back in his first life, Yamagata felt fear gripping his innards.
“I was the director of the skytower project,” Alexios told him, all the while wondering at the glacial calm that had settled upon him, as if he were sheathed in ice.
“The director of the skytower project was exiled,” said Yamagata.
Alexios made a wan smile. “Like you, I’ve led more than one life.”
“I had nothing to do with the skytower,” Yamagata insisted.
“It was sabotaged by Yamagata Corporation people, using nanomachines to snap the tower at its most vulnerable point. The man who produced the nanobugs for you told me the entire story just before your assassins caught up with him.”
“And you believed him?”
“He was terrified for his life,” said Alexios. “Your assassins got him. They also blew up the ship we were in, to make sure that anyone he talked to would be killed, too.”
“But you survived.”
“I survived. To seek justice for all those you killed. To gain vengeance for having my own life destroyed.”
“But I—” Yamagata caught himself and shut his mouth. He’s a madman, he told himself. I had nothing to do with this; I was in the lamasery. Nobuhiko was running the corporation, just as he is now.
Suddenly his pulse began thudding in his ears. Nobu! If Yamagata Corporation was involved in destroying the skytower, it was under Nobu’s direction!
No, that couldn’t be, Yamagata said to himself. Shaking his head, he thought, Nobu wouldn’t do such a thing. He couldn’t be that ruthless, that… murderous.
Or could he? Yamagata recalled those years when his advice to his son had led to the slaughters of the second Asteroid War, the massacre of the
Alexios misread the ashen expression on Yamagata’s face. “You admit it, then? You admit that the skytower was destroyed on your orders. Four million men, women, and children murdered—by you.”
Yamagata realized there was nothing else to do. If I tell him that it was Nobuhiko’s doing this madman will want to kill Nobu. Better to let him think it was me. Nobu is my son, my responsibility. Whatever he has done is my fault as much as his. Better for me to take the blame and the punishment. Let my son live.
“Well?” Alexios demanded.
Yamagata seemed to draw himself up straighter inside the bulky spacesuit. “I accept full responsibility,” he said, his voice flat, lifeless.
“Good,” said Alexios. He turned the steering wheel and the tractor veered slowly toward the yawning fault line, grinding slowly but inexorably toward the rift in Mercury’s bleak ground as the first blazing edge of the Sun peeped above the horizon.
FREIGHTER
Bishop Danvers’s mind was churning as he made his way back to his compartment. Is Lara telling the truth? he asked him self. She must be. She
As he slid back the door to his compartment he saw that the phone’s yellow message light was blinking in the darkness. A message! His heart began thumping. From Atlanta. It must be an answer to my calls to Atlanta. Flicking on the ceiling lights, Danvers rushed to the compartment’s flimsy little desk and told the phone to display the message.
It was indeed from Atlanta. From the archbishop himself!
Carnaby’s wrinkled, bald, gnomish features took form in the phone’s small display screen. He was unsmiling, his eyes flinty.
“Bishop Danvers, I am replying to your messages personally because your case is one of extreme importance to the New Morality movement.”
Danvers felt immensely grateful. The archbishop is replying to me personally! Even though he knew it would take half an hour, at least, to get a reply back to Earth he automatically started to frame his message of gratitude to the archbishop.
Carnaby was going on, however, “A great American once said that extremism in the defense of our values is no vice. I can appreciate the extreme measures you took to discredit the godless scientists you’ve been battling against. But in our battle against these secularists, the movement must be seen by the general public as being beyond reproach, above suspicion. Your methods, once exposed to the public, will bring suspicion and discredit upon us all.”
But I didn’t do it! Danvers screamed silently at Carnaby’s implacable image. I haven’t done anything discreditable! Lara can prove it!
“Therefore,” the archbishop continued, “I have no choice but to ask you for your resignation from the New Morality. One man must not be allowed to throw doubt upon our entire movement. I know this seems harsh to you, but it is for the higher good. Remember that a man may serve God in many ways, and your way will be to resign your office and your ordination in the movement. If you refuse you will be put on public trial as soon as you return to Earth and found guilty. I’m truly sorry it has to be this way, but you have become a liability to the New Morality and no individual, no matter who he is, can be allowed to threaten our work. May God be merciful to you.”
The screen went blank.
Danvers stared at it for long, wordless minutes. His mind seemed unable to function. His chest felt constricted; it was an effort just to breathe.
At last, blinking with disbelief, lungs rasping painfully, Danvers realized that he had been drummed out of the New Morality movement. Thrown out into the gutter, just as the gamblers had done to him all those long years ago. All my work, all my years of service, they mean nothing, he thought. Lara’s claim to know who actually planted the false evidence won’t move them. I’ve been tainted, and they will be merciless with me.
I’m ruined. Destroyed. I have nowhere to go! No one to turn to. Even if I could prove my innocence they wouldn’t take me back. I’m tainted! Unclean!
My life is over, he told himself.
Lara returned to her compartment, where Victor was still tossing fitfully in their bed. She sat at the desk and sent a message to Victor, Jr., smiling reassuringly for her son and telling him she and his father would be back home in a few weeks.
Then she sat, wide awake, until Victor rose groggily from the roiled bedclothes and blinked sleep-fogged eyes at her.
“You’re up?” he asked dully.
“I couldn’t sleep.”
He padded barefoot to the lavatory. She heard him urinate, then wash his face. He came back, hair still tousled, but looking reasonably alert.
“Victor,” Lara heard herself ask him, “at Mance’s trial, did you tell the truth about the skytower’s construction?”
He looked instantly wary. “Why do you ask that?”
“Did you tell the truth?”
“It was so many years ago…”
“Did you deliberately lie to put the blame on Mance?”
Molina stood next to the lavatory doorway, wearing nothing but his wrinkled underpants, staring at his wife.
“I’ve got to know, Victor,” said Lara. “You’ve got to tell me the truth now.”
He shuffled to the bed and sat wearily on it. “The tower collapsed,” Molina said. “There was nothing any of us could do about that. They were going to blame it on Mance anyway—he didn’t have a chance in hell of getting
