room—except for that three-second lag. Edith had the woman’s dossier up on the wallscreen to one side of her own petite, curved desk.
“It’s not a story, Edie,” the media executive was saying. “There’s no news interest in it.”
The executive’s name was Hollie Underwood, known in the industry as Holy Underhand or, more often, Queen Hollie. Thanks to rejuvenation therapies, she looked no more than thirty: smooth skin, clear green eyes, perfectly coiffed auburn hair. Edith thought of
“There’s no interest in it,” Edith replied smoothly, “because no one’s telling the story to the public.”
Then she waited three seconds, watching Underwood’s three-dimensional image, wondering how much the woman’s ruffled off-white blouse must have cost. Pure silk, she was certain.
“Edie, dear, no one’s telling the story because there’s no story there. Who cares about a gaggle of mercenaries fighting each other all the way out there in the Asteroid Belt?”
Edith held her temper. Very sweetly, she asked, “Does anyone care about the cost of electrical power?”
Underwood’s face went from mild exasperation to puzzled curiosity. At last she asked, “What’s the price of electricity got to do with this?”
Feeling nettled that an executive of Underwood’s level didn’t understand much of anything important, Edith replied patiently, “The greenhouse flooding knocked out more than half of the coastal power plants around the world, didn’t it?”
Without waiting for a reply, she went on, “Most of the loss in generating capacity is being taken up by solar power satellites, right? And where do you think the metals and minerals to build those satellites come from?”
Before Underwood could reply, Edith added, “And the fuels for the fusion generators that the power companies are building come from Jupiter, you know. This war is driving up their prices, too.”
By the time she answered, Underwood was looking thoughtful. “You’re saying that the fighting out in the Asteroid Belt is affecting the price of metals and minerals that those rock rats ship back to Earth. And the price of fusion fuels, as well.”
“And the price of those resources affects the ultimate price you flatlanders pay for electricity, yes.” Edith grimaced inwardly at her use of the derogatory
“So it costs us a few cents more per kilowatt hour,” she said at last. “That’s still not much of a story, is it.”
Edith sat back in her little desk chair. There’s something going on here, she realized. Something circling around below the surface, like a shark on the hunt.
She studied Underwood’s face for a few silent moments. Then she asked, “How much advertising is Astro Corporation buying from you? Or is it Humphries?”
Once she heard the question Underwood reddened. “What do you mean? What are you implying?”
“The big corporations don’t want you to go public about their war, do they? They’re paying for this cover- up.”
“Cover-up?” Underwood snapped, once she heard Edith’s accusation. “There isn’t any cover-up!”
“Isn’t there?”
Underwood looked furious. “This conversation is
She nodded to herself and smiled. That hit a nerve, all right. The big boys are paying off the news media to keep the war hushed up. That’s what’s going on.
Then Edith’s smile faded. Knowing the truth would be of little help in getting the story to the public.
How to break through their wall of silence? Edith wished she knew.
ASTRO CORPORATION HEADQUARTERS
Jake Wanamaker actually banged his fist against the wall. He stomped past the row of consoles in the communications center and punched the wall hard enough to dent the thin metal paneling.
“She just waltzed in there all by herself and now you can’t even make contact with her?”
The communications technicians looked scared. Old as he was, Wanamaker was still a formidable figure, especially when he was radiating anger. For several heartbeats no one in the comm center said a word. Console screens blinked and beeped softly, but everyone’s attention was focused on the big admiral.
“Sir, we got good tracking data on her until she got to the Nairobi base.”
“Those minibeacons are supposed to be able to broadcast through solid rock,” Wanamaker snarled. “We hung a half-dozen satellites in polar orbits, didn’t we? Why aren’t they picking up her signal?”
“It must be the solar flare, sir,” said another of the technicians. “It’s screwing up communications.”
Glowering, Wanamaker said, “You people assured me that the frequency the system uses wouldn’t be bothered by a flare.”
The chief comm tech, a cadaverous, sunken-eyed old computer geek, called across the room, “Their base must be shielded. Faraday cage, maybe. Wouldn’t be too tough to do.”
“Great!” Wanamaker snapped. “She’s in a potential enemy’s camp and we can’t even track her movements.”
“If she gets outside again the satellites’ll pick up her signal,” said the chief tech, hopefully.
“Not while the solar storm’s in progress,” said one of the younger techs, wide-eyed with worry. “Radiation level’s too high. It’d be suicide.”
Rumors spread through a tightly knit community such as Selene like ripples widening across a pond. One comm tech complained to a fellow Astro employee about the tongue-lashing Wanamaker gave to everyone in the communications center. The Astro employee mentioned to her husband that Pancho Lane had disappeared down at the Astro base near the south pole. Her husband told his favorite bartender that Pancho Lane had gone missing. “Probably shacked up with some guy, if I know Pancho,” he added, grinning.
At that point the rumor bifurcated. One branch claimed that Pancho had run off with some guy from Nairobi Industries. The other solemnly insisted that she had been kidnapped, probably by Martin Humphries or some of his people.
Within hours, before Wanamaker or anyone in the Astro security office could even begin to clamp down a lid on the story, Selene was buzzing with the rumor that Pancho was either off on a love tryst or kidnapped and probably dead.
Nodon heard the story during his first hours of work as a maintenance technician in the big, echoing garage that housed the tractors and tour busses that went out onto the surface of Alphonsus’s crater floor. He went through the motions of his new job and, as soon as his shift ended, hurried up into the “basement” to find Fuchs.
Fuchs was not at the stacks of shelving where Nodon and the others had met him before. Nodon fidgeted nervously, not knowing whether he should start searching through the dimly lit walkways or wait where he was for Fuchs to return. A maintenance robot came trundling along the walkway, its red dome light blinking. Nodon froze, plastering his back against the storeroom shelves. The robot rolled past, squeaking slightly. The maintenance robot needs maintenance, Nodon thought.
Half a minute behind the robot came Lars Fuchs, in his usual black pullover and slacks, and the usual dark scowl on his face.
“Kidnapped?” Fuchs gasped when Nodon told him the tale.
“Perhaps dead,” the Mongol added.
“Humphries did this?”
To his credit, Nodon admitted, “I don’t know. No one seems to know.”
“It couldn’t be anybody else,” Fuchs growled.
Nodon agreed with a nod.
