reward, but that’s peanuts compared to the price the ship would bring.
Why bother? Let him go searching for his family. Let him die out there. Sooner or later we’ll run across his ship and take it.
The message light beneath the display screen began to blink.
“Answer,” Valker called out.
His first mate’s bearded face filled the screen. “Contact, captain. Looks like a derelict. Seems intact, but there’s no beacon, no answer to our calls.”
“Identification?”
“Computer says its radar profile matches one of the ships in its files:
Valker nodded and swung his legs off the bunk, careful not to bang his shins against the big recliner.
“I’m coming to the bridge,” he said.
A derelict, Valker thought as he tugged on his softboots. If she’s really intact she’ll bring top dollar back at Ceres.
He hurried to the bridge.
ATTACK SHIP
ONE MONTH LATER
“By god, there it is,” said Kao Yuan in a hushed, almost awed voice.
From the navigation console, Koop wondered aloud, “Are you sure?”
Yuan pointed to the main screen. “How many rocks out here have five—no, six ships patrolling around them?”
“APPROACHING VESSEL, IDENTIFY YOURSELF.” The voice coming through the comm speaker sounded like a computerized synthesizer.
It had taken a month for Yuan to track down asteroid 67-046. It hadn’t been at the coordinates Dorn had given. Sure enough, Humphries had moved the rock to a different orbit that swooped far below and then high above the ecliptic, out of the plane of the usual traffic through the Belt. For an entire month
During those frustrating weeks of searching the dark emptiness, Yuan asked Tamara again and again, “But what do we do when we find the ’roid? It’s bound to be protected. Humphries won’t let it just sit there without guarding it.”
Again and again Tamara would smile knowingly and say, “Leave that to me. I’ll get us past the guards.”
“You’ll get us killed,” Yuan groused.
He did not sleep with her anymore. He wanted to, but the realization that she’d been using him angered him too deeply. Instead he crooked his finger at one of the other crew members, a weapons specialist, young and slightly plump, but with silky dark hair and a willing smile. It’s good to be the captain, Yuan told himself. But he was certain that Tamara was sleeping with Koop now.
“APPROACHING VESSEL, IDENTIFY YOURSELF, THIS AREA IS PROPRIETARY TO HUMPHRIES SPACE SYSTEMS, INCORPORATED. NO UNAUTHORIZED VESSELS ARE PERMITTED HERE.”
Yuan looked at Tamara, who pressed the transmit key on her console and said crisply, “This is HSS vessel
“ONE MOMENT. VERIFYING AUTHORIZATION CODE.”
Tamara glanced over her shoulder at Yuan, a self-satisfied smile curving her lips.
The main screen abruptly showed a square-jawed man with iron gray hair cropped close to his skull. He wore a pale blue tunic with a high choker collar.
“I am Commander Hugh Bolestos,” he said in a gravelly voice. “Your authorization code is out of date.”
“We’ve been on special duty in the Belt,” Tamara answered smoothly. “We haven’t updated our comm codes for several months.”
Commander Bolestos’s stern expression did not change by a millimeter. “I’ve had no word from headquarters to expect you.”
“As I told you, we’re on special duty. My name is Tamara Vishinsky. Check your personnel files.”
Bolestos’s eyes shifted away for a moment, widened noticeably, then returned to his main screen.
“Says here you report personally to Mr. Humphries himself.”
“Yes, I do,” said Tamara. “May I come aboard your vessel, please, commander?”
“Certainly, Ms. Vishinsky! Of course!”
Valker approached
Elverda Apacheta, he had discovered from a computer search, was a famous sculptress. But very old. She had bought
A dotty old lady, Valker concluded. Maybe she came out here to carve more statues out of asteroids.
“Vectors matched,” his navigation officer announced. “Close enough to board her.”
Valker nodded. “I’ll go aboard.”
“Alone?”
“Yes.” He pointed to two of the crewmen who had crowded into the bridge. “Nicco and Kirk, stand by to come aboard when I give the signal.”
The two crewmen went to the airlock with Valker, where they all pulled on nanofabric space suits that had been taken from the same luxury yacht that the captain’s oversized desk had come from.
“Wait here. If there’s trouble, I’ll holler.”
“Right,” they said in unison.
And if there isn’t trouble, Valker thought as he stepped into the airlock chamber, I want to look through that ship and see if there’s anything worth taking for myself.
Yuan was shocked at the ease with which Tamara disposed of the guards protecting the artifact’s asteroid.
She, Koop, and four crew members transferred to Commander Bolestos’s vessel. Less than an hour later her image appeared on
Feeling puzzled, uneasy, Yuan went to the airlock and floated through the spongy plastic tunnel that connected
On the bridge he found Koop sitting in the command chair with Tamara bending over him, spraying a bandage on his upper arm. A laser beam had burned through Koop’s sleeve and seared his flesh. Then Yuan saw Commander Bolestos and his guts heaved: the older man lay crumpled like a rag doll in a corner, his chest soaked with blood, his wide-eyed face looking very surprised.
“You killed him?” Yuan gasped.
“Change of command,” said Tamara. She pointed to the control panel that spanned one side of the bridge. “Now I’ve got all his authorization codes. I’m in charge of security for the artifact now. The grunts on the other ships are taking my orders, like good little corporate robots.”
Yuan understood her tone clearly. I’m under her command now, too.
“Bring the woman and the freak here,” Tamara said. “I want them to lead us down to the artifact.”
