Privateers

by Ben Bova

  Weston almost laughed. “Not too sore? He’s madder than a high school principal in the middle of a food fight.”

  Dan blinked at the lawyer. “A high school …” With a shake of his head, he reached for the phone keyboard. “I’d better give him a call.”

  “Don’t bother,” said Weston. “He’s already called here. Four times. Wants you in his office at eleven sharp.”

  “Uh-oh. That sounds grim.”

  “I’d be willing to bet that Vasily Malik will be there.”

  Nodding, Dan agreed, “Wouldn’t surprise me at all. Maybe you’d better come along, too.”

  “Okay,” the lawyer said. He got to his feet. “I’d better change into a more businesslike suit.”

  Dan broke into laughter. “Oh, for God’s sake, Pete! You look fine. You’re not going to a funeral, after all.”

  Weston looked highly unconvinced.

  Lucita had awakened that morning to the sound of a gentle but insistent tapping on her bedroom door. She opened her eyes and saw that it was still dark. With an effort, she focused on the red-glowing digits of the clock on the bedtable: 4:44 A.M.

  Feeling more angry than alarmed, she groped in the darkness until she found the silk peignoir she had left on the bed, while the knocking continued, growing louder. As Lucita pulled the robe over her nightgown, she recognized the voice of her maid, Estrellita:

  “Seńorita, please. Your father told me to wake you.”

  Lucita clicked on the little lamp atop the bureau as she opened the door a crack. “What is it?” she asked sleepily.

  Estrellita was also in her nightrobe, a plain cotton shift. “Your father said to wake you. Your fiance is coming here. From the Land of Red. He is flying here on a rocket!”

  Lucita showered and dressed quickly, but took the time to brush her hair properly and make certain that her face showed no trace of sleepiness. She pulled on a knee-length wraparound surplice of turquoise slashed with bold diagonal stripes. A hint of jewelry at her wrists and ears and she was ready to face her father-and her fiancé.

  The breakfast room was filled with fresh new sunlight by the time Lucita came downstairs. Her father was draining a cup of coffee, rigid with tension as he sat in the white wicker chair. He was fully dressed in a gray double-breasted suit. His usual breakfast was spread before him on the glass-topped table, but he had touched none of it. Malik was not there.

  “Good morning,” she said to Hernandez. “I was told Vasily would be here.”

  “He is on the way. His shuttle is scheduled to land in a few minutes. Then he will helicopter here to have breakfast with us.”

  Lucita sat at her father’s right, with the sun on her back already feeling warm and enlivening. Her father looked very angry, very tired and-what was most alarming-very frightened.

  “What’s wrong, Papa? What’s happened?”

  “It’s that damnable Yankee, Randolph!” Hernandez exploded. “He won’t rest until he’s ruined us all!”

  Lucita barely suppressed a smile. “What has he done now?”

  “Piracy!”

  “Piracy?” She laughed; she could not help it.

  “This is not funny,” Hernandez, said sternly. “Piracy in outer space. It’s unheard-of. It’s madness. He will destroy himself … and me along with him!”

  Slowly, patiently, Lucita extracted the story from her sputtering father. By the time Malik arrived at their home, she had a rough understanding of what had happened.

  Vasily looked grim, his clothes rumpled, as if he had thrown them on hurriedly. His usual smile was gone. In place of the dashing, debonair Russian with the flair for Western style and wit, Lucita saw an angry, urgent man who gave her a peck on the cheek by way of greeting and then plunged into an intense conversation with her father. The two men ignored her. They had only one person on their minds: Dan Randolph.

  Lucita sat at the breakfast table and listened, too fascinated by the fury of the hatred her father and her fiancé were pouring out to be upset with them for paying her no attention. The servants felt the rage boiling up from the two men, also. They hung back beyond the doorway of the kitchen, too terrified even to ask if the men wanted coffee.

  Pete Weston was still wearing the sports coat and slacks when Dan’s limousine pulled to a stop in front of the glass façade of the Ministry of Technology. Dan had changed into an open-necked shirt, tan slacks and a raw silk jacket. He pushed open the limousine’s door before the chauffeur could scamper around to it and stepped out onto the pavement. There were two armed policemen flanking the big glass doors of the building’s main entrance.

  “Holy Mother of God,” Weston muttered, ducking out of the limo’s door behind Dan. “It looks like they mean business.”

  Dan grinned at him. “Come on, Pete. Into the valley of death.” He started up the steps. “Who’s the patron saint of lawyers, anyway?”

  Weston did not smile.

  Dan had deliberately delayed his driver enough so that they arrived at Hernandez’s office at seven minutes past eleven. More armed and uniformed policemen were stationed in the halls of the Ministry of Technology building, and in the reception room outside Hernandez’s office. A male secretary ushered them into the sanctum sanctorum.

  It was a huge office, richly carpeted and handsomely furnished. Hernandez sat stiffly behind his enormous desk, Malik stood to one side of it, hands clasped behind his back, his eyes fixed on Dan. The Russian had chosen to wear a khaki-colored summer suit that looked baggy and unpressed. No jokes and banter today, Dan knew. This was going to be strictly official business.

  The long walk from the door to the desk was supposed to intimidate visitors, but Dan grinned easily as he made his way across the thick carpeting and took one of the two stiff-backed chairs placed before the desk.

  “Good morning,” he said lightly as he sat down. Pete Weston, looking very unhappy, perched on the front two inches of the other chair.

  “You obviously know why I have summoned you here,” Hernandez began without preliminaries.

  “I have a suspicion,” replied Dan. Turning slightly to lock eyes with Malik, “I understand that one of your ore carriers is missing.”

  “Stolen,” the Russian snapped. “Hijacked by pirates.”

  Dan allowed himself a small grin. “Pirates? In space? Isn’t it more likely that one of your mission controllers was drunk and simply lost track of the freighter?”

  “No, that is not likely,” Malik growled.

  Hernandez, just as furious as the Russian, said, “Comrade Malik has asked me to allow a complete inspection of the Nueva Venezuela facilities. …”

  “Asked? Or demanded?”

  The Venezuelan’s mustache bristled. “Asked.”

  “And you’ve agreed to cooperate,” Dan said.

  “Yes, I have.”

  “Are the other Third World space facilities being inspected?” Dan asked.

  Hernandez blinked, then looked up at Malik.

  “We see no need for that,” the Russian answered. “We are very sure that it is you who led this latter-day buccaneering expedition.”

  “Buccaneer!” Dan nodded an acknowledgment. “You’ve been reading up on the subject of pirates, I see.”

  “Do you deny it?” Malik snapped.

  “Deny being a pirate? Of course I deny it. How can anyone be accused of piracy if they’re merely helping themselves to materials that no one legally owns?”

  Malik waggled a finger at Dan. “No, you can’t play with words that way, Mr. Capitalist. We have lawyers in the Soviet Union, too. …”

  “Yes, I know. Prosecutors who never lose a case.”

  “The International Astronautical Council assigned the Soviet Union the responsibility for mining and transporting the lunar ores.”

  “For which you charge exorbitant fees.”

  “The fees are allowed by the IAC.”

  “Sure.”

  “No other nation may mine or transport the ores.”

  “But you
don’t own them,” Dan said firmly. “The law is clear on that point. You can scoop the stuff off the Moon’s surface, you can transport it to space stations in orbit around the Earth, and you can charge outrageous fees for those services. But you do not own the ores. They are the common property of the whole human race. Anybody can use them. That’s the law.”

  Malik glowered at him.

  “So how can anyone be accused of stealing something that no one legally owns?”

  Hernandez said, in a voice that he obviously was struggling to keep under control, “The legal fine points will be settled by lawyers. …”

  “Just like possession of my asteroid will be,” Dan interjected.

  His fists clenching on the desktop, Hernandez went on, “But the disappearance of a Soviet-owned spacecraft is a serious matter, which must be investigated fully. I have sworn that the government of Venezuela will offer every assistance to the Soviet Union in this affair.”

  “Fine by me,” said Dan. “You can search Nueva Venezuela all you want to. But I suggest you search the other Third World facilities, too. I don’t see why Venezuela alone should fall under suspicion.”

  Malik snorted angrily. “We won’t find anything in Nueva Venezuela or any of the other stations. I know that. But I think some of your people might have interesting stories to tell us… .”

  “The employees of Astro Manufacturing Corporation are citizens of many different countries,” Dan said. “You’ll have to get the permission of their national governments to detain or interrogate them.”

  “You are a citizen of Venezuela,” Malik said.

  Pete Weston spoke up. “Under Venezuelan law, a citizen must be charged with a crime when he is arrested. To charge a citizen with a crime, you must have some evidence.”

  Hernandez said, “A citizen can be detained for questioning without being charged.”

  “Rafael,” Dan said, deliberately turning familiar and informal, “do you have any idea of how many judges in this city are very close friends of mine? Would you want to cause a conflict with some of the most powerful men in Caracas, simply because this Russian paranoid thinks I’m responsible for his own problems?”

  Malik glared at Dan.

  “Think about it for a moment,” Dan urged smoothly. “He has absolutely no evidence that I or anyone else at Nueva Venezuela had anything to do with his losing an ore carrier. Think of how foolish you would look if you allowed the

  Russians to dictate to you, and powerful men in the government decided that you had acted wrongly.”

  Hernandez straightened in his chair. His chin rose a notch. He reached across the desk to the silver cigarette box. took out a long slender cigarette wrapped in light brown paper and lit it with a palm-sized laser lighter-both the box and the silver-plated lighter had been gifts from Dan Randolph. Through all this no one in the room said a word, and Hernandez’s eyes never left Dan’s.

  “You place me in a very awkward position, senor,” he said at last, blowing a thin cloud of gray smoke toward the high paneled ceiling.

  “I’ve done nothing at all,” Dan replied, holding up his hands in a gesture of innocence. “I’ve merely come to your office when you asked me to.”

  “You have stolen the property of the Soviet Union,” Malik insisted.

  “Prove it,” said Dan.

  Malik took a step toward Dan, who tensed in his chair, ready to spring at the Russian. But Hernandez put his arm out and held Malik back.

  “We must all control our tempers,” Hernandez said.

  Dan grinned at the infuriated Russian. “This isn’t the Workers’ Paradise, you know, where you can throw a man into jail and torture him into confessing.”

  “That is quite enough, Senor Randolph.” Hernandez’s nostrils flared angrily. “You go too far.”

  Shrugging, Dan got to his feet. “If you want to detain me for questioning, naturally, that’s your privilege. Otherwise …”

  “You are free to go,” Hernandez said. “I would ask, however, that you do not leave Caracas without letting me know beforehand.”

  “Certainly.”

  “That includes the launch facility.”

  “Of course,” Dan agreed. Turning to Weston, still tensely gripping the arms of his chair, he said, “Come on, Pete. Let’s get back to the office.”

  “Good day, Senor Randolph. Senor Weston.” said Hernandez.

  “Good day to you, Senor Hernandez,” Dan said. With a widening grin, he added, “And to you. Comrade Malik. May all your days be as beautiful as this one.”

  Malik glared pure hatred at Dan. But his lips curled slightly upward in a cold smile. “I look forward to seeing you again, Mr. Randolph. Under more pleasant circumstances.”

  Dan arched an eyebrow, wondering what the Russian meant by that. But the only answer he gave was a slight cock of his head. Then he turned and marched out of Hernandez’s office, with Weston trailing him.

  As the security guard led them back down toward the main entrance, Weston pulled a handkerchief from his back pocket and mopped his balding brow.

  “Cheez, boss, you really like playing with fire, don’t you?”

  “Why not?” Dan said lightly. “It’s never boring.”

  Lucita was coming into the building, through the heavily tinted glass doors, as they arrived in the lobby. Recognizing Dan, she took off her sunglasses and walked across the echoing marble floor toward him.

  “I thought they would have you in jail by now,” she said, true concern in her voice.

  Dan laughed. “Jail? Me? What an absurd idea.”

  But she was totally serious. “It is not a joke. My father was furious with you this morning. And Vasily would like to kill you.”

  “I know,” said Dan. Spreading his arms, “Here I am, though, all in one piece.”

  “Are you still carrying your gun?” she asked.

  “No, I left it home. I trust your father; why should I wear a gun to visit him? Besides, the guards here would have taken it away from me.”

  Lucita glanced at Weston, then stepped slightly away from him, toward the wall of the lobby which was covered with a sweeping mural depicting the advance of Venezuelan technology from Indian hand plows to spaceships plying the starry heavens.

  The lawyer took her hint. “I’ve got to find a men’s room,” he told Dan. “My kidneys aren’t as strong as yours.”

  “I’ll wait for you here,” Dan said. Then, turning back to Lucita, he said, “I’m flattered that you’re so worried about me.”

  “He means to kill you,” Lucita whispered. “I am certain of it.”

  “Your fiancé?”

  She nodded. “Vasily hates you. You should have seen him this morning. He frightens me.”

  “And your father? How does he feel about all this?”

  “He is very angry with you. He is terribly afraid of Vasily-not for his life, but for his political ambition. You are making things impossible for him.”

  “That’s too bad,” said Dan.

  “He will side with Vasily, you know. No matter what the Russians want to do, he will go along with them.”

  “As long as it doesn’t bring him into conflict with his own ambition,” Dan pointed out. “He can’t afford to give in to the Russians at the expense of Venezuela’s independence.”

  “He would be much happier if you were dead,” Lucita said.

  Dan smiled bitterly. “So would a lot of people.”

  “Did you do it?” Lucita asked.

  “Do what?”

  “Did you really steal the Russian spacecraft?”

  His smile turned mischievous. “Do you think that I’d commit an act of piracy? Do I look like a pirate?”

  Lucita’s elfin face bloomed into an answering smile. “Yes, I think you do. You are the only man in the whole world mad enough to do such a thing.”

  “That’s hardly a compliment.”

  “What makes you think that I was attempting to compliment you?” she said, turning saucy.

  H
e bowed his head. “Of course. I should have known better. The daughter of a noble family does not offer compliments to an outlander whom she suspects of piracy.”

  Lucita giggled. “You are insane. And you draw me into your madness.”

  “If I am insane.” Dan replied soberly, “it’s because of the spell that you cast over me.”

  She grew serious again. “You must not speak to me like that. I am engaged to be married …” The realization of it struck her. “To the man who wants to kill you.”’

  Suddenly it hit Dan, too. He ran out of words. There was nothing left to say.

  Pete Weston came striding across the marble floor of the lobby toward them. “The limo’s outside,” he said.

  Dan nodded. “Yeah.”

  He started to turn toward the door, but he could not tear his gaze away from Lucita’s sad, beautiful, dark-eyed urchin’s face.

  “You really mustn’t marry him, you know,” he said to her, so low he could barely hear it himself.

  She said nothing. He started for the door, where Weston was waiting for him.

  “Dan!” Lucita ran to him. “Would you come to my home for dinner tonight? With my father and me? Vasily will not be there.”

  “Tonight?” Dan blinked with surprise.

  “Please! 1 … want you to speak with my father, with no one else present. I don’t want him to hate you.”

  He nodded dumbly.

  “Eight o’clock,” Lucita said. “I will see to it that only the three of us are there.”

  “Sure,” he said. “Eight o’clock. You can phone me if there’s … any change.”

  “Yes. Of course.”

  Weston pushed the glass door open and Dan felt a flood of hot sunlight on his neck and back. He turned and walked outside, looked back over his shoulder at Lucita standing there watching him, like a fairy-tale princess watching a knight going out to face a dragon.

  The squeal of a car’s tires broke the spell. Snapping his head around toward the noise. Dan saw a black compact car swinging up the driveway in front of the building. He could see two men in the front, one bent tensely over the steering wheel and the other leaning partway out the window on the passenger’s side, holding a blocky. bulky gray metal box in his two hands.