Aaron Conners - Tex Murphy 02 (26 page)

One of the men announced that he could see the Moon Child. I shifted slightly and realized my hands had fallen asleep. I moved a little more, and the painful tingling began in my fingertips. After a minute, I’d regained enough feeling to start testing the tightness of the cord on my wrists. It wasn’t particularly tight. Trying to move as little as possible, I woked the cord. Slowly, it began to loosen.

By the time we landed inside the Moon Child, I’d gotten the bonds loose enough that I was sure I could get my hands free. As the shuttle powered down, I opened my eyes.

Brody was leering at me, obviously intoxicated. It looked like he was about to attack me when Voorman stepped in from the cockpit. “All right. Let’s go.”

Brody looked up in protest. “What about this guy? He’s mine, damn it.”

Voorman was all business. “I know he is. You can have him. Kust get off my shuttle and go check in. I’ve got a few things to do, then I’ll give you a call. We can take him somewhere private, and you can do whatever you want with him. All right?”

Brody pouted as he climbed unsteadily through the hatch. The two others followed, leaving me alone with Voorman, who went back into the cockpit. The men had taken their weapons with them. I looked around for something useful. The only object within reach was the empty bottle of whiskey. I slipped one hand out from the loosened cord, grabbed the bottle, and hid it behind my back.

A second later, Voorman reappeared. He walked straight toward me and grabbed my left arm. “C’mon. You and I need to have a talk.”

Voorman helped me up with both hands, leaving himself wide open. As I stood up, I was able to wind up and bring the bottle down on the top of his head with full force. He fell to the floor, as limp as a motician’s handshake. I used the cord he had put on me to tie his hands behind his back, being careful to fasten it more securely than he had.

Finally, I tore off one of his shirt sleeves and gagged him.

Before leaving, I looked around quickly for a weapon. I’d never been comfortable with firearms, but I figured I could make an exception this one time. Unfortunately, there wasn’t one to be found. Apparently, Brody and his buddies had taken them off the freighter.

The hatch door was still open. I took a peek outside, then crawled out. When I reached the floor, I straightened up and stretched, then had to bend over, hands on knees, as a wave of pain crashed through my head. I reached back and felt a large, oblong bump on the side of my skull. At leaste it wasn’t visible. Nothing made someone stand out like a huge facial bruise.

As the pain receeded, I stood back up and surveyed my surroundings. I seemed to be in some sort of immense cargo bay, dimly lit with huge florescent lights. The ceiling was at least a hundred feet high, and the interior was big enough to hold a small town. As far as the eye could see, there all kinds of vehicles, from ordinary speeders to large industrial freighters. I also saw various types or machinery, from tractors to bailers. It looked like what you’d take if you were colonizing a new Earth-like planet. Of course, as far as I knew, that was exactly what these people had in mind.

Some distance away, a lone tower rose up above the sea of metal. It appeared to be a watchtower, and I could see several figures inside. I walked casually toward a nearby shuttle and ducked behind it. I glanced around, looking for an exit, and found one several hundred yards away, in the opposite direction of the watchtower. Keeping low, I moved from one vehicle to the next, slowly covering ground. Luckily, there didn’t seem to be anyone wandering around the area.

Until someone discovered Voorman or he managed to get loose, no one on the Moon Child, other than the three drunken thugs, had any reason to know I was there or to suspect that I was an outsider. Considering the size of the satellite, the odds of me running into Brody or one of the other men were pretty remote. At least I had one set of odds on my side.

I eventually reached the door on the far side of the cargo bay and opened it. On the other side was a small foyer containing nothing but a set of elevator doors. Now what? I’d escaped from the freighter and was safely on the Moon Child, but had absolutely no idea what to do next. There was just one thing going for me, and that was temporary.

Realistically, I had nothing to lose. The elevator panel had only one button, and I pushed it.

After a long wait, the up light went off, and the elevator doors opened. No one was inside, so I stepped in. The panel displayed buttons for levels LL through twenty-four.

There was also a button for level thirty-six, but none for levels twenty-five through thirty-five. I closed my eyes and pressed a button, a method that had worked surprisingly well for me in the past - especially at the racetrack. The elevator started to rise, and I saw, with some superstitious apprehension, that the button for level thirteen was lit up.

At level three, the elevator came to a stop, and three drop-dead gorgeous women joined me, without acknowledging my existence. One of them, a tall redhead, with cropped hair and large brown eyes, was talking as she pressed the button for level nine.

“You have to try the lasagna. I don’t know what they put in it, but it’s unbelievable.”

One of the other women broke in. “All I want is a salad.”

“Oh, their salads are unbelievable. Trust me. You’ll love it. And you have to try their bread. They serve it with olive oil and fresh parmesan. It’s absolutely unbelievable.”

I suddenly knew where to go. My mouth was watering with thoughts of rich, cheesy Italian food. When we reached level nine, I followed the young women out of the elevator and onto what appeared to be a cobblestone street, straight out of an old-fashioned Western European village. The air was thick with the aroma of culinary delights. I paused to breathe in deeply before following my oblivious guides down the street.

On either side of the thoroughfare were tables laden with food and surrounded by happy diners. The first eating establishment on my left was a brightly decorated pizza parlor.

Facing it was a Chinese place with an attractive and authentic-looking Buddhist-temple facade. As I strolled down the street, I passed a bakery, a mesquite grill, and an ice cream parlor. All the food looked and smelled delicious.

Eventually, I reached the Italian restaurant. Four packed tables sat beneath a red-and-white-striped awning. Several people nodded a smiled at me as I walked around the tables and stepped through the front door. The interior looked like it had been lifted straight out of an old Dean Martin movie. Large brick ovens were crammed with pizzas.

Mustachioed waiters bustled about in bow ties and garters. The air was thick with the smell of garlic and tomatoes.

I looked around and spotted a small, unoccupied corner table. Naturally, there was a red-and-white-checked tablecloth with a round candle in the middle. I took a seat and picked up a menu from behind the napkin dispenser. The menu was extensive, and everything on it looked wonderful. There were no prices listed. Apparently, the Moon Child was all-inclusive. A waiter appeared and asked what I wanted. I ordered the lasagna, with a garden salad and double garlic bread. He took the order as if I’d said the secret word and scurried off.

I’d just about decided that this was the finest restaurant I’d ever been allowed to eat in, when I noticed that there were no ashtrays. A brief inspection of the room confirmed that no one was smoking. I wondered momentarily if the entire place was no-smoking and shuddered. At least I was about to eat. Once I had something in my stomach, I’d go back to worrying about the situation.

The waiter returned in record-setting time with a large salad. As he set it in front of me, I caught him staring at my wrist. If he’d been looking at my watch, I probably wouldn’t have thought anything about it - my watch was certainly handsome enough to catch someone’s eye. But he was looking at my right wrist. He backed away, a concerned expression on his face, then turned and walked quickly toward the kitchen. Mystified, I glanced at the people at the adjoining table. I hadn’t noticed before, but everyone was wearing a thin metal bracelet on their wrist.

I jumped up and left the restaurant. Out on the street, I turned in the direction I’d come from and strode briskly back toward the elevator. I reached it without incident. No one seemed to be following me. I pressed both the up and down buttons and waited. A moment later, the elevator arrived and opened. There were at least ten people inside. I squeezed in, and the doors shut behind me.

The elevator climbed to level thirteen and stopped. Fate had chosen this level earlier, and I’d ignored it. Now I was in more danger and even hungrier than I’d been before. I wasn’t about to chance it a second time. Luckily, most of the group was getting off here as well, so I went along with the crowd. I figured I could blend in, as long as I kept my right hand in my trouser pocket. We stepped out of the elevator into a foyer like the one I’d seen outside the cargo bay, except that this one had two revolving doors. One was marked Environ 3, the other Environ 4. Most of the people moved toward Environ 3. I walked through the revolving door and stepped into paradise.

I found myself in maybe the last place I would’ve imagined. Several tiny paths were worn into the grassy floor of a forest and meandered off into the shadows. Thick oaks towered overhead, and a robin’s-egg blue sky peeked out from behind leafy branches.

The moist air was filled with the whistling and chirping of birds. The unfamiliar smell of fresh earth, flowering plants, and pure summer rain was intoxicating. To someone accustomed to the city odors of smoke, hot asphalt, and urine, this place was surreal. I half expected to see a merry band of nymphs come dancing out of the shadows and sprinkle pixie dust on my wing tips.

This was the kind of sylvan glade that hadn’t existed since I was too young to remember.

Between the widespread devastation caused by the war and the radioactive fallout, most of the world’s forests had been decimated. Even in places that had survived relatively unscathed, the depleted ozone was working its black magic on the ecosystem. But perhaps most shocking about this bizzare place was the blue sky - something I don’t ever remember seeing. Of course, the sky here had to be artificial, but the effect was overwhelming.

The others who had entered with me went scampering down the paths and disappeared, leaving me alone in awe. I was still ravenously hungry and rattled from the incident at the Italian restaurant, but suddenly finding myself in a beautiful forest had an amazingly calming effect. I wandered down one of the paths, taking in the natural beauty. I wondered what kind of money was required to create something like this. Whoever had designed this place had spared nothing. From the mossy floor to the woodland animals I occasionally spotted in the underbrush, the forest appeared to be absolutely real. It was hard to believe I was actually on a man-made satellite, orbiting 25,000 miles above Earth.

I continued down the path, passing elms and maples. A light breeze drifted through the trees, stirring the leaves and diffusing a flowery fragrance. After several minutes, I began to hear the trickling of water. Following the musical sound, I soon reached a meandering brook. A large rock bordered the stream, and I sat down on it. Up until this moment, my hunger pangs and splitting headache had overshadowed my exhaustion.

When I sat down, I realized how tired I was. I’d left the path and felt relatively safe, so I moved down onto the spongy ground and leaned back against the rock. Closing my eyes, I tried to make sense of the situation I’d gotten myself into.

What the hell was I going to do? I certainly wasn’t equipped to stop the cult on my own, lacking both knowledge and weapons. The only thread of hope was the possibility of finding the CAPRICORN mole, if he had made it on board without being discovered, that is. But there were literally thousands of people on the Moon Child, maybe tens of thousands. Locating the mole would make winning the lottery seem easy.

Maybe I just had to admit I was beaten. I’d never found myself up against such overwhelming odds - except, of course, when I’d tried out for the Giants during the strike of ‘27. Maybe I should just cut my losses. This was a beautiful place, more beautiful than anything I’d ever seen. Sure, the cult was planning on perpetrating a diabolical act against humanity, but what could I do about it? Wasn’t it Ben Franklin who’d said, “If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em?” I took a deep breath of pristine air and actually considered the option.

Who was I kidding? I’d never cut my losses in my life. Any successes I’d enjoyed had happened despite myself. I’d lost more money, prestige, and social advancement than anyone I knew, all because I wasn’t the type to play along. Kissing up and compromising my principles, as warped as they might be, just wasn’t something I could do and still maintain any sense of self-respect. I knew, at least vaguely, what the cult wanted to do, and I couldn’t possibly rationalize it. Maybe they’d let me join them and spend my life here in this orbiting Garden of Eden, wanting for nothing. But I’d never be able to overcome the feeling that I’d been an accessory, albeit unwilling, to the greatest mass murder in history.

I racked my brains for a long time, trying to come up with a clever plan to find the CAPRICORN mole, but it was hopeless. At least I would try to go out in a blaze of glory. If I could find out who was behind this whole thing and take him out, I might be able to make at least a small dent in their plans. For the time being, I needed sleep.

Trying to block out the thoughts racing through my brain, I eventually nodded off.

I woke up to a light rain shower. The sky overhead was still robin’s-egg blue, but some kind of sprinkler system was simulating a misty precipitation. My fedora and overcoat were damp, but not soaked. The shower must’ve just started. I stood up and slowly worked a painful knot out of my lower back. Checking my watch, I saw that I’d been asleep almost six hours. The aching in my head had subsided, and now I was just hungry. I brushed dirt off the seat of my pants and found my way back to the path.

I reached the revolving door and moved through it. The foyer was filled with people, all waiting for the elevator. There was an excited buzz, and everyone seemed to be talking about the Reverend Sheppard. From what I could surmise, everyone was heading to a massive gathering.