Starfire (29 page)

John found himself once more running the meeting. "It's going to be an interesting few weeks," he said. "We need loads of computers out near Cusp Station. We have all kinds of computational power here, but we can't ship it anywhere else."

"So Mahomet . . ." Will Davis said.

"That's right." In spite of the enormous size of the problem, John felt the thrill of a new technical challenge. "We're heading for the front line—all of us. We'll take this place and fly it all the way out to Cusp Station. And then, assuming that Sky City doesn't disintegrate on the way, and certain people stay out of our hair"—he stared at Star Vjansander, who was grinning at him in delight—"well, then we'll find out if certain harebrained ideas are anywhere close to reality."

18

The face of the man who wanted to see Maddy was familiar, even if she could not attach a name to it. He was—somehow she was not surprised—the sallow, dark-haired man she had seen on the shuttle up. He was leaning nonchalantly against the wall outside, holding under his left arm the same cylindrical black bag with its pink and mauve lining.

He greeted her casually, as though they were old acquaintances.

"I've seen you a coupla times round The Flaunt, and I recognized you on the flight up. You're Maddy Wheatstone. I'm Seth Parsigian. You an' me got the same boss."

"The same boss?" Maddy wasn't ready to give anything away.

"Mister you-know-who. The toxic midget."

In spite of herself, Maddy smiled. "I bet you don't call him that to his face. Do you have identification?"

He did not speak, but he slipped a card from his jacket and passed it to her. He waited as she placed it face-to-face with her own Argos Group card and his image flashed onto its back face.

He raised one dark eyebrow. "Satisfied?"

"Not yet. It doesn't state your division."

"It wouldn't. I'm Special Projects." He grinned at her. "And just to prove that I'm Special Projects, try this one."

He passed a second card to her. Her ID tracer showed the same picture and the same name, Seth Parsigian; but now he was identified as an undersecretary in the French armed services.

He said cheerfully, "I've got three or four more if you want to see 'em."

"Don't bother. So you're Seth Parsigian, and you work in Special Projects for you-know-who. I'm here on a special assignment, too. I don't have time for social chat."

"Good. 'Cause this ain't one." He tucked away the cards. "I need help. If you can do something for me, I'll owe you big-time."

The rules within the Argos Group were quite clear: You helped another member if you could, but not at the price of your own assignment. Another's success would not balance your failure.

There was one exception. "Did GR tell you to ask me to help?"

"Hell, no. If Gordy knew that you and I were even talking, he'd shit bricks."

"Then we shouldn't talk." But Maddy didn't turn and walk away. An ally inside the Argos Group—especially one in Special Projects—might have many uses.

He was watching her with those light, flickering eyes. She had the feeling that he had surveyed her up and down in the first second, made his assessment, and was acting on it.

"Why don't I tell you my problem?" he asked. "I'll be real quick, no more than five minutes. Then you can decide if you'll help or not."

"I'll give you two minutes."

"Fair enough. I've come up here to find the person who killed a dozen teenagers. You know about 'em?"

Maddy thought of Lucille DeNorville's ravaged body. "I know too much. I was there when we found one this afternoon. It was horrible."

"So that's what all the excitement was around security. Another one? He's killed again?"

"No. This was the body of one of the earlier victims, a girl called Lucille DeNorville."

"I remember her. Number seven. Disappeared, but evidence at the scene said she'd had her brains bashed in."

"She had. That and—other things. She'd been badly cut up." Maddy found that she couldn't add details. She went on, "Look, if I could help you, I would. But I don't know much about the murders. You need an expert."

"I've got me an expert. No, I won't say who, so don't even ask. I'm up here tryin' to do the legwork, but it's damn nigh impossible."

"Why? I've been anywhere I wanted to on Sky City. Nobody has bothered me."

"That's because you're a woman. They'll leave you alone. Try bein' an adult male. A man like me, a stranger to Sky City wanderin' round by himself, six people ask who you are and tell you to move on every time you stop to scratch your ass."

Maddy could see why. Seth Parsigian did not have the look of a man she would like to meet in a dark alley, and Sky City was full of dimly lit, empty corridors. She said, "I can't do legwork for you. I wouldn't know how."

"I'm not askin' you to. All I'm saying is, if you were with me when I was doin' walk-arounds, I'd not have amateur sherlocks trailin' me every step I take."

"So you want me to go with you. How do I know you're not the murderer yourself?"

"Trust me. No, I guess that dog won't run. Well, for starters you can check the dates of the murders. You'll find I wasn't on Sky City for any of them."

"I think I'll do that. Now you've had your two minutes, and more."

"An' you're still here."

"I want to talk payback. Suppose I decide to help you. What do I get out of it? What's in it for
me
?"

"You sound like Gordy Rolfe. What do you
want
to get out of it? Can I do somethin' for your job up here? Tit for tat?"

At the beginning of the meeting Maddy would have denied that she needed help. It took only half a second to realize how wrong that was. She had been told to stick with John Hyslop every second of every day. In practice that was impossible. She wasn't with him
now,
for instance, and she didn't know where he was or what he was doing.

She made her decision. "You may be able to help me keep an eye on someone up here—someone whose actions are of direct interest to Gordy Rolfe. Do you know John Hyslop?"

"I know who he is. He's the big-wheel engineer for Sky City and the shield. But I don't
know
him know him."

"Gordy assigned me to watch him, see what he does. I could introduce you. Tit for tat. I help you poke around Sky City, you help me keep an eye on Hyslop."

"Suppose he won't let me?"

"Let me handle that end."

"You say Gordy knows about this?"

"He'll approve. Do you have your communicator hooked into the local system so I can get in touch with you?"

"Give me ten minutes, and I will have."

"Good. I'll call you. If I decide we have a deal, I'll tell you where and when we meet Hyslop."

"You want to check me out first."

"Of course. Do you mind?"

He grinned. "I'd mind more if you didn't. You got a hell of a reputation in Argos—yeah, I've seen your file, did that after I spotted you on the shuttle up. But files can be faked, and there's too many amateurs in this game already." He turned away and said over his shoulder, "Call me, Maddy Wheatstone. Professionals need to stick together."

* * *

A tedious and interminable search of the information banks, both on Sky City and Earthside, found no sign of a Seth Parsigian. No one in the Argos Group matched his detailed description. Maddy was not too surprised. You could look at it the other way round: Anyone in Special Projects who
could
be traced was not right for the job.

When she finally headed for Bruno Colombo's office, John Hyslop was no longer there. Colombo himself was busy in a meeting and unavailable. Goldy Jensen, asked to provide information, was not cooperative.

She looked up from her immaculate desk in the outer office and frowned at Maddy's question. "I don't keep track of everybody on Sky City, you know."

"It's important that I locate John Hyslop."

"Important to whom? I suppose you might try the engineering information center. He spends a lot of time there."

"Where is that?"

"Any of the directories will tell you how to reach it." Goldy turned impatiently away and initiated another call to Earth on Bruno Colombo's behalf. Five lines were already active and two others blinked for attention.

Maddy knew she would get no farther with Goldy. And yet today's rudeness did not feel deliberate. It was more as if Goldy Jensen was working under unusual pressure and had no time for her normal discourtesy.

The feeling of pressure persisted as Maddy used a directory to find the location of the engineering information center and made her way toward it. Everyone she passed gave off an impression of urgency. Something important was going on inside Sky City. Everybody but Maddy seemed to know what it was.

As she moved upward toward the lower-numbered levels—the engineering information center, to her surprise, lay far from Bruno Colombo's office and close to the axis of Sky City—she left a message for Seth Parsigian. He was to meet her in an hour unless she called and canceled. The limited information in her Argos data base confirmed Seth's position, but it did not indicate that he knew anything about space activities. Rather the opposite. Like Maddy, he was ground-based. It added to the mystery of his presence. Why would Gordy Rolfe send his Special Projects head to look for a murderer out here?

Maddy did not consider calling Earth for answers. Gordy played his games at multiple levels, and he delighted in withholding information from his staff—even information that would help them. He also kept his projects tightly compartmentalized. Maddy might have guessed that Gordy had other operatives working on Sky City, just as he had them in every major facility and government on Earth. They were engaged in everything from bribery (certain, from Maddy's personal knowledge) to assassination (rumored, but, knowing Gordy, she was willing to believe it). She would learn of no other Argos Group members on Sky City unless, like Seth Parsigian, they broke Gordy Rolfe's rules and identified themselves.

She had almost reached level zero. The low-gee environment of Sky City's axis added physical discomfort to Maddy's mental uncertainties. Her stomach still did not approve of free fall, and she had no idea what she would say to John Hyslop. The last time they were together she had fallen apart and practically wept on his shoulder. He hadn't seemed to mind, though if Gordy Rolfe had been there he would have fired her on the spot.

The sign beside the door of the chamber ahead stated in crude block capitals: INFORMATION CONTROL. AUTHORIZED ENGINEERING PERSONNEL ONLY. So far as Maddy could tell, no one on Sky City paid any attention to instructions like that. Security, even after all the murders, was nonexistent in this part of the city. Also nonexistent, it seemed, was any interest in decor. Out on the perimeter Bruno Colombo occupied an office where walls, furniture, and carpets were exquisitely balanced in style and tone. Here on the axis the paint and fittings had apparently been selected and installed by a color-blind monkey.

Engineers.
What was she doing, letting herself get involved with one?

She floated through the open door and looked inside. Good. John was there. But he was not alone. Half a dozen people sat with him in reclining chairs. They were all staring at a three-dimensional hologram of Sky City. The display, ten feet across, was slowly turning around its central axis. The one-minute rotation period matched the leisurely spin of the structure itself. Maddy had a full view of the whole space city for the first time. The wide, flat pill of the disk seemed solid and substantial, in contrast to the delicate axial spikes that connected the main body of Sky City to the power-generation plant on one side and the shield simulation chamber on the other.

Maddy recognized two of the other people in the room with John: Will Davis, the lanky, skeptical Welshman whom John had introduced her to three days ago, and Lauren Stansfield, the cold-eyed woman with the antique hair comb and the queenly walk, whom Maddy had met and probably deeply shocked when she was drugged to the gills on Asfanil. Maddy's minimal self-control on that occasion must have made a disastrous first impression.

Confirmation: Lauren Stansfield greeted Maddy with a welcoming scowl. John Hyslop gave her a single puzzled glance and went on talking. "Sky City was designed as a free-orbiting structure. So naturally, nothing more than station-keeping movements to maintain the right geosynch orbit were ever anticipated. We're facing an unprecedented situation. We can attach mirror-matter boosters at any or all of these places." He did something to the panel on his lap, and dozens of flashing points of yellow appeared on the hologram. "We already have attitude control engines at each of those sites, so the new installation ought to be easy. But we're dealing with a structure that masses millions of tons, and it has to travel over a hundred thousand kilometers." He turned to a slim girl who seemed to be in her early teens. "Amanda, did you check the accelerations?"

Amanda Corrigan. The computer specialist on John Hyslop's old team. Skinny, angular, no figure. Just a kid.
Nothing to do with the Aten asteroid project. Why was she with John now? Why were
any
of them here? Including John. Had they asked him for help? What he was talking about had nothing to do with his current assignment.

Amanda Corrigan was nodding. She, too, had given Maddy a single glance, then ignored her. "I did a worst case, then a most probable case. I've put both of them in the simulation files, so anybody who wants to can take a look. One open question is the travel time. Torrance and Will think it will need at least four weeks to install a low-intensity beam and pulse generator on Cusp Station, and until those are working there's no point in computing anything. Also, John and Lauren estimate that it will take a couple of weeks to install the thrustors here. So for purposes of analysis I assumed a three-week travel time."

The others all nodded in agreement. Maddy was bewildered. It was as though she had been transported to a foreign country where she understood not one word of the language. Move Sky City? If so, where and why? But it was a bad time to interrupt with questions. Amanda Corrigan was talking again.