by Kathy Tyers
Looking relieved, Kevan shut it off. “Okay, I tried. For now, let’s go below.”
―――
Ari MaiJidda let her dunked sandwich drip back into soy broth before taking another bite. The D-group building was eerily quiet, a private place for the First Circle to gather before tomorrow’s town meeting.
“It’s good news,” Lindon said quietly. For the first time in days, she saw him eating. The man must have called off his fast, deciding God heard him. “Urbansky was able to ascertain solid rock beneath us for at least 2K. That means our only lingering danger is heavy ashfall. It’s probably as safe as ever to bring the evacuees back.”
He probably missed those homozygous little daughters. “As safe as ever” was a good term, too.
“I’m not certain,” said Kenn VandenNeill, “no matter what the Gaea people say.”
Ari swallowed her bite, then said, “Gaea people don’t have to remind us about overcrowding, the risk of disease spreading under those conditions, or the strain we’re putting on Hannes’s stores. I agree. Bring them back.” She wiped her mouth with a browncloth square, then added, “Don’t you think it’s odd Brady-Phillips didn’t evacuate with the children? Any sensible person in her condition would have gone, given the choice.” If Yael GurEshel hadn’t confirmed the official diagnosis, Ari would have suspected the “syndrome” of being only part of Graysha’s cover. Ari was doing her best to forget having switched the glucodermic. It just put her on edge. “Is she sensible, Lindon? I understand you’ve spoken with her quite a few times.”
That little bomb had an immediate impact. “Why?” Kenn asked, setting down his sandwich.
Lindon narrowed his eyes enough to communicate displeasure. Let him. The election was tomorrow, and this was her chance to consolidate Kenn and Taidje’s votes. “She is staking her professional reputation on investigating Goddard’s cooling,” Lindon replied, “and trying to accomplish as much as possible before Dr. Varberg returns. Evidently he attempted to block her research in the past.”
“Oh, is that it?” Ari asked in knowing tones. “I think her decision to remain at Axis Plantation fits the pattern we’ve discussed. Be careful around her. Kenn, haven’t you heard that nettechs can beat gamma-vertol if they know it’s coming?”
Kenn shook his head. “Yes. We shouldn’t have wasted it on her.”
“She requested a high-altitude sampling plane.” Lindon frowned over the tabletop. “The HMF denied permission.”
“You let Yael GurEshel get away with that?” Ari injected scorn into her voice.
“I’m no physician. I don’t claim authority over medical personnel.”
“There are times when you should.” Ari raised one eyebrow at Kenn.
He nodded slightly.
Ari exulted. VandenNeill was hers.
If Ari got to serve as Axis’s CCA, Yael GurEshel would knuckle down, too—or find herself working at another settlement.
“Any word of LZalle?” Ari asked. She’d had precious little information out of her spy thus far.
Lindon shook his head.
―――
So the children were coming back. That was good news, Graysha decided. But Varberg would be returning, too.
Her computer came back on with an electronic burp and a wobble of letters: +Speak with you privately? Lee+
Startled, she pushed back from her desk. Maybe Dr. Lee had gotten the message about her clearance being denied and meant to ensure that she wouldn’t go off on her own. With Trev missing, everyone’s panic threshold had dropped about eight points.
Frowning, she headed down to the first floor.
As she entered the crane-watched sanctum, Dr. Lee swept one hand toward the extra desk chair. “Sit down.”
Graysha pulled a good deep breath and sat.
Melantha Lee wore a tailored blue offworld suit this morning. “Tell me,” she said. “How is progress on the alleged CFC-metabolizing organism?”
Graysha crossed her hands in her lap to hide a triple row of fresh scratches. Dutchy had been glad to see her, all right. “Not so good, Dr. Lee. I haven’t been able to do my sampling, and the HMF is being sticky.”
“Perhaps then it’s time you turned your full attention back to soil studies. With a full day’s work lost when the Trident first erupted, and so many of our technical staff gone to Hannes, we’ve fallen behind on spot-checking agricultural areas.”
“I’m sure,” Graysha said. “I’m glad they’ll be back soon.”
“Please get a start on the project today. They’ll—”
Lee’s message alert screeched at full emergency volume. Graysha leaned closer to Dr. Lee’s desk and read, +Chenny HoNin, calling for Gaea Consortium, Dr. Lee. For Colonial Affairs, Chairman DalLierx.+
Dr. Lee touched her Acknowledge key. “I wonder if something’s gone wrong with bringing our evacuees back.” On the screen a second +ACK+ appeared, followed by +LDL+.
+Dr. Lee, Lindon: Need your help. Hostage situation in progress. Varbergs are barricaded in a storeroom with two children, demanding you call ExPress Corporation and shuttle them offworld.+
“That lunatic,” muttered Melantha Lee, seizing her keyboard.
+Which children?+ Lindon came back. Graysha held her breath. The monitor stayed blank for five agonizing seconds, and then a third message appeared.
+Merria HoBrace and Sarai DalLierx.+
―――
Lindon felt as if he’d been knifed in the stomach. +Of course they cnaa go,+ he typed, tangling his fingers in an effort for speed. Under his reply, Melantha Lee’s message appeared: +Promise him anything, Chair HoNin. Gaea will cover shuttle fare to Copernicus.+
He rubbed his forehead, then wiped his palm on his thigh. Bee was capable and generally calm, but Sarai, so sure she was delicate, might fall to pieces. The man must be berserk.
Someone knocked at Lindon’s office door. He ignored it.
―――
Graysha could feel her heart pounding inside her rib cage. Poor Lindon!
And why—now—did Lee seem so willing to give Varberg whatever he wanted?
Lee typed rapidly again, using the Gaea Terraforming Consortium, Goddard Office heading. “If Dr. Varberg sees me send off the message he wants,” she said over her shoulder, “maybe he’ll release those girls right away.”
―――
The same hope made Chenny HoNin bite her lip. Once the request for immediate shuttle service was formulated, committed, and sent, she keyed over to the terminal Will Varberg had appropriated. +Done, Dr. Varberg. I’ll send a woman over for the girls.+
+Send her with food for four,+ he came back, his typing speed surprisingly slow. +Notify us when the shuttle reaches parking orbit.+
―――
Graysha gulped when she saw Varberg’s message. No, she pleaded, not that long.
Melantha Lee shook her head and typed, +That’s not fair to the children or their parents, Varberg. Release them now.+
Letters reappeared instantaneously as Varberg retransmitted his previous message. +Notify us when the shuttle reaches parking orbit.+
“That’s it, then.” Lee sighed. “For now, we wait.”
Graysha’s heart kept pounding. “Dr. Lee, he’s not crazy enough to hurt those children, is he?”
The Gaea supervisor folded both hands on her desk. “Will Varberg is not crazy.”
Oh, but he was. Half of him had wanted to kill Mahera. He might do anything now, “by accident.” The words echoed in Graysha’s mind as she re-entered her own office. He was capable of ruining Goddard’s thermal balance. What else might he do?
Spurred by anger, she punched up the Micro floor’s inventories program, then coded in for Dr. Varberg’s cultures. Again she searched his streptomycete files—backward this time, hoping something might be coded to come up only that way. She almost knew the list by heart.
Nothing new appeared. Her stomach hurt. She dropped both hands from the terminal to rub it. Varberg’s inventory
continued to scroll past, backward, in alphabetical order.
Staphylococcus 6-ICZ . . .
What? She grabbed the keyboard. This was the bacterium that nearly killed Lindon. This entry, on Varberg’s private inventory, was the evidence everyone had been looking for. Varberg did resent Lindon enough to try murder, particularly if his conscience had been seared back at Messier.
Now she wished they hadn’t recycled that dead gribien.
She paced to her door, then back to her seat. Would it be safe to take another snooping trip up the hall into Varberg’s lab? No. She shook her head. After this much time, even a half-sane person would have destroyed all possible vectors of deliberate infection. She wouldn’t find any clue as to how he infected Lindon.
Even blank walls had flaws, though. She saved that page of Varberg’s list onto her pocket memo.
Then she sat down, flexed her fingers, and reached for the keyboard. All right, then, what about . . . She’d been assured the net wasn’t monitored, but it looked as if everyone between here and Copernicus Hab could peer over her shoulder at net activities. Might there be some kind of visual record of events in the Colonial Affairs building, too? Suppose . . .
Keying over to the medical branch, Graysha pulled up a staph-6-ICZ entry. The organism could only establish nasal infection if it was administered as an aerosol, she learned. Onset of symptoms occurred four to six days after administration.
Good, good! That gave her an exposure vector and time frame.
She dashed from her chair and out the door.
Lindon’s secretary did not want to let her through.
“I’m well aware his daughter’s a hostage,” Graysha said, panting. “I think . . . hoo . . . I think there’s a chance . . . that other charges could be brought against Dr. Varberg.”
The pigtailed woman raised one eyebrow.
“There’s a strong chance Dr. Varberg is the one who tried to murder the chairman.” Exaggeration maybe, but it made the secretary reach for her keyboard. Moments later, Lindon’s door opened and he leaned around the corner to beckon Graysha in.
He didn’t wait until they were seated. “How could he have done it?”
It felt good to see him again. “I don’t know,” she admitted, “but I have a definite incubation period. I don’t mean to snoop into your security, but if you have a record of things that happen in this office, check around five days before you were taken sick.”
“I can do that.” He tapped at his keyboard. “We have a visual . . . Here. I brought it up fast-forward, without sound.”
Graysha watched, clenching one hand down at her side. On the monitor, a tiny version of Lindon sat at his desk, talking to the pocket memo. A secretary flashed in and out. More sitting. He left. Soon he was back. Three Gaea people entered, including Will Varberg—
“Freeze that,” Graysha cried. Beside her, the full-size Lindon was already reaching for the keyboard.
Varberg held a tumbler stuffed with marigolds.
“Flowers,” Graysha whispered.
Lindon shook his head. “Varberg brought flowers for that monthly floor meeting, for ‘color.’ I thought nothing of it.” He touched a button set into his chair’s neck rest.
“MaiJidda.” Ari’s voice came from near his ear.
“Can you come over, Ari? Quickly?”
“Is it about your daughter?”
“Yes and no. There’s more.”
Graysha walked to his window and peered out. Varberg! How dare he? “I suppose those flowers were destroyed. Recycled.”
“No,” he declared, “I was supposed to save the seed heads for Dr. Varberg. And I was too busy—”
Ari MaiJidda burst in, her short hair rumpled on one side. She spotted Graysha and frowned.
“Look.” Lindon thrust one hand toward his screen. “This record was made exactly five days before I took sick. Will Varberg set a bouquet on my desk. Graysha, tell Ari the incubation period for that staph bacterium.”
“Four to six days.” Graysha stared back at Ari.
Lindon’s black-haired rival rested one arm on his desk. “That’s very interesting.”
“I wanted you here as a witness, Ari.” Lindon stood up. “Somewhere in this office, I saved those flower heads. I don’t believe I ever took them over. I . . . Yes.” He slowly crossed to a set of shelves. Graysha held her breath.
He opened a cubbyhole. Instantly his back straightened. “Here,” he exclaimed.
“Well, Dr. Brady-Phillips.” Ari crossed her arms, wrapping long fingers around her shirtsleeve. “You’re the expert investigator. What do we do with them?”
“We take them to Jirina’s office. No,” she said quickly, “to the HMF. Let your people do this. Dr. GurEshel should wash them, then filter and examine the residue. She should be able to tell, within the twenty minutes it takes to run a differential filtration, if these were used in a . . .” She looked at Lindon. He raised one slanted eyebrow. “In a murder attempt.”
―――
Yael GurEshel shook her head ruefully. “Eighteen thousand cells per gram of staphylococcus 6-ICZ. That simple a solution. Dr. Brady-Phillips, we all owe you an apology.”
“And our thanks,” Lindon said soberly. “I think I can guess why he did it.”
Ari stood several meters from Graysha, crossing her arms over her chest. Graysha knew that as Ari’s favorite suspect, she’d better not feel too relieved, not yet.
“Revenge for that restitution sentence,” Lindon suggested. “He’s desperate to leave Goddard. He’ll even try . . . kidnapping,” he finished in a weak voice. Graysha wanted to take his hand and try to comfort him.
“Shrewdly planned on his part, though,” observed Dr. GurEshel. “Some owner of a staph kit was bound to be brought forward as a suspect.”
Or else, Graysha thought, someone who didn’t own a staph kit and who could easily be framed.
Ari wrinkled her nose. “Did you sniff them, Lindon? Marigolds don’t even smell pleasant.”
“I must have.” Lindon’s head drooped. “We have a new charge to transmit over to Chenny HoNin.”
“Tell her to be careful,” Graysha put in. “I don’t think he’s emotionally stable.” She inhaled a deep breath of HMF ethanol-and-phenol air. Poor Lindon. Now he has fresh cause to worry for his little girl.
Ari MaiJidda planted one hand on her hip. “Wait. Don’t transmit anything yet. If Varberg learns we suspect him of a second crime, he could easily panic.”
Lindon laid both hands on a centrifuge and shut his eyes.
―――
Novia raised her ringing pocket com. Stalled in her research and wanting to warm up that aching knee, she’d walked Copernicus’s reach for an hour. Far ahead, a green parkland sloped up and vanished in a typical morning haze. Despite stringent air-quality regs, habitat air always looked slightly misty. The horizon sloped up on both sides here, as well, thanks to Copernicus’s toroidal design. It made her vaguely uncomfortable. Habs should slope along only one axis.
“Novia,” said a filtered voice on the com unit, “this is Hauwk. Are you willing to travel without a pre-takeoff fast?”
Novia looked up and down the broad residential avenue. Only Jambling stood close enough to hear, and these skinny trees couldn’t hide spies. “I’d prefer not to,” she answered. “Why?”
“We have a situation developing over on Goddard. Evidently, Will Varberg of Microbiology demands shuttle evacuation to a hab. Lee sent an urgent request, and I’m going over myself. Mr. LZalle is coming along. Can you?”
“Yes.” Novia’s stomach bottomed out. Too soon! Graysha probably had the information Novia needed but was not yet genetically healed. Novia wanted posterity as badly as anyone, and Asta had no intention of marrying. Obviously Graysha wouldn’t reproduce either, until she was sure her children would not carry mutant genes.
Acid guilt burned Novia’s stomach. If Graysha felt so strongly about not wanting genefective children, she must resent No
via for having brought her to birth. Again, Novia decided she should’ve taken her pastor’s advice and terminated that genefective pregnancy. Graysha was approaching the long, slow end.
More than once, Novia wondered if Gray might consider shortening those difficult years. Euthanasia might be a welcome act of mercy, even if Gray couldn’t bring herself to ask for it. That might be a loving mother’s last kindness—better than letting her die by millimeters, clutching life like a sick animal.
She keyed off the com. “Back to the plex, Jambling,” she said with forced cheerfulness. “We’re finally headed over.”
Jewel Cave
Trev picked a way along jewel-crusted stones, dazzled by the sight. They’d passed less than five meters into the cavern, and visions of wealth already kick-stepped in his brain. “What is this stuff?”
“Just calcite.” Kevan rapped a boulder covered with grape-sized white crystals. “Calcium, carbon, oxygen. Valuable, maybe, in quantity. But I’m hoping to find better. What we’re after is Buyout, the point where Gaea is paid back for all services. Up to that point, a miner’s take is under 50 percent. After Buyout, it could be more like 90.”
Trev’s whistle echoed in the narrow passage.
“Watch your step.” Kevan started to wend down an incline. “And don’t get lost.”
Five steps later, Trev reached the point where Kevan started to disappear. Awed, he gulped and swung his head lamp around. Kevan’s helmet light shone against more crystals five meters down, in a room that gaped like one of the cargo holds where he’d crouched, hiding, just a few weeks ago.
A flash from below momentarily blinded him. Kevan must’ve turned his head back. “You coming?” the prospector called.
“Okay. Yeah.” Trev scrambled on. In one place, his foot slipped as he stepped on a crust of crystals that sheared off its rocky base. “Yah!” he yelled, but before Kevan’s head lamp swung in his direction, he got his balance back.
“We can go back if you want to.”
“No.” He picked up a fistful of crystals, fascinated. This world was full of surprises.
“Listen,” Kevan commanded.
Trev strained his ears. “To what?”