Empire Builders Read online

  FOURTEEN

  I’VE GOT TO remember to give O’Dare a bonus, Dan told himself. A big one. The half-hour flight to Papeete was thankfully uneventful. The spaceplane was waiting on the runway, sleek and delta-winged and glistening white in the late-morning sun. Dan and Jane stepped from the little jet that had carried them from Tetiaroa directly into the spaceplane’s big, empty passenger compartment. With only a routine holdup by traffic control, the spaceplane trundled out onto the runway and arrowed into the sky, engines screaming. Plenty of people come to Papeete on their own private planes, Dan reassured himself. They land spaceplanes here on a regular schedule. This isn’t so unusual. I hope. The transfer at the space station Nueva Venezuela went smoothly enough. Jane behaved herself, and the two of them went from the spaceplane’s hatch into the zero-g receiving area at the hub of the station and directly through an access tunnel into the claustrophobic cabin of a modified orbital transfer vehicle. “How do you feel?” Dan asked his hostage as they swam weightlessly to their seats in the OTV’s passenger deck. “A little queasy,” Jane admitted. “It’s been a long time since I’ve been in zero-g? Dan opened the compartment built into the seat’s armrest and rummaged through its innards. Finally he pulled out a slim plastic package. Tearing it open, he handed Jane a little circular medicinal patch. “Slap this on behind your ear. It helps a lot.” She started to nod, turned pale, and pressed the patch against her neck. There were no windows in the passenger deck, and even if there were they would not have been able to see much of the vehicle they were in. An OTV was built for efficiency, not style. Since it flew only in the vacuum of space, it did not need the streamlining or airfoils of an airplane. It had a rocket engine, maneuvering jets, propellant tanks, cargo bay, a cramped compartment for up to six passengers (eight, the standard wisdom claimed, if they were in love) and docking probes to latch on to a space station or another spacecraft. Plus a two-person flight deck perched at its top like a single bulbous eyeball. From the outside it looked like an ungainly, unlikely, unlovely collection of metallic spheres and cylinders and cones. This particular OTV was also fitted out, Dan knew, with two extra oversized propellant tanks and spindly, spraddly legs ending in broad round footpads, so that it could set down on the surface of the Moon. The ship’s copilot floated down from the flight deck, feet dangling in midair, only one hand lightly touching a rung of the ladder. A longtime veteran of space flight, Dan could see: grizzled short-cropped hair and a shoulder patch on her Astro coveralls that read: GREATEST GRANDMOM IN THE SOLAR SYSTEM.

  “Mr. Randolph, flight control has asked us to hold for a few minutes. They said something about a message coming up from Earthside.” She looked more annoyed than worried. “Are we cleared for departure?” Dan asked. “We’ve got a six-minute window. They’ve asked us to hold until the message comes in. It must be a message for you, I guess.” “Screw it. Let’s get moving. The message can catch up with us while we’re in transit.” The greatest grandmom in the solar system nodded her agreement. “You’re the boss.” And she pulled herself effortlessly up through the hatch and back into the flight deck. Jane had a bit more color in her face. “You think the message is from Vasily?” “Who else? And it’s not for me, it’s for the station security officer to check exactly who’s aboard this OTV and why they’re heading for Alphonsus.” “He must know we’ve left Tetiaroa.’ “Yep. By now.” They felt the slightest of bumps. Detaching from the docking collar, Dan thought. Then a soft pressure, nothing more than a feeling of settling back in their seats. “Departing for Alphonsus,” came the captain’s voice over the intercom speaker. “Estimated flight time, eighteen hours, eleven minutes.” That’s the best we can do, Dan realized. High-energy burn, and it still takes more than eighteen hours to get there. He sighed to himself. Well, it’s better than the three days the Apollo astronauts needed. But, hell, eighteen hours! Malik could take over A1phonsus and have a firing squad waiting for me by the time we get there. Rafaelo Gaetano tried not to let his displeasure show. As calmly as he could, he took a cigarette from the silver-inlaid box on his desk and stuck it between his lips. Malik was obviously upset. The Russian paced across the Persian carpet in front of Gaetano’s desk, hands clasped behind his broad back, face sunk in a frown of deep thought. “He got away?” Gaetano asked, in a tone that was almost teasing. “How could he get away from an island in the middle of the Pacific? Did he sprout wings?” Malik gave him a stare that would boil water. “He is a very clever man. Extremely resourceful. And enormously wealthy. God knows how many bribes he paid out. My people are interrogating the hotel staff.” “Do you know where he’s gone?” “No, not precisely. But I have a good idea of where he’s running to.” Gaetano picked up his heavy silver lighter and puffed the cigarette to life while Malik resumed his pacing. “So?” Gaetano asked, blowing smoke toward the ceiling. “Alphonsus. He’ll be surrounded by his own employees there.” “But once the confiscation is completed they will be his employees no longer. They will be ours.” “Perhaps,” Malik muttered, staring out the window. “Perhaps. Loyalty is a strange thing. They may remain loyal to him.” The Italian swiveled his desk chair around and saw that a half moon was rising, milky pale, in the late-morning sky. He smiled to himself. Turning back to Malik, he said, “Arrest him when he arrives at Alphonsus. That should be simple enough.” “Arrest him on what charge?” Malik snapped. “The plan was to detain him on Tetiaroa. That was close to being illegal, but I was ready to take that risk. But I cannot order our handful of people at A1phonsus to arrest the man without some clear criminal charge against him. A criminal charge-not this confiscation matter.” Gaetano steepled his fingers in front of his face, the cigarette held between forefinger and thumb. Squinting from behind the smoke, he suggested, “Shoot him down, then, before he gets to A1phonsus. Get rid of him once and for all.” Malik started across the carpet again. Jesus, he’s going to wear a path through it, Gaetano thought. “He has Jane Scanwell with him,” the Russian growled. “What?” Gaetano nearly jumped out of his chair. “She’s with him. We know that much. We can’t kill the American representative to the Council. She’s a former President of the United States , for god’s sake!” “She’s gone with him willingly?” “How should I know?” Gaetano smiled and spread his hands in a happy gesture of fulfillment. “There is the answer to the problem.Randolph has kidnapped the American representative to the Council. Kidnapping is an act of terrorism, according to international law, is it not?” Malik stopped his pacing and stared at the younger man. “Yes! Of course! Kidnapping.” For the first time that morning he smiled. “You see? There is a solution to every problem.” The Russian’s smile eroded. “But Scanwell might say that she went with him voluntarily.” “Do you think there is such a possibility?” Malik took the leather chair in front of the desk. “I don’t know. They were lovers once, from what I’ve heard. Perhaps she still loves him.” “That would be a complication.” ‘”Yes.” Gaetano brightened. “But you could still arrest Randolph on suspicion of kidnapping, and hold him until Scanwell gave an official statement to the security people at Alphonsus.” Malik’s smile glimmered again. “Or hold him until a special investigating team can be assembled and sent to Alphonsus.” “Exactly! That would take a week, ten days—perhaps even longer.” “And by that time the confiscation procedures will be completed and Randolph will be a man without a corporation.” Gaetano took a long puff on his cigarette, thinking, you see? I have worked out the entire problem for you in less time than it took me to smoke one cigarette. But he said nothing of the kind aloud to Malik. All during the long flight to Alphonsus Dan had to force himself to stay away from the radiophone. He wanted to give orders to his people in Alphonsus, he wanted to fry the ass off Kate Williams, he wanted to find out what was going on and how far Malik and his GEC snakes had gotten with their confiscation order. But no matter how much he fretted he kept silent. Maintain radio silence, he repeated to himself ten thousand times. Don’t let them know for certain that you’re aboard this bucket on your
way to Alphonsus. But he could listen. For hours on end he sat with headphones clamped on and had the OTV’s captain tune to the business chatter between his office at A1phonsus and Astro’s terrestrial headquarters at Caracas. What he heard was not good. GEC executive orders had already been filed, notifying Astro management that the corporation was to be confiscated. Teams of GEC administrators had already invaded the Caracas offices and several other facilities elsewhere on Earth. It was only a matter of days, perhaps hours, before they showed up at Alphonsus. Again and again he heard his top staff people grappling with the problem as best they could, always asking: “Where’s Dan? We need him to fight this.” “Where’s the boss?” “Why isn’t he available? Where the hell is he?” Nobody knew. Dan fumed in frustrated silence as the OTV plied its fixed trajectory toward Alphonsus. Malik hit it just right, he groused to himself. The Russian sonofabitch knew my people couldn’t meet this threat effectively without me to okay their decisions. And my own goddamned insistence on secrecy has just muddled things worse. Nobody to blame but myself and that double-damned Russian. At least his board of directors had called an emergency meeting, in Tokyo . Sai—No, Dan corrected himself. Nobo’s on the board. And he’s pissed as hell with me. Will he let his personal anger get in the way of his business sense? Christ, I really could lose everything I’ve got! Jane slept a good deal of the time they were in transit. Dan tried to nap but could not. The captain came down and fixed himself a meal at the little galley built into the side bulkhead of the passenger deck. Later on the copilot came down and prepared a tray for herself. “You ought to eat something,” Dan told Jane, halfway to the Moon. “How’s your stomach?” “I’m fine. The medication seems to be working, but it makes me feel drowsy.” “Psychosomatic.” The corners of her mouth curled upward slightly. “We didn’t get all that much sleep that last night on the island, you know.” He grinned back at her. “You’re bragging.” Gesturing to the headphones floating aimlessly beside Dan, she asked, “How are things going?” “Piss poor.” “From your point of view or mine?” Dan stared at her a moment, adjusting his thinking to recall that they were on opposite sides, politically. “My point of view,” he said. “Malik’s steamrolling through my people. He’s got GEC teams taking over all my offices.” “At Alphonsus, too?” “Not yet. But they’re on their way, I’ll bet.” “Have you given any thought to what you’re going to do once we get there?” Dan shook his head. “Not much I can do. Not legally. I doubt that Malik would listen to any offers from me to negotiate.” “Probably not,” Jane said. “He’s got the upper hand; why should he give away anything?” “And you’re on his side? Really?” “I’ve got to be, Dan.” “It won’t work, you know. Malik’s way won’t work. Not in time. They’ll move too slowly. They’ll want to have everything properly organized, everything neat and exact. We don’t have the time for that kind of bureaucratic bullshit. We have to move fast. Now Move!” Jane shook her head. “We can’t afford a chaotic approach to this. We need organization on a global scale.” He stared at her. “Christ, you really are one of them, aren’t you?” “I suppose I am,” she said. “So you’re going to let him set up his dictatorship while the world goes to hell in a greenhouse.” Firmly, she answered, “I am going to help the Global Economic Council to coordinate all the human race’s resources—all of them, off-Earth as well as on the planet—to avert the disaster that is threatening us.” “And grind me up into little pieces in the process,” Dan said. She reached out to touch his arm. “Dan, just because you’re losing your corporation doesn’t mean that your life is finished. You could help us—help me.” “What do you want me to do,” he snarled, “run for President of the United States for you?” Her face went white. Her nostrils flared. Finally she said, “No, Dan. As far as I’m concerned you can go to hell.”