launchpad. It was painted a vivid green with the corporate logo—an oval Masai shield and two crossed spears— stenciled just below the glassteel bubble of the cockpit.
She dashed to the room that the base director had given her for her quarters, picked up her still-unopened travel bag, and headed out toward the pad. She called Jake Wanamaker on her handheld to tell him where she was going and why. Then she buzzed her security chief and asked him why in the name of hell-and-gone he hadn’t been able to locate Lars Fuchs yet.
“I want him found,” she insisted. “And pronto.”
At that moment, Lars Fuchs was huddled with his three crew members in a narrow, shadowy niche between one of the big electrical power converters and the open-shelved storehouse that he used as his sleeping quarters.
“This is where you live, Captain?” Amarjagal asked, in a whisper that was halfway between respect and disbelief.
“This is my headquarters,” Fuchs replied evenly. “For the time being.”
Nodon said, “You could move in with me, sir. There is no need for you—”
“I’ll stay here. Less chance of being discovered.”
The three Mongols glanced at one another, but remained silent.
Over the weeks since Fuchs had gone underground he had learned the pattern of the maintenance robots that trundled along the walkways set between the machinery and storehouses in Selene’s uppermost level. It was easy enough to avoid them, and he swung up into the higher tiers of the warehouse each night to spread his bedroll for sleep. It was a rugged sort of existence, but not all that uncomfortable, Fuchs told himself. As long as he kept his pilfering of food and other supplies down to the bare necessities, Selene’s authorities didn’t bother to track him down. From what Big George had told him, it was easier for the authorities to accept a slight amount of wastage than to organize a manhunt through the dimly lit machinery spaces and storehouses.
The one thing that bothered Fuchs was the constant humming, throbbing that pervaded this uppermost level of Selene. He knew that Selene’s nuclear power generators were buried more than a hundred kilometers away, on the far side of Alphonsus’s ringwall mountains. Yet there was a constant electrical crackle in the air, the faint scent of ozone that triggered uneasy Earthly memories of approaching thunderstorms. Fuchs felt that it shouldn’t bother him, that he should ignore the annoyance. Still, his head ached much of the time, throbbing in rhythm to the constant electrical pulse.
He had chosen this site for his headquarters because he could commandeer the big display screen that had been erected on one side of the storehouse shelving. It had been placed there to help the occasional human operator to locate items stacked in inventory. Fuchs used its link to Selene’s main computer to study schematics of the city’s water and air circulation systems. He was searching for a way into Humphries’s mansion. So far his search had proved fruitless.
“The man must be the biggest paranoid in the solar system,” Fuchs muttered.
“Or the greatest coward,” said Amarjagal, sitting on the walkway’s metal grating beside him, her sturdy legs crossed, her back hunched like a small mountain.
Nodon and Sanja sat slightly farther away, their shaved skulls sheened with perspiration in the overly warm air. This close together, Fuchs could smell their rancid body odors. They have showers in their quarters, he knew. Perhaps they’re worried about their water allotments. Fuchs himself washed infrequently in water tapped from one of the main pipes that ran overhead. No matter how careful he was he always left puddles that drew teams of swiftly efficient maintenance robots, buzzing officiously. Fuchs feared that sooner or later human maintenance workers would come up to determine what was causing the leaks.
“Every possible access to his grotto is guarded by triply redundant security systems,” Fuchs saw as he studied the schematics. “Motion detectors, cameras, heat sensors.”
Nodon pointed with a skinny finger, “Even the electrical conduits are guarded.”
“A mouse couldn’t squirm through those conduits,” said Sanja.
“The man is a great coward,” Amarjagal repeated. “He has much fear in him.”
He’s got a lot to be afraid of, Fuchs thought. Then he added, But not unless we find a way into his mansion.
No matter how they studied the schematics, they could find no entry into Humphries’s domain, short of a brute force attack. But there are only four of us, Fuchs reminded himself, and we have no weapons. Humphries must have a security force patrolling his home that’s armed to the teeth.
Nodon shook his head unhappily. “There is no way that I can see.”
“Nor I,” Amarjagal agreed.
Fuchs took in a deep, heavy breath, then exhaled slowly, wearily. “I can,” he said.
The three of them turned questioning eyes to him.
“One of you will have to change your job, get a position with Selene’s maintenance department.”
“Is that possible?” asked Amarjagal.
“It should be,” Fuchs replied. “You’re all qualified technicians. You have identity dossiers from Astro Corporation.”
“I’ll do it,” said Nodon.
“Good.”
“And after Nodon begins working for the maintenance department?” Amarjagal asked.
Fuchs eyed her dispassionately. Of the three, she was the feistiest, the most likely to ask questions. Is it because she’s a woman? Fuchs wondered.
“I’ll have to acquire an identification chip for myself, so I can get down to Selene’s lowest level.”
“How can you get one?”
“I’ll need help,” he admitted.
The three Asians looked at him questioningly.
“I’ll call Pancho. I’m sure she can get an identification tag for me that will give me access to Humphries’s grotto.”
He was grasping at a straw and he knew it. Even worse, when he called Pancho from one of the phones set along the walkways of the machinery spaces, he was told that Ms. Lane was away from her office and unavailable.
“Where is she?” Fuchs asked.
“Ms. Lane is unavailable at present,” the phone’s synthesized voice answered. “Please leave your name and someone will get back to you as soon as possible.”
Fuchs had no intention of leaving his name. “Can I reach her, wherever she is?”
“Ms. Lane is unavailable at present,” the computer replied cheerfully.
“How long will she be gone?”
“That information is unknown, sir.”
Fuchs thought swiftly. No sense trying to pry information out of a stupid machine, he thought. Besides, he didn’t want to stay on the phone long enough to draw the attention of Selene’s security monitors.
“Tell her that Karl Manstein called and will call again.”
Feeling desperate, trapped, he punched the phone’s OFF key.
It wasn’t easy to surprise Douglas Stavenger. No matter that he had been officially retired from any formal office for decades, he still kept himself informed on everything that happened in Selene. And beyond, to a considerable extent.
He knew that his wife was pressing the news media chief for more coverage of the war raging out in the Belt. He knew that the corporations were pushing in the opposite direction, to keep the story as hushed up as possible. The
But now, as he sat at the breakfast table with his wife, Stavenger was truly shocked by her revelation.
“You’re going to Ceres?” Edith smiled prettily over her teacup. “Nobody else wants to open up this story, Doug, so I’m going to do it.”
He fought down an impulse to shake his head. For several moments he said nothing, staring at his bowl of yogurt and honey, his thoughts spinning feverishly.
