The Aftermath

“I deserve to die,” he said.

* * *

“I need a ship,” said Victor Zacharias.

Big George Ambrose leaned back in his swivel chair and nodded resignedly. “You’ve been tellin’ me that for nearly three fookin’ years now.”

The two men were sitting in Big George’s office in the half-finished Chrysalis II habitat. It was hardly an imposing room, no larger than most of the office spaces aboard the habitat. George’s massive desk and intimidating figure made it seem even smaller. The walls were blank at the moment: smart screens that could display anything in the habitat’s computer files or show views of the outside, where teams of engineers and robots were working to complete the structure.

Victor’s jet black ringlets were neatly trimmed, but in the three years of his enforced stay at Ceres he had grown a thickly curled beard. He wore the maroon coveralls that identified him as a member of the habitat’s technical staff. Big George still looked like a shaggy mountain man with his untamed mane of brick red hair and wild beard. His coveralls were light blue, rumpled, frayed at the cuffs from long wear.

With the icy calmness of a man who was trying hard to control his anger, Victor said, “My family is out there somewhere and I’ve got to find them.”

George shook his bushy head. “Look, Vic, you’ve gotta face facts. They’re dead by now.”

“No,” Victor insisted. “The ship had plenty of provisions and—”

“Why haven’t we heard from them, then? In all this time? It’s been more’n three years, hasn’t it?”

Victor glared at his boss. With that dark beard, he would have looked fiercely intimidating to anyone else. But George Ambrose knew better. By the time the task of finding all the bodies from the massacre of the original Chrysalis was finished, Big George had learned that Victor Zacharias had been an architect, a builder. As head of the rock rats’ governing council, George had persuaded the International Astronautical Authority to fund the building of a new habitat in orbit around Ceres. The IAA got support for the project from Selene and the major corporations involved in space industries.

The new habitat—Chrysalis II—would not be a ramshackle Tinkertoy assemblage of old and disused spacecraft. George Ambrose wanted a structure that was designed and constructed specifically to be a home for the rock rats. And he wanted Victor Zacharias to head the team that built it.

Victor reluctantly agreed to do the job, but only if Big George would provide him with a ship afterward.

“Face it, Vic,” George said from behind his desk. “They’re gone.”

“You promised me a ship,” Victor said again, relentless.

“When the job’s done. It’s only half finished.”

“The design is complete,” Victor insisted. “The major structural work is finished. You don’t need me for the rest of it. A couple of trained chimpanzees could finish the job.”

“Nearest trained chimps are Earthside, Vic. But you’re here and you’re gonna stay here until the fookin’ job’s finished. And that’s it.” George slapped his heavy hands on the desktop and rose to his feet, an imposing red- bearded giant of a man who would brook no further discussion.

Victor got out of his chair, his eyes smoldering. But he said nothing further. He knew that this conversation was finished. Silently he walked to the door.

“By th’ way,” Big George called to him, “Pleiades is due in later t’day. Cheena Madagascar’ll be lookin’ you up.”

Over his shoulder, Victor grumbled, “Thanks for the good news.”

ATTACK SHIP VIKING: CAPTAIN’S QUARTERS

It’s good to be the captain, Kao Yuan thought as he lay stretched out in his double-sized bunk. His communications officer, the lissome young brunette with sloe eyes and surprising athletic abilities, was in his shower stall, singing to herself. Off-key, Yuan realized. But what the hell. She’s got other talents.

Tamara, he pronounced silently, rolling her name around in his mind. Tamara Vishinsky. In bed, she had told Yuan that she’d studied for ballet as a child. The training serves her well, he thought.

HSS headquarters had added her to his crew at the last moment, flying her all the way out from the Moon to reach Viking before Yuan started his hunt for the renegade. She came with high qualifications in communications systems. And in sexual gymnastics, Yuan thought, grinning inwardly.

He badly wanted to turn over and sleep for another hour. I deserve the rest, he told himself. But Viking and its accompanying two ships were fast approaching the area where the sensor had reported Dorik Harbin’s vessel to be. We could be in battle today, he knew.

Reluctantly, Yuan rolled out of bed and padded to the steamy shower stall. Opening the door, he said sternly, “This is your captain speaking. Now hear this.”

The comm officer reached out with both arms and pulled him into the hot, sudsy stall. He slid his arms around her and pressed close. We’ve got plenty of time, he thought. Plenty of time.

* * *

Elverda paced the short passageway between Hunter’s bridge and the hatch that led into the main airlock. Despite all the rejuvenation therapies, you are still an old, old woman, she reminded herself. You must exercise your legs. After a lifetime in low-gravity environments the ship’s acceleration was punishing her, even though Dorn kept it well below one g.

He was up in the bridge, sitting in the command chair as impassively as a sculpture of steel. Is he fleeing from the assassins coming after us, Elverda wondered, or rushing to find the bodies of the slain? Some of both, she concluded. We seldom do anything for merely one reason.

And you, she asked herself, what are you fleeing from? What are you rushing to?

Death, she answered. The answer to both questions is the same.

Her creative career had been finished many long years ago. Decades ago. She was going through the motions of teaching at Selene University when Martin Humphries swept her out to the Asteroid Belt, agog to see the artifact that a rock rat family had accidentally discovered.

It has to be the work of alien intelligence, Elverda told herself. No human could have made it. Yet it related to humans in a way that stirred the soul, viscerally, beyond the five senses. The artwork—for Elverda was convinced it was a work of superhuman artistry—bored directly into one’s mind, into the depths of the unconscious intellect that lay hidden and disguised beneath the conscious personality.

When Elverda had seen the artifact she had been ready for death, eager to end the pain and loneliness of her life. Then she had looked into its glowing depths and saw herself, saw the mother who had loved her so completely, saw the baby she had never borne, the path of her life from its beginning and through all the twists of fate and pride and remorse.

She was ready to face life again after seeing the artifact. She had the strength to stand next to Dorn, the self-mutilated ex-mercenary who had tried to atone for the thousands he had slaughtered, and failed.

Martin Humphries had seen the artifact and it nearly killed him. She saw in her mind’s eye once again how Humphries staggered out of the crypt that housed the artifact: his handsome face twisted and sweating, his eyes wild with fear; how he curled into a fetal ball, crying, spittle dribbling from his lips, babbling frantically, helplessly.

It must have shown him his own life, Elverda thought, shown him how despicable he’s been, shown him all the people he’s destroyed. Now Humphries has sent assassins to kill us, because we saw him in his moment of pain and weakness. He has learned nothing from the artifact. Nothing.

She wondered what had happened to the artifact. There had never been a report about it in the news media: Humphries had prevented that. But the rumor floated through the cold emptiness of the Belt; not even Martin