Uranus

by Ben Bova

  Looking alarmed for the first time, Dacco glanced at Waxman, who refused to return his gaze.

  “Well?” Umber demanded. “What is your decision?”

  His shoulders sagging, Dacco said mildly, “I’ll leave. I’ll return to Earth.”

  “Good,” said Umber. “And I’ll pray that God brings you to His path.” Glancing at the others around the small table, he added, “This hearing is ended. Praise God.”

  Raven reached for Tómas’s hand as she echoed, “Praise God.”

  WAXMAN, ABBOTT, AND DACCO

  The Reverend Kyle Umber remained in his chair, hands folded as if in prayer, while the rest of the group got up from the conference table and headed for the door.

  “Evan,” he said, as Waxman went past him. “Please wait. Sit down.”

  Waxman hesitated, then turned around and took the chair at the minister’s left. The others stepped out into the passageway. The door slid shut.

  For a nerve-tightening few seconds, Umber stared into Waxman’s face, as if searching for something, some sign, some expression.

  Impatiently, Waxman said, “Well, what is it, Kyle?”

  “You gave Dacco the combination to Ms. Marchesi’s door control?”

  Waxman’s eyes shifted away from Umber’s face. “I don’t know. I may have.”

  “You did.”

  With a shrug, Waxman said, “What if I did? He was taking a whore to dinner. What happened afterward was only to be expected.”

  “She’s not a whore. Not anymore.”

  Waxman laughed. “She comes to my bed when I want her to.”

  “Because you threaten to close the shop she and Ms. Polanyi have opened.”

  “That’s just her excuse. She’s a whore, plain and simple.”

  Umber stared at him, his face a frigid mask. Then, “I want your resignation, Evan. It pains me to say it, but I don’t see how we can continue with you heading this habitat’s administration.”

  For a moment Waxman looked surprised. Then his face broke into a wide grin. “My resignation! You want me to resign. That’s rich. Kyle, you’re really very funny.”

  “This is not a laughing matter.”

  “Yes it is,” Waxman retorted. “It’s ridiculous. You think you have the power to fire me? That’s beyond ridiculous. It’s ludicrous. It’s—”

  Calmly, Umber interrupted, “And this drug trafficking has to stop, as well. I won’t have it.”

  “You won’t have it? Hah! You’ve got it, Kyle. You’re stuck with it! How do you think we keep this home for runaway bums and prostitutes running? By prayer? It’s the money we take in from Rust and other narcotics that keeps Haven afloat financially. Cut that off and you’ll be out of business in less than a year.”

  “God will find a way to keep us going.”

  “God’s already found the way, and I’m administrating it. Open your eyes, Kyle!”

  “I won’t have it.”

  “You’ve got it. And I’ve got the Council. Try to oust me and they’ll laugh in your face. Maybe they’ll vote to kick you out of Haven.”

  “They wouldn’t do that.”

  “Oh no? Don’t be so sure. You’re just a figurehead, Kyle. We could find another one easily enough.”

  “You wouldn’t!”

  “Don’t tempt me.”

  Umber sagged in his chair. Waxman stared at him, gloating, for a few moments, then got up and walked out of the conference room, leaving the minister sitting there, alone and silent.

  * * *

  Tómas Gomez walked Raven to her door. She tapped out the entry code on the door’s keyboard and gestured him to enter.

  Glancing up at the passageway’s ceiling, Tómas said, “I think I’d better not, Raven.”

  With a smile, she replied, “Not even for lunch?”

  Obviously torn, Tómas said, “I have a lot of work ahead of me. An enormous amount.”

  “You can tell me about it over lunch.”

  He broke into a sheepish grin. “All right. But it’s all astronomical stuff.”

  “Tell me about it. Teach me.”

  Tómas nodded, smiled and followed Raven into her quarters.

  * * *

  The clock on Abbott’s desktop computer read 1:45 as Tómas came through the door. Vincente Zworkyn, sitting in front of Abbott’s desk, turned to greet the new arrival.

  From his chair behind the desk, Abbott asked, “How’d the hearing go?”

  Striding to the empty upholstered chair in front of the desk, Tómas answered, “Reverend Umber ordered Dacco to clear out.”

  “Really?”

  “Really,” Tómas replied. Hunching forward in his chair, he said, “Now let’s get down to work.”

  With a nod, Abbott said, “You’ve put yourself into a lovely trap, my boy.”

  “Trap?”

  “Yes indeed. Vincente and I have been going over the available data, and it looks awfully slim.”

  Zworkyn said, “The estimates of the moons ejected from orbits around Uranus are nothing more than that: estimates. They’re based on theoretical conjectures, not observational facts.”

  Tómas nodded. “But they’re all we’ve got to go on.”

  “Yes,” said Abbott. “And you want to use these guesses to—”

  “They’re more than guesses,” Tómas objected. “They’re based on backtracking the orbits of Uranus’s existing moons.”

  “Not much better than guesses,” Abbott said.

  Zworkyn said nothing.

  His back stiffening, Tómas said, “Well, it’s the best we’ve got. We’ll have to work with that.”

  Smoothing his moustache with a finger, Abbott said, “I was afraid that would be your response.”

  “It’s better than nothing,” Zworkyn offered.

  “Not by much,” said Abbott.

  Tómas asked, “How much time can we get on Big Eye?”

  “That depends on when we want the time,” Abbott replied. “It varies from twelve to maybe twenty-four hours.”

  “Hours?” Tómas gasped.

  Abbott nodded. “Time is a precious commodity.”

  “Hours,” said Zworkyn. “That means we’ll have to have a pretty damned precise estimate of the moon’s location before we ask the Big Eye people for some time.”

  “Hours,” Tómas muttered. “Hours.”

  Abbott commiserated. “It’s going to be like asking a blind man to find a penny in a dark alley.”

  “Worse,” said Zworkyn.

  Abbott shook his head. To Tómas he said, “You’re going to need an incredible amount of luck, my boy.”

  “Luck, mi trasero,” Tómas growled. “We’re going to need to work our tails off. And then some.”

  * * *

  His healing leg propped up on the bed of his stateroom, Noel Dacco repeated to his visitor, “I don’t want any slip-ups.”

  His visitor was wearing the sky-blue uniform of one of Haven’s security police, a sergeant’s chevrons on its sleeve, the name JACOBI lettered on an ID card pinned to his jacket’s chest. He nodded knowingly. “There won’t be any slip-ups. We’ve done this kind of thing before. Plenty times.”

  “For what I’m paying you,” Dacco went on, his voice low and hard, “I want the job done right.”

  Jacobi was slight of build, his face all bones and glittering eyes, his hair shaved down to a thin fuzz. “It’ll be done right. Just as you said.”

  “Break his leg, fracture his skull. Maybe pop some ribs for good measure.”

  “Look,” Sergeant Jacobi said, “my people know what they’re doing. We control our whole section of the habitat. Somebody gets out of line, we bring them back where they belong.”

  Dacco stared at the man. “Make it look like an accident. But make sure he knows who did it to him.”

  “He’ll know. I’ll tell him myself.”

  “Good.”

  The overhead speaker announced, “Departure in fifteen minutes. All visitors must return to the habitat.”
>
  Jacobi got to his feet. “Gotta go.”

  Dacco nodded. “His name is—”

  “Tómas Gomez,” said Jacobi. “You already told me.”

  “Let me know when it’s done.”

  “Right.”

  Jacobi left the narrow stateroom. Dacco stared at the closed door for long minutes. Give the snotty little bastard what he deserves, he told himself. Break him up real good.

  NEEDLE IN A HAYSTACK

  “These are estimates, Tómas,” said Zworkyn, his voice edging close to exasperation. “Not much better than guesses.”

  The two men were sitting side by side in Zworkyn’s quarters, staring at a wall screen that showed the planet Uranus surrounded by dozens of tiny moons.

  Without taking his eyes from the screen, Gomez muttered, “When you’re given a lemon, make lemonade.”

  Zworkyn sighed dramatically. “I just don’t see how you’re going to get anything useful from these wild-ass guesses.”

  Gomez turned in his chair to look at the engineer. “They’re more than guesses, Vincente. They’re based on backtracking the orbits of the moons now in orbit around Uranus.”

  “With error bars on the estimates that are bigger than the orbits themselves.”

  “That’s what we have to work with. We’ll have to project these estimates and see where they lead us.”

  Zworkyn shook his head. “You have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat.”

  Gomez smiled thinly. “Not much blood, but plenty of toil and sweat.”

  Smiling back at the younger man, Zworkyn said, “I understand. You’re telling me to stop crabbing and get to work.”

  “Sort of. The computers will do most of the actual work. All we have to do is to program them correctly.”

  Zworkyn puffed out a sigh. “All right. Tell me what you need me to do.”

  * * *

  Sitting behind the boutique’s central counter, tapping out the command to close the shop’s blinds, Alicia asked Raven, “How’s Tómas?”

  Raven was straightening up a rack of dresses that had been pawed through by several customers. She shrugged her slim shoulders. “I haven’t seen much of him this past week. He looks tired, but kind of happy.”

  “Like I feel,” Alicia said, leaning back in her padded chair. It had been their busiest day ever; from the moment they’d opened that morning the shop had been filled with eager, chattering women fondling through the merchandise on display.

  “How’d we do today?” Raven asked.

  Pointing at her computer screen with a happy smile, Alicia said, “Best day ever. We’re going to need to restock our inventory sooner than we thought.”

  “Wonderful!”

  “But Tómas,” Alicia asked again. “How is he?”

  “Like I said,” Raven replied. “Tired but happy.”

  “Have you set a date for the wedding?”

  Raven shook her head. “Not yet. He’s too busy with his astronomy work to even think about a wedding.”

  “But you do plan to get married, don’t you?”

  “He insists on it. Says we’re living in sin and he wants to make an honest woman of me.”

  Alicia couldn’t help giggling. “He must have been raised Catholic.”

  “What else?”

  Suddenly Alicia’s expression changed. Her smile faded. Her eyes misted over.

  Raven stared at her friend. “What’s the matter?”

  Getting up from her chair, Alicia answered, “Nothing much. I’m jealous, that’s all.”

  “Jealous?” Raven came away from the clothing rack, stepped around the counter and embraced her friend.

  “Alicia, there must be at least three or four men to every woman in this habitat…”

  “I know,” said Alicia. “But look at me. Skin and bones. A recovering drug addict. Who’d want me?”

  Raven held her by both shoulders and stared into her eyes. “You’ve got good bones. And a pretty face. All you need is to put on a few kilos and you’ll be stunning.”

  With a forlorn nod, Alicia said, “My parents never married. I don’t think their parents were married, either.” She shook her head. “But there it is. Wedding bells. I’m like a teenager.”

  “It’s natural,” Raven said.

  “But not for me.”

  “Don’t be so sure.”

  “Easy for you to say.”

  Raven smiled at her friend. “You do have to make an effort. You can’t sit in this shop and then go straight home.”

  Smiling back faintly, Alicia said, “And then get up the next morning and come straight to the shop.”

  “We need to find somebody to make a foursome out of us.”

  “I don’t want to tangle up your relationship with Tómas.”

  “Nonsense. We’ll get started on this right away.”

  “But—”

  Raven placed a fingertip on Alicia’s lips. “No buts. You allowed me to join you here at the shop. The least I can do is help you to find a little happiness.”

  REVENGE

  “It’s useless,” Tómas moaned. “We’re using data that was assumed to be some four billion years old. Nothing more than an educated guess.”

  Sitting across her kitchen’s narrow table from the astronomer, Raven asked, “The data isn’t good enough?”

  Tómas shook his head wearily. “It’s all guesses. Theory. Hot air.”

  “But you said you thought the moons were scattered two million years ago, not four billion.”

  “That’s a guess, too. My guess.”

  “Isn’t there any way to prove that?”

  He stared at her. “Raven, what do you think I’ve been trying to do for the past two weeks? Zworkyn and I have been going through the numbers backward and forward and upside-down! Nothing works!”

  “What about the big moon, Triton? Could you backtrack its orbit or something?”

  “Pah! You don’t understand. You just don’t understand anything!” Tómas pushed his barely touched plate of dinner away and got to his feet.

  “Where are you going?” Raven asked.

  “Back to Zworkyn’s place. At least I can talk to him. He knows what we’re up against.”

  And he stormed out of the kitchen, through the living room, and left Raven sitting at the table alone.

  * * *

  In Haven’s surveillance center, Sergeant Jacobi sat in front of a spare monitor screen. Three other men, all in security department uniforms, hunched behind him.

  “There he is now,” said Jacobi, pointing to Tómas Gomez’s figure as the astronomer left Raven’s quarters.

  The men nodded. “Shouldn’t be much trouble,” said one of them, a chunky, dour-faced Asian.

  “Get him when he’s alone. No witnesses. Plain clothes.”

  “Sure.” Straightening up, the Asian turned to his two companions. “Come on, our shift’s just about over. Let’s get out of these uniforms.”

  “Hoodies,” said Jacobi. “The surveillance cameras won’t be able to identify you.”

  The Asian nodded. He left with the two others following him.

  Jacobi turned back to the monitor screen, a grim smile creasing his face. He whispered, “You’re in for a surprise, smart boy.”

  * * *

  As he stared at the computer’s latest imagery, Vincente Zworkyn shook his head.

  Turning to Gomez, perched tensely beside him on the edge of the sofa, Zworkyn said mournfully, “Another dead end, Tómas.” He pointed at the screen. “See? The trajectory data disappears into the noise.”

  Gomez nodded. “Let’s go on to the next one.”

  “What for?” Zworkyn demanded, his voice rising. “We’ve tracked six of the moons and their paths all get swallowed up in gibberish. It’s hopeless!”

  “We still have a half-dozen more moons to track.”

  “And their trajectories will all end up in the noise, too! Admit it, we’re defeated.”

  His jaw settling into a stubborn scowl, G
omez said, “The information is there, Vincente. I know it is.”

  “No,” Zworkyn countered. “You think it is. You hope it is. That doesn’t mean that it’s really there.”

  “It’s got to be there!”

  “Why? Because you want it to be? The universe doesn’t play favorites, Tómas. You’ve got to know when to fold ’em, buddy.”

  Never! Gomez said to himself. But he slowly got up from the sofa and, without a word, left Zworkyn’s quarters.

  Out in the empty passageway, Tómas debated whether he should go to his own quarters or ask Raven if he could spend the night with her.

  If she’d have me, he said to himself. I treated her pretty shabbily at dinner. He glanced at his wristwatch: almost midnight. She’s probably already asleep.

  Still, he walked to the embarkation center where the shuttle was moored.

  There was only one person at the center, an elderly white-bearded clerk sitting comfortably behind a semicircular desk, intently watching a motion picture of some sort on his desktop screen.

  He looked up as Tómas approached. “Evenin’, Doc. Workin’ late again, huh.”

  Tómas nodded and gave him a half-hearted smile.

  “You’re in luck, Doc,” said the clerk. “We got one bird all primed and ready to go.”

  “Thanks,” said Tómas. He ducked through the hatch and entered the shuttle’s passenger deck. It was empty, except for him.

  “Bon voyage,” called the clerk.

  Tómas made a half-hearted wave for him.

  The shuttles were automated, no crew aboard. Tómas took a seat, the hatch swung shut, and within less than a minute he felt the subtle surge of acceleration. Five minutes later the shuttle made a little lurch that meant it had docked at Haven.

  I wonder if Raven will open her door for me? Tómas asked himself as he stepped through the shuttle’s hatch and into the empty reception area. I wasn’t much fun for her at dinner.

  Still, he walked through the reception area and out into the passageway that led to Raven’s quarters. The passageway was empty, except for a trio of kids in hoodies lounging a few dozen meters up ahead. Tómas paid them no mind.