Voyagers III - Star Brothers

by Ben Bova

  A flat, uninflected computer-generated voice immediately replied, “Voiceprint identification accepted. Security override in effect.”

  “Delphi, this is Tomasso, from corporate headquarters. Approaching in ballistic vehicle. Require clearance to land.”

  A human voice, male, answered, “Clearance to land approved, Tomasso. This is Matthews. Why the security override and yellow alert?”

  “I’ll explain when I get down, Matthews. Expect arrival in…” Tomasso glanced at the pilot’s control displays, “…seven minutes and twenty seconds.”

  “Okay. I’ll be at the airlock.”

  With a nod and a grin, Tomasso shut off the radio. “Dumb bastard’ll never know what hit him.”

  The saucer-shaped rocket landed slowly, its engines kicking up dust from the lunar surface. As it settled on its six spraddling legs, an access tube snaked from Delphi base’s main airlock—little more than a rubble-covered dome on the pockmarked surface of Imbrium—and connected to the airlock of the saucer.

  True to his word, Matthews was at the airlock in his frayed, faded blue coveralls. The expression on his face went from curiosity to outright shock as Tomasso and the dozen black-uniformed Pacific Commerce commandos poured through the access tube, guns in hands, and started down the power ladder toward the interior of the base.

  “What the hell is this?” Matthews demanded.

  Tomasso waved a slim automatic pistol in his face. “Stay cool, friend, and nobody will get hurt.”

  In less than ten minutes the commandos took control of Delphi’s communications and life support centers. Tomasso led Matthews into his own office and took the seat behind Matthews’s desk. The crew-cut administrator stood in front of the desk, fuming.

  “I want to know what in hell you’re doing!”

  Tomasso was already pecking at the keyboard on the desk top. The display screen showed a list of the base’s personnel.

  Looking up at the older man, Tomasso said jovially, “This is a sort of corporate takeover, friend. This base is now the property of Pacific Commerce.”

  “Are you crazy? When Ms. Camerata hears about this…”

  “She’ll be here in another hour or so. She’s going to become another Pacific Commerce acquisition.”

  Matthews’s legs seemed to give way. He groped behind himself for the only other chair in the cubbyhole office and sank onto its creaking plastic seat.

  Jabbing a thumb at the desktop display screen, Tomasso said, “I want you to assemble each and every member of the base’s staff in the cafeteria. Now. I’m going to check them off against this list. If anybody’s missing, those guys in the black uniforms are going to start shooting people. Starting with you.”

  Two levels further down, Paulino Alvarado looked out from the makeshift quarters Matthews had given him and saw strange men in black uniforms with machine pistols in their hands stalking up the corridor. They went right past his door, intent on some task, but Paulino knew they would come looking for him sooner or later.

  Police! he thought. Or soldiers.

  His pulse thudding in his ears, his palms suddenly clammy, Paulino desperately looked around the tiny cubicle for some means of escape.

  Matthews had cleared out one of the small labs that was no longer being used and converted it into living quarters for Paulino. A folding cot, a set of metal bookshelves that now held a few sets of coveralls, and a portable shower/sink/toilet unit plugged into the former lab’s plumbing. Other employees had generously provided odd pieces of clothing, bedsheets, a blanket.

  Trapped like a bird in a net! The tiny cubicle had only one door, and it led to the corridor and the armed soldiers. Paulino peeped out into the corridor and saw the men in black pushing a handful of blue-coveralled people back in his direction.

  Very softly, but quickly, Paulino closed his door. Leaning against it, he heard the footsteps pass him by, heard a woman asking who the armed men were and what they wanted.

  They want me, Paulino knew. I’ve got to get away.

  His eyes darted back and forth across the bare little room. No way out. No escape.

  Then he saw the grille covering the heating shaft up by the ceiling. With the strength of desperation he worked it loose and boosted himself on the shaky metal shelving to its level. It was a narrow square tunnel of smooth metal, too small for a man of Matthews’s size.

  But not too small for Paulino. He scrambled up into the shaft, scraping his knuckles and barking his shins, then wormed around and replaced the grille. It was slightly lopsided and would fall to the floor if anyone as much as touched it. But it was the best he could do.

  Slithering along the shaft, Paulino found himself looking through another grille out into the cafeteria. The whole staff of the base was there, sitting at the tables or standing glumly against the far wall. They looked bewildered, frightened. Like the people of my village must have looked when the soldiers came, Paulino thought.

  The men in black uniforms did not start shooting, however. Another man, short, stocky, wearing crisp new coveralls of tan and gold chains around his neck, was calling out names and checking those who answered against a pocket computer he held in his hand.

  Finally he said, “All right, that’s the entire staff. Good. You people will be staying here until further notice.”

  Paulino saw Matthews take a step toward the man in the tan coveralls. Several of the soldiers leveled their guns at him.

  “There’s nothing for you to do, friend,” said the man, “except relax and enjoy it.”

  Then he turned to one of the soldiers and said, “Okay, bring in Stoner and the Hungarians. Set him up the way they want him. Jo Camerata should be arriving in less than an hour.”

  CHAPTER 33

  HUNCHING slightly as she stood behind the driver’s seat, Jo saw through the tinted windshield of the lumbering bus the squat saucer shape of the rocket sitting on its spindly legs at Delphi base’s main airlock. The saucer was unpainted, unmarked, but she knew that Vic Tomasso had brought an assault team of Pacific Commerce commandos in it to seize the base.

  “Check Archimedes,” she said curtly to the woman sitting at the driver’s right.

  The woman, in the coral jumpsuit of the security department, touched the comm panel in front of her with one hand while passing a headset to Jo with the other.

  Jo received a terse report from the security chief at Archimedes. The attempt to kidnap Rickie had failed, and all the Pacific Commerce commandos were dead. Three platoons of paramilitary personnel were already aboard ballistic rockets, ready to take off for Delphi at Jo’s signal.

  “Good,” said Jo tightly into the pin mike. “If I don’t transmit a signal within half an hour, send the troops.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” said the security chief’s voice. He had been with Vanguard since boyhood, and Jo had investigated his background and actions so thoroughly that she knew him better than he knew himself. He was utterly reliable, she would stake her life on that.

  I am staking my life on him, she told herself as the bus labored over the last small rise in the dust-covered rocky ground and finally groaned to a halt before the auxiliary airlock of Delphi base.

  Jo walked down the length of the bus to its main hatch. Cliff Baker pulled himself up from his seat and joined her, a quizzical grin on his puffy face.

  “So what’s here that’s so bloody important?” he asked Jo.

  “You’ll see soon enough.”

  It took a few minutes for the personnel inside the small rubble-covered dome to snake out the access tube and make the connection with the bus’s main hatch.

  At last the indicator light on the wall panel turned green and the hatch popped open with a little sigh. Jo’s nose wrinkled at the slight odor of stale air and plastic as she pushed the hatch all the way out. Stepping into the access tube, she felt every sense heightened, every nerve straining taut.

  Hsen’s not here, she knew, but Vic is. He thinks I don’t know he’s taken over the base. He thinks h
e’s trapping me.

  As she walked slowly along the tube, Baker two steps behind her, she thought, And I think I’m trapping Vic. The kids are safe, so that card’s been taken out of Hsen’s hand. Even if I can’t get to Hsen right away, I’ll have Vic in my grasp. And I’m going to squeeze him until his damned traitor’s eyes pop out.

  She paid no attention to the fact that the two men working the airlock wore black uniforms rather than the blue coveralls of Delphi’s staff. With Baker trailing behind her, Jo placed both her booted feet on the power ladder and grasped the rung at the level of her shoulders. It began to descend slowly, the faint hum of an electric motor the only sound in the cramped little dome. Baker followed her down.

  Despite herself Jo was trembling inside. More than the anticipation of roasting Vic for his part in killing Cathy, there was something else gnawing at her innards. Not fear. Something else.

  The ladder carried down past three landings to the lowest level of the underground base, ending at the juncture of five corridors. Vic was standing there, smiling brightly, as Jo stepped off. He was in the tan coveralls of a Vanguard administrator, the damned traitor, with the front unzipped halfway down his hairy chest to show off three ropes of gold.

  “You don’t look surprised,” he said to Jo.

  “Should I be?”

  Baker stepped off the ladder, his lopsided grin fading into genuine puzzlement.

  “Your bodyguard?” Tomasso asked.

  “Hardly,” said Jo. “This is Cliff Baker, chairman of the International Investment Agency. You’re the one who needs a bodyguard, Vic.”

  “I’ve got one.”

  “They won’t be enough. Rickie and Cathy are safe. The goons Hsen sent to take them are all dead.”

  Tomasso’s smile faltered for only a heartbeat. “I didn’t think that would work. Hsen wanted it for insurance, though.”

  “Where is Hsen?” Jo asked, her voice low and murderous.

  Tomasso made his smile wider, showing lots of perfect teeth. “I thought you’d be more concerned about the whereabouts of your husband.”

  “Keith can take care of himself. There’s nothing you can do to hurt him.”

  “Oh no?” Crooking a finger, Tomasso said, “You’d better take a look at this.”

  He led Jo down one of the corridors and into a small empty office. He pointed to the desktop computer and Jo stepped up to the desk and swivelled its display screen so she could see it.

  Her face paled and she leaned heavily against the desk. Baker’s mouth dropped open.

  The screen showed Keith Stoner, blindfolded, strapped into a stiff-backed chair, his bare torso showing a score of ugly burns, yellowing black against his pale skin. His head was slumped forward; he was obviously unconscious.

  Jo kept herself from screaming. Barely. She realized that the tension, the odd sensation she had felt a few minutes earlier, had been a warning. The fear that she had kept bottled within her all these weeks finally erupted in a hot flame of anguish: Keith was helpless and in their hands. He was not the powerful, confident, capable superman she had told herself he was. He was just as vulnerable and defenseless as any ordinary man.

  Jo realized now that she was vulnerable and defenseless, too.

  Zoltan Janos had been carefully briefed by Tomasso. He and Ilona Lucacs had waited inside the rocket with the handcuffed and blindfolded Stoner until a black-clad Pacific Commerce commando returned to tell them that the base was securely in their hands. Then, following Tomasso’s orders, Janos dispatched Ilona and two of the orientals to set up Stoner while he himself followed a third black-uniformed man to the base’s communications center.

  Ilona Lucacs had gone with two men who led Stoner, their hands tightly gripping his arms, down the base’s only elevator to a small storeroom. There they ripped off his shirt and strapped him—still handcuffed—into a stiff chair. As Janos had told her to, Ilona then injected Stoner with a heavy dose of phenobarbital. He gave a little gasp, more of surprise than pain, when the needle went into his bare arm. Then his head lolled on his shoulders, and finally his chin sank to his chest.

  Ilona stared at the unconscious Stoner for several moments, thinking, He wanted to help me. He wanted to be my friend, to be my father, almost. And all I’ve given him in return is pain.

  She pulled off the earphones that were still tightly clamped to his head. He was completely limp, sagging against the straps that cut into the flesh of his chest and arms.

  But it has to be this way, Ilona told herself. He is too important to be sentimental over. His offers to help me, to love me, they were nothing but bribes to make me do what he wanted. Janos and I must study him further, pry out all the secrets within him. He is an experimental subject, nothing more. An experimental subject.

  Still, she knew that he had not volunteered for these experiments. And the only end to them that she could see was death.

  The two silent orientals were waiting at the door. Carrying the earphones in one hand, Ilona walked out into the corridor. The two commandos shut the airtight storeroom door firmly; the rubberized gasket around its rim gave a sighing sound. They clicked its electronic lock and, for good measure, wedged a thick metal rod across it as a makeshift bolt.

  Ilona took a deep breath and headed for the room that the man Tomasso had indicated she could use. Her pleasure machine was waiting for her there. Just a few minutes of it and she knew she would feel much better about everything.

  Stoner remained limp and sagging against the straps that constrained him until he was certain that he was alone. His star brother had neutralized the sedative that Ilona had injected into him almost as quickly as the chemical had entered his bloodstream. But it wouldn’t do to let them know we’re perfectly conscious.

  He sensed a camera over the room’s only door, up by the ceiling. Originally installed to guard against pilfering, now it was watching him. He probed its mechanism and found that it could be overloaded and shorted out without much trouble.

  Jo! He realized that she was in the base, watching the picture that the camera showed. Stay strong, Jo, he said silently. Stay strong. The real test is just beginning.

  Paulino Alvarado wormed his way along the heating duct, desperately looking for a way to escape the soldiers who had taken over the base. He had seen Matthews and the others milling about angrily, worriedly, in the crowded cafeteria. If he could find them weapons, maybe they could fight their way out. There seemed to be only a dozen or so soldiers.

  As silently as he could, Paulino slithered along the cold metal ducting. He had never seen guns or weapons of any kind in the many days he had spent at the base. But surely there must be something.

  He stopped at one of the grilles. A beautiful young woman was sitting on the bed, an open suitcase full of electronic gear on the floor at her feet. Her face was exquisite, but so troubled that Paulino felt he had stumbled upon a princess in exile, like the stories he had read in childhood.

  All the soldiers wore black uniforms and were orientals. This lovely young woman wore a tweed skirt and a wrinkled blouse that had once been white. Her hair was the color of thick honey and her skin was like flawless cream.

  And she had a suitcase full of electronics. Maybe it was a radio. Maybe they could summon help. If she isn’t one of the enemy. Paulino knew he had never seen her before. She did not wear the blue coveralls of the regular staff. Yet she was sad, perhaps even frightened, as she stared at the little suitcase on the floor.

  And so beautiful. With the glandular wisdom of youth, Paulino decided that a woman of such beauty could not possibly be evil, or an enemy.

  He tapped on the grille.

  Ilona flinched and looked up toward the sound that startled her. A man was behind the grille set up in the wall near the ceiling.

  “Senorita,” he whispered hoarsely, “por favor…”

  “Who are you?” she whispered back in English as she stood up.

  “I need your help,” the young man replied in accented English.
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  It took a few minutes of rummaging in her purse before Ilona found a nail file sturdy enough for the screws holding the grille. Standing on the room’s only chair, she quickly got the grille off, then stepped down and watched Paulino slide stealthily to the chair and then the floor.

  He looked something of a scarecrow, rail-thin, with frightened, darting eyes. The eyes were deeply dark, though, and his thin face with its sculpted cheekbones had an aesthetic look to it that was almost romantic. His pale orange coveralls were stained and rumpled, as if he had been living in them for days on end.

  “I can help you,” he whispered, once his feet were safely on the bare floor. “We must work together to get away from the soldiers.”

  Ilona heard herself answer, “Yes, but how?”

  She was shocked at her own words, until she realized that she did indeed want to get away from these menacing orientals in black, away from the guns and the danger, away from Janos and what he was doing to Stoner.

  But how?

  CHAPTER 34

  JO recovered her strength and her poise after only a moment. She tore her eyes away from the display screen, away from the picture of Keith helpless and unconscious, and faced Tomasso once again, unconsciously fingering the belt that cinched her glittering jumpsuit at the waist. Its jewelled buckle was an old family heirloom; it could be pulled free easily and used as a dagger.

  Vic was trying to keep his face straight, trying not to smile, not to sneer. He almost succeeded. Jo, her mind filling with images of how his smile would turn to agonized screams, stepped away from the desk. Cliff Baker stood out in the hallway, goggle-eyed, trying to digest all that was happening.

  “Your husband’s in a storeroom,” Vic explained, “and the air has been pumped out of the corridor on the other side of his door. If you don’t cooperate, we’ll have to pump the air out of the room he’s in.”

  “I play ball or you kill him,” Jo snapped.

  Tomasso nodded. “That’s it.”