Twelve seconds later, Holmes rolled his eyes. “I think you’re making a big deal out of nothing. Can’t we just start over, pretend this never happened?”
Aames nodded. “We can start over . . . with a new captain, and with you fulfilling the cancellation clause in our contract. That would be five years’ salary, payable immediately, plus a commission on each trip for that period. Would you like to invoke that clause?” He paused, but not long enough for Holmes to take control. “But wait. There’s no qualified captain aboard, and we can’t turn back now. That would be a mess, wouldn’t it?”
Twelve seconds later, Holmes was exasperated. “You can’t be serious. You would quit over such a small matter as this?”
“No, but unless you fire me, I’m going to run this ship my way. You can remove me, but you can’t second-guess me. Either I’m in charge here, or you are. But I won’t be your figurehead. And it’s not a small matter. Do you still insist on sending Anthony to Mars?”
“Damn straight I do. This is a Holmes mission to Mars, and there’s going to be a Holmes leading it.”
The captain sighed. “You forget, Anton, I’ve been to Mars. I know Mars. He’s not ready to go there, and he’s damn sure not ready to lead any mission.”
“Oh, I know that.” Holmes leaned into the camera and lowered his voice. “It’s just symbolic for the media, and a notch for his résumé. He won’t do anything but give speeches. It’ll just be a quick down-and-back on a fast drop shuttle as you approach. The shuttle will bring him back before you pass. It will be purely ceremonial. Adika will keep an eye on him the whole way, and there won’t be time for him to get into trouble. I may be too busy to go myself, but by damn, there’s going to be Holmes footprints on Mars. That will be worth a lot of points on the stock market, and also in boardroom battles.”
“I still think it’s a stupid idea, but it’s out of my hands once we reach the Mars gravipause. My only responsibility is to get him there safe and healthy. That’s not going to happen if he suffers bone and muscle loss and radiation symptoms. Since he’s being a stubborn ass about his therapy nanos, hyperexercise is what my doctor prescribes. Isn’t that right, Doctor?” And he widened the frame to show me and the major standing behind him.
“Yes, Captain,” I answered. “This is the recommended non-nano therapy for a space traveler of his age and health.”
Aames turned to the major. “And is young Mr. Holmes in any physical danger?”
Adika shook his head. “Mr. Holmes, I agree with Captain Aames: your son has no business on Mars, and our security team will be very busy keeping him alive. But here on the Aldrin with this exercise program, he is perfectly safe.”
Aames continued, “So in the best expert opinion on-site, this is in Anthony’s own best interests. May I proceed? Or should I clean out my office?”
In the twelve seconds it took to respond, Holmes’s glare intensified as he listened. Finally, he sighed, but he had a look of determination. Billionaires are accustomed to doing things their way. “All right, I’ll talk to him. Are you satisfied, Captain?”
Aames smiled at the camera, but it wasn’t a warm smile. It was awkward, like he wasn’t used to smiling. In a way it looked almost predatory. “Quite satisfied, boss. Now is there anything else? Or can I go back to running my ship?”
“No, nothing else. Get to it.” And just like that, the image cut out.
“He’s a busy man,” the captain said, swiveling his chair to face the major and me. “That conversation probably cost fifty-thousand dollars of his time, plus bandwidth charges. We should feel privileged. Do you feel privileged?” Before we could answer, he continued, “So, Doctor, Major, we proceed according to plan.” Then Aames grinned at the major, showing real warmth for the first time that I had seen. “Just like Luna, eh, Chuks?”
Major Adika grinned back. “Just like Luna, Nick, except this time we are on the other end of the stick. I believe Sergeant Fontes would laugh to see us now.”
“No, thank you,” the captain answered, “I heard enough of his laughter in Lunar Survival School.” For a moment he stared out the window, back at Earth and Luna. Then he turned back to his desk. “Let’s hope our ‘recruit’ is no more difficult than we were, eh?”
Adika shook his head. “He is not difficult, but he will never be ready for a dangerous place like Mars.”
The captain nodded. “That’s why he has you watching over him. He couldn’t be safer. But enough of this. I have work to do, and so do both of you. If you don’t, I’ll find some. Get out of here.”
So we left his office, returning to the world of awful ochre in Carver’s office, the gateway to the captain’s sanctuary. Chief Carver was on the bridge, so we were alone; but I waited until we were safely out of Carver’s outer office and in the passageway before I turned to Major Adika. “You said only friends call you Chuks. I take it you know Captain Aames?”
Major Adika smiled again. I could get used to that smile. “Doctor, we have a saying: ‘Space is vast, but the Space Corps is not.’ If you stay in the Corps long enough, you will be amazed at how many people you will meet. You could not possibly remember them all. But one does not forget Nick Aames. Though many would like to.” And he laughed.
I could get used to that too.
The next day, when it was time for my run with Anthony, I tracked him down in the lounge again. I expected the bodyguards to let me pass, since they had already screened me twice the day before, but they were more professional than that. They were cordial and courteous—the major even gave me one of those big smiles—but they scanned me as thoroughly as they had the first time. Then they let me through.
Anthony was sitting at the same table, but alone this time. A few passengers waved at him as they passed by, but none sat down. As they walked past me, I heard muted giggles and comments under their breath, including the word “brat.”
I sat down at the table. Anthony stared down at a glass of what looked like tomato juice. Without asking, I picked it up. “Hey!” he objected, reaching for the glass.
But I pulled the glass away. “Doctor’s orders. I need to know what you’re drinking.” I took a sip. It was tomato juice, reconstituted, without any hint of vodka. I set the glass back down. “Good choice.”
Anthony took the glass and stared into it again, slumping in his chair. I sat down next to him, took his wrist, and started checking his vitals. He was silent and sullen as I worked. He had some pallor, nothing bad, but he looked like he had been kicked around. I guess he had, in a way. Despite myself, I started to feel almost sorry for him. Sorry enough to fudge the truth a bit. “It seems your pulse is a little erratic, Mr. Holmes. I’ll sign a doctor’s slip excusing you from this afternoon’s run, if you’d like.”
Anthony shook his head. “No.” And then I saw something of his father in him, the same steel behind the blue eyes. He drank the rest of the tomato juice, set down his glass, and rose. “Let’s go.” He led the way to the upper ring, and a guard trailed us, taking a position at the top of the ramp. We started running; and as we ran, I saw another guard at the top of each of the four ramps. We had the ring to ourselves.
Anthony took off at a very fast pace, much too fast to maintain for a half hour even in our gravity. I rushed to catch up with him; but when I did, he put on more speed. I had to run all out to catch him again.
Anthony kept going as fast as he could for as long as he could, barreling forward as if Captain Aames were still chasing him—or something worse. I could see he was getting tired and sloppy, and I worried he might hurt himself.
Eventually he slowed down. I was relieved, because I couldn’t keep up that pace much longer. But though he slowed, he remained at a running pace, not a jog. Whatever reserves he had wouldn’t last long.
When I saw Anthony’s face getting red, I called out, “Enough.” And I halted, but he kept going. “Stop!” I shouted. This time he stopped, and I walked forward to check him over, a guard running up as I did. The guard, a tall Asian
woman, paid no attention to me. Like me, she was worried about Anthony.
His heart rate, respiration, and temperature were all dangerously high. “That’s enough, Mr. Holmes. Don’t make me get rough. You’ve got to pace yourself, or you’re going to make yourself ill, maybe injure yourself.”
Anthony leaned against a wall, head resting on his arms. The guard put a hand on his shoulder, but he shook it off. “Leave me alone,” he panted. “I can do this.”
“You can’t do anything if you keep this up. Don’t argue with your doctor.”
But Anthony shook his head. “He thinks . . . I can’t do this.”
“Captain Aames?” I looked around as if the captain might be listening. “That man’s a closed one, Mr. Holmes. Don’t assume you know what he’s thinking. He’s manipulative, and that might be exactly what he wants. If you try to outthink him, you’ll only hurt your head.”
“Not Aames.”
“What, those people in the lounge? Is that what they were laughing about?”
Anthony glared at me. “Laughing. Billionaire’s son getting what’s coming to him.” His breathing was becoming more regular. “Phonies. But not the first. Always want something from me, but I see through them.”
“Then why do you care what they think?”
Anthony straightened and snarled. “Not them, my dad! He thinks I can’t do this. He thinks I don’t have to.” His breathing was even, but now he hesitated for a different reason, choking back his emotions. “He thinks Aames is just punishing me for grabbing you.” He swallowed. “Doctor, I’m so sorry. I was drunk, and I was completely out of line. It won’t happen again.”
“Damn straight it won’t, next time I’ll punch you for sure.” But I smiled as I said it. “We can pretend it never happened, Mr. Holmes, if that will help with your father.”
“Please, call me Anthony. When people call me Mr. Holmes, it usually means they want something.”
“All right, Anthony. Call me—”
Anthony held up a hand. “I’ll call you Doctor. The captain wants me to respect his officers.” He tried to smile, but it faded, and he shook his head again. “But it won’t help with Dad; he just wants this over. He thinks I should just put up a show for a while, and Aames will get bored. He says not even a week, just a few days. He says, ‘Put in a minimum for a few days, satisfy Aames. Even you can do that.’ Even you.”
I turned away, and so did the guard. It looked like Anthony was about to cry, and we didn’t want to make things worse for him. Looking toward the wall, I replied, “Anthony, you can’t do this if you keep pushing this hard. You’re on the edge of exhaustion. But you can, you will do this if you just build up. At your age and in your condition, you can keep this up all day, once you work up to it. But if you go trying to prove something to your dad, you’re going to prove him right. If you want to prove him wrong, you’re going to have to work smarter. Can you do that?”
“Yes, Doctor.”
He sounded more in control, so I turned back to him. “We’ll finish this half hour, walking. You’ve already overexerted yourself this watch. Then I’ll set up a pace schedule for you, building up gradually as you go; and you will stick to that pace no matter who tries to push you harder. Tell them it’s doctor’s orders. Understood?”
Anthony managed to smile at that. “Even Captain Aames?”
“You let me handle Captain Aames. Just concentrate on your workout plan, and you’ll show him. And your dad.”
“Yes, Doctor.” And we started walking. And talking. And despite myself, I found myself coming to like him. Anthony drunk was obnoxious, but Anthony sober was a pretty nice kid.
Not that I would call Anthony a kid to his face, not like the captain did. I could see his pride was mostly a defense, and it could be easily battered. But he was a kid. Not chronologically—I had known twenty-year-old soldiers and EMTs and astronauts who were by no means kids—but in terms of experience. Poor Anthony at twenty had never had to do anything, not anything hard. Oh, he had been places, symbolic trips to half the world. He had been on aid missions as a front man for the Holmes Trust, and he had done symbolic spadework for the cameras; but it was never real, never anything he had to do because the job had to be done and he was the only one to do it. It was all just tourism masquerading as effort. And this Mars expedition was more of the same: Anton wanted to “expose” him to the world, but Anthony never even had to finish a job. As soon as the media attention drifted, Anton would whisk him back home while other people did the hard work. This one little thing, this ninety minutes of running every day, may have been the most sustained effort Anthony had ever put forth.
I had just dropped off to sleep that night when my comm chimed. I lay in bed, eyes closed, and called out, “Comm, answer. This is Dr. Baldwin, is anything wrong?”
Captain Aames’s voice came through the comm, and my eyes snapped open in the darkness. “Baldwin, what the hell’s up with changing my orders for Anthony Holmes?”
I was glad my comm camera was off so the captain couldn’t see my face. “I changed my orders, Captain, because in my judgment he can’t handle the way he was pushing himself. He’s out of shape; he needs to work up to that pace. Otherwise he’ll break down before he ever gets to Mars.”
“Good. If that keeps him off Mars, that’s better for everyone.”
“What? I thought you were doing this to get him ready for Mars.”
“Doctor, I’m not interested in getting him ready. I just want to test him and find his limits. And if those limits keep him off Mars, so be it. Let me test him.”
“Captain, he can do this. Give him a chance.”
“You can give him a chance if you want, Doctor. Not my concern.”
“But his health is my concern. This little game of yours isn’t. My order stands. Comm off.”
I pulled my covers over my head. It took nearly an hour for me to calm down enough to fall asleep.
Monitoring Anthony’s progress was most of how I passed my time at first. Our work in the infirmary was light: periodic screenings, treatment of minor injuries, monitoring of health and nutrition, and lots of paperwork to send back to Earth. We were staffed to cover unexpected emergencies, which meant we had plenty of time to cover normal operations.
We were a week out from the gravipause when I came into the infirmary and found Dr. Santana with a patient: Major Adika. The major sat on an exam table, shirtless, as Santana ran a scanner over his shoulder. I couldn’t help staring: Adika’s muscles were even more impressive without the shirt; but more impressive yet were the scars.
Then I noticed the major smiling at me, and I realized that I was staring. “Excuse me, I have work to do.” My face felt warm as I ducked into my office.
I found myself reading the same page of the same routine report for the third time and still not noticing what I read, when Dr. Santana came into my office. There was an odd smile on his face. “Dr. Baldwin, I think you should see this patient.”
“What? Push me his chart. Is there something wrong?”
Santana’s smile grew. “No, Doctor. I think you should see him. He asked for you. Personally.”
I flushed again. “Oh. Thank you.” I stood, felt my hair to see if it was out of place, and walked back into the infirmary.
Major Adika still sat on the exam table, still shirtless. I fought to keep my eyes on his face so as not to get flustered. “So, Major, what’s the problem today?”
Then he smiled, and I got flustered despite my plan. “I think I have pulled a muscle in my shoulder.”
Those muscles? I can’t believe that. But I resisted saying that out loud. “How did this happen?”
“Oh, it was a foolish thing. I was sparring with the captain in the gymnasium, and he got the better of me with one of his capoeira moves. He sent me tumbling, and I grabbed a grip to stop myself; but I failed to account for the ship’s spin, and I felt a pull. Or possibly a tear.”
“I see. Well, Dr. Santana has already examined you, but l
et me take a look.” I pulled out my scanner and ran it over his shoulder. As I did, I got a close-up look at those scars. One ran from his right clavicle almost to his spleen. Another crossed his left bicep like a tattoo. There were smaller scars all over his torso, including one circular red tear in his right deltoid that I was sure was from a bullet. “This isn’t your first injury by any means, Major. You’ve lived a dangerous life.”
“Mine is a dangerous profession, Doctor.”
“Are there a lot of attacks on Mr. Holmes?”
“No, but I have been a bodyguard for only a few years. Before that, I was in Initiative Security, Rapid Response Team. This job is a vacation after that.”
“Uh-huh.” I lowered the scanner. “Well, Major, you’re correct: it’s a muscle pull, nothing torn. I prescribe a few sessions of massage and some analgesic cream.” I looked back to his face. “But I’m not sure why Dr. Santana couldn’t have prescribed that.”
Adika put his shirt back on, and the big grin came back. “But then I would be asking Dr. Santana if he is free for dinner tonight, not you. He is a very nice gentleman, but I would prefer your company, Doctor.”
Again my face felt warm, but I kept my voice steady as I answered, “I would like that, Major.”
“Please, call me Chuks.”
After that, Chuks and I spent a lot of time together, as our duties allowed. I learned to appreciate his quiet humor, his enthusiasm for space, his dedication to duty, and his gentle strength. He was a good man, and comfortable to be with. He was proud of his homeland, Nigeria, and proud of his warrior heritage. Although he was powerful and skilled and capable of great violence, he saw restraint as the mark of the true warrior: violence was a tool he used to protect the weak and defend what he believed in, not an end in itself and not something that drove him. Knowing how hard it was to restrain my own temper sometimes, I was impressed with how well he had mastered his own. He could be passionate in his mission, but he was always in control.
The Last Dance Page 5