The Venus Belt

by L. Neil Smith

  “Yes, Koko, and thanks. I’m just rattled a little.” I glanced down at the bangle dangling by its chain from my own unsteady fingers. “And not just from being dumped on like that.” I showed her the medallion. She’d never met an Eye-in-the-Pyramid in person before.

  ***

  Naturally, there was no other trace of the person or persons who’d dropped the medallion—and several thousand ounces of expensive paratronic gear. We found our way back to my stateroom, intending to call the purser or Captain Spoonbill, or whoever was in charge of damaged goods, human and otherwise. But there was that red light, still blinking on my Telecom console.

  “Win?” Clarissa’s voice was strained, I forgot my aching muscles and stripped a mental gear or two worrying about her and the baby at the same time.

  “You okay, honey?”

  “Yes, dear, I’m fine, and so is your daughter. You don’t look so good—are you getting enough exercise?”

  I let it pass.

  “I’m disturbed about Olongo,” she continued. “Remember how I told you he seemed preoccupied last time we saw him?”

  “Sure. He hurried off somewhere as soon as the shuttle lifted.”

  “That’s right. Well, I’ve tried several times to call him, and Win, Vice-President Carlson and the rest of the staff finally admitted this afternoon that he hasn’t been to work for three days. His secretary can’t find him, and neither can his family.”

  I looked over my shoulder. Koko’s eyes were big and round.

  “First Ed,” said my wife, “then Lucy—now Olongo’s disappeared!”

  5: The Blues My Naughty Sweetie Gives to Me

  “Look, Sherlock Junior, the less you worry about your uncle, the sooner we can start figuring out what’s going on.” I lit a cigar, rubbing my rapidly stiffening shoulder.

  Koko gave up her pacing to plunk down wearily on the floor beside the window, in perfect disregard of the terrifying void outside. “You’re right, I guess. Anyway, we don’t really know for sure he’s—”

  “Hold that thought. Now let’s see...Olongo’s Webley: the only time it’s been out of my sight was in the shower, here. And once aboard the shuttle craft. Question is, who booby-trapped it, and why?”

  She grinned up at me, a lot gamer than I’d have expected, given the circumstances. “Try again, Boss. Which booby did they really want to trap?”

  “I see what you mean. Okay, maybe it was already gimmicked when he gave it to me. But, Koko, he’s only the President, who’d want to—”

  “Politics just aren’t important enough to figure into it.” She got an odd look on her face. “Say, you don’t suppose this has anything to do with those two burglaries?”

  A light dawned: “They were never burglaries, at all! Did Olongo mention anything being stolen? No, but he did catch the first intruder fooling with his gun. And the second time around, she walked in boldly, knowing damned well the Webley would blow up in his face! Too bad for her he’d given it to me.”

  She digested that a while. “Then what about the little ballet in the cargo hold this afternoon? If you weren’t the intended...”

  She was right. Someone was sure as hell trying to kill me now, the medallion obviously bait, and the only connection there was to Lucy, not Olongo. That led to another bright idea: “Listen, was it me or the location?”

  “What do you mean?” She held a paw across her mouth, stifling a yawn.

  “Well, I’d begun envisioning some evil-doer lurking around, plotting to bump me off. But maybe they just wanted that shipment left alone.”

  “Why bother? There’s a regular security detail aboard to—”

  “Hell, I don’t know. No customs barriers to get around, no regulated substances in this nutty civilization. Kind of puts a crimp in any smuggling theory.” I scratched my head. When I’d begun this caper, there’d been too little information. Now I seemed to be suffocating under an avalanche of unconnected facts.

  Koko yawned again. “O Guru of Deduction, methinks your mind wandereth.”

  “Don’t worry, it’s too weak to get very far.” My cigar had gone out. I considered relighting it, looked at it again, then chucked it down the disposal. “Back to basics, then: people missing, Ed, Lucy, possibly your uncle, and—hey, don’t get me off the subject—what really disturbs me is that crate. Free trade or not, you’re too young to remember the last time Broach technology wound up in unfriendly hands. I’d like to know why that shipment’s headed for the asteroids. Hell, the only thing the other side of Reality out there is rocks—and none of them with good hotels. Aphrodite, Ltd., is it? Well, we’ve got a chance of pinning that one down, anyway.”

  She watched me belly up to the Telecom. “What you doing, Win?”

  “I just happen to have a little pull at Laporte Paratronics—Deejay and Ooloorie, not to mention the Chairman of the Board himself, Freeman K. Bertram, a Hamiltonian, incidentally, until they tried burning his gizzard out with a laser. Let’s see what they can—”

  “Is that a good idea? I mean, the time-lag’s getting nasty now—and they may not like handing out confidential—”

  “Listen, Bertram saved my life once, that’s how he picked up that laser-burn. Ever hear of a Chinese obligation?”

  “Is that anything like ‘Confucian to the Enemy’?” She yawned again—it was starting to be catching.

  “Someday, hairy person, you’ll press your luck too far.” I diddled keys, waiting for the results to wend their ethery way to Earth.

  “Laporte Paratronics, may I help you?” A real-live, real-time receptionist: nice traditional touch, even if she was a chimp. This was company headquarters, north of town, in a huge Aztec-modern pyramid Bertram had constructed before his rigorous and painful conversion to the side of Law and Disorder.

  “Sure, extension 4511, please.” That’d ring bells down at Laporte University, Ltd., four or five blocks from my place.

  Another pause while radio waves got there and back. “To whom did you wish to speak, sir?”

  “To Deejay Thorens, that’s to whom, or Ooloorie, if her relay’s up. Problems?”

  “I’m afraid so, sir. Professors Thorens and P’wheet are no longer with the company.”

  “What? Then give me Mr. Bertram. Tell him Homicide Lieutenant Bear—tell him the jig is up and he should—”

  “I’m ringing the Executive Suite.” I could see her other hand trace out an Ameslan pattern she thought was private: “Tell him yourself, asshole.”

  “Win?” Freeman K. Bertram squinted into the ‘com over his antiquated horn-rimmed glasses. “What happened to your eye?” Bertram was a skinny gink, an engineer-type by profession and personality.

  I turned around, looking in the mirror. Sure enough, I’d copped a shiner in the cargo bay. “One of your crates fell on me, Freeman, and I’m gonna sue. Seriously, I’m calling from three—make that four—days outbound to Ceres.” I gave him an abbreviated run-down. “Now what’s this crap about Deejay and Ooloorie?”

  He looked mournful, making steeples with his fingers—scratch “engineer” and insert “mortician.” “We let them go on a cordial basis, we assure you.” The “we” was only Bertram; whether he was secretly a royalist at heart, or a frustrated editorialist, I’d never had the heart to ask. “They had some research they insisted doing on their own.”

  “Deejay’s in San Francisco, then?” Ooloorie made her home there, a big tank of seawater at the Emperor Norton University, communicating with Laporte by various electronic means.

  “Why, no. Perhaps this shouldn’t be made public, but we weren’t happy letting either of them go, and did some quiet checking around. Can you keep a secret?”

  “Over several zillion miles of open Telecom?”

  “Oh. Well, there are rumors, Win. An expedition to Mercury, attempts to tap the Sun directly, using a modified double-Broach—talk about fusion power! All we know is, they’re the foremost experts on Broach physics, and the Indomitable Spirit has been chartered, inbound. Neither
of them can be reached, their final paychecks came back unopened—you’d think they could arrange to—”

  “Indomitable Spirit? Well, that clears up one mystery. What do you know about an Aphrodite, Ltd., or somebody named J.V. Tormount?”

  “Win where did you get that information?” He had a strangled expression on his face. Somehow it suited him, I thought.

  “A little bird dropped it on my head. What’s the big secret?”

  “I—Win, it’s a perfectly legitimate operation, and we can’t tell you any more. As you pointed out, unsecured communications, and so forth. Sorry.”

  “I wish you’d reconsider. Maybe I should lean a little harder, but your business is your business. I don’t promise to leave it at that.”

  “There’s certainly no harm in asking. Nothing personal, old friend.”

  “Right.” I switched off. “Well, what do you think about that, Koko? Koko?”

  She lay, propped up against those goddamned windows, snoring energetically. Well, my shoulder ached, I could stand some z’s, myself. I gently got her somnambulated toward the elevator. Room service charged a philosophically impossible amount for the soup and sandwich which arrived a few minutes later. I settled into the sack with my meal and a fresh cigar, noting it was news time out on Ceres.

  And somehow, I’d gotten entangled in the headlines.

  “Tonight’s special report concerns the mysterious privately held company known as Aphrodite, Ltd.”

  Voltaire was at his authoritative best this evening, lean, gray, paternally disapproving. “Just what is Aphrodite, Ltd., and who are its principals? We endeavored to find out.” Following was a chronicle of futile attempts to interview one J. V. Tormount at his Ceres office. Or her Ceres office—Malaise couldn’t even find out that much. Whatever gender, Tormount wasn’t in.

  Tormount, it appeared, was never in.

  He’d been a busy little dickens, though, buying up hundreds of homesteaders in the isolated Sargasso asteroid cluster, importing unspecified heavy machinery—and sophisticated paratronics. “The privacy of business is sacred in our society,” lamented Voltaire, “yet the people have a right to know.” (Where had he picked that up?) “Our attempts to penetrate this new but powerful and well-financed firm will continue. It may well be that ‘Aphrodite’ conceals something sinister in her bosom. At least that’s the way it looks, Monday, March first, 223 A.L. This is Voltaire Malaise, Ceres Central, good night.”

  I wished him better luck than I was having, put out my cigar, set the Gigacom (fanfare, angel chorus) for morning, and crawled between the covers onto my good shoulder.

  In her bosom? C’mon, Voltaire, that one went out with honest lawyers!

  ***

  “Yaaawp! Yaaawp!” The Gigacom awoke me—proximity alarm! A giant shadow hovered overhead, striking downward. I snatched the descending blanket away from my face before it landed, and lashed out for the wrist—the furry wrist!—controlling it, planted a foot in somebody’s midsection, and pushed! The figure whirled away in a flap of ill-gotten bedclothes, stumbled backward, and rebounded off the windows as I fumbled vainly for the light.

  The intruder leaped again, damn near crushing my ribs in the process. We thumped to the floor, thrashing in the darkness, my face suddenly exploding in painful collision with a misplaced elbow. I grabbed a handful of pelt, hoping for an ear or something else to bite. My other hand found the pommel of the Rezin, fallen from the nightstand, and flung away the sheath, to— Ungh! The stranger’s knee had found a place I couldn’t disregard.

  I doubled, slashing blindly in confused shock. The blade caught something, sliced and grated. A terrifying scream—and I was free! Light blazed briefly into the cabin from the hall and shuttered off again. I wrenched upright, blood from my nose streaming down my chin, and staggered out into the corridor.

  Empty. I glanced at my watch; it wasn’t there. Neither were my clothes.

  Just as I turned, the cabin door swung shut with a positive click. The knob wouldn’t move. I wiped my face, left hand coming away sticky crimson. The right still gripped a foot of gory steel. Trying not to drip on Captain Spoonbill’s hall carpet, I focused with difficulty: yes, a trail of someone else’s blood. I wondered how solidly I’d connected. That knee had connected solidly enough; I could hardly stand upright: gas pains amplified a hundredfold.

  The naked, sword-swinging barbarian routine has been oversold, I think. Locked out in the middle of the night, gasping, drenched in someone else’s blood, I care not what course Conan may take: I lowered myself to the floor against the wall and practiced groaning. A couple of timid passers-by ran screaming at the sight of me, then a uniform arrived, gun in hand, to let me explain what had happened. She passkeyed me in, promising to send a medic, and followed the trail of gore away.

  Healer Francis W. Pololo had something absolutely wonderful for pain. He also took blood samples from my Rezin as I rummaged around for some nice, easy-fitting trousers, but wouldn’t listen about fingerprints. Guess he had that theory filed away with phrenology and palm-reading. Nice fellow, though, and not bad-looking for a gorilla. I thought of Koko, wondering if he was spoken for, and as I gingerly fastened my pants, I thought of Clarissa, too, glad we hadn’t made this a second honeymoon. Then I asked the doctor for another pain pill.

  ***

  Full of nerve-deadeners, I didn’t want to mix my highs, but the Level 790 bar was a well-lit public place where nobody could sneak up on me, and I wasn’t planning to sleep again until I got my Webley back. That infernal gadget of Clarissa’s was all that had kept me out of Bonaventura’s meatlocker.

  A bit slow on the nanoelectronic uptake, though: my assailant had had plenty of time to pull out every drawer in the bureau and empty it on the carpet. Something told me it wasn’t just a scavenger hunt.

  Despite the nighttime emptiness of the Yellow Tower corridors, the bar seemed almost crowded. “Western Hemisphere” the bartender answered as he poured me out a double—King Kong Kola. “Every-one in Yellow’s up from North or South America. Breakfasttime in Green right now, suppertime in Orange.”

  I sipped my drink; definitely not the Real Thing. “What about the Blue?’’

  “Whatever time suits their porpoises,” he snickered.

  I considered throwing up all over his nice clean bar. Instead I turned my back, hitching up my elbows to watch the natives as the sky turned round and round outside. Some were talking, drinking, playing cards or electronic games. Others watched a stage where a young gorilla was taking off her clothes. Seemed like a waste of time, to me.

  The place began to fill up even more. More likely cocktail time in the Orange Tower. All this joint needed was a big tank for the dolphins, and—

  “Hey!” The guy beside me stumbled sideways, knocking over his drink. He wheeled on the person next to him. “Whaddyou wanna do that for, sister?” he slurred, peering sadly down inside his empty glass. The pale, sophisticated type beside him turned slowly, gave him a silent sneer down her nose, and turned away.

  “Hey! You can’t jog my arm like that an’ broff it osh . . brush it off! Whaddabout my drink?” He extended a wobbly arm and poked her shoulder savagely.

  “Take it easy, friend,” I said, my tongue doing its own thinking as usual. “Let her alone, I’ll buy you another—”

  “Who aksed you, buddy?” He jabbed me in the chest with stiffened fingers, setting off a number of accumulated pains.

  I seized the offending digits, bending them back a little. “Now, buddy, you want that drink or not?“

  Wrenching his hand free, he drew it back for a punch. “I’ll teach you to—” and let fly craftily with his other fist, but I ducked, and he bashed it meatily into the bar. I slid under his second flailing punch and planted my own stiffened fingers dead-center in his solar plexus.

  “Whoof!”

  He doubled, staggering against a chair, and fell across a nearby table, scattering crockery. The occupants jumped up, knocking others down around them in a ra
pidly expanding circle. Napkins, liquids, curses flew. Somebody threw a punch. In seconds, while my erstwhile antagonist barfed all over the floor, the saloon erupted in a joyous free-for-all, a hundred combatants gaily socking everyone around them. A chimpanzee swung from the chandelier, bombing people with onion dip. The stripper stopped, disgusted at losing her audience, gathered up her clothing, and sat down on the stage, feet over the edge, kicking anyone who stumbled near.

  Baap! Seeing sudden stars, I shook my head, swung to grab the shoulder of a tall form looming over me. I raised a fist.

  “Whoa...Pilgrim, I’m on your side!” He cocked his head and grinned a crooked grin, holding a little chimp—the guy who’d socked me—by the scruff, then casually tossing him out into the riot to fend for himself. “Plucky, but too small—had t’throw ’im...back.”

  I gave someone behind me an elbow in the guts, snap-kicked a bottle-waver coming at my head, and turned to my now familiar ally. “Say, you’re not really...” I recognized this seamed and ugly-beautiful mug, the big Roman nose, and crinkled squint. “Mike Morrison?”

  He snatched a pair of fighters, cracked their heads together, and easily side-stepped a wildly thrown chair, which bounced harmlessly off the mirror behind the bar. “Guilty,” came the answer in that famous sandy-textured voice, cadence plodding forward in oddly shaped chunks, “but don’t tell nobody—headed out t’make m’first...space opera.” He shook his head, a sour look passed across his leathery face. “Only thing th’ people wanna see, these...days. Feels downright silly ’thout a...horse under me—unh!”

  Someone brained him with a serving tray. He crossed his eyes and swayed in little circles, a big hand on the bar to right himself, then grabbed the astounded tray-wielder by the lapels. “Mister, somebody oughta smack you fer that.” His eyes narrowed in anger, slanted, almost Mongolian. “But I won’t, I won’t...like hell I won’t!”