Leviathans of Jupiter (33 page)

“You are Rodney Devlin, aren't you?” she asked, in a voice that was almost a whisper.

“Yes'm,” he replied, wiping his hands again before extending his right toward her.

Westfall barely touched his hand. “I understand that you are quite good at getting things done.”

For one of the few times in his long life, Devlin felt embarrassed. Here was this elegant lady and he was in his grease monkey's apron, his wiry red hair uncombed, his bushy mustache straggling. She was inspecting him, eying him up and down, as if he were a horse or a pet that she was considering buying.

“I do my best, Mrs. Westfall,” he said.

“How long have you been here at station
Gold
?” she asked.

“Long as the station's been open, ma'am. More'n twenty years.”

Westfall nodded. “You're older than you look,” she said absently. “You ought to get the gray streaks out of your hair, though.”

He didn't know what to say.

“You've been getting away with a lot of illegal activities over all those years, haven't you?”

Devlin's mouth dropped open.

“Drug manufacturing, smuggling equipment, brewing liquor, VR sex simulations … it's quite a list.”

“Uh, ma'am, I may have done a few things in my time that're outside the rules, but nothing that was illegal.”

“Extralegal,” Westfall said, the hint of a smile at the corners of her lips.

Devlin shrugged. “Can't run an operation like this station by staying inside the rule book every step o' the way. People need things that the rules don't cover, y'know.”

“Perhaps,” Westfall conceded.

Sensing that she was after something, Devlin asked, “So what is it I can do for you, ma'am?”

She hesitated. After a couple of heartbeats she said, “You understand that my people have uncovered enough evidence against you to put you away for the rest of your natural life.”

“Now wait—”

“Don't bother to deny it. I can produce witnesses that will swear to your illegal activities.”

“Extralegal,” Devlin amended. But his palms were starting to sweat.

“Whatever,” said Westfall. “As a member of the IAA's governing council, it's my duty to see that the laws are obeyed and the regulations enforced.”

Devlin's tension eased. She's after something, he realized.

“Mrs. Westfall,” he said, lowering his head slightly to indicate some contrition, “whatever I've done, I've never harmed anybody. I've helped this place to function better, more smoothly.”

“Have you?”

“I have, ma'am. And I'm ready to help you, if you need something that's, ah … stretching the rules.”

“Do you know those two nanotech people who came here from Selene?” she asked, her tone suddenly sharp, brittle.

Devlin nodded. “I run meals down to 'em every day.”

“Then you know their nanotechnology laboratory.”

“I know where it is.”

“Good,” Westfall said. “I need a sample of nanomachines. And I need it without anyone knowing about it, except the two of us.”

Devlin ran a hand over his close-cropped brush of red hair.

“Can you do it?” she demanded.

He tugged at his mustache momentarily, then replied, “Sure.” To himself he added silently, I'd rather steal nanobugs than go to jail.

DORN'S QUARTERS

“I'm sorry to intrude on your privacy like this,” Deirdre said as she stood in the doorway of Dorn's compartment.

“It's not a problem,” the cyborg said, gesturing her into the room with his human hand.

“I should have called first,” she said, stepping past him.

“It's not that late,” he said as he slid the door shut. “I just got back from dinner.”

“Yes, I know. I saw you leave the galley.”

Looking around, Deirdre saw that Dorn's quarters were the same sized room as she had, a few dozen meters down the passageway. But somehow it looked austere, barren. The bed was made with military precision. The display screen above the desk was blank. The desk itself was completely bare. No decorations of any kind. It's as if no one really lives in here, she thought.

“I saw you in the galley, as well,” said Dorn. “With the Torre woman. I thought about asking to join you…” He left the thought unfinished.

Deirdre said, “We would have welcomed your company.”

For an awkward moment neither of them said a word. Then Dorn broke the silence. “Won't you sit down? Would you like something to drink? I can make coffee for us.”

Moving to the armchair in the corner of the room, Deirdre replied, “Coffee would be fine.”

Dorn stepped to the minuscule kitchenette on the other side of the room. Deirdre noticed all over again how lightly he moved, how lithe he was despite half of his body being metal.

“May I ask why you've come to visit me?” he asked, his back to her as he poured ground coffee into the machine.

“Maybe I shouldn't have.”

“No, no, it's all right. I'm simply curious. Something's bothering you, that much is clear.”

“Dorn, are you really a priest?”

He half turned to look at her over his shoulder. Deirdre could see only the metal half of his face, unreadable.

“I thought of myself as a priest for many years. Not of any organized religion. I was on a mission to find the dead who'd been abandoned to drift in space after the Asteroid Wars. I considered it my sacred duty to find them and give them proper funeral rites.”

“That … that was a very holy thing to do. More than any other priest did.”

The coffeemaker chugged and spewed steam. Dorn turned to face her. “Like many priests,” he said gravely, “I am celibate. I have no option.”

“Oh!” Deirdre felt awful, as if she were prying where she had no right to.

“The surgery,” Dorn explained.

“That must be … difficult for you,” she limped.

The human half of his face tried to smile. “It's not that bad. I have no physical urges. Only memories.”

How terrible, Dierdre thought. But she couldn't find any words to speak aloud.

The coffee machine pinged and Dorn turned back to it. He poured two cups of steaming black brew and brought them to the tiny round table beside Deirdre's chair. Then he pulled up the desk chair and sat facing her.

“So,” he said. “I am not really a priest. But you need someone to talk to and I am willing to listen.” Before Deirdre could say anything, Dorn added, “And, like a priest, I will treat your words as private and entirely confidential.”

“It's about Andy.” Deirdre surprised herself by blurting it out.

“The mission into the ocean.”

With a slight shake of her head, Deirdre said, “It's more than just the mission. It's about Andy and me … our relationship.”

Dorn asked, “Do you have a relationship?”

“We're friends. I like Andy a lot. And I know he likes me.”

“Enough to be jealous of Franklin Torre.”

“You know about that?”

Dorn half smiled. “I'd have to be totally blind not to recognize it. While you've been having dinner with Torre these past few nights, I've been eating with Andy. Not that he's done much eating.”

“Oh dear.”

Noticing that she hadn't touched her coffee, Dorn asked, “Would you like a sweetener? Some cold soymilk, perhaps?”

Deirdre glanced down at the steaming cups. “No, black is fine.” She picked up her cup and sipped at it. The coffee was strong and hot.

Dorn took a swallow from his cup, then told Deirdre, “For what it's worth, I think Andy likes you very much. I don't know much about love, but he might very well be in love with you.”

“When I told him I was frightened of the ocean mission he said I shouldn't go. He said I meant more to him than making contact with the leviathans.”

Dorn said nothing.

“I mean, he's willing to throw away the whole reason why he came here to Jupiter, his chance for a breakthrough, his chance for success as a scientist. For me!”

Carefully putting his cup back on the little table, Dorn said, “You are a very beautiful woman. Andy is obviously smitten with you.”

“But don't you see where this puts me?” Deirdre pleaded. “I like Andy, I think he's very sweet. But if I don't go down into the ocean with him I could be ruining his career. He'll hate me!”

“That's not what he's said. He told you that you mean more to him than the mission, didn't he?”

Impatiently, Deirdre replied, “Of course he did. And I'm sure he means it. Now. But what about after the mission? What about when he comes back without making contact with the leviathans? He'll blame me, sooner or later. Instead of loving me he'll start to hate me!”

Dorn leaned back in the wheeled desk chair, making it roll slightly away from Deirdre. He clasped his hands together, one flesh and one metal, and held them prayerfully before his lips.

At last he asked, “If he actually did blame you for his failure, would that bother you?”

“Of course it would!”

“Why? Because you want him to like you, or because his failure would hurt his career, his life?”

Deirdre started to answer, but clicked her teeth shut. Her thoughts were swirling too much for a quick reply. How do I feel about Andy? Am I miserable because of my own ego or because I'll be hurting him?

Dorn sat watching her, silent as a graven image.

At last Deirdre heard herself say, “I don't want to hurt Andy.”

“Do you love him?”

“I don't know,” she answered. “I only know that I don't want to hurt him.”

“Then you'll have to go on the mission with him,” said Dorn.

Deirdre looked into his eyes: one gray as a stormy sea, the other a red-glowing optronic vidcam.

“Yes,” she said, in an accepting sigh. “I suppose I will.”

RODNEY DEVLIN

In his own mind, Red Devlin believed that he was the one who actually ran research station
Gold
. Oh, Archer and the other scientists thought that they were in charge, and on paper they were, but the old Red Devil was the bloke who really made the place hum.

He had come out to
Gold
when the station had first been built, more than twenty years earlier, when his youthful attempt to open a restaurant in Melbourne had ended in bankruptcy. His official job at
Gold
was chief cook for the station. That meant that he spent most of his time in the kitchen and galley, supervising the small staff of humans and larger contingent of robots that prepared and served food and drink for the station's personnel.

It also meant that he was responsible for obtaining the foodstuffs and drinkables that supplied the kitchen. And other things, as well.

Very quickly, Devlin became the station's unofficial procurer. He was able to acquire things, find things, bring people together, in a manner that was little short of Machiavellian. When a staff scientist needed a new set of sensors in too much of a hurry to go through the red tape of the station's regular procurement department, Red got the sensors for him and let him fill out the paperwork later. When someone needed some recreational drugs for a party she was throwing, it was the Red Devil that she turned to. When a lonely administrator needed diversion, Devlin smuggled in virtual reality sex simulations. He brewed “rocket juice” in a still that was tucked away among the scoopship operators' repair facilities. He hacked into the station's personnel files to speed transfers and promotions.

He called himself a facilitator. Many times, over the years he had been at station
Gold,
he'd heard people say admiringly that the station couldn't operate without him. Devlin knew he was the lubricating oil that made the machinery run smoothly.

Or so he thought of himself.

Now and then he considered leaving
Gold
and returning to Australia. He had enough money tucked away to retire in comfort. But his memories of Earth were not all that pleasant: orphaned at the age of six, a ward of the state, compulsory schooling and then training for the restaurant business that was so poor he went bankrupt right off. No, he told himself, here at
Gold
he was known and respected, even admired by many of the brainiest people around. It was a small, almost claustrophobic world, but Red regarded himself as a pretty big fish in this little pond, and that was the way he liked it.

But as he sat up in his narrow bed, he mulled over this latest twist in the station's sometimes Byzantine politics. Westfall wants a sample of nanomachines. Dangerous stuff, that. But she's powerful enough to chuck me in jail. Or at least get me thrown off
Gold
. What then? Where would I go, even if she doesn't railroad me into the cooler?

His room was small, little more than a nook near the kitchen. Devlin had never been one for creature comforts. His tastes for physical well-being were little short of Spartan. What he enjoyed most was the smiling admiration of the people around him. Scientists, engineers, administrators—men and women of good families and high education. They came to him for help. They
needed
the old Red Devil to solve their problems for them.

Now I'm the one who needs help, he thought as he stared sleeplessly at the blank display screen on the bulkhead at the end of his bunk. Westfall can ruin my life if I don't do what she wants. But what she wants might be dangerous, terribly dangerous.

Should I tell Archer about it? Devlin shook his head. Nah. He's too straight-arrow. He always shied away from me when he was a punk kid, just arrived here. Devlin remembered the first time he had offered to get some VR sex sims for the young Grant Archer. The kid had looked like he'd just been offered a deal to sell his soul. Archer was a religious Believer back then. Still is, as far as Devlin knew. Married to the same woman all these years; no hint of him straying.