Voyagers II - The Alien Within

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Voyagers II - The Alien Within Page 17

by Ben Bova


  Another voice, in German, “How much do you think it’s worth?”

  “It’s priceless.”

  “Yes, I know, but how much money would it take to buy it from these Frogs?”

  “Don’t be so crass.”

  “They must have it insured. How much is the policy for?”

  “You’re impossible!”

  And another, in New York American, “It oughtta be in Italy, not France.”

  “Leonardo was employed by the French king, wasn’t he?”

  “Not when he painted this.”

  “How did it get to Paris, then?”

  “How do you think? The French invaded Italy and stole it.”

  “Oh, I don’t think so.”

  “No? How much ya wanna bet?”

  With an effort of will, Stoner tried to shut their chatter out of his mind and concentrate on the painting itself. What was Leonardo trying to tell me when he painted this? What was the message he put onto this canvas? The shadings of the woman’s eyes, the subtlety of her smile, the fantasy landscape behind her—the scene past her right shoulder did not match the scene behind her left.

  For nearly an hour Stoner studied the painting, while tourists pushed past him, glanced at it for a moment or two, and then hurried on.

  Finally Stoner understood. He smiled back at young Lisa Giacondo. Leonardo had created a masterpiece because he had the genius to recognize the goal of human aspirations and then capture it with his pigments. The serenity of a young woman’s smile. The placid pose, the calmly folded hands. This was what every human soul longed for: serenity, calm, the peace that passeth understanding. Despite the fantastic landscape beyond her window, Mona Lisa had achieved that elusive quality that humans call happiness. For six centuries, all who saw the painting were tantalized by that, yearning to understand what they were seeing. So few did. So few recognized happiness when they saw it.

  He walked out of the Louvre at last, past the old Palais Royal and up the wide avenue to the magnificent Opera House. Then farther, into the narrow streets of Montmartre, where children ran along the alleyways in which Piaf had once sung for pennies. The labyrinth of dark, winding streets echoed with children’s shouts and laughter. Hardly an adult in sight: this was a working day. No tourists here, although an occasional steam bus huffed by, squeezing through the tight lanes left by the cars parked half up on the sidewalks, heading up the hill toward Sacré-Coeur.

  Stoner hiked up to the basilica, his long legs plodding up the steeply rising streets. He watched a robot street cleaner patiently scooping up litter from the gutters. There was no graffiti on the walls. No loungers hanging around the neighborhood bistros. The economy must be good, Stoner thought; very good. The children he saw scampering through the streets were as much Algerian and Moroccan as French. But they played together without any noticeable antagonisms. They’ve been absorbed into the French culture, accepted by the Parisians. It took a few generations, but it’s happened at last.

  Tourists swarmed around Sacré-Coeur. Stoner ignored them like a man turning his back on an exhibit at the zoo and looked out from the hilltop at the rest of Paris spread out before him. Far in the distance he could make out the spires of Notre Dame, the medieval cathedral where Quasimodo had held off the besieging army of beggars.

  Where are the beggars today? Stoner wondered. Has poverty really been beaten, or am I merely seeing the best side of a rich nation?

  He leaned both hands on the stone parapet and let the wind tousle his hair. It was a beautiful day, in a beautiful city. But Stoner knew what he had to do. His decision of the previous night had been the correct one. It had nothing to do with Elly or the life he had led eighteen years ago. Nothing to do with his personal desires or emotions. He had no emotions, they had been removed from his inner being, leaving an emptiness as deep and cold as outer space itself.

  He nodded to himself. The purpose he had sought was now clear to him.

  He found a pay phone and called Claude Appert, collect. Nicole answered, the inevitable cigarette dangling from the corner of her mouth. She recognized Stoner and smiled.

  “Keith! We worried about you. Where have you been all night? Did you see your friend?”

  “Yes, I met him last night.”

  “You stayed with him?”

  “No, not really.”

  “Ahh.” Recognition dawned on her face. “You made a conquest, eh?”

  He made himself grin and let the question go unanswered. But inwardly he shuddered at the thought of embracing some unknown woman, mating the way monkeys mate, furious passion for a moment and then parting forever.

  “Claude is at the university….”

  “That’s all right,” he said. “Nicole, I’m going to have to leave Paris.”

  “Leave? But why? When?”

  “Today. This afternoon. I won’t be able to get back to your apartment and return everything Claude’s loaned me.”

  “That is of no importance. But why do you have to leave so soon? An affair of the heart?”

  “No, I’m afraid not.”

  Nicole looked disappointed.

  “Listen. If anyone comes looking for me, tell them exactly what’s happened. Don’t hide anything from them.”

  Her disappointment changed to a disturbed, almost worried, frown. “What are you saying, Keith?”

  “I’m taking a trip. South, toward Marseilles. And then to Algeria and on into Africa, where the war’s going on.”

  “But that is madness!”

  “I’ve got to do it, Nicole. I can’t explain why right now, but that’s where I’ve got to go.”

  She shook her head, hard lines etching her brow.

  “Thanks for all your help,” he said. “And remember, if anyone asks about me, tell them everything. Hold nothing back.”

  He punched the button that cut off the connection before she could ask another question. They’ll be safe enough, Stoner told himself. No one will hurt them.

  But he wished he felt more certain of that.

  As they turned in from the Strand to the alley that led to the Savoy’s front entrance, An Linh asked Baker, “Let me get this straight: you’re using Madigan so that you can find the astronaut for the World Liberation Movement?”

  Nodding, he took her arm as they walked past a snub-nosed black taxi that was deftly turning around in the narrow circle in front of the hotel’s entrance. The uniformed doorman was tooting his whistle for another taxi; a trio of Arabs in Western business suits and checkered burnooses held in place by twisted goat-hair cords stood beside him, gesticulating animatedly as they spoke with one another in their guttural yet strangely musical language.

  Baker glanced back over his shoulder as he answered, barely loud enough for An Linh to hear him over the taxi’s motor and the noise from the street, “That’s right, love. Vanguard’s got a helluva lot more resources than we do.”

  “And Madigan thinks that he’s forcing us to help him.”

  The Australian grinned broadly as they pushed through the revolving door. Inside the hotel lobby, he took her arm and whispered, “He’s using us; we’re using him. Turn about’s fair dinkum, right?”

  An Linh kept her silence as they rode up the elevator to their suite. But in the back of her mind she kept thinking, Cliff’s right. This is the biggest story of the century. Not just the frozen astronaut, though. The World Liberation Movement. If they’ve penetrated Vanguard Industries, they must be huge. What a story it will make!

  The red message light was blinking on the phone terminal. Baker went straight for it as An Linh dropped her handbag into the nearest chair and headed for the bathroom. She remembered an old Australian dictum that Cliff had once told her: “Nobody ever owns beer; you just borrow it.”

  By the time she came back into the sitting room, Baker was hunched forward in one of the armchairs, staring at the image of Archie Madigan’s face on the phone screen.

  “Okay,” Madigan was saying. “I’ve got the scrambler working. Nobody
can listen in on us.”

  “What’s happening?” Baker said.

  Madigan cocked an eyebrow as An Linh moved into his view, standing behind the chair in which Baker was sitting.

  “The boss has been asking about you,” he said, a slight smirk playing across his lips. “I told him he should offer you your job back. He said he’d think about it.”

  An Linh suddenly felt like a mouse being eyed by a grinning, evil cat. Taking a deep breath to steady her voice, she replied, “Is that why you’ve called?”

  “And scrambled the transmission?” Baker added.

  Madigan’s smile turned almost apologetic. “No, of course not.” He seemed to straighten a little in his chair. “We’ve run a computer check on every person known to have come in contact with Stoner during his days on Project Jove….”

  “Jove?” asked Baker.

  “That was the name of the project to make contact with the alien spacecraft, eighteen years ago.”

  “Oh. I see.”

  “We’ve gone through every person on that project, all the people who he knew when he worked for NASA, and as far back as his classmates at college….”

  An Linh asked, “All of them? Every single one?”

  “As many as we could identify,” said Madigan. “We’ve even checked out his kids and his ex-wife.” Madigan’s hazel eyes flashed a silent message to her, and An Linh knew that she could never trust this man.

  “Find anything?” Baker asked.

  “The kids haven’t seen him in twenty years. His ex-wife is dead. We’ve got an army of people checking out everyone we can get to, including one of the Russians from Project Jove that Stoner got particularly friendly with.”

  “Who’s that?”

  Madigan glanced down for a moment, probably at the computer screen on his desk, An Linh thought.

  “I don’t have his name here at the moment,” he replied. “But there is somebody that you two can check out for me. A French astrophysicist named Appert. Lives in Paris.”

  “He was on the project with Stoner?”

  “No. They went to school together.”

  “That’s a long time ago,” said An Linh. “The man must be retired by now.”

  Madigan looked straight at her, and again his changeable, traitorous eyes sent a shudder of distrust through her.

  “We are checking out everybody,” he said firmly. Then, lightening his tone, he went on, “Besides, we’ve learned that Mrs. Nillson brought Stoner to Naples, and he left her villa several nights ago. Of all Stoner’s former associates and friends, this man Appert is the closest one to Naples.”

  “We’ll check him out,” said Baker.

  “Do not mention Vanguard Industries,” warned Madigan. “I repeat, Vanguard is not to be mentioned.”

  “Never heard of ’em,” said Baker, grinning.

  Madigan grinned back at him and cut the connection. The telephone screen went blank.

  CHAPTER 21

  “Do you mind if I tape our conversation?” Baker asked, beaming his most disarming smile at Nicole Appert.

  She stared with obvious distaste at the tiny black oblong that Baker placed on the coffee table. An Linh, sitting on the sofa beside him, looked at it, too. It was unlike any tape recorder she had seen before; a row of tiny white lights were blinking across its back, where Madame Appert could not see them.

  A voice analyzer, An Linh realized. Cliff’s going to check on whether she’s telling the truth or not.

  Nicole leaned forward in the dainty Louis XVI chair in which she was sitting and picked a cigarette from the gold box next to the pocket-sized recording machine on the polished wood coffee table.

  “You said on the telephone that you are friends of Dr. Stoner,” she said in Gallic-accented English as she put the cigarette between her lips. Before she could reach for the lighter, Baker scooped it up and lit the cigarette for her.

  “Yes. We’re trying to locate him.” He was wearing a casual tweed jacket over his denims. Comfortable clothes. Leather patches on the elbows. Very British. The outfit usually put an interview subject at ease.

  But not Nicole Appert. “How long have you known Dr. Stoner?” The suspicion in her low, throaty voice was obvious. The lights of the voice analyzer turned amber.

  In French, An Linh replied, “We are television reporters seeking to interview Dr. Stoner. We know of him by reputation.”

  She noticed that the lights on the analyzer’s circuit faded to cool green as she spoke.

  Nicole blew a puff of smoke toward the ceiling and leaned back in her chair. “Ah. I see.”

  And the lights stayed green, showing that the stress in her voice had eased.

  “He was here, wasn’t he?” Baker asked. An Linh was surprised to see the voice analyzer’s lights turn orange as he spoke, indicating heavy tension.

  Nicole regarded them silently for a moment, her eyes shifting from Baker to An Linh and then back to the Australian again. She was a petite woman, An Linh thought, small but elegant. The simple blue frock she wore must have cost a fortune. This living room was filled with priceless heirlooms. Nicole Appert was rich, and intelligent, and despite her tiny frame she seemed to An Linh as delicate as a black widow spider.

  “Perhaps you should come back when my husband is here.”

  “We don’t have time to spare,” Baker said tightly.

  “This afternoon. Claude has gone to give a lecture at the university. You picked the one morning of the month when he must be there.”

  “We really need to know whatever you can tell us,” Baker insisted. “Now.”

  But Nicole shook her head. “This afternoon. Come then, and we will both talk with you.”

  An Linh started to reply, but Baker put a hand on her thigh to restrain her. He looked around the living room, at the antique furnishings, the exquisite fabrics, the bookshelves stacked neatly, precisely, the curtains that framed the long windows. Without a word, he got to his feet, stepped past An Linh, and went to the glass-fronted cabinet that held miniature china dolls and delicate fossil seashells.

  Nicole half rose from her chair. Baker raised his arm and smashed the glass front of the cabinet with his elbow. The shattering noise made An Linh jump, startled.

  “What are you doing?” Nicole demanded angrily. She got to her feet and turned toward the telephone terminal, sitting on a high table against the wall.

  Baker picked up a jagged piece of broken glass and swung back toward her, holding it up to her face.

  “Sit down!”

  An Linh gasped. “Cliff, what—”

  “Shut up!” he snapped. Insanely, An Linh noticed that the voice analyzer lights burned hot red now.

  Nicole resumed her seat.

  Baker leaned over and scratched the sharp edge of the glass the length of the antique coffee table. The sound made An Linh’s blood run cold. She stared at the scarred tabletop.

  “We don’t have time to play games,” Baker said, his Aussie accent stronger than An Ling had ever heard it. “Where is Stoner? Where has he gone?”

  With cold fury, Nicole said, “It may interest you to know that Dr. Stoner instructed me to tell everything to whoever inquired about him.”

  “Did he now? Then start telling!”

  Nicole spoke swiftly, in English, her voice murderously low and enraged. The voice analyzer’s lights flickered red and amber, but Baker was not watching. He stood over Nicole, staring at her, the shard of glass in his upraised hand. An Linh sat there on the sofa feeling more terrified of him than the Frenchwoman apparently did.

  Finally Nicole stopped.

  “That’s it?” Baker demanded. “He’s going to Africa and that’s all he said?”

  “That is all.”

  “I don’t believe you!”

  “I do,” said An Linh, rising from the sofa.

  “There’s got to be more,” Baker insisted.

  “There is one thing,” Nicole said.

  “What?”

  “Yesterday Keith t
old me that his daughter is married to a Peace Enforcer.”

  “In New Zealand,” said Baker.

  With a hating smile, Nicole said, “The largest contingent of Peace Enforcers in the world is deployed in central Africa, trying to keep the war there from spreading further. Perhaps he learned that his daughter is there, with her husband.”

  Baker rubbed his chin with his free hand. “Right. Maybe so.”

  Nicole seemed perfectly calm, not the slightest bit afraid of Baker. An Linh saw her glance at the cabinet, as if checking to see if anything more than the glass had been broken.

  “What’s her name?” Baker asked.

  “Eleanor, I think.” Nicole reached for a fresh cigarette. An Linh realized that the one she had been smoking had fallen to the floor when Cliff smashed the cabinet. “Yes, Eleanor is his daughter’s name.”

  “Her married name!”

  Shrugging, Nicole replied, “That I do not know. I have not seen her since she is ten years of age.”

  “He didn’t mention her husband’s name to you?”

  “No.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Cliff, she’s telling the truth,” An Linh said. She bent down and picked up the recorder/analyzer. “She’s told us everything she knows.”

  Baker looked from An Linh to Nicole and back again. Then he broke into a boyish grin.

  “Yeah, I suppose so.” Gently he laid the glass shard on the scratched coffee table. “Sorry I lost my temper.”

  Nicole nodded curtly, then got to her feet. “There is one other thing that might be of interest to you.”

  “Really?”

  “A notebook that Keith left here.”

  “Notebook?” An Linh echoed.

  “Where? What’s in it?”

  Nicole stepped around the coffee table and went to the desk next to the windows. “I believe Claude put it in here….” She rummaged through the top drawer for a moment.

  Turning back to face them, she pointed a small onyxplated automatic pistol at Baker’s chest. An Linh’s breath caught in her throat. Baker’s grin vanished.

  “Now, you swine, you will put your hands above your head while I call the police.”

 

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