Mercury

couldn’t be too swift; that might show his hand to them. Besides, now that the IAA’s interdict on his work on the planet’s surface was lifted, he had plenty of tasks to accomplish: resume scooping raw materials from the regolith, hire a nanotech team and bring them to Mercury, lay out plans for building a mass driver and the components for solar power satellites that would be catapulted into orbit and assembled in space.

He waited for two days. Then he rode the shuttle back to Himawari with the evidence in his tunic pocket.

Lara and Victor eagerly greeted him at the airlock. They hurried down the passageway together toward the Molinas’ stateroom, Victor in a sweat to see what Alexios had uncovered, Lara just as eager but more controlled.

As soon as the stateroom door closed Molina demanded, “Well? What did you find?”

“Quite a bit,” said Alexios. “Is McFergusen still here? He should see—”

“He left two days ago,” Molina snapped. “What did you find out?” Alexios pulled two thin sheets of plastic from his tunic and unfolded them on the coffee table as Molina and his wife sat together on the little sofa. He tapped the one on top.

“Is this the anonymous message you received?” he asked Molina.

The astrobiologist scanned it. “Yes, that’s it.”

Alexios knew it was. He had sent it. He turned that sheet over to show the one beneath it.

“What’s this?” Lara asked.

“A copy of a requisition from the International Consortium of Universities, selling eleven Martian rocks to a private research facility on Earth.”

“My rocks!” Molina blurted.

“How did they get from Earth to Mercury?” Lara asked.

Alexios knew perfectly well, but he said, “That part of it we’ll have to deduce from the available evidence.”

“Who sent this message to me?” Molina demanded, tapping the first sheet.

“It wasn’t easy tracking down the sender. He was very careful to cover his tracks.”

“Who was it?”

“And he had a large, well-financed organization behind him, as well,” Alexios added.

“Who was it?” Molina fairly screamed.

Alexios glanced at Lara. She was obviously on tenterhooks, her lips parted slightly, her eyes wide with anticipation.

“Bishop Danvers,” said Alexios.

“Elliott?” Molina gasped.

“I can’t believe it,” said Lara. “He’s a man of god—he wouldn’t stoop to such chicanery.”

“He’s my friend,” Molina said, looking bewildered. “At least, I thought he was.”

Alexios said, “The New Morality hates the discoveries you astrobiologists have made, you know that. What better way to discredit the entire field than by showing a prominent astrobiologist to be a fraud, a liar?”

Molina sank back in the sofa. “Elliott did this? To me?”

“What proof do you have?” Lara asked.

Alexios looked into her gold-flecked eyes. “The people who traced this message used highly irregular methods—”

“Illegal, you mean,” she said flatly.

“Extralegal,” Alexios countered.

“Then this so-called evidence won’t hold up in a court of law.”

“No, but there must be a record of this message in Danvers’s computer files. Even if he erased the message, a scan of his memory core might find a trace of it.”

Lara stared hard at him. “The bishop could claim that someone planted the message in his computer.”

Alexios knew she was perfectly correct. But he said, “And why would anyone do that?”

Impatiently, Molina argued, “We can’t examine Elliott’s computer files without his permission. And if he really did this he won’t give permission. So where are we?”

“You’re forgetting this invoice,” said Alexios. “It can be traced to the New Morality school in Gabon, in west Africa.”

Lara looked at her husband. “Elliott was stationed in Libreville.”

“For almost ten years,” Molina said.

She turned back to Alexios. “You’re certain of all this?”

He nodded and lied, “Absolutely. I paid a good deal of money to obtain this information.”

“Elliott?” Molina was still finding it difficult to accept the idea. “Elliott deliberately tried to destroy me?”

“I’m afraid he has destroyed you,” Alexios said grimly. “Your reputation is permanently tainted.”

Molina nodded ruefully. Then his expression changed, hardened. “Then I’m taking that pompous sonofabitch down with me!”

CONFRONTATION

“It’s utterly ridiculous!” cried Bishop Danvers.

Molina was standing in Danvers’s stateroom, too furious to sit down. He paced the little room like a prowling animal. Lara sat on one of the upholstered chairs, Alexios on the other one. Danvers was on the sofa between them, staring bewilderedly at the two flimsy sheets that Alexios had brought.

“We have the proof,” Molina said, jabbing a finger toward the message and the invoice.

“It’s not true, Victor,” said Danvers. “Believe me, it’s not true.”

“You deliberately ruined me, Elliott.”

“No, I—”

“Why?” Molina shouted. “Why did you do this to me?”

“I didn’t!” Danvers howled back, his face reddening. “It’s a pack of lies.” Desperately, he turned to Lara. “Lara, you believe me, don’t you? You know I wouldn’t have done this. I couldn’t have!”

Lara’s eyes flicked from her husband to the bishop and back again.

“Someone has deliberately ruined Victor’s reputation,” she said evenly, fixing her gaze on Alexios. “No matter who did this, Victor’s career is destroyed.”

“But it wasn’t me!” Danvers pleaded.

“Wasn’t it?” Molina snapped. “When I think of all the talks we’ve had, over the years, all the arguments —”

“Discussions!” Danvers corrected. “Philosophical discussions.”

“You’ve had it in for me ever since you found out that I was using those gengineered viruses to help build the skytower,” Molina accused. “You and your kind hate everything that science stands for, don’t you?”

“No, it’s not true.” Danvers seemed almost in tears.

Molina stopped his pacing to face the bishop. “When I told you about what I was doing at the skytower, you reported it to your New Morality superiors, didn’t you?”

“Of course. It was important information.”

“You were a spy back in Ecuador. You were sent to the skytower project to snoop, not to pray for people’s souls.”

“Victor, please believe me—”

“And now they’ve sent you here to Mercury to destroy my work, my career. You’ve ruined my life, Elliott! You might as well have taken a knife and stabbed me through the heart!”

Danvers sank his face in his hands and started blubbering. Lara stared at him, her own eyes growing misty. Then she looked up at her husband.

“Victor, I don’t think he did this,” she said calmly.

“Then who did?” Molina demanded. “Who would have any reason to?”