The Venus Belt (9 page)

“Win?” Clarissa’s voice was strained, I forgot my aching muscles and stripped a mental gear or two worrying about her and the baby at the same time.

“You okay, honey?”

“Yes, dear, I’m fine, and so is your daughter.
You
don’t look so good—are you getting enough exercise?”

I let it pass.

“I’m disturbed about Olongo,” she continued. “Remember how I told you he seemed preoccupied last time we saw him?”

“Sure. He hurried off somewhere as soon as the shuttle lifted.”

“That’s right. Well, I’ve tried several times to call him, and Win, Vice-President Carlson and the rest of the staff finally admitted this afte
r
noon that he hasn’t been to work for three days. His secretary can’t find him, and neither can his family.”

I looked over my shoulder. Koko’s eyes were big and round.

“First Ed,” said my wife, “then Lucy—now Olongo’s disappeared!”

“L
ook, Sherlock Junior, the less you worry about your uncle, the sooner we can start figuring out what’s going on.” I lit a cigar, rubbing my rapidly stif
f
ening shoulder.

Koko gave up her pacing to plunk down wearily on the floor beside the window, in perfect disregard of the terrifying void outside. “You’re right, I guess. Anyway, we don’t really know for sure he’s—”

“Hold that thought. Now let’s see...Olongo’s Webley: the only time it’s been out of my sight was in the shower, here.
And
once aboard the shuttle craft. Question is, who booby-trapped it, and why?”

She grinned up at me, a lot gamer than I’d have expected, given the ci
r
cumstances. “Try again, Boss.
Which
booby did they really want to trap?”

“I see what you mean. Okay, maybe it
was
already gimmicked when he gave it to me. But, Koko, he’s only the President, who’d want to—”

“Politics just aren’t important enough to figure into it.” She got an odd look on her face. “Say, you don’t suppose this has anything to do with those two burglaries?”

A light dawned: “They were never burglaries, at all! Did Olongo me
n
tion anything being stolen? No, but he did catch the first intruder
fooling with his gun.
And the second time around, she walked in boldly, knowing damned well the Webley would blow up in his face! Too bad for her he’d given it to me.”

She digested that a while. “Then what about the little ballet in the cargo hold this afternoon? If you
weren’t
the intended...”

She was right. Someone was sure as hell trying to kill me now, the m
e
dallion obviously bait, and the only connection there was to Lucy, not Olongo. That led to another bright idea: “Listen, was it me or the
loc
a
tion?
”

“What do you mean?” She held a paw across her mouth, stifling a yawn.

“Well, I’d begun envisioning some evil-doer lurking around, plotting to bump me off. But maybe they just wanted that shipment left alone.”

“Why bother? There’s a regular security detail aboard to—”

“Hell, I don’t know. No customs barriers to get around, no regulated substances in this nutty civilization. Kind of puts a crimp in any smu
g
gling theory.” I scratched my head. When I’d begun this caper, there’d been too
little
information. Now I seemed to be suffocating under an avalanche of unconnected facts.

Koko yawned again. “O Guru of Deduction, methinks your mind wa
n
dereth.”

“Don’t worry, it’s too weak to get very far.” My cigar had gone out. I considered relighting it, looked at it again, then chucked it down the dispo
s
al. “Back to basics, then: people missing, Ed, Lucy, possibly your uncle, and—hey, don’t get me off the subject—what really disturbs me is that crate. Free trade or not, you’re too young to remember the last time Broach technology wound up in unfriendly hands. I’d like to know why that shi
p
ment’s headed for the asteroids. Hell, the only thing the other side of Reality out there is
rocks
—and none of them with good hotels. Aphrodite, Ltd., is it? Well, we’ve got a chance of pinning
that
one down, anyway.”

She watched me belly up to the Telecom. “What you doing, Win?”

“I just happen to have a little pull at Laporte Paratronics—Deejay and Ooloorie, not to mention the Chairman of the Board himself, Fre
e
man K. Bertram, a Hamiltonian, incidentally, until they tried burning his gizzard out with a laser. Let’s see what they can—”

“Is that a good idea? I mean, the time-lag’s getting nasty now—and they may not like handing out confidential—”

“Listen, Bertram saved my life once, that’s how he picked up that l
a
ser-burn. Ever hear of a Chinese obligation?”

“Is that anything like ‘Confucian to the Enemy’?” She yawned again—it was starting to be catching.

“Someday, hairy person, you’ll press your luck too far.” I diddled keys, waiting for the results to wend their ethery way to Earth.

“Laporte Paratronics, may I help you?” A real-live, real-time receptio
n
ist: nice traditional touch, even if she was a chimp. This was company hea
d
quarters, north of town, in a huge Aztec-modern pyramid Bertram had co
n
structed before his rigorous and painful conversion to the side of Law and Disorder.

“Sure, extension 4511, please.” That’d ring bells down at Laporte Un
i
versity, Ltd., four or five blocks from my place.

Another pause while radio waves got there and back. “To whom did you wish to speak, sir?”

“To Deejay Thorens, that’s to whom, or Ooloorie, if her relay’s up. Problems?”

“I’m afraid so, sir. Professors Thorens and P’wheet are no longer with the company.”

“
What?
Then give me Mr. Bertram. Tell him Homicide Lieutenant Bear—tell him the jig is up and he should—”

“I’m ringing the Executive Suite.” I could see her other hand trace out an Ameslan pattern she thought was private: “Tell him yourself, a
s
shole.”

“
Win?
”
Freeman K. Bertram squinted into the ‘com over his ant
i
quated horn-rimmed glasses. “What happened to your eye?” Bertram was a skinny gink, an engineer-type by profession and personality.

I turned around, looking in the mirror. Sure enough, I’d copped a shi
n
er in the cargo bay. “One of your crates fell on me, Freeman, and I’m gonna sue. Seriously, I’m calling from three—make that four—days ou
t
bound to Ceres.” I gave him an abbreviated run-down. “Now what’s this crap about Deejay and Ooloorie?”

He looked mournful, making steeples with his fingers—scratch “eng
i
neer” and insert “mortician.” “We let them go on a cordial basis, we assure you.” The “we” was only Bertram; whether he was secretly a royalist at heart, or a frustrated editorialist, I’d never had the heart to ask. “They had some research they insisted doing on their own.”

“Deejay’s in San Francisco, then?” Ooloorie made her home there, a big tank of seawater at the Emperor Norton University, communicating with Laporte by various electronic means.

“Why, no. Perhaps this shouldn’t be made public, but we weren’t happy letting either of them go, and did some quiet checking around. Can you keep a secret?”

“Over several zillion miles of open Telecom?”

“Oh. Well, there are rumors, Win. An expedition to Mercury, attempts to tap the Sun directly, using a modified double-Broach—talk about fusion power! All we know is, they’re the foremost experts on Broach physics, and the
Indomitable Spirit
has been chartered, inbound. Neither of them can be reached, their final paychecks came back u
n
opened—you’d think they could arrange to—”

“
Indomitable Spirit?
Well, that clears up one mystery. What do you know about an Aphrodite, Ltd., or somebody named J.V. Tormount?”

“Win where did you get
that
information?” He had a strangled expre
s
sion on his face. Somehow it suited him, I thought.

“A little bird dropped it on my head. What’s the big secret?”

“I—Win, it’s a perfectly legitimate operation, and we can’t tell you any more. As you pointed out, unsecured communications, and so forth. Sorry.”

“I wish you’d reconsider. Maybe I should lean a little harder, but your business is your business. I don’t promise to leave it at that.”

“There’s certainly no harm in asking. Nothing personal, old friend.”

“Right.” I switched off. “Well, what do you think about that, Koko? Koko?”

She lay, propped up against those goddamned windows, snoring ene
r
getically. Well, my shoulder ached, I could stand some z’s, myself. I gently got her somnambulated toward the elevator. Room service charged a phil
o
sophically impossible amount for the soup and sandwich which arrived a few minutes later. I settled into the sack with my meal and a fresh cigar, no
t
ing it was news time out on Ceres.

And somehow, I’d gotten entangled in the headlines.

“Tonight’s special report concerns the mysterious privately held co
m
pany known as Aphrodite, Ltd.”

Voltaire was at his authoritative best this evening, lean, gray, pate
r
nally disapproving. “Just what
is
Aphrodite, Ltd., and who are its pri
n
cipals? We endeavored to find out.” Following was a chronicle of futile attempts to interview one J. V. Tormount at his Ceres office. Or
her
Ceres o
f
fice—Malaise couldn’t even find out that much. Whatever gender, Tormount wasn’t in.

Tormount, it appeared, was
never
in.

He’d been a busy little dickens, though, buying up hundreds of hom
e
steaders in the isolated Sargasso asteroid cluster, importing unspecified heavy machinery—and sophisticated paratronics. “The privacy of business is s
a
cred in our society,” lamented Voltaire, “yet the people have a right to know.” (Where had he picked
that
up?) “Our attempts to pen
e
trate this new but powerful and well-financed firm will continue. It may well be that ‘Ap
h
rodite’ conceals something sinister in her bosom. At least that’s the way it looks, Monday, March first, 223 A.L. This is Voltaire Malaise, Ceres Ce
n
tral, good night.”

I wished him better luck than I was having, put out my cigar, set the Gigacom (fanfare, angel chorus) for morning, and crawled between the c
o
vers onto my good shoulder.

In her
bosom
? C’mon, Voltaire, that one went out with honest la
w
yers!

***

“
Yaaawp! Yaaawp!
”
The Gigacom awoke me—
proximity alarm! A
giant shadow hovered overhead, striking downward. I snatched the de
s
cending blanket away from my face before it landed, and lashed out for the wrist—the
furry
wrist!—controlling it, planted a foot in somebody’s midse
c
tion, and
pushed
!
The figure whirled away in a flap of ill-gotten bedclothes, stu
m
bled backward, and rebounded off the windows as I fumbled vainly for the light.

The intruder leaped again, damn near crushing my ribs in the process. We thumped to the floor, thrashing in the darkness, my face suddenly e
x
ploding in painful collision with a misplaced elbow. I grabbed a handful of pelt, hoping for an ear or something else to bite. My other hand found the pommel of the Rezin, fallen from the nightstand, and flung away the sheath, to—
Ungh!
The stranger’s knee had found a place I couldn’t disregard.

I doubled, slashing blindly in confused shock. The blade caught som
e
thing, sliced and grated. A terrifying scream—and I was free! Light blazed briefly into the cabin from the hall and shuttered off again. I wrenched u
p
right, blood from my nose streaming down my chin, and staggered out into the corridor.

Empty. I glanced at my watch; it wasn’t there. Neither were my clothes.