Trojan Orbit

by Mack Reynolds

  He said dourly, “You cloddies are like in a revolving door. It’s getting monotonous rounding you up. Don’t any of you ever get smart?”

  He swept the gun around the room, as though inviting response. There was none. For a moment, he eyed Tony Black and Rick, as though surprised at their presence. Then he shook his head, as though it didn’t make any difference. He walked a few steps into the room and swung the gun again. Four of his men entered behind him, all Gyrojet armed. They were typical heavies, burly of build, expressionless. There were still more of them out in the hall.

  “Jesus, Joe,” Tony Black blurted, hustling to his feet. “You came just in time.”

  “Shut your mouth, stupid,” Evola growled. “It took us two years to build your cover and now you do your best to bust it.”

  Tony said hurriedly, “Listen, Joe, that Cris Everett just left. He’s going to round up about twenty of the WITH-AW-DOH Club funkers. The idea was to raid the hotel and take over the radio…

  “We’ve already got him,” Evola said. “Shake them down.” This last was to his security men.

  As they were being frisked, Pete Kapitz said in disgust, “How in the hell did you find us?”

  “Don’t be stupid, Fuzzy,” Evola told him. “We’ve been tailing you, one way or the other, ever since you got out of the passenger freighter. Hell, since before that. That’s why I was sent down Earthside. Just to ride up with you.” He looked at Bruce Carter stolidly. “And you. You’re a laugh. That Russian scientist pal of yours knew his office was bugged, but he didn’t know there was a lens up in the ceiling. It could pick up everything you both wrote on that notepad.”

  Bruce sighed, but kept his peace. What was there to say?

  The security men who frisked them came up with the pistols Pete and Rick had carried.

  “These two were heeled, Joe,” one said, seeming surprised.

  “I know,” his superior told him. “Turn the guns in to the armory.”

  Tony Black said ingratiatingly. “You want me to give you the whole story, Joe? I been listening to them for…”

  “No, stupid. Take off. What Al doesn’t already know about the whole story, he’ll find out. Report to Donnello tomorrow. He’ll probably be too busy to see you the rest of the day.”

  The black marketeer hurried out, glowering at Rick, in particular, as he went.

  Joe Evola looked his prisoners over. “We might as well get going,” he said. “The boss is waiting. He’s real fed up with you types.”

  “The capo, don’t you mean?” Bruce muttered.

  “Button it up,” the other told him. “Let’s get going.” He handed his submachine gun over to one of his men, who folded the collapsible stock and tucked it into his overalls so that it was inconspicuous.

  They filed out into the street, the security men holstering their weapons before they emerged from the building. A disgusted Cris Everett was there in the custody of two more of the goons. He was added to their number.

  Bruce wondered fleetingly what would happen if he made a sudden dash for it. But dash to where? Even Adam Bloch, who probably knew the island as well as anybody, hadn’t been able to hide out successfully. Even had the freelancer known someone to appeal to, it wouldn’t take much time for him to be found. A simple house-to-house search would take care of it. And from what little he had seen of the landscaping of the interior of Island One, there’d be precious little in the way of places to hide in the supposed countryside. No, there was nothing for it.

  They roused only passing interest among the other pedestrians and cyclists as they returned to the hotel. Evidently, Joe Evola and the rest of the security men held little respect for their prisoners’ abilities to cope with the situation. Several of the raid party dropped away and there remained only four, including the sergeant, to escort them to their confrontation with Al Moore.

  They entered the L5 Hilton by the same door they had the last time Bruce, Adam Bloch, and Cris Everett had been apprehended, and retraced the route up to the offices of the Security Commissioner. There was no one in the reception room and Joe Evola impatiently ushered his captives toward the inner office.

  “Stay out here,” he clipped to his remaining three men.

  The door to Moore’s opulent sanctum opened before them and they marched through. Bruce Carter wasn’t particularly surprised to be confronted by not only the Security Commissioner and his ever-present aide, Mark Donald, but Ron Rich as well. For once, the public relations head had no air of hail-fellow-well-met. But, for that matter, the other two didn’t look particularly hospitable either. In fact, Moore’s expression bore ample indication of inner rage.

  Bruce Carter summoned his coldest front. “You’ve torn it now, Moore,” he said flatly. “Or should I say, Moroni?”

  The Security Commissioner glowered at him.

  “Balls,” Joe Evola grunted. He’d closed the door behind him and now leaned against it.

  “Quiet,” Moore snarled at him. He turned his glare back to the freelancer. “You’re the one who’s torn it, you stupid funker. Sol was out of his mind, inviting you up here at this stage of the game. A year or two ago, yeah. But not at this crucial point.” His infuriated eyes went to Pete Kapitz. “And the same damned thing applies to you. Wilson was drivel-happy sending you here.”

  Pete said, “He couldn’t stop it. I was sent by Roy Thomas, working with the okay of the President. You’ve had it, Moore. I’ve found out exactly what Thomas was looking for. And don’t think I’m ignorant of the fact that John Wilson was in with you. He’s the only one that could have broken my cover. You Syndicate people have infiltrated to some pretty high levels, these days. But this’ll be the end of Wilson.”

  “You’re digging your own grave by the minute, Fuzzy,” Mark Donald murmured.

  Moore said, “Sit down, for Christ’s sake. I don’t want to have to look up at you. You think this operation is such small apples we have to put up with bullshit from half-assed dizzards like you two?”

  Adam Bloch, Cris Everett, and Bruce Carter took places on a comfortable couch facing the desk. Pete Kapitz lowered himself into an easy chair and Rick Venner, looking more possessed than the others, took a straight chair. Across from them were Moore, behind his desk, and Ron Rich and Mark Donald flanking it.

  Adam Bloch said evenly, “You’ve gone too far, Mr. Moore. Sufficient evidence has been accumulated to prove that the space colonization plan has been deliberately sabotaged by the present administrators appointed by the Lagrange Five Corporation.”

  The Commissioner turned his eyes to that source. “To the contrary, Mister Bloch. Everything is going on schedule. You see, it depends on which plan you’re talking about.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  “…many years ago I stated that in the long run there will be more people living off the Earth than ever lived on it. But that is looking a century or so ahead, and I don’t believe that we should concern ourselves with vast space cities this side of 2001. The technical problems are so enormous—there are so many possibilities for disaster owing to some trivial oversight or violation of ecological principles—that we must prove we can make cities work down here before we design Astropolis... What we should start thinking about now are space villages, not space cities. We will need them in the quite near future for the industries and services that will undoubtedly be established in Earth orbit.”

  —Arthur C. Clarke

  *

  “Hey, take it easy, Al,” Ron Rich muttered less than happily.

  Mark Donald looked over at the flack. “Why?” he said. “What difference does it make?”

  The publicity man’s eyes were uneasy, but he said in surrender, “Yeah, I suppose so.” He fumbled for cigarettes, giving the impression of having washed his hands of it all.

  Al Moore was obviously in a high fury, not far this side of control. It came to Bruce Carter that there had been recent developments beyond any that involved himself and his associates present. On the face of it, matters we
re coming to a head. It became increasingly obvious that Al Moore held a higher position in the affairs of the Lagrange Five Project than was ordinarily realized; and that he was in a state of upset.

  Bruce said carefully, “Then there’s more than one plan involving Island One? More than the basic plan revealed to the man in the street, Earthside?”

  Al Moore snorted disgust. “I’d think that by this time even a half-baked professional snoop would have figured that out. Get me a drink, goddammit, Ron.”

  The publicity man sighed, got up from his chair, and went over to the bar. He obviously knew the Commissioner’s preferences and took up a highball glass and a square bottle with a black label. “Ice?” he said.

  “No.”

  Rich brought the bottle of bourbon and the glass to the desk, poured a sizable slug, and began to return to the bar.

  “Leave it,” Moore said tightly, knocking back half of the whiskey.

  The flack shrugged and left the bottle, looked at Mark Donald and raised his eyebrows. The security lieutenant shook his head. He seemingly wasn’t much happier about all this than was the publicity man, but he didn’t want a drink.

  Al Moore eyed Bruce in contempt and said sarcastically, “Yeah, there’s more than one plan. There’s almost always more than one plan when it comes to an operation as big as this, muckraker.” He leaned back in his chair and breathed deeply for a few moments, but failed to regain much of his disrupted control. He said, “Let me give you a few lessons in economics. You won’t ever be able to profit by them, but a snoop undoubtedly remains a snoop right up until the last and it’ll be good for your curiosity. Remember the cat in the rhyme who was curious right up to the end?”

  The eyes of the prisoners were on him, registering variously, but none of them said anything. Bruce remembered the old saying, right enough. Curiosity killed the cat. And then the corollary, which Moore hadn’t mentioned. Satisfaction brought it back. However, Bruce Carter had few illusions. He doubted his future, no matter the extent to which his curiosity was satisfied.

  Moore had another pull at his drink, took another breath, and said, “Yeah, it’s the biggest operation of all time. And let me tell you something, Carter, and you, Bloch, and the rest of you. In these big operations, somebody always makes it rich.” He snorted a wry laugh. “Did you think that the contractors involved in building those Egyptian piles of rocks didn’t rake off plenty? Or take something bigger, much bigger: those Crusades back in the Middle Ages. Besides the ordinary slobs who were conned into them, Europe was bled white of both aristocrats and their wealth over a period of a couple of centuries or so. And when the dust settled, guess who wound up with the gravy? Mostly it went to those Italian free cities like Venice and Genoa that supplied the ships and supplies to the suckers. It was the beginning of the end of feudalism, by the way. Those so-called free cities represented creeping capitalism getting its foot in the door. But even the Crusades were peanuts compared to some of the real operations to come. Take the big wars—the Napoleonic wars, World Wars One and Two, among others. The organizations that got those under way didn’t exactly starve to death during and afterwards. Do you think General Motors, IBM, Dupont, the oil corporations, and the rest went broke as a result of the Second World War?”

  Bloch said dryly, “The outfits on the other side didn’t do so well.”

  Moore poured some more spirits and sneered at him. “Bullshit. Were you laboring under the illusion that Krupp and Thyssen and such outfits as Bayer were bankrupt as a result of Hitler? Sure, they had some factories and mills leveled, but it wasn’t a drop in the bucket to all the billions they’d sifted out to Switzerland, Sweden, Argentina, and the other neutrals. Ten years after the war was over they were as powerful as they’d ever been. Same thing applied to Japan. The big operators didn’t suffer. A few of the big names that had hit the news were brought to trial and sent over for war crimes, such as using slave labor, but not a single one of them served their time. They were all, including Krupp, possibly Hitler’s biggest backer, released and their property restored.”

  “All right, all right,” Bruce said. “You’ve made your point, I suppose. What in the devil has it got to do with the Lagrange Five Project?”

  Moore laughed cynically. “Like I said, Carter. It’s the biggest operation of all time and like all the rest, somebody winds up with the gravy.” His voice took on a still nastier tone. “Can you imagine controlling several hundred billion dollars, francs, marks, pesos, and every other fucking exchange in the world? Suppose you were only able to rip off three percent? It’d make General Motors, Krupp, Mitsubishi, and all the rest look like a bunch of pikers, wouldn’t it? Not that the limit was three percent. And all legal, by the way, or damned near, and when you get to legality, that’s near enough.”

  Pete Kapitz pretended to yawn and said, “You haven’t told us anything yet, Moore. We’re up on the fact that the Syndicate was throwing a lot of weight in the Lagrange Five Corporation, probably the controlling interest. It’s obvious they’ve been milking it in the way they’ve distributed contracts. But it looks as though the boom is lowering. Roy Thomas is onto you and he’s big enough to do the job.”

  “Thomas is dead,” Moore said flatly.

  Pete stared at the security head. It never occurred to him to doubt the other. It made sense and fitted in with John Wilson ordering him back to Earth. Wilson had said something about Thomas no longer being with them, but Pete had thought he had simply meant that the President’s aide was out of favor with the White House. Without doubt, the Director of the IABI had brought President Corcoran around to his way of thinking, as well. Pete Kapitz had no illusions about the present President of the United States.

  Adam Bloch seemed never to have heard of Roy Thomas. He said now, “But it’s over, Mr. Moore. Whether you were able to, ah, rip off, as you put it, three percent or more of the multi-billions that have gone through the hands of the Lagrange Five Corporation, it’s over now. And when the full stink of it all hits, you people will have to answer. Frankly, I’d hate to be in your shoes.”

  Moore’s smile was inverted and mean. “Don’t be too happy about that aspect, Mister Bloch. We’ve been working op this operation for a long time. Whose names do you think head the original sponsors of the LFC? The biggest scientists, the outstanding statesmen, the most noted humanitarians, the ranking religious leaders, the bleeding hearts of every non-communist nation in the world, that’s who. They all bought the space colonization dream. Who the hell do you think sits on the Board of Directors? People like me? Shit we do. Not even old chucklehead Sol Ryan has any official position. Our work is done behind the scenes.”

  Pete Kapitz put in softly, “You people never did figure it would work, did you, Moore? Since Sol Ryan and his dreamers first came up with the idea there in New Kingston.”

  “Isn’t that a little obvious?” Ron Rich murmured grudgingly. In disgust, went over to the bar and poured himself a drink, seeming not to care from what bottle it came.

  Al Moore pretended surprise. “What do you mean, it didn’t work? Of course it worked. It is working. All according to the real plan I’ve been telling you about. All we need is about six more months, then we go into Part Two.”

  “And pick up your marbles and disappear while the L5 Project disintegrates, eh?” Bruce Carter said emptily.

  Moore looked at him in continued, pretended surprise. “Why, what a thing to say, my muckraking friend. You don’t think we’d allow all this just to go to rust, do you?”

  “Take it easy, Al,” Ron Rich muttered again.

  “Oh, be quiet,” Mark Donald growled at him. He repeated from earlier, “What difference does it make?” He looked at his chief. “But let’s wind it up, Al. We’ve got things to do.”

  “What’s your hurry, Mark?” Moore said, a slight slur in his voice. “These gentlemen have been prying around ever since they got here. Hell, Mister Bloch has been at it for over a year. Give ‘em a break.”

  “You don
’t make much sense, Moore,” Bruce told him. “Obviously Island One, and everything else that’s been put together out here in space, isn’t going to rust. Not in a vacuum. But the moment the L5 Corporation collapses, it all becomes some of the most worthless junk ever known. As somebody pointed out the other day, it’d cost more to haul it back to Earth than the scrap would bring.”

  The Security Commissioner was still in his insulting, expansive mood. He poured more from the square bottle, without taking his eyes from the freelancer. “Who’s talking about scrap?” he said reasonably. “In six months, we’ll have several more luxury hotels up here, and most of the landscaping will be in a reasonable condition. Then let the whole thing bust.”

  His listeners were staring at him as though he was considerably drunker than he had as yet managed.

  The office door burst open, almost sending Joe Evola, who’d been lounging against it, sprawling. His Gyrojet was half from his coveralls, his body half into a gunman’s crouch, when Sol Ryan came storming through. Annette Casey, considerably more possessed, followed after.

  The Father of the Lagrange Five Project stood there, momentarily speechless in consuming anger, breathing deeply, his eyes glaring at the Security Commissioner behind the desk. It evidently was a morning for men in a rage.

  Annette ran her eyes over the assemblage. “Hi, comrades,” she said. She took in Bruce Carter, her mouth askew. “My breakfast date,” she murmured.

  “My Black Irish colleen,” he returned.

  Still breathing deeply, Sol Ryan said, “I’ve just had an interview with Academician Suvorov and Rudi Koplin.” There was ultimate indignation in his voice. He seemed to notice no one present save Al Moore, at whom he was glowering.

  The head of security of Lagrange Five, looking dangerous, took a pull at his glass. “Yeah, I know,” he said flatly. “You should have kept your charming nose where it belongs, Sol. You should have minded your own business.”