Saturn (31 page)

"What's so important that you have to interrupt my dinner?" Wilmot asked testily.

Eberly smiled at the older man. He had spent the past two hours watching Morgenthau's recordings of Wilmot's evening activities. Morgenthau had been disgusted by the professor's choice of entertainment, but Eberly had watched snatches of the vids, fascinated by their mixture of eroticism and savagery. Now he stood in Wilmot's living room, facing the professor's sternly disapproving frown.

"We have a serious situation on our hands, Professor," said Eberly. "Well, what is it?"

"One of the Human Resources staff members has disappeared. I have reason to believe she's suffered a mental breakdown."

"What?" Wilmot looked startled. "Who is this person?"

"Holly Lane. You've met her."

"Have I?"

Eberly was keenly aware that Wilmot had still not offered him a chair. The two men were still standing, facing each other, barely a meter inside Wilmot's front door. Inwardly, Eberly was amused. He knew he was keeping the professor from his evening's entertainment.

"I suppose I'm partially to blame," Eberly said, trying to sound contrite. "I've been protecting her all these months. But she's finally snapped."

Wilmot looked puzzled, and more than a little annoyed.

Eberly fished his handheld from his tunic and projected Holly's dossier on the wall above Wilmot's sofa.

The professor recognized Holly's face. "She's the one you brought with you a while back."

"Yes." Eberly shook his head sadly. "As you can see, she has a history of emotional dysfunction." He had spent hours carefully rewriting Holly's dossier. "As long as she takes her medication she's perfectly normal. But once she stops..."

Wilmot studied the dossier briefly, then asked, "Why'd she go off her meds?"

"It's this Diego Romero business. Holly became obsessed by the old man's death. She convinced herself that he was murdered."

"Murdered?"

"It's nonsense, of course. But this afternoon she attacked Colonel Kananga. She tried to kill him, at exactly the same site as the old man's death."

"Good lord! And where is she now?"

"Disappeared, as I told you. Kananga has organized a search for her."

Wilmot nodded, as if satisfied. "Very well. It seems that Kananga is doing what he should. But why have you bothered me about this?"

"Because I want you to appoint me deputy administrator."

"Deputy? I don't need a deputy."

"I think you do. You will appoint me deputy administrator so that you can retire from running the habitat."

"Retire? And put you in charge? Hah!"

"It's not such a ridiculous idea," Eberly said softly. "You will retire and I will take over your duties."

"Nonsense!"

"Once retired," Eberly went on, "you can spend all your time watching your filthy vids, instead of merely the evenings."

Wilmot staggered back a step. The color drained from his beefy face.

"This habitat needs strong leadership," said Eberly. "Especially with the elections coming up and our impending arrival at Saturn. You've done your job quite well, Professor. Now it's time for you to step aside."

"And turn everything over to you? Never!"

Eberly shrugged. "In that case, we'll have to make your choice of entertainment known to the entire population of the habitat."

"We? Who do you mean?"

"We don't want to embarrass you, Professor. Simply step aside and allow me to take control and no one will ever know about your perverse little entertainments."

Wilmot sank down into the nearest chair, speechless.

Kris Cardenas lay in her bed, trying to decide if she was making another mess of her life. What will I be this time? she asked herself: a hardhearted bitch or a romantic idiot?

Her relationship with Gaeta had started out as a passionate fling, all glands and heat. Once Holly had stepped out of the way she allowed Manny to bed her; she hadn't had so much fun in decades. But then Kris found out about Nadia. It wasn't that Gaeta had been unfaithful to her; neither one of them had promised anything except fun and games. But the thought that Manny used women that way, slept with a woman who could help him and then moved on to the next, that angered her. Then came his sudden declaration of love. True love! Cardenas almost laughed aloud at the thought. But whatever it was, she was overjoyed by it. At my age, she thought, stifling a giggle. Score a real triumph for nanotechnology!

As she turned to face her love, though, her thoughts sobered. He's going to get himself killed, she feared. That's the business he's in, taking constantly bigger risks. Cardenas hated the public, the audience of vicarious thrill-seekers who pushed Manny to riskier and riskier stunts until he tried the one stunt that would kill him.

He lay on his back, blissfully asleep, his rugged, expressive face relaxed, almost boyish. Cardenas studied the slight scars on his brow and along his jawline, the slightly pushed-in aspect of his nose.

Stop it! she commanded herself. You're getting soft as a grape. Even if he lives through this rings stunt he'll be leaving afterward. Then what will you do? Go traipsing after him like some overaged groupie?

Gaeta opened his eyes, turned toward her, and smiled. Cardenas felt her heart melt for him.

"What time is it?" he mumbled, raising his head enough to see the digital clock.

"Early," Cardenas whispered. "Go back to sleep."

"Big test today," he said. "The snowball fight."

"Not yet. Go back to sleep."

"Nah. I'm up."

Cardenas reached for him. "Why, so you are," she said, with an impish grin.

The phone buzzed.

"Aw,
mierda,"
he groaned.

"Audio only," Cardenas told the phone.

Holly's face took shape at the foot of the bed. "Can't talk long. Just gotta tell you Kananga tried to kill me and I'm on the run. I'll buzz later when I can."

And her image winked out, leaving the two of them staring at emptiness.

"Pay attention!" Fritz snapped.

Inside the massive suit, Manny blinked. Fritz was right, his thoughts had wandered. That's the dangerous part of this love thing, it makes it hard to concentrate on the business at hand. We'll be at Saturn in a few days and I'll do the rings. If it clears enough profit, then fuck Titan and Urbain and all those uptight
cositas.
I'll just take the money and run home.

With Kris? Will she come with me? Do I have the guts to ask her to? He almost laughed: the most fearless stuntman in the whole solar system and I'm scared to death she'd turn me down. Where's your
cojones,
tough guy?

The banging on his suit startled him. Fritz was whacking at the suit's armored chest with the flat of his hand, as high up as he could reach.

"Wake up in there!" Fritz hollered.

"I'm awake," said Gaeta.

"These days you spend too much time in bed and not enough time sleeping."

"I'm awake," Gaeta repeated peevishly.

From inside the suit, Fritz looked like a cranky little guy standing out there scowling at him, not even as tall as Gaeta's shoulder. Together with the four other technicians, they were standing in a sealed-off section of corridor that led to one of the habitat's major airlocks, big enough to handle bulky equipment. Gaeta had marched in and, at Fritz's order, turned his back to the airlock hatch. Now he could see, down where they had sealed the corridor from the rest of the habitat, half a dozen fans that the techs had set up. Three of the techs were lugging heavy plastic jugs of water and placing them in precisely marked spots on the corridor's floor of metallic squares. Beside each of the fans stood a dark metal tube encased in a copper-colored magnetic coil, looking to Gaeta like a cross between a laboratory contraption and a shotgun. The fourth tech was loading the tubes with ball bearings.

"This simulation will last only a few seconds," Fritz said, "but it is designed to give you a feeling for what you will encounter in the ring."

"I know all that, Fritz," Gaeta said impatiently. "Let's get on with it."

As unperturbed as if he had heard not a syllable, Fritz went on, "The water will vaporize into ice crystals and the fans will blow them at you. The electromagnetic guns will fire the pellets that simulate larger pieces of ice at approximately Mach one point three."

"And I stand here and take it all in the face," said Gaeta.

"I trust the suit will not be penetrated," said Fritz.

"The self-sealing gunk will stop any leaks."

"Temporarily."

"Long enough for this test."

"But not long enough to save you once you are out in the ring."

"Which is why we're running this sim, to see if the suit holds up. So let's get on with it."

Fritz gazed up at him, his expression somewhere between discontent and anxiety.

"Come on, Fritz," Gaeta urged. "Let's get it over with."

With a shake of his head, Fritz led the other techs past the airtight door that sealed off the end of the corridor section. Gaeta saw it close.

"Pumping down the chamber," Fritz's voice said in his helmet earphones.

"Pump away," said Gaeta.

The only aspect of his flight through Saturn's B ring that this test couldn't simulate was the lack of gravity. Gaeta didn't think that was important; he had experienced micro-g many times, it wasn't a problem for him. But standing in the middle of a superblizzard and allowing himself to be pelted by supersonic stainless steel ball bearings, that was something else. Like facing a firing squad. Yeah, he said to himself, but I'm inside an armored suit. Like Superman. Those bullets'll just bounce off my chest.

He hoped.

James Colerane Wilmot sat alone in his living room, staring into infinity. Ruined. Tripped up by my own stupidity.

He sighed heavily. I could fight him. Most of the population here is in this habitat because they couldn't stand the rules and regulations that were strangling them. So I have rather bizarre taste in entertainment. I could offer to take counseling, even psychotherapy. I don't have to knuckle under to this snotty Eberly and his clique. Not unless I want to.

He thought about that. Not unless I want to. Why should I go through the embarrassment and stress of public revelation, public ridicule? Accusations and defenses, excuses, pleading for understanding? No, I won't subject myself to all that. I can't.

In a way, actually, this is better than ever. Now I'm totally removed from any semblance of control, any hint of responsibility. The experiment is completely free now from any possible interference. I'll have to inform Atlanta about that.

He hesitated, frowning. Eberly's been watching every move I make. Every communication. Even what I do here in the supposed privacy of my own quarters. He's watching me now.

What to do? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Atlanta will find out about this power play of Eberly's soon enough. They must have plenty of spies scattered through the population.

Holly had debated for hours about calling Kris. At last she decided she would do it from a phone up topside. She didn't want Kananga or anyone else to know that she was using the underground tunnels as her hiding place. So just before the habitat's solar windows opened for "sunrise," she climbed up the ladder that opened into the cafeteria's storeroom. She could hear people stirring in the kitchen, just beyond: pots clanging and voices calling back and forth. A robot trundled in from the kitchen, rolled right past her and went to a shelf where it grasped a carton of preserved fruit in its gripper-tipped arms, then turned a precise one hundred and eighty degrees, rolled past her again, and pushed through the double doors to the kitchen.

Holly tiptoed to the wall phone near the kitchen door and made her hurried call to Kris. Somebody's got to know that I'm alive and being hunted by Kananga, she told herself.

After her swiftly spoken message to Kris, she went back to the trapdoor, down the ladder, and ran nearly a kilometer along the main tunnel before slumping down to the floor, panting.

You flaming dimdumb, she said to herself. You were in the warping storeroom and you never thought to get something to eat. Stupid!

Her stomach agreed with a growl.

"She made a call?" Kananga asked eagerly. "When? From where?"

His aide, wearing the black tunic and slacks that Kananga demanded for his security staff, replied, "From the cafeteria storeroom, sir. About an hour ago."

"An
hour
ago?" Kananga snarled, rising from his desk chair.

The woman glanced at her handheld. "Actually fifty-two minutes ago, sir."

"And you're just telling me now?"

"We only had a skeleton staff on at the time, sir. They can't monitor every phone in the habitat in real time. It's
—
"

"I want an automated program set up immediately. Use her voice-print as the key to trigger an automatic alarm. Immediately!"

"Yessir."

"This woman is a dangerous psychopath. She's got to be apprehended before she kills someone else!"

The aide scampered from Kananga's office and his baleful glare.

He slowly settled himself back in his chair. The cafeteria. Of course. She's got to eat. We'll simply stake out teams at the cafeteria and the restaurants. She'll be drawn to the food, sooner or later. And once she is, we'll have her.

Gaeta had never been in a blizzard, never tried to trudge through drifts of snow while a cold wind battered at him and drove flakes of ice stinging against his face.

For nearly half a minute, though, he faced the fiercest maelstrom that Fritz's ingenuity could devise. Ice crystals flew all around him, enveloping him in a blinding whirl of gleaming, glinting white. Steel pellets peppered him, rattling against his armored suit so loudly that Gaeta knew it was going
to
crack. He worried especially about the faceplate. It was bulletproof, he knew, but how bulletproof could it be?

He was being machine-gunned, strafed by supersonic pellets of stainless steel.

Yet he stood it. He remained on his feet and even took a few plodding steps upstream, into the blinding whiteout blowing at him. The rattling of the pellets was so loud, though, that he had trouble hearing Fritz's voice counting down the time in his helmet earphones.

All he could do was stand and take it. And look at the lighted displays splashed across the inside of his visor. Every damned light was green, every monitor was showing that the suit was functioning normally. Whoops! One went yellow. Nothing important, he saw; one of the knee joints had suddenly lost lubrication. The backup came on and the light switched back to green.

The noise was damned near deafening. Like a thousand crazy woodpeckers attacking the suit. Why the hell do I put up with this crap? Gaeta wondered. Why am I spending my life getting the shit kicked out of me? Why don't I take whatever money I make out of this and retire while I've still got all my arms and legs?

The classic answer rang in his head: What, and quit show business? He laughed aloud.

And then it was over. As suddenly as it had started, it all disappeared, leaving Gaeta standing there inside the cumbersome suit, his ears ringing from the pounding bombardment.

"What are you laughing about?" Fritz demanded.

Gaeta replied, still grinning, "I laugh at danger, Fritz. Don't you read my media releases? I think you wrote that line yourself."

It took the better part of half an hour for them to refill the corridor section with air and for Gaeta to crawl out of the suit.

Fritz inspected it minutely, going over every square centimeter of the hulking suit with a magnifying glass.

"Dimpled, but not penetrated," was Fritz's estimation.

"Then we can go as planned."

"Yes, I believe we can."

Gaeta's handheld buzzed. He flicked it open and saw Nadia Wunderly's face on the minuscule screen.

"If you're worried about the test
—
"

"No, no, no!" she said, brimming with excitement. "I just had to tell you right away. You're the luckiest guy in the solar system!"

"Whattaya mean?"

"There's going to be a capture event!" Wunderly was almost shouting. "Three days after we arrive in orbit Saturn's going to capture an asteroid from the Kuiper Belt."

"What? What do you mean? Slow it down a little."

"Manny, a small chunk of ice-covered rock is approaching Saturn from deep in the Kuiper Belt, out beyond Pluto. It's already fallen into Saturn's gravity well. I've done the calculations. It's going to fall into orbit around Saturn smack in the middle of the A ring! Three days after we arrive in orbit outside the rings!"

"Three days?" Fritz asked, looking over Gaeta's shoulder at Wunderly's ecstatic face.

"Yes! If you delay your excursion for three days, you can be there when the capture takes place!"