Fekesh wasn’t here.
Some of his representatives were there, but “pressing business” had prevented Kareem Fekesh from personally attending the ceremonies. Extreme regrets, all best wishes, et cetera.
Everything was going fine, everyone was perfectly happy, and Alex Griffin was terrified. He forced his breathing to calm, and his mind back to the job at hand.
Cary McGivvon stood next to him, sipping a cup of coffee. “Sure you won’t have some? Caterers just brought it down. Good stuff.”
“No. Thank you.” He said it through gritted teeth. The aroma was driving him crazy. He had to escape. “I’m going down on the floor. I can’t just stand still.”
“Okay, Chief. I’ll stay on the holovision.”
“And treat Dwight Welles like one of the team. We’re looking for something very subtle here, and he’s got a good overview.”
Alex walked down the spiral staircase of the two-story security building erected behind the rows of chairs, the stages, the demonstration areas which crowded the huge dome. Today was the finale, and over twelve thousand guests were watching the final recap of the entire project.
“ All of you have children,” the narrator said. “ Many of you have grandchildren… ”
Within the dome’s illusory black sky a pair of immense, ungainly Phoenix Fl rockets rotated nose to nose around six hundred meters of tether, for the coasting period between Earth orbit and Mars. Two truncated cones with rings of rocket nozzles around the bases. “Aerospike configuration,” he had heard someone say. Whatever that meant.
Now the sky was filled with rockets, lightsail vehicles, orbital tethers made of Falling Angel cable, and more. It was a carousel of possibilities, a panoply of mankind’s future greatness, served up with soul-stirring music and the finest effects Cowles could create.
Alex moved down one of the side rows, walking lightly, scanning faces, examining badges, nerves afire but still uncertain of the play.
What was Fekesh up to?
“- and as always, men will be needed. To supervise the machines, test the environment, and reap the rewards-”
The sky exploded as a comet impacted on the surface of Mars, bringing new life and possibilities. Red and blue light washed over Alex’s face, over the room, painting it luridly, and the audience applauded the holographic display, flinched from the stereophonic thunder.
Alex barely noticed it. His ears were deaf to the sound. He scanned the faces.
In time-lapse fantasy, greenhouses and bubble cities sprang up across the surface.
“- atmosphere by now, enough for airplanes, bubble cities. The question is, and must always be, how can we make money from this at every turn?-”
As Alex finally reached the front of the room, the narrator was deep into his pitch. At every step of the way, it seemed, there was a fortune to be made. From the mining of comets and the Martian surface, to the manufacture of fusion plants and lightsails; from the design of life systems for the surface of Phobos to the new fashion crazes it would all trigger on Earth. Gaming spin-offs. Edible delicacies for the insanely rich. It went on and on, and they touched enough fiscal nerves to set the room sizzling.
They were ready. After a week of delicate foreplay they were hot, eager, and ready to jump into the metaphorical sack with Falling Angel and Cowles.
The floor rumbled, and for a moment he was startled. Then he looked behind him, at the 300-by-500-foot stage, where glowing mining machines, surface transport vehicles, and other wheeled craft were beginning their circular parade.
The music was John Philip Sousa. Christ, all they needed was to whip out a United Nations flag, and half the room would jump up and salute.
Mitch Hasagawa was standing against a huge hanging curtain, eyes glazed with the spectacle.
“Oh, come on,” Alex said to him. “It’s not all that great.”
“Huh?” The stocky security man shook his head.
Alex must not be the only one on short sleep. “The display.”
Mitch smiled, tried to suppress a yawn, and failed. “Yeah. Right, Chief.”
Disturbed, Alex walked out of his earshot and touched his throat mike. “Cary,” he asked, “how long has Mitch been on duty?”
There was a long pause.
“Cary?”
Another pause. “Ah… right here, Chief.” She sounded woozy. “Ah-about nine hours, I guess.”
“Jesus, have some more coffee, will you? You sound like hell. Send down somebody to relieve Mitch.”
“Sure, boss.” Cary signed off.
Alex peered through the darkness. Where was the rest of his security force? He spotted one uniformed figure over to the side of the stage, and observed her for a minute before approaching.
She was partially slumped, standing but numb. In her right hand, loosely held, was a foam coffee cup.
The blood sang within him. Finally. He triggered the throat mike again. “Cary! How many of our people have had coffee today?”
The pause was even longer this time. “Cary?”
There was a thump behind him, and, sweating now, Alex turned to look.
The Leviathan IV robot mining rig. In some way that he couldn’t quite define, it seemed out of step with the other display models.
Was it his imagination? Wasn’t it supposed to move in that fashion? The Leviathan was huge, the size of an armored tank, a complete environment for the precomet days, built for three men to roll from home base.
Griffin suddenly had an awful, ugly suspicion. What was it that Fekesh had done at Colorado Steel? An industrial accident during a safety inspection.
And what had happened at Dream Park eight years before? An accident in Gaming B during a proxy fight for control of the company.
And what had happened three days ago? He touched his throat mike. “Cary!”
“Ah… yes?”
“Don’t let anyone else touch that coffee, do you understand?”
Dreamily. “Sure… boss.”
He didn’t bother to curse. Alex tapped out Millicent’s code on his watch, and was relieved to hear her voice come in crisp and alert.
“Hello?”
“Millie, it’s Alex. No time. Get medical over here to Gaming A. Fekesh has drugged Security’s coffee-”
“What? Alex, my God!”
“-coffee supply. And find me Dwight Welles.”
Alex kept an uneasy eye on that mining rig, offering a silent thanks to his ulcer. His earphone beeped.
“Welles here. Alex, give me a break. I haven’t had sleep in two days-”
“And you’re not getting any now. Tie in to Gaming A display autocircuits. Hurry!”
“Jeeze.” Welles sounded injured, but did it in less than twenty seconds. “Got it.”
“Good. Now take manual control of the Leviathan.”
“Got you, Chief. Mmm… nothing.” Welles was talking to himself. “Nothing nothing… mmm? Zzzt! Listen, Chief, the manual control is locked. There’s something crazy in here.”
Griffin was moving, running. In the dark, the luminescent rigs were all that could be seen, not the human being moving to intercept one of them. He dodged robot jeeps, running across a fantasy landscape. “Welles, is there any way into that thing?”
“Wait, I’ll get the specs on the screen. Okay… The top is sealed, but there is an emergency exit door on the belly. There’s just enough room to squeeze between the treads. I think.”
“Great.”
It was rolling now.
“Let me know the instant it diverges from its programmed path.”
