Empyrion I: The Search for Fierra (6 page)

“I think you'll see that all is in order, Mr. Treet,” Varro said after a suitable time. “Will you sign now?”

“Yes, it's all in order. You've thought of everything.” Treet handed the contract back. “Fill in the amounts and I'll sign.”

Varro already had a pen in his hand. “Three million upon signing—” He scratched on the pale yellow paper. “Three million on completion of your assignment, and two million in trust.”

“That's eight million!” Treet couldn't help shouting. Had Varro lost his senses?

“Yes, I am aware of that, Mr. Treet,” Varro explained. “I have been instructed by Chairman Neviss to double any figure we agree upon as a demonstration of our goodwill—also, as a token of the Chairman's high regard for your abilities. He is very pleased that you are undertaking this assignment for him.”

Treet swallowed hard. Eight million dollars! It was a blooming miracle! He stared open-mouthed at Varro, who looked up from his writing. “Was there something you wished to say, Mr. Treet?”

“N-no,” Treet said, licking his lips. “It's fine. Everything's fine.”

“Good. Now then, if you will sign here—” Varro slid the contract toward him and placed the pen in his hand.

After only a brief pause to remember who he was, Treet managed to scrawl his full name. Dazed, he stared at the signature on the document and at the figures Varro had neatly inscribed. Eight million!

“We're almost finished,” said Varro. He flipped to the last page of the contract and pulled a piece of tape from the paper, revealing two shiny squares of about six centimeters each side by side. Varro pressed his thumb firmly in the middle of one of the squares, and then initialed the box. “Your turn, Mr. Treet.”

Treet pressed his thumb onto the second shiny box and saw that when he removed it, the film had recorded a precise duplicate of his thumbprint. He looked up at Varro and said, “Now what?”

Varro folded up the contract and stuffed it back into the envelope. He glanced at his watch and rose quickly. “It is nearly time to go, Mr. Treet. We'll have to hurry, I'm afraid.”

“What? Hold on!”

“Please, as I have explained, time is short.”

“Yes, but I thought… you mean I'm leaving tonight?”

“Right now. You're boarding within the hour.”

Treet sat stubbornly. “But—”

Varro looked at him sharply. “I assumed you understood. That's why I came here this evening.”

“You don't give a guy much of a chance to enjoy his good fortune. When do I get my money, by the way?”

“It will be waiting for you at the shuttle. Shall we?” Varro gestured toward the door.

“I haven't packed or anything. I'll need—”

“I don't recall that you arrived with any luggage. Did you?”

“No,” Treet admitted, remembering the way he had been shanghaied in the skyport. Not that it much mattered—he was, after all, wearing his entire wardrobe. “No luggage.”

“Just as I thought. Therefore, I've taken the liberty of arranging for suitable kit and clothing to be provided. You'll find everything waiting for you aboard the shuttle.” The round-headed man glanced quickly at his watch again. “Now, we really must be going.”

Treet stood up and looked around the apartment one last time as if he were being evicted from his childhood home. Then he shrugged, picked up the bottle of wine and his glass, and followed Varro out.

Treet expected a quick
flight back to the skyport and a lengthy preboarding passenger check which would culminate in a seat aboard a commercial shuttle to one of the orbiting transfer stations where he'd join a Cynetics transport heading secretly for Epsilon Eridani.

Instead, he and Varro took a long elevator ride down—so far down that he imagined the bottom had dropped out of the elevator shaft—eventually arriving at a subterranean tunnel where two men in standard Cynetics uniforms awaited them in an electric six-wheeler. Stepping from the elevator the moment the doors slid open, they climbed into the cart and were off, humming along the wide, low corridor whose illuminated walls cast bright white light over them.

The driver kept his foot to the floor the entire trip, and Treet, with the bottle between his knees, held onto the passenger handgrips and watched the smooth, featureless interior slide by. He felt like a bullet traveling through an endless gun barrel. No one said a word; both attendants kept their eyes straight ahead, and Varro seemed preoccupied with thoughts of his own. Twice he glanced at his watch, and then returned his gaze to the tunnel ahead.

At last the cart slowed as it rounded a slight curve and came to a gateway—a squatty set of burnished metal doors, guarded by a tollbooth arrangement and two more uniformed men who carried unconcealed stunners on their hips. Varro waved and one of the guards hurried forward with a press plate, which Varro took, pressing his hand flat to its black surface.

Instantly the right-hand door slid open just wide enough to admit the six-wheeler. With a jerk, the driver bolted through the gap and they entered another corridor, slightly larger than the first. This tunnel wound around a tight corner and unexpectedly opened into a gigantic cavern of a room.

Treet blinked in surprise as the cart rounded the last turn and sped into the enormous chamber. Lights—red, yellow, blue—burned down like varicolored suns from a ceiling seventy-five meters above, forming great pools of light on the vast plain of the floor. Across this plain they raced, gliding in and out of the pools of light. First red, then blue, then yellow—plunging through light and shadow like minidays and nights until at last they came to a slope-sided metal bank which rose up from the floor.

Around this bank swarmed several score men and women—each dressed in an orange one-piece uniform. They were, Treet noticed, entering and emerging from the bank by way of numerous passages cut into the face. Some of these workers pushed airskids loaded with duralum cargo carriers, while others dashed here and there with mobiterms in their hands.

The driver parked the cart in a recharging stall near one of the passages, and Varro turned, saying, “Here we are, Mr. Treet. And not a moment too soon. Shall we?”

Treet got out of the cart, handed his bottle to the driver, and followed Varro through the passage. On the other side, glittering in a bath of white light, looking like a dragonfly poised for flight, a shuttlecraft stood on its stilt legs. The vehicle was smaller than a commercial craft by more than half, Treet estimated; but it was far more graceful and streamlined than the stubby, rotund taxis of the airlines.

The heatcones of two large engines swelled the skin of the craft on the underside near the center, then flared gracefully along the belly to end in a bulge at the rear of the vessel. Thin, knifelike wings slashed out from grooves along the upper back. Once in space, the wings would be retracted and solar panels affixed in their place. Along the side and beneath the wings, lettered in bright sky blue, was the shuttle's name:
Zephyros.
An escalator ramp joined the main hatch, which was open.

“Some boat,” remarked Treet, but Varro was already striding toward the ramp, across a tangle of cables and hoses snaking to the shuttle from every direction. At the ramp Varro turned and waited for Treet, allowing him to mount the moving stairs ahead of him—less from courtesy, Treet decided, than from caution. Varro did not want to take any chances that Treet would get cold feet at the last minute and bolt.

As the escalator took them up into the belly of the gleaming, silver shuttle, Treet gazed all around him at the hurried activity below. Controlled chaos, he thought. They're obviously pushing a tight schedule. Why the rush?

The interior of the shuttle was divided into compartments of various sizes, and along one bulkhead a row of staterooms. “I think this first one's yours, Mr. Treet.” Varro pressed a button, and a door folded back.

Treet dipped his head and stepped into a small room with curving walls. In the center of the room, dominating it, sat a wide couch, flat, with a panel at one side. It looked like a slightly more generous version of a dentist's chair. There was a closet of sorts next to the door; in a corner across from the couch, a small holovision with a few dozen cartridges on its carousel; opposite the closet, a sanitary stall; diagonally across another corner, a desk with terminal, screen, and chair all molded from a single piece of white plastic; directly above the couch overhead, a tiny oval window.

“I am certain these will fit, Mr. Treet,” Varro said, dipping into the closet. He brought out a new singleton in light green with darker green boots and sleeves—the latest style. “Your measurements were taken while you were sleeping off the effects of the drug.”

“Oh?” Treet cocked an eye. “Pretty sure of yourselves, weren't you? How did you know I would accept your offer?”

“Chairman Neviss is a remarkable judge of character, Mr. Treet. He is also a man who doesn't—”

“Doesn't like to lose. Yeah, I know.”

“What I was about to say was that he doesn't mind spending a little money in order to smooth things out. Speaking of which—” Varro reached into the closet and turned, hefting a bulging, zippered bag which he tossed to Treet. “Your stipend, Mr. Treet.”

Treet caught the silver bag and tugged the zipper down. Inside were notes, banded and stacked. He withdrew a stack. “Five hundred thousand!”

“In platinum notes of twenty-five thousand. There are six bundles—three million dollars. As agreed?”

“As agreed.” Treet breathed an inward sigh of relief. Up to this very moment he had doubted he would ever see the money. Now he realized that he had been told the truth. Crazy as it sounded, it was the truth.

Just then a man with a gold, long-billed flight cap stuck his head in the door. “Oh, Captain Crocker,” said Varro. “Come in, I'll introduce you to your passenger. This is Orion Treet.”

The man, tall, loosely knit, blond-haired, and slightly sunburned, ducked easily into the compartment. He wore the easy, breezy manner of the old-style Texas natives, and a generous portion of the legendary cowboy charisma as well. “So this is the VIP we're taking up tonight!” The Captain smiled and offered his hand. Treet zipped the bag shut and tucked it under his arm, extending his hand to grip that of the Captain's. “Welcome aboard the
Zephyros,
Mr. Treet.”

“Thanks. You fly this route often, I take it?” asked Treet.

“Have you ever been in space before, Mr. Treet?”

“This is my first time, although I've done a fair amount of suborbital travel.”

“It's exactly the same. We're going to have a good trip, so don't you worry 'bout a thing.” He turned to Varro, smiled, and said, “Well, I've got a flight check in progress, so I best get back to business.” He touched the bill of his cap and disappeared.

“Captain Crocker is Chairman Neviss' personal pilot, so I'm certain you'll be in good hands,” said Varro. “And now I'll leave you to get settled.” He brought up his watch once more. “You're scheduled to lift off in three minutes.”

Outside a klaxon sounded, and the lights switched from white to red. Hoses were disconnected and retracted as the orange-suited army scurried for safety. Treet followed Varro back to the hatch. “We're looking forward to hearing from you soon, Mr. Treet. I think you'll find this a most extraordinary assignment.”

“I'm looking forward to it,” Treet said somewhat mechanically, then realized that with three million dollars in platinum certificates tucked under his arm he actually
was
looking forward to it. “You can tell Chairman Neviss that I won't disappoint him.”

“Good. I'll tell him. Good-bye, Mr. Treet.” Varro offered his hand, and Treet took it. “Bon voyage!”

“Thanks.” Treet watched the back of Varro's round head as the slump-shouldered man rode the escalator down. A man in orange, standing on a platform beneath the moving stairs, drove the stairway back. Treet watched his last tie with the earth disappear, and then turned back to examine the interior of the shuttle.

“Two minutes, Mr. Treet.” Crocker's voice sounded from a hidden speaker overhead. Treet guessed that Crocker was in the cockpit already warming the engines, or whatever pilots did in the last seconds of preflight. “You'll want to get strapped in now. Think you'll need some help?”

“I can manage. Thanks just the same.” Treet, back in his compartment, glanced at the console next to the couch and saw that a red button had lit up. He punched it and with the buzz of electric motors, the bed tilted up and scrunched in the middle, forming itself into a lounge chair. Pouches opened in the sides of the couch, and Treet drew out a single strap which he fastened across his hips as he lay back.

“Ninety seconds, Mr. Treet. All set?”

“Ready!” He clasped the zippered bag between his hands over his stomach and lay back in the chair as if basking in the bright sun of his incredible fortune. Who could have imagined that before this day was over he would be a millionaire! And who could have foreseen that this fledgling millionaire would be winging his way to a distant star system to write about a secret corporation colony!

The thrum of rocket engines seeped up through the floorplates, sounding like the distant rumbling of an earthquake. Treet felt the deep sonorous vibration in his diaphragm, and realized simultaneously that he had not the slightest idea how the shuttle would escape the underground chamber. The thought made him frown.