The Silent War

“Go on, git. There’s gonna be plenty hell to pay; I’ve got to get busy.” Almost laughing, Fuchs turned and started trotting down the corridor that led to the waiting shuttlecraft, a thickset, sturdy little badger of a man clad in black, his short arms pumping as he ran.

Wanamaker shook his head. “When Humphries finds out you’ve helped him escape…”

Pancho grinned at him. “Hell, Jake, he got away from you. You’re the one who sprang him out of the hospital. He got away from you and stole a brand-new Astro spacecraft. I might have to dock your pay or something.”

Wanamaker broke into a craggy smile. “You are some piece of work, Ms. Lane. Really some piece of work.”

“Come on,” Pancho said, patting the plastic of the seat beside her. “I’ll give you a ride back to town. We got a lot of work to do.”

“What do you mean, he’s disappeared?” Humphries demanded.

Grigor stood before him like a dark wraith, his eyes downcast. With a shrug, he repeated, “Fuchs is gone.”

They were in the sitting room of Humphries’s suite in the Hotel Luna. Tatiana Oparin had discreetly remained in the bedroom when Grigor had arrived, before Humphries’s breakfast order had come from room service.

“He can’t be gone!” Humphries shouted, pounding the pillows of the sofa on which he sat. Clad only in a silk hotel robe, his thin, almost hairless legs reminded Grigor of a chicken’s.

Standing before the sofa, to one side of the coffeetable, Grigor reported, “He was under Selene’s custody last night, in the hospital. This morning, when we went to interrogate him, he and his crew were gone.”

“Gone? How could he be gone? Where did he go? How could he get out?”

“An Astro Corporation security detail removed him from the hospital shortly after one A.M.,” Grigor replied, his voice as flat and even as a computer’s. “There is no trace of him after that.”

Leaping to his feet so hard that his robe flapped open, Humphries screamed, “Find him! Search every centimeter of the city and find him! Now! Use every man you’ve got.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Don’t stand there! Find him!”

As Grigor turned toward the door, the phone chimed. Scowling, Humphries saw that the wallscreen displayed the name of the caller: Pancho Lane.

“Phone answer,” he snapped.

Pancho’s angular, light tan features took shape on the wallscreen, slightly bigger than life.

“Martin, I have some unpleasant news for you.”

He glared at her image as he pulled the maroon robe tightly around himself.

“Lars Fuchs somehow stole our newest ship and lit out of lunar orbit a few hours ago. He’s prob’ly heading back to the Belt.”

“He stole one of your ships?” Humphries asked, his voice dripping sarcasm.

“Yup,” said Pancho. “Slipped away from a phony security detail that sprang him out of the hospital last night.”

Humphries’s innards felt like a lake of molten lava. “He had lots of help, then, didn’t he?”

Keeping her face immobile, Pancho admitted, “Well, he’s got some friends among my Astro people, yeah. We’re looking into it.”

“I’m sure you are.”

She almost smiled. “I just thought you’d want to know.”

“Thank you, Pancho.”

“Any time, Martin.” The screen went dark.

Humphries stepped to the small table at the end of the sofa, yanked up the lamp sitting atop it, and heaved it at the wallscreen. It bounced off and thudded to the carpeted floor.

“Guttersnipe bitch! She helped him get away. Now he’s running back to the Belt to hide out with his rock rat friends.”

Grigor said, “We could intercept him.”

Humphries glared at his security chief. “He’ll be running silent. You’d have to search the whole region between here and the Belt. There aren’t enough ships—”

“He’ll have to put in somewhere for supplies,” said Grigor. “The Chrysalis habitat at Ceres is the only place for that.”

Still glowering, Humphries said, “They won’t take him in. They exiled him, years ago.”

Nodding slightly, Grigor countered, “Perhaps. But he will contact a ship in the region for supplies.”

“Or capture one, the damned pirate.”

“Either way, Chrysalis is the key to his survival. If we control the habitat at Ceres, we will get him into our grasp, sooner or later.”

Humphries stared at his security chief for a long, silent moment. Then he said, “All right. Tell our people at Vesta to send a force to Ceres and take control of Chrysalis.”

An unhappy expression twisted Grigor’s normally dour face. “We seem to have lost contact with Vesta,” he said, the words coming out swiftly, all in a rush.

“What?”

“I’m sure it’s only temporary.”

“Lost contact?” Humphries’s voice rose a notch.

“It might be the solar storm,” said Grigor, almost to himself, “although the cloud is well past the Belt now.”

“Lost contact with the whole base?” Humphries shouted. “The entire base?”

“For more than twelve hours,” Grigor admitted, almost in a whisper.

Humphries wanted to scream. And he did, so loudly and with such fevered anger that Tatiana Oparin rushed into the sitting room. When she failed to calm him down she called the HSS medical department for Humphries’s personal physician.

COMMAND SHIP SAMARKAND

Harbin hated these one-way messages. I have to sit here like an obedient dog while my master speaks to me, he grumbled silently. Yet there was no other way. Grigor was at Selene, Harbin in his private compartment aboard Samakand, so deep in the Belt that it took light the better part of an hour to span the distance between them.

Grigor’s face, in the display screen, looked even dourer than usual. He’s worried, Harbin thought. Frightened.

“… completely wiped out Humphries’s home here in Selene and killed four security guards,” the security chief was saying, speaking rapidly, nervously. “They also killed Humphries’s personal assistant, the woman Ferrer. The attack was led by Lars Fuchs.”

Fuchs attacked Humphries in his own home! Harbin marveled. He felt some admiration for such daring. Strike your enemy as hard as you can. Strike at his heart.

Grigor was droning on, “Astro has apparently spirited Fuchs away. Most likely he’s on his way back to the Belt. He must have friends at Ceres, allies who will give him supplies and more crewmen. Your orders are to find Fuchs and kill him. Nothing else matters now. Bring Fuchs’s head to Mr. Humphries. He will accept nothing less.” Harbin nodded. This isn’t the first time that Humphries has demanded Fuchs’s life, he recalled. But this will be the last time. The final time. Fuchs has frightened Humphries. Up until now Humphries has fought this war in comfort and safety. But now Fuchs has threatened him, terrified him. Now he’ll move heaven and Earth to eliminate the threat that Fuchs represents. Now it’s time for Fuchs to die.

“Something else,” Grigor added, his eyes shifting nervously. “The base on Vesta has gone silent. We don’t know why. I’ve diverted one of our attack ships to the asteroid to see what’s happened. You stay clear of Vesta.