THREE
Sieglinde wasn't alone when she arrived. Derek broke off a chess game with Roseberry to meet her at the airlock. She smiled at him as she came in. Her appearance had changed little in the previous three decades. She was a small, compact woman with short, blonde hair. As she hugged him, he saw the man behind her. He was Chinese, wearing the utterly incongruous robes of a Confucian scholar. He knew this had to be Chih' Chin Fu, another of the legendary figures of what were, to Derek, the "early days" of the independent Island Worlds.
"It's so good to see you, Derek! You know Chih' Chin Fu, don't you? You don't? Well, surely you've heard of him."
"Who hasn't?" Derek said. He took Fu's hand. Spacers never actually shook hands, an operation that could be dangerous in zero-gee. Fu had been the media wizard of the war. While the Confederate forces and the outlaw Defiance Party had fought the military end of the war, Sieglinde had dominated the scientific end and her husband, Thor, had been the leader in Confederate Diplomacy. Throughout, Fu had handled the propaganda war, for years bombarding Earth with a relentlessly accurate picture of exactly what was happening. Everyone agreed that it had been Fu's propaganda campaign, enabled by Sieglinde's inventions, that had finally brought Earth to the peace talks.
"Honored, sir," Derek said. As he looked more closely, he saw that the frail old man before him was actually in his vigorous middle years. The elderly effect was the result of makeup, for what reason he couldn't imagine. People like Sieglinde and Fu were renowned for their eccentricities.
"So you are the young man destined for the history books?" said Fu. "I envy you."
"Maybe on Rhea they'll build a monument to my sore toe," he said. As he led the pair to the lab where the egg was stored, he told them his story. At the lab, Sieglinde stared at the thing in rapt silence for a full twenty minutes, then she turned to Derek.
"Finding it may have been blind luck, " she said, "but getting this one here undetected was sheer genius. From now on, you can write your ticket with the family."
"Actually," Derek said, "what I really need is some fuel. See, I—"
"I brought it. This is an unbelievable opportunity. Now I can conduct my own investigation without bother from those idiots on Aeaea, or the Institute for Arts and Sciences." It seemed odd to hear the most formidable institute for applied technology and the most distinguished body of abstract scientists in human history thus referred to, but Derek said nothing.
"I think," Roseberry said hesitantly, "old Ugo has a message for you, Linde."
"I know he has. He has them for everybody and every occasion. I'll be damned if I'll listen to another one. I still think it was that last one that got poor Thor killed." She looked at the others as if they were strangers. "Excuse me, but I want to be alone with this—this thing. I have some ideas about it. I work better alone."
"Perhaps," Fu said, "we might avail ourselves of Mr. Roseberry's excellent refreshment facilities."
"You talking about the bar?" said Roseberry. "Sure, sure, come on. Linde, don't you starve in here. I seen you like this before."
"Certainly,'' she said, distracted. "Just send in meals. I promise to eat. Now go."
Discreetly, they made their way out. Had their been any real gravity, they would have tiptoed. Sieglinde never took her eyes from the green egg. In the bar, they drew drinks all around. It was a spherical room detached from the main body of the museum and consisted mainly of windows open to the starry vastness of the Belt.
"Now, young Derek," said Fu, "it is time we got to know one another. Since your clan is as numerous as my own, you must forgive me for not having made your acquaintance before this." The Fus were not prominent in the Belt, but there were incredible numbers of them on Luna, on Mars and in the orbital colonies. Chih' Chin was one of the elders and by far the most famous of them. "Do you know Sieglinde well?"
"I've seen her maybe a dozen times in my life," he admitted. "Mostly at family functions—weddings and funerals and so forth. She's not what you'd call one of the family favorites." He hastened to avoid a misunderstanding. "I mean, it's not like anyone's hostile, it's just," he groped for words, "I guess we're all in awe of her."
Fu smiled. "She is not the most approachable of women. I must tell you her story some time. The real one, not the one everybody learns in school. My old friend Thor was probably the only human being to penetrate beneath the armoring she constructed around herself. She is not always as forbidding as when hot on the trail of some new scientific principle."
"Fine woman," Roseberry said. "Crazier'n hell, but a fine woman." He nodded in vigorous agreement with himself.
"One way or another," Fu said, "your discovery shall be of tremendous significance. It could not have come at a better time for us. Sieglinde believes that it may turn the balance in our favor for the coming conflict."
What conflict? Derek thought. "Does she know what it is?"
"She has a theory, based on the data released so far by Aeaea. On the way here she was devising tests to prove or disprove this theory. She did not tell me much."
"You mentioned a conflict. I've been sort of out of touch in the Saturn orbit. Has something been going on?"
"Ah, the young," Fu said with a heavy sigh. "They have so little grasp of public affairs. Of course, their elders have little more, but that is no excuse."
Derek dialed himself a beer. He was in no hurry.
"The last few years," Fu continued, "our peace with Earth has become increasingly fragile. A complete break is not far off. A new generation of leaders is gaining power, the economic and environmental situations are growing more desperate—"
"They have only themselves to blame," Derek said.
"And they certainly aren't going to do that, so who does that leave for them to blame? It has to be us, and the answer has to be another war."
"Another war?" There had been no wars in his lifetime, and it wasn't something the Confederates glorified. Life could be hard and dangerous enough without people deliberately trying to kill one another. Once piracy, hijacking and raiding had been a constant hazard in the Belt, but no longer. After the Space War, the Confederacy had made use of the extensive intelligence and security networks built during the conflict to obliterate the outlaw gangs. Under the leadership of the redoubtable Hjalmar Taggart, the campaign had been brief and brutal. Since then, criminal activity had been rare. The Belt was no longer used as a dumping ground for Earth's undesirables, and the rougher element among the immigrants had settled into steady, if hard-bitten, citizens.
That was the elimination of one hazard. There were others in plenty. Space was the most unforgiving of environments, with the possible exception of ocean depths. The slightest mistake was usually rewarded with instant death. Even using the greatest care, disaster could come from sheer bad luck. Systems failures and particle collisions took a tragic toll, and every year dozens of vessels and their crews simply disappeared. Prosperous colonies were occasionally discovered with all personnel dead, and sometimes, mysteriously, found abandoned.
As a result of the uncertainty of space life, the Belt dwellers had become cheerfully fatalistic. You did your best, and if you got killed anyway, that was tough luck. There were definite advantages to the life for those with the guts to live it. Low-to zero gravity eliminated many physical infirmities and bestowed a greater life span. Second and more important, spacers were the freest human beings that had ever lived. At least, they believed themselves to be, which was the same thing.
War was something else. Derek had seen violent death in plenty, amid the dangers of asteroid life, but the organized butchery of warfare was something different. If anybody would know about it, it would have to be Chih' Chin Fu.
"Do you think it'll happen soon?" he asked.
"Much may depend upon the nature of your artifact. It may be the answer to the problems that have defeated Sieglinde since the last war."
Derek knew something of what Fu was talking about. In the years after the war, Sieglinde had labored over the obstacles to superluminal travel, and had reached a dead end every time. She had hoped to have large-scale emigration to the stars under way within twenty years, but her development of Ciano's pioneering work had never reached fruition, due to the inadequacy of the technology. Despite her many successes, these failures had cost her. Lesser, envious scientists used them to accuse her of being a mere crackpot.
"How is this thing going to affect a war?" he asked.
"We shall have to wait for her to tell us," Fu said. "But I have had many years to learn respect for her judgment. She has never disappointed me and has invariably confounded her adversaries. That is a good record."
"Looks like we're headed excitin' times," Roseberry said. "I was hoping I was through with that kind of thing."
"Come, Mr. Roseberry," Fu said, "surely you are not intimidated by another time of danger?"
"Naw, I was just hoping to be on my way out of the solar system by now anyhows."
"We might still make it in our lifetime, Mr. Roseberry," Fu said. "Sieglinde has only dropped hints, but I believe she thinks the Rhea Objects are tied to some sort of propulsive device, and that she might be able to duplicate them."
"She's come up with that already?"
"I have no idea," Fu said, "but I have learned never to discount her hunches."
By the time Derek reached Avalon, the initial flurry of interest in the Rhea Object was waning. There had been no immediate revelations from it, and there were always plenty of other things to occupy people's attention. Avalon was the capital of the Confederacy of Island Worlds and it always swarmed with activity. Government functions were minimal, but business was roaring along at a great clip.
Cyrano safely docked, fees paid and reprovisioning operations arranged, Derek happily made his way toward the Hall of the Mountain King, social center of Avalonian life. He had expected some kind of hero's welcome as the discoverer of the alien artifact, but nobody paid him any special attention. This seemed to be a clear case of injustice, but he was prepared to live with it as long as nobody found out that he had secreted away a second egg.
HMK had been expanded greatly over the years and was by then the largest non-planetary open area in existence. Avalon's spin gave it artificial gravity, roughly Earth normal at the equator near the outer skin of the asteroid, dwindling to zero-gee at the axis. Within the huge, wheel-shaped chamber were stacked tiers of business facilities, provisioning yards, restaurants, hotels, entertainment centers, media facilities and other attractions, in vast profusion. Everything seemed to be thronged. He had come through an access tunnel onto a tier devoted mainly to entertainment. There were roughly equal numbers of tiers above him and below.
"Derek!" He turned. Recognition at last. Then he saw who it was. "You owe me, boy! You and your friends busted up my place and I intend to be paid. You want the debt police after you?" The debt police were mythical. The phrase meant that Derek stood in danger of being posted as a deadbeat or welsher. In Belt society, that was several degrees lower than being dead.
It had been a graduation party months ago that had grown a bit raucous toward the end. Derek muttered as he handed over his credit crystal. "There were twenty of us at that party. Why didn't you get one of the others?"
"You were the first one to show his face." The barkeeper fed the crystal into his belt counter, then handed it back. "Besides, you're the one who discovered that thing, so I knew you'd be able to pay up."
"Nice to know my fame is good for something." He broke off when he saw the man who was coming toward him with an intent, bouncy stride. "Oh, no." It was François Kuroda, possibly his least favorite living relative. There were, however, many others in competition for that position.
"I heard you got fired," François said without preamble.
"I quit," Derek insisted. "It's different. What kind of welcome is this, anyway? I made the most important discovery in the history of humanity and I get treated like an Earthie."
"The way I heard it," François said, "you practically tripped over the damned thing. Nobody's found a use for it anyway. What kind of discovery is that? I also happen to know you left your job broke and low on fuel, and here you are after a mysterious absence getting your ship reprovisioned and your fuel topped off. I just saw you repay Fischetti for busting up his place. Where did this sudden wealth come from?"
"I put the touch on a soft-hearted relative," Derek said with his best fake sincerity.
"Crap. You don't have any soft-hearted relatives. Just us."
"Who appointed you my watchdog?"
"Ulric," François said, grinning.
Derek winced. This sounded bad. Ulric Kuroda was the head of clan security. One of his duties was the disciplining of members who strayed too far from clan standards of propriety. He lacked a reputation for tolerance. "I suppose he wants to talk to me."
"Immediately," François confirmed. "Come on."
They walked to a tube station for the short ride to the old Sidon mining site, where the Kurodas had their stronghold. All the way, Derek kept hoping for a reporter to stop him for an interview about his exotic find. Nobody seemed to be interested.
The Sidon district was a large, mined-out hollow surrounded by residential tiers. More than half of them were claimed by the Kurodas and collateral families of the extended clan. The warren was protected by the latest vault doors and all units were interconnected by a maze of tunnels, in which certain family members were rumored to be still wandering around lost after a massive party at the Ciano place twenty years previously.
The largest door was marked with the Kuroda plum-blossom mon. It slid open at their approach and a battery of security devices trained on them just in case the door's system had been faulty. The place seemed to be deserted, which was nothing unusual. The family's mining and freighting operations kept most members on their ships or at their sites most of the time.
"After you," François said, gesturing toward a door bearing Ulric's personal wolf-head crest.
Derek took a deep breath. The spin-induced gravity at Sidon was Mars-normal, about one-third of Earth's. He tried to use the gravity to achieve a confident stride as he walked into the wolf's den.
Ulric sat cross-legged on the polished stone floor, glaring up at him from beneath bushy white eyebrows. His silver hair flowed almost to his shoulders and a walrus mustache overhung his piranha mouth. His black coverall was embroidered with a wolf-mask in silver thread.
"Greetings, Elder Uncle," Derek began formally.
"Hand it over, nephew," Ulric barked, holding out a platter-sized palm.
"Hand over what?" Uh-oh, he thought.
"Don't insult my intelligence! I mean the other artifact! You found more than one, didn't you?"
Derek assumed a look of wounded innocence. "Who, me?"
Ulric's ice-blue eyes went into liquid-nitrogen mode. "Don't talk like an idiot, you product of a sperm bank for the hopelessly defective! Do you believe your elders have lost their capacity to think logically? Your recent actions are so transparent I am ashamed to call you my kinsman. I could have come up with a more convincing subterfuge while sleeping off a three-day drunk!"
Derek kept silence. This was going to be even worse than he had feared. It never occurred to him to turn and walk away, as was his perfect legal right. Clan obligations went far deeper than mere constitutional technicalities.
Ulric continued his tirade. "You're a glory-hungry young whelp, with an over-inflated idea of your own importance—a common failing of the young. Yet, after finding the now-famous green egg, you did not accompany it back! You passed up your chance to be holographed throughout human-occupied space. You'd have been famous for whole days!
"Instead, you terminated your employment and ran off as if you were publicity-shy; a laughable concept if ever there was one. There is only one possible answer: There was another alien artifact and you made off with it. Now hand it over."
"I have no such thing," Derek said, being truthful after a fashion.
"Then where did you hide it? Don't be cagey with me, Derek. Are you planning to sell it? No, you may be dumb, but you're probably not a crook." Ulric sat back and folded his arms, glaring ferociously. Derek tried not to quake. "Damn!" Ulric muttered at last. "You've given it to that woman, haven't you?" Before Derek could frame an answer, Ulric silenced him with an abrupt wave. "No, don't try lying to me, you just aren't good at it. Everybody wondered why the green egg didn't bring Sieglinde powering into Aeaea on her mythical super-luminal drive."
"She might've been on Earth," Derek said, helpfully. "Or Luna. Or even farther away. It takes a long time—"
"Silence." Somehow, Derek thought, Ulric sounded even deadlier speaking quietly than when raging. "She was here in the stronghold not thirty days ago. Now she's hiding out somewhere with that artifact you gave her, you unthinking young wretch."
Derek decided to drop all pretense. "You're acting like I gave it to some Earthie, or an outsider. Sieglinde's part of the clan; she's a Taggart."
"By marriage," Ulric grumbled. "She's crazier than the Cianos, and they're all lunatics."
"She's the greatest theoretical and experimental physicist alive," Derek said, loyally.
"So she tells everybody. Her faster-than-light schemes have never panned out, but they've cost a bundle."
Derek relaxed a little. The worst seemed to be past. "It's all been her own money."
Ulric twisted the end of his mustache and signaled to Derek to sit. With great relief, the younger man did so. A squat, domed robot with a flat bottom came gliding from a wall on a cushion of air. A pair of low-grav beakers rose through a door in its top. Bubbles rose lazily through amber liquid and raised a slow-motion spray on the surface. Derek took one and sipped it. After all these years, he still couldn't believe that Ulric's favorite drink was champagne.
"It could be worse," Ulric said at last. "My main worry is that that madwoman will destroy the thing trying to take it apart. It was another of the eggs, wasn't it?"
"Yes, identical to the one sent to the Aeaeans, as far as I could see."
"As soon as the Althing hears of this, and believe me they will hear of it, people will be calling for your head. Still, maybe it's not such a bad thing that two are being analyzed independently. But why did you do it?"
Derek finished his beaker and tossed it to the robot for a refill. "First of all, because I knew the McNaughtons would try to claim ownership of it, which seems absurd even if it's legal."
"I'll grant you that. And second?"
"Sieglinde's working on the Drive. Whatever these aliens are or were, they had some kind of interstellar drive to reach Rhea. If there's a chance the thing could help her to break the puzzle, I wanted her to have it."
Ulric seemed almost to smile, but it was hard to tell beneath the overhanging mustache. "So that's it. Still anxious to make the big move, are you?"
"What do you think?" He took a drink from his second beaker. At least it was good champagne. "What's left for us here in this solar system? The resources may be virtually inexhaustible, but the Earthies' patience certainly isn't. It's only a matter of time before there's another war. Anyway, I want to go and see what's out there."
"Only you don't want to spend your entire life covering the first tenth of the journey, is that it?"
"Naturally. Subluminal travel is a dead end at interstellar distances. I want to actually see what other star systems are like. Why else have I been training for planetary activity all my life? I certainly don't plan to go to Earth!" Another thought occurred to him. "When it gets out what I did, the McNaughtons will be after my blood. " His former employer seemed far more dangerous than the rather nebulous Althing, as the Confederate congress was termed.
"Let us worry about the McNaughtons," Ulric said. The families had at various times been friends or fierce rivals. They were connected by marriage ties, but the McNaughtons were not members of the clan. "Still, you're out of a job and you need something to keep you occupied and out of trouble. How would you like to work in security?"
This was unexpected. There had to be a catch somewhere. A man like Ulric just didn't turn off the hostility so easily. "What kind of work?" he asked, cautiously.
"Bait. The Earthies must have agents heading here by now, if they aren't here already. Most will try to break into Aeaea's infonet, but somebody will decide you're worth interrogating. That might be convenient."
At least Ulric hadn't gone soft. "It's good to know the family still finds me valuable. This sounds like dangerous work. What's the pay?"
"Pay?" Ulric looked mortally stricken. "Where's your family loyalty?"
"Where it always is. On the other hand, it wouldn't do to let people think I work cheap."
"Who would know?" Ulric said. "Besides, they'd be after you anyway, even if you weren't working security for me."
"I was thinking of going to a body shop for a new face. I already have several alternate identities worked up. They'd never find me." He watched with satisfaction as Ulric's face went through several color changes. Then he wondered whether he had pushed his luck too far.
"All right," Ulric said when his breathing returned to normal. "Third-level pay with full seniority rights."
"And you'll pick up the payments on Cyrano?" Derek asked.
Ulric stared at him in utter astonishment. "Your insolence surpasses belief. You talk like a Ciano."
"Hell, I'm related to them by about fifteen bloodlines, just like you."
"Out!" Ulric pointed toward the door with a rage-trembling finger. "Get out of here, and don't come back unless you have something worthwhile to report!"
"But what am I supposed to do?" He backed hastily toward the portal.
"Circulate. Go out carousing with your worthless friends. Be prominent and make a target of yourself. What do I care so long as you show results? Rig yourself with recording gear so if you get killed we know who did it."
Derek backed out and the door slid shut, almost catching his nose. He found François still waiting outside with his grin unchanged. "How did it go?" he asked.
"Not bad," Derek said, "I've been hired on with security at third-level pay with full seniority. And he's picking up Cyrano's payment schedule." Thhe look on is cousin's face was worth all the trepidation.