by Ben Bova
“In the meantime, what do you intend to do with us?” Tamara asked, her voice low, smoky. Yuan had heard that tone from her before.
Alex blinked, the spell of his fascination with the artifact’s power broken. Sitting up straight in the desk chair again he said, “Well, my father wants you both skinned alive, you know.”
“Is that what you want?” Tamara purred.
His face went utterly serious. “That depends.”
Yuan started to speak, but Tamara leaned even closer to the desk and said meltingly, “I’d be glad to do whatever is necessary to help you understand the artifact.”
“What do you want us to do?” Yuan asked.
“You two go build new lives for yourselves. As far as HSS is concerned, you’re both fired. I’ll provide you with a healthy separation payment, then you’re on your own.”
Tamara looked disappointed. “On my own? With your father wanting me dead? He’ll hunt us down—”
“You won’t have to worry about that,” Alex said. “I’ll see to it that he doesn’t bother you.”
“How can you do that?” Yuan asked.
Alex took in a breath before answering. “Fair enough question.” He hesitated a moment. Then, “Yes, my father wants to prevent anyone from learning that he collapsed when he saw the artifact. He was perfectly willing to order murders.”
Tamara shrank back from him a little.
“But I’ve had a university-full of medics and psychologists trying to put his ego back together. I’ve convinced him that the best thing to do is allow you two to go your own ways—providing you never mention you ever heard of the artifact.” Alex’s voice grew iron hard. “Not to anyone. Ever.”
Yuan agreed. “That’s fine with me.”
“It’ll bring down the wrath of god on you if you speak a word about it,” Alex warned. “It would be your death warrant.”
Tamara nodded reluctantly, then asked, “What about Harbin and the old woman? They actually saw him at the artifact.”
“I’ll protect them,” said Alex. “I won’t let my father harm them.”
“You can do that?” Yuan asked.
Alex smiled grimly. “I can try.”
And Yuan realized what was going on. He’s playing a power game against his father. And we’re pawns in his game. As long as his father knows there are people alive who can tell about his collapse, Alex has the upper hand.
Yuan turned toward Tamara, but her eyes were still fastened on Alex Humphries.
If he noticed her focus on him, Alex gave no outward sign of it. He asked, “All right, then. You’ll come with me.”
“With you?” Tamara asked. “To where?”
“The artifact, of course. We’re going to study it. I want to find out how it works, who put it there, why they put it there.”
Somehow, Yuan wasn’t surprised. But he heard himself ask, “We’re going back to it?”
“Of course. Right away.”
ORE SHIP SYRACUSE:
BACKUP CONTROL POD
The jolt nearly knocked Theo out of his command chair. Angela, standing behind him, was thrown to the floor.
“COLLISION,” blared the ship’s computer, “PROPELLANT TANK SIX RUPTURED.”
Theo got out of his chair, helped Angela to her feet.
“Propellant tank six?” she muttered, slightly dazed.
“It’s been empty for years,” Theo said. “No loss.”
With both of them on their feet, Theo said, “Check with Mom, see if she’s okay.”
As his sister bent over the intercom panel, Theo scanned his working controls. Cripes! he thought. First a solar storm and now a collision. How much more can we take? Spin rate’s increased, he saw. A whole section of the rim’s been ripped open. Must’ve been a sizable rock that hit us, maybe a meter across or more.
He pecked at the control keyboard. Got to fire the spin jets, slow us back to normal. Otherwise the increased angular momentum will start to shake us apart.
But when he called up the spin jet display, half the lights were in the red.
“Damn!” he spat.
“What’s the matter?” asked Angela, looking frightened.
Tracing the schematic display with a forefinger, Theo answered, “The collision cut the circuitry to the spin jets on that side of the hull. The system won’t fire with one set of the jets out.”
“Can you override?”
“No, dammit. I’ll have to go outside and repair the circuit manually.
Immediately Angela said, “I’ll back you up.”
“Okay,” said Theo. “We’ll both get into suits but you come back here and take the command chair while I’m outside. If I get into trouble, you’ll be ready to come out and help.”
“Right,” Angela said. No argument.
As they clambered up the tube tunnel toward the living quarters and the main airlock, Theo felt the ship vibrating, a slight tremor that would only get worse, he knew, unless he could get the cold-gas jets to slow their spin back to normal.
“How’s Mom?” he shouted to Angela, a few rungs of the ladder above him.
“She sounded okay. She said she was working on the air filters when the collision hit.”
“She wasn’t hurt, was she?”
“You know Mom. She’d have to lose an arm or a leg before she’d admit she got hurt.”
Pauline was waiting for them at the hatch to the airlock. “I’ve pulled out your suits and checked their air tanks. Both suits are ready for use.”
“Thanks, Mom,” Theo said.
Pauline helped them into their suits, checked the seals, then sent Angela back toward the control pod. Once she reported on the intercom that she was safely at her post, Pauline started to pull her own suit out of its locker.
“What’re you doing, Mom?” Theo asked.
“I’ll be your backup. Help me into my suit, please.”
“But Angie—”
“Angie’s in the pod. If you get into trouble, I can be outside with you in three minutes, the time it takes to cycle the airlock. Angie’s fifteen minutes away.”
Theo recognized the tone of his mother’s voice. All that arguing would do was delay the repairs he needed to make. It would never change his mother’s mind, or blunt her determination.
“Okay,” he said, with a defeated sigh. Yet inwardly he knew his mother was right, and he appreciated her wisdom.
Once outside, Theo used his suit’s maneuvering jets to skim halfway around the ship’s rim.
“How does it look?” Pauline’s voice sounded calm enough, but he thought he detected just a trace of anxiety in it.
Shaking his head inside the suit’s glassteel helmet, Theo replied, “Like some giant robot ripped the whole section apart.”
“That bad?”
“Could’ve been a lot worse. The rock must’ve come in at a flat angle. It grazed the hull, just plowed along this one section and then went on its way.”
Angela’s voice cut in. “Can you fix the circuitry?”
“Yeah, sure. But it’s going to take time.”
And air. Theo knew his mother had filled his suit’s tanks, but every breath he took sucked up precious oxygen. Then there’s the maneuvering jet propellant. Cold nitrogen, same as the ship’s rim jets use. How much more do we have in store? We can take nitrogen out of the air we breathe, but that ups the oxy percentage, which can start its own cascade of problems.
He shook his head again, this time to clear away all the disturbing thoughts. No time for that, he told himself. Fix the problem at hand.
He didn’t realize how long he’d been at his task until Angela called. “You’ve got one hour of air left, Thee.”
Looking up from the welding job he’d been doing, he floated out to the limit of his safety tether with the welding laser in his gloved hand.
“Almost finished,” he said. He wished he could reach inside the helmet and scratch his nose. The headband he wore kept the sweat out of his eyes, but he could feel it trickli
ng uncomfortably down his cheeks and soaking the collar of his shirt. No time for complaining, he told himself sternly. Get the job done.
At last he called to Angela, “Check the circuit schematic, Angie. It should be all green now.”
“It’s amb… no, it’s gone to green!” Her voice sounded jubilant.
“Okay. Fire the jets. One-second burst. Just see if they actually work.”
“Firing.”
Theo saw a puff glitter from the nearest jet: cold nitrogen gas immediately dissipating into the vacuum of space.
“Works fine!” Angela sang out.
“Okay,” said Theo. “Check the spin program and slave the jet controls to it. I’m heading in.”
Two years ago, even one year ago, he wouldn’t have trusted Angela to get it right. But she’s grown a lot, Theo thought. Then he grinned to himself. So have I, I guess.
He got as far as the open outer hatch of the airlock. Then his earphones crackled:
“Unidentified vessel, this is Vogeltod. Do you need assistance?”
* * *
At first Valker was disappointed that the ship on his main screen wasn’t his quarry, Hunter. But it was a ship, running silent, no signals coming out of it, either before the solar storm or now, after it.
“Is she a derelict?” Valker wondered aloud.
Nicco, sitting at the communications console, said, “I can hail her.”
Valker thought it over for about a second, then replied, “Do that. Politely. According to the rules.”
Nicco grinned as he pressed his transmission key. “Unidentified vessel,” he called, his voice light and sweet. “This is Vogeltod. Do you need assistance?”
No answer. Only the crackle of interference from the natural background emissions of the Sun and stars. Then:
“This is ore ship Syracuse!” a young voice shouted eagerly. “Yes! We’ve been damaged and we urgently need help!”
“Put them on screen,” Valker commanded.
Nicco made an elaborate shrug. “No visual. Only voice. And it’s kinda weak, like it’s a suit radio, not the ship’s comm system.”
Valker leaned on the comm key built into his command chair’s armrest. “Syracuse, we hear you. You’re damaged, you say?”
“Yessir. We’ve been on a powerless trajectory for almost four years now, ever since we were attacked.”
“Attacked? By who?”
“We don’t know. The attacker slagged our antennas so we couldn’t call for help. I’m talking to you through a suit radio.”
Nicco half stood at his console and took a little bow. The other crewmen razzed him.
“We’ll rendezvous with you,” said Valker, waving to the crew to be quiet. “How many aboard your vessel?”
“Rendezvous will be tricky, sir. Our radar’s out. We’re blind as well as deaf and dumb.”
“That’s all right. We’ll match vectors and board you. How many in your crew?”
“There’s just my mother, my sister and me.”
Valker’s smile showed almost all his teeth.
“Hold tight. I’ll come aboard myself.”
“That’s great! That’s wonderful!”
Valker cut the connection and his crew whooped with glee.
“Two women!”
“And only one man to protect them!”
“He sounds like a kid.”
“Keep your pants on, you apes,” Valker said, raising one hand to silence them. “Nicco, check the IAA registration for Syracuse. Kirk, match our vector with theirs, get us close enough for me to jump across in a suit.”
“You? By yourself?”
“That’s right. I don’t want you baboons scaring the ladies.” Before they could complain he added, “Or making the lad suspicious. Easy does it. They’re not going anywhere without us.”
* * *
Theo was so excited it took him three tries to punch out the code on the wall pad that controlled the airlock. He stood fidgeting inside his space suit as the ’lock cycled from vacuum to normal air pressure, all fatigue forgotten, all the worries and fears that he had carried inside him like a gnawing tumor for more than three years, gone, disappeared.
We’re saved, he kept telling himself. We’re saved. We’re saved.
In his helmet earphones he heard his mother and sister bubbling.
“It’s a miracle!” Angie said, her voice brimming with joy.
“I never thought it could happen,” Pauline said, just as elated. “In all this emptiness, to run into another ship…”
Theo heard his mother’s voice catch, sensed her struggling to hold back tears.
When he finally clomped out of the airlock, Angela and Pauline were both half out of their space suits, down to nothing but their leggings. As soon as he pulled the helmet off his head they both wrapped their arms around his neck and broke into wet, blubbering sobs. Theo wanted to dance a jig, but they were pressing too close to him and he was afraid of tramping on their feet.
“We’re saved, Theo, we’re saved,” his mother said. “You’ve brought us through it.”
“We did it together, Mom. You, Angie and me.”
Angie said, “Let’s get these leggings off and put on some clean clothes. I want to look presentable. You too, Mom.”
Pauline laughed through her tears. “Yes, yes, of course. We want to look our best.”
ORE SHIP SYRACUSE:
LIVING QUARTERS
Valker beamed a brilliant smile as he sat in the cushioned armchair that Theo had avoided using since his father had left them. It had been his father’s chair, but now Valker sat in it, perfectly at ease, a big-shouldered, handsome smiling stranger in a hodgepodge of a uniform that seemed to be made up of odd bits and pieces from half a dozen other outfits.
“Very comfortable quarters you have here,” said Valker smoothly.
Pauline had put on a clean set of pale blue coveralls that complemented her sandy hair nicely. Angela was wearing an actual dress, something she hadn’t done since they’d left Ceres. Theo was shocked to see how really good-looking his sister was, and how Valker stared admiringly at her. Angie had pinned up her hair and put on lip gloss. She had also left the top three buttons of her dress open; Valker seemed especially impressed with her breathing.
Pauline sat on the sofa, her daughter beside her. “I’m afraid we don’t have much food left,” she said. “We’ve been rationing it out all these months, to make it last long enough for us to get back to Ceres.”
“I understand,” Valker said, his eyes never leaving Angie.
Sitting nervously on the edge of the smaller armchair, on the other end of the coffee table from Valker, Theo said, “It’s a good thing we were in our suits when you hailed us. Otherwise we wouldn’t have known you were nearby.”
“Oh, we would’ve boarded you anyway,” said Valker. “We’re in the salvage business. At first we thought your vessel had been abandoned, like so many others in the Belt.”
“Salvage business?” Pauline asked.
“It’s not much, but it’s a living for me and my poor excuse of a crew.”
“How many in your crew?” Theo asked.
“There’s nine of us, plus me. I’m the skipper.”
“How many women?” asked Pauline.
Valker shook his head. “None. Women cause trouble on long missions. They don’t mean to, but men just naturally start to compete over them.”
Theo understood. “I guess that’s normal, unless you’re family.”
“You bet it is.”
Angela spoke up. “Are your men homosexuals?”
Pauline glared at her daughter.
Valker threw his head back and hooted laughter. “My crew? No. Not at all. Quite the opposite.” Still chuckling, he added, “Although, after they’ve been out on a mission long enough, they’ll take whatever they can get.”
Angela flushed, but said, “You wouldn’t do that, would you?”
“I haven’t had to … so far.”
Theo wan
ted to make Angie disappear. She’s giving this stranger all the wrong impression, he thought.
Pauline changed the subject. “If you could give us some propellant for our fusion drive we could get back to Ceres within a few weeks or less.”
“Certainly,” said Valker. “No problem. We’ll repair your antennas, too, so you can communicate again.”
“No need for that,” Theo said.
“You’re wrong, lad. You can’t go barreling into the Ceres sector deaf, dumb and blind. There’s too much traffic in the region. It’d be dangerous for you and all the others.”
Theo glanced at his mother and saw that she didn’t want Valker’s men coming aboard Syracuse either.
“We appreciate your willingness to help,” Pauline began. Theo interrupted. “I can go back to your ship with you. If you’ll give me a spare antenna from your stores I can bring it back here and set it up, no sweat.”
But Valker shook his head once more. “It’s not that easy, son. We don’t have spare antennas. Our antennas are built into the ship’s hull, just like yours. But we have the materials to lay down a new set of antennas for you. Materials and men to do the job.”
“I can do the job myself if you just give me the materials,” Theo said.
Valker looked at him, smiling toothily. “I understand? You’re scared to let my men aboard your vessel. Two beautiful women and nine hungry men. Right?”
“Ten men,” Theo corrected. “Including you.”
“Including me, that’s right,” Valker acknowledged, laughing. “But you don’t have anything to worry about, son. I guarantee that my men won’t bother your mother or sister. That’s a promise.”
And he held out his right hand. Theo glanced at his mother, thinking, I’ve got no choice. Reluctantly, he took Valker’s hand in his own.
* * *
The three of them went with Valker to the airlock. Theo couldn’t help but be envious as he watched the man pull on his nanofabric space suit.
“I’ll be back with two men to help you install a new set of antennas,” Valker promised as he pulled the suit’s cowling over his head and inflated it into a clear bubble. “Once that’s done we’ll transfer enough hydrogen to get you back to Ceres.”