The Aftermath

“Which asteroid?”

“IAA designation 67-046,” said Dorn mechanically.

“What are its coordinates? Could you pilot us back to the asteroid where the artifact is?”

CARGO SHIP PLEIADES: OUTSIDE

Victor Zacharias paused in his work and looked up at the stars. He had pulled on one of the ship’s nanofabric space suits to go outside and repair a malfunctioning maintenance robot, thinking to himself, Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Who will watch the watchmen? Or, in this case, who will maintain the maintenance robots?

“I will,” he muttered from inside the inflated bubble that covered his head. “There’s nobody here to do it except me.”

It was a lot easier to work in the nanofabric suit than in the old hard shells. The nanofabric gloves were thin and flexible, not like the stiff cumbersome gloves of the older suits. Even with miniature servomotors on their backs, it was hard to move your fingers in the old gloves; it was like wearing boxing mitts, almost. Victor lifted a hand to eye level and flexed his fingers easily.

The stars dew his attention. Stars everywhere, spangled against the infinite blackness of space. Stars strewn so thickly that he could barely make out the constellations that he’d known as a child in the muted skies of Earth.

Earth itself was out there, he saw: a warm point of blue. He couldn’t find Mars but Jupiter was so big and bright he thought he could see the flatness of its disk.

And Pauline is out there, he told himself. Pauline and Angela and Theo. Somewhere out there.

He had only the roughest idea of where they might be. When he’d separated from Syracuse, in the midst of that madman’s attack, he hadn’t had time for a careful navigational fix. They were rocketing outward, he knew, on a trajectory that would swing completely out of the Belt and then loop back again toward Ceres.

So Victor piloted Pleiades across the sector that he guessed his family would return to, crisscrossing the region like a man groping blindly in a dark alley for a coin he had lost.

I’ll find them, he told himself, again and again. I’ll find them.

He had worked hard to upgrade Pleiades’s search radar so it could send a powerful probing pulse out into space. Syracuse was deaf and dumb, he knew. The attack had ruined the ship’s antennas. He could expect no call from his family, no signal to guide him to them.

Unless…

No, he said to himself. You can’t expect Theo to know enough to help you. He’s only a teenager. He can’t repair the antennas, they were too badly ripped up for repair. But is Theo smart enough to use the suit radios? Will he think of that?

The radios built into the ship’s space suits were low powered, barely strong enough for crew members to chatter back and forth. Their signals faded away into the background hiss of the stars at only a few kilometers’ distance.

But on Earth there are powerful radio telescopes, antennas that can pick out the microwatt signals from robot spacecraft way out in the Kuiper Belt and beyond. Antennas that had been listening for signals from extraterrestrial civilizations, until the religious fanatics that controlled most of Earth’s governments had shut down almost all of them.

But the antennas are still there, Victor thought, listening to the signals from the outposts orbiting around Venus and Jupiter and Saturn. Communicating with the power satellite project at Mercury. And some of those scientists were sneaking time to listen for ET signals, too, Victor was certain.

If Theo was smart enough to use the suit radios to call for help, or just to identify Syracuse’s position … If, Victor thought. If.

The timer on his wrist comm pinged, making him flinch with surprise. I’ve been out here two hours!

He lifted the diagnostic tool from its magnetic grip on the ship’s hull and ran it over the squat little robot he’d been repairing. Its lights blinked green. Nodding, satisfied, Victor activated the robot itself. It trundled off along its track, spindly arms unfolding, ready to repair any damage to the meteor bumper from impacts. Just as if it had never malfunctioned, Victor said to himself. No memory at all. Almost, he envied the simple little machine.

He clambered through the airlock hatch, unsealed the space suit and hung it up neatly in its rack, then went to the galley for a sandwich and a beer. Cheena set a good table, he thought. The galley’s well stocked.

Ducking into the bridge, Victor was startled to see that the ship’s sensor log showed that Pleiades had been pinged by a powerful radar pulse seventeen minutes earlier. And the yellow message light was blinking on the communications console.

“That can only be bad news,” he growled. He’d been running silent: no tracking beacon, no telemetry to identify himself. He hadn’t yet turned on the search radar he’d worked so hard to upgrade. He didn’t think Cheena Madagascar would be chasing him, but he was taking no chances.

“No harm in listening to it,” he mumbled. He sat down in the command chair, the mug of beer still in his left hand, and touched the replay key.

A handsome cheerful face smiled brightly from the display screen.

“Hailing unidentified vessel,” he said, in a crisply confident tone. “This is the salvage ship Vogeltod. If you are in need of help, we will assist you. If we receive no reply, we will assume you are a derelict. In that case we will board you and claim you as salvage.”

The image on the screen froze. Victor scowled at the man’s face. He had a thick mop of sandy blond hair, a strong jaw, big teeth. Broad shoulders beneath a nondescript tan shirt. His smile had a hint of the predator about it. Victor thought of a shark.

Salvage? Victor asked himself. Are there enough abandoned or wrecked ships out here to make a salvage operation profitable? There must be, he decided.

If I don’t answer him, he’ll board me. I’m just one man; he’s probably got a crew of least four or five people. Maybe more.

But if I do answer him he’ll figure out pretty quickly that I’ve stolen this ship. Then he can board me, take over and bring me back to Ceres. Back to Cheena. And Big George.

Victor glowered at the frozen image in his comm screen. Damned if I do and damned if I don’t.

* * *

Kao Yuan leveled a finger at Tamara. “Do you realize what you’re proposing to do?”

“Yes,” she said, delighted, enthusiastic. “We’re going to find that alien artifact.”

“If Humphries hasn’t destroyed it,” Dorn said.

“Destroyed it? He wouldn’t do that! He couldn’t! Why would he destroy it?”

“Because he hates it,” said Elverda, from across the galley table.

“Worse,” Dorn amended. “He fears it.”

Undeterred, Tamara said, “He hasn’t destroyed it, I’m certain of that.”

Yuan shook his head, more in wonder than contradiction.

Leaning slightly toward Dorn, Tamara said, “You know the asteroid’s coordinates, Harbin. You’re going to lead us to it.”

“And if I refuse?”

She gestured toward Elverda. “We’ll kill your friend.”

“Now wait!” Kuan said, brows knitting. “I’m the captain here, not you.”

Tamara smiled at him, coldly. “I report directly to Mr. Humphries. I outrank you, Kao.”

“Not on this ship.”

“Why do you want to see the artifact?” Elverda asked.