The Aftermath gt-16

by Ben Bova

  ATTACK SHIP VIKING:

  BRIDGE

  “A sick woman?” Yuan echoed, startled by Dorn’s plea, and shaken even more by the sight of the cyborg’s half-machine face on his main screen.

  “It’s a ruse,” said Tamara.

  Dorn’s voice, taut with stress, came through the speaker again. “I have Elverda Apacheta with me. I think she’s having a heart attack.”

  “He’s slowing down,” the nav officer reported. “Two and three have him boxed in.”

  “They’re requesting permission to fire,” Tamara reported.

  “Permission denied,” Yuan snapped. “Who the hell is Elverda whatever-her-name? Sounds familiar, but—”

  “The sculptress,” Koop said. “She’s famous.”

  Radiating suspicion, Tamara protested, “What would a famous artist be doing on that killer’s ship? It’s a trick. It has to be a trick.”

  Yuan’s mind was racing.

  “Please!” Dorn urged. “She’s dying!”

  “Let me see her,” Yuan said to the screen.

  The view enlarged to show a half-unconscious woman sitting beside the cyborg. She looked very old. Her face was gray and sheened with perspiration, her eyes half closed, her mouth hanging open slackly.

  “I’ve seen pictures of her,” Koop said, his voice rising eagerly. “That looks like Elverda Apacheta.”

  “But what’s she doing—”

  “You can’t just let her die,” Koop urged. “She’s famous! It’d start a shitstorm if anybody found out we let her die.”

  If anybody found out, Yuan thought. Humphries’s orders are to kill the renegade quietly. No fuss. No news reports. He’s just to be erased, eliminated. And his accomplices with him.

  But a worlds-famous artist? If we let her die how can it be kept a secret? Somebody must know she’s out here in the Belt.

  Tamara said, “I can message headquarters for orders on how to proceed.”

  “It’d take an hour or more to get a reply,” Yuan muttered, as much to himself as to his crew. “She’d be dead by then.”

  With a slight lift of her shoulders, Tamara replied, “Then the problem would be solved, wouldn’t it?”

  He glared at her.

  “Sir,” she added belatedly.

  Grimacing with a responsibility he never wanted, Yuan decided, “Take her on board.”

  “Sir?” Tamara asked.

  “Now,” he snapped. “Do it now.”

  Koop smiled brightly, and jabbed a finger into the nav officer’s shoulder. She began pecking out a rendezvous course.

  To the screen, Yuan said, “We’re going to rendezvous and give your companion immediate medical care. How many others are on your vessel?”

  “Only the two of us,” said Dorn.

  “Very well. Consider yourself my prisoner, then. No tricks or we’ll execute you both.”

  “No tricks,” Dorn repeated. Then he added, “Thank you, captain.”

  * * *

  Yuan sat alone in his compartment peering at the flow of information about Elverda Apacheta that was scrolling down his screen. The half-dead woman they had taken aboard was indeed the famous sculptress: her face matched the computer file’s image and her DNA matched her medical record.

  He called up images of The Rememberer, the asteroid that this woman had carved into a memorial to the history of her Andean people. He saw the ionospheric paintings she had produced, making artificial aurorae high in Earth’s atmosphere with electron guns to paint ephemeral pictures that glowed with delicate shimmering colors briefly at twilight, then faded as the Sun went below the horizon: the Virgin of the Andes, the serenely beautiful Heavenly Pastures, the Star Children.

  What is she doing in a ship deep in the Belt with a mass murderer? Dorik Harbin had come aboard Viking peacefully and admitted that he was the man who had wiped out the Chrysalis habitat. Yuan’s crew stood in awe of the cyborg, their hands on their sidearms as they marched the half-machine to one of the ship’s empty storage bays and locked him in.

  Yuan had sent a message to HSS headquarters on the Moon, informing them that he had captured Dorik Harbin and that the killer had been accompanied by Elverda Apacheta. Now, as he waited for their reply, he wondered all over again why Humphries wanted Harbin executed in the deep darkness of the Belt, rather than bringing him back to civilization and taking the credit for tracking down the criminal.

  A gentle knock on his door startled Yuan out of his thoughts. He touched a key and his screen showed it was Tamara out in the passageway.

  “Come in,” he said sharply, without getting up from his desk chair.

  She slid the door back and stepped in to his compartment, a sheet of plastic flimsy in her hand, a self-satisfied little smile on her delicately boned face.

  “Headquarters’ answer,” she said, handing the sheet to him. “It’s encrypted. For your eyes only.”

  Yuan took the sheet and slid it into his scanner. Tamara turned to leave.

  “Hold on a minute,” he said.

  She turned and stood framed by the open doorway.

  “Shut the door.”

  She slid it closed and turned back to him, her smile a little more tentative now.

  Without asking her to sit down, Yuan said, “You’ve been too informal with me on the bridge.”

  “You told me so, in front of the others.”

  “Discipline in small things is important. I can’t have the crew think I’m showing favoritism toward you.”

  Her brows arched.

  “What we do in the privacy of this compartment is one thing. On the bridge is another.”

  “I see.”

  “I hope you do.”

  The scanner had finished its decrypting task; its yellow ready light was blinking. Yuan swiveled his chair to face the display screen. Tamara made no move to leave.

  He looked up at her over his shoulder. “You already know what this says, don’t you?”

  She didn’t reply, but she didn’t look surprised by his question, either.

  “Headquarters assigned you to watch me?”

  “Mr. Humphries assigned me to watch you. He considers this mission extremely important.”

  “Humphries himself?”

  “Yes. The message is from him, personally.”

  Yuan was surprised that the news didn’t startle him. He realized that he’d half expected something like this. Wheels within wheels. A labyrinth for the lab rats to run through.

  He told the screen, “Display message, please.”

  The letters glowed bright red against a yellow background: ELIMINATE THEM BOTH IMMEDIATELY.

  ATTACK SHIP VIKING:

  INFIRMARY

  Elverda’s eyes fluttered open. A blank and featureless ceiling hung low over her, a pale cream color. She smelled the faint tang of disinfectant, heard a soft beeping sound. For long moments she lay still, trying to work up the courage to see if she could move her head. Slowly she realized that the pain was gone. Her entire body felt relaxed, languid.

  Then she stiffened with the memory of her last waking moments. The agony flaming through her. And Dorn’s words, tense and urgent: “Cease firing. We have a sick woman on board. She needs immediate medical assistance. We surrender.”

  He surrendered. He slowed the ship and surrendered to our pursuers because he wanted to save me. Have they already killed him? Are they going to kill me?

  She turned her head and saw that she was in a hospital of some kind. More likely the infirmary aboard the ship that was chasing us. Her bed was surrounded on three sides by blank off-white partitions. The fourth side was a metal bulkhead, with a bank of sensors stacked against it; they were making the beeping sounds she heard.

  Tentatively, Elverda tried to lift her head off the pillow. No pain. No dizziness. The beeping changed its tone slightly. She let her head sink back again into the softness of the pillows, too weak to even think about sitting up.

  One of the partitions slid back and a bulky, blocky man stepp
ed in. Suddenly the area was overcrowded. He was dressed in light gray coveralls, with marks of rank on his cuffs. His face was square, heavy-set, his skin a light brown, almost golden. Polynesian? Elverda wondered.

  “You’re awake,” he said, in a surprisingly light tenor.

  “Yes.” Elverda realized that her throat was very dry, rasping.

  “I’m Kahalu’u Kaupakulu’a,” he said, smiling gently. “Don’t bother to try to pronounce it. Just call me Koop. Everybody calls me Koop.”

  “You must be the ship’s medical officer.”

  “First mate,” he corrected. “We don’t carry a medic.”

  “I see. Where’s Dorn?”

  “Dorn?”

  “The man who was with me. What—”

  “He’s Dorik Harbin, isn’t he? We have his files. Even with half his body replaced by machinery he has the same DNA.”

  “He was Dorik Harbin. Now he is Dorn.”

  Koop shook his head. “Whatever he calls himself, he’s locked up, waiting for the captain to make up his mind about him.”

  “Don’t hurt him! He’s been hurt enough already.”

  “Not my call, Ms. Apacheta.”

  “You know my name.”

  “I’ve seen The Rememberer. When I was a teenager. It knocked me out.”

  She decided it was a compliment. “Thank you.”

  “We injected stem cell activation factor into your heart. It’s repairing the damage.”

  “How did you know…?”

  “Med program. We have an up-to-date diagnostic program in the computer, and a good stock of medical supplies.”

  “I see.”

  “It’s not a total fix, y’know. You oughtta see a specialist when you get back to Earth. Or Selene, whatever.”

  Elverda nodded, knowing that it would be many months before she returned to the Moon, if ever, and she could never face the heavy gravity of Earth.

  Glancing up at the sensors lining one side of her bed, Koop said, “Seems to be workin’. You should be able to get outta bed by tomorrow.”

  “But Dorn? Dorik Harbin? What’s going to happen to him?”

  Koop shrugged his heavy shoulders. “That’s for the captain to decide.”

  * * *

  Captain Kao Yuan stared at his prisoner. The crew had locked Dorik Harbin in an emptied storage locker. The man had come aboard Viking peacefully. Yuan had ordered a thorough search of his ship, Hunter. No one else was aboard. No weapons of any kind, just ordinary stocks of food and replacement parts. Nobody but him and the old woman.

  Now Yuan stood in the open doorway of the storage locker. Two of his biggest crewmen stood out in the passageway, sidearms strapped to their hips. Dorik Harbin stood in one corner, looking back at him.

  Yuan felt distinctly uneasy. This isn’t a man, his mind told him: he’s more machine than human. Half his face is metal, etched metal covers the top of his head like a skullcap, one arm is prosthetic, and one leg. Does he have balls? What are his insides like?

  “You can come in,” said the half-machine. “I won’t attack you.” His voice was deep, calm. It made Yuan think of the huge lake he used to swim in when he was a child, before the greenhouse warming dried it out.

  Yuan stepped fully inside the storage locker. It was small, meant to house medical supplies. The crew had emptied its shelves and moved the supplies to an unused bed space in the infirmary, where the old woman was being kept.

  “You admit you are Dorik Harbin?” Yuan asked.

  The lips on the half-face bent slightly. “I was Dorik Harbin. Now I am Dorn.”

  “You are the man who destroyed the Chrysalis habitat?”

  “I am the beast responsible for the Chrysalis slaughter, yes.”

  Yuan licked his lips nervously. What more is there to ask? He admits it. My orders are to kill him.

  “The woman who was with me,” the cyborg said slowly, as if he had to ponder each word. “She had nothing to do with Dorik Harbin’s crime. I did not meet her until years after that.”

  “Why is she with you?”

  “I wonder.”

  “Is she really a famous artist?”

  “She is Elverda Apacheta, yes.”

  “What made her come out to the Belt with you? For that matter, what in the name of hell are you doing out here?”

  “You don’t want to know.”

  “Don’t get smart with me! I’m the captain of this vessel. I can have you executed like that!” Yuan snapped his fingers.

  “And I can kill you, too, if I choose.” Dorn’s prosthetic hand flashed through the air and grabbed one of the empty storage shelves, ripped it out of the bulkhead and crushed it in his metal fingers.

  Yuan jumped back. The crewmen pulled their pistols from their holsters.

  “Relax, gentlemen,” said Dorik Harbin, scorn dripping from his tone. “That was merely a demonstration. I can make threats too.”

  Yuan wished he’d carried a gun with him.

  “I have no intention of resisting whatever sentence you pass on me,” Dorik Harbin went on. “But I would like your assurance that Elverda Apacheta will not be harmed. She has not done anything to be punished for.”

  “Then why’s she with you?” Yuan insisted.

  The cyborg fell silent for several endless moments. Yuan felt its eyes boring into him: one human eye, dark, pained; the other an unblinking red, like a laser.

  “I chose my words poorly a few seconds ago,” Dorik Harbin said. “It would be in your best interests not to know why she decided to accompany me.”

  “My best interests?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’ll have to explain that.”

  Again the cyborg hesitated before answering. “My mission is to retrieve the bodies of those who were killed in the war and left to drift alone, unwanted, uncared for.”

  “Retrieve the dead bodies?”

  “And give each of them a proper death rite.”

  Yuan stared at him. “That’s what you’ve been doing?”

  “Yes.”

  It was impossible to read his half-metal face. Yuan started to ask, “But why—”

  Dorik Harbin held up his human hand, stopping his question in mid-sentence. “Again, it would not be in your best interests to probe too deeply.”

  And Yuan believed him.

  ATTACK SHIP VIKING:

  CAPTAIN’S QUARTERS

  “You believed him?” Tamara asked. “You swallowed his ludicrous story? You let him get away with this mysterious tripe?”

  Sitting on the edge of his double-sized bunk, Yuan nodded unhappily. “I didn’t want to believe him, but I really think he’s telling the truth.”

  Tamara Vishinsky stood by the compartment’s closed door. She was in her off duty coveralls, with the front unzipped enough to show considerable cleavage. Ordinarily Yuan would have found this enticing, suggestive. Not now.

  Planting her hands on her slim hips, Tamara scorned, “You actually believe that he’s wandering through the Belt looking for bodies of dead mercenaries? It’s a lie, and a pitiful one at that.”

  Scratching his head, Yuan shot back, “What else could he be doing out here? Going from one battle site to the other?”

  Tamara said, “What else indeed? Why don’t we find that out before we get rid of him? He might know things that would be valuable to us.”

  “Us?” Yuan asked. “Us, meaning you and me? Us, meaning the crew of this task force? Or us, meaning you and Humphries?”

  She started to answer, caught herself, then replied, “He’s searching for something out here in the Belt. I’d like to know what it is. Wouldn’t you?”

  “What in the name of all the dragons in hell could be out here?”

  “That’s what I want to find out.”

  “My orders are to kill him. Immediately. You know that.”

  “But we can interrogate him first.”

  Yuan shook his head. “He won’t be easy to pry information out of.”

  “May
be the woman will be easier.”

  “No!” Yuan snapped. “It’s bad enough we have to kill her.”

  Tamara walked to the bed and sat down beside him, close enough for their shoulders to touch.

  “They’re out here in the Belt searching for something,” she whispered in his ear. “It must be something valuable, or else why would they be doing it? It might be something that could make us rich.”

  “Buried treasure?” Yuan sneered.

  “Information is the basis of wealth,” Tamara purred. “Information that we can sell or trade or use to make us rich.”

  Yuan smelled the faint perfume she wore. He knew the places on her body where she daubed her skin with the scent.

  “He says he’s searching for bodies,” he muttered, “to give them proper last rites.”

  “But what is he really doing?”

  “Do you actually think he’s up to something else?”

  “He’s got to be,” she said.

  “I… I don’t know.”

  “Let me interrogate him. We’re going to eliminate them both anyway. Let’s find out what they’ve been doing, first.”

  “I don’t like it,” Yuan said.

  “I’ll take care of it. You can question the woman and be as gentle as you like.”

  “Let me talk to her first. Maybe I can get what we want out of her.”

  Tamara got to her feet and headed for the door. “All right,” she said. “You do that.”

  And she left Yuan sitting on his bunk, alone.

  * * *

  “Whatever did you do to Martin Humphries to make him want you dead?” Yuan asked.

  He had invited Elverda to his quarters for dinner. And some questioning. She had come hesitantly, wondering how well her heart had been repaired. But aside from a slight breathlessness when she first got out of bed, she felt all right. She thought she’d felt her heart skip a beat or two when she’d first stood up, but she put that down to her imagination.