by Ben Bova
Surprised, Loris asked, “My scent?”
Bricknell pulled a palm-sized capsule from his pocket. “Chemical sniffer. Very sensitive.”
“You keep track of me?”
“Naturally. I want to know where you are at every instant, day or night.”
Loris snatched the capsule out of Mance’s open hand and threw it across the cafeteria. It bounced off the bulkhead and rolled under an empty table. The four crewmen who had just come in at the serving line turned and gaped at her.
“I won’t have you tracking me like some hunted animal,” Loris said, her voice low but trembling with fury.
Bricknell’s smile seemed frozen on his face. Without taking his eyes from her, he said, “I care about you, Loris. I won’t have you trekking around this ship with Tray or anyone else unless I’m with you.”
Tray saw a hard, unbendable purpose behind Bricknell’s toothy smile.
NOTHING TO HIDE
Lunch was pretty desolate. Mance prattled about the ship’s trajectory back toward Earth while Loris and Tray remained silent, picking at their lunches. Para made some conversation with Bricknell, but it was desultory, pointless.
At last they left the cafeteria and headed back to their quarters. Loris entered her billet alone and swiftly closed its hatch behind her. Tray heard its lock click, leaving him, Para, and Bricknell standing in the passageway.
“H’mmph,” Bricknell grunted, staring at the locked hatch. “The course of true love ne’er ran smooth, I suppose,” he misquoted.
Tray looked at him. Bricknell was smiling: ruefully, but still smiling.
“Maybe we should fight a duel,” Tray suggested.
“You are a throwback,” Bricknell sniffed. “A real atavism. Hopeless.”
Tray heard himself retort, “Oh, I have some hopes.”
Bricknell’s smile vanished. “Don’t count on them,” he snapped. “You’re out of your league, mister.”
“We’ll see.”
“Yes, we certainly will.” With that, Mance turned on his heel and marched down the passageway, toward his own quarters. As he watched Bricknell’s retreating back, Tray realized that the historian was at least a couple of centimeters taller than himself.
Once in his own compartment, Tray sank tiredly onto his bunk. Loris is on the other side of that bulkhead, he knew. At least she’s alone. But he longed to be with her.
* * *
The next morning, as he dressed, Tray heard his communicator announce, “Message from President Balsam.”
He glanced at Para, standing in the corner of the compartment. The android didn’t move, yet Tray knew it had heard the announcement as well.
“Answer,” he said.
Balsam’s bulky form took shape in the middle of the small room, suddenly making it seem crowded.
“Tray,” the image said without preamble, “Captain Tsavo tells me your android has been trying to gain access to the maintenance records for the Athena module.”
Surprised, Tray admitted, “Yes, that’s true.”
For a couple of heartbeats Balsam’s image sat frozen in the compartment. Tray realized Jove’s Messenger was still several light-seconds away from Earth.
At last Balsam said, “We ought to talk about this. Why don’t we talk this over after you’ve had your breakfast.” His face looked somehow sorrowful, almost despondent.
“We could talk it over right now,” Tray said.
Again the wait. Then, “No, no. Have your breakfast first. I’m in the middle of a session with my staff here at the Capitol. Should be finished by the time you have your breakfast.”
“All right,” Tray said, “I’ll call you as soon as I’ve finished breakfast.”
“Good,” said Balsam. “Good. And just you and me, please. Not your android.”
“Very well,” said Tray, reluctantly.
Balsam’s image winked out. Tray looked at Para. “He wants to see me, but not you.”
“Interesting,” said the android.
A thousand possible scenarios raced through Tray’s mind. Maybe … maybe …
“Don’t get your hopes up,” Para warned. “He’s not going to admit anything or allow you to uncover evidence that could harm him. Not willingly.”
“Yes, I guess so,” Tray said. “But it’s better than being totally shut out, isn’t it?”
“I wonder,” said Para.
* * *
Tray rushed through breakfast in the cafeteria, then returned to his quarters and called Balsam. Para quietly stepped outside. It took several minutes to get through the Council president’s staff flunkies, but at last Balsam appeared in Tray’s compartment, looking slightly flushed, almost unready for their meeting.
“This staff meeting is dragging on much longer than I expected,” Balsam’s image said. “Should be over by eleven o’clock, though. If it isn’t I’ll tell the staff that we’ll continue it later. Can you call me again at eleven, Tray?”
“Eleven o’clock, yes, sir.”
“Good.”
“Will Captain Tsavo join us?”
“No,” Balsam snapped. “Just the two of us. Just you and me.”
Tray nodded as Balsam’s image winked out.
* * *
Tray’s wristwatch read precisely eleven a.m. as Harold Balsam’s image appeared in his cramped compartment. The Council president was seated at his desk, smiling broadly at Tray.
From what he could see of Balsam’s office, the Council president’s surroundings were quite luxurious. His desk was wide and gently curved. Behind it hung a broad image of stars and swirling nebulae. And why not? Tray asked himself. He’s the head of the government not only of the solar system, but of the new worlds we’ve discovered around other stars. Looking around at the luxurious furnishings, the paintings on the walls, the bottles lined up behind the curving teak bar in the corner, Tray realized that Balsam’s personal fortune must be enormously large.
The room looked like a handsome study, comfortable, relaxing. But somehow Tray didn’t feel relaxed at all.
“Well, here we are,” said Balsam, gesturing toward a commodious cushioned easy chair. “I hope you had a good breakfast.”
“Quite good,” said Tray. “Thank you.”
Balsam pushed himself up from his commodious chair and headed for the bar. “After the session with my staff I’ve just been through, I deserve a drink.”
Tray made a smile.
As he puttered with the glassware behind the bar, Balsam said, “Tsavo tells me you want to examine the maintenance records for the Athena module.”
“Yes. Lieutenant Sheshardi said the controls jammed up somehow. He couldn’t get the vessel to rise up to the surface.”
“Bad business,” Balsam muttered. He held up a cocktail glass filled to the brim and squinted at it. “That looks about right.”
As Balsam came around the bar to sit again in his desk chair, he said, “I want you to know, Tray, that I have nothing to hide. You can comb through the maintenance files as much as you want. Tsavo might get pissed off, but I’m the owner of the ship, and as long as I am you can have complete access to any of our maintenance records.”
Tray blinked with surprise. “Why … thank you, Mr. Balsam.”
Balsam chuckled. “Call me Harold. Officially, you should address me as President Balsam, but just between the two of us we can junk all that spit and polish.”
“Thank you … Harold.”
“You’re entirely welcome. I realize that Kell’s death has been a special shock to you. I want to do everything I can to help you get over it.”
Tray suddenly got the feeling he was talking with a smiling, scheming, cunning manipulator.
I’m out of my league, he realized. This man is way ahead of me.
“ONE MAY SMILE…”
For the next two days and nights, Tray and Para searched through the maintenance records that Captain Tsavo reluctantly gave them access to.
On its way back to Earth, Jove’s Messenger
swept through the Asteroid Belt, that bleak stretch of darkness that was home to countless bodies of rock and ice spread so far apart that the zone seemed desolately empty to Tray.
It was nearly midnight when Para looked up from the screen it had been studying and pointed to the viewport on Tray’s bedroom bulkhead.
A tiny red dot was glowing in the eternal night.
“Mars,” said Para.
Tray stared at the image on the screen. “Mars,” he agreed. “We’re nearing home.”
But as he turned his attention back to the maintenance records on his computer screen, Tray added, “And we haven’t found an iota of data that indicates sabotage of the Athena.” Before Para could reply, he added, “Or of Kell’s suit.”
Para dipped its chin once in acknowledgment. “I have come to the conclusion that Captain Tsavo has not altered the maintenance records.”
“But he must have!” Tray bleated.
“No,” Para insisted. “I have come to the conclusion that Captain Tsavo has had the entire maintenance record rewritten, from beginning to end. We won’t find any alterations in the record because it hasn’t been altered. What we are examining is a new record, rewritten from its first line to its last.”
Tray stared at the android for a long, silent moment. Then he asked, “Completely rewritten?”
“I believe so.”
“Then we’ve been wasting our time.”
“Indeed. I imagine President Balsam and Captain Tsavo are having a hearty laugh at our expense.”
“Damn!” Tray snapped. “The sneaky bastards.”
“I could be wrong, of course,” Para admitted.
“No, I think you’re entirely correct. This entire log we’ve been poring through is a waste of time. We won’t find any erasures or corrections because there aren’t any. They’ve rewritten it from top to bottom.”
“Very clever of them.”
“Damned clever,” Tray groused. “Balsam sat there and told me he had nothing to hide. ‘A man may smile, and smile, and still be a villain.’”
“A slight misquote,” Para said. “From Hamlet, act one, scene five.”
“Whatever,” said Tray, disgusted that Balsam had outwitted him so easily.
* * *
The next morning Jove’s Messenger skimmed almost exactly a thousand kilometers past Mars, close enough for Tray and Para to see the plastic domes of the research station on the edge of the Great Rift Valley, that sinuous crack in the planet’s crust that stretched almost a quarter of the way across the planet.
“Strange,” Para noted. “We’re picking up speed from Mars’s gravity well. I would think Captain Tsavo would be slowing down as we approach Earth.”
“Maybe he’s in a hurry to get home,” Tray suggested.
Para didn’t reply, but Tray got the feeling that the android was puzzled.
By dinnertime Mars was behind them, and Tray could see on the viewscreen mounted on the dining room’s bulkhead the faint blue crescent of Earth, with the even fainter sliver of the Moon near it.
“Going home,” Loris said.
“At last,” said Bricknell.
Para shook its head slightly. “Our velocity is much higher than it needs to be. Unless Captain Tsavo orders a braking maneuver we will sail past Earth and head for the inner solar system.”
“Why would he do that?” Tray wondered.
Pointing to the other side of the dining room with its eyes, Para said, “The captain is sitting there, with some of his staff. I suppose we could ask them.”
“Disturb them at dinner?” Loris asked. “That’s not polite.”
Tray said, “We could wait until they start to leave their table, then ask.”
Bricknell pushed his plate away from him. “Well, Tray, you’ve succeeded in spoiling my appetite.”
“I didn’t mean to!”
“Whether you meant it or not…”
Para looked down at the remains of Bricknell’s dinner. There was nothing on the plate except crumbs and a crust of bread.
“Perhaps you ate too fast,” the android suggested. “Perhaps you are full.”
Loris couldn’t suppress a giggle. “Maybe you need to burp, Mance.”
He grinned at her. “Would you like to burp me, Mommy?”
Her smile fading, Loris answered, “Not very likely, Mance.”
Silence descended on their table. Tray started eating again, slowly, one eye on the table where Tsavo and his crew sat. They seemed to be deep in conversation.
I wonder what they’re talking about, Tray asked himself.
* * *
It seemed to take hours, but at last Tsavo and his people pushed their chairs away from their table and got to their feet. Tray immediately stood up and moved past the other tables to intercept them.
“Captain Tsavo,” he called as he approached. “May I ask you a question?”
Tsavo’s dark face smiled pleasantly, almost as if he had expected Tray to accost him.
“Of course,” his deep voice rumbled. “Might it have something to do with our increase in velocity?”
“Yes, sir,” Tray replied. “Why did we speed up when we passed Mars?”
“We’ve been asked by the Interplanetary Council to get back home as fast as we can.”
Tray blinked at him.
Tsavo amended, “The Council’s message said, ‘With all deliberate speed.’ That’s why we slingshotted past Mars.”
“With all deliberate speed,” Tray echoed.
His dark face emotionless, the captain explained, “Jordan Kell’s sycophants on the Council want to open an inquiry into Kell’s death.”
“They do?”
“Of course,” said Tsavo. “A former Council president. Naturally they want to find out what happened.”
“Naturally,” Tray echoed.
With a rueful shake of his head Tsavo said, “It’s all political grandstanding. They won’t find anything more than you did.”
Because you rewrote the maintenance records, Tray replied silently.
Tsavo went on, “We’ll have to do a braking maneuver as we approach the Moon.”
“The Moon?” Tray yelped. “We’re not returning to Earth?”
“Standard operational procedure,” Tsavo explained. “This ship and all its records are going to be thoroughly examined by the accident investigation team at Selene.”
“And we’ll have to stay on the Moon?” Tray asked. “For how long?”
“As long as it takes for the investigators to give us a clean bill of health,” said Tsavo.
“Damned piece of bureaucratic nonsense,” one of the crew members grumbled.
But for the first time since they’d returned to Jove’s Messenger Tray felt a tendril of hope.
BOOK THREE
THE MOON
DEBARKATION
Selene was the oldest of the human settlements scattered across the Moon’s bleak, barren landscape. A thriving city, center of humankind’s interplanetary missions, it was almost entirely underground. Tucked into the ringwall mountains of the giant crater Alphonsus, Selene had led the struggle for lunar independence from Earth’s nations and established the first democratic republic on the Moon.
Jove’s Messenger had indeed needed a serious braking maneuver to slow down enough to establish an orbit around the Moon. Tray and all the other guests and crew personnel were required to strap themselves into well-cushioned chairs for the two hours of the deceleration maneuver.
Together with Loris, Bricknell, and Para, Tray went from his quarters to the ship’s dining room, which had been cleared of its tables and customary chairs and decked out in sturdy, commodious deceleration seats.
Even Para seemed impressed. “President Balsam has outfitted his ship very completely,” the android said.
Bricknell was less than overwhelmed. “I’m sure the safety examiners required him to include high-gee equipment.”
Tray sat beside Loris, Bricknell on her other side. Para sat on Tray’s rig
ht and strapped in as required, even though he didn’t have to. Tucked into a pocket on the seat’s armrests were folded bags bearing the designation ZERO GRAVITY RELIEF APPARATUS.
Within minutes of their strapping in, Tray felt an invisible force pressing him into the chair’s cushions. Not enough to be uncomfortable, but recognizable. We’re slowing down, he told himself. We’re going into orbit around the Moon.
The viewscreens on the bulkheads of the dining area showed the Moon hurtling toward them, its surface bare shades of gray. Tray stared at the sight. Not a tree, not a blade of grass, nothing but desolate emptiness.
Then, “There’s Selene!” Bricknell called out, pointing.
Tray saw the ringwall mountains of Alphonsus and, on the plain inside them, huge stretches of solar panels glittering darkly. And astronomical telescopes standing out in the open without protective domes covering them.
“How do they protect the ’scopes from the meteoric infall?” Tray wondered aloud.
Para answered, “Electromagnetic repulsion. The meteorites are charged to a high positive potential as they enter the Alphonsus region, and the telescopes and other equipment are also charged positively. The meteors are shunted aside, to fall beyond the region where the equipment is placed.”
“And that works?” Tray wondered.
“It has for centuries,” Para replied. “Most of the meteors are smaller than snowflakes. Occasionally a larger one makes it through the electromagnetic shielding and causes some damage, but that is comparatively rare.”
The view of Alphonsus swept past and Tray saw again that bleak, desolate surface of bare rock, peppered with craters of every size from finger pokes to hundreds of kilometers across.
Human beings have turned this barren wilderness into a home. Generations of people have been born here and lived out their lives. Selene and the other lunar states were the first steps in humankind’s expansion out to the stars.
At long last Captain Tsavo’s voice announced through the speakers set into the dining room’s ceiling, “We have successfully established orbit around Luna. You can unstrap and get to your feet. Be careful, though: we are now in zero gravity. Watch your step.”