The Aftermath (29 page)

But he's here in his office today, Yuan thought. To see us. And deal with us.

Yuan told himself there was nothing to fear. He tried to concentrate on the vision he'd seen at the artifact. I'm going to live to be an old, old man. I'm going to enjoy my grandchildren and great-grandchildren. A distant voice in his mind tried to warn him that he could experience much pain and sorrow during such a long life, but Yuan tried to dismiss that from his thoughts. Nothing Humphries can do will prevent the outcome the artifact showed me, he insisted to himself.

Down a long corridor flanked with closed doors on either side. Discreet little brass nameplates on each door. Yuan could see a trickle of perspiration sliding down the side of Tamara's face. She's not as cool as she's pretending to be, he realized. She was wearing a sleek pearl-gray jumpsuit that clung to her coltish figure like plastic wrap. Trying to look her best for Martin Humphries. I wonder if that will help her?

“In here, please,” said the flunky as he opened an unmarked door at the end of the corridor.

They stepped through and the flunky closed the door behind them. The room was the size of a spaceport departure gate, thickly carpeted, its walls covered with smart screens that displayed art treasures. Yuan recognized the
Mona Lisa,
a painting of royal children by Velazquez, some others. His eye was caught by a painting of a fallen banyan tree, its magnificently intertwined trunk ripped out of the ground by some overpowering force.

“Captain Yuan and Ms. Vishinsky,” said the young woman sitting behind the desk at the far end of the anteroom, her voice flat, toneless. “Mr. Humphries will see you immediately.”

She pressed a key of her desk pad and another unmarked door swung open.

Yuan found himself smiling. He bowed slightly to Tamara and whispered, “After you.”

She gave him a swift glance, fiddled nervously with the buttons on the bodice of her coveralls, and strode to the open doorway. Yuan followed closely behind her, thinking, She's scared now. Her confidence is melting away.

The office was smaller than the anteroom, but still big enough to land a shuttlecraft. A man got up from behind a broad, immaculately clear desk and stonily gestured toward the two low-slung sculptured chairs in front of his desk.

Tamara said, “You're not Martin Humphries.”

“No,” the young man replied curtly. “I'm his son, Alex.”

Alex Humphries resembled the holos of his father so closely that Yuan wondered if he was a clone. His hair was dark, his face firm, slightly round, but with a strong jaw. He was taller than Yuan had expected, and wearing a casual open-necked royal blue shirt over tan denim jeans. His eyes were hard and gray as lunar rock.

“I thought we were to see Martin Humphries,” Yuan said as he lowered himself into the slingback chair.

“My father seldom leaves his home over in Hell Crater,” said Alex Humphries.

Tamara asked, “Then you're running the corporation?”

Alex smiled coldly. “That depends on who you ask. My father thinks he still runs it, but I have the day-to-day responsibility. I do his dirty work and he stays over at Hell Crater and amuses himself.”

“It never even occurred to me that Mr. Humphries had a son,” Yuan said.

“He has two of them. My baby brother Van lives on Earth.”

“I see.” Yuan nodded.

“I also thought we'd been summoned here by your father,” said Tamara.

Alex leaned back in his swivel chair. “My father is very disappointed in you. Angry, you know. So furious that he almost came over here today to deal with you personally.”

“But you're going to deal with us, instead,” Tamara replied.

“He expected you to carry out his orders.”

“He expected us,” Yuan said, “to murder an old woman and a cyborg who fancies himself a priest on some sort of a holy mission.”

“But you didn't do it.”

“No, we didn't,” Yuan said. Then, glancing at Tamara, he added, “To be specific,
I
didn't do it. I was in command, it was my responsibility, my decision, not hers.”

“What happened?” Alex Humphries asked, his voice suddenly cold, his eyes hard, demanding.

Tamara was staring at Alex, Yuan saw. Trying to figure him out, he thought; trying to gauge what lay behind those steel gray eyes.

Yuan began to explain, “The cyborg and the old woman are no threat to your father—”

“That's not your decision to make.”

“They'll never return to the Earth/Moon sector. They'll die out there in the Belt, searching for the bodies of the dead.”

Alex's brows rose. “Is that really what they're doing?”

“Yes.”

“Searching for bodies?”

“Mercenaries killed in the wars and left to drift in space.”

“But why?”

“The cyborg was a mercenary. He's the one who wiped out the
Chrysalis
habitat.”

“Dorik Harbin.”

“He calls himself Dorn now,” Tamara interjected. “He claims that the alien artifact changed him, turned him into a priest.”

“The artifact,” Alex said, edging forward in his chair. “That's what I want to ask you about. My father had a bad experience with it.”

Tamara relaxed visibly. She even smiled at Alex Humphries.

Looking at Yuan, though, Alex asked, “Harbin claims the artifact changed him?”

Yuan nodded.

“And the woman? Elverda Apacheta? It changed her, too?”

With a slight shrug, Yuan answered, “It must have. She's willing to spend what's left of her life roaming through the Belt with Harbin to find the corpses from the war.”

Alex appeared to relax slightly. “You've both seen the artifact?”

“Yes,” said Tamara.

“My father's forbidden me to go to it. He doesn't want anyone to see it.”

“But you want to see it, don't you?” Tamara asked.

“Of course! An alien artifact. Who wouldn't want to see it? Why do you think my father had that asteroid moved out of its original orbit? Why do you think he's placed guards around it?”

“It's a powerful experience,” Yuan said. “Truly life-changing.”

“What did you see?” Alex asked eagerly. “How did the artifact affect you?”

Yuan hesitated. How to talk about it without sounding foolish? he wondered.

Misunderstanding their silence, Alex explained, “You see, I want to
understand
that artifact. It couldn't have been made by human beings; it's got to be an alien creation. Intelligent extraterrestrials left it there for us to find. Why? When? How does it work?”

“I don't know if human minds will ever be able to understand it,” Yuan admitted.

“I can't believe that,” Alex Humphries said, with some heat. “I won't believe that.”

“You haven't seen it,” said Yuan.

“How did it affect you?” Humphries asked again. “How did it change you?”

Haltingly, almost embarrassed by his experience, Yuan described his encounter with the artifact as accurately as he could remember it. Alex listened and nodded, his hands resting on the desktop, fingertips to fingertips.

When Yuan was finished, Alex turned to Tamara. “And you?”

“Nothing so dramatic,” she lied. “I sort of relived my childhood, that's all.”

“You don't feel different? Changed?”

“Not really.”

“Strange,” Alex muttered.

For long moments he was silent, while Yuan wondered what was going on in his head. Whatever it is, Yuan told himself, remember that you're dealing with one of the most powerful men in the solar system here. He could snuff you out like clicking off a light switch. He wants to run Humphries Space Systems and keep his father off the throne.

“Here's what I think,” Alex said at last. “That artifact somehow influences the pattern of your thoughts. You know, we have brain scanning devices that can show the neurons in your brain flashing on and off. Our own neuroscientists can map out a person's patterns of thinking. Right?”

Yuan bobbed his head up and down. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Tamara leaning forward temptingly. She had undone several buttons of her bodice.

“Well, this artifact goes a step or two farther,” Humphries continued. “It allows your deep unconscious thoughts to come up to the surface, where you can see them clearly. It allows you to see who you really are, who you really want to be.”

“Like a mirror,” Tamara breathed.

“Right! Like a mirror of your own soul.”

Yuan considered for a moment, then said, “Then it's not showing you what
will
be. It's showing what
could
be.”

“Like the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come,” said Alex.

Yuan felt disappointed. Nothing is certain, he realized. That beautiful vision … Then he realized the truth of it. That beautiful vision is something to aim for, a goal to guide my life, a star to steer by.

“It can be a tremendously powerful force, that artifact. I've got to find out how to control it, how to use it.” Humphries's hands clenched into fists.

He turned to Tamara. She seemed completely relaxed now, in charge of herself.

“It could be enormously powerful, couldn't it?” she suggested.

“Enormously,” said Alex Humphries. “Whoever understands how to use it has a tremendous edge over everyone else.”

Yuan saw vast dreams glittering in those steel gray eyes.

“In the meantime, what do you intend to do with us?” Tamara asked, her voice low, smoky. Yuan had heard that tone from her before.

Alex blinked, the spell of his fascination with the artifact's power broken. Sitting up straight in the desk chair again he said, “Well, my father wants you both skinned alive, you know.”

“Is that what you want?” Tamara purred.

His face went utterly serious. “That depends.”

Yuan started to speak, but Tamara leaned even closer to the desk and said meltingly, “I'd be glad to do whatever is necessary to help you understand the artifact.”

“What do you want us to do?” Yuan asked.

“You two go build new lives for yourselves. As far as HSS is concerned, you're both fired. I'll provide you with a healthy separation payment, then you're on your own.”

Tamara looked disappointed. “On my own? With your father wanting me dead? He'll hunt us down—”

“You won't have to worry about that,” Alex said. “I'll see to it that he doesn't bother you.”

“How can you do that?” Yuan asked.

Alex took in a breath before answering. “Fair enough question.” He hesitated a moment. Then, “Yes, my father wants to prevent anyone from learning that he collapsed when he saw the artifact. He was perfectly willing to order murders.”

Tamara shrank back from him a little.

“But I've had a university-full of medics and psychologists trying to put his ego back together. I've convinced him that the best thing to do is allow you two to go your own ways—providing you never mention you ever heard of the artifact.” Alex's voice grew iron hard. “Not to anyone. Ever.”

Yuan agreed. “That's fine with me.”

“It'll bring down the wrath of god on you if you speak a word about it,” Alex warned. “It would be your death warrant.”

Tamara nodded reluctantly, then asked, “What about Harbin and the old woman? They actually saw him at the artifact.”

“I'll protect them,” said Alex. “I won't let my father harm them.”

“You can do that?” Yuan asked.

Alex smiled grimly. “I can try.”

And Yuan realized what was going on. He's playing a power game against his father. And we're pawns in his game. As long as his father knows there are people alive who can tell about his collapse, Alex has the upper hand.

Yuan turned toward Tamara, but her eyes were still fastened on Alex Humphries.

If he noticed her focus on him, Alex gave no outward sign of it. He asked, “All right, then. You'll come with me.”

“With you?” Tamara asked. “To where?”

“The artifact, of course. We're going to study it. I want to find out how it works, who put it there,
why
they put it there.”

Somehow, Yuan wasn't surprised. But he heard himself ask, “We're going back to it?”

“Of course. Right away.”

ORE SHIP
SYRACUSE
: BACKUP CONTROL POD

The jolt nearly knocked Theo out of his command chair. Angela, standing behind him, was thrown to the floor.

“
COLLISION
,” blared the ship's computer. “
PROPELLANT TANK SIX RUPTURED
.”

Theo got out of his chair, helped Angela to her feet.

“Propellant tank six?” she muttered, slightly dazed.

“It's been empty for years,” Theo said. “No loss.”

With both of them on their feet, Theo said, “Check with Mom, see if she's okay.”

As his sister bent over the intercom panel, Theo scanned his working controls. Cripes! he thought. First a solar storm and now a collision. How much more can we take? Spin rate's increased, he saw. A whole section of the rim's been ripped open. Must've been a sizable rock that hit us, maybe a meter across or more.

He pecked at the control keyboard. Got to fire the spin jets, slow us back to normal. Otherwise the increased angular momentum will start to shake us apart.

But when he called up the spin jet display, half the lights were in the red.

“Damn!” he spat.

“What's the matter?” asked Angela, looking frightened.

Tracing the schematic display with a forefinger, Theo answered, “The collision cut the circuitry to the spin jets on that side of the hull. The system won't fire with one set of the jets out.”

“Can you override?”

“No, dammit. I'll have to go outside and repair the circuit manually.”