The Ganymede Club (38 page)

If only he had dragged them to the far-off Southern Hemisphere before war convulsed the inner system. Then the family might still be on Earth, and none of this would be happening.

Lola, emotionally exhausted and with nothing pleasant to occupy her mind, permitted herself a rare luxury. She lay on one of the compact little beds and drifted off into her own past. Just for once she wanted to return to the old days—the good old days when she was still a teenager; when she had hardly heard of the word "haldane"; when responsibility was something that other people worried about, and dreams did not turn into nightmares.

* * *

While Lola drifted and dreamed, Bat was desperately busy. He had three ships to deal with, plus a dozen computers of all kinds. He dared not talk directly with the
Weland
, which he was now convinced was carrying Joss/Jeffrey/Jason Cayuga to Lysithea. He could reach the
Kobold
, but he had nothing useful to say to Spook and Bryce because all his efforts had not advanced the arrival time of their ship at Lysithea by a single millisecond. They would be fifteen minutes too late—close enough to watch the near-simultaneous landings of both the
Weland
and the Dimbula, but unable to affect either one.

That left only the
Dimbula
, carrying Lola to what Bat now believed was her certain death on Lysithea. Here the frustration was at its maximum. All he needed was for a short and simple message to get through to Lola:
"Slow down, don't land."
That would make all the difference. But every effort at a linkage had been balked by the communications computer on Lysithea.

In his desperation Bat even placed a call to Jovian Security. Over the video link two Security officers stared at the cluttered mess of papers, empty plates, and strewn data files that surrounded Bat's massive, black-robed figure, and listened politely to his request for a maximum-acceleration Jovian Security vessel to be sent at once to Lysithea.

"We have heard no reports of trouble," the woman said at last. She turned to her partner. "Have we?"

"Nothing." The man was at his own console. "In fact, I don't think I've ever heard of a problem on Lysithea. The
Dimbula
, you say? Yes, that ship shows a destination of Lysithea. But we've had no distress calls. No messages from it of any kind. Do you have the names of the crew and passengers? They are not listed here."

Bat was stymied. If he mentioned the name of Lola Belman, there was a faint possibility that they would do as he asked and send an investigating ship out to Lysithea. However, there was the absolute certainty that they would haul Bat in for questioning in connection with the death of Jinx Barker. His own efforts to do something for Lola would be over until it was too late.

"I don't know who the crew and passengers are," he said weakly. He was not surprised when the man and woman glanced significantly at each other, and she said, "Well, thanks for the call. Why don't you try us again when you have more information."

In other words, Bat was written off as a nut case and was back to his own unaided resources. He had wasted a valuable ten minutes proving that fact. He slumped lower in his chair. It was time to forget Security forces and return to first principles.

Again he summoned information about the three ships. He had dealt with the
Kobold
many times before, and he knew its capabilities. He could not squeeze one more meter per second out of its drive. Spook and Bryce would get there too late. The
Dimbula
and the
Weland
were less familiar to him. He arrayed the data sets for the two ships side by side and studied them closely. Both were Miranda-class, both were rated for travel anywhere in the Jovian system, both were able to carry either passengers or cargo. But the
Weland
was a good deal newer. It could go much faster than the ship that carried Lola, and it could have easily beaten the
Dimbula
to Lysithea. For some reason, Joss Cayuga was not pushing the
Weland
to its maximum speed. Rather than arriving before Lola and waiting for her there, Cayuga had arranged it so that the two ships would reach the docking area at almost exactly the same time. The
Weland
would in fact be there a few seconds
after
the
Dimbula.

If you wanted to dispose of somebody, wouldn't you want to get there
ahead
of them, with plenty of time to make your preparations?

Bat sat silent and motionless for a long time, trying to think like an efficient murderer. Assume that Cayuga was monitoring news broadcasts from Ganymede. Then he would know that Security was searching for Lola Belman. He would know that the people from Security were thorough and patient, that eventually they would learn of Lola's departure for Lysithea. He would know they would follow her there. So he, Joss Cayuga, would have to kill Lola in a way that left him entirely blameless.

How?

Bat wasted more precious minutes, deep in thought. At last he put his final question and his own suspicions to the back of his mind and summoned more data. This time he needed information about computers.

It came quickly, a satisfying amount—or maybe, given the short time available, a depressingly large amount. There were individual but interlocked computers on both the
Weland
and the
Dimbula
, for communication, internal ship maintenance, and navigation and control. Those on the
Weland
were a generation newer and more sophisticated than the
Dimbula
's. However, that didn't really matter since both ships during the final stages of approach would be slaved to the computers on Lysithea.

Bat turned his attention there. The Lysithean computers were new and highly advanced, not what you might expect on such a small and out-of-the-way worldlet. They had individual modules responsible for ship communication and ship control. The control modules were also linked to the general Jovian-system transportation computers on Ganymede. The Lysithean computers relied upon Ganymede for general registry information—ship class, drive, travel restrictions, and specific IDs—but they had their own stand-alone control authority for ship movements in the vicinity of Lysithea. They could not be overridden by a command from some other location.

They were also, as Bat soon discovered, impossible to infiltrate in the time available. Given a month, he might be able to gain access to the Lysithean control system, as he had gained access to almost every data bank on Ganymede. But he could not do it in just seven hours. He had already tried to crack the Lysithean communications module and send a message to Lola, and had failed miserably.

Bat was facing an impossible problem; and unlike the "impossible" problems of the Puzzle Network, this one had no solution at all.

He stood up. When your thoughts turned defeatist, it was time to do something different. He wandered the length of the Bat Cave, touching and fingering his priceless collection of war relics. Just a week ago he had heard rumors of another two relics, the fabled Palladian genome stripper and a variant on Fishel's renegade Von Neumann. Every copy of the latter had supposedly been exterminated after it ran out of control and converted the Trojan asteroids, but something very like Fishel's Von Neumann had been active in the Belt near the end of the war. Earth and Mars denied responsibility.

Bat moved on, circling past the brain-dead Seeker, the Purcell invertor, the Tolkov stimulator. The handful of war buffs who were also Puzzle Network members occasionally talked of something more exotic yet: the Mother Lode, a lost data base that contained a list of
all
forbidden technology developed in the Belt before and during the war.

Bat was skeptical. Why would anyone in his right mind make a permanent record that might later be used to incriminate him?

And yet a powerful leader had done exactly that, only a century ago in Earth's North America. Maybe the Mother Lode was real, created by some lunatic with no thought of consequences. Maybe a copy still existed. Maybe one day somebody would stumble across it.

If that happened, even more tantalizing questions would raise their heads: Would copies of the devices described by the data base still exist? If they did, where would they be? Not even the biggest optimist on the Puzzle Network suggested that those missing facts would be found in the same lost data base.

Bat, prowling the darkened Bat Cave, could see that the discovery of the Mother Lode alone would lead to endless wasted effort. There would certainly be plenty of speculation on the existence and location of the devices listed there, but no one would have reliable information. And wrong information would be worse than no information at all.

He paused.
Wrong information would be worse than no information at all.
Not necessarily. There might be situations where wrong information would be exactly what you needed.

He hurried to the Bat Cave's communications center and looked at the time. In a little more than six hours, the
Dimbula
and the
Weland
would reach Lysithea. It would be a breakneck programing effort, with no time for checking of his code. But he had no choice. He had to try.

He removed his bulky robe, flexed his fingers, and sat down without providing his usual array of snacks. Physical discomfort would serve as a spur. The good news was that even if he were wrong, what he planned to do could make matters no worse for Lola.

* * *

When Spook insisted on going to Lysithea with Bryce, the picture had seemed pretty clear. They would have an active role, maybe even a heroic one. They would make sure that Lola was all right, and they would put an end to any dangerous nonsense that Joss Cayuga might have dreamed up. Bat would sit at home, stewing in the Bat Cave.

Well, Spook didn't know what sort of stewing Bat might be engaging in at the moment, but he envied him. At least Bat would be doing
something
, while Spook and Bryce were sitting inside the
Kobold
like two lumps of canned meat, unable either to overtake Lola or to talk to her. Bryce had been over their flight path and their drive settings again and again, and all he had been able to do was confirm that they would reach Lysithea too late to do anything about Lola's arrival.

They would, however, be able to watch. Spook had installed himself in front of the forward display, where images from the main scope were now appearing. The
Dimbula
showed as a silver dot in the middle of the display volume. It grew steadily in size as the flight progressed. Even though the
Kobold
could not catch up, it was definitely gaining.

More perplexing, though, was the second ship that had appeared in the same display. There was no saying where it had come from, but another dot had drifted into the field of view and was narrowing its separation from the
Dimbula.

Spook called to Bryce to come and take a look. "What do you make of it?"

"That's the
Weland.
Bat said it was on the way. Is it closing on
Dimbula
?"

"Slowly. If they get much closer together, the scope won't be able to separate them. But they'll still be a long way from actually touching."

"Let's hope Cayuga isn't crazy enough to try anything like a collision. A space impact would destroy both ships. Keep your eye on them and let me know if you see any unusual drive activity."

Bryce wandered aft again, leaving Spook to stare irritatedly at the display. Apparently he had been demoted to the role of ship's boy, with nothing better to do than sit and watch. On the other hand, what better was there to do? He stared as directed, hour after hour, until his eyes felt ready to drop out. Bryce stopped by occasionally to glance at the images and tell Spook what else was happening.

In two words, not much. There was nothing new on the general news channels. No success in getting through to the
Dimbula.
No further word from Bat, back on Ganymede—according to Bryce, he was not even responding to their calls. Probably asleep or feeding his face, thought Spook. Great lazy lump, couldn't wait to get us out of the Bat Cave and have the place all to himself.

The images of the two ships ahead had gradually merged into a single elongated dot. But now, as the
Kobold
slowly caught up with them and Lysithea itself became visible ahead as a tiny disk, the scope was once more able to separate the
Weland
and the
Dimbula.
Spook wasn't quite sure what the "unusual drive activity" that Bryce had talked about would look like, but so far the two ships in front were following the same boost sequence. They were preparing for final arrival at the Lysithean dock.

Spook watched the approach, filled with a strange and agonized tension. In another ten minutes Lola would be there, but they would not. Up to this point they had at least been able to see that she was all right. Once she was docked and inside Lysithea, Spook would have no idea what was happening to her.

Bryce joined him and they stared together in silence. Lysithea was an irregular lump of rock and ice, its craters smoothed away by human activity. The docking facility where all three ships would enter showed as a dark circle within the bland grey of the surface. Already, the
Kobold
's own forward drive had come on, slowing them for rendezvous. The two ships ahead had been decelerating for some minutes. They were in final approach, only a few kilometers from the surface. Their landing could be no more than a minute away.

Spook was opening his mouth to say that so far everything seemed normal when the display in front of him lit with the intense flare of a fusion drive at full power. The observation sensors overloaded in the glare and for a few seconds the whole display went black. It came back slowly, beginning with a ghostly outline of Lysithea. As the image strengthened, Spook looked in vain for any sign of either ship.

All he saw was the dark mouth of the docking facility. A few hundred meters away from it a great cloud of white steam obscured Lysithea's frozen surface.

25

It happened fast, too fast to follow. She was in the final landing approach, the docking facility just ahead. Close behind the
Dimbula
was another ship. She assumed it was Joss Cayuga, on his way home from Elara and arriving just a few seconds after her.