Alarm flashed in her eyes momentarily. Then she understood. “I see. Yes, I promise that I will be your loving wife, Martin. This won’t be merely a marriage of appearances.”
Before he could take her hands in his, she turned and walked out of the conference room, leaving him standing alone. For a few moments he felt rejected, wronged, almost angry. But slowly it dawned on him that Amanda had agreed to marry him, to love him. It wasn’t the romantic perfection he had fantasized about over all the years, but she had promised to marry him! All right, she’s upset about it now. I’ve forced her into it and she doesn’t like that. She feels an obligation to Fuchs. But that will change. In time, she’ll accept it. She’ll accept me. She’ll love me. I know she will.
Suddenly Humphries was laughing out loud, dancing around the conference table like a manic teenager. “I’ve got her!” he shouted to the ceiling. “I’ve got everything I’ve ever wanted! The whole miserable solar system is in my grasp!”
Big George thought they were lucky to snag a ride aboard an HSS ship heading for Ceres on a high-energy trajectory.
“We’ll be there in four days,” he said to Kris Cardenas as they picked meal packages from the galley’s freezer.
Cardenas was more skeptical about their luck. “Why is Humphries sending this ship to Ceres on a high-g burn? It’s practically empty. We’re the only passengers and there isn’t any cargo, far as I can tell.”
Sliding his dinner into the microwave, George said, “From what the crew’s buzzin’, they’re goin’ out to pick up the bloke who captured Lars.”
Comprehension lit Cardenas’s cornflower-blue eyes. “So that’s it! A triumphal return for the conquering hero.”
“It isn’t funny, Kris. We’ve gotta put Lars on trial, y’know. He’s killed people.”
“I know,” she said despondently.
The microwave bell chimed.
“George,” she asked, “isn’t there some way we can save Lars’s neck?”
“Sure,” he said, pulling out the tray. “Sentence ’im to life at hard labor. Or maybe pop ’im into a cryonic freezer for a hundred years or so.”
“Be serious,” Cardenas said.
George sat at the galley’s little table and unwrapped his steaming tray. “Dunno what we can do except give him as fair a trial as we can. He’s made a lot of enemies, y’know.”
She slammed her tray back into the freezer and sat glumly beside him. “I wish there were some way we could save him.”
Already digging into his dinner, George tried to change the subject. “We’ll do what we can for Lars. But, y’know, I been thinkin’ … why can’t you develop nanomachines to take the ores outta the asteroids right there on the spot and refine ’em? That’d make it a snap to mine ’em.”
“It would throw almost all the miners out of work.”
“Maybe so,” George admitted. “But what if we let ’em buy shares of the nanotech operation? That way they could become fookin’ capitalists instead o’ grubbin’ away at the rocks.”
Harbin personally escorted Fuchs from
As they rode the ungainly shuttlecraft down to the asteroid’s surface, Fuchs spotted the still-unfinished habitat rotating lazily across the star-flecked sky. Will they ever finish it? He asked himself. Will they ever be able to live the way I wanted Amanda and me to live?
Amanda. The thought of her sapped all the strength from him. At least she will be safe, Fuchs thought. Yes, came a mocking voice from within his mind. She’ll be quite safe once she’s married Humphries. The old anger surged for a moment, but it faded away, replaced with the hopelessness of his situation. He’s won her and I’ve lost, he knew.
As they stepped through the airlock and into the reception area, Fuchs saw a group of four women and three men waiting for him. He recognized them all: former neighbors, former friends.
“We’ll take him from here,” said Joyce Takamine, her gaunt, pinched face blankly expressionless. She would not look Fuchs in the eyes.
“Take him where?” Harbin demanded.
“He’s under house arrest,” Takamine replied stiffly, “pending the return of our Chief Administrator. He’s going to stand trial for piracy and murder.”
Harbin nodded his agreement and allowed them to lead Fuchs away. It’s finished, he told himself. I’ve done my job. Now for the rewards.
He led his two men to the Humphries office, only a short walk through the dusty tunnel. There a smiling young woman got up from her metal desk and personally escorted the trio to quarters deeper inside the warren of tunnels and cubicles. The two men had to share one room; Harbin got a private apartment. It was still just one room, but it was his alone. Someone had even brought his travel bag and placed it on the bed.
A message from Diane was waiting for him.
She should have looked happy, jubilant, Harbin thought, rejoicing in their victory, his triumph. Instead, her face looked serious, almost grave, in the wallscreen image.
“Dorik, I’ve set up a high-g flight for you. I want you here at Selene as soon as you can get here. Now that you’ve taken Fuchs, there’s a lot we have to do, a lot of changes in both our lives. I’ll tell you all about it when you get here.”
The screen went blank. Harbin stared at it for a few moments, thinking, Not a word of congratulations. Not a syllable of warmth. Well, she’s never said she loves me.
He went to the bed and sat on it, suddenly tired. I never expected love, he told himself. Then he realized, Not until now. He opened his travel bag and searched through it for the pills that would bring him peace—at least for a little while.
CHAPTER 56
Humphries spent the morning making arrangements for his wedding. He had his legal department send a notice of Amanda’s divorce suit to Fuchs at Ceres. That ought to put the icing on his cake, he though delightedly. Maybe he’ll commit suicide once he gets the news and spare us all the trouble of putting him on trial. Then he decided to buy the Hotel Luna and refurbish it so it would look properly gleaming for his wedding. It won’t be a big affair, he thought, just a few dozen friends. And the most important of my business associates, of course. It’s got to be first-class all the way. What was that old word the English used, long ago? Posh. That’s it. I want this wedding to be small, intimate, and very posh.
Amanda will probably invite Pancho, he realized. So what? I wonder how much family she has back on Earth. I’ll bring them all up here. Why not? I’m going to shower her with so much kindness and luxury that she’ll fall in love with me whether she wants to or not.
By lunch time he was still grinning and whistling to himself. He ate at his desk, casually running down the past two days of activities reports. He stopped when he saw that Diane had authorized a high-energy flight to Ceres. The only passengers aboard the vessel were Ambrose and Dr. Cardenas. Why would she do that? he wondered.
And then he remembered, She went through the implantation procedure yesterday. And she still got up and ordered a special flight for those two rock rats?
His mood only slightly dimmed, he called Verwoerd on the phone.
“I’m going to take a stroll through the garden,” he said when her image appeared on the wallscreen. “Are you up to joining me?”
“I’m trying to catch up on what I missed yesterday,” she said guardedly.
