by Ben Bova
“But I—”
“Never again, Manny!” Her eyes flashed. She meant it, he realized.
Wunderly took a breath, then said, “Our relationship from now on is strictly business. You want to go skydiving through the rings and I want to draw public attention to the rings. We’ll work together on this strictly as professionals. No personal involvement. Understood?”
“Understood,” he said weakly.
“With any luck, I’ll get a big fat grant to study the rings and you’ll break your ass.”
Despite himself, Gaeta grinned at her. “With any luck,” he agreed.
Holly walked along the culvert to the spot where Don Diego’s murder had taken place. As she made her way down the dirt embankment she looked for Kananga. He was nowhere in sight.
He’s not here? she wondered. What’s going on?
Then she saw his tall, lanky form, maybe a hundred meters up the embankment, standing there, waiting for her. As usual, he was dressed completely in black: tunic, slacks, boots, all dead black.
“Hello,” she called.
Kananga started toward her.
“This is the spot, right here,” Holly shouted. “By the peach trees up there.”
Kananga called back, “Are you certain?”
“I remember every detail.”
He stopped once he was within arm’s reach. “You have an excellent memory.”
“Photographic,” Holly said. She tried to hide her nervousness, with Kananga towering over her. She noticed that his boots left prints in the dirt just like the ones at the murder scene.
“And I suppose that spot, there,” he stretched out a long arm, pointing, “is where you found the old man’s body.”
Holly pointed slightly more leftward. “Over there. That’s where it was.”
“I see.” And he grabbed Holly, one big hand clamped over her face, covering her nose and mouth, the other arm wrapped around her waist, pinning her arms to her sides and lifting her completely off her feet.
FIGHT OR FLEE
Can’t breathe! Kananga’s big hand was clamped over Holly’s face, smothering her. She flailed her feet, trying to kick him, but her softbooted feet merely bounced off his long, muscular legs.
Holly’s arms were pinned to her sides as Kananga carried her down along the culvert. She was desperately gasping for air but his hand was gripping her painfully, tighter and tighter.
Holly’s right hand brushed against Kananga’s slacks. Without conscious thought she felt for his crotch, grabbed and squeezed as hard as she could. He yowled and dropped her. Holly landed on the balls of her feet and whirled to face him. Kananga was doubled over, his face contorted with pain. She kicked him in the side of his head with every gram of strength she could muster.
Kananga went sprawling. Holy jeeps! Holly said to herself. I must have had martial arts training back on Earth. Kananga was staggering to his knees, groaning. Holly kicked him again and then took off, racing as fast as she could along the sloping concrete wall of the culvert, splashing along the edge of the stream, getting as far away from Kananga as fast as she could.
By the time Eberly got back to the administration building, most of his nervousness had abated. Kananga’s killed her. It’s on his head, not mine. Nobody knows that I led Holly to him. Not even Morgenthau knows. If Kananga gets caught, I can distance myself from him.
He entered the Human Resources section of the building and walked past the four clerical types working at their desks. The door to Morgenthau’s office was closed; he slid it open without knocking.
She looked up sharply from her desk, recognized who had invaded her privacy, and put on a smile for Eberly.
He glanced around before sliding the door shut again and taking the chair in front of the desk. This used to be my office, he thought, noting how Morgenthau had tricked up the walls with holoviews of Monet’s paintings of cathedrals.
“You found something of Wilmot’s?” he asked, without preamble. It was important to make Morgenthau understand who was the chief here and who the underling. Otherwise she’d flaunt her connections to the Holy Disciples and try to control him.
“Something that can destroy him,” Morgenthau said, smiling devilishly.
Eberly hiked his brows dubiously. “Really?”
“Really.” Morgenthau projected a list of titles against a bare spot on the wall. Each title had a still picture image alongside it.
Eberly gaped at the pictures.
“Pure filth,” Morgenthau said. “He watches these disgusting vids every night before he goes to bed.”
“You’re sure?”
She nodded, grim-faced. “Every night. I have it all on camera.”
Eberly broke into laughter. “We have him!” he crowed. “We have Wilmot in our grasp.” And he clenched both his hands into tight, painful fists.
“I may have a concussion.” Kananga lay stretched out on the sofa in Vyborg’s apartment, long legs dangling over the sofa’s edge, his head thundering with pain. The side of his face was swollen.
Vyborg carried a cold towel to the colonel, biting his lips to keep from screaming curses at the blundering idiot. Allowing a little slip of a girl to beat him up! To get away! Now she knows for certain that Romero was murdered. He kept silent, though. In the foul mood he’s in, Kananga might decide to throttle me if I tell him what I actually think of him.
“Where did she go? Where is she now?” Vyborg said, his voice low, sibilant. “That’s the important question.”
“You’ve got to tell Eberly.”
“I’vegot to? Why not you? You’re the one who allowed her to get away.”
“You tell him,” Kananga said, his face hard, determined.
Vyborg didn’t try to suppress the angry disdain he felt. Puffing a disgusted breath from his nostrils he called, “Phone! Connect me with Dr. Eberly, wherever he is. Emergency priority.”
Within ten seconds Eberly’s face appeared hovering in the air above the coffee table. He was smiling happily. Vyborg immediately saw that he was in Morgenthau’s office.
“I’m glad you called,” Eberly said. “I have important news for you both.”
“I’m afraid I have news, also,” said Vyborg. “Bad news.”
Eberly’s smile faded. Behind him, Morgenthau looked suddenly concerned.
No sense prolonging the agony, Vyborg decided. Come right out with it. “Holly Lane escaped.”
“Escaped? What do you mean?”
“Apparently she is a martial arts champion. She got away from our good colonel here,” Vyborg gestured toward Kananga, still supine on the sofa, “and we have no idea where she is.”
Eberly stared at the three-dimensional image that filled half of Morgenthau’s office: Vyborg standing tense and obviously angry while Kananga lay on the sofa pressing a cold towel to his head.
He glanced at Morgenthau, whose expression was gradually changing from puzzlement to understanding. She’s piecing it together, Eberly realized. Now she knows that I’m involved in the attempt on Holly’s life.
Shaking inside with a mixture of fury and fear, Eberly managed to say, “I want you both at my apartment in five minutes.”
Holly ran blindly along the culvert until her lungs burned with exertion. She stopped, bent over, puffing hard. A glance backward showed nothing. He’s not following me, she decided with some relief. Prob’ly unconscious, the way I kicked him. Jeeps, maybe he’s dead. She straightened up and headed up the embankment, into the dappled shadows of the orchard. Serve him right, she thought. He tried to kill me. He must’ve killed Don Diego.
Kay, she told herself. Kananga killed Don Diego. Why? She had no idea. Who do I tell about it? Malcolm?
Then she realized that Malcolm had led her to this meeting with Kananga. Had suggested it in the first place. Malcolm knew what was going down. He’s part of it, whatever “it” is, she realized.
She wanted to cry. Malcolm’s involved in Don Diego’s murder. He wanted Kananga to murder me!
Who could she trust? Who could she turn to? I can’t go back to my apartment, they might be waiting for me there. Kris! I’ll call Kris. Or maybe Manny. She thought about it as she hurried through the apple trees at the far end of the orchard. Ahead lay rows of berry bushes and, beyond that, the endcap.
Not Manny, she decided. I won’t go running to him like some helpless little girl asking the big, strong hero to protect her. He prob’ly wouldn’t believe me, anyway. Kris would. Kris’ll believe me. But should I get her involved in this?
She kept on walking toward the endcap, trying to sort out her options and finding there weren’t all that many options open to her. If Eberly is part of this, whatever it is, that means Morgenthau and that slimy Vyborg snake are part of it too.
Under the stand of elms at the endcap, Holly sat tiredly on the grass and tried to think. Looking down the length of the green landscape, the habitat seemed exactly the same as it had been the day she and Kris Cardenas had stopped here. But nothing was the same, Holly thought, her insides suddenly hollow. Her whole world had crashed and burned. I wish Pancho was here, she admitted to herself. Panch would know what to do.
Holly pulled out her comm unit and stared at it in her hand. No sense calling Pancho; it’d take the better part of an hour for a message to get to her. And what could I say to her? Help, somebody’s just tried to murder me? What good would that do?
Kris. I’ll call Kris. She said to the comm unit, “Kris Cardenas.”
Nothing happened. Holly saw that the screen was flat and dark. The unit wasn’t working.
They’ve deactivated my phone! Why? she asked herself. And answered, Because they want me to use a wall phone, so then they’ll know where I am. They’re after me! They want to locate me and grab me.
For the first time, Holly felt truly afraid.
NANOTECH LABORATORY
“We’ll go on the day after we establish orbit around Saturn,” Gaeta said.
Sitting at her desk in her office cubicle, Kris Cardenas looked far from pleased. “Why so soon? Why not wait and get more data first?”
Gaeta smiled at her. “This isn’t science, Kris, it’s show biz. We go right away, we get a lot more attention, much bigger audience. We wait until the chingado scientists have all the data they want, we’ll be old and gray and nobody’ll give a damn anymore.”
Her cornflower-blue eyes snapped. “I’m one of those chingado scientists, Manny.”
Pursing his lips, Gaeta answered, “You’d be a chingada, feminine. But you’re not. It’s not a nice word and you’re a nice person.”
Cardenas was not amused. “Isn’t it dangerous enough without plunging in there as soon as we arrive at Saturn?”
“Kris, I love you, but I don’t think you’re ever gonna understand my business. The more danger the better.”
“Until you kill yourself.”
“I’m not gonna kill myself. Fritz won’t let me. It’d ruin the damned suit. He’d kill me if I did that.”
Despite herself, Cardenas laughed.
Raoul Tavalera popped his head over the edge of the cubicle’s partition. “I’m goin’ home now. Okay?”
“That’s fine, Raoul,” said Cardenas.
An uncertain expression clouded Tavalera’s long face. “You heard from Holly this afternoon?”
“No.”
“She said she’d call me. We were goin’ to go out for dinner. But I haven’t heard from her all day. And she’s not answering her phone.”
Before Cardenas could reply, Gaeta said, “I thought we’d go out to Nemo’s tonight, Kris.”
“All right by me.” Turning back to Tavalera, “I haven’t heard a thing from Holly, Raoul.”
“Funny,” he said. “That’s not like her, not calling when she said she would.”
“It is a little strange,” Cardenas agreed.
“Whatever,” Tavalera said. “I’m goin’. The main processor is still working on the assemblers for Dr. Urbain.”
She nodded. “I know. Switch on the UVs before you leave, okay?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, where is she?” Eberly demanded.
Kananga was sitting up on Vyborg’s sofa now. He had put the cold towel away, but his left cheek was slightly puffy. “I have my whole staff searching for her. We’ll find her within an hour or two.”
Eberly paced past Vyborg, who was sitting in the armchair on the other side of the coffee table. “She’s got to be found. And silenced.”
“She will be,” Kananga said.
“She can’t go far,” Vyborg offered. “This habitat is big, but it’s not that big.”
Eberly frowned at him. His mind was racing. They’ve dragged me into this. Now I’m a party to their crime, whether I want to be or not. Two blundering oafs; they couldn’t even take care of one woman, a girl, a child really. He glared at Kananga as he paced across the room. Or maybe they’re smarter than I think. Maybe they planned it all this way precisely to pull me into their orbit. How can I hold the old man’s murder over their heads now?
Abruptly he stopped and jabbed a finger at Kananga. “As soon as she’s found I want her brought to me. Do you understand that? No more violence. I’ll take care of her.”
Kananga’s brows knit. “What do you have in mind?”
“That’s my business. I’ll handle it.”
“She can accuse me of murder,” Kananga said.
“And assault, perhaps attempted murder,” said Vyborg. “Certainly attempted rape.”
“You,” Eberly pointed at Vyborg, “get every phone in the habitat checked out. I want to know where she is when she calls, who she’s calling, and what she’s telling them.”
Vyborg nodded and got up from his chair.
Eberly headed for the door.
“Where are you going?” asked Kananga.
“To see Wilmot. If we’re going to hunt down this woman we must prevent him from getting in our way.”
Holly ducked through the hatch and clambered down a steel ladder to the utilities tunnel that ran the length of the habitat. Maybe they won’t think of looking for me down here, she thought. And even if they do, I can hide out in this maze for days and days. Long as I have to. Like Jean Valjean in the sewers. As she headed down the silent, dimly lit tunnel, she tried to remember when she’d read Les Misérables. Pancho had made her read a lot of old stuff after she had been reborn from the cryonics tank. Panch called it literature. Most of it was pretty boring. But Holly remembered vividly the scene in the sewers that ran beneath the Paris streets. Did I see a vid of it? she wondered. Maybe before I died?
With a puzzled shake of her head she felt thankful that the habitat’s tunnels were dry and there were no rats. No sewer smell, either. Holly sniffed and smelled nothing. Maybe some dust, and the faint trace of machine oil or something. Water gurgling through some of the pipes. The ever-present hum of electrical machinery.
The tunnel’s automatic lights turned on as she walked and off as she left a section. She saw a wall phone.
I could call Kris, she thought. Or Manny. He’d help me. He’d beat the crap out of Kananga.
But she hesitated in front of the phone. Kananga’s in charge of security. He’s got the whole warping security force under his command. And Malcolm’s in with him. They could say whatever they want about me, say I’m under arrest or something. Jeeps! They could even say that I murdered Don Diego!
And if I call Kris or anybody else I’d be getting them into trouble. Holly felt panic surging in her gut. What should I do? What can I do?
She sagged against the tunnel’s metal wall and slumped to the floor. Don’t do anything, she told herself. You’re pretty safe here, at least for the time being. Nobody knows where you are. You can stay down here until you figure things out.
Or starve to death. She looked up and down the tunnel, darkness in both directions. Good. If anybody was coming after her, the lights would be flicking on and off.
Food. I was supposed to go to dinner with Raoul tonight. H
e’ll think I stood him up.
She pushed herself up to her feet. Sorry Raoul, she apologized silently. Then she grinned. Food. Holly closed her eyes briefly, picturing the layout of the tunnels. The food processing plants were further down this tunnel. But if I take the cutoff and head back under Athens I can get under the storage lockers for the cafeteria. Plenty of food there.
She started off in that direction.
SATURN ARRIVAL MINUS 18 DAYS, SIX HOURS
“What’s so important that you have to interrupt my dinner?” Wilmot asked testily.
Eberly smiled at the older man. He had spent the past two hours watching Morgenthau’s recordings of Wilmot’s evening activities. Morgenthau had been disgusted by the professor’s choice of entertainment, but Eberly had watched snatches of the vids, fascinated by their mixture of eroticism and savagery. Now he stood in Wilmot’s living room, facing the professor’s sternly disapproving frown.
“We have a serious situation on our hands, Professor,” said Eberly. “Well, what is it?”
“One of the Human Resources staff members has disappeared. I have reason to believe she’s suffered a mental breakdown.”
“What?” Wilmot looked startled. “Who is this person?”
“Holly Lane. You’ve met her.”
“Have I?”
Eberly was keenly aware that Wilmot had still not offered him a chair. The two men were still standing, facing each other, barely a meter inside Wilmot’s front door. Inwardly, Eberly was amused. He knew he was keeping the professor from his evening’s entertainment.
“I suppose I’m partially to blame,” Eberly said, trying to sound contrite. “I’ve been protecting her all these months. But she’s finally snapped.”
Wilmot looked puzzled, and more than a little annoyed.
Eberly fished his handheld from his tunic and projected Holly’s dossier on the wall above Wilmot’s sofa.
The professor recognized Holly’s face. “She’s the one you brought with you a while back.”