Privateers

by Ben Bova

  “Has Dr. Freiberg picked out our destination yet?” Nobo asked. “The last time I spoke with him, he was undecided among three possible asteroids.”

  Dan said, “He’s narrowed it down to two, and we’ll make the final decision in a day or so.”

  “When is the earliest possible time of departure?”

  “The nearest window is the end of the month,” Dan replied. “I don’t have the exact time, but it’s ten days from now.”

  Nobo nodded solemnly. “We will be fully prepared to go by then.”

  “Good.”

  “Will Dr. Freiberg accompany us?”

  “No. Not that he doesn’t want to go. But he stays at Nueva Venezuela during the mission.”

  “Security?”

  “Damned right. His cover story is that he’s setting up an astronomical observatory at the factory.”

  “But even if the Russians knew about this mission, what could they do about it?” Nobo asked. “We have a right to fly out to an asteroid; there is no international law against that.”

  It was Dan’s turn to smile tolerantly. “Son, you’d be surprised at how fast laws can be written. The Soviets wouldn’t hesitate to use force to stop us, and then get a law written afterward.”

  Nobo shrugged his shoulders but said nothing. The motion lifted him slightly out of his chair.

  “Freiberg stays here.” Dan repeated. “Hell, if it weren’t for the goddamned Russian snoops, I’d go along with you myself.”

  The young Japanese smiled appreciatively. “Yes. My father has told me many times of the days when the two of you worked together in space. I thought this mission would be very tempting to you.”

  “It is. But it’s too important to risk for a personal whim.” Dan felt that he was doing the wise thing, the prudent thing, the necessary thing. But a voice in the back of his head asked silently, If you were a couple of years younger, would you still elect to stay behind?

  He spent most of the day inspecting the spacecraft, and saw that Nobo and the rest of the crew would have it ready well before the earliest possible departure date. Carstairs, the rowdy Australian, would captain the mission. And he had picked one of the younger Venezuelan astronauts, Vargas, as his first officer. Dan was satisfied that the ship and its crew were in good shape.

  But as he jetted back to the space station he turned his thoughts to other problems. The biggest one was that Jane Scanwell had for two solid months refused every attempt he had made to contact her. Dan could understand that the President of the United States would find it politically unpalatable to meet with an American who had renounced his citizenship and run off to another country to set himself up in business there. He could even understand how the widow of his best friend would be furious with him for turning his back on her when she needed him most.

  But this is important! he told himself. It goes beyond politics, beyond personal feelings.

  Yes, he answered himself. But how do you get her to understand that?

  Locked inside his space suit, alone in his private universe as he jetted across the emptiness between the sprawling space factory and the stately wheels of Nueva Venezuela, Dan mulled over his next course of action. The asteroid mission would be carried out under the flag of Venezuela. Astro Manufacturing bore the financial burden; no matter how rich the asteroid turned out to be in minerals and metals, this first mission would be of no profit. But it would prove that mining asteroids was feasible, and the profits to come in the future would be enormous. More than that, though, was the fact that the asteroids were beyond Soviet control. The Russians could not monopolize them, as they had monopolized the Moon.

  Or could they? That worried Dan. That’s why he wanted the United States to be involved in this first mission, even if it was only as an observer. Dan knew that Venezuela could never muster the power to stand up to a Russian challenge, if the Soviets chose to claim the asteroids for themselves. Maybe the United States would knuckle under, too, as they had with the Moon and with space in general. But he had to give Jane the chance to make a stand, he had to give her the chance to let the U.S. regain some shreds of its self-esteem and dignity.

  He saw the airlock hatch of the space station coming up toward him, with the Venezuelan flag and the stenciled NUEVA VENEZUELA running along its curving flank. Inside his helmet, Dan made a wry little smile. You’re still a goddamned patriot, aren’t you? They hate your guts, but you still love the old States, you damned fool.

  Or is it Jane that you love? he asked himself silently. Maybe she’s wiser than you think. Maybe she’s protecting both of us by refusing to see you.

  He reached out his gloved hand and caught the metal bar grip alongside the airlock hatch. I’ve got to see her, he knew. There’s no way around it. I’ve got to go to Washington and see her in person, face to face. No matter what.

  His mind started turning over schemes for getting into the States incognito, making his way to Washington and meeting with the President. In secret. Not a small order. Even for a man of his means, it would be difficult.

  As he wormed out of the space suit and made his way “down” to the outermost wheel where the gravity felt Earth-normal, he puzzled out ways to get the job done. It was quite a shock when he opened the door to his private quarters and found Lucita Hernandez standing by the window, waiting for him.

  Chapter FOURTEEN

  That night in Sapporo, after they had made love, Lucita lay sleeplessly on the waterbed beside Dan Randolph and stared out the bedroom window at the cold distant Moon. It seemed to be laughing at her.

  Her mind was a turmoil of conflicting emotions. She could see her father’s angry face as he snarled the word “whore” at her. She had fled to the American billionaire to escape from her father’s stifling clutches, to get free of his relentless plan to marry her off to the Russian. And to punish her father. To make him pay. A whore, am I? I’ll show him!

  She had expected Dan Randolph to treat her like he treated all women: to be flattering and attentive and generous. A seductive man; that was his reputation. And once he had seduced a woman, he forgot about her, ignored her, moved on to his next conquest. But Lucita had no intention of becoming another victim on Dan Randolph’s long, long list. She would use him, rather than the other way around. He was nothing more than a convenient means of transportation for her, a means for escaping her father’s clutches. How easy it was to make him agree to spirit her away from Caracas! All she had to do was mention the Russian, and the billionaire rolled out his private jet plane for her.

  But the man did not behave the way Lucita had expected. Dan Randolph did not try to seduce her, he did not even pay her any attention, not until she brazenly went to his room and practically threw herself into his bed.

  His lovemaking had been wondrously gentle, not the self-centered machismo that she had expected. He knew how to be patient with a woman, how to please her, how to arouse her to heights of near frenzy. Lucita had smothered her screams of passion against his hot powerful flesh as her mind dissolved in the shuddering, wild rapture of orgasm.

  Now she lay silently and gazed at the snowy mountain peaks gleaming in the moonlight. She had given no thought to the repercussions of her actions. She had thought only of herself. Dan had agreed to help her escape from Caracas without a care for the consequences. He had not lusted after her; he had acted out of simple kindness. Despite all the tales about him, Lucita was convinced that Dan Randolph was basically a simple, honest man whose only impulse, when she had asked for his aid, was to help a lady in distress.

  She knew that her father would be furious with him, and as Minister of Technology he could set about to ruin Dan’s business. Then there was the Russian, Malik. Lucita had seen a glimpse of the steely ruthlessness behind his smiling mask. Such a man could kill, or order others to kill for him.

  As the Moon slowly sank behind the snow-topped mountain crests and the sky turned milky gray with approaching dawn, Lucita sat up in the bed and made her decision. She looked down at
Dan Randolph sleeping beside her, his ruggedly handsome face relaxed into the gentle smile of a little boy.

  The feelings she felt surging through her body frightened Lucita. It would be so easy to fall in love with this dashing man, to surrender her heart and soul and flesh to him, to offer him her life forever. So easy. And so dangerous.

  Quickly, silently, she got up and donned her robe, then made her way to the bedroom where she and Teresa had been ensconced. She woke her erstwhile duenna and together they showered, dressed and had the Yamagata household servants prepare them an early breakfast. It was an easy matter for Lucita to get Nobuhiko-so polite and anxious to impress her-to arrange a car to take them to the airport. By nine that morning the two young women were on their way to Rome. Lucita stared out the plane’s tiny thick window as they left Japan far behind them, and Dan Randolph too.

  Rome should have been exciting, wonderful, happy. The Eternal City with its ancient monuments and handsome men. The Vatican, the Pantheon, the sublime works of Michelangelo, Bernini, Rafael, Titian, the ancient Roman Forum silent and noble in its ruin despite the streams of tourists babbling through it in Japanese, Polish, German and Russian. How many conquering hordes had come and gone through these ancient stones, Lucita thought to herself. Nights on the Via Veneto, being admired by the brutally beautiful young men with their smoldering, pouting looks and their carefully crafted casualness.

  Lucita and Teresa allowed themselves only a little danger, and they quickly found that the Roman males could accept a refusal with a rueful grin and a whispered, “Domani.” They bought Italian ices at midnight from the vendor at the foot of the Spanish Steps. They splashed their bare feet in the fountain of Trevi. They attended Mass at St. Peter’s and allowed themselves to be picked up for a wild motorbike ride out to the Villa d’Este and its thousands of cascading fountains.

  Yet every day, every night, Lucita found herself thinking of Dan Randolph, wondering if he had ever seen Rome, if he had ever allowed himself the freedom to relax and savor this magnificent city. She knew that he had not been born to wealth, and she realized that creating such an immense fortune as his allowed scant time for ordinary pleasures. But she could imagine how much he would enjoy being in Rome, free with nothing to do but explore the city and its delights.

  She could imagine how much she would enjoy having him here with her, and it made her heart ache to think of it.

  After a week of being busy tourists, of doing nothing except seeing the sights by day and being seen by the virile Italian men at night, Lucita began to think about returning home. Teresa seemed to be wearying of their exhausting whirl; more each day she talked about home and family.

  The two of them were returning from a day-long tour of the Vatican and an audience with the pope they had shared with seventeen hundred other tourists. At Lucita’s insistence they had walked through the hot sunshine of late afternoon all the way back to their hotel. The cool shade of the marble-floored lobby was a welcome relief.

  As Teresa went to the desk to get their room key, a burly, broad-shouldered man in a dark suit and even more somber face approached Lucita. Not an Italian, she knew instantly. Not a tourist. He frightened her.

  “Senorita Hernandez, you will come with me, please,” he said in grotesquely pronounced Spanish.

  “Who are you? What do you want?” Lucita demanded. She could see, past the man’s shoulder, that another just like him had taken Teresa by the wrist and was bringing her to them.

  The man reached into his ill-fitting jacket’s inside pocket and produced an identification card sealed in discolored plastic.

  “Commissioner Malik has invited you to dinner at the embassy of the Soviet Union,” he said. “We are to bring you there.”

  “Dinner? Malik?” Lucita’s mind spun giddily. “He’s here in Rome?”

  “He flew in this afternoon and insists on having dinner with you-both of you.”

  “But I’ll have to change. …”

  “Your clothes will be brought to the embassy. You are to be the guests of the Soviet Union.”

  He reached out a heavy, thick-fingered hand. Lucita shrank back from him. He hesitated, then gestured toward the front door of the lobby. A black limousine waited just outside. Lucita scanned the hotel lobby desperately. No policeman or guard was in sight. The room clerk was busily ignoring them. The concierge, at his delicate little desk, had his back turned to them and his ornate telephone to his ear. The Russian made an impatient, urging movement of his hand. Feeling trapped, Lucita started for the door, trailed by the two men and Teresa.

  “I bring you greetings from your father,” Malik said, smiling broadly.

  He was standing by the sun-streaming windows in one of the embassy’s huge, high-ceilinged drawing rooms, his golden hair lit by the radiance. He looked strong, confident and pleased with himself.

  “He’s very upset with you, you know,” Malik added.

  “I have written to him,” Lucita replied as she crossed the long carpeted floor toward the Russian. “He knows where we are staying. He could have telephoned, or written back to me.”

  Malik took her hand and pressed it to his lips. They felt cool to Lucita’s skin.

  “Is it true,” he asked in a lower voice, “that you ran away from Caracas to escape from me?”

  She wanted to say, “Do not flatter yourself.” But she felt afraid of this man who had the power to whisk her out of her hotel at the blink of an eye.

  “I left Caracas because I needed some time to think, some freedom for myself,” she replied.

  He nodded, as if accepting her excuse for the moment.

  “I have instructed one of the women servants to help your aunt unpack your things. You will have adjoining rooms on the third floor. I think you’ll find them quite comfortable.”

  Lucita said, “I was planning to return to Caracas in a few days.”

  His eyes widened in genuine surprise. “Oh, no, you mustn’t.

  I won’t hear of it. I have planned a trip for you and your aunt to Moscow. Your father has kindly given his consent.” “To Moscow?”

  “Yes, and perhaps Leningrad, if you like.” Lucita looked deep into the Russian’s ice-blue eyes and suddenly realized that, for all intents and purposes, she was

  Vasily Malik’s prisoner.

  Chapter FIFTEEN

  “What are you doing here?” Dan blurted as he stepped through the doorway into his quarters.

  Lucita turned from the window and the panorama of the vast and beautiful Earth passing below.

  “I am on my way home,” she said. “I am returning to Caracas and my father.”

  She looked different. No longer defiant and angry. The fire in her eyes had been replaced by something that Dan could not quite define: bitterness, fear-despair? She was wearing soft, loose-fitting slacks of deep blue that tucked into low-heeled boots and a silver mesh blouse with a high mandarin collar and buttoned cuffs. Her gleaming black hair was pulled back and tied into a long ponytail. In all, Dan thought, she seemed quieter, more guarded, more mature.

  “You’ve changed,” he said.

  “I have been to Russia. Vasily took me to Moscow, and to his home in Orel. We even went to the rocket launching center at Baikonur.” Not a smile as she spoke. Not a hint of gladness.

  Dan went to the liquor cabinet that stood behind his desk. “Would you like a drink?”

  “Anything but vodka,” Lucita said, and a wan smile flickered across her lips.

  “You didn’t like Russia?” He found a bottle of amontillado, not his favorite brand but the best he had up here at the space station.

  “I was treated like a princess everywhere I went.”

  Pouring two glasses, Dan said, “Malik gave you the royal treatment.”

  Lucita sat wearily on the small curving sofa next to the window. Dan leaned across his desk and touched the control button that darkened the polarized glass. Newcomers to the station had been known to get nauseated from seeing the Earth lumbering by, out of th
e corner of their eye. He brought the glasses of sherry to the sofa, sat down next to her and handed her one.

  “Salud,” he said.

  “Zah vahsheh zdahrovyeh,” Lucita replied.

  “You’ve learned some Russian.”

  “More than I will ever want to hear again.”

  “You didn’t enjoy being in the Workers’ Paradise?”

  Her eyes showed a spark of their former fire, then she saw from the grin on Dan’s face that he was being ironic.

  “As I said, I was treated like a princess. I was guarded night and day. Not allowed to set a foot anywhere unless it had been planned and prepared for ahead of time. Vasily was a wonderful host, and it is clear that he is a very important and powerful man. But there is no freedom in Russia. Not for me, at least.”

  Dan sipped at his drink.

  “Have you ever been there?” Lucita asked.

  “No. I was all set to go, once, years ago. I was still working for Yamagata Industries then, nothing but a salaried mining engineer who had put in a tour of duty on the multinational mining facility on the Moon. There was a big international conference on developing extraterrestrial resources, being held in Moscow. I was invited to attend. Sent in my reservations and had everything confirmed.”

  “What happened?”

  He laughed. “In the six months between getting my reservations confirmed and the opening of the meeting, I made my first million dollars.”