“Yes,” Rodriguez said. “He’s patronized almost every ‘personal service’ in the computer bank.”
“That sounds like Whaltham,” Charlie said. Her hand moved to her cheek.
“I’ve got us a meeting with a NESA Security official,” Rodriguez said. “Feel up to it?”
“Damn straight,” Charlie growled angrily.
“Excuse me, Ms. Jones,” the nurse said. “But you were to check into the NESA hospital for an examination. You’re still very weak.”
“I’ll tell you how weak I am,” Charlie chided him. “You just make sure my b.p. doesn’t get too low.”
“But, Ms. Jones—” he started.
“No,” Charlie said. “I want Whaltham. Let’s go, Rodriguez.” She shoved the joystick on the chair forward as far as it could go. The chair lurched down the corridor with surprising speed.
The Japanese man shook his head but followed Charlie’s chair.
***
In Boulder, Colorado, Kirsten looked at her wrist computer’s time display. She had it set to Universal Mean Time, which Mitchel called “Zulu” time. It was a half hour from the time Mitchel had told her the Kyushu would rendezvous with Alex’s asteroid. She moved to the front window and looked out on the lawn. A reporter was standing in front of a camera. Kirsten turned back to look at the large computer screen. She just caught a glimpse of her face looking out the window of her house behind a reporter and then her face on the screen turned to look inside the house.
She moved quickly away from the window. On the screen, she moved quickly away from the window.
***
Alex returned to the control room from his quarters as the control room crew assembled for the rendezvous. He’d actually gotten in a catnap. Bente was watching her computer. She saw him enter and they exchanged small smiles.
“About half an hour, sir,” Banda reported.
Alex nodded and hit the intercom. “Taylor, how’s it going?”
“We just ran out of water except a tiny bubble that keeps breaking up. I think we should shut it down now.”
“Understood. Can we last half an hour?”
“Yes, easily, if nothing unforeseen happens.”
“Great,” Alex said. “Bente, stop the spin.”
***
Knecht looked at the monitor that showed the view though the rear-facing telescope. She could see the asteroid. She smiled and looked at her computer. Less than 15 minutes.
“Cole,” she said. “Warm up those missiles.”
Chapter Seventeen
“...can’t take another hit in the rear.”
Mastoshi Yamachi, commander of the intra-lunar tug fleet, was sweating like a first year trainee as he worked his calculations on the tug’s computer. He had to release the piece of rock at just the right velocity at just the right moment in just the right place. His task was complicated by the necessity of avoiding the powerful military radars of the U.S., China, Russia, Japan and the EU.
Yamachi worked it out on his computer repeatedly and had it calculated to the fifteenth significant digit. Unfortunately, his equipment only gave him five-digit accuracy. And the common-sense-defying reality of orbital mechanics, where one speeds up to slow down and slows down to speed up, made the task formidable. Yamachi wished more than once he could have delegated this responsibility.
And, even with all his careful calculation, Earth’s unpredictable atmosphere would do as it wished to his plans. Even the best supercomputers couldn’t model a chaotic system like Earth’s sheath of air.
Yamachi checked his numbers and released the rock. He turned his tug around and did a retroburn (although the word “burn” was an anachronism left over from the chemical rockets) with the main Masuka drive to bring him into a lower orbit where he could rendezvous with the Low Earth Orbit Facility. That, and he didn’t want to be anywhere in the vicinity when the rock hit its target.
At LEOF, he had some computer work to do to cover his trip. Officially, it never happened.
***
We’re going to make it, Chun thought. The air was stuffy and Alex noticed he found exertion becoming difficult. The partial pressure must be dropping, he thought. But they were going to make it. “How long until the Kyushu can match orbit?”
Naguchi said, “Fifteen minutes.”
Chun smiled. “We’re going to make it,” he said.
“We’re going to make it,” Banda repeated.
***
Both the Rock Killer and the Kyushu were traveling ass-backwards, slowing to match velocities with SRI-1961 after racing to catch-up.
The Kyushu was closer to the asteroid, between the Rock Killer and her target. The Rock Killer was moving faster.
On the bridge of the asteroid tender the forward-looking window in the ceiling of the bridge was actually looking behind.
“Do you see that?” the navigator said.
“What’s that, mister?” Captain Takashara asked.
“It’s a ship, negative accelerating.”
“Radar?” the Captain barked.
The radar man released a pulse. His computer matched the return signal with stored profiles and displayed its conclusion.
“It’s the Rock Skipper,” the radar man said, incredulous. Last he’d seen that ship it was tumbling.
“Damn,” Takashara spat. “Communications, get me 1961.”
***
“What about the other ship?” Knecht asked.
“Ignore it. Are we close enough?” Griffin asked.
“Yes, no mistake this time,” Knecht replied. “But I still think the other ship—”
Griffin ignored her. If she wanted to think he didn’t consider her opinion worthwhile, he wouldn’t. “Cole, turn on your radar.”
“I have missile lock.”
“Launch missile,” Griffin ordered through clenched teeth.
***
Chun changed the intercom from “Communications” to the recently repaired line to the mass driver. “Is the driver working?”
“Soon, sir,” a voice said. It was female. Alex wondered why it bothered him more to risk a woman’s life.
“We need the mass driver in 20 seconds or we’re all dead.”
“We’ll—” The rock shuddered with the same motion as two days before when a missile hit. The intercom went dead.
“Control room, this is Perez. I’m at the new emergency doors. We just took another hit in the mass driver. The first door was breached slightly but we’ve got it controlled.”
“Survivors?”
“I doubt it, sir,” Perez said softly.
Alex spat, “Damn it!” and wanted to wallow in his anger, but Takashara cut him off.
“Nineteen sixty-one, this is the Kyushu, you’ve been hit and your mass driver is gone. I don’t know what you can do.”
***
Griffin smiled as he watched the mass driver tumble away from the asteroid. “Launch again.”
A missile shot forward, yawed 180 degrees around its center and, after slowing to a stop, flew at the rock.
***
Chun grimaced. “Bente, put our side to that ship. We can’t take another hit in the rear.”
“Control room, communications, they launched again.”
Damn it, Chun thought, we need a weapon, missiles, a laser, anything. The miners have some small lasers, he thought. But by the time they get them to the surface... should have thought of that before, Alex chided himself.
“Nineteen sixty-one, this is Kyushu. They just passed us.”
The Kyushu has that laser to drill through rocks, Chun thought. Damn, I am getting stupid.
“Kyushu, use your laser, kill that ship!”
The control room bounced.
“Stabilizing attitude,” Bente said, her voice betraying her own emotion.
***
Captain Takashara hesitated. “Can we do it?” she asked no one in particular.
“I can yaw the ship,” the navigator reported, “and then I can aim the l
aser using pitch, yaw and roll controls.”
“Do it,” Takashara ordered. “And do it fast.”
***
Griffin stopped smiling. “Is there any way to aim the missiles? We’re just blowing out sections of rock.”
“I told you,” Cole said, “that it hits the center of the facing profile. I can’t do a damn thing about it.”
“The other ship,” Knecht said, “is turning.”
“So what?” Griffin barked. The pain in his arm was creeping up to his shoulder and down his side.
“Damn it,” Knecht barked angrily. “Last time you ignored me we almost got killed! Cole, launch a missile at that ship!”
Griffin opened his mouth but Cole cut him off.
“I have to get missile lock; it will take time.”
“Do it now!” Knecht screamed.
***
The navigator on the Kyushu yawed the ship as fast as he could. He slowed the turn just as the Rock Skipper was straight ahead between his ship and the asteroid. But both ships were accelerating.
“dV/dt equals acceleration,” he mumbled working with his skilled fingers on the computer. In school he never thought he’d do differential equations on a three-space vector problem that was a life or death situation. He solved for a time five seconds later. The computer displayed a coordinate prediction of where the Rock Skipper would be at that time and the Euler angle to be pointed in that direction. He placed the laser-aiming reticule on those coordinates. Three seconds.
“Fire the laser,” he said.
The laser fired its arm-thick beam. It missed the Rock Skipper and sliced harmlessly into the stone surface of the asteroid. Two seconds. The stolen ship was getting closer.
***
“I’ve got missile lock,” Cole reported loudly.
“Launch,” Knecht yelled. “They’re firing a laser!”
Cole reached for the panel.
She never made it. The ship passed through the waiting beam of the laser. It burned through the hull of the Rock Killer in the bridge, showering the interior with melted metal in a cone of blazing heat that burned everything flammable in the room: paper, plastic, cloth, flesh. The air expanded explosively, ripping the ship apart. In the airless drive section, the buckling of the deck tore open the fusion reactor and lithium plasma coolant exploded into the vacuum, damaging the reactor controls. The magnetic bottle failed, and the hot hydrogen plasma fuel, much, much too cool to fuse but still inconceivably hot, became a massive blow torch shooting the missile compartment. That ignited fuel and warheads. The Rock Killer became two convergent spheres of expanding, rapidly cooling debris.
Metal and plastic flotsam rained harmlessly upon the surface of the asteroid. Some wreckage hit the Kyushu causing minor breaches that were quickly and efficiently plugged by damage control teams that she’d left in place even after finding the Rock Skipper apparently dead. Just in case, Takashara had told herself.
***
“Nineteen sixty-one,” Takashara’s voice said via the intercom, “this is the Kyushu. The Rock Skipper is dead. We’ll have matched velocities in just a few minutes.”
Chun let out a long breath and then breathed in the thin air in the asteroid. “Tsuji.”
“Yes?” the miner asked.
“Unseal one of the tunnels to the surface, install an airlock, and get a miner on the outside. The Kyushu will match velocity soon. They’ll be sending over a telegraph line.”
“Roger.”
***
Helga Moeller regarded Charlie after greeting her politely. Moeller then greeted Rodriguez like an old friend.
“What can I do for you?” she asked, the pleasantries finished.
“You have in the Selene,” Rodriguez began, “a Roger Oaks, American. We have reason to believe he is Whaltham, a leader in the Gaia Alliance.”
“What reason?” Moeller asked.
“That’s the problem, Helga. We have nothing firm now. But Charlie knows Whaltham. If she can get a look at him...”
Moeller frowned. “Then go look. What’s the problem?”
“He hasn’t come out of his hotel room. He’s ordered out a lot but that’s it. About the only way we could get Charlie to see him is to put her in a pressure suit and lower down to the window.”
“That would break our privacy laws,” Moeller said, either not noticing or caring that it was a joke. “It’s obvious you have his room under surveillance that, without due cause, is also a violation of our laws and the agreement between SRI and NESA.”
“I know,” Rodriguez said. “May we present our evidence to see if it is enough that NESA will ask him out of his room?”
“Yes,” Moeller said.
It took about a half an hour for Rodriguez to go over the data Mitchel had sent him. At the end Moeller shook her head.
“No, this is not enough.”
“But he could be—” Rodriguez started.
“I know,” Moeller said interrupting him. “But we have very strict privacy laws here. We have to; this is too small and closed-in a society for it to be otherwise. The danger of despotism is greatest in such a place. We could, like the Russians on Mars, place cameras in strategic places and easily control the population. Especially since we control the air. But we don’t and we do pay a price for it. It is one reason why the ‘personal service’ section of the data bank has the most records. But, otherwise, we’d risk an oxygen dictatorship.”
“I understand, Helga,” Rodriguez said. “Is there nothing we can do?”
“No,” she said. “But I will overlook your surveillance of his room. If anyone else catches you, I know nothing about it.”
Rodriguez looked at the floor. “Well, thank you anyway.”
He stood.
“What about,” a voice said, “his visa?”
Everyone turned to the Japanese man that seemed so much part of Charlie’s chair no one paid any attention to him.
“Excuse me?” Moeller said.
“His visa,” the nurse said. “Was it legal?”
“Yes,” Charlie said. “Can you give his visa more than just a routine check with the evidence we’ve given you?”
“No,” Moeller said, smiling. “But we do give random visas thorough investigations. I think Mr. Oaks’ will be one.”
She turned to her computer and typed while narrating. “Okay, his number is not a duplicate, but that would have been checked on Earth. It was purchased at the Japanese consulate in San Francisco on May third of last year. Hum, that’s interesting.”
“What?” Charlie and Rodriguez asked simultaneously.
“Your data indicate that Mr. Oaks first used his credit account to purchase an airline ticket?”
“Yes.”
“Well, as you know, for a visa we require either a credit check or a large cash deposit. Enough to get you back to Earth if you go broke.”
“Right,” Rodriguez said.
“Well, according to this they did a credit check in San Francisco and it came up good. But if he’s never used credit (hard to believe in itself)... hang on. Let’s call up a credit check on Mr. Oaks. I can get his credit account number from the hotel and...”
There was a wait while the data were transmitted from Earth.
Moeller frowned. “It seems the credit services have never heard of our Mr. Oaks. So either the Japanese screwed up, which I find incredulous, or it’s a fake visa. Plus, he’s probably using an invalid credit account.” She looked at Rodriguez. “I have to investigate this. If you and Ms. Jones want to tag along, I can’t stop you.”
“All right,” Charlie said. “Let me at ‘im.”
“In your condition?” Moeller asked.
“I don’t care,” Charlie replied indignantly. She was tired of the invalid routine. She’d stand up and walk if it didn’t hurt so badly.
“Listen,” Rodriguez said to the women. “We just want her to finger him.”
“Lead me to him,” Charlie said.
In front of the Selene, Charli
e recognized Smitty although he was in civilian clothes. He moved up to her and grabbed her hand.
“Charlie,” he exclaimed. “You look great.”
“You lie like a dog, Smitty,” Charlie said. They both laughed. Charlie laughed even though seeing him reminded her of when she and Smitty found Frank’s body.
“Has he come out?” Rodriguez asked Smitty.
“No. A lot of girls have gone in, though.”
“He’s not alone?” Moeller asked.
“I think now he is,” Smitty reported. “A bunch just left. They didn’t look too happy.”
“I can understand why,” Charlie said softly.
There was a short silence.
“Listen,” Moeller said. “I’m going to ring the bell and when he comes to the door ask him some question and then take his visa for authenticity tests.”
“You’re not going to arrest him?” Charlie asked.
“I can’t until I have proof it’s a fake visa. Besides, where would he go?”
“What if I finger him as Waltham?”
“Then I’ll arrest him on the spot.”
“Okay,” Charlie said. “Let’s go.”
Moeller looked perplexed for a moment. “Okay. You may come to the door with me.” She tapped the Glock nine millimeter at her hip. “If it’s not him I want you out of there fast, understand?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Moeller pressed the button for the bell. Charlie was beside her in the wheelchair. The nurse was across the hall.
“What is it?” a male voice called.
The hair on the back of Charlie’s neck came to attention.
She looked up at Moeller and nodded. Moeller unsnapped the strap holding her weapon in its holster and spoke softly into the radio on her cheek, “This is Moeller at the Selene. I need backup at room 3872.”
“I said who is it?” the voice said again, somewhat irritated.
“NESA Security, Mr. Oaks,” she said.
There was a long pause.
Finally: “Can you come back later?”
“No, sir. I can’t. Would you please open the door?”
Again there was a long wait. “Okay, just a minute. I’m getting dressed.”
More waiting. “He has ten seconds,” Moeller said, “then I’m going in.”
The door opened inward.
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