Kaufman reached out and touched the artifact.
“A kick in the head, right?” Magdalena said. “All this time all the good citizens of the Solar System thought this thing was there, protecting them at setting eleven. And Stefanak had it here, instead. Why was that, Lyle? You’re the fellow soldier.”
“I don’t know,” Kaufman said. Magdalena’s mocking tone was back to normal, but her eyes glittered like broken glass, and her body was so taut that every muscle would ache by evening. “Ethan, I’d like to see Tom Capelo.”
McChesney glanced at him bleakly. “As soon as we’re done here and the Sans Merci takes off.”
Kaufman didn’t argue. Hiding the artifact from Pierce was priority one. He didn’t ask what McChesney had told, was going to tell, the Sans Merci crew. Kaufman knew. They were going to have to stay on World until it was safe to send for them, maybe years. They wouldn’t be told this until they had all been ferried down and scattered into hiding among the tiny villages or in the Neury Mountains. It would be hard for Pierce’s soldiers to find thirty men on an entire planet, especially when they didn’t know they were supposed to be looking. As for the Sans Merci, she would be sent to burn up in World’s atmosphere.
Probably only the captain and exec knew all this now. Whatever deal Magdalena was cutting with them would undoubtedly make it worth their enforced exile.
Marbet said to McChesney, “There’s an alien girl aboard the Sans Merci. She has to be dropped off by shuttle at coordinates I’ll give you.”
“An alien girl?”
“It’s a complicated story,” Kaufman said, and McChesney clearly had no interest in hearing it.
Nor did he pay attention to Marbet, who said dearly, “Do you realize you’re restoring shared reality to this planet?”
Restoring shared reality. Kaufman hadn’t realized, either, hadn’t stopped to think about it. Oh, Ann … after all the work you’ve done to create a society without it! Enli, Calin, the village with its barely weathered stockade … Not priority one. Ann would cope. World would cope. Kaufman’s concern was the entire galaxy.
Setting prime thirteen, according to Tom Capelo, could destroy it by altering the fabric of spacetime itself.
Kaufman waited for McChesney to take him to Capelo.
TWENTY
ABOARD THE MURASAKI
My God, it’s the cavalry. Or are you the savages, Lyle?”
“Hello, Tom,” Kaufman said, surprised at how glad he was to see Capelo. After months of seeing Tom’s face, and then his daughter’s, on the news holo, months of speculation about whether the physicist was dead or alive … and here he was. Thin, but Tom had always been thin. Intense. Furious.
“What the fuck are you doing here? What the fuck am I doing here? Are you here to give me more military orders from El Generalissimo Stefanak?”
“No, I’m here as a civilian,” Kaufman said, because he had to start somewhere.
“My family?”
Kaufman hesitated. But truth had always been the only way to deal with Capelo; everything else cost too much later on. “Your wife and younger daughter are fine. Amanda seems to have disappeared. We hoped she was with you.”
Capelo went ashen. “She … she wasn’t even home when I was abducted.”
“Apparently she was. The news holos said she left her swimming class early. Her friends said she told them she was going home. Tom, there’s no evidence that whoever took her took you, and in fact if that were the case, she’d probably be here with you. There’s been no political demands, no ransom requests. If they didn’t take her along with you, my guess is that she hid in the house and then later went into hiding somewhere.” Kaufman hoped this was true.
A little of the color returned to Capelo’s face. “She’s an unusually resourceful kid.”
“I believe it,” Kaufman said. He’d decided on a strategy: Hit Capelo hard with everything at once. “Tom, we need to talk to you quickly. A lot has happened, and we think the artifact might be used at setting prime thirteen in the same star system as the Falters’ artifact.”
“No one would be stupid enough to do that, not even Stefanak.”
“Stefanak’s dead. Nikolai Pierce brought off a military coup.”
“Pierce? He’s crazy as a syphilitic shark!”
Kaufman had never heard a more apt description. “Yes. He didn’t know the artifact was actually here, aboard the Murasaki … did you?”
“Of course I did, what do you suppose Stefanak’s thugs brought me here for? Soldiers know nothing about science. They were stupid enough to think that a theoretical physicist has to actually be in the presence of a phenomenon to do its math, Good thing they weren’t trying to force Sarinsen to extend his work on black holes.”
Marbet said, “What were they trying to get you to do?”
“Figure out why the artifact affected brain functioning. Stefanak refused to put it in the Solar System until he knew it wasn’t going to turn his soldier’s brains into pulp. Although I don’t know how he’d tell the difference. Hello, Marbet. Hello, McChesney. The jailer himself—I’m honored.”
So that was the reason the artifact—and Tom—were here. Not that it mattered now. Kaufman said, “The artifact is on its way back down to World. Pierce didn’t know where it was; evidently Stefanak kept that information highly restricted. But he’ll learn eventually, and he’ll come after it, and we think he’ll use it to try to fry the Fallers’ home system. We’re trying to prevent that.”
Capelo stared. “Well, aren’t you three the reverse Prometheuses. Promethei. And when Pierce’s army gets here and finds our merry little band?”
“That’s why we’re leaving. Now. Get together anything that identifies you and—”
“There isn’t a whole lot. The kidnappers didn’t let me gather up the family photo album.”
“—wipe the ship system of any work you did while you were here. Now.”
“I’m moving, don’t turn all authoritarian on me, Lyle. And just how are we leaving? Is Colonel McChesney graciously loaning us a flyer plus free passage? He shouldn’t—who the hell is that?”
Magdalena burst in, shoving Marbet out of the way. McChesney must have escaped her briefly, but here she was again, and even Kaufman stepped out of her way. She looked as if any contact with her would burn. He had never seen such eyes: desperate, frightening, pathetic.
“Is my son with you? Laslo Damroscher? My son?”
Something in her question, half demand and half plea, quelled Capelo’s usual sarcasm. Kaufman remembered that he, too, had a daughter missing.
Capelo said gently, “No, ma’am, I don’t have your son here, or anyone’s son. I’ve been imprisoned here alone for months, and transported around the galaxy alone for months before that. I’m sorry.”
“He was with you! You spoke to him!”
Too late, Kaufman saw the tsunami coming. He tried to head it off. “Magdalena, it—”
“Listen!” She pulled the data cube from her pocket, the same cube Kaufman had heard on World. The two drunken, young, stupid voices filled the room.
“Thass not ‘sposed to be there.” Laslo’s voice, very drunk.
“What isn’t supposed to be where?” Another young man, sounding marginally less drunk. “Just an asteroid.”
“Isn’t ’sposed to be there. Hand me ’nother fizzie.”
“They’re gone. You drunk the last one, you pig.”
“No fizzies? Might as well go home.”
“Just an asteroid. No … two asteroids.”
“Two!” Laslo said, with pointless jubilation.
“Where’d they come from? Isn’t supposed to be there. Not on computer.”
“N-body problem. Gravity. Messes things up. Jupiter.”
“Let’s shoot ’em!”
“Yeah!” Laslo cried, and hiccuped.
“What kinda guns you got on this thing? No guns, prob’ly. Fucking rich-boy pleasure craft.”
“Got … got guns put on it. Daddy-dad doesn’t know. I
llegals.”
“You’re a bonus, Laslo.”
“Goddamn true. Mummy doesn’t know either. ’Bout the guns.”
“You sure ’bout that? Isn’t much your famous mother don’t know. Or do. God, that body, I saw her in an old—”
“Shut up, Conner,” Laslo said savagely. “Computer, activate … can’t remember the word…”
“Activate weapons. Jesus, Laslo. YOU gotta say it. Voice cued.”
“Activate weapons!”
“Hey, a message from th’asteroid! People! Maybe there’s girls.”
“You are approaching a highly restricted area,” a mechanical voice said. “Leave this area immediately.”
“It don’t want us,” Conner said. “Shoot it!”
“Wait … maybe…”
“You are approaching a highly restricted area. Leave this area immediately.”
“Fucking snakes,” Conner said. “Shoot it!”
“I…”
“Fucking coward!”
“THIS IS YOUR LAST WARNING! YOU HAVE INVADED A HIGHLY RESTRICTED AND HIGH-DANGER AREA LEAVE IMMEDIATELY OR YOUR CRAFT WILL BE FIRED ON!”
And then a fourth voice, speaking rapidly, “Unknown Craft … SOS … Help! I’m being held prisoner here—This is Tom Capelo—”
The very brief, high-pitched whine.
“Oh my God,” Capelo said. “That was me, before they moved me. I had rigged a short-range transmitter—stupid keepers had no idea what I needed for my work, I wish I’d asked for a proton beamer. They might have given me one. The flyer turned up on the asteroid’s screen, I could break that firewall easily enough, and I sent a message—”
“A message that caused the other craft to be captured, right? We know that much,” Kaufman said loudly. He stood behind Magdalena, nodding at Capelo. He didn’t really expect this crude ruse to work: Capelo Was too insensitive and Magdalena too sharp. But Kaufman was wrong. Something—maybe empathy over a missing child—boosted Capelo’s sensitivity. And unwillingness to know dulled Magdalena’s. It was a clear indicator of her delusions.
“Yes,” Capelo said, “my message caused the other craft to be captured. But they didn’t put the occupants here with me. They must have taken them … somewhere else.”
Magdalena’s body sagged in disappointment. “Do you have any idea where? Any idea at all?”
“No.” Capelo’s eyes were miserable with sympathy.
“Then we have to leave instantly. I need to reach my contacts in Caligula space, before Pierce replaces them all. Come with me to the shuttle, Ethan. Dr. Capelo, thanks for nothing.” She swept out.
Capelo said to Kaufman, “What the hell—”
“Tell you later. But she’s right, we have to leave instantly, and we need her contacts. Do you know who she is?”
“No.”
“Magdalena.”
“I still don’t know who she is,” Capelo said, and Kaufman realized yet again how far removed the mental stores of physicists were from those of everybody else.
“Never mind. Come on, Tom.”
Capelo said flatly, “Her son’s dead.”
“I know. Let’s go.”
“I’m coming. Although if you’ve really sent the artifact back down, and if Pierce has no idea where it is, there’s probably less hurry than you think. How long ago was this coup?”
“About a week.”
“Well, think, Lyle. If any of Stefanak’s men who knew the artifact’s location, and mine, were still alive, they’d probably have been here by now to do something. If Pierce is just looking at random, it could be months before he catches a clue. I mean, how could he know where Stefanak was likely to stash the thing, given the entire tunnel system?”
“I don’t know. But I don’t have your faith in randomness, either.”
“Not randomness, Lyle. Probability. That’s my field, remember? My touchstone, my livelihood, my curse, my—”
Alarms sounded all over the ship.
“What is it?” Marbet said. “Lyle?”
Kaufman had already run to Capelo’s terminal, keyed in the standard codes connecting officers to bridge information from anywhere on the ship.
“Lyle?”
“We’re under attack,” Kaufman said. “Human ships. Four of them, coming through from Caligula space.
“Pierce’s force is here.”
* * *
Magdalena heard the alarms. They pulled her out of despair, and she was obliquely grateful.
Laslo hadn’t been with Capelo. Not ever. She had wasted weeks tracing him and his princess daughter, all for nothing. She was no closer to finding where that bastard Stefanak had actually imprisoned Laslo. She’d have to start all over again.
The important thing was to use her Caligula System contacts as soon as possible. Major Hofsetter, in charge of space tunnel traffic, had passed her through the Tunnel #438 to World in the first place; his commander hadn’t even known about it. Of course, Hofsetter, that fat ugly profiteer, had hated doing it. But Magdalena had known exactly how Nate Hofsetter was making millions off the war on the black market—was, in fact, making them with the cooperation of one of Magdalena’s dummy corporations—and so he hadn’t had much choice.
Hofsetter wasn’t among the navy that Pierce would have replaced. Neither Pierce nor Hofsetter knew she knew it, but a percentage of Hofsetter’s profiteering gains went back to Pierce. Hofsetter was safe. The Caligula commander, on the other hand, General Donnor, was probably already dead. A loyal Stefanak soldier. Well, good riddance to her. Magdalena had always found it a pain in the ass to work around the bitch.
Hofsetter wouldn’t know where Laslo was, but if she pressured hard enough, he might know someone somewhere with access to Special Project information. She’d have to press pretty hard. It would cost her.
Damn Laslo! Children never understood the trouble they caused their parents. Laslo was no different from the rest. When she found him, they’d have a major reckoning. When she found him … when she found him … Capelo had said …
For just a moment, her certainty almost cracked. Then the alarms sounded.
Alarms! They were under attack. Pierce’s forces from Caligula, oh, God. Well, it just meant she had to start negotiations earlier. Hofsetter might be with them. If not, she’d be able to get to him.
The others, however, Kaufman and Grant and Capelo and McChesney, were dead men walking.
Magdalena ran along the corridor to the conference room, alarms sounding in her ears. Rory and Kendai ran beside her. She burst in, and Kaufman was still there. Capelo had gone, probably, with McChesney. Now that she thought about it, Magdalena could see that Capelo would be all right. Pierce would want to exhibit him, the great physicist abducted by Stefanak but rescued by Pierce’s heroic troops as they restored order to the galaxy.
She said rapidly to Kaufman, “Get up on the bridge with Capelo, you idiot. That’s your only chance. If he protects you, if he threatens to tell the press how you were murdered by Pierce’s troops, then they won’t kill you. They can’t. Get up there!”
“I was coming to look for you,” Kaufman said. “We’re not going to play it that way, Magdalena. Tom and Marbet are in hiding. I don’t want you to tell anyone they were ever aboard. Please.”
“Not tell—”
“You don’t have anything to gain from telling them that Tom and Marbet are here. Nothing. And they won’t give you any truth drugs, will they? Not yet. They already know why you’re here.”
She suddenly remembered that the Faraday cage was still up in this room. Nothing was being recorded or detected.
“Kaufman, you’re a moron. They’ll give you a Pandya Dose, not to mention McChesney and Chand.”
“Not if they think I’m just another sailor on this ship.”
“They’ll check the ship’s roster.”
“Maybe. In that case, they’ll uncover me. But I think they’re mostly interested in the artifact. Once they have it, they may just leave with it. I don’t think Pierce
is planning on warehousing it here the way Stefanak did.”
Of course he wasn’t. Magdalena said, “McChesney and Chand—”
“Can’t tell them anything.” His face didn’t change; he was a soldier. But Magdalena understood what he meant. Chand assumed she would be leaving too publicly to take him with her. Ethan McChesney and Prabir Chand were already dead.
She said harshly, “Ethan wasn’t alive anymore anyway.”
“No,” Kaufman agreed. “The moral center of his universe collapsed.”
“Some people hinge their entire universe on one thing, and when that goes, they crumple,” Magdalena said with scorn. “Weaklings.”
Kaufman was watching her very closely. Something moved behind his eyes. Magdalena didn’t like it.
“All right, Lyle. I’ll go along with your desperate scheme. As you point out, I don’t have anything to gain by turning you in. So I never saw you or Capelo or our famous redheaded Sensitive. Good luck.”
She turned and strode out, toward the bridge. That’s where the takeover would be. She had work to do. She had to explain why the artifact was now streaking toward the planet in her ship. (“McChesney commandeered it.”) She had to explain why she was in the World system in the first place (“Business interests”—embarrassing details furnished if pressed). She had, most of all, to start a second search for Laslo.
Despite herself, Magdalena felt a rush throughout her entire body. Maneuvering, plotting, trumping the opposition. This was what she did best. She was back in the game.
TWENTY-ONE
ABOARD THE MURASAKI
After Kaufman had secured Magdalena’s cooperation—to the extent anything connected with her could be “secure”—he moved swiftly to ship’s laundry. McChesney had given him the access code. Inside, ‘bots busily cleaned clothing and bedding, unaware and uncaring that the ship was under attack. If the Murasaki were blown up, it would be with clean uniforms for all hands.
Kaufman put on the uniform of a seaman first class. This crew had been cooped up together for two years and knew each other all too well. But Commander Chand had apprised his officers of the situation, and they would order the crew to say nothing. It had been Chand’s last order.