shoulders. It’s not vengeance, he snarled inwardly. It’s justice. Someone has to stand for justice; Humphries can’t be allowed to take everything he wants without being accountable to anyone.
Then he slid back the door to his quarters and saw Amanda’s beautiful, radiant smile. And the anger surged back in full fury. Humphries wants her, too, Fuchs reminded himself. The only way he’ll get Amanda is over my dead body.
Amanda got up from her desk and came to him. He took her in his arms, but instead of kissing him, she rubbed her fingers against his cheek.
“You have a smudge on your face,” she said, still smiling. “Like a little boy who’s been out playing in the streets.”
“Soot from the warehouse,” he said bleakly.
She pecked him on the lips, then said, “I have some good news.”
“Yes?”
“The insurance money was deposited in Helvetia’s account this morning. We can get started again without borrowing from Pancho.”
“How much?”
Amanda’s smile faded a fraction. “Just a tad less than half of what we applied for. About forty-eight percent of our actual loss.”
“Forty-eight percent,” he muttered, heading for the lav.
“It’s more hard cash than we had when we started Helvetia, darling.”
He knew she was trying to cheer him. “Yes, that’s true, isn’t it?” he said as he washed his face. His hands were grimy with soot, too, he saw.
He let the dryer blow over his face, noisy and rattling, remembering the luxury of having actual cloth towels at the hotel in Selene. We could do that here, Fuchs told himself. Vacuum clean them on the surface just as they do at Selene. It would save us electrical power, if we could keep the dust from up on the surface out of the laundry.
“Any word from
“She’s on the way in,” Amanda said. “She’ll be here when the lease is up, at the end of the month.”
“Good.”
Amanda’s expression turned grave. “Lars, do you think it’s a good idea for you to take
“Crews cost money,” he said. “And we’d have to share whatever we find with the crew. I can handle the ship by myself.”
“But you’ll be alone…”
He knew what she meant. Ships had disappeared out in the Belt. And he was marked for murder by Humphries.
“I’ll be all right,” he said. “They won’t know where I’m going.”
Amanda shook her head. “Lars, all they have to do is tap into the IAA’s net and they’ll see your tracking beacon. They’ll know exactly where you are.”
He almost smiled. “Not if the tracking beacon is coming from a drone that I release a day or so after I’ve left Ceres.”
She looked totally surprised. “But that would be a violation of IAA regulations!”
“Yes, it would. It would also make my life much safer.”
The work of cleaning up the charred mess of his warehouse took several days. It was hard to find men or women to do the menial labor; they demanded the same level of pay they could get working someone’s computer systems or crewing one of the prospecting ships. So Fuchs hired all four of the teenagers on Ceres. They were eager to have something to do outside of their school hours, happy to be away from their lesson screens, happier still to be earning spendable money. Still, Fuchs did most of the labor himself, since the kids could only work a couple of hours each day.
After several days, though, the four youngsters failed to show up for work. Fuchs phoned each of them and got a variety of lame excuses.
“My parents don’t want me working.”
“I got too much studying to do.”
Only one of them hinted at the truth. “My father got an e-message that said he could lose his job if he let me work for you.”
Fuchs didn’t have to ask who the father worked for. He knew: Humphries Space Systems.
So he labored alone in the warehouse cave, finally clearing out the last of the charred debris. Then he started putting together new shelving out of discarded scraps of metal from the maintenance bays.
One evening, as he scuffed wearily along the dusty tunnel after a long day of putting up his new shelving, Fuchs was accosted by two men wearing HSS coveralls.
“You’re Lars Fuchs, aren’t you?” said the taller of the pair. He was young, not much more than a teenager himself: his dirty-blond hair was cropped close to his skull, and his coverall sleeves were rolled up past his elbows. Fuchs saw tattoos on both his forearms.
“I am,” Fuchs answered, without slowing down.
They fell in step with him, one on either side. The shorter of the two was still a couple of centimeters taller than Fuchs, with the chunky build of a weightlifter. His hair was long and dark, his face swarthy.
“I’ve got a piece of friendly advice for you,” said the taller one. “Take your insurance money and leave Ceres.”
Still shuffling along the tunnel, Fuchs said, “You seem to know something about my business.”
“Just get out of here, before there’s trouble,” the other one said. His accent sounded Latino.
Fuchs stopped and looked them up and down. “Trouble?” he asked. “The only trouble that happens here will be trouble that you start.”
The taller one shrugged. “Doesn’t matter who starts it. What matters is, who’s still standing when it’s over.”
“Thank you,” said Fuchs. “Your words will be useful evidence.”
“Evidence?” They both looked startled.
“Do you think I’m a fool?” Fuchs said sharply. “I know what you’re up to. I’m wearing a transmitter that is sending every word you say to IAA headquarters in Geneva. If anything happens to me, you two have already been voiceprinted.”
With that, Fuchs turned on his heel and strode away from the two toughs, leaving them dumbfounded and uncertain. Fuchs walked carefully, deliberately, stirring up as little dust as possible. He didn’t want them to think he was running away from them; he also didn’t want them to see how his legs were shaking. Above all, he didn’t want them to figure out that his transmitter was a total bluff, invented on the spot to allow him to get away from them.
By the time he got home, he was still trembling, but now it was with anger. Amanda flashed a welcoming smile at him from the computer desk. Fuchs could see from the wallscreen that she was ordering inventory to stock the warehouse. Most of the machinery and electronic gear she ordered came from Astro Corporation. Now, he saw, she was dealing with foodstuffs and clothing, which came from other companies. He went to wash up as she stared wistfully at the latest Earthside fashions.
By the time he came back into the room, she was finished with the computer. She slid her arms around his neck and kissed him warmly.
“What would you like for dinner?” she asked. “I just ordered a shipment of seafood from Selene and I’m famished.”
“Anything will do,” he temporized as he disengaged from her and sat at the computer desk.
Amanda went to the freezer as she asked, “Will you be ready by the time the supplies start arriving?”
Working the computer, his eyes on the wallscreen display, Fuchs barely nodded. “I’ll be ready,” he muttered.
Amanda saw that he was studying the specifications for handheld lasers.
