by Ben Bova
Before she could feel any reaction, Gaeta said, "Come on, Holly, we'll walk you home."
Surprised, Holly glanced at Cardenas. She arched one brow, as if to remind Holly of what they had learned about the stuntman's activities.
Holly nodded back and the three of them started across the grass and up the lakeside path toward the village of Athens.
"I didn't see Nadia here," Cardenas said as they climbed toward the apartment buildings.
"She's probably working," Gaeta said. "Urbain's given her some time on a telescope; she's always up in the observatory now."
"I thought she'd come with you," said Holly.
He actually looked surprised. "With me?"
Holly let it pass. They reached Cardenas's building and said goodnight, then Gaeta walked with Holly to the next building, where her apartment was.
"You've been seeing Nadia a lot, haven't you?" she asked.
Gaeta nodded. "If this Titan gig falls through, I've got to do something to keep my investors happy. She's helping me plan a jaunt through the rings."
"Sure."
The dawn of understanding finally shed its light on Gaeta's face. "Ohh," he said. "She told you, didn't she?"
"It came up in conversation, yes," said Holly.
They were at the door to her apartment building. As Gaeta stopped there, the habitat's lighting flicked from its evening mode to the nighttime system. His face fell into shadow, but Holly could see him well enough.
"Okay," he admitted, "it happened."
"More than once."
He grinned sheepishly. "Christ, you sound like a priest at confession: 'How many times?'"
"It's not funny, Manny."
"You didn't take our times together seriously, did you?"
She thought a moment, then half-lied, "No, not all that seriously, I guess."
"I mean, I know I was supposed to look out for you, but, well... it just sort of happened."
"It happens a lot with you."
"You seemed to enjoy it at the time," he said softly.
Holly suddenly realized what he had just said. "What do you mean, you were supposed to look out for me?"
He took a deep breath. "That's why I'm here, Holly. Your sister wanted me to keep an eye on you."
She felt her jaw drop open. "Pancho? Panch hired you?"
Shuffling from one foot to another like a little boy caught in a place where he shouldn't have been, Gaeta said, "It's not that simple, Holly. She didn't exactly hire me."
"She thought I needed a bodyguard," Holly groused. "My big sister didn't trust me out here on my own."
"I was trying to raise the funding for the Titan gig," he tried to explain, "and this guy from Astro Corporation came up with an offer."
Suddenly the absurdity of it hit Holly like a bucketful of ice-cold water. She broke into laughter.
Perplexed, Gaeta asked, "What's so funny?"
"You are. And my big sister. She hired you to protect me, and you pop me into bed. My faithful watchdog. When she finds out she'll want to castrate you."
"She wanted me to keep you away from Eberly and that's what I did."
Holly's laughter choked off like a light switch being thrown. "Panch hired you to keep me away from Malcolm?"
He nodded sheepishly.
"And that's why you took me to bed?"
"No! I didn't plan that. You ... I... it just—"
"Just sort of happened. I know."
"I didn't hurt you."
"The hell you didn't," Holly snapped. "And then you go off and screw Kris, and then Nadia. You'll be lucky if you live long enough to get to Titan."
"Oh Christ. Does Kris know about all this?"
"Kris? Sure she knows. So does Nadia."
"So my name's mud with her, eh?"
"With Nadia?"
"With Kris."
"Why don't you ask her?"
In the shadowy lighting it was hard to make out the expression on Gaeta's face, but the tone of his voice came through clearly enough. "Because I'd ... mierda! I really like Kris."
"More than Nadia?"
"More than anybody. I guess I hurt her feelings, didn't I? I guess she's pissed off at me."
Holly couldn't resist the opportunity. "I don't think she's really mad at you. Of course, she's working up some nanobugs that eat testicles, but other than that I don't think she's sore at you at all."
Gaeta mumbled, "Guess I can't blame her." Then he turned away and started walking down toward his own quarters, head hung low. Holly almost felt sorry for him. Almost.
They're all trying to keep me away from Malcolm, Holly thought as she undressed for bed. Pancho, Manny, Morgenthau, they're all trying to keep Malcolm and me apart.
As she slipped into bed and commanded the lights to turn off, she wondered if she still wanted Malcolm the way she did when she first came aboard the habitat. He's been so bugging distant; he doesn't care about me. He hardly even knows I'm alive. But he's been so busy. This political stuff takes all his time. It was different when we first met, different when we started out in this habitat. I could see him all the time then, and he liked me, I know he did.
How can he like me, how can he even think about me, when he never sees me? He's always surrounded by Morgenthau and that Vyborg snake. And Kananga, he scares me.
How can I get past them? How can I get to be alone with Malcolm, even for a few minutes?
Her thoughts drifted to her sister. She hired Manny. She's paying him big bucks to keep me away from Malcolm. He made love to me for money, the dirty ... Holly tried to think of the masculine equivalent of the word "whore."
Lying in bed, staring into the darkness, she thought, So Pancho wants to keep me away from Malcolm, does she. I'll show her. I'll get to Malcolm. I'll get past the Hippo and the Snake and even Kananga, the Panther.
And suddenly, like a bright light clicking on, she knew how to accomplish that.
MIDNIGHT I
Holly got out of bed and dressed swiftly. She didn't have to check a directory to know where Eberly's quarters were; she had the complete map of the habitat in her head, every square centimeter, every assigned apartment, laboratory, workshop, airlock, even the maze of underground tunnels and conduits.
Yet she hesitated before leaving her own apartment. The clock said three minutes before midnight, but she thought that Eberly would probably still have a throng of admirers and well-wishers crowding his quarters. Better to wait. Wait until they all leave.
So she went instead to her office and pulled up a display from the outdoor surveillance camera that looked at Eberly's building. Sure enough, people were still milling around out on the grounds. His apartment must be jammed with them, Holly thought.
Drowsily she watched as the crowd slowly thinned away. She fell asleep, then woke with a start. The digital clock said 02:34. The apartment building looked dark and silent. He's prob'ly asleep by now, Holly thought. For several moments she debated inwardly about awakening him. He works so hard, she thought; he needs his rest.
But you'll never get to see him alone otherwise, Holly told herself. She commanded the phone to call Eberly.
"You have reached the residence of Dr. Malcolm Eberly," his phone answered. "Please leave your name and Dr. Eberly will return your call."
Screw that! Holly said to herself. She got up from her desk chair and headed for his apartment.
There was a perfunctory security lock on the building's main door. Holly had memorized all the combinations long ago, and tapped on the keypad. The door popped open. As she went up the stairs, a sudden thought shook her. Maybe he's not alone! Maybe he's got somebody with him.
With a shake of her head, Holly told herself, Better to find out now. She marched down the shadowy hallway, lit only by the glow of fluorescent nameplates on each door. Eberly's apartment was at the end of the hall.
She took a breath and rapped on the door. No response. Holly banged on it with the flat of her hand, worrying that the noise would wake the neighbors but deter
mined to get Eberly to answer her.
She heard someone cough on the other side of the door. Then Eberly's muffled voice demanded, "Who is it?"
"Holly," she said, standing squarely in front of the peephole.
Eberly slid the door back. He had a dark-colored robe pulled around him, his hair looked slightly tousled.
"There is a doorbell," he said crankily.
"I've got to talk to you," she said. "It's urgent."
As if he were slowly remembering his manners, Eberly gestured her into his sitting room. A snap of his fingers and the glareless overhead lights came on. Now Holly could see that his robe was deep maroon. And his feet were bare.
"What is it, Holly? What's wrong?"
"I'm sorry to bother you at this hour, Malcolm, but I can't get past Morgenthau and all your other assistants and I've got to have your help and the only way I could see you alone was like this."
He smiled a little and slicked back his hair with one hand. "All right. You're seeing me. What's the problem?"
"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.
