40
When the little whisper of music from his alarm woke Dekker the next "morning"—no more than his own personal "morning," of course, since Co-Mars Two operated around the clock—he was in the middle of a pleasing dream. It had a woman in it, of course. They weren't actively having sex. But the ambience of the dream contained the fact that they recently had, or undoubtedly would, and meanwhile were holding each other, naked and warm together, in that wonderfully acheless, strainless way that you could only find in zero gravity.
As Dekker untangled himself from his sleeping harness he could almost feel the woman's arms still around him. Or was that feeling nothing more than the gentle restraints of the harness, dream-translated into something more loving? And, for that matter, who, exactly, had the dream woman been?
He puzzled over that second question as he pushed himself down the yellow hall to the sanitary facilities. Then he had to abandon the thought, because he needed all his concentration for what he was doing. His skills at the zero-gravity toilets and the enclosed spray booths that substituted for showers on Co-Mars Two were still too rudimentary to maintain any other chain of thought while he was using them.
When he was back in his own room, hovering before his screen, the question came back. Had it been Rima Consalvo? Ven Kupferfeld? Either of them could certainly have been a likely candidate for an erotic dream of Dekker DeWoe's. But was either the one? Annoyingly, Dekker was quite sure that he knew the woman. He just didn't know who she was.
The important thing, though, was to see what the prospects were for adding the company of an actual, rather than a dreamed, woman to his life. Annetta Bancroft had told him where his best immediate prospects were, so Dekker settled down to the screen to check on Rima's shift assignment. He called up "current work assignments," then "comet control," and had the entire rotation displayed for him.
There were a lot of names on it. He had known there would be: Co-Mars Two kept two boards live at all times, two controllers on each board. The two teams took turns at active control and checking the other team's solutions, and each individual operator worked two hours on, two hours off, and another two hours on for a complete shift.
That used up a lot of people, so there were twenty full-time controllers in the rotation, plus a dozen or so fill-ins. Dekker found R. Consalvo's name just where Annetta had said it would be among the fill-ins. The timing was good, Dekker saw. He calculated that he would easily be able to put in his own day and be finished with time to spare before Rima would get off the second half of her shift. Then they would both be off duty for a good many hours. That would be plenty of time for a talk or a meal . . . or whatever.
While Dekker was at the screen he switched over to the news channels, conscious of a faint, warm glow of pleasure in his lower abdomen as he thought of that "whatever."
The glow didn't last. The news dispelled it for him soon enough. He quickly ran through the major headlines, all depressing and none, really, of any personal interest—what did he or any other real Martian care about Earthie strikes or financial crises?—and finally, three or four increasingly specific menus later, tracked down a brief report on the negotiations for the Bonds. What made it brief was that there was nothing to say; the negotiations were "proceeding" but no "resolution" had been reached.
At that point the image on his screen flickered out.
Surprised, Dekker reached for the keypad, but before his fingers got there the screen had flashed back on again, displaying the original main menu. He frowned at it before he turned it off. That shouldn't have happened.
It occurred to him that a glitch in the station's internal communications, even a tiny one, might still constitute some sort of emergency. If so, he might be needed. Accordingly he tried to call Jared Clyne at his office.
Clyne wasn't there, and the legend on the screen gave no hint of urgency. It was only the standard invitation to leave a message.
When Dekker had turned it off again he made up his mind what he would have to do. He would allow himself to take time for a quick breakfast, because there might not be any real urgency. But then he would go early to the office just on the chance that he might be needed. Probably he wouldn't. Certainly he hoped that was the case. He especially hoped that he would not be needed for anything that would prolong his working day—at least, not past the time when Rima Consalvo would be getting off shift.
Breakfast wasn't quick, though. The line was long, and by the time Dekker got to the end of it he found Toro Tanabe sweating and scowling as he handed out meal packets. "Oh, hello, DeWoe. Don't you start with me, please. All the timers went down and we had to reset everything by hand, so I know the service is slow, and if your omelet's too burned or too raw I'm sorry, but it wasn't our fault."
Dekker wedged himself with one foot and cracked the box open. "It looks fine," he reported. "So cheer up."
Tanabe looked up at him from under his glowering eyebrows. "You want me to cheer up," he said. "With all these people complaining, and the stock reports showing that all my father's holdings are under short-selling pressure, and my mother telling me I'm a fool and a disgrace to my family for working as a cook when I could be doing something useful and living like a king in Tokyo—and with fifty, count them, fifty lottery tickets in the last drawing and not one of them even coming close—with all that good stuff, you really want me to cheer up? Sure, DeWoe. I'll be glad to cheer up right away—if only you'll get the hell out of my way so I can get these people fed!"
Amused, but also slightly abashed, Dekker pushed himself away, clinging to his meal box and coffee bulb, and looked around for a perch. He saw Shiaopin Ye eating by herself in one corner of the room and floated over to join her.
When she looked up she nodded, but didn't look particularly pleased. He snapped a strap to his belt and grinned at her. "Are they giving you a hard time, too?" he asked cheerfully.
She closed her meal box to prevent any of the little dumplings inside from flying away and finished chewing before she answered. "You mean about the communications loss," she said. "Yes. We are all blamed. But just over there, you see, is the head of the communications section, having a pleasant meal with Dr. Rosa McCune, so it must be so that he is right when he says there is really nothing to be concerned about."
"Ah," Dekker said, taking a pull on his coffee. "You don't sound as though you agree with him."
"You are correct," she said. She lifted the lid of the box and expertly pulled out another dumpling with her chopsticks. Dekker began eating, too, glancing over to where Toby Mory and the psycher were talking amiably together.
"He really doesn't seem worried," Dekker offered. "He must know what he's doing, Ye. He's the head of the section."
"Exactly," Ye said, nodding. "That is precisely what he told me, not ten minutes ago."
"But you don't believe it."
Shiaopin Ye looked at him for several seconds before answering.
Then she closed her box and unsnapped her security belt. "DeWoe," she said, holding herself in place with one hand, "does this seem like a happy installation to you?"
"Happy?"
"I mean, do the people here seem comfortable in their work?"
He thought. "A little edgier than I would have expected, maybe. Some of them."
She nodded. "I would say quite 'edgy.' There is a tension on this station that I don't understand. I think things are being kept from us."
"By Toby Mory, you mean?"
"Not just by Toby Mory, but by him, too, yes. I am quite qualified in communications systems, DeWoe. You know that; we took the same courses. Yet when I begin to check the systems for myself Mory orders me to stop. He says he has done it himself."
Dekker scowled, trying to follow her logic, "If you're saying Mory really doesn't want the system fixed, that doesn't make any sense."
"It does not, but many things which do not make sense turn out to be true anyway, don't they? That is why I am going to go back there when Mory is not around and run a check myself."
"What do you expect to find, for God's sake?"
"I won't know that unless I find it, will I? But I will check anyway."
Dekker caught at her arm as she started to leave. "If you do find anything, will you tell me? It might be a matter for the emergency service."
She thought that over, then sighed. "I like you, DeWoe. You have always seemed honest to me. Yes. I will come to your room or leave a note. I will not, though," she added, "use the communications screen."
The thing that made it hard to laugh at Shiaopin Ye's preposterous ideas, Dekker told himself as he headed toward Jared Clyne's little office, was that she wasn't a preposterous kind of person. She had always impressed him as about the calmest and most levelheaded person in his class.
That didn't prove that she might not be wrong in her suspicions. It didn't even prove that she couldn't be crazy, because Dekker had formed the opinion that any Earthie at all might have concentrated loopiness hidden under the most attractive exterior—witness Ven Kupferfeld. And he certainly had to agree that her observations were acute. The atmosphere around Co-Mars Two was tenser and stranger than he had expected: people disappeared from sight for days on end, things went wrong, puzzles weren't solved.
Yet when he reached the office, Clyne and Dzhowen Wang showed no sign of tension. The two of them were placidly going over the schematics for the air-circulation system, and Clyne looked up in surprise. "Hey, DeWoe," he said amiably. "You're early."
"I thought you might need me," Dekker explained. "Because of the communications problems, I mean."
"That's the kind of spirit I like," Clyne said, approving. "Communications aren't our worry, though, are they? We'll let the comm people take care of their own headaches." He nodded at the display on the screen. "As long as you're here, you and Joe can get started on pulling down those air pumps today." He paused, then twisted around to look at Dekker again, this time more carefully. "What made you think there was an emergency situation?"
"Well, I didn't, exactly, except—do you know Shiaopin Ye? She seemed to think there was a real problem. She even—" Dekker cleared his throat, embarrassed at the fantasy of what he was saying. "—she even thought that her boss was trying to cover it up."
Clyne looked at him in astonishment. "Toby Mory? Christ, no, DeWoe! I've known Toby for eight years! Ye's just new here; she just doesn't understand everything yet. I don't suppose she has any evidence to back up that kind of remark?"
"She might be getting some, I suppose. She said she was going to check it out for herself—when Mory wasn't around, I mean."
Clyne shook his head, "Jesus. I hope neither of you guys ever thinks you have to go behind my back like that. Anyway," he said heavily, "there's no emergency involved, so it isn't our problem. You'd better get on with those air pumps before they are an emergency."
Dekker felt himself rebuked. All the way to the pump room Dekker was conscious of Dzhowen Wang's curious looks, but Wang said nothing until they were there. The two of them had made all their routine checks before Wang offered, "Whatever it is, the air system's still intact."
Dekker shrugged in embarrassment, and Wang nodded to show the subject was closed. He let Dekker make the call to the station chiefs office to request permission to switch to standby pumps. Then the two of them began dismantling the pump.
It was hard, hot work in the confined space of the pump room, especially with the problems of moving high-mass pieces of metal around in zero gravity; a Martian child could have pushed one across the room with one finger, but still if you got caught between one and a wall you would get hurt. Dekker was careful. He did his best to copy Joe Wang's practiced way of always having one hand or foot on a holdtight for leverage, and never letting go of a loose part of the pump until it was secured. And, actually, it was just the kind of thing he needed—real, useful, physical work, the kind he hadn't had since he left Mars.
They took time for a quick meal in the middle of the shift, but Wang was anxious to get the pump back on line. They didn't talk much, and they didn't dawdle. The suspect bearings turned out to look all right, but Wang said, "Let's put new ones in anyway." Dekker approved.
It was only at the end, when they were ready to request permission to switch back, that Dekker was reminded of the fact that there was some kind of a problem. It took a minute to get through to the station chiefs office, and then the picture was only in monochrome. The internal systems were definitely overtaxed.
As they parted, Wang looked at Dekker soberly. "You know," he said, "as long as Pelly Marine was station chief we didn't have things going out like this. Maybe he was a doper after all—but I wish we had him back."
Dekker checked his watch. He was pleased to see that he had plenty of time to get there early to see Rima Consalvo.
He wanted to do that, but he also wanted to be reassured. So he used up a little of his time to stop by his quarters in case Shiaopin Ye had left a note—to admit, he was confident, that her suspicions had been unfounded, and no doubt to apologize for worrying him.
There wasn't any note under his door, though.
When he called her room there wasn't any answer, either, and when he decided to go one step farther and call the comm center the person he got was her boss. Mory didn't seem friendly, either, when he said, "No, she's not here, and we're kind of busy."
Dekker left for the control workstation, shaking his head. The way people disappeared on this little station! Of course, it was possible that in Rima's case she had simply kept out of Dekker's way because she was making up her mind about how much she wanted to get involved with him. That was actually a fairly cheering thought . . . but Ye?
When he got to Rima's workstation he was still early and she was busy at her work. When she saw him, she turned her head to whisper to her partner, then beckoned him in.
He let himself in apologetically. "I'm sorry if I'm bothering you," he offered. He was talking to the other woman, but Rima answered for both.
"Oh, hell no, Dekker. Myra doesn't mind, and I was expecting you."
"Get comfortable and watch," the other controller said hospitably. "There's not much to see. We don't have any more burns scheduled, anyway."
"Thanks," Dekker said, hitching his belt to a hook on the wall. They were simply rechecking trajectories, comet by comet; with each one the computer digested the orbital elements, factored in the gravitational pulls that would affect its course, and then laid the golden line projecting its arrival at Mars. Dekker's attention wandered between what they were doing at the board—and his wish that he were doing it himself—and the interesting view of the back of Rima Consalvo's neck—and his competing wish to explore that more thoroughly. Dekker had heard once of some Earthie woman, a celebrity of some kind, who had claimed she had fallen in love with her husband on first sight, although all she had seen was the back of his neck. That seemed illogical to Dekker; but just at that moment it didn't seem entirely impossible.
Rima turned for a moment to look at him. "You should've been here an hour ago," she offered. "We lost our feed for five minutes. Nothing on the screens at all."
"Not even at the backup station," her partner confirmed. "Scared the shit out of us."
Dekker nodded, wondering if he should share Shiaopin Ye's suspicions with them. He contented himself with saying, "They seem to be having communications problems." Then he leaned forward, staring at the board. "Hey! Is that 67-JY?"
Rima turned to look at him. "Yes, it is. Why?"
"Because it needs a burn, doesn't it?" It looked bad to him. Its golden projection funnel spread out to Mars all right, but just barely within the error probability.
"It does need a burn," Dekker said.
"It's not critical. No," Rima said.
He squirmed around to look at her. "What do you mean, no? It's an easy burn, and, look, Rima, that trajectory brings it pretty close to Earth. I know that comet; it's little, and it's been giving trouble all along."
"I know it, too," Rima said flatly, and then Dekker remembered. Of course she knew it. She had already told him that she was the snake handler who had threaded it out in the Oort. And who was sensitive about it now.
"Oh," he said. "Right"
She thawed slightly. "It already had one burn on this shift; the other board did it. So it's really all right, Dekker. If the next shift thinks it needs a burn, they can do it." She glanced over at the clock. "They're probably waiting to get in already," she said. "Take a look outside, will you, Myra?"
The other woman nodded and pulled herself out into the corridor. A moment later she peered back in and shrugged, signaling that they weren't in sight, then pointed down the hall and pushed herself away in that direction.
Dekker assumed she was heading for a lavatory, but Rima chuckled. "She's being discreet, I bet," she said, "in case we want to be private for a minute. Dekker? Why are you questioning an operator's decision?"
He said, "Well, I guess it's just that there are more things going wrong here than I expected."
"Like the comm systems?"
"For one thing, yes," he agreed.
"And that comet for another?" she asked. "Don't you think I know how to run a board—not counting that Myra's right here with me, and there are two other controllers on the other board?"
"No, of course you do. Only—well, there are people who might like the idea of diverting a comet. You've heard the rumors, haven't you?"
She was looking at him steadily. "What rumors are those?"
He shrugged to indicate he wasn't, actually, serious. "For instance, the ones about the habitats. I've heard it said that the people who are putting the farm habitats up would like a comet of their own—"
"And you think it might be 67-JY?"
"Why not?"
She was laughing at him. "Didn't you learn anything? Look at those trajectory elements."
He said huffily, "All right, I know what you're saying. If I were going to park a comet where the habitats could mine it I wouldn't pick this one. It's got far too much velocity to park it in an orbit they could use. But why else is everybody letting it go with that kind of CEP?"
"Maybe," she said kindly, "we don't know everything yet, Dekker. We're still beginners in this business, aren't we?" And before he could admit the justice of her argument, she added, "Anyway, here come Myra and the next shift. So I'm through here; how about a cup of coffee?"
It wasn't just the back of Rima Consalvo's neck that was attractive. As he followed her along the red corridor, the two of them pulling themselves from wall hold to wall hold, he found himself also intrigued by those long and unfortunately slacks-clad legs that were waving almost in his face.
The "cup" of coffee wasn't a cup, of course; it was a bulb, and the rec room was more crowded than Dekker would have preferred. The only wall holds they could find to tie to were next to a conversation about what was going on. One of the old hands was saying, "We've lost intrastation addressing facilities, so everything comes in on a single band. It's slowing down communications a lot. They've got somebody listening in and manually redirecting the traffic on each major incoming circuit—Co-Mars One, the Martian orbiters, Earth. We're not getting anything at all from ships in transit or the Oort cloud, though, and even the solar optics are out."
"Well, we don't need any of that, do we?" somebody else said. "For a while, anyway? It's a pain in the ass, but we're still operational and Parker will get it cleared up."
Rima looked at Dekker, then leaned over to the group next to them. "What's going on?" she asked.
The man looked surprised. "You haven't used a screen in the last few minutes? It's the intrastation communications. They're down to just the voice link."
"You can't get news from Earth at all," another one said. "We were watching it on the screen here, and it just went out. Damnedest thing you ever saw."
"It must have happened while we were on our way here," Dekker said to Rima Consalvo. She nodded, looking thoughtful but unsurprised. She looked at her watch instead of replying. But as he turned back to join in the conversation with the other group, she spoke up.
"Dekker," she said, lowering her tone so that the others couldn't hear. "I don't really want any more coffee, and I don't feel like talking about the station's problems right now. It's a little early, but—well, my room's just around the next intersection. Why don't we go there?"
She caught him by surprise. "Go to your room?" he repeated, as though that notion had never crossed his mind.
She nodded. "Yes. Go to my room. If you want to, I mean."
Of that there was no question at all in Dekker's mind. What he wished was that he could do both—maybe talk to these people in the rec room, maybe even tell them about what Shiaopin Ye had said, at least find out more about what was going on and whether, really, it wasn't his duty to get in touch with Jared Clyne and find out if his services were needed . . . and, if possible, at the same time take up the invitation he had been hoping for for some time.
Since he couldn't do both, there was not, really, any doubt about which to choose.
It didn't take long to get there, even less long for them to get inside and for Rima to close the door behind her. Then she smiled at Dekker. "I'm afraid I don't have a drink to offer you," she apologized.
"I don't drink much," he said—automatically and, he thought, a little inanely.
"It's just that it's more private here," she said, looking at her wall clock. "We've got a little extra time," she added, and then smiled at him. "Dekker? What do you think? Would you like to kiss me?"
There was only one answer to that, too, and then only one way for things to go after that. Things went that way. Very satisfactorily, although the fact that Dekker had had no previous experience of making love in zero gravity made him awkward, and made Rima Consalvo giggle.
But they managed it, by judicious use of all available limbs for clamping and holding. When they were finished they hung in midair, sweaty, relaxed, and naked, floating free of the holdtights and holding each other at an odd angle by their linked hands.
It was, Dekker realized complacently, very like his dream. The only difference was that this time he knew who he was holding.
Then there was another difference. He felt Rima move in his arms, craning her neck to look at the clock. "Oh, hell," she said. "How time flies. Dekker, I think we might want to put our clothes back on."
It was not a remark he had expected. "Why?"
"Because," she said, wriggling free and pushing against him to reach the wall, "we have company coming in about five minutes. I don't mind her knowing what we've been doing—but still. You might find it a little embarrassing."
"Who's coming?" Dekker demanded, grabbing a wall hold and reaching out for his floating shorts. "Why is it embarrassing?"
Rima paused in the act of wriggling into her underwear, and answered both questions at once. "It's Ven Kupferfeld," she explained.
When Ven arrived she seemed worried, but not so worried that she didn't take in the scene at once. She gave Rima a searching look. "You just couldn't wait to try him out for yourself, could you?" she demanded.
Rima looked complacent. "We had the time, so I thought we might as well get relaxed." Then, more sharply, "What's the matter?"
Ven Kupferfeld shook her head. "We had some trouble," she said, and didn't expand on the theme. Didn't have the chance, if she had intended to anyway, because Dekker had worked through a chain of reasoning and didn't like where it led him.
"Christ," he said prayerfully, "you two planned all this, didn't you?"
Ven opened her mouth, but Rima Consalvo forestalled her. "Of course we did, Dekker. Ven and I wanted to talk to you about something important—but, believe me, the other part was for fun. I do like you, Dekker."
"Everybody likes you, Dekker," Ven said savagely. "You and your mother. That's why we wanted to talk to you, one more time."
"What about my mother?" he demanded, still off balance.
Ven said, "She's a symptom of what's wrong with you people. She's a big wheel on Mars, isn't she? But right now she's down on her knees to the Japs, begging for crumbs. What's the matter with you Martians, Dekker? Don't you care that your planet's being stolen away from you?"
He was having trouble keeping up with her quick changes. He looked at Rima, who smiled politely but was no help. He said, "Mars isn't being stolen. It's a business deal; you people put up the money we needed, so of course we owe you something—"
"Christ!" Ven sounded disgusted.
"Hey," Dekker said, nettled, "which side are you on? You're an Earthie yourself!"
"I'm an American, Dekker," she said dangerously, "and don't you forget it. We're getting screwed, too. The Japs and the Europeans—but mostly the damned Japs—they've been selling off their Oort bonds all along, and we poor American suckers were left holding the bag, and your mother—" She paused, shaking her head in contempt. "She's getting raped, and all she wants is a pillow under her head."
"Now, listen—" Dekker began.
"No, Dekker, you listen. It's not just that my family's pretty near ruined, it's my country. Do you know that if the farm habitats go through, we Americans are going to have to buy food from the Japs? My grandfather would turn over in his grave, but he'd know what to do."
"Oh, hell," Dekker said, angry at last, "your grandfather was a soldier. He killed people."
She looked suddenly distracted, but kept on. "Right, he killed. There are times when killing's necessary."
"Or fun," he said bitterly. "Like your lion."
"Why not? Haven't you ever killed anything?"
"Of course not. For one thing, there isn't anything on Mars to kill—well, the fish and the meat animals, but nobody does it for pleasure."
Rima Consalvo stirred. "Ven," she said warningly. "Knock off that killing talk. Nobody's going to get killed."
Ven seemed to collect herself. "No, of course not," she agreed. "Dekker, do you remember—"
She had to stop there, because the comm system rattled into life. There was no picture on the screen, but Simantony Parker's voice came through, sounding tense.
"All personnel," the chief of station's voice said. "This is Parker. We have received relayed warning of a solar flare. The information was delayed, and the particles will arrive in about forty-five minutes. Safe all equipment, and everyone go to the flare shelter now."
"Hell," Dekker said wonderingly. "Listen, I'd better report to Jared Clyne—"
"No, you shouldn't," Rima Consalvo contradicted him. "You just go to the shelter, like everyone else, only you've got plenty of time. All the same, Ven, speed it up, will you?"
Ven nodded, her face grim. "What I'm asking you, Dekker, is do you remember the virt I showed you? The Battle of Seven Pines?"
"How could I forget it?" he demanded bitterly.
"I'm not talking about the killing; I know that upset your silly Martian conscience. What I'm talking about is the strategy. Lee bluffed the Yankees. He made a threat, and they fell for it."
"And a lot of people got killed," Dekker reminded her.
"Fuck the people who got killed! That was only a detail! Nobody has to get killed in a situation like that; if you deploy your forces right, the other side gives up. No bloodshed. So suppose there was a chance like that for Mars. Suppose—no, damn it, don't interrupt me! Suppose somebody could show you how you could use the threat of force to make the Japs and everybody else stick to the terms of the original agreement. What would you say?"
Dekker looked at her as he might at a staggering drunk or raving madwoman, but he considered her question. "All it would take would be a threat?"
"Right."
"But backed up by the possibility of actually doing some killing?"
"Well, of course, Dekker. What would you do?"
He nodded. "What I would do," he said, "is call up Dr. Rosa McCune and have that person certified and sent down. Right away."
Ven looked at him for a moment in silent revulsion. Then, shaking her head, she turned to Rima Consalvo. "I told you this would be a waste of time," she said.
Rima, surprisingly, looked smug. "Not for Dekker and me," she said complacently. "Anyway, Dekker, I guess you'd better get on down to the shelter—"
"No," Ven said.
"Yes, Ven. I'm sorry about the way this looked to you, Dekker, but I'm not sorry about anything we did. I hope we can do it again sometime—and we'll talk about it later."
In a space station where nothing is more than a couple hundred meters from anything else, forty-five minutes is a lot of time. Evidently Ven Kupferfeld and Rima Consalvo thought so, because they stayed behind when Dekker left them. Dekker thought so himself. It crossed his mind that he had time even to jump into a splash chamber and rinse himself off before going to the shelter; they would be in close quarters there for some time, and he didn't particularly want to advertise what he and Rima had been doing.
On the other hand, he needed all that time, because he needed to think.
He wondered if he actually should talk to Dr. Rosa McCune—or, perhaps even better, to the station chief himself.
The more he thought, the more that seemed his most practical option. His mind made up, he pulled himself rapidly along toward the logical place to find them, or anyone: the flare shelter. The difficulty, he told himself as he hurried along, was that he didn't know exactly what he would say when he found them. There was no doubt in his mind that Ven and Rima had been acting peculiarly—no, ominously, he corrected himself. But in Dekker's view Earthies always acted fairly oddly—not that such Earthified Martians as Jay-John Belster were much better; and what did that prove?
The problem disappeared when he reached the shelter. Neither Parker nor the psychologist was there.
As a matter of fact, less than half the station's complement was inside the shelter. Obviously a flare warning was old stuff to the personnel of Co-Mars Two. Dekker had passed more than a dozen others on the way to the shelter, none of them seeming particularly panicky, or even greatly concerned. He looked around for someone else to talk to, and found no one. Shiaopin Ye wasn't there, nor Toro Tanabe. Neither was his boss, Jared Clyne. Neither was Annetta Bancroft, Jay-John Belster, or the head of the communications section, Toby Mory; in fact, the only familiar face in sight belonged to Dzhowen Wang, idly playing with an unresponding screen on the wall.
The trouble was that Dekker really had nothing to say to Dzhowen Wang, and the people he most wanted to talk to were still outside somewhere.
The solution to that problem was clear enough. Dekker turned around to leave the flare shelter to look for them. The count-keeper at the door didn't like that. "You're supposed to stay inside," he told Dekker, sounding angry.
"I forgot something," Dekker said, pushing past him.
"Well, find it and get back here!" the man shouted after him. "You've got fifteen minutes, no more!"
Dekker waved to show that he understood. It occurred to him that what he was doing was not entirely sensible. Surely everybody on the station would sooner or later arrive in the shelter—well, all but the handful who would stay on duty at the control boards in the flare shadow—certainly someone he needed to talk to would. And if he failed to get back to the shelter in time—
He had a quick vision of those heavy ionized particles from the Sun sleeting through the station. Through him. He almost winced as he contemplated the storm of flare particles striking his internal organs, his eyes, his brain—striking a million individual cells and doing harm to each one.
It was not a cheering thought. He pushed it out of his mind and began a systematic patrol of the corridors leading to the shelter. A few more individuals and small groups were leisurely pushing themselves toward the shelter, taking their own sweet time about responding to the alarm. They looked at him curiously as he passed, but none of those faces were the faces he was looking for. He peered into a rec room, with its magnetic game tables and virtual bodysuits; no one there. No one in the dimmed-down private rooms whose doors stood open, either. The number of people still moving toward the shelter was getting sparser, too; time was passing.
When he finally did see two people he knew, they were only Ven Kupferfeld and Jay-John Belster, talking in low voices at a junction of red and yellow corridors. They were not the ones he wanted to see. He had nothing to say—yet—to the woman who had interrupted his rendezvous with Rima Consalvo, and nothing for Jay-John Belster, ever. He turned around and kicked himself down the yellow corridor.
As he passed the kitchens a face he did know popped out, peered at him, then pulled quickly back inside.
"Tanabe!" he called. The face cautiously reappeared as Dekker moved closer.
Tanabe looked worriedly up and down the hall. "Come inside quickly, DeWoe," he begged. "I don't want anyone else coming here."
Dekker did. As Tanabe was closing the door, he demanded: "Why aren't you in the flare shelter?"
"I will be," Tanabe said, "oh, yes, believe me; I will be there. But there is something I must do first. Can you help me?"
"Help you do what?"
"Open this freezer." Tanabe was tugging him over to the food-storage bins. One hatch had a seal on it, the kind that was used to protect valuable supplies; but it was strangely battered and scratched. "I want to see what's inside there. That asshole Belster came in with Chief Parker a while ago and chased everyone out of the kitchens; then when they let us back in my main freezer was sealed. I want to know what they put in it, so take that cleaver and help me get it open."
"Hold it! That's the station chiefs seal!"
"I do not care whose seal it is. If you won't help me, then just go on to the shelter."
Dekker looked at the man, then at his watch. It was really about time to do that. And he certainly had more important things on his mind than Tanabe's curiosity. But still—
He surrendered. "I didn't say I wouldn't help you. You don't need to break it open, anyway—unless you've wrecked the lock already."
He was pulling his emergency override key out. "Ah, so," Tanabe said, thawing. "Yes, please, DeWoe, that would be much better! Then we can get out of here. Is the key working?"
It was—just barely. Tanabe's assaults had cracked the edge of the slot, but Dekker managed to slide his key in. On the third try the magnetic code caught and the seal opened.
Tanabe pulled it off, and grasped the freezer door handle. It slid wide. A dozen meal packets came floating out, evidently thrust in loose instead of being properly stored. And behind them was something that didn't belong there.
It was a human body, small, curled upon itself. Dead.
"Jesus," Tanabe breathed, appalled. "That's Shiaopin Ye!"
From the door Jay-John Belster's voice said, sharp and nasty, "What the hell are you doing here?" He was holding himself by the door frame, Ven Kupferfeld looking hostile beside him. He glanced at her. "I thought everybody would be in the shelter," he complained.
Dekker straightened to confront them. "What happened to Ye?" he demanded, a moment before he observed that Belster was holding in his hand something that appeared to be—yes, definitely, incredibly, was—a gun.
Dekker faced an unbelievable fact. "You killed her," he said.
"No!" Ven cried. "Not on purpose; it was an accident."
"But," said Belster, grinning, "There may have to be a couple more accidents."
Ven turned and put her hand on his arm. "Damn you, no. We'll put them away somewhere—maybe up by the boards, so somebody can keep an eye on them."
"Why go to that trouble?" Belster asked in a reasonable tone. "Everybody else is safely tucked away in the shelter by now, so nobody's going to interfere. And we've already got one death."
"Because I say so!" Ven said harshly. They were paying more attention to each other than to their prisoners. Beside him Dekker heard a quick intake of breath from Toro Tanabe, and then the Japanese had launched himself, fast and hard, at Belster. The onetime Martian looked around a moment too late; Tanabe's head had driven into his belly. The gun went flying; Belster's knee came up as he squawked in surprise, and it caught Tanabe under the chin. The Japanese was knocked against the wall. He gasped once, and then floated limply away, unmoving.
The gun was drifting toward Dekker DeWoe.
Dekker didn't think about it. He simply pushed himself toward it, grabbed it, held it in his hand, loosely pointed toward Belster and the woman. He had never held a killing weapon before. It felt cold, hard, and unpleasant; the idea of touching it, much less using it, disgusted him.
Belster was slowly untangling himself, clutching his groin. Then he managed a wheezing laugh. "Hey, DeWoe," he said, sounding almost playful, "what the hell do you think you're going to do with that?"
"Stay away from me," Dekker said warningly.
"Now, why would I do that?" Belster was pulling himself along the wall, coming closer. "You know you won't shoot me, don't you? Just hand it over."
He reached out for it
Dekker didn't hand him the gun. But when Belster's fingers closed over the barrel he didn't pull the trigger, either. Then Belster's other fist smashed him in the face, and he tumbled away.
Belster had the gun. "Too much docility training, DeWoe," he said sagely. "And you didn't have enough time on Earth to get over it, did you? Well, Ven, I guess we can fit a couple more in the freezer—"
She looked up from where she was holding Tanabe. "He isn't dead," she objected. "I think he might have a fractured skull, though; he hit the wall pretty hard."
"That's easy enough to take care of," Belster said.
She glanced wildly at Dekker, then shook her head. "It isn't necessary. We'll tie them up somewhere. In a little while it won't matter anyway." Dekker was holding his cheek. He felt the flesh around his eye swelling up, but some things he was beginning to see clearly. "There isn't really a flare, is there?" he asked. "You just wanted to get everybody out of the way so you could do something—" He stopped in the middle of the sentence. "That comet!" he cried.
"Intelligent man," Belster said admiringly. "Yes, we're going to do something with the comet, but there's nothing you can do about it, is there? Now move! We'll try it Ven's way, but don't try anything foolish. Do you understand me? Because the truth of the matter, DeWoe, is that I wouldn't mind killing you at all.