Privateers

by Ben Bova

  She reached up to touch his cheek. “Dan, I will go with you, wherever you want to go. I do love you.”

  He took her hand in his and kissed it. “And your fiance?”

  She tossed her head. “I never loved Vasily. No matter how I tried to fool myself, I know that I could never marry him.”

  More softly, Dan asked, “And your father?”

  “I don’t care,” Lucita said. “He is interested only in his own ambition.”

  Dan took a deep breath. “You’re really serious about this?”

  “I love you, Yanqui,” she repeated. “I have tried not to, but it did no good. I love you.”

  “Lucita …”

  “Yes?”

  There were a thousand things whirling through Dan’s mind, words that he wanted to speak to her, promises that he wanted to make. But he heard himself say only, “We can have a beautiful life together, Lucita-once I’ve finished this business with Malik.”

  Even in the darkness, he could see her eyes widen. Her breath caught, and she pulled back from him.

  “Finish your … You mean you’ll fight against him until he kills you!”

  “Or I kill him,” Dan said woodenly. “Whichever comes first.”

  “While I sit and wait for the victor to claim me as booty!” Lucita’s voice was hot with sudden anger.

  Shaking his head, Dan asked, “Do you think he’d just let us run off and-”

  He stopped. The thoughts racing through his mind coalesced into one terrible, overwhelming realization.

  “What is it?” Lucita asked.

  He stared at her, speechless, numb.

  “Dan, what is wrong? What? …”

  He understood everything now, and the cold numbness that had made him feel so weary, so hopeless, was boiled away in an instant by a rage so intense that his hands clenched into fists and he could feel his heart thundering.

  “You’re doing it for them!” Dan said, his voice shaking with fury. “You’re trying to get me out of the way, out of Caracas, away from Astro.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “While I’m joyriding with you around the world, they’ll be taking over Nueva Venezuela, Astro, all the Third World facilities. While I’m busy giving all my attention to you.”

  “No… .”

  Dan gripped his thighs as hard as he could, forcing his hands to stay away from her. “A lovely little Delilah: that’s what you are. Lead me off around the world while Malik and your father wipe out everything I’ve worked to create.”

  “Dan, no, that is not what I-”

  He sprang to his feet, banging against the coffee table and knocking over the half-empty bottle of whiskey.

  “And what did they promise you?” he demanded. “Money? The undying gratitude of the Politburo? A good seat at the Moscow Ballet every year? Would Malik still marry you after you’d done your work on me?”

  “You’re insane!” Lucita snapped. “How could you think that I would do such a thing?”

  “And what happens while we’re jaunting around the world? Do I get bitten by a cobra at the Taj Mahal? Or do I have a skiing accident on the Southern Alps?”

  Lucita burst into tears. “I swear … Dan, you are wrong … nothing …”

  “No, of course not. I’m imagining the whole thing. You just suddenly decided that you’re madly in love with me and if I’ll just stop fighting against the Russians and run away with you, you’ll be mine forever and ever. Bullshit!”

  She got up from the sofa like a prizefighter lifting himself from the canvas after being knocked down. Sobbing, she ran across the dimly lit living room, toward the front door. The robot butler, sensing a human body in motion, rolled after her.

  “May I show you to the door?” it asked.

  But Lucita was already there, and through, before the robot could open the door for her.

  “Good evening,” it said politely.

  As the robot gently shut the door, Dan stood silent and immobile. And alone.

  Chapter THIRTY

  The first snowfall of the year. Vasily Malik looked past the stern-faced men sitting across the table from him and out to the long windows and the pewter-gray clouds that pressed down against the spires and domes of the Kremlin.

  His soul felt just as dreary as the wintry scene outside. It was barely October, the parades celebrating the beginning of the Revolution and the anniversary of the first Sputnik had hardly cleared Red Square. And it was already snowing. Thick, wet flakes drifted down, as inexorable as the rotation of the world on its axis, as remorseless as the comrades who sat arrayed around this heavy, dark conference table, their displeasure focused entirely upon him.

  He thought of Caracas, how sunny and warm it would be, even in October. Even in December. But that was merely geography, climate. There was no human warmth in Caracas, not for him. He and Lucita were to be married in little more than two months, yet she was as cold and distant as the farthest planet. As far as she was concerned, Malik knew, it would be a political marriage, nothing more. But I will make it more than that, he thought. She won’t be frigid with me; I’ll thaw her, even if it takes force.

  The ornately carved door at the far end of the conference room swung open, and the Premier shuffled in. How ironic, Malik thought, that the youngest man in three decades to lead the government and the Party should suffer a stroke. It almost makes one believe in God, or at least in fate. But the Premier clung to his power like a shipwrecked sailor clutching a scrap of flotsam. All the ministers got to their feet as the Premier entered, dragging his left foot slightly as he came to his chair at the head of the table. A uniformed guard held the chair for him. He sat, and placed his paralyzed left hand in his lap. Once seated and comfortably arranged, he looked almost normal. The stroke had left scant traces on his face, and his speech had not been impaired. The outside world saw him only thus, either already seated or atop the reviewing stand at Red Square, so far distant from the crowds and photographers that not even his limp could be noticed.

  “This emergency meeting of the Council of Ministers will come to order,” said the Premier. His voice had always been soft, almost dulcet. His face, gaunt and lined just after the stroke, had filled out almost to its former healthy condition. The pallor on his cheeks was hidden by makeup, when necessary.

  The ministers sat. Malik was easily the youngest among them, flanked on either side by men of his father’s generation. And the ministers across the table from him were even older; especially Marshal Titov, who looked already embalmed, like an Egyptian mummy in a soldier’s uniform. Malik wondered how the old warrior found the strength to stand up, especially under the load of medals he always wore. Even among the aides sitting behind the various ministers and secretaries, hardly any were younger than Malik.

  The Premier nodded to the council secretary, sitting at his right.

  “There is only one subject on the agenda,” said the secretary. He was a chubby, balding, pink-faced pig of a man, Malik thought, with tiny beady eyes almost hidden in his bloated face. When Malik had been on the rise, the secretary had been his friend and ally. But the past few weeks he had shown his true colors.

  “The depredations caused by these so-called pirates,” said the Premier.

  Every eye around the table turned to focus on Malik.

  He smiled sardonically. “With all respect, Comrade Chairman, they are not merely so-called pirates: what is happening is piracy, pure and simple.”

  “And it must be stopped,” growled old Marshal Titov.

  The Foreign Minister, who sat at the Premier’s left hand and fancied himself next in line for the top position, held up his hands placatingly.

  “The position we find ourselves in is neither pure nor simple,” he said to the Premier, speaking so low that the others had to strain to hear him. “Officially, the Organization of Latin American States, led by the government of Venezuela, has taken the position in the World Court that the Soviet Union has illegally seized the cargo of one of their sp
acecraft-the one that was carrying samples of rock from an asteroid. …”

  “Where is that asteroid now?” the Premier asked, proving that his mind was still quick. “Has it entered a fixed orbit around the Earth?”

  “Not yet, Comrade Chairman, but it will,” Malik replied. “Our astronomers have confirmed that it will orbit at the same distance as the Moon itself, nearly four hundred thousand kilometers away.”

  “Then there is no danger of it falling on Earth?”

  “Not unless someone pushes it out of orbit.”

  The Premier nodded, somewhat stiffly, and turned back to the Foreign Minister.

  He cleared his throat and resumed, “Our legal position is somewhat …” He groped for a word. “Somewhat contradictory. On the one hand, we maintain that we had the right

  to seize the cargo of the Venezuelan spacecraft and even to detain its crew. On the other, we maintain that no one has the right to seize the cargoes of our spacecraft carrying ores between the Moon and the space stations in orbit around the Earth.”

  “Excuse me, Comrade Minister,” said Malik, “but there is no contradiction at all. The Soviet Union has the approval of the International Astronautical Council to carry all ore shipments between the Moon and the space stations. The capitalist asteroid mission was not approved by the IAC. And certainly no one in the IAC or the United Nations gave permission for the capitalists to move that body of rock out of its natural orbit.”

  “It can’t fall on the Earth, can it?” the Premier asked again.

  “No, sir,” Malik repeated. “Not unless the capitalists deliberately alter its orbit once again.”

  The Premier’s waxen complexion paled even further. “Would they do that?”

  Malik spread his hands, the equivalent of a shrug. “My information is that the capitalists brought the asteroid into orbit around the Earth so that they can use it more conveniently as a mining base-a source of metals and minerals.”

  The Minister of Industry stirred. “That would compete with our lunar ores,” he rasped in his dry, aged voice.

  “To some degree,” Malik conceded.

  “But they’re not allowed to do that! Only the Soviet Union has the right to mine ores in space.”

  Malik fought down the urge to remind the Minister of Industry that he had explained the situation at the last two council meetings. Instead, he patiently explained again, “We have the exclusive right to mine ores from the Moon, Comrade Minister, and transport them to the space stations. There has been no ruling by the IAC on mining asteroids.”

  The withered little man looked puzzled. He turned to the aide sitting behind him and exchanged a few hurriedly whispered words with him. Malik guessed that he was asking what an asteroid was.

  “We are drifting off the subject,” said the Premier. “What are we going to do about these acts of piracy?”

  “Pirates should be hanged!” snapped the Minister of Transportation, sitting on Malik’s left. He was the next-youngest man at the table, and had long been Malik’s rival. “Find them and hang them, every last one!”

  “It’s not that easy,” Malik said. “They don’t fly the skull and crossbones, you know. They don’t show themselves publicly.”

  “You know who they are,” the Transportation Minister insisted. “We all know who their ringleader is. The American-Randolph.”

  Malik nodded. “He started it, of that I am certain. But over the past six weeks, acts of piracy have grown far beyond what Randolph alone is capable of doing.”

  Focusing directly upon the Premier, Malik went on, “Six weeks ago, the pirates made their first raid and stole one of our ore freighters. Within a week, two more freighters were looted of their cargoes. On the same day. The following week, it was three freighters.”

  “On the same day?”

  “Two on one day, the third two days later.”

  The Premier absently rubbed his paralyzed arm as Malik continued, “Since then, not a week has gone past without at least one ore freighter being emptied of its cargo or stolen altogether.”

  “Outrageous!” snapped the Transportation Minister.

  “Yes, it is. And it is the work of more than one organization. Randolph and his group, working from the Venezuelan space station, could not possibly be doing all this by themselves. The space organizations of the other Third World nations are also helping themselves to our ore shipments. Apparently they send the ores to the Chinese space complex, which then exports them to the various Third World factories as excess Chinese material.”

  Marshal Titov’s shaggy white brows knitted together in a frown that would have been ferocious in a younger man. “Then round them all up. Seize all these space stations and send their crews to the lunar mines. That will stop the piracy.”

  “Seize the Chinese space station?” The Foreign Minister looked startled at the thought.

  “Not them! The others.”

  “And turn the entire Third World totally against us,” countered Malik.

  “We can’t have that,” the Foreign Minister agreed.

  “Why not?” Titov demanded. “Who’s to stop us?”

  The Premier smiled wanly at the old soldier. “Gregory Gregorovich, I know that we have the military power to conquer any nation on Earth, but after we conquer, we must rule. It would put too much of a strain on us to try to rule a hostile world. Not only is that contrary to Marxist-Leninist principles, it is simply not practicable. Remember the troubles we used to have with Poland and the rest of Eastern Europe.”

  Titov glowered at the Premier. “Yes, and I remember that it was our tanks and our inflexible will that brought them into line.”

  The Premier’s smile remained fixed on his face. “But it was our economic and political policies that finally ended the troubles and brought them under control once again.”

  The Foreign Minister quickly agreed. “Not even the Red Army can be everywhere at once. If all the nations of Latin America, Africa and Asia turned against us, think what an opportunity for the Chinese!”

  “We should have crushed them years ago,” Titov grumbled. “And of course the Red Army can’t take on the rest of the world, now that you’ve cut it back to a shadow of its former strength.”

  “Gregory Gregorovich, my dear friend and comrade-inarms,” said the Premier soothingly, “we live in a new era.

  The old days, when you commanded those squadrons of tanks and I directed the Strategic Rocket Corps, were glorious days. It was the strength of our arms that brought the capitalists to their knees, we all recognize that. But now that we have no serious rivals for leadership, now that we can work to bring Marxism to every corner of the world, we must not frighten the smaller nations into resisting us. Our policy is to win them with sugar, rather than force them to swallow vinegar.”

  “And above all, do nothing to antagonize the damned Chinese,” Titov mumbled.

  “We will win them over, in time,” said the Premier.

  “We should bomb them out of existence, that’s what we should do.”

  “And their retaliatory stroke?”

  “That’s what our satellite defense system is for, isn’t it? It cowed the Americans, didn’t it?”

  “The Chinese are not as easily cowed,” the Premier answered gently. “They are not as afraid of nuclear devastation as the Yankee capitalists.”

  “They would fire their missiles at us,” the Foreign Minister added. “Even with all our lasers up in the satellites, a few would get through. Would you be willing to see Moscow go up in smoke? Or Leningrad?”

  “Yes!” Titov snapped. “If it would eliminate the damned Chinks once and for all, it would be a price well worth paying.”

  From the far end of the table, the gaunt, hollow-cheeked, dark-eyed man who was in charge of state security spoke up, his voice surprisingly deep and powerful. “Even if you destroyed China and conquered all the other nations, Gregory Gregorovich, as I’m sure you could, we would then have to control them, administer them.”

&n
bsp; The old marshal scarcely hid the contempt he felt. “Are you saying that the KGB could not keep them in line, once the Red Army had shown them who’s boss?”

  The taunt did not ruffle the Minister of State Security; not visibly, at least. “I am saying that it is better to have these nations cooperating with us, even though their cooperation is far from perfect, than to force them into submission.”

  “We are not going to use a bludgeon,” the Premier said firmly, “when a scalpel is called for.”

  Marshal Titov made a sour face, but did not reply. The others shifted in their chairs.

  “Then just what steps should we take to stop these pirates?” the Transportation Minister asked. He was looking at the Premier as he spoke, but his words were aimed at Malik.

  The Minister of Economic Planning spoke up. “The losses are becoming somewhat serious. Almost ten percent of the ores shipped from the Moon over the past six weeks have been stolen. And the rate of loss is increasing.”

  “Why can’t you stop them?” Transportation demanded. “Aren’t the freighters under radar surveillance? Can’t you see the pirates when they attack one of our spacecraft?”

  Malik said, “It isn’t that simple. Yes, each freighter is under constant radar surveillance from the moment it leaves the Moon until it arrives at Kosmograd or one of the other stations. But the pirates are using very sophisticated electronic systems to trick our radars. We are fighting a battle of electronics.”

  “If I were you,” the KGB chief said, hunching forward in his chair and locking his long-fingered hands together, “I would put troops in a few of the ore carriers. When the pirates went to raid it, the troops would be able to deal with them quite swiftly.”

  “Yes, but which freighters?” Malik asked. “There are some two dozen in transit on any given day. Which ones will the pirates attack? Should we arm all of them? We simply don’t have that many trained men available at Lunagrad. We would need more manpower.”

  “That can be done, if it is necessary,” the Premier said.

  “But what if we capture one band of the thieves,” Malik countered, “and the others simply hang back, waiting until we stop putting troops aboard the freighters? Then we go right back to where we started.”