He waited until retrieval of the image of Lola Belman was complete. His warning voices had already told him what he might see. Sure enough, here it came: Lola Belman was the woman whose worried face just two minutes earlier had filled the display. A worried woman, but certainly alive. According to Alicia Rios and Jinx Barker, she had died last night.
Cayuga did not waste time cursing. He recorded the image and then at once placed another call. This time he needed the video link. He waited impatiently until Lenny Costas's frowning face appeared in the display.
"Lenny, we have a problem. A big one."
"Another one?" The big greying head nodded slowly. "You know, I am not surprised, even though Jinx Barker and Alicia are supposed to be fixing everything."
"They are a major part of the problem." Cayuga summarized for Lenny Costas his conversation with Alicia, and what he had since learned. At the end he said, "We must seek the concurrence of the rest of the Club, but I think that you and I have to be ready to act—at once. Barker and Rios, by their actions, are threatening everything that we have worked so hard to create."
Costas shrugged. "Again, you fail to surprise me. Are you proposing what I think you are?"
"Yes."
"For both Jinx Barker and Alicia Rios?"
"Yes."
"Barker, without question. But she is a member of the Club."
"True. And she should therefore have taken her responsibilities much more seriously. We are all bound by the same rules, Lenny. We must recognize the same consequences."
"It is easy to say that we must deal with Jinx Barker. But you, Cayuga, warned me long ago how difficult that might be."
"Less so if we act before he suspects. I am willing to take that responsibility if you will handle Rios."
"You give me the easy one. I know her schedule, where she is, what she does. What about Barker? We do not know that he even returned from his assignment with Lola Belman."
"Let me worry about that. As an additional action I propose to do what Jinx Barker failed to accomplish with Lola Belman. I hope that she, with suitable persuasion, will also be able to tell me the location of Jinx Barker."
"Be careful, Cayuga. This whole thing could have been set up as a Barker-Rios trap."
"I am always careful. Now I will call the other Club members. If they feel as I suspect they will feel, you must be ready to head for Alicia Rios's apartment within the hour."
"You think it is that urgent?"
"I don't know. I dare not assume that it is not. One other thing: It is imperative that no trace of Alicia Rios remain for analysis."
"I know that as well as you do."
"My apologies. But we can never be too careful." Cayuga gave the signal to transmit the file image of Lola Belman to Costas. "This is the haldane whom Barker failed to eliminate. If I succeed with Barker but do not myself survive the event, there will be an item of unfinished business. You will need to dispose of her. And if you do, let me return to you the warning that you offered me: Be careful, Costas."
18
An accidental call from another person meant nothing. Such things happened all the time. Lola had certainly made calls like that often enough herself.
But suppose that the call came when you had been the victim of a murder attempt only fourteen hours ago. Suppose that you had not slept since then, or since the previous morning, that the would-be killer was even now stretched out, unconscious at your side; and that practically all you knew about him was that he was working for someone you had never met. Did a short and aborted call still mean nothing?
Not if you were Lola Belman. Not when the unseen other person terminated the call at once, with no word of explanation or apology.
Within a few seconds of the phone signaling its disconnect her forehead was cold and clammy, and her stomach churned with tension. She glanced over at Jinx Barker, suddenly afraid that he might be awake and trying to free himself. He was still lying there, peaceful and sedated.
Had the caller, whoever it was, expected to see him and been shocked to see Lola? Worse than that, the person at the other end now knew that Lola was alive. She had even spoken to the person—only one word, but maybe one word too many.
Her old fear came rushing back. She had omitted to ask Jinx Barker a crucial question, and now that he was heavily sedated it could not be asked: Who else had he been ordered to kill? Her and Bryce, she knew that, but what about Spook? He had been involved with the Sonnenberg case. Barker had actually met Spook several times. She might even have told him that Spook was helping her.
The internal door leading from the office to her apartment was locked. All thumbs, she fumbled at the setting, until at last she managed to engage the wards and the multiple bolts slid free. She hurried along the little hallway that led to Spook's rooms.
He wouldn't be there, surely; it was early afternoon. The study was empty, but she gasped with relief when she barged into his bedroom and saw a hump in the untidy heap of the bedclothes.
"Spook!" She went across and grabbed his shoulder. "Get up. Right now."
He grunted and tried to turn his back to her. She took his arm and neck and shook as hard as she could. "Wake up!"
"Quit that." He raised a tangled head and scowled at her. "I need sleep. I was up all night."
She dragged him, bedclothes and all, onto the hard floor. "I'm not joking. Get up, or I'll pour cold water on you."
He was finally awake enough to register her tone of voice. He sat upright. "What's wrong with you? What happened?"
"You have to get dressed and out of here this minute. This place isn't safe."
He stared around him, as though expecting cracks to open in the walls or poison gas to come flooding from the ventilators. "It sure looks safe." But he was already over at the closet, grabbing at a bundle on the floor. "Get out and go where? We live here, remember?"
Where? Somewhere safe, somewhere unknown to Jinx Barker and to everyone connected with him.
"Your friend Bat. Did he or you ever tell Conner Preston where he lives?"
"Are you kidding?" Spook didn't believe in wasting time on things like folding clothes. The bundle he had grabbed was a crumpled shirt and slacks, and he was already into them and grabbing his shoes. "The Bat Cave? Bat would kill me if I even hinted at where it is. He's a real privacy freak."
"Great. You're going over to Bat's place, and you're going to stay there for a while."
"Get real, sister. You think I can just wander over to the Bat Cave, and drop myself off there as a house guest?"
"You have to." Lola made a decision. Jinx Barker would be out completely for at least a couple more hours, and his ankles and wrists were still bound by heavy tape. It would surely be safe to leave him. "I'll come with you and explain to Bat why it's really important."
"Fine. Why don't you start by explaining it to me?"
"I'll do it on the way. Come on. We have to leave this minute."
"At least, let me call him first."
"No. No time for that. Let's go." Lola led the way back to her office. Spook, mystified and trailing behind, suddenly caught sight of the figure of Jinx Barker, unconscious and bound at wrists and ankles.
He stopped and stared, wide-eyed. "Conner Preston—"
"Isn't Conner Preston at all." Lola bent over and checked one more time that her silent prisoner had not stirred. "This man is Jinx Barker. He's one good reason for leaving, so let's get out of here. I'll tell you everything as we go—at least, I'll tell you as much as I know."
* * *
It was two hundred kilometers to Alicia Rios's home, but the journey should not take more than an hour. Bryce Sonnenberg entered the location of her home into the Ganymede transportation guide and received a detailed list of the chutes, slides, vehicles, and rapid-transfer points that he needed to get there. Her message service indicated that she was at home. Bryce also received a note that he should have expected: Alicia Rios lived in a region of restricted access. When he got there, he was likely to
find himself excluded by her security system.
That was one good reason for pausing before he entered the descent tube that formed the final stage of the journey. The other reason had nothing to do with Alicia Rios.
He halted at a travelers' transfer node, walked over to a service area with dozens of tables and scores of service machines, and sat down. He ignored the server that rolled across and stood waiting for instructions.
Something was going on, something deep inside him. During the most recent haldane sessions, Lola Belman had suggested that he was approaching a breakthrough point in his treatment. She had not said how it might be triggered or how it would show itself—in fact, she had said that she did not know what form it might take. But he had assumed that there would be an end, either sudden or gradual, to the blackouts and the bizarre "memories" that arose during them. Then he could return to the calm life that he had enjoyed on Callisto before his brain began to misbehave.
He realized now that he had been a simple-minded optimist. Changes were occurring, as predicted, but they were going in the wrong direction. False memories were no longer the stuff of dreams and blackouts. They had become a continuous part of his existence, surfacing by association during his normal waking hours.
The sight of Jinx Barker—bound and unconscious—followed by Lola's talk of deception and murder, had been the final hard jolt. He suddenly "remembered" another whole life. He had been a youth on Earth, mathematically talented as he was talented now, but raised in tough and frightening surroundings. In that other life he had been forced to turn his back on his mathematical gift in order to survive. And survive he had, to become rich, powerful—and wary.
When he assured Lola Belman as he left her that he knew how to be careful, he had spoken from experience. He knew a hundred ways that an assassin might choose, and he had learned a hundred defenses. He had learned the danger of friendships. He recognized the awful power of money. A lovely woman who shared your bed, apparently so willing, might be a purchased killer waiting for her chance. The price of life was eternal vigilance. You learned to break into locked apartments as easily as into locked data files, or to escape from danger along routes that did not seem to exist.
All of which meant—Bryce, now sitting at the table while the little serving machine stood in front of him and waited patiently to take his order, leaned far forward and placed his hands over his face—it all meant that rather than being close to a cure, he was more unbalanced than he had ever been. Other memories of other lives were beginning to creep in. He was an old man living quite alone, pottering about a huge apartment and playing his quiet statistical games. And then he was young again, lying in agony in an aseptic low-gee hospital bed, knowing that he had returned from the very edge of death and realizing that he was still years away from normal health.
As impossible memories flowered within him, his own life flickered and faded. He tried to recall his years on Hidalgo and Callisto, and could not produce a single moment of vivid memory. He tried to picture his mother's face, and it would not come into focus. When he made a more concentrated effort, the image of Miriam Sonnenberg, the cool and intellectual Von Neumann designer, vanished. In its place appeared a scowling vision of stringy brown hair and bad teeth, leaning over with arm lifted to strike. He was defiant, ducking under that brawny raised arm and running down the stairs and out into a narrow alley littered with garbage. It was late at night. He was very small. But no one came after him.
"Your order, please."
The service machine had reached the limit of its programmed wait. Bryce lifted his head and stared at it. He had been far away, locked into the maze of his own impossible memories. But this world was still here, going on about its usual business.
"No order." He stood up and watched as the little machine rolled off. The worrier inside him said that what was going on in his head was happening at the very worst time. But another voice asked, When was a good time? There was another way to look at all of this: His wariness and instinct for danger had come along exactly when they were most needed. Confused memories were the price of the special knowledge he might need when he reached Alicia Rios's home.
He glanced at his watch, and was surprised to see that he had been at the travelers' transfer node less than a quarter of an hour. If he pushed his introspection behind him, in ten more minutes he could be at the entry point to the restricted complex where Alicia Rios lived.
He set out, reflecting on another curiosity. The single entry point to the whole complex. Odd. There were forty rooms in her sprawling apartment, but they were served by only the one access. Only one way in—that provided for maximum security. But only one way out?
Not if he were designing it. You always, no matter how impenetrable and well defended the castle, provided yourself with a bolt-hole. If he could not get to Alicia Rios because the way in was restricted, perhaps he could reach her through a hidden way out.
The region that he was approaching was on the deepest residential level, but it reeked of wealth. He could see it in the elegant bioluminescent inlays that lit the corridors with soft and discreet blue-white, in the custom-designed—human-designed—murals and statues along the walls, in the inaudible air-supply system, in the numerous and silent cleaning machines that carefully stayed a good ten meters away from him.
The entrance to Alicia Rios's home occupied the blind end of the corridor, an innocuous white screen that could be anything from a door of thin plastic to an impermeable wall of unknown thickness. Bryce walked slowly over to the query panel on the left. He had no intention of touching it, or indicating in any other way his interest in entering. He wanted time, first to observe and then to think. His arrival at the apartment entrance would certainly have been noted and recorded by the house security systems, but unless he did more than stand there it was unlikely that the information would go beyond a low-level fax.
The panel lights, to his surprise, were all switched off—every one, even the little power indicator. That suggested one of two things: Either the whole panel was a sham, and access to the apartment complex was obtained in some other way; or the security systems were not operating, and anyone who wanted to could simply walk on in.
The wary underside of his mind pointed out that there was of course a third option. This could be a trap, intended to lure him inside.
He paused to assess the odds. Lola had learned only this morning that Alicia Rios was behind the attempt to kill her, and now he knew also. But he and Lola had spoken to no one else, so no one knew that Bryce knew. Without that information, he would never have found his way down to this deep, exclusive level of Ganymede. Therefore, no one could possibly be expecting him.
Bryce walked over to the smooth white wall that formed the end of the corridor and paused with his fingers an inch away from it. He was making another assumption: that Alicia Rios had no other enemies she wanted to trap. If she had tried to kill Lola Belman, for whatever unknown reason, she might be just as eager to kill someone else. And he could finish up just as dead, even if he were not the intended target.
Odds, odds, odds, whispered a now-familiar voice deep inside him. Everything in the world is odds. You can calculate and calculate, but when it's all done you still have to throw the dice.
Bryce moved his left hand forward to meet the wall. He could see no seam where a door might be located, but as his fingertips reached the smooth white panel, they passed right on through and he felt a tingle in their ends. He jerked back. It was not a material wall at all, it was a hologram. He could walk right in—unless some other type of protective field were active. He could think of half a dozen that would offer excellent security. Something as simple and lethal as a triggered laser, able to reduce Bryce to his component elementary particles—that was a little extreme, and the Ganymede laws would not permit it. But what about something as benign but binding as a magnetic freeze field? That would lock him rigid in one position once he was completely within it, then hold him there until he died or someone
came along to turn it off.
Bryce patted his pockets, looking for something ferromagnetic. He had ID cards, with their tiny metal strips, but they might not be enough to trigger a defense system. The only thing he could find was the key ring on which he kept the controls that allowed him into the Callistan space-scooter hangar.
He stared at those thoughtfully, almost wistfully. Why did any of the past few months have to happen? He had been busy and mindlessly happy, with his work in mathematics and his sport in low-gee space racing. Now here he was in unknown territory, wondering if the next few minutes would see his body blown apart or his brain scrambled.
He backed up half a dozen steps and lobbed the key ring at and through the field. There was no ringing of alarm bells, no flash of incandescent metal. After waiting another thirty seconds he approached the field and walked on through. His key ring was waiting on the floor at the other side.
He picked it up and looked around. He was at the edge of an enormous foyer, fifteen meters square and six meters high. The ceiling was elaborately decorated and was supported by pencil-thin, fluted columns. Gravity was higher here than on Callisto, but hardly a hindrance to architectural design. The corridor that led away from the far side of the foyer ramped steeply downward, while other openings, clearly intended as doors, were two or three meters up in the walls.
Everything in the apartment foyer seemed normal, and yet something was badly wrong. It took Bryce half a minute to pin it down.
Air.
Everywhere on Ganymede, as on all worlds of the Belt or Outer System, you heard the continuous background noise of air circulators. A region without a steady breeze of pumped air was dead or dying. But here within the apartment there was total silence. The still air was breathable, although he detected in it a lung-searing whiff of ozone.
In an apartment this size he could stay for weeks without running out of oxygen, so he was in no immediate danger of asphyxiation. But he could not imagine that Alicia Rios would choose to live without circulating air. He was already feeling uneasy after just a few minutes.
The Ganymede Club Page 22