The Aftermath

“They’re requesting permission to fire,” Tamara reported.

“Permission denied,” Yuan snapped. “Who the hell is Elverda whatever-her-name? Sounds familiar, but —”

“The sculptress,” Koop said. “She’s famous.”

Radiating suspicion, Tamara protested, “What would a famous artist be doing on that killer’s ship? It’s a trick. It has to be a trick.”

Yuan’s mind was racing.

“Please!” Dorn urged. “She’s dying!”

“Let me see her,” Yuan said to the screen.

The view enlarged to show a half-unconscious woman sitting beside the cyborg. She looked very old. Her face was gray and sheened with perspiration, her eyes half closed, her mouth hanging open slackly.

“I’ve seen pictures of her,” Koop said, his voice rising eagerly. “That looks like Elverda Apacheta.”

“But what’s she doing—”

“You can’t just let her die,” Koop urged. “She’s famous! It’d start a shitstorm if anybody found out we let her die.”

If anybody found out, Yuan thought. Humphries’s orders are to kill the renegade quietly. No fuss. No news reports. He’s just to be erased, eliminated. And his accomplices with him.

But a worlds-famous artist? If we let her die how can it be kept a secret? Somebody must know she’s out here in the Belt.

Tamara said, “I can message headquarters for orders on how to proceed.”

“It’d take an hour or more to get a reply,” Yuan muttered, as much to himself as to his crew. “She’d be dead by then.”

With a slight lift of her shoulders, Tamara replied, “Then the problem would be solved, wouldn’t it?”

He glared at her.

“Sir,” she added belatedly.

Grimacing with a responsibility he never wanted, Yuan decided, “Take her on board.”

“Sir?” Tamara asked.

“Now,” he snapped. “Do it now.”

Koop smiled brightly, and jabbed a finger into the nav officer’s shoulder. She began pecking out a rendezvous course.

To the screen, Yuan said, “We’re going to rendezvous and give your companion immediate medical care. How many others are on your vessel?”

“Only the two of us,” said Dorn.

“Very well. Consider yourself my prisoner, then. No tricks or we’ll execute you both.”

“No tricks,” Dorn repeated. Then he added, “Thank you, captain.”

* * *

Yuan sat alone in his compartment peering at the flow of information about Elverda Apacheta that was scrolling down his screen. The half-dead woman they had taken aboard was indeed the famous sculptress: her face matched the computer file’s image and her DNA matched her medical record.

He called up images of The Rememberer, the asteroid that this woman had carved into a memorial to the history of her Andean people. He saw the ionospheric paintings she had produced, making artificial aurorae high in Earth’s atmosphere with electron guns to paint ephemeral pictures that glowed with delicate shimmering colors briefly at twilight, then faded as the Sun went below the horizon: the Virgin of the Andes, the serenely beautiful Heavenly Pastures, the Star Children.

What is she doing in a ship deep in the Belt with a mass murderer? Dorik Harbin had come aboard Viking peacefully and admitted that he was the man who had wiped out the Chrysalis habitat. Yuan’s crew stood in awe of the cyborg, their hands on their sidearms as they marched the half-machine to one of the ship’s empty storage bays and locked him in.

Yuan had sent a message to HSS headquarters on the Moon, informing them that he had captured Dorik Harbin and that the killer had been accompanied by Elverda Apacheta. Now, as he waited for their reply, he wondered all over again why Humphries wanted Harbin executed in the deep darkness of the Belt, rather than bringing him back to civilization and taking the credit for tracking down the criminal.

A gentle knock on his door startled Yuan out of his thoughts. He touched a key and his screen showed it was Tamara out in the passageway.

“Come in,” he said sharply, without getting up from his desk chair.

She slid the door back and stepped in to his compartment, a sheet of plastic flimsy in her hand, a self- satisfied little smile on her delicately boned face.

“Headquarters’ answer,” she said, handing the sheet to him. “It’s encrypted. For your eyes only.”

Yuan took the sheet and slid it into his scanner. Tamara turned to leave.

“Hold on a minute,” he said.

She turned and stood framed by the open doorway.

“Shut the door.”

She slid it closed and turned back to him, her smile a little more tentative now.

Without asking her to sit down, Yuan said, “You’ve been too informal with me on the bridge.”

“You told me so, in front of the others.”

“Discipline in small things is important. I can’t have the crew think I’m showing favoritism toward you.”

Her brows arched.

“What we do in the privacy of this compartment is one thing. On the bridge is another.”

“I see.”

“I hope you do.”

The scanner had finished its decrypting task; its yellow ready light was blinking. Yuan swiveled his chair to face the display screen. Tamara made no move to leave.

He looked up at her over his shoulder. “You already know what this says, don’t you?”

She didn’t reply, but she didn’t look surprised by his question, either.

“Headquarters assigned you to watch me?”

“Mr. Humphries assigned me to watch you. He considers this mission extremely important.”

“Humphries himself?”

“Yes. The message is from him, personally.”

Yuan was surprised that the news didn’t startle him. He realized that he’d half expected something like this. Wheels within wheels. A labyrinth for the lab rats to run through.

He told the screen, “Display message, please.”

The letters glowed bright red against a yellow background: ELIMINATE THEM BOTH IMMEDIATELY.

ATTACK SHIP VIKING: INFIRMARY

Elverda’s eyes fluttered open. A blank and featureless ceiling hung low over her, a pale cream color. She smelled the faint tang of disinfectant, heard a soft beeping sound. For long moments she lay still, trying to work up the courage to see if she could move her head. Slowly she realized that the pain was gone. Her entire body felt relaxed, languid.

Then she stiffened with the memory of her last waking moments. The agony flaming through her. And Dorn’s words, tense and urgent: “Cease firing. We have a sick woman on board. She needs immediate medical assistance. We surrender.”

He surrendered. He slowed the ship and surrendered to our pursuers because he wanted to save me. Have