was a wise arrangement. The HSS man dealt with numbers, while Leeza handled the real work.
With the solar storm raging, though, there was very little real work being done. Leeza had called in everyone from the surface. Huddled safely in the caverns and tunnels deep underground, there was little for the military to do other than routine maintenance of equipment and that oldest of all soldierly pursuits: griping.
In truth, Leeza herself felt uncomfortable burrowed down like a mole in its den. Even though she seldom went to the surface of Vesta, it unnerved her to realize that she
She paced slowly along the consoles in the base command center, looking over the shoulders of the bored technicians sitting at each desk. The storm was weakening, she saw. Radiation levels were beginning to decline. Good, she thought. The sooner this is over, the better. Four HSS vessels were hanging in docking orbits up there, waiting for the radiation to recede enough so they could begin shuttling their crews down to the base. And Dorik Harbin was approaching in his ship,
Dorik had been distant for weeks now; perhaps it was time to bring him closer. Leeza smiled inwardly at the thought. He doesn’t like the fact that I outrank him, she knew. But a few of the right pills and he’ll forget all about rank. Or maybe I should try something that will make him obedient, submissive. No, she decided. I like his passion, his ferocity. Take that away from him and there’s nothing special left.
“Unidentified vehicle approaching,” said the tech monitoring the radar.
Leeza felt her scalp tingle. Anything that the radar could spot through this radiation cloud must be close, very close.
“Two bogies,” the technician called out as Leeza hurried to his chair.
They were speeding toward Vesta, and so close that the computer could calculate their size and velocity. Too small to be attack ships, Leeza saw, swiftly digesting the numbers racing across the bottom of the display. Nukes? Nuclear bombs couldn’t do much damage to us while we’re buttoned up down here. For the first time she felt grateful for the solar storm.
“They’re going to impact,” said the technician.
“Yes, I can see,” Leeza replied calmly.
The two approaching missiles fired retrorockets at the last instant and hit the hard, stony ground almost softly. A crash landing, she thought. No explosion. Timed fuzing?
She walked a few paces to the communications console. “Do you have a camera in the vicinity where those two bogies landed?”
The comm tech already had the scene on her main display screen. It was grainy and dim, but Leeza saw the crumpled wreckage of two small missiles lying on the bare ground.
“Is that the best magnification you can get?” she asked, bending over the technician’s shoulder to peer at the screen.
The technician muttered something about the radiation up there as she pecked at her keyboard.
The display went blank.
“Nice work,” Leeza sneered.
“It shouldn’t have done that,” said the technician, defensively.
“Radar’s out!” called the radar tech.
Leeza straightened up and turned in his direction. “Radiation monitors have gone dead.”
“No response from the surface camera at the crash site,” the comm tech said. “Hey, two more cameras have gone out!”
Leeza turned slowly in a full circle. Every console was conking out, screens going dark while red failure- mode lights flared.
“What’s going on up there?” Leeza asked.
No one answered.
No less than fourteen Humphries Space Systems employees attended Martin Humphries between his burned-out mansion and the finest suite in the decaying Hotel Luna, four flights above the fire-blackened grotto. Flunkies and lackeys ranging from his personal physician to a perky blonde administrative assistant with a brilliant smile from HSS’s personnel department were already waiting for their CEO as Quinlan and his surprised partner helped Humphries through the temporary airlock and into Selene’s bottommost corridor.
The head of his security department, the never-smiling Grigor, fell into step alongside Humphries as they started toward the powered stairs.
“Your assistant, the woman Ferrer…”
“What about her?” Humphries asked, suddenly worried that Victoria had survived the fire and was ready to tell the world how he had abandoned her.
“They found her body in the upstairs hallway,” said Grigor morosely. “Dead of smoke inhalation.”
Humphries felt a surge of relief flow through him. But he growled, “Fuchs. He’s responsible for this. I want Fuchs’s balls on a platter.”
“Yessir,” said Grigor. “I’ll see to it right away.”
“And fire that dumb sonofabitch who was in charge of security for my house!”
“Immediately, sir.” “You’ve got to rest, Mr. Humphries,” the doctor said, placing a placating hand on Humphries’s arm. “You’ve been through an ordeal that would—”
“Fuchs!” Humphries raged, shaking loose of the doctor. “Find him! Kill the bastard!”
“Right away, sir.”
Humphries fumed and ranted all the way up the power stairs and into the sumptuous hotel suite that the woman from the personnel department had reserved for him. A full dinner was waiting on a wheeled table set up in the sitting room. Humphries blurted orders and demands as he stormed into the suite and went straight to the lavatory. Even while he stripped off his sweaty clothes and stepped into the steaming shower he still yelled at the aides—including the blonde— swirling around him.
“And another thing,” he called from the shower. “Get my insurance adjusters down to the mansion and see to it that they have a complete list of its contents. Goddamned fire ruined everything in there. Everything!”
Aides scurried and took notes on their handhelds. The doctor wanted to give Humphries an injection of tranquillizers, but he would have none of it.
“But you’ve got to rest,” the doctor said, backing away from his employer’s raging shouts.
“I’ll rest when Fuchs’s body is roasting over a slow fire,” Humphries answered hotly while he struggled into a robe being held for him by the head of his public relations department.
He stormed into the sitting room, glared at the dinner waiting for him, then looked up at the small crowd of aides, assistants and executives.
“Out! All of you! Get the hell out of here and leave me alone.”
They hurried toward the door.
“You!” He pointed at Grigor. “I want Fuchs. Understand me?”
“I understand, sir. It’s as good as done. He can’t get out of Selene. We’ll find him.”
“It’s his head or yours,” Humphries growled.
Grigor nodded, looking more morose than usual, and practically bowed as he backed away toward the door.
The doctor stood uncertainly in the center of the sitting room, a remote sensing unit in his hand. “I should take your blood pressure, Mr. Humphries.”
“Get OUT!”
The doctor scampered to the door.
Humphries plopped himself down on the wide, deep sofa and glowered at the covered plates arranged on the wheeled table. A bottle of wine stood in a chiller, already uncorked.
He looked up and saw that everybody had left. Everybody except the blonde, who stood at the door watching him.
“Do you want me to leave, too?” she asked, with a warm smile.
Humphries laughed. “No.” He patted the sofa cushion beside him. “You come and sit here.”
She was slim, elfin, wearing a one-piece tunic that ended halfway down her thighs. Humphries saw a tattoo on her left ankle: a twining thorned stem that bore a red rose.
