My Favorites

by Ben Bova

  His wife swept into the bedroom, just slightly tipsy from the champagne. Beaming at him, she said, “You were magnificent this evening, darling.”

  He turned from the window, surprised beyond words. Praise from her was so rare that he treasured it, savored it like expensive wine, just as he had always felt a special glow within his breast on those extraordinary occasions when his mother had vouchsafed him a kind word.

  “Uh . . . thank you,” he said.

  “Magnificent, my darling,” she repeated. “I am so proud of you!”

  His face went red with embarrassed happiness.

  “And these people are so much nicer than those Latin types,” she added.

  “You . . . you know, you were . . . you are . . . the most beautiful woman in this city,” he stammered. He meant it. In her gown of gold lamé, and with her hair coiffed that way, she looked positively regal. His heart filled with joy.

  She kissed him lightly on the cheek, whispering into his ear, “I shall be waiting for you in my boudoir, my prince.”

  The breath gushed out of him. She pirouetted daintily, then waltzed to the door that connected to her own bedroom. Opening the door, she turned back toward him and blew him a kiss.

  As she closed the door behind her, he took a deep, sighing, shuddering breath. Brimming with excited expectation, he went directly to his closet, unbuttoning his tuxedo jacket as he strode purposefully across the thickly carpeted floor.

  He yanked open the closet door. A man was standing there, directly under the light set into the ceiling.

  Smiling, the man made a slight bow. “Please do not be alarmed, sir. And don’t bother to call your security guards. They won’t hear you.”

  Still fumbling with his jacket buttons, he stumbled back from the closet door, a thousand wild thoughts racing through his mind. An assassin. A kidnapper. A newspaper columnist!

  The stranger stepped as far as the closet door. “May I enter your room, sir? Am I to take your silence for assent? In that case, thank you very much.”

  The stranger was tall but quite slender. He was perfectly tailored in a sky-blue Brooks Brothers three-piece suit. He had the youthful, innocent, golden-curled look of a European terrorist. His smile revealed perfect, dazzling teeth. Yet his eyes seemed infinitely sad, as though filled with knowledge of all human failings. Those icy-blue eyes pierced right through the man in the tuxedo.

  “Wh . . . what do you want? Who are you?”

  “I’m terribly sorry to intrude this way. I realize it must be a considerable shock to you. But you’re always so busy. It’s difficult to fit an appointment into your schedule.”

  His voice was a sweet, mild tenor, but the accent was strange. East coast, surely. Harvard, no doubt.

  “How did you get in here? My security . . .”

  The stranger gave a slightly guilty grin and hiked one thumb ceilingward. “You might say I came in through the roof.”

  “The roof? Impossible!”

  “Not for me. You see, I am an angel.”

  “An . . . angel?”

  With a self-assured nod, the stranger replied, “Yes. One of the heavenly host. Your very own guardian angel, to be precise.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “You don’t believe in angels?” The stranger cocked a golden eyebrow at him. “Come now. I can see into your soul. You do believe.”

  “My church doesn’t go in for that sort of thing,” he said, trying to pull himself together.

  “No matter. You do believe. And you do well to believe, because it is all true. Angels, devils, the entire system. It is as real and true as this fine house you live in.” The angel heaved a small sigh. “You know, back in medieval times people had a much firmer grasp on the realities of life. Today . . .” He shook his head.

  Eyes narrowing craftily, the man asked, “If you’re an angel, where are your wings? Your halo? You don’t look anything like a real angel.”

  “Oh.” The angel seemed genuinely alarmed. “Does that bother you? I thought it would be easier on your nervous system to see me in a form that you’re accustomed to dealing with every day. But if you want . . .”

  The room was flooded with a blinding golden light. Heavenly voices sang. The stranger stood before the man robed in radiance, huge white wings outspread, filling the room.

  The man sank to his knees and buried his face in his hands. “Have mercy on me! Have mercy on me!”

  He felt strong yet gentle hands pull him tenderly to his feet. The angel was back in his Brooks Brothers suit. The searing light and ethereal chorus were gone.

  “It is not in my power to show you either mercy or justice,” he said, his sweetly youthful face utterly grave. “Only the creator can dispense such things.”

  “But why . . . how . . .” he babbled.

  Calming him, the angel explained, “My duty as your guardian angel is to protect your soul from damnation. But you must cooperate, you know. I cannot force you to be saved.”

  “My soul is in danger?”

  “In danger?” The angel rolled his eyes heavenward. “You’ve just about handed it over to the enemy, gift wrapped. Most of the millionaires you dined with tonight have a better chance to attain salvation than you have, at the moment. And you know how difficult it is for a rich man.”

  The man tottered to the wingback chair next to his king-sized bed and sank into it. He pulled the handkerchief from his breast pocket and mopped his sweaty face.

  The angel knelt beside him and looked up into his face pleadingly. “I don’t want to frighten you into a premature heart seizure, but your soul really is in great peril.”

  “But I haven’t done anything wrong! I’m not a crook. I haven’t killed anyone or stolen anything. I’ve been faithful to my wife.”

  The angel gave him a skeptical smile.

  “Well . . .” He wiped perspiration from his upper lip. “Nothing serious. I’ve always honored my mother and father.”

  Gently, the angel asked, “You’ve never told a lie?”

  “Uh, well . . . nothing big enough to . . .”

  “You’ve never cheated anyone?”

  “Um.”

  “What about that actor’s wife in California? And the money you accepted to swing certain deals. And all the promises you’ve broken?”

  “You mean things like that—they count?”

  “Everything counts,” the angel said firmly. “Don’t you realize that the enemy has your soul almost in his very hands?”

  “No. I never thought—”

  “All those deals you’ve made. All those corners you’ve cut.” The angel suddenly shot him a piercing glance. “You haven’t signed any documents in blood, have you?”

  “No!” His heart twitched. “Certainly not!”

  “Well, that’s something, at least.”

  “I’ll behave,” he promised. “I’ll be good. I’ll be a model of virtue.”

  “Not enough,” the angel said, shaking his golden locks. “Not nearly enough. Things have gone much too far.”

  His eyes widened with fear. He wanted to argue, to refute, to debate the point with his guardian angel, but the words simply would not force their way through his constricted throat.

  “No, it is not enough merely to promise to reform,” the angel repeated. “Much stronger action is needed.”

  “Such as . . . what?”

  The angel got to his feet, paced across the room a few steps, then turned back to face him. His youthful visage brightened. “Why not? If they can make a deal for a soul, why can’t we?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Hush!” The angel seemed to be listening to another voice, one that the man could not hear. Finally, the angel nodded and smiled. “Yes. I see. Thank you.”

  “What?”

  Turning back to the man, the an
gel said, “I’ve just been empowered to make you an offer for your soul. If you accept the terms, your salvation is assured.”

  The man instantly grew wary. “Oh, no you don’t. I’ve heard about deals for souls. Some of my best friends—”

  “But this is a deal to save your soul!”

  “How do I know that?” the man demanded. “How do I know you’re really what you say you are? The devil has power to assume pleasing shapes, doesn’t he?”

  The angel smiled joyfully. “Good for you! You remember some of your childhood teachings.”

  “Don’t try to put me off. I’ve negotiated a few tricky deals in my day. How do I know you’re really are an angel, and you want to save my soul?”

  “By their fruits ye shall know them,” the angel replied.

  “What are you talking about?”

  Still smiling, the angel replied, “When the devil makes a deal for a soul, what does he promise? Temporal gifts, such as power, wealth, respect, women, fame.”

  “I have all that,” the man said. “I’m on top of the world, everyone knows that.”

  “Indeed.”

  “And I didn’t sign any deals with the devil to get there, either,” he added smugly.

  “None that you know of,” the angel warned. “A man in your position delegates many decisions to his staff, does he not?”

  The man’s face went gray. “Oh my God, you don’t think . . .”

  With a shrug, the angel said, “It doesn’t matter. The deal that I offer guarantees your soul’s salvation, if you meet the terms.”

  “How? What do I have to do?”

  “You have power, wealth, respect, women, fame.” The angel ticked each point off on his slender, graceful fingers.

  “Yes, yes, I know.”

  “You must give them up.”

  The man lurched forward in the wingchair. “Huh?”

  “Give them up.”

  “I can’t!”

  “You must, if you are to attain the Kingdom of Heaven.”

  “But you don’t understand! I just can’t drop everything! The world doesn’t work that way. I can’t just . . . walk away from all this.”

  “That’s the deal,” the angel said. “Give it up. All of it. Or spend eternity in hell.”

  “But you can’t expect me to—” He gaped. The angel was no longer in the room with him. For several minutes he stared into empty air. Then, knees shaking, he arose and walked to the closet. It, too, was empty of strange personages.

  He looked down at his hands. They were trembling.

  “I must he going crazy,” he muttered to himself. “Too much strain. Too much tension.” But even as he said it, he made his way to the telephone on the bedside table. He hesitated a moment, then grabbed up the phone and punched a number he had memorized months earlier.

  “Hello. Chuck? Yes, this is me. Yes, yes, everything went fine tonight. Up to a point.”

  He listened to his underling babbling flattery into the phone, wondering how many times he had given his power of attorney to this weakling and to equally venal deputies.

  “Listen, Chuck,” he said at last. “I have a job for you. And it’s got to be done right, understand? Okay, here’s the deal—” He winced inwardly at the word. But, taking a deep, manly breath, he plunged ahead.

  “You know the Democrats are setting up their campaign quarters in that new apartment building—what’s it called, Watergate? Yeah. Okay. Now, I think it would serve our purposes very well if we bugged the place before the campaign really starts to warm up . . .”

  There were tears in his eyes as he spoke. But from far, far away, he could hear a heavenly chorus singing.

  Introduction to

  “Waterbot”

  But when it comes to slaughter

  You will do your work on water,

  An’ you’ll lick the bloomin’ boots of ’im

  that’s got it.

  —Rudyard Kipling, Gunga Din

  Water is essential, and not only to the soldier’s bloody business.

  As humankind expands beyond the limits of Earth, water will be just as important a resource as it is here on this planet. Not merely for sustaining human life in the dark depths of interplanetary space, but for providing needed fuel for the rockets that propel our spacecraft. Hydrogen and oxygen, from water’s H2O, make excellent propellants.

  But water will be harder to find—and still harder to keep.

  “Waterbot” is about finding—and keeping—water, out in the vast emptiness of the asteroid belt, beyond the orbit of Mars.

  And it’s also about the relationship between a very human young man, and the computer system that is the only “crew” of his lonely spacecraft—the nearest thing he has to a companion.

  WATERBOT

  “Wake up, dumbbutt. Jerky’s ventin’ off.”

  I’d been asleep in my bunk. I blinked awake, kind of groggy, but even on the little screen set into the bulkhead at the foot of the bunk I could see the smirk on Donahoo’s ugly face. He always called JRK49N “Jerky” and seemed to enjoy it when something went wrong with the vessel—which was all too often.

  I sat up in the bunk and called up the diagnostics display. Rats! Donahoo was right. A steady spray of steam was spurting out of the main water tank. The attitude jets were puffing away, trying to compensate for the thrust.

  “You didn’t even get an alarm, didja?” Donahoo said. “Jerky’s so old and feeble, your safety systems are breakin’ down. You’ll be lucky if you make it back to base.”

  He said it like he enjoyed it. I thought that if he wasn’t so much bigger than me, I’d enjoy socking him square in his nasty mouth. But I had to admit he was right; Forty-niner was ready for the scrap heap.

  “I’ll take care of it,” I muttered to Donahoo’s image, glad that it’d take more than five minutes for my words to reach him back at Vesta—and the same amount of time for his next wise-ass crack to get to me. He was snug and comfortable back at the corporation’s base at Vesta while I was more than ninety million kilometers away, dragging through the belt on JRK49N.

  I wasn’t supposed to be out here. With my brand-new diploma in my eager little hand, I’d signed up for a logistical engineer’s job, a cushy, safe posting at Vesta, the second-biggest asteroid in the belt. But once I got there, Donahoo jiggered the assignment list and got me stuck on this pile of junk for a six months’ tour of boredom and aggravation.

  It’s awful lonely out in the belt. Flatlanders back Earthside picture the asteroid belt as swarming with rocks so thick a ship’s in danger of getting smashed. Reality is, the belt’s mostly empty space, dark and cold and bleak. A man runs more risk of going nutty out there all by himself than getting hit by a ’roid big enough to do any damage.

  JRK49N was a waterbot. Water’s the most important commodity you can find in the belt. Back in those days, the news nets tried to make mining the asteroids seem glamorous. They liked to run stories about prospector families striking it rich with a nickel-iron asteroid, the kind that has a few hundred tons of gold and platinum in it as impurities. So much gold and silver and such had been found in the belt that the market for precious metals back on Earth had gone down the toilet.

  But the really precious stuff was water. Still is. Plain old H2O. Basic for life support. More valuable than gold, off-Earth. The cities on the moon needed water. So did the colonies they were building in cislunar space, and the Rock Rats habitat at Ceres and the research station orbiting Jupiter and the construction crews at Mercury.

  Water was also the best fuel for chemical rockets. Break it down into hydrogen and oxygen, and you got damned good specific impulse.

  You get the picture. Finding icy asteroids wasn’t glamorous, like striking a ten-kilometer-wide rock studded with gold, but it was important. The corporations wouldn’t send waterbots out through the belt if there wa
sn’t a helluva profit involved. People paid for water, paid plenty.

  So waterbots like weary old Forty-niner crawled through the belt, looking for ice chunks. Once in a while a comet would come whizzing by, but they usually had too much delta-v for a waterbot to catch up to ’em. We cozied up to icy asteroids, melted the ice to liquid water, and filled our tanks with it.

  The corporation had fifty waterbots combing the belt. They were built to be completely automated, capable of finding ice-bearing asteroids and carrying the water back to the corporate base at Vesta.

  But there were two problems about having the waterbots go out on their own:

  First, the lawyers and politicians had this silly rule that a human being had to be present on the scene before any company could start mining anything from an asteroid. So it wasn’t enough to send out waterbots, you had to have at least one human being riding along on them to make the claim legal.

  The second reason was maintenance and repair. The ’bots were old enough so’s something was always breaking down on them, and they needed somebody to fix it. They carried little turtle-sized repair robots, of course, but those suckers broke down too, just like everything else. So I was more or less a glorified repairman on JRK49N. And almost glad of it, in a way. If the ship’s systems worked perfectly, I would’ve gone bonzo with nothing to do for months on end.

  And there was a bloody war going on in the belt, to boot. The history disks call it the Asteroid Wars, but it mostly boiled down to a fight between Humphries Space Systems and Astro Corporation for control of all the resources in the belt. Both corporations hired mercenary troops, and there were plenty of freebooters out in the belt too. People got killed. Some of my best friends got killed, and I came as close to death as I ever want to be.

  The mercenaries usually left waterbots alone. There was a kind of unwritten agreement between the corporations that water was too important to mess around with. But some of the freebooters jumped waterbots, killed the poor dumbjohns riding on them, and sold the water at a cut-rate price wherever they could.