Saturn

by Ben Bova

  For the first time, Holly felt truly afraid.

  NANOTECH LABORATORY

  "We'll go on the day after we establish orbit around Saturn," Gaeta said.

  Sitting at her desk in her office cubicle, Kris Cardenas looked far from pleased. "Why so soon? Why not wait and get more data first?"

  Gaeta smiled at her. "This isn't science, Kris, it's show biz. We go right away, we get a lot more attention, much bigger audience. We wait until the chingado scientists have all the data they want, we'll be old and gray and nobody'll give a damn anymore."

  Her cornflower-blue eyes snapped. "I'm one of those chingado scientists, Manny."

  Pursing his lips, Gaeta answered, "You'd be a chingada, feminine. But you're not. It's not a nice word and you're a nice person."

  Cardenas was not amused. "Isn't it dangerous enough without plunging in there as soon as we arrive at Saturn?"

  "Kris, I love you, but I don't think you're ever gonna understand my business. The more danger the better."

  "Until you kill yourself."

  "I'm not gonna kill myself. Fritz won't let me. It'd ruin the damned suit. He'd kill me if I did that."

  Despite herself, Cardenas laughed.

  Raoul Tavalera popped his head over the edge of the cubicle's partition. "I'm goin' home now. Okay?"

  "That's fine, Raoul," said Cardenas.

  An uncertain expression clouded Tavalera's long face. "You heard from Holly this afternoon?"

  "No."

  "She said she'd call me. We were goin' to go out for dinner. But I haven't heard from her all day. And she's not answering her phone."

  Before Cardenas could reply, Gaeta said, "I thought we'd go out to Nemo's tonight, Kris."

  "All right by me." Turning back to Tavalera, "I haven't heard a thing from Holly, Raoul."

  "Funny," he said. "That's not like her, not calling when she said she would."

  "It is a little strange," Cardenas agreed.

  "Whatever," Tavalera said. "I'm goin'. The main processor is still working on the assemblers for Dr. Urbain."

  She nodded. "I know. Switch on the UVs before you leave, okay?"

  "Yeah."

  "Well, where is she?" Eberly demanded.

  Kananga was sitting up on Vyborg's sofa now. He had put the cold towel away, but his left cheek was slightly puffy. "I have my whole staff searching for her. We'll find her within an hour or two."

  Eberly paced past Vyborg, who was sitting in the armchair on the other side of the coffee table. "She's got to be found. And silenced."

  "She will be," Kananga said.

  "She can't go far," Vyborg offered. "This habitat is big, but it's not that big."

  Eberly frowned at him. His mind was racing. They've dragged me into this. Now I'm a party to their crime, whether I want to be or not. Two blundering oafs; they couldn't even take care of one woman, a girl, a child really. He glared at Kananga as he paced across the room. Or maybe they're smarter than I think. Maybe they planned it all this way precisely to pull me into their orbit. How can I hold the old man's murder over their heads now?

  Abruptly he stopped and jabbed a finger at Kananga. "As soon as she's found I want her brought to me. Do you understand that? No more violence. I'll take care of her."

  Kananga's brows knit. "What do you have in mind?"

  "That's my business. I'll handle it."

  "She can accuse me of murder," Kananga said.

  "And assault, perhaps attempted murder," said Vyborg. "Certainly attempted rape."

  "You," Eberly pointed at Vyborg, "get every phone in the habitat checked out. I want to know where she is when she calls, who she's calling, and what she's telling them."

  Vyborg nodded and got up from his chair.

  Eberly headed for the door.

  "Where are you going?" asked Kananga.

  "To see Wilmot. If we're going to hunt down this woman we must prevent him from getting in our way."

  Holly ducked through the hatch and clambered down a steel ladder to the utilities tunnel that ran the length of the habitat. Maybe they won't think of looking for me down here, she thought. And even if they do, I can hide out in this maze for days and days. Long as I have to. Like Jean Valjean in the sewers. As she headed down the silent, dimly lit tunnel, she tried to remember when she'd read Les Misérables. Pancho had made her read a lot of old stuff after she had been reborn from the cryonics tank. Panch called it literature. Most of it was pretty boring. But Holly remembered vividly the scene in the sewers that ran beneath the Paris streets. Did I see a vid of it? she wondered. Maybe before I died?

  With a puzzled shake of her head she felt thankful that the habitat's tunnels were dry and there were no rats. No sewer smell, either. Holly sniffed and smelled nothing. Maybe some dust, and the faint trace of machine oil or something. Water gurgling through some of the pipes. The ever-present hum of electrical machinery.

  The tunnel's automatic lights turned on as she walked and off as she left a section. She saw a wall phone.

  I could call Kris, she thought. Or Manny. He'd help me. He'd beat the crap out of Kananga.

  But she hesitated in front of the phone. Kananga's in charge of security. He's got the whole warping security force under his command. And Malcolm's in with him. They could say whatever they want about me, say I'm under arrest or something. Jeeps! They could even say that I murdered Don Diego!

  And if I call Kris or anybody else I'd be getting them into trouble. Holly felt panic surging in her gut. What should I do? What can I do?

  She sagged against the tunnel's metal wall and slumped to the floor. Don't do anything, she told herself. You're pretty safe here, at least for the time being. Nobody knows where you are. You can stay down here until you figure things out.

  Or starve to death. She looked up and down the tunnel, darkness in both directions. Good. If anybody was coming after her, the lights would be flicking on and off.

  Food. I was supposed to go to dinner with Raoul tonight. He'll think I stood him up.

  She pushed herself up to her feet. Sorry Raoul, she apologized silently. Then she grinned. Food. Holly closed her eyes briefly, picturing the layout of the tunnels. The food processing plants were further down this tunnel. But if I take the cutoff and head back under Athens I can get under the storage lockers for the cafeteria. Plenty of food there.

  She started off in that direction.

  SATURN ARRIVAL Minus 18 Days, Six Hours

  "What's so important that you have to interrupt my dinner?" Wilmot asked testily.

  Eberly smiled at the older man. He had spent the past two hours watching Morgenthau's recordings of Wilmot's evening activities. Morgenthau had been disgusted by the professor's choice of entertainment, but Eberly had watched snatches of the vids, fascinated by their mixture of eroticism and savagery. Now he stood in Wilmot's living room, facing the professor's sternly disapproving frown.

  "We have a serious situation on our hands, Professor," said Eberly. "Well, what is it?"

  "One of the Human Resources staff members has disappeared. I have reason to believe she's suffered a mental breakdown."

  "What?" Wilmot looked startled. "Who is this person?"

  "Holly Lane. You've met her."

  "Have I?"

  Eberly was keenly aware that Wilmot had still not offered him a chair. The two men were still standing, facing each other, barely a meter inside Wilmot's front door. Inwardly, Eberly was amused. He knew he was keeping the professor from his evening's entertainment.

  "I suppose I'm partially to blame," Eberly said, trying to sound contrite. "I've been protecting her all these months. But she's finally snapped."

  Wilmot looked puzzled, and more than a little annoyed.

  Eberly fished his handheld from his tunic and projected Holly's dossier on the wall above Wilmot's sofa.

  The professor recognized Holly's face. "She's the one you brought with you a while back."

  "Yes." Eberly shook his head sadly. "As you can see, she has a histor
y of emotional dysfunction." He had spent hours carefully rewriting Holly's dossier. "As long as she takes her medication she's perfectly normal. But once she stops..."

  Wilmot studied the dossier briefly, then asked, "Why'd she go off her meds?"

  "It's this Diego Romero business. Holly became obsessed by the old man's death. She convinced herself that he was murdered."

  "Murdered?"

  "It's nonsense, of course. But this afternoon she attacked Colonel Kananga. She tried to kill him, at exactly the same site as the old man's death."

  "Good lord! And where is she now?"

  "Disappeared, as I told you. Kananga has organized a search for her."

  Wilmot nodded, as if satisfied. "Very well. It seems that Kananga is doing what he should. But why have you bothered me about this?"

  "Because I want you to appoint me deputy administrator."

  "Deputy? I don't need a deputy."

  "I think you do. You will appoint me deputy administrator so that you can retire from running the habitat."

  "Retire? And put you in charge? Hah!"

  "It's not such a ridiculous idea," Eberly said softly. "You will retire and I will take over your duties."

  "Nonsense!"

  "Once retired," Eberly went on, "you can spend all your time watching your filthy vids, instead of merely the evenings."

  Wilmot staggered back a step. The color drained from his beefy face.

  "This habitat needs strong leadership," said Eberly. "Especially with the elections coming up and our impending arrival at Saturn. You've done your job quite well, Professor. Now it's time for you to step aside."

  "And turn everything over to you? Never!"

  Eberly shrugged. "In that case, we'll have to make your choice of entertainment known to the entire population of the habitat."

  "We? Who do you mean?"

  "We don't want to embarrass you, Professor. Simply step aside and allow me to take control and no one will ever know about your perverse little entertainments."

  Wilmot sank down into the nearest chair, speechless.

  Kris Cardenas lay in her bed, trying to decide if she was making another mess of her life. What will I be this time? she asked herself: a hardhearted bitch or a romantic idiot?

  Her relationship with Gaeta had started out as a passionate fling, all glands and heat. Once Holly had stepped out of the way she allowed Manny to bed her; she hadn't had so much fun in decades. But then Kris found out about Nadia. It wasn't that Gaeta had been unfaithful to her; neither one of them had promised anything except fun and games. But the thought that Manny used women that way, slept with a woman who could help him and then moved on to the next, that angered her. Then came his sudden declaration of love. True love! Cardenas almost laughed aloud at the thought. But whatever it was, she was overjoyed by it. At my age, she thought, stifling a giggle. Score a real triumph for nanotechnology!

  As she turned to face her love, though, her thoughts sobered. He's going to get himself killed, she feared. That's the business he's in, taking constantly bigger risks. Cardenas hated the public, the audience of vicarious thrill-seekers who pushed Manny to riskier and riskier stunts until he tried the one stunt that would kill him.

  He lay on his back, blissfully asleep, his rugged, expressive face relaxed, almost boyish. Cardenas studied the slight scars on his brow and along his jawline, the slightly pushed-in aspect of his nose.

  Stop it! she commanded herself. You're getting soft as a grape. Even if he lives through this rings stunt he'll be leaving afterward. Then what will you do? Go traipsing after him like some overaged groupie?

  Gaeta opened his eyes, turned toward her, and smiled. Cardenas felt her heart melt for him.

  "What time is it?" he mumbled, raising his head enough to see the digital clock.

  "Early," Cardenas whispered. "Go back to sleep."

  "Big test today," he said. "The snowball fight."

  "Not yet. Go back to sleep."

  "Nah. I'm up."

  Cardenas reached for him. "Why, so you are," she said, with an impish grin.

  The phone buzzed.

  "Aw, mierda," he groaned.

  "Audio only," Cardenas told the phone.

  Holly's face took shape at the foot of the bed. "Can't talk long. Just gotta tell you Kananga tried to kill me and I'm on the run. I'll buzz later when I can."

  And her image winked out, leaving the two of them staring at emptiness.

  SNOWBALL FIGHT

  "Pay attention!" Fritz snapped.

  Inside the massive suit, Manny blinked. Fritz was right, his thoughts had wandered. That's the dangerous part of this love thing, it makes it hard to concentrate on the business at hand. We'll be at Saturn in a few days and I'll do the rings. If it clears enough profit, then fuck Titan and Urbain and all those uptight cositas. I'll just take the money and run home.

  With Kris? Will she come with me? Do I have the guts to ask her to? He almost laughed: the most fearless stuntman in the whole solar system and I'm scared to death she'd turn me down. Where's your cojones, tough guy?

  The banging on his suit startled him. Fritz was whacking at the suit's armored chest with the flat of his hand, as high up as he could reach.

  "Wake up in there!" Fritz hollered.

  "I'm awake," said Gaeta.

  "These days you spend too much time in bed and not enough time sleeping."

  "I'm awake," Gaeta repeated peevishly.

  From inside the suit, Fritz looked like a cranky little guy standing out there scowling at him, not even as tall as Gaeta's shoulder. Together with the four other technicians, they were standing in a sealed-off section of corridor that led to one of the habitat's major airlocks, big enough to handle bulky equipment. Gaeta had marched in and, at Fritz's order, turned his back to the airlock hatch. Now he could see, down where they had sealed the corridor from the rest of the habitat, half a dozen fans that the techs had set up. Three of the techs were lugging heavy plastic jugs of water and placing them in precisely marked spots on the corridor's floor of metallic squares. Beside each of the fans stood a dark metal tube encased in a copper-colored magnetic coil, looking to Gaeta like a cross between a laboratory contraption and a shotgun. The fourth tech was loading the tubes with ball bearings.

  "This simulation will last only a few seconds," Fritz said, "but it is designed to give you a feeling for what you will encounter in the ring."

  "I know all that, Fritz," Gaeta said impatiently. "Let's get on with it."

  As unperturbed as if he had heard not a syllable, Fritz went on, "The water will vaporize into ice crystals and the fans will blow them at you. The electromagnetic guns will fire the pellets that simulate larger pieces of ice at approximately Mach one point three."

  "And I stand here and take it all in the face," said Gaeta.

  "I trust the suit will not be penetrated," said Fritz.

  "The self-sealing gunk will stop any leaks."

  "Temporarily."

  "Long enough for this test."

  "But not long enough to save you once you are out in the ring."

  "Which is why we're running this sim, to see if the suit holds up. So let's get on with it."

  Fritz gazed up at him, his expression somewhere between discontent and anxiety.

  "Come on, Fritz," Gaeta urged. "Let's get it over with."

  With a shake of his head, Fritz led the other techs past the airtight door that sealed off the end of the corridor section. Gaeta saw it close.

  "Pumping down the chamber," Fritz's voice said in his helmet earphones.

  "Pump away," said Gaeta.

  The only aspect of his flight through Saturn's B ring that this test couldn't simulate was the lack of gravity. Gaeta didn't think that was important; he had experienced micro-g many times, it wasn't a problem for him. But standing in the middle of a superblizzard and allowing himself to be pelted by supersonic stainless steel ball bearings, that was something else. Like facing a firing squad. Yeah, he said to himself, but I'm in
side an armored suit. Like Superman. Those bullets'll just bounce off my chest.

  He hoped.

  James Colerane Wilmot sat alone in his living room, staring into infinity. Ruined. Tripped up by my own stupidity.

  He sighed heavily. I could fight him. Most of the population here is in this habitat because they couldn't stand the rules and regulations that were strangling them. So I have rather bizarre taste in entertainment. I could offer to take counseling, even psychotherapy. I don't have to knuckle under to this snotty Eberly and his clique. Not unless I want to.

  He thought about that. Not unless I want to. Why should I go through the embarrassment and stress of public revelation, public ridicule? Accusations and defenses, excuses, pleading for understanding? No, I won't subject myself to all that. I can't.

  In a way, actually, this is better than ever. Now I'm totally removed from any semblance of control, any hint of responsibility. The experiment is completely free now from any possible interference. I'll have to inform Atlanta about that.

  He hesitated, frowning. Eberly's been watching every move I make. Every communication. Even what I do here in the supposed privacy of my own quarters. He's watching me now.

  What to do? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Atlanta will find out about this power play of Eberly's soon enough. They must have plenty of spies scattered through the population.

  Holly had debated for hours about calling Kris. At last she decided she would do it from a phone up topside. She didn't want Kananga or anyone else to know that she was using the underground tunnels as her hiding place. So just before the habitat's solar windows opened for "sunrise," she climbed up the ladder that opened into the cafeteria's storeroom. She could hear people stirring in the kitchen, just beyond: pots clanging and voices calling back and forth. A robot trundled in from the kitchen, rolled right past her and went to a shelf where it grasped a carton of preserved fruit in its gripper-tipped arms, then turned a precise one hundred and eighty degrees, rolled past her again, and pushed through the double doors to the kitchen.