by Ben Bova
“I’m sending that mission out,” he replied stubbornly. “Whatever the consequences, we’re going to get ourselves an asteroid.”
“You’re going to get yourself an asteroid. I hope it makes you very happy. I hope it’s made of solid gold.”
“We can make this country great again. …”
“I’m not going to let you endanger the United States,” the President said. “If you want to send a mission to the asteroids, or to Mars, or to hell, for that matter, go ahead and do it. But don’t ask me to help you.”
Dan drained the last of the foul-tasting brandy and leaned over to put his snifter down carefully on the wicker table next to the settee.
Straightening, he asked, “Do you think Morgan would have taken the same position?”
Jane’s alabaster face grew even whiter, like an ice sculpture. But her eyes flamed. “If you had helped him when he needed you, he would still be alive.”
“And that’s the real reason you won’t help me now, isn’t it?”
The President got to her feet. “This is pointless. You’d better go now.”
Dan stood up and realized all over again that she was almost as tall as he, and one of the most beautiful women he had ever met.
“It never worked out right for us, did it?”
“No,” Jane said, her eyes still angry. “And it never will.”
Dan turned and went to the door, his mind already casting ahead to the mission that would reach an asteroid. So the Russians know about it-maybe, he said to himself. And Jane won’t lift a finger to help. But I’m going ahead with it anyway. The hell with them and everybody else. I’m going ahead with it!
Chapter SEVENTEEN
“It’s a matter of security,” Dan said. “I want the entire team to stay on Nueva Venezuela until the launch.”
Nobuhiko Yamagata tried to keep his face impassive, but failed. Dan could read unhappiness, discontent, almost misery in the young engineer’s dark brown eyes. They were walking under the hot morning sun at the launch center, crunching along the gravel path from the parking area to the concrete bunker at the edge of the pad where a huge unmanned booster stood massively, like a pillar upholding the sky. A damp breeze blew in from the sea. Both men were sweating freely in their coveralls.
“I understand the need for security precautions,” Nobo replied, his voice serious and respectful.
Dan squinted up at the looming booster. It was loaded with new machinery to replace worn equipment in the main orbital factory. Packed in with the machinery that was listed on the official manifest was the final set of electronics spares and a ton of liquid oxygen for the life support system of Dolphin One.
“Look,” Dan explained, “the Russians probably already know what we’re up to. God knows which of our people around here are reporting to the Soviet embassy.”
Nobo did not show the slightest surprise. He merely asked, “Then why all the extra precautions?”
“Because they probably don’t know when we’re going, and exactly what we’re going to do. And the less they know, the less likely they are to try to stop us.”
“You believe that security will be easier to maintain aboard Nueva Venezuela?”
“We can control all the radio transmissions from the space station,” Dan said. “It’s a lot tighter than here on the ground.”
They reached the heavy steel door of the bunker. As he reached for its handle, Dan saw the agonized look on the young man’s face. He let his hand drop and leaned against the concrete wall, grateful for the scant slice of shade it provided.
“What’s the matter, Nobo?”
“A personal matter. I shouldn’t allow it to get in the way of this mission, I know, but …”
“Who is she?”
His head dropping low, Nobo replied, “Seńorita Hemandez, the one you brought to Sapporo.”
Dan felt his eyebrows climb toward his scalp. “Lucita?”
With a barely discernible nod, Nobo said, “Lucita. I’ve had several dinners with her since she’s returned to Caracas.”
“Dinners.” Dan felt like a stupid echo.
“While you were away last week we made plans to sail over to Aruba for the weekend. But if I have to go to the space station …”
A wave of resentment, almost anger, washed over Dan. But it ebbed away almost as quickly as it came. What did you expect? he asked himself. She’s young, she feels trapped, her father’s turned into an enemy, her best friend killed herself. And you’ve been off wooing the Ice Queen to no avail. Did you think she was going to sit around and wait for you to notice her? Nobo’s her own age. And he’s far from home. Probably pretty lonesome. Why shouldn’t they find each other and be together? He laughed at his own feelings of surprise and indignation. What does she mean to you, except more trouble than you need? Better that the two of them get together. Forget about her, there’s an infinite supply of women. Why get emotional about her?
But even as he thought it, he heard himself saying, “Nobo, I’ve decided to push the launch schedule up by at least a week, more if we can do it without taking too many risks. The whole crew will have to be up at the station by Friday, at the latest.”
The young Japanese closed his eyes in acquiescence. “I understand. Is it all right if I see her tonight or tomorrow, before going to the station?”
“Sure,” Dan replied generously. “Go right ahead. But don’t tell her anything more than you have to.”
With the woeful expression of a disappointed lover, Nobuhiko made a slight bow and said, “Of course not. Thank you.”
Dan felt only slightly guilty as he pulled open the bunker’s door and stepped into its icily air-conditioned interior.
He gave a party at his apartment that weekend, after Nobo, Carstairs and the rest of the Dolphin’s drew had shuttled off to Nueva Venezuela. Good cover, he told himself. Throw a party, make everybody think you’ve got nothing terribly important on your mind. He made certain that his human and robot secretaries invited the Russian ambassador and key members of his staff. And the American ambassador and his flunkies, of course. Plus most of the other ambassadors, and the cream of Caracas’ literary and artistic set. A few carefully selected news reporters and columnists. And top members of the Venezuelan government, naturally. Including the Minister of Technology; it would be unthinkable not to invite Seńor Hernandez. And his daughter, too.
Dan played the perfect host, affable, friendly to everyone, even the Russians. He flirted with Lissa Andrews and instructed one of the human butlers to make certain that the American ambassador did not drink so much that he made a
fool of himself. Videotapes of the newest Hollywood productions were run continuously in the screening room, and Dan had flown the leading ladies of two of the steamier ones in for the weekend. The Russian ambassador, stiff and distrustful at first, melted under the combined influence of vodka and the voluptuous attentions of the more spectacularly endowed of the two actresses.
Hernandez arrived, very late, without his daughter. Dan greeted him casually; the Venezuelan replied with cold formality.
“Is your daughter well?” Dan asked over the noise of the party. A live jazz band flown in from New Orleans was making the walls vibrate. A robot server, little more than a wheeled tray guided by a microprocessor chip and a video eye that allowed it to thread its way through the crowd, stopped at Hernandez’s side and beeped for attention.
The Minister of Technology looked down at the tray of drinks, selected champagne and then turned his calculating brown eyes back to Dan. The robot, sensing one drink removed from its burden, rolled off into the throng.
“I understand there was a tragedy in your family,” Dan said. He was practically yelling into Hernandez’s ear.
“My youngest sister died,” the Venezuelan said. Dan read it off his lips; the man’s voice was lost in the party noise.
“My condolences.”
“Thank you.”
“And your daughter? How is she taking this loss?”
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“It was a great shock to her, but she will recover.”
“I hope so.”
Hernandez sipped at the champagne, his eyes searching the noisy, frantic room.
“How did it happen?” Dan asked. “I understand they were on Kosmograd.”
“Excuse me,” replied Hernandez. “I must say hello to the Soviet ambassador.”
“Of course,” Dan said graciously, adding silently, You bastard!
The party was still blazing away at full intensity when midnight struck. Dan slipped away, unnoticed, and rode the elevator up to the top floor. He made his way through the carpeted corridors and empty offices to the communications center where, among other things, there was a desktop computer terminal linked directly to the laser receiver mounted on the building’s roof. He looked at his wristwatch: in thirty seconds it would be exactly 12:10. A message was to be beamed by laser from Dolphin One to the rooftop in Caracas. No electronic eavesdropper could overhear the message, because it rode on the laser’s narrow beam of light. If a snooper could position himself within a city block or so of the roof with the proper equipment, and if he knew exactly when the message would be transmitted, he might be able to intercept it. Even so, he would then have to decode it.
Exactly as the digits on Dan’s watch flicked to 12:10:00, the computer screen flashed and showed a momentary string of black dots dancing across its phosphorescent face. Before Dan could blink his eyes, the dots were replaced by the decoded message: All systems go. On schedule.
Dan hadn’t realized he’d been holding his breath until he let it out with a long, heartfelt sigh. That was the last transmission he would receive from Carstairs, Nobo and the rest of the crew, unless something went wrong. Everything was on schedule. They would be on their way in forty-eight hours.
He pressed the terminal keys that would erase the message from the computer’s memory. Then he made his way back down to the party. The elevator doors slid open and a solid wall of noise slammed into Dan. He stepped out, took a glass of straight Scotch from a passing robot server and noticed Zach Freiberg staring at him from across the crowded room with questioning eyes.
Our security leak? Dan wondered. Freiberg would not be a conscious informer, he knew, but the scientist was not the tightest man with information. Dan nodded to him and raised his glass slightly. Freiberg broke into a big, boyish grin. If anybody’s looking for a clue, Dan told himself, there it is.
Dawn was well advanced before the last of his guests straggled to the elevator and left. The Soviet ambassador was among the finalists, propped on either side by hefty unsmiling men who were utterly sober.
“A delightful party,” he told Dan blurrily. “Leave it to the capitalists to throw a wonderful, decadent party. I must get the name of that actress. …”
His two bodyguards dragged him into the elevator. The last Dan saw of the ambassador, the old man was giggling and waving to him with both hands as the guards held him up between them.
“You must sober me up quickly,” he mumbled to the guards in Russian. “Comrade Malik is arriving today. …”
The doors slid shut.
Malik! Coming back here. Dan stood for a long, silent moment, staring at the closed elevator doors. Why? he asked himself. What’s he up to? How much does he know?
Making a mental note to have his intelligence people tweak their sources inside the Soviet embassy, Dan made his way through the litter and stale smoke of the dead party toward his bedroom, wondering what he could do to improve the security of the asteroid mission. Malik here in Caracas, less than forty-eight hours before the spacecraft’s departure. That’s not good. Double-damn it to hell, that’s not good at all!
He found both actresses in his bed, wrapped in each other’s slithering arms and long smooth legs, oblivious to him and everything else except each other. There’s nothing I can do about Malik right now, Dan told himself. With a shake of his head, he decided that there would be time enough later on to comb out the bugs that the Russians had undoubtedly strewn around his apartment. They probably stuck a few thimble-sized video cameras here and there, too.
If they want to see capitalist decadence, this ought to make their eyes pop. He quickly stripped and joined the two sweaty, drug-dazed women on the big, delicious waterbed.
Chapter EIGHTEEN
Hernandez had arrived home from Dan Randolph’s party early, shortly after midnight. But then he went out again and did not return until nearly dawn.
Lucita, sleeping fitfully in her room on the third floor of the rambling old house, heard his comings and goings and knew that he had been to see one of his women. He keeps a harem, she said to herself as she combed her hair that morning, sitting at her dresser. The good Lord alone knows how many women think that he loves them. When he dies, half the women in Caracas will wear black.
She put the brush down and stared at herself in the dresser mirror. There was no makeup on her face. She had just showered. Her eyes were not puffy, but dark rings of sleeplessness marred them. It had been a long time since she had laughed, or even smiled. Not since she had last seen Dan Randolph. And even then …
She shook her head, dismissing such thoughts from her mind. Or trying to. Getting up from the dresser, she crossed the broad, sunny bedroom and went to her clothes closet. Opening one of its triple doors, she saw her full-length reflection in its long mirror.
Lucita slipped off her robe and let it drop to the floor. Naked, she examined her image closely. A little bird, she thought. A plucked chicken. Scrawny, almost. Your legs are too thin, your hips too narrow. Your breasts are small-But she turned sideways, profiling herself. Not that small, I suppose. At least they don’t sag. And your backside isn’t as big as most of the girls’. Some of them look like they’re carrying watermelons around with them.
Still, she ached for the tall long-legged exotic good looks of the mestizo girls she saw in the city. Smooth skin the color of old ivory, high cheekbones and almond eyes, they somehow got the best of their mixed Indian, Spanish and black blood. I’m just a short, pale, plucked chicken, Lucita thought.
Carefully she selected a pair of jeans and a sleeveless light pink blouse, then tugged on the most elevating pair of rope sandals in the closet. She was putting on a touch of lipstick, back at the dresser, when her maid tapped timidly at the door.
“Enter,” Lucita called out.
“Your father wants to speak with you,” the maid said. She was an older woman, in her thirties, plump enough to show that she did not work terribly hard.
“He’s awake?”
The maid smirked. “I think he has a hangover. The cook said he refused to take anything at breakfast except coffee.”
Lucita asked, “Do you know what he wants me for?” She and her father had been living a sort of distant truce, sharing the big house while meeting each other as little as possible. Teresa’s death hung between them like a barrier of pain. Despite what had happened to Teresa, Hernandez was going ahead with his plans to marry his daughter to Vastly Malik.
“There was a telephone call,” the maid replied. “From the Russian embassy, the butler said. Your fiancé has arrived. …”
“He is not my fiancé!’
The maid shrugged. “Your intended.”
Lucita shot to her feet. “You will tell my father that I was already gone when you came into my room.”
“Gone? Where?”
“Out! Away from here. Away from him … both of them!”
Hastily filling a small leather pocketbook with her necessities, Lucita shooed the maid out of her room as she hurried to the back steps and raced down to the garage. She startled the chauffeur, sipping a late morning cup of coffee as he chatted idly with one of the cook’s young helpers. Striding past the gleaming limousine and the smaller Mercedes, Lucita went wordlessly, tight-lipped with angry determination, to her own MG convertible. It was nearly six years old, and its transmission was as cranky as the mother superior at school. Lucita would allow no one to drive it except hers
elf, and even then it needed the constant attention of a mechanic. But she loved her forest-green little convertible, had fallen instantly in love with it when she had first seen it and begged her father to buy it for her. It had been her birthday present when she turned sixteen.
Now she slid behind the wheel, slammed the door shut and gunned the engine to life. The bellow made the garage ring. She backed out, the sudden hot sunlight feeling strong and good on her shoulders, swung around on the driveway and roared out onto the road.
Out of the corner of her eye she saw her father standing at the long window of the living room, looking out at her. He was too far away for her to read the expression on his face.
She drove aimlessly, out onto the highway that ran around the city’s perimeter. I must create a life of my own, she told herself. I must get away from my father and this marriage he has planned for me. Yes, but how? she asked herself. Where? How can you earn a living in this world beyond your father’s walls? You have no skills. You know nothing except what the good sisters taught you: how to become a docile Catholic wife and mother.
Something made her glance at the rearview mirror as she raced down the broad highway. The same black sedan that she had seen several miles back was still behind her. The highway was busy with four full lanes of huffing trailer rigs, overloaded buses and cars that ranged from dilapidated junks to brand-new Mitsubishis, made at the assembly plant in La Guaira. Yet this black sedan, a BMW, was still just behind her. Police? Lucita wondered. But why?
Then she thought, My father is having me followed!
Suddenly furious, she downshifted and cut in front of an approaching minivan to get into the left lane, then leaned on the gas pedal until the other traffic was only a blur as she whizzed past. Let’s see them follow me now!
By the time she reached the cable car terminal the black sedan was nowhere in sight. Lucita parked her MG, bought a ticket and got onto the big, boxy car. It was almost empty, so she was able to take a seat on the front bench, with the full width of the front window to herself. Now she could be alone for half an hour as the cable car rode up into the cloud-wrapped mountain and then down again, to La Guiara. There was a little restaurant at the foot of the mountain, where she could have lunch alone, unbothered.
