THE SILENT WAR Page 35

  Humphries smirked. "I can't imagine what it could be."

  But Pancho's face lit up. "It's what Dan Randolph wanted in the first place! Back when we made the flight out to the Belt in the old Starpower!"

  "And what was that?" Nobuhiko asked.

  "To help the people on Earth," said Pancho. "Help 'em recover from the greenhouse cliff. Bring 'em the raw materials for rebuilding. Bring 'em the fuels for fusion power generators. That's what Dan started out to do!"

  "And that's what you've all lost sight of," said Stavenger.

  "Well, that's our principal market, I agree," Humphries said. "But that doesn't mean—"

  Pancho cut him off. "We oughtta be selling the ores from the asteroids at the lowest possible price. And the fusion fuels, too."

  "And building more solar power satellites," Stavenger added.

  "To help rebuild Japan," Yamagata murmured.

  "To help rebuild the world," said Pancho.

  Stavenger smiled gently. "And to help expand human habitats on the Moon and elsewhere, in deep space."

  "We can do that!" Pancho agreed eagerly.

  "But not with the three of you cutting each other's throats," Stavenger said.

  "Only one corporation should manage the resources of the Belt," Yamagata said firmly. "Competition is pointless, once nanoprocessing reduces the prices of asteroidal ores."

  "Not ores," Humphries reminded him. "The nanomachines will produce pure metals."

  "And minerals," Pancho added.

  Humphries gave her an exaggerated bow of his head.

  "But which corporation will gain the monopoly?" Yamagata asked.

  "None of us," said Pancho.

  "What?" Humphries snapped. "It's got to be one of us. Nobody else has the capability."

  "Selene does," Pancho said, staring straight at Stavenger.

  Looking back at her, he admitted, "I've been thinking that way, too."

  Humphries exploded, "If you think you're going to muscle me out of what's rightfully mine—"

  Pancho waved him down. "Don't pop your cork, Martin. I know how we can do this and keep our shareholders happy."

  "I don't see how that can be done," Humphries groused.

  "Nor do I," Nobuhiko added.

  Grinning, Pancho clasped her hands together and leaned them on the conference table. "It's simple. We each sign a contract with Selene for them to operate our asteroid business. We get the profits, minus a small percentage to Selene."

  "A manager's fee," said Stavenger.

  "Right," Pancho agreed. "Selene manages our operations and sets the market prices for the asteroidal products. The three of us just sit back and collect the profits."

  Yamagata took in a deep breath. Then, "I presume that Selene will set the prices as low as possible."

  "Very likely," Stavenger said. "Those people on Earth need the resources. We won't put power trips ahead of the people's needs."

  "Power trips?" Humphries snarled. "You'll have all the power."

  "That's right," Stavenger replied amiably. "Selene will be the arbiter for the rest of the solar system. No more competition. No more killing. No more war."

  "I don't like it," said Humphries.

  Yamagata asked, "Can Selene be trusted with such power?"

  "Can anyone else in this room?" Stavenger retorted.

  A heavy silence fell across the conference table.

  Finally Pancho said, "I'm willing to try it—on a five-year time limit. That way, if we're not happy with Selene's performance when the time's up, we don't have to renew the contract."

  "But only if two of the three corporations refuse to renew," said Stavenger. "No single corporation can back out of the contract, it will take a majority vote."

  "Agreed," said Pancho.

  "I would like to consult my people back on Earth before agreeing," Yamagata said.

  "I still don't like it," Humphries grumbled.

  "C'mon, Martin," Pancho reached over and shook him slightly by the shoulder. "It'll make life a lot easier for you. You'll still be the richest sumbitch in the solar system. All you'll have to do is sit back and pull in the profits. No more worries."

  "No more slaughters," Stavenger said, his face still deadly serious. "Regardless of your intentions, Martin, it was your orders that led to the Chrysalis massacre."

  "That would never hold up in a court of law."

  "Don't be too certain of that. War crimes courts can be very harsh."

  Humphries leaned back in his chair, his mouth a tight line, his eyes closed. At last he sat up straight and asked Stavenger, "Will you still exile me?"

  Stavenger smiled. "No, I don't think that would be necessary, Martin. You can rebuild your home down below. Besides, I rather think I'd like to have you close by, where I can keep an eye on you."

  FINAL ADJUSTMENTS

  The three-second lag in communications between Earth and the Moon did not irritate Nobuhiko Yamagata. He found it useful; it gave him a few moments to think before responding to his father.

  Saito's face grew solemn when Nobu told him of the tentative agreement they had hammered out.

  "But this will keep Yamagata from moving back into space operations," the older man complained.

  "Not entirely," Nobuhiko replied. "We will gain only a small share in the profits from asteroidal mining, true enough. But the price for asteroidal resources will become so low that we will be able to continue our rebuilding programs and invest in new space ventures, as well."

  "Lower our costs," Saito muttered. "H'mm. I see."

  In the end, the elder Yamagata agreed that his son's best course was to accept the agreement. By the time Nobuhiko ended his conversation with his father, Saito was already talking about building solar power satellites in orbit about the planet Mercury.

  "The sunlight is much more intense that close to the Sun," he said. "Perhaps I will leave this dreary monastery and lead the Mercury project myself."

  Soaked with well-earned perspiration, Martin Humphries held Tatiana Oparin's naked body close to his own and contemplated his future.

  "Maybe I won't rebuild the house," he said, gazing up at the darkened ceiling of the hotel bedroom. It sparkled with a thousand fluorescent flecks of light, like stars on a summery evening back on Earth.

  "Not rebuild it?" Tatiana murmured drowsily.

  "I could go back to Connecticut. That's where my boys are living. The runt's nothing much, but Alex is turning into a real son. Just like his father." He laughed at his private joke.

  "You'd leave the Moon?"

  "Just for a visit. To see the kids. And there's other family still down there. Can't take too much of them."

  "But you'll still live here at Selene, won't you?"

  "Maybe. Maybe not. Hell Crater's an interesting place. Maybe I'll buy into one of the casinos there. Be a playboy instead of a captain of industry. Might make a nice change for me."

  "You would make an excellent playboy," said Tatiana, snuggling closer to him.

  Humphries laughed in the darkness. This is a lot easier than running a corporation, he thought. Let the others do the work. I'll spend the profits.

  Stavenger spent much of his evening sending a long, detailed report to his wife about the peace conference.

  "I think it could work," he concluded. "I think we can make it work."

  Edith was on her way back to him, he knew. She had survived the atrocity at Ceres unscathed, physically. Her news coverage, complete with computer-graphic simulations of the actual attack based on her eyewitness description, had been the biggest news event since the greenhouse floods had first struck. There was already talk of a Pulitzer for her.

  None of that mattered to Stavenger. Edith's all right, he thought. She's on her way back. She wasn't hurt. It was an emotional trauma for her, but she wasn't physically harmed. She'll be all right. I'll help her recover.

  Edith's news reporting had been the key to making the peace agreement, Stavenger realized. With the Chrysalis massacre in
full view of every person in the solar system, Humphries and the others had no choice except to come to some sort of an agreement to end the fighting.

  Now comes the hard part, Stavenger told himself. Now we have to make the agreement work.

  Pancho was packing her travel bag when the call from Jake Wanamaker came through. She invited him to come to her residence.

  By the time he buzzed at the front door, Pancho was packed and ready to go. She carried her travel bag to the door and let it drop to the floor, then opened the door to let Wanamaker in. In the languid lunar gravity, the bag thumped on the carpeting as Wanamaker stepped into the entryway.

  "Going somewhere?" he asked.

  "Yep," said Pancho, ushering him into the sitting room. "But I got lots of time. Want a drink?"

  The room's decor was set to the Mediterranean isle of Capri: steep, green-clad cliffs studded with little white-walled villages clinging here and there, and the placid sea glittering beneath a warm Sun.

  Wanamaker asked for a bourbon and water. Pancho had the auto-bar pour her an ice-cold lemoncello, to go with the scenery.

  She gestured him to a comfortably wide armchair, and perched herself on the smaller upholstered chair next to it. They clinked glasses. Pancho noticed that Jake took a healthy swig of his bourbon, rather than a polite little sip.

  "What's on your mind?" Pancho asked.

  He gave her a sheepish grin. "Looks like I'm out of a job."

  "Guess so," she said. "Your contract runs to the end of the year, though."

  "I don't feel right taking money for doing nothing."

  Pancho considered this for a moment, then heard herself say, "So why don't you come with me? Be my bodyguard."

  His brows shot up. "Bodyguard? Where are you going?"

  With a shrug, she admitted, "Dunno. Just want to get away from all this. I'm going to resign from Astro Corporation."

  "Resign?"

  "Yep. I sorta fell into this job by accident. Took me a lotta years to realize I don't really want to be a corporate executive."

  "So you're going to travel?"

  "For a bit. My sister's out at the Saturn habitat. Thought maybe I'd have a look-see out there."

  "You don't need a bodyguard for that," Wanamaker said.

  Pancho grinned at him. "Okay then, I'll be your bodyguard. How's that?"

  Realization dawned on Wanamaker's face. He broke into a wide grin.

  Shanidar was in orbit around Vesta. There was a delay getting the crew transferred down to the base because most of the surface facilities had been eaten away by the nanomachine attack. Just as well, Harbin thought. He was in no hurry to leave the ship.

  He had remained in his quarters, as ordered by the executive officer. He had not slept for several days. Without his medications, sleep brought dreams, and Harbin did not like what his dreams showed him.

  He replayed the news broadcasts of his attack on Chrysalis over and over. Each time it seemed worse to him, more horrifying, more damning.

  What does life hold for me now? he asked himself. They'll send out some troops to arrest me. Then a trial, probably back on Earth. And then what? A firing squad? More likely a lethal injection. Or perhaps life in prison.

  I can save them the trouble, he thought.

  His mind resolved, Harbin slid open the pleated door to the passageway and headed toward the rear of the ship, away from the bridge. I've got to do this quickly, he knew, before they realize I've left my quarters.

  He went straight to the weapons locker, unattended now that the ship was in orbit and the crew waiting to transfer to their base. The grenade storage bins were locked, but Harbin knew all the combinations. He tapped out the proper sequence and the lock clicked open.

  A small one, he told himself. You don't want to damage the ship too much.

  A minigrenade, hardly larger than his thumbnail. Enough explosive in it, however, to blast open an airlock hatch. Or something else.

  "Hey, what're you doing?"

  Harbin whirled to see one of his crewmen coming down the passageway.

  "Oh, it's you, Captain." The man looked suddenly embarrassed. "Sir, eh—you're supposed to be confined to your quarters."

  "It's all right, trooper," Harbin said reassuringly. "Nothing to worry about. For all the Sin wherewith the Face of Man is blackened..."

  "Sir?" the crewman asked, puzzled. Then he saw the minigrenade in Harbin's hand. His eyes went wide.

  "Nothing," Harbin muttered. He flicked the grenade's fuse with his thumbnail as he spun around to place his body between the crewman and the blast. The explosion nearly tore him in half.

  ASTEROID 67-046

  "What do you mean, Dorn's not available?" Humphries shouted at the blank phone screen. "Get me the officer on watch aboard the Humphries Eagle."

  "All exterior communications are inoperable at the present time," replied the phone.

  "That's impossible!"

  "All exterior communications are inoperable at the present time," the phone repeated, unperturbed.

  Humphries stared at the empty screen, then turned slowly toward Elverda Apacheta. "He's cut us off. We're trapped in here."

  Elverda felt the chill of cold metal clutching at her. Perhaps Dorn is a madman, she thought. Perhaps he is my death, personified.

  "We've got to do something!" Humphries nearly shouted.

  Elverda rose shakily to her feet. "There is nothing that we can do, for the moment. I am going to my quarters and take a nap. I believe that Dorn, or Harbin or whatever his identity is, will call on us when he is ready to."

  "And do what?"

  "Show us the artifact," she replied, silently adding, I hope.

  Legally, the artifact and the entire asteroid belonged to Humphries Space Systems. It had been discovered by a family—husband, wife, and two sons, ages five and three—that made a living from searching out iron-nickel asteroids and selling the mining rights to the big corporations. They filed their claim to this unnamed asteroid, together with a preliminary description of its ten-kilometer-wide shape, its orbit within the asteroid belt, and a sample analysis of its surface composition.

  Six hours after their original transmission reached the commodities market computer network on Earth—while a fairly spirited bidding was going on among four major corporations for the asteroid's mineral rights—a new message arrived at the headquarters of the International Astronautical Authority, in London. The message was garbled, fragmentary, obviously made in great haste and at fever excitement. There was an artifact of some sort in a cavern deep inside the asteroid.

  One of the faceless bureaucrats buried deep within the IAA's multi-layered organization sent an immediate message to an employee of Humphries Space Systems. The bureaucrat retired hours later, richer than he had any right to expect, while Martin Humphries personally contacted the prospectors and bought the asteroid outright for enough money to end their prospecting days forever. By the time the decision-makers in the IAA realized that an alien artifact had been discovered they were faced with a fait accompli: the artifact, and the asteroid in which it resided, were the personal property of the richest man in the solar system.

  Martin Humphries was something of an egomaniac. But he was no fool. Graciously he allowed the IAA to organize a team of scientists who would inspect this first specimen of alien intelligence. Even more graciously, Humphries offered to ferry the scientific investigators all the long way to the asteroid at his own expense. He made only one demand, and the IAA could hardly refuse him. He insisted that he see this artifact himself before the scientists were allowed to view it.

  And he brought along the solar system's most honored and famous artist To appraise the artifact's worth as an art object, he claimed. To determine how much he could deduct from his corporate taxes by donating the thing to the IAA, said his enemies. But over the days of their voyage to the asteroid, Elverda came to the conclusion that buried deep beneath his ruthless business persona was an eager little boy who was tremendously excited at
having found a new toy. A toy he intended to possess for himself. An art object, created by alien hands.

  For an art object was what the artifact seemed to be. The family of prospectors continued to send back vague, almost irrational reports of what the artifact looked like. The reports were worthless. No two descriptions matched. If the man and woman were to be believed, the artifact did nothing but sit in the middle of a rough-hewn cavern. But they described it differently with every report they sent. It glowed with light. It was darker than deep space. It was a statue of some sort. It was formless. It overwhelmed the senses. It was small enough almost to pick up in one hand. It made the children laugh happily. It frightened their parents. When they tried to photograph it, their transmissions showed nothing but blank screens. Totally blank.

  As Humphries listened to their maddening reports and waited impatiently for the IAA to organize its handpicked team of scientists, he ordered his security manager to get a squad of hired personnel to the asteroid as quickly as possible. From corporate facilities at the Jupiter station and the moons of Mars, from three separate outposts among the Asteroid Belt itself, Humphries Space Systems efficiently brought together a brigade of experienced mercenary security troops. They reached the asteroid long before anyone else could, and were under orders to make certain that no one was allowed onto the asteroid before Martin Humphries himself reached it.

  "The time has come."

  Elverda woke slowly, painfully, like a swimmer struggling for the air and light of the surface. She had been dreaming of her childhood, of the village where she had grown up, the distant snowcapped Andes, the warm night breezes that spoke of love.

  "The time has come."

  It was Dorn's deep voice, whisper-soft. Startled, she flashed her eyes open. She was alone in the room, but Dorn's image filled the phone screen by her bed. The numbers glowing beneath the screen showed that it was indeed time.

  "I am awake now," she said to the screen.

  "I will be at your door in fifteen minutes," Dorn said. "Will that be enough time for you to prepare yourself?"