"Right. But I'm not getting . . ." The distortion was much worse: ". . . the over . . . up to the walls . . . coming . . ."
A long pause. Then, ". . . touch it . . ."
Faint crackling, like static—nothing more. Jason found himself unable to breathe. Captain Jing-li's voice, close and calm, cut in again: "I'm taking the Marklake to within two hundred meters. We'll be in position three minutes from now. Cayuga, what is your status?"
"I'm ready."
"Suit checked and sealed?"
"Yes."
"When I give the word, you head for the surface where Rios landed. Take a cable with you. Go into the hole, get her, come right back. Go slow. And no matter what you find, don't investigate. If you get stuck, signal along the cable. If you don't see her in the tunnel, come back. Costas and Munzer, into suits in case we need you. Dr. Polk, stand by for possible medical emergency."
Jason stood at the lock, waiting for the go-ahead from Captain Jing-li. It took forever to come. He was shivering in his temperature-controlled suit. He did not feel excited at the prospect of a major discovery. He did feel scared.
The cable attached to Jason's suit could stand a load of hundreds of tons, but it was light and perfectly flexible. He was scarcely aware of it as he drifted toward the waiting bulk of Helene. The Sun, off behind his right shoulder, seemed a remote and ineffectual spark of light. Saturn loomed as a half-disk to the left, the rings a thin bright line across the planet's equator. But it was Helene, the little planetoid that he had dismissed five days ago as insignificant, that now seemed to fill the sky. The pocked surface was fast approaching. The pinprick hole for which he was heading became a dark violet shaft, leading to unknown depths.
"Go into the hole, get her, come right back," he had been told.
If only he could.
"Go slow"—that was the hardest order to obey.
Jason took a deep breath and entered the tunnel. The light level dropped abruptly. His suit imagers compensated at once, and he could see far ahead. He peered down. There, no more than a few hundred meters away—he gasped with relief—he saw a familiar shape. Reflected light was gleaming from a white suit.
Athene.
"She's here," he said loudly. "Right in front of me. I can go down and get her."
He heard the sudden buzz of conversation in his radio link, and realized for the first time that no one had spoken since he left the Marklake.
In the same moment he realized that Athene had remained silent, though he was right above her and must be outlined against the sunlit shaft. She ought to be able to see him. Also, the arms and legs of the suited figure were not moving, except that the whole figure was rising slowly up through the shaft. He felt overwhelmed by the implications.
Although his mind was stunned, he found that his body knew exactly what to do: He dropped farther, steadily and surely. In half a minute he was at her side. He saw, far below, the odd milky surface that she had talked about. There was no time to worry about that now. He attached a grapnel to her, then jetted the two of them gently up to the surface and toward the Marklake.
"Polk to the air lock, if you please," he said, surprised at the calm tone of his own voice. "Dahlquist, prepare the emergency treatment facility. We have a medical problem."
And pray it was no more than that.
The Marklake loomed ahead. Jason used the grapnel to pull Athene close and move her in front of him into the lock. Her suit felt stiff and unbending, as though the body inside was already frozen to a final rigor. He peered in through the visor. Her face was pale, in places almost silvery. A trick of the sunlight, weak but at the same time harsh?
No time for a second look. He was in the air lock, cycling it at maximum speed. And Hamilton Polk was there, taking Athene's body from him, dismissing Jason with a casual, "Get your suit off. Then come back here."
Jason wanted to ask a question—the question—but he could not, because Jing-li and Munzer and Costas were hustling in, all talking, crowding him out. He went to the next cabin, stripped out of his suit at record speed, and squeezed back in through the door. He was just in time to hear Polk say, "A breach of suit integrity, can't say how it happened. Slits and tears, lots of them—see, here and here and here." Polk pointed to the suit's chest, arms, and upper legs. Athene's helmet was off, revealing her face—silent and pale and with faint, silvery blotches on her cheeks.
"We'll have to check every one of the suits," Polk went on. "They could all have the same potential problem."
Jason's question seemed unnecessary now. He had to ask it, anyway: "Is she dead?"
"I'm afraid she is." Simone Munzer had been standing next to Jing-li, and now she turned to him. He was glad to see that there was no trace of "I told you so" in her manner. "I'm sorry, Jason."
"But it's most peculiar," added Polk. The physician was bending low, peering at Athene's face. "Dead and already cooling. Yet it doesn't seem like a case of asphyxiation, which is what the suit punctures would suggest. Fascinating. Did you see anything strange, Cayuga, while you were in the interior?"
It had all happened too quickly, and Jason had been totally focused on what had to be done to rescue Athene. He shook his head.
"Of course, it may have nothing to do with her visit to Helene." Polk began to release the wrist seals on Athene's suit.
"We must prove that, one way or the other." Simone Munzer turned to Jing-li. "It's not like a normal ship fatality, where the body can go into sealed storage and await investigation until our return to Earth orbit."
"I agree." Jing-li's face was grim. The warning from the ship's anomalist—that Athene Rios should not explore the interior of Helene—was already in the ship's record. The official investigation would be unpleasant for Captain Betty Jing-li. "Dr. Polk, please prepare for and proceed with an autopsy."
"Already getting ready for it." The physician, unlocking Athene's ankle seals, seemed fully awake and enjoying himself for the first time in months. "But I'll need an assistant."
Athene had been his designated backup for medical emergencies.
"Of course." Jing-li turned to Luke Costas. "We will follow the usual—"
"If you please," Jason cut in. "I would like to help."
You interrupted a captain's order at your own peril, and Jason knew it. But Jing-li merely stepped closer, studied his face, and nodded.
"Very well. I understand. The autopsy will not be pleasant, they never are. If you have problems handling it—or yourself—tell me and I will arrange relief. Dr. Polk, please proceed. Dr. Munzer, I need to meet separately with you."
At her nod, Luke Costas turned and left the room. Jing-li and Simone Munzer followed, while Polk dispassionately watched them go.
"Wouldn't mind hearing that conversation," he said.
Jason believed him. Hamilton Polk disliked both women. He resented Captain Jing-li because she, a non-doctor, could give him orders, and he hated Simone Munzer because she ignored all his suggestions as assistant anomalist. She was also willing to challenge Jing-li where he dared not.
"What do you want me to do?" Jason didn't care to get into the middle of Polk's shipboard animosities.
"Finish getting Rios out of her suit. I'll go and prepare for the autopsy. When you're done, put the suit in a sealed container, then bring both it and Rios to the med center. We can't work here."
Polk's tone made Jason very glad that he had asked to be involved. As far as the doctor was concerned, Athene's body was no more than a piece of dead meat, to be examined with curiosity but no sympathy. Jason would treat her with proper reverence.
He waited until Polk had gone; then he began. With the helmet off and the suit's seals released, it was simple to open the front completely and ease the body free. He had to take hold of her hands and feet to do so. Athene had been barearmed and barelegged within the suit. Lifting her, he noticed that the odd body stiffness he had felt when he had removed her from the shaft on Helene was no longer present. Her flesh was soft and smooth, and much w
armer than he had expected from Polk's comment. Her eyes were closed, her face calm. He wanted to believe that her death had been as easy and painless as her expression suggested.
He paused. There were silvery patches on her thighs and upper arms, and also on her hands. They were far more pronounced than those on her face. After a few moments he unzipped the front of her one-piece garment. It felt like an intrusion when he opened her clothing to examine her bare chest.
More patches, and brighter. He ran his fingers along a big one on her lower rib cage, and found it slick to the touch. He knew Athene's body well. There had been nothing like this, as recently as twenty-four hours ago.
Contamination.
He had not believed it until this moment, but suddenly he was sure of it. Simone Munzer had been right to warn, for something in the interior of the planetoid had entered Athene's body and killed her.
He had to get the corpse into a sealed container and report what he had found. But his fingertips were still on Athene's chest. Before he could remove them he felt a tremor, a movement.
Jason jerked his hand away. The bare chest was moving, the first faint tremble slowing and strengthening to a regular up-and-down motion. She was breathing. A thin wisp of vapor was creeping like a pale-blue tendril from her right nostril.
"Athene!"
He reached out again, wanting to help, not sure what to do. Her eyelids were flickering. As he watched, they opened. She was trying to lift her head.
He put his hand forward, intending to assist her. At the same moment he felt a wave of heat sweep over him. It began in his fingertips and spread rapidly through his whole body. With it came a tremendous feeling of strength and well-being.
But with it also came dizziness. He found himself unable to breathe. As the cabin around him began to fade, he saw that Athene was sitting up, turning in his direction. Her eyes were bright and unblinking. The last thing that Jason saw was the streak of silvery skin creeping along the back of his own outstretched hand.
2
Mars: 2063 A.D.
A sales pitch was always the same; it hadn't changed in five thousand years. First the salesman—though this one happened to be a saleswoman—told you all the advantages: the spectacular view—from eighty kilometers up you could see the whole lower city and, beyond it, the broad curve of the planet; the amazingly generous amount of floor space, enough for a dozen people to live in comfort; the unique privacy, with no one but you living on the whole floor section; and the astonishingly low cost.
And finally, the inevitable kicker: ". . . last one left, going fast, showing to three other people later today."
Julius Szabo listened, nodded, and evaluated her performance: not bad for a beginner. But he had been in the game back when she was kicking her shapely little legs in the air and crying for a change of diaper—and he had played on a field a hell of a lot tougher than real estate.
"I just don't know, Ms. Diver." He rubbed at his nose, put on his bewildered, worried look, and cut in when she was well into her windup and just five seconds before she was ready to state an inflated price. "It's very nice, but I can already tell that this place is way too rich for my blood. I'm retired, you know. I'm looking for something in the three-eighty range, and I can't possibly go more than four-twenty. Four-thirty, maybe, absolute tops."
Gracie Diver stared at him with her mouth open and her luscious pink tongue showing. She was a lovely piece of work. Twenty years ago—make that ten—hell, if he were just back on Earth.
Down, boy. Remember your official age: He had made his own instinctive assessment, inverting every one of the variables. Eighty kilometers up, you were well outside the thin wisps of Martian atmosphere. Damn it, you were in space—hard vacuum right outside the windows. The spectacular view (a 740-kilometer outlook in every direction over the arid Martian surface) was enough to terrify anyone with even a trace of acrophobia. Privacy was guaranteed by the fact that the lift tubes took forever to get you up so high. And the generous floor space and low price were sure signs that they could hardly give the place away.
But for Julius, each of those drawbacks happened to be a virtue. He had done his analysis and had quoted Gracie Diver a figure he estimated at just two percent higher than the minimum she was allowed to accept on the rental. He had cut it close not because of the price—he could afford a hundred times as much and never notice—but from sheer ingrained habit. He told himself he would have to watch out for that. He had altered his appearance, aging himself enough to fool anyone, and he was already thinking of himself as Julius; but personal foibles and vanities were hard to recognize in yourself, let alone change. And that could be fatal.
"Four hundred and thirty?" She hid her disappointment well, and she didn't even deign to mention his lower figures. Maybe young Gracie had a bright future, after all. "I'll have to check with the office, of course, because that's far less than I'm allowed to—"
"Would you do that?" The knife could cut both ways, and he had been wielding it long before she was born. "You see, if I don't take this place, I'm supposed to see another property later today, and I'll be pushed to make the appointment schedule, what with all the time we took to get up here." Julius turned toward the window. "While you call your boss, why don't I wander around and take a look at the view? I've never lived anywhere so high up, I'm not sure what it feels like. And what with today's news, all those tough words from the Belt, I'm not sure Mars is the best place at all. Sometimes I think we'd be a lot safer out in the Jupiter system, on Ganymede or Callisto."
"I'll tell you what." At once she was right in front of him, smiling guilelessly up into his eyes and holding her remote-entry unit out toward him. "Why don't we fill out your application and transfer it in, right now? My office can evaluate it as it arrives, and we'll have a go/no-go decision in just a few minutes. Then we can both go on to our next appointments."
Good girl, he thought. Don't waste time thinking of profits you might have made. Take what you can get, tie it down, and go on to the next one.
Julius reached out and patted Gracie on her bare upper arm. It was a friendly touch; even—steady, man; act your age—a paternal touch. He felt a real affection for her. If she ever wanted to move into a different line of business . . .
He cut that thought off early. "Let's do just what you suggest. You know, you're a good saleswoman, Gracie. And in a couple more years you're going to be a lot better."
Seeing the blush of pleasure on fair young cheeks was worth the extra one percent he was sure he could have squeezed out of her on the rental price.
* * *
Julius Szabo, who used to be Danny Clay, had pondered the problem for twenty years. You could run Earth's highest-stakes gambling operation. You could have a genius for rapid calculation and a memory for numbers and statistics that guaranteed your own success. You could accumulate more wealth than your modest tastes would let you spend in a hundred lifetimes.
What you could not do was get away. You were bound to the system by a thousand shackles, and you knew too much about too many people ever to be allowed to leave. In fact, a quarter century of observation suggested only one way out. Some young upstart would covet the top spot, as you had coveted it yourself. You would guard against that as best you could, and your own long experience would help. You watched for "accidents"—aircar or lift-tube failures, a Hecate spider in a flower bouquet, shower faucets that turned instantly from warm water to superheated steam, idiopathic diseases uniquely tailored to your own body chemistry, even things as simple as stray bullets and natural food poisons. Those had all been used on others, and they could just as well be tried against you. You'd be on the lookout—of course you would—but there was a basic rule of life: The one that got you would be a surprise, the one you had not thought of.
Your talents allowed you to calculate the chances of your own death from natural causes. They were depressingly low, odds unacceptable to any self-respecting professional gambler. Throw in what Danny saw as the high prob
ability that before the decade was out, there would be a no-holds-barred war with the Belt, and your survival chances dropped so close to zero you couldn't calculate them.
So, you had to find another approach. And the only one that he could think of called for lots of planning and a long lead time.
When Danny Clay died early in his fifty-second year, in a vacation boating accident on Lake Baikal, Julius Szabo had already been officially "alive" for six years on Mars. He was a sprightly eighty-three-year-old bachelor with no surviving siblings. His bank credit, as a successful retired actuary and statistician, was substantial. It was less than a fiftieth of what Danny left behind in his estate, but so what? You can't take it with you. Danny/Julius was smart enough not to try. Given the infighting, legal and illegal, that would be going on for his territory and possessions in Mexico City, no one would be able to estimate his wealth at the time of his death to within even ten percent of the total. A two percent skim would be perfectly safe.
He would be safe, too, provided that he made the separation complete. It had to be mental as well as physical. Julius told himself—morning and midday and evening— that he was not that other man, whatever his name was. He did not even know such a person. Danny Clay—who was that? If the mental block was to be effective, it had to be total. But it wasn't easy.
He moved into his new home on the eightieth-kilometer level in the Space Fountain pyramid, a huge ziggurat that stretched for another eight kilometers above him. He furnished the open vastness of the apartment in a spare, drab style that would have disgusted Danny Clay, who had had decadent casino/bordello tastes for plush red velvet and gold-framed mirrors. He provided a change-of-address notice to the Mars Society of Actuarial Consultants; placed a discreet sign, "Dr. Julius Szabo, MMSAC (Ret.)," in the building directory; and settled in to watch sunrise and sunset through-the planet's thin apology for an atmosphere. He was prepared for several happy decades of a new and more relaxed life.
The Ganymede Club Page 2