that opened onto the hospital's inner courtyard garden.

  Holly said, "I don't want to take you away from your work."

  "There is not that much to see today, anyway," he said. "Our people are disgustingly healthy."

  He walked Holly outside the two-story hospital building and around the courtyard's carefully planted flower garden. Holly thought of how Don Diego would have made the gardens look wilder, more natural.

  Pushing his hands into the pockets of his white jacket, Yañez said, "Don Diego's death puzzles me. He must have tripped and fallen into the water and drowned."

  "Why didn't he just get up?" Holly asked.

  He shrugged. "He might have hit his head. He might have fainted—low blood pressure, a minor stroke. He was a pretty old man."

  "Were there any signs of a stroke?"

  "No, but a minor stroke doesn't leave a lot of damage to be seen. We'd have to look specifically for it, and even then we might not catch it. This isn't New York or Tokyo, you know. We don't have expert pathologists on the staff."

  "I guess."

  "It's a great tragedy. A great loss."

  "You're certain it was an accident?" Holly asked.

  Yañez looked startled momentarily. "Yes. Of course. What else could it be?"

  "I don't know."

  The physician looked up at Holly. "He was my friend. If there had been foul play I would have found it, I assure you. It was an accident. Unfortunate. Regrettable. But just an accident, nothing more."

  The more the doctor talked, the more Holly wondered if it really had been an accident. But that's crazy, she said to herself. How could it be anything except an accident? Who would want to kill Don Diego?

  Yet she heard herself ask, "Can I see the record of your examination?"

  Yañez said, "It's a lot of medical jargon. Plus photos of the body."

  "I don't have any pictures of Don Diego," Holly realized aloud. "No mementoes at all."

  "The images of a dead man are rather grisly."

  "I don't
care. I'd like to see them."

  The doctor sighed heavily. "Very well. I'll give you the access code and you can call up the complete record at your convenience."

  "Thank you," said Holly.

  "De nada," replied Yañez automatically.

  Eberly could barely control his fury. He stood behind the desk in his apartment, red-faced, almost snarling at Vyborg and Kananga.

  "Murder!" Eberly raged. "You couldn't wait for me to remove the old man, so you went ahead and murdered him."

  "No one knows about it," Vyborg said, whispered actually. "He's been buried and forgotten."

  "I know about it!" Eberly snapped. "It's my duty to report this crime to Wilmot. What will you do if I try to do so? Murder me, too?"

  Kananga said, "No, never."

  "Murderers. My closest friends and supporters are a pair of murderers."

  "He wasn't a Believer," Vyborg said. "Just a lapsed Catholic."

  "And that excuses murder?"

  Kananga said, "I thought it was your desire to get rid of the old man. That's what Sammi told me."

  "You agreed that he was to be removed," Vyborg pleaded. "I thought that—"

  "You thought! You decided to act on your own, without consulting me. Without asking how your actions might impact on my master plan. I don't want you to think! I want you to follow my orders! To obey!"

  "Yes, we understand," said Vyborg, "but—"

  "No buts!" Eberly shouted. "Either you are part of my team or you are not. There is no third possibility. Either you follow my orders explicitly or you leave me once and for all."

  Kananga glanced down at Vyborg as Eberly thought, I don't have to tell them that if they leave me I will immediately report them to Wilmot. They understand that well enough.

  "Well?" he demanded. "Make your choice."

  "I will stay with you, of course," Vyborg said. "I'm sorry that I acted so... precipitously."

  "And you, Colonel?"