by Ben Bova
On one side of the room, before a vast oak-paneled shelving unit, was a desk workstation. There wasn’t much on the desk other than a small manually operated terminal and a few items of a personal nature: a blue crystalline figurine of a winged goddess, a leather folder, a gold cup containing what he assumed to be blank data sticks for use with the terminal. Paneled doors set into the shelving unit behind the desk were parted, revealing what looked remarkably like … was it a wet bar? Surely, this woman had better things that she could—
“Sit down, Dr. Rice.”
He whipped around, startled by her sudden entrance, and was barely able to step out of her way as she swept arrogantly past him and took a seat behind the desk. She glared at him a moment as if sizing him up, then pointed to the single chair facing the desk. As he took the proffered seat, Poser—the ever-obedient servant that he was—scurried over to stand behind her as if playing out the part of her personal shadow.
“Pay attention,” she said curtly and without preamble. “I only want to tell you this once. I shall leave it up to you as to how you explain any of this to your alien friend.” Rihana leaned forward on the desktop, momentarily steepling her hands in front of her face in thought before going on. For just the briefest of instants, Rice got the distinct impression that she was just now making up her mind even as she spoke. She must certainly have been considering what she was about to say for some time, but he was somehow convinced it was only now that she had resolved to carry through whatever plans she had for them.
Rice said nothing, waiting.
“You are correct in assuming that you and the alien have been taken for a reason,” she began directly, and as she spoke, he noticed that she had unexpectedly dropped all airs of superiority. For the moment she was being uncharacteristically blunt with him. He reminded himself, however, that if she was truly being honest it was undoubtedly in her own best interests to do so, and not his. He wondered if it was the gentlewoman from the painting who addressed him now, or the cunning animal. “I am working with someone who sees an advantage to using you and the Sarpan scientist to achieve certain goals. While I couldn’t care less about the nature of these specific goals, I, too, see an advantage to cooperating with him in this matter.” She paused, tilting her head questioningly at him. “Do I make myself clear, so far, in this regard?”
Rice nodded silently, knowing full well that it was pointless to ask the woman anything just now. Better, he decided, to save any questions he might have for later and let her proceed at her own pace.
“Good. Now, understand further that my agreement with this individual has been breached in a manner not to my liking. I have given the situation more than enough time …” She hesitated again, raising an eyebrow in his direction. “ … keeping you drugged for the duration as you have correctly surmised, to allow my, ah, ‘partner’ enough time to come to his senses and honor our pact. Unfortunately, he has not done so. Therefore, I have decided that the time has come to proceed in a manner I feel best, to salvage what I can from our agreement.”
He considered her words carefully, then asked, “As your personal plans change, do your plans for the two of us change, too?”
She smiled in appreciation at his insight. Or perhaps it was the blatant nature of his question that appealed to her.
“Frankly, Doctor, I don’t yet know just what I’m going to do with you. But believe me when I tell you that I would not hesitate to blow the both of you out the nearest airlock if the idea appealed to me. No one knows you are with me; no one even knows with any certainty that you are still alive. Discarding you and the alien at this very moment would not, in a million years, be traced back to me.” She smiled then, the gesture actually containing what seemed a bit of warmth. “However, I don’t intend to do that just yet, as you might still prove valuable to me.” She leaned back in her chair, swiveling idly from side to side. “Please, don’t think I mean you harm; however, if I can’t make a profit from you in some manner—I might just as easily set you down someplace where you won’t get in my way until long after I’ve had time to establish myself elsewhere.”
“And what if we don’t cooperate with you?”
“Not cooperate?” She laughed lightly, truly amused by the question. “Doctor, you do not even know the exact purpose for which you were taken. Just what is it that you think you might refuse to do?”
“I …” Rice began feebly. “I assumed our abduction has something to do with Adela de Montgarde’s project to save Earth’s Sun. I know you once tried to prevent the project from—”
“You know nothing!” she retorted, cutting him off. “I never cared a whit about the project. My alliance with forces opposed to the project was an alliance of convenience that benefited me at that time.” Her face broke into a haughty smile. “If I had wanted merely to disrupt the project, that would have been quite simple. My goals were different. But that is a matter best left in the past, with little relevance to what we are discussing now.” She hesitated, her sapphire eyes penetrating his. “I ask you again: In what way are you threatening to withhold your cooperation?”
Rice tried to reply, but could think of nothing to counter her question.
“Go on a hunger strike if you want,” Rihana continued with a casual wave of her hand. “Flop down on the deck and refuse to move unless carried, spend your hours screaming for help down in your quarters—it doesn’t much matter to me. Remember, the original reason for which you were detained has evaporated along with my former partner’s desertion. I have no immediate plans for you other than to keep you a while longer.” She leaned forward again, adopting once more the unpretentious manner of before. “Your choice, I think, is simple: Give me no trouble and your stay with me can be a pleasant one. The Tiatia is very nicely outfitted, as I’m sure you’ve noticed by now. I’ll be happy to have you moved to a stateroom for the duration of your stay, if you agree to ‘behave yourself.’”
Why not, he thought. “Fine; I won’t give you any trouble. I’m not ungrateful for your hospitality, but I think I’d just as soon stay as close to Oidar as possible.”
Rihana shrugged. “Whatever. I’ll see to it that more comfortable accessories are installed in your current suite. However …” Her face softened, and an almost demure smile appeared on her lips. “If you should change your mind about more comfortable quarters, don’t hesitate to let me know.”
“Mistress …” Poser’s face looked concerned.
“Not now,” she snapped. “In the meantime, Dr. Rice, feel free to return to your suite. You’ll find that you now have unrestricted access through the corridors connecting your suite to the alien’s. Please don’t kidnap anyone to open the locks.”
Poser cleared his throat loudly. “Mistress, I am receiving a level-one query from Mr. Krowek. He demands to speak with you immediately.”
“Yes, I’m sure he does. Tell him I am unavailable.”
“I already have, Mistress, but he insists—”
Poser stopped abruptly as the painting in the holoframe dissolved, to be replaced with the image of a man in a neatly tailored business suit that looked as out of place as Rihana’s earlier attire.
“Why are you moving your ship?” he demanded. “You agreed to make no attempt to navigate without first consulting with me!”
Rihana was instantly on her feet, the expression on her face a combination of disbelief and outrage. Her nostrils flared as she addressed the image in the holoframe. “Would you mind telling me how in hell you obtained direct access to my comm net, Krowek?”
The man sneered contemptuously. “It’s unimportant right now. Answer me: Why are you moving your ship?”
Rihana ignored his question and turned instead to her aide, making no effort to lower her voice. “Poser, please reconfigure the entire comm net and all ancillary functions on the Tiatia capable of being accessed by an outside source. Do it at once, and use a random-code generator.” She turned back to the man she called Krowek. “You know, I wondered how long it wou
ld take before you noticed,” she said bluntly, just the slightest hint of humor beneath the words. “Very well, then. I wanted to see just how sophisticated your monitoring systems were, so I ordered my pilot to move the Tiatia in ten-centimeter increments. I must admit, I am quite impressed you noticed so quickly.”
“More game playing.” The response was almost a sigh. “Please stop all movement of your ship until Mr. Rapson has given us further instructions.”
“And suppose I do not?” Rihana came around from behind her desk and stood before the holoframe, her arms folded defiantly over her chest. “You don’t possess the weaponry on your little ship to even attempt to stop me from going anywhere I please.”
The man in the image paused, apparently unprepared for her refusal.
“Suppose I decide to have my pilot power up and leave? What would you do?”
“Please stop all movement of your ship until Mr. Rapson has given us further instructions,” he repeated, almost exactly as before.
“Now who is playing games?” she spat back. “You are nothing more than a holographic representation prepared by our dear Mr. Rapson, who, for reasons known only to him, has seen fit to leave me out of whatever endeavor has taken him away. Frankly, Krowek, I’m tired of it—I’m tired of playing accompaniment to someone who refuses to take me fully into his confidence. I’m tired of sitting here motionless in space while my interests lie just out of my reach. I’m tired of acting as nursemaid to these two scientists—one of them a damned alien!—while I wait for his ‘instructions.’”
Rice squirmed uneasily in his seat, remembering her earlier offhand remark about the airlock.
“And most of all, I am tired of talking to his animated puppet. System!”
“Yes, Mistress?”
“Connect me with pilot Moyan, simultaneous with the current transmission here on my screen.”
A window opened up in the upper corner of the holoframe, and a young woman appeared. “Yes, Mistress?”
“Implement the travel orders I gave you immediately.”
The woman nodded, and the window shrank out of sight.
“I’m leaving, Krowek. You can tell Rapson—if you’re programmed for it, that is—that I have no further use for him.” She spun about, drawing a finger sharply across her throat, and Poser obediently blanked the holoframe. “Now might be a good time, Doctor,” Rihana began, turning her attention back to him for the first time since the holoframe had come to life, “to return to your quarters. Since I have need of Poser for the time being, I’ll have one of my stewards escort you down to level four so that you may—”
The room went black for a split second, then was bathed in dull amber light from the emergency illuminators built into the wall and ceiling. Before anyone could move, there was a sudden violent jerk that sent Rihana hurtling through the air in his direction, slamming into him as his chair toppled backward, spilling them both across the floor. Furniture, objects from the shelves, even the heavy desk were suddenly being tossed around the room like kindling. There was the sound of a faraway explosive impact, somewhere above and behind him, that caused the entire ship to shudder ominously, then other smaller explosions that seemed to emanate from several directions at once. Each was followed by an accompanying shudder or shaking. One particularly violent blast sent them both tumbling through the holoframe, and Rihana’s head hit the plastiglass viewport behind it so hard that he clearly heard the impact above the sounds the ship was making.
“Poser! What’s happening?” Rihana grasped her forehead, smearing blood down the side of her face. Her hair had come undone, and quickly became matted with blood and stuck together in a disgusting mass against her neck.
“Poser!”
There was no answer.
They untangled themselves from one another just as the normal lighting came back up. The sudden appearance of the viewport, until now hidden by the activated holoframe, gave the disconcerting perception that a gaping hole had just opened in the side of the room. The ship was quiet again.
“Are you all right?” Rice asked, helping her to her feet. She ignored him, pushing him away.
“System! Connect me with Moyan!”
The holoframe remained empty, but the sound of the Tiatia’s bridge filled the room. Obviously, the visual mode of the holoframe had been disabled by whatever had happened ; just as obviously, they could tell from the sound emanating from the bridge that it was in a state of turmoil.
“What’s our situation?”
“Mistress, I … We’ve had a hull breach; in the docking bay, I think. It’s been locked down, and we’re otherwise intact. I’m still assessing damage.”
“What happened?” she demanded. “Was it the shuttle? Did it fire on us?”
“I’m … not sure. But—” There was a loud cry from somewhere on the bridge, and the sound of scuffling as people rushed to help whoever was screaming. The sound died away as the person was either tended to or carried out. “I’m sorry, Mistress. It was the shuttle … . As we were powering up, it … it just rammed us without warning.”
“But the detonation—we felt it up here.”
“Yes, Ma’am. The fuel tanks on the shuttle exploded violently on impact. I can’t explain it.”
“Can we move?”
There was a long pause, then: “I don’t know, Mistress, but I wouldn’t risk it until we can check out hull integrity and propulsion systems.”
“Damn.” Rihana thought for a moment, then, deciding there was little more to discuss, said, “Keep me posted. System, comm off.” She wiped at her forehead again, the blood from the superficial wound already clotting. “Of course he didn’t fire on us.” She spoke aloud, to no one in particular, her voice more angry than shocked. “He didn’t have to. The shuttle itself was all the weapon he needed. Poser!”
Again, the aide didn’t answer.
They both turned to where he had been standing before the shuttle had rammed them, although that portion of the room barely resembled its original appearance. They found him near the doorframe, the heavy desk pinning him solidly against the wall. Rice immediately started tugging at the heavy piece of furniture. Rihana stood motionless, almost in shock, staring at Poser’s crumpled body behind the desk.
“Give me a hand here!” Rice grunted, trying to snap her out of her morbid reverie. “Come on!”
She turned her attention to him finally, her eyes blinking as though she were lost. “What?” Her voice was shaky, uncertain.
“Get over here!”
Rihana moved slowly, as though drugged, and gripped the edge of the desk opposite Rice. She tugged once, halfheartedly ; then again, harder this time. Then, as if she finally comprehended what she was doing, her face assumed a visage of sheer determination, her knuckles whitened and she pulled against the massive weight with all her strength.
They coordinated their efforts, and the desk pulled away a few centimeters, allowing Poser’s inert form to slip to the floor behind it. They heaved again, then again, until finally they had it clear of the wall.
Rihana circled the desk immediately, but it was obvious to both of them that their efforts had been for nothing. Poser, his chest crushed when the desk slammed him into the wall, was unmistakably dead.
“Oh, Poser.” Rihana stroked the little man’s cheek with her hand, and attempted to rearrange his disheveled hair with her fingertips. She said nothing else until she stood and turned to Rice a few minutes later.
Rice looked into her eyes and found there a variety of emotions, each of them threatening to tear her apart as it fought for dominance. But in that mixture, two emotions stood out above all the others. One was clearly a sense of rage that ran through her unabated. As it coursed through her, the muscles of her face tightened, and she clenched and unclenched her fists into tight balls at her side. The other emotion was simpler—pure, undiluted hatred. As he regarded her, it was almost as if she was unaware that he was staring intently at her, unaware that he was even in the room at all. She ra
ised her eyes to look at him at last, and as she focused her gaze, he could sense her bringing her tremendous rage under control.
But as she spoke, it was also indisputable that the feeling of hatred would be a permanent part of her being for some time to come.
“Rice …” she began, her voice calm and unemotional. “Would you like to know who Rapson is, and exactly why you and the Sarpan were taken?”
19
CORROBOREE
Cathay lay back on the rickety cot, wondering each time she moved on the rusted, loudly complaining frame if the whole thing might collapse under her. If it did, at least the thin mattress Billy had unrolled over the frame for her would cushion her fall. There was only one thick, scratchy blanket on the cot, and that she had folded into a makeshift pillow, allowing what buttons remained on the surface of the worn, lumpy mattress to press into her back. It had made for several sleepless nights until she became used to it, but she had registered no complaints—this mattress, and the cot itself, for that matter, were considered luxuries by many of the people who had gathered here for the celebration.
Her hosts had done their best to make the humpie livable, with limited success. The structure was a hutlike affair of corrugated metal left behind untold years earlier when the diamond mine that had once thrived here had been abandoned. As she stared up at the humpie’s curved ceiling, she could see areas where the metal had corroded—almost all the way through in spots—and she wondered idly how many of these structures had originally been here, and how this one managed to survive all these years. Destroyed by weather, torn apart piece-by-piece by scavengers or razed by the mining company when the land no longer gave up its glittering treasures; she had no clue why this one sad little building remained.
A metal and glass lantern, nearly as rusted and ancientlooking as the humpie itself, hung from a loop of rope on a metal hook set into the center of the low ceiling. Swinging slightly from side to side, it cast odd dancing shadows over everything in the cramped quarters. The old chemically fueled lantern was inefficient, and occasional tendrils of dark, sooty smoke curled from the top of it, which accounted for the blackened appearance of the upper third of the lamp.