by Ben Bova
There was a tap on the door, and before Wilcox could say a word, the door slid open and a liveried servant pushed in a rolling table laden with covered dishes and a half-dozen bottles of wine.
Surprised, Wilcox began to protest, “I didn’t order—”
Then Martin Humphries walked into the suite, all smiles.
“I thought you’d appreciate a good meal, Hector,” said Humphries. “This is from my own kitchen, not the regular hotel fare.” Gesturing toward the bottles, he added, “From my own cellar, too.”
Wilcox broke into a genuinely pleased smile. “Why, Martin, for goodness’ sake. How kind of you.”
As the waiter silently set out their dinner, Humphries explained, “We shouldn’t be seen in a public restaurant together, and I couldn’t invite you down to my home without it seeming improper…”
“Quite so,” Wilcox agreed. “Too many damnable snoops willing to believe the worst about anyone.”
“So I decided to bring dinner to you. I hope you don’t mind.”
“Not at all! I’m delighted to see you again. How long has it been?”
“I’ve been living here in Selene for more than six years now.”
“Has it been that long?” Wilcox brushed his moustache with a fingertip. “But, eh … aren’t we running the risk of seeming impropriety? After all, with the hearing coming up—”
“No risk at all,” Humphries said smoothly. “This man is a loyal employee of mine, and the hotel people can be relied on to be discreet.”
“I see.”
“You can’t be too careful these days, especially a man in such a high position of trust as you are.”
“Rather,” said Wilcox, smiling as he watched the waiter open the first bottle of wine.
CHAPTER 34
Dorik Harbin looked around the spare one-room apartment. Good enough, he thought. He knew that in Selene, the lower the level of your living quarters, the more expensive. It was mostly nonsense: you were just as safe five meters below the Moon’s surface as you were at fifty or even five hundred. But people let their emotions rule them, just as on Earth they paid more for an upper floor in a condo tower, even though the view might be nothing more than another condo tower standing next door.
He had been tense during the flight in from the Belt. After leaving the crippled Shanidar with an HSS tanker, he had received orders from Grigor to report to Selene. They provided him with a coffin-sized berth on an HSS freighter that was hauling ores to the Moon. Harbin knew that if they were going to assassinate him, this would be the time and place for it.
Apparently Grigor and his superiors believed his claim that he had sent complete records of Shanidar’s campaign of destruction to several friends on Earth. Otherwise they would have gotten rid of him, or tried to. Harbin had no friends on Earth or anywhere else. Acquaintances, yes, several people scattered here and there that he could trust a little. No family; they had all been killed while he was still a child.
Harbin had sent a rough ship’s log from Shanidar to three persons he had known for many years: one had been the sergeant who had trained him in the Peacekeepers, now retired and living in someplace called Pennsylvania; another, the aged imam from his native village; the third was the widow of a man whose murder he had avenged the last time he had visited his homeland.
The instructions he had sent with the logs—a request, really—were to give the data to the news media if they learned that Harbin had died. He knew that if Grigor received orders to kill him, no one on Earth would likely hear of his death. But the faint possibility that Shanidar’s log might be revealed to the public was enough to stay Grigor’s hand. At least, Harbin estimated that it was so.
It would have been easier to keep his murder quiet if they’d killed him on the ship coming in, Harbin thought. The fact that he was now quartered in this one-room apartment in Selene told him that they did not plan to kill him. Not yet, at least.
He almost relaxed. The room was comfortable enough: nearly spacious, compared to the cramped quarters of a spacecraft. The freezer and cupboards were well stocked; Harbin decided to throw everything in the recycler and buy his own provisions in Selene’s food market.
He had his head under the sink, checking to see if there were any unwanted attachments to his water supply, when he heard a light tap at his door.
Grigor, he thought. Or one of his people.
He got to his feet, closed the cabinet, and walked six steps to the door, feeling the comfortable solidity of the electrodagger strapped to the inside of his right wrist, beneath the loose cuff of his tunic. He had charged the battery in the dagger’s hilt as soon as he had entered the apartment, even before unpacking.
He glanced at the small display plate beside the door. Not Grigor. A woman. Harbin slowly slid the accordion door back, balanced on the balls of his feet, ready to spring aside if this woman pointed a weapon at him.
She looked surprised. She was almost Harbin’s own height, he saw: slim, with smoky dark skin and darker hair curling over her shoulders. She wore a sleeveless sheer sweater that revealed little but suggested much. Form-fitting slacks and soft, supple-looking boots.
“You are Dorik Harbin?” she asked, in a silky contralto voice.
“Who are you?” he countered.
“Diane Verwoerd,” she said, stepping into the room, forcing Harbin to swing back from the doorway so she could enter. “I’m Martin Humphries’s personal assistant.”
Diane looked him up and down and saw a tall, lean, hard-looking man with a fierce dark beard and a world of suspicion in his cold blue eyes. Strange, startling eyes, she thought. Dead man’s eyes. Killer’s eyes. He was wearing ordinary coveralls that looked faded from long use, but clean and crisp as a military uniform. A strong, muscled body beneath the clothes, she judged. An impressive man, for a hired killer.
“I was expecting Grigor,” Harbin said.
“I hope you’re not disappointed,” she said, heading for the couch across the room.
“Not at all. You said you are Mr. Humphries’s personal assistant?”
She sat and crossed her long legs. “Yes.”
“Will I meet him?”
“No. You will deal with me.”
He did not reply. Instead, Harbin went to the refrigerator and took out a bottle of wine. She watched him open it, then search in the cabinet above the sink for wine glasses. Is he using this time to think of what he should say? Verwoerd asked herself. Finally he pulled out two simple tumblers and splashed some wine into them.
“I arrived only a few hours ago,” he said, handing her one glass, then pulling up the desk chair to sit facing her. “I don’t know where things are yet.”
“I hope this room is comfortable for you,” she said.
“It will do.”
She waited for him to say more, but he simply studied her with those icepick blue eyes. Not undressing her. There was nothing sexual in it. He was… she tried to find the right word: controlled. That’s it: he’s completely under control. Every gesture, every word he speaks. I wonder what he looks like beneath the beard, Verwoerd thought. Is he the ruggedly handsome type, or does the beard hide a weak chin? Ruggedly handsome, she guessed.
The silence stretched. She took a sip of the wine. Slightly bitter. Perhaps it will improve after it’s breathed a while. Harbin did not touch his wine; he simply held the glass in his left hand and kept his eyes riveted on her.
“We have a lot to discuss,” she said at last.
“I suppose that’s true.”
“You seem to be afraid that we want to get rid of you.”
“That’s what I would do if I were in your position. I’m a liability to you now, isn’t that so?”
He’s brutally frank, she thought. “Mr. Harbin, please let me assure you that we have no intention of causing you harm.”
He smiled at that, and she saw strong white teeth behind the dense black beard.
“In fact, Mr. Humphries has told me to give you a bonus for the work
you’ve done.”
He gave her a long, hard look, then said, “Why don’t we stop this fencing? You wanted me to kill Fuchs and I failed. Now he’s here in Selene ready to testify that you’re behind the attacks on prospectors’ ships. Why should you pay me a bonus for that?”
“We’ll pay for your silence, Mr. Harbin.”
“Because you know that if you kill me the ship’s log will go to the news media.”
“We have no intention of killing you.” Verwoerd nodded toward his untouched glass. “You can drink all the wine you want.”
He put the tumbler down on the thinly carpeted floor. “Ms. Verwoerd—”
“Diane,” she said, before she had a chance to think about it.
He tilted his head slightly. “Diane, then. Let me explain how this looks to me.”
“Please do.” She noted that he did not tell her to use his first name.
“Your corporation hired me to scare the independent prospectors out of the Belt. I knocked off several of their ships, but this man Fuchs caused a fuss. Then you instructed me to get rid of Fuchs, and this I failed to do.”
“We are disappointed, Mr. Harbin, but that doesn’t mean there’s any reason for you to fear for your safety.”
“Doesn’t it?”
“We’ll handle this hearing. In a way, it’s an opportunity for us to deal with Fuchs in a different manner. Your part of this operation is finished. All we want to do is pay you off and thank you for your work. I know it wasn’t easy.”
“People like you don’t come to people like me for easy jobs,” Harbin said.
He’s not afraid, Verwoerd saw. He’s not frightened or disappointed or angry. He’s like a block of ice. No visible emotions. No, she corrected herself. He’s more like a panther, a lithe, deadly predator. Every muscle in his body under control, every nerve alert and ready. He could kill me in an instant if he wanted to.
She felt strangely thrilled. I wonder what he would be like if I could break through that control of his. What would it be like to have all that pent-up energy inside me? Not now. Later, she commanded herself. After the hearing is over. If we come out of the hearing okay, then I can relax with him. If we don’t… I’d hate to be the one sent to terminate him. If it comes to that, we’ll need a team of people for the job. A team of very good people.
Then she thought, Why think about terminating him? Use him!
Can I make him loyal to me? she asked herself. Can I use him for my personal agenda? Smiling inwardly, she thought, It could be fun. It could be very pleasurable.
Aloud, she said, “There is one more task you could do for us before you…eh, retire.”
“What is that?” he asked, his voice flat, his eyes riveted on hers.
“You’ll have to go to Ceres. I can arrange a high-thrust flight for you. But it must be very quiet; no one is to know. Not even Grigor.”
He stared at her for long, intense moment. “Not even Grigor?” he muttered.
“No. You will report directly to me.”
Harbin smiled at that, and she wondered again how he would look without his beard.
“Do you ever shave?” she asked.
“I was going to, when you knocked at my door.”
Hours later, sticky and sweaty in bed beside him, Diane grinned to herself. Being Delilah was thoroughly enjoyable.
Harbin turned to her and slid a hand across her midriff. “About this business on Ceres,” he said, surprising her.
“Yes?”
“Who do I have to kill?”
CHAPTER 35
Much to Hector Wilcox’s misgiving, Douglas Stavenger inserted himself into the hearing. Two days before the hearing was to begin, Stavenger invited Wilcox to dinner at the Earthview restaurant. Wilcox knew it was not a purely social invitation. If the youthful founder of Selene wanted to be in on the hearing, there was nothing the IAA executive could do about it without raising hackles.
Stavenger was very diplomatic, of course. He offered a conference room in Selene’s offices, up in one of the towers that supported the dome of the Grand Plaza. The price of his hospitality was to allow him to sit in on the hearing.
“It’ll be pretty dull stuff, mostly,” Wilcox warned, over dinner his second night on the Moon.
“Oh, I don’t think so,” said Stavenger, with the bright enthusiasm of a youth. “Anything involving Martin Humphries is bound to be interesting.”
So that’s it, Wilcox said to himself as he picked at his fruit salad. He’s following Martin’s trail.
“You know, Mr. Humphries won’t be present at the hearing,” he said.
“Really?” Stavenger looked surprised. “I thought that Fuchs was accusing him of piracy.”
Wilcox frowned his deepest. “Piracy,” he sneered. “Poppycock.”
Stavenger smiled brightly. “That’s what the hearing is for, isn’t it? To determine the validity of the charge?”
“Oh, yes, of course,” said Wilcox hastily. “To be sure.”
Fuchs had not slept well his first two nights in Selene, and the night before the hearing began he expected to be too jumpy to sleep at all, but strangely, he slept soundly the whole night through. Pancho had come up to Selene and treated him to a fine dinner at the Earthview Restaurant. Perhaps the wine had something to do with my sleeping, he told himself as he brushed his teeth that morning.
He had dreamed, he knew, but he couldn’t remember much of his dreams. Amanda was in them, and George, and some vague dark looming danger. He could not recall any of the details.
When his phone chimed he thought it must be Pancho, ready to pick him up and go with him to the hearing room.
Instead, the wallscreen showed Amanda’s beautiful face. Fuchs felt a rush of joy that she had called. Then he saw that she looked tired, concerned.
“Lars, darling, I’m just calling to wish you well at the hearing and to tell you that I love you. Everything here is going quite well. The prospectors are giving us more business than we can handle, and there hasn’t been a bit of trouble from any of the HSS people.”
Of course not, Fuchs thought. They don’t want to raise any suspicions while this hearing is going on.
“Good luck in the hearing, darling. I’ll be waiting for you to call and tell me how it turned out. I miss you. I love you!”
Her image winked out, the wallscreen went blank. Fuchs glanced at the clock on his bed table, then swiftly ordered the computer to reply to her message.
“The hearing begins in half an hour,” he said, knowing that by the time Amanda heard his words the meeting would almost be starting. “I’m sorry I didn’t bring you with me. I miss you, too. Terribly. I’ll call as soon as the hearing ends. And I love you, too, my precious. With all my heart.”
The phone chimed again. This time it was Pancho. “Rise and shine, Lars, ol’ buddy. Time to get this bronco out of the chutes.”
Fuchs was disappointed that Humphries did not show up for the hearing. On thinking about it, though, he was not surprised. The man is a coward who sends others to do his dirty work for him, he thought.
“Hey, look,” Pancho said as they entered the conference room. “Doug Stavenger’s here.”
Stavenger and half a dozen others were sitting in the comfortable wheeled chairs arranged along one wall of the room. The conference table had been moved to the rear wall and set out with drinks and finger foods. A smaller table was at the other side of the room, flanked by two chairs already occupied by men in business suits. One of them was overweight, ruddy, red-haired; the other looked as lean and jittery as a racing greyhound. They each held palmcomps in their laps. The wallscreen behind the table showed the black and silver logo of the International Astronautical Society. Two clusters of chairs had been arranged in front of the table. George and Nodon were already seated there. Fuchs saw that the other set was fully occupied by what he presumed to be HSS personnel.
“Good luck, buddy,” Pancho whispered, gesturing Fuchs toward the chairs up front. She went back to sit be
side Stavenger.
Wondering idly who was paying for the food and drink that had been set out, Fuchs took the chair between Big George and Nodon. He had barely sat down when one of the men seated up front announced, “This hearing will come to order. Mr. Hector Wilcox, chief counsel of the International Astronautical Authority, presiding.”
Everyone got to their feet, and a gray-haired distinguished-looking gentleman in a Saville Row three-piece suit came in from the side door and took his place behind the table. He put a hand-sized computer on the table and flicked it open. Fuchs noticed that an aluminum carafe beaded with condensation and a cut crystal glass rested on a corner of the table.
“Please be seated,” said Hector Wilcox. “Let’s get this over with as efficiently as we can.”
It begins, Fuchs said to himself, his heart thudding under his ribs, his palms suddenly sweaty.
Wilcox peered in his direction. “Which of you is Lars Fuchs?”
“I am,” said Fuchs.
“You have charged Humphries Space Systems with piracy, have you not?”
“I have not.”
Wilcox’s brows shot toward his scalp. “You have not?”
Fuchs was amazed at his own cheek. He heard himself say, “I do not charge a corporation with criminal acts. I charge a person, the man who heads that corporation: Martin Humphries.”
Wilcox’s astonishment turned to obvious displeasure.
“Are you implying that the acts you call piracy—which have yet to be established as actually occurring—were deliberately ordered by Mr. Martin Humphries?”
“That is precisely what I am saying, sir.”
On the other side of the makeshift aisle, a tall, dark-haired woman rose unhurriedly to her feet.
“Your honor, I am Mr. Humphries’s personal assistant, and on his behalf I categorically deny this charge. It’s ludicrous.”