The Precipice

by Ben Bova

  “There it is,” he said in a hushed voice.

  Hanging inside the locker was a limp bodysuit, deep black.

  “Ain’t she a beauty?” Walton said as he carefully, lovingly, took the suit from the locker and held it up by its hanger for Pancho to admire.

  “Looks almost like a wetsuit,” Pancho said, wondering how it could make someone invisible. It guttered darkly in the feeble light from the overhead fluorescents, as if spangled with sequins made of onyx.

  “The suit’s covered with nanocameras and projectors, only a couple of molecules thick. Drove me nuts getting ‘em to work right, lemme tell you. I earned that prize money.”

  “Uh-huh,” Pancho said, fingering one of the gloved sleeves. The fabric felt soft, pliable, yet somehow almost gritty, like grains of sand.

  “The cameras pick up the scenery around you,” Walton was explaining. “The projectors display it. Somebody standing in front of you sees what’s behind you. Somebody on your left sees what’s on your right. Just like they’re looking through you. To all intents and purposes you’re invisible.”

  “It really works?” she asked.

  “Computer built into the belt controls it,” Walton said. “Batteries are probably flat, but I can charge ‘em up easy enough.” He pointed to a set of electrical outlets on the smoothed-rock wall of the corridor, opposite the lockers.

  “But it really works?” she repeated.

  He smiled like a proud father. “Want to try it on?”

  Grinning back at him, Pancho said, “Sure!”

  While Pancho wriggled into the snug-fitting suit Walton plugged the two palm-sized batteries into the nearby electrical outlet. By the time she had pulled on the gloves and fitted the hood over her head, he was snapping the fully-charged batteries into their slots on the suit’s waist.

  “Okay,” Walton said, looking her over carefully. “Now pull the face mask down and seal it to the hood.”

  Narrow goggles covered Pancho’s eyes. “I must look like a terrorist, Ike,” she muttered, the fabric of the mask’s lining tickling her lips.

  “In a minute you won’t look like anything at all,” he said. “Unlatch the safety cover on your belt and press the pressure switch.”

  Pancho popped the tiny plastic cover and touched the switch beneath it. “Okay, now what?” she asked.

  “Give it fifteen seconds.”

  Pancho waited. “So?”

  With a lopsided grin, Walton said, “Hold your hand up in front of your face.”

  Pancho lifted her arm. A pang of shock bolted through her. “I can’t see it!”

  “Damn right you can’t. You’re invisible.”

  “I am?”

  “Can you see yourself?”

  Pancho couldn’t. Arms, legs, booted feet: she could feel them as normally as always but could not see them.

  “You got a full-length mirror in your locker?” she asked excitedly.

  “Why the hell would I have a full-length mirror in there?”

  “I want to see what I look like!”

  “Cripes, Pancho, you don’t look like anything. You’re completely invisible.”

  Pancho laughed excitedly. She made up her mind at that moment to borrow Ike’s stealth suit. Without telling him aboutit, of course.

  HUMPHRIES TRUST RESEARCH CENTER

  Covered from head to toes in the stealth suit, Pancho crept slowly, silently along the corridor of Martin Humphries’s palatial underground house. She had come down to the mansion with Amanda, although Mandy didn’t know it.

  For weeks Pancho had been dying to root around in Humphries’s mansion. The man was so stinky rich, so ruthlessly powerful and sure of himself, Pancho figured that there must be plenty of dirt under his fingernails. Maybe she could find something that would help Dan. Maybe she could find something that would profit her. Or maybe, she thought, burglarizing Humphries’s house would just be a hoot, a refreshing break from the endless hours of study that she and Mandy were grinding through. Besides, it’d be fun to wipe that smug smile off the Humper’s face.

  So she had borrowed the stealth suit from Walton’s locker the very next morning after he’d shown it to her. Pancho had gone to bed that night arguing with herself over whether or not she should ask Ike’s permission to use the suit. She had awakened firmly convinced that the less Ike knew the better off each of them would be. So, with a tote bag swinging from her shoulder, she’d gone to the catacombs instead of to work with Mandy, then detoured to the dusty, seldom-used corridor where Walton had stashed the suit. She remembered the singsong of the locker’s electronic security code and tapped it out without a flaw.

  With a glance at the tiny red eye of the security camera on the ceiling at the far end of the corridor, Pancho quickly bundled the suit into her tote bag. Security people can’t watch every screen every minute, she told herself. Besides, even if one of ‘em’s watchin’, I ain’t doin’ anything to rouse an alarm.

  Pancho then went back to her quarters. Amanda was busily at work in the simulations lab; Pancho had the apartment to herself. Immediately she started putting on the stealth suit

  Once she got it on—and saw in the bedroom’s full-length mirror that she was truly invisible—she went out to test the suit. It worked wonderfully well. Pancho walked slowly, carefully, through Selene’s corridors, threading her way through the pedestrian traffic. Now and then someone would glance her way, as if they’d seen something out of the corner of their eyes. A stray reflection from the overhead lights, Pancho thought, an unavoidable momentary glitter off the array of nanocameras and projectors. But no one really saw her, she drifted through the crowds like an unseen phantom.

  She spent the day wandering ghostlike through Selene, gaining confidence in the suit and her ability to use it. The suit fit her snugly, but the boots attached to its leggings were Ike’s size, not her own. Pancho had solved that problem by wadding stockings into the boots. They weren’t exactly comfortable, but she could walk in them well enough.

  For kicks she lifted a soyburger from the counter of the fast-food cafeteria up in the Grand Plaza when no one was working the place except a dumbass robot. She immediately realized, though, that if anyone saw a soyburger floating in midair it would cause a fuss, so she dropped it into the recycler at the end of the counter before anyone noticed her.

  By mid-afternoon Pancho returned briefly to her quarters, took off the suit, and dashed out for a quick meal. She was famished. Being invisible makes you hungry, she joked to herself. By the time Amanda returned from her day’s work and began dressing for her dinner with Martin Humphries, Pancho was back in the stealth suit, standing quietly in a corner of the bedroom, waiting for Amanda to finish her damned primping and go out.

  A cloak of invisibility, Pancho thought as she rode the escalators a few steps ahead of Amanda, down to Selene’s bottom layer. What did they call those fancy suits the toreadors wear? A suit of lights, she remembered. Well, Fm wearing a suit of darkness. A cloak of invisibility.

  She had to keep her distance from everyone. If somebody jostled into her they’d know she was there, invisible or not. Pancho felt glad that Selene did not allow pets. A dog would probably have sniffed her out easily.

  The escalators got less and less crowded as she went down level after level. By the time she was riding down to the last level, she and Amanda were alone on the moving stairs. Once at the bottom, she waited for Amanda, then fell into step behind her. Mandy was heading for a private little dinner with Humphries. Just the two of them, they thought. Pancho smiled to herself. If the Humper tries anything Mandy doesn’t like, I’ll coldcock him. I’ll be her guardian angel. Then she wondered just how far Mandy was willing to go with Humphries—and how far she could tease him without getting herself into real trouble. Well, she shrugged to herself, Mandy’s a grownup, she knows what she’s doing. Or she ought to.

  Mandy looked like a princess in a fairy tale, wearing a short-sleeved frock of baby blue with a knee-length fringed skirt. Modest
enough, Pancho thought, although on Mandy nothing could look really modest Not in the eyes of a man like Humphries, anyway. Pancho couldn’t recall seeing the dress before; Mandy must have bought it in one of Selene’s shops. Everything cost a fortune there, except for stuff actually made on the Moon. Is Humphries buying her clothes? Pancho wondered. He hadn’t given Mandy any jewelry, she was sure of that. Mandy would have showed it off if he had.

  Amanda walked purposively down the length of the corridor and into the grotto that housed the Humphries Trust research garden and house. Humphries was at the front door to greet her, all smiles. Pancho supped in behind her, nearly brushing Humphries’s hand as he pulled the door shut. If the Humper felt anything, he didn’t show it. Pancho was in the house and he didn’t know it.

  As Humphries guided Amanda off to the bar, Pancho stood stock-still in the foyer. A man like Humphries would have a state-of-the-art security system in his home, she reasoned. No matter that the house was in Selene; Humphries would insist on topflight security. He might give the human staff the night off for his dates, but he wouldn’t turn off his alarm systems. Motion sensors were her big worry. Humphries obviously wouldn’t have any working in the residential wing of the house. But the offices would be another thing altogether. She could see the long, spacious living room and the corridor that led to the formal dining room and, beyond it, the library/bar. That was the direction Humphries and Amanda had gone.

  On the other side of the foyer was a single closed door. Pancho guessed that it opened onto the suite of offices and laboratories that the ecologists used. Would he have motion sensors set up in there? Probably not, she thought, but if he did…

  There must be a central control for the security system. Most likely in Humphries’s own bedroom or his office. His bedroom? Pancho grinned at the thought Thats one room in the house where he’d have any motion sensors definitely turned off?

  Slowly, on tiptoes despite the thick carpeting, Pancho made her way up to the second floor. The master bedroom was easy to find: beautifully-carved double doors at the end of the hallway. She eased the door open. No sirens, no hooting klaxons. Could be silent alarms, she told herself, but if he’s dismissed the servants for the night he’ll have to come up here his own self, and I can handle that, easy.

  The room was sumptuous, and Humphries’s bed was enormous, like a tennis court. That bed could handle a whole squad of cheerleaders, she thought. Prob’ly has, Pancho told herself.

  Through a half-open door she saw a desktop computer, its screen saver showing some old master’s painting of a nude woman. As Pancho cautiously approached the door and eased it all the way open, the screen’s image dissolved into another painting of another nude. Huh! she grunted. Some art lover.

  Pancho sat at the desk and saw that the computer had a keyboard attached to it. Tentatively, she pecked at the ENTER key. The artwork vanished, and a honey-warm woman’s voice said, “Good evening, Mr. Humphries. The time is eight-twelve and I’m ready to go to work anytime you are.”

  Frowning, Pancho turned the audio down to zero. The screen displayed a menu of options. Hell, he doesn’t have any protection on his programs at all. She pictured Humphries at his computer, too impatient to deal with code words and security safeguards. After all, who’d have the balls to break into his home, his own bedroom?

  Grinning from ear to ear, Pancho delved into Martin Humphries’s computer files.

  It turned out that most of the individual file names were indeed coded and incomprehensible to her. So he does have some security built into his programs, she realized. Many of the files required special keywords. One, though, was labelled BED. Curious, Pancho called it up. The screen went blank, except for the words INITIATING HOLOTANK. An eye-blink later the screen announced STARTING HOLOTANK. Then the screen went to a blank gray, except for a bar across its bottom that bore video commands.

  Puzzled, Pancho saw a blur of color reflected off the blanked screen. Turning slightly in the desk chair, she saw that what had appeared to be a cylindrical glass objet d’art had metamorphosed into a hologram, a full-color three-dimensional moving picture of Humphries naked in bed with some woman.

  Son of a bitch, Pancho said to herself. He vids his own sex life. She watched for a few moments. They weren’t doing anything that unusual, or thrilling, for that matter, so Pancho touched the fast-forward button on the screen.

  It was downright funny watching Humphries and his women in fast-forward. He’s a Humper, all right, Pancho thought as she watched a succession of beautiful naked women performing arduously with him. She recognized the redhead from her first visit to the house. I wonder if they know they’re being videoed, she asked herself.

  After a half-dozen of Humphries’s home videos, Pancho got a little bored. She cut the program and returned to the screen’s menu of options, but she had new respect for the program labelled VR- PERSONAL. She looked into just one of its files for a few minutes, then angrily clicked it off, revolted.

  The nasty S.O.B. uses his bedmates as models for his virtual reality fantasies, she realized. What he can’t get them to do in real life he has them doing in his VR wet dreams. Creep!

  With a disgusted shake of her head she decided to leave Humphries’s sex life alone and started hacking into the other files.

  When she glanced at the digital clock in the corner of the screen, Pancho was shocked to realize that nearly two hours had elapsed. It had been a fruitful time, though. The Humphries Trust was now paying the rent on Susan Lane’s cryonic storage unit, a big burden off Pancho’s shoulders and a picayune pinprick in the Trust’s multibillion funds.

  Most of the files were incomprehensible to Pancho; some were technobabble and equations, lots of them were stock manipulations and business deals encoded in so much jargon and legalese that it would take a team of lawyers to decipher them. But now they all contained a new subroutine that allowed Pancho to tap into the files from a remote site. Codeword: Hackensack. Which was just what Pancho was preparing to do.

  Got to be careful, though, she warned herself. Don’t get greedy enough for him to recognize he’s being hacked. A man like Humphries’ll have you slapped into the slammer so fast it’ll break the sound barrier. Or he’ll just have somebody pay you a visit and rip out your arms.

  Satisfied with her work, Pancho closed down the computer and left Humphries’s office, careful to leave the door ajar just the way she’d found it. As she made her way downstairs, she wondered if Mandy and Humphries were still at dinner, after all this time.

  They were. Peeking in on the dining room, Pancho saw the remains of some fancy dessert melting in their dishes, and half-empty flutes of champagne sparkling in the subdued light from the crystal chandelier above the table.

  Mandy was saying, “… it’s certainly beautiful, Martin, and I appreciate your thoughtfulness, but I can’t accept it. Really, I can’t.”

  Pancho crept closer, staring. Humphries held an open jewelry case in one hand. It contained a stunning sapphire necklace.

  “I got it specially for you,” he was saying, his voice almost pleading.

  “Martin, you’re a dear man, but I can’t get myself involved in a relationship now. You of all people should understand that.”

  “But I don’t understand,” he said. “Why not?”

  “I’ll be heading off on the mission in a few months. I might never come back.”

  “All the more reason to grab whatever happiness we can now, while we can.”

  Amanda looked genuinely distressed. Shaking her head, she said, “I simply can’t, Martin. I can’t.”

  In a gentle whisper he said, “I could have you removed from the mission. I could see to it that you stay here, with me.”

  “No. Please…”

  “I could,” he repeated, stronger. “By god, that’s what I’ll do.”

  “But I don’t want you to,” Amanda said, alarmed.

  “You don’t have to go through with it,” Humphries insisted. “I know it’s dangerous. I h
ad no idea that you’re afraid of—”

  “Afraid!” Mandy snapped. “I’m not afraid! Simply because I understand the risks involved does not mean that I’m afraid.”

  Humphries puffed out an exasperated breath. “Then you’re using the mission as an excuse to keep your distance from me, is that it?”

  “No!” Amanda said. “That’s not it at all. I simply…” Her voice trailed off into silence.

  “Then what’s wrong?” Humphries asked. “What’s the problem? Is it me?”

  She stared down at the table for a long, miserable, silent moment. Pancho thought she saw tears glistening in Mandy’s eyes. The expression on Humphries’s face was somewhere between bafflement and anger.

  “Martin, please,” Amanda said at last. “We’ve only known each other for a few weeks. You’re a very wonderful man in many ways, but I’m not ready for a meaningful relationship. Not now. Not with this mission coming up. Perhaps afterward, when I return, perhaps then.”

  Humphries pulled in a deep breath. It seemed obvious to Pancho that he was trying to control his temper.

  “I’m not a patient man,” he said, his voice low. “I’m not accustomed to waiting.”

  No, Pancho thought. What you’re accustomed to is taking your women up to your bedroom and videoing the whole thing for playback. And then VR games.

  “Please bear with me, Martin,” Amanda whispered, her voice husky with tears. “Please.”

  If he tries to get rough with Mandy, Pancho told herself, I’ll kick his balls into next week. She wished she’d brought Elly, but the stealth suit was too confining for the snake; she’d left Elly back at her quarters.

  Humphries snapped the jewelry case shut with a click that sounded like a gunshot.

  “All right,” he said tightly. “I’ll wait. I wish I’d never started this fusion business.”

  Amanda made a sad smile. “But then we’d never have met, would we?”

  He conceded the point with a hopeless shrug, then got up and led Amanda to the front door of the house.

  “Will I see you again?” he asked as he opened the door for her.