The Dark Side (35 page)

With the airlock fully open he reverses the van, backs the trailer inside, and disengages it. Then he turns the van and flashes the lights again. It takes a long time, but finally the man inside seems to understand: There's not enough room for the trailer and the van to enter at once. The trailer, with its precious lumber supplies, will have to go first.

As he waits for his own turn, Ngô gets increasingly suspicious. This really is out of the ordinary. He wonders fleetingly if the Rapturians have been taken hostage or something. Or what if they've fallen ill? What if the other van is on a rescue mission? Then again, why would he be allowed inside, if that's the case? Why not wave him away or communicate the danger in some other way? Why not—?

But now the outer door is rising—again, very swiftly. Ngô drives into the airlock, extra-curious now and strangely excited. Because the unusual circumstances at least offer the possibility of indulging his favorite hobby—disruption and distraction being after all the best friends of a thief.

The face appears at the inner window again. It's a strikingly handsome black-haired man. He's clean-shaven but he's wearing the standard Rapturian outfit: broadcloth waistcoat and violet-colored shirt. And he's smiling—broadly. Maybe he's a new arrival. Maybe he's in charge of gate duties while the rest of them celebrate a feast day.

Ngô flashes the lights again and the man disappears to raise the door. Finally Ngô drives into the loading area where the
parcels are stacked for pickup. But it's darker than normal, and the handsome stranger is nowhere to be seen. In fact, Ngô can barely make anything out at all. He checks the instrument gauges for pressurization readings and then pops open the van doors.

He's in the compound now, breathing the musty air. But there's still no one there to greet him. He looks around.

“Hello?” he calls.

No answer.

“Hello?”

Nothing but echo. He considers just packing the parcels into his van, reconnecting the trailer, and departing. But of course he can't open both doors manually by himself. And it's just too tempting to investigate further.

So he moves deeper into the compound. Only a few of the electric candles are flickering—the Rapturians don't use real flames so as not to waste oxygen. On the wall, carved into wood and barely visible in the sepulchral light, is a verse from Scripture.

For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.
Romans 8:18

And still there's total silence. Ngô can hear his own footfall. He arrives at the chapel, the sacred center around which the whole Rapturian day revolves. Ngô himself once enjoyed the honor of being allowed inside. It was Ascension Day, and he'd been forced to endure a fire-and-brimstone homily about human greed. But now the chamber, which is decorated with some of the Rapturians' finest sculptures, is completely dark.

“Hello?”

Still no reply. Ngô senses, however, that someone is inside
waiting for him. His heart is beating faster. He reaches for the wall, finds a light switch. Hits it. And the candles flicker on.

Tu
n Ngô takes it all in. His eyes widen. And he gasps.

The whole chapel is littered with bodies. Broken bodies. Twisted, smashed, brutalized, ripped apart. They're draped across the pews. They're scattered across the floor. They're lying in pieces on the altar. It's like a tornado, or some sort of evil force, has ripped through the place. Ngô has never seen anything like it—not in his wildest nightmares.

He steps back and his heel lands on something soft. He looks down and sees he's standing on a young man's hand. And the man is naked—stripped bare.

Then Ngô hears a noise. He turns, his heart crashing around his chest, and sees the man who let him in—the black-haired man in the Rapturian costume.

The man is now wielding what looks like a slaughterhouse knife. It's got a hickory handle and a blade that looks to be a foot long. And the man is smiling. Smiling like a madman.

“
What's the point of walking in another man's shoes?
” he asks madly. “
Unless his shoes are better than yours?
”

He swings the machete like a scythe and the last thing Ngô sees is his own headless body collapsing in a heap on the other side of the room.

J
USTUS REMEMBERS SOMETHING GRIGORY
Kalganov said just hours earlier:
You cannot see your shadow in a world of darkness
. And it occurs to him that he's ventured into a similar world, completely of his own volition. By focusing obsessively on the job in front of him he's able to ignore, or at least marginalize, the immediate dangers.

He calls Fletcher Brass's flight coordinator, Amity Powers.

“What's this about?” she asks coolly.

“I just want to check on Mr. Brass's whereabouts,” he lies, assuming Brass will be at the rocket base.

“Mr. Brass is currently in Sin.”

“In
Sin
, did you say?”

“That's correct.”

Justus hesitates. “But I thought he was preoccupied with preparations for his Mars trip?”

“Something urgent drew him to the city.”

“And what exactly is that?”

“Mr. Brass did not inform me,” Powers says. “Is that all you wish to know, Lieutenant?”

“Not quite.” Justus rapidly runs through some further enquiries—about the projected date of the launch and the general state of security at the site—before reaching his major point.

“By the way, how many are going on the trip?”

“The
Prospector
has space for eight.”

“Who, exactly?”

“May I ask why you need to know?”

“Security. They could be targeted, if they haven't been targeted already.”

Powers makes a noise. “There's Mr. Brass, of course. There's the mission commander, Carter Tuchman. The geologist, Stephanie Chabadres. The astrophysicist, Renny Olafsen. The medical supervisor, Doctor Oscar Shields. His assistant, Nurse Flash Bazoom. And the engineer, Bryce Schubert.”

“That's seven.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“You said there were eight.”

“Well, there's the Leonardo unit as well.”

“The android?”

“That's right.”

“Who's been specifically programmed for the voyage?”

“Well, I don't know about that, Lieutenant—you'd need to ask the roboticists.”

“Maybe I will. Thank you. Thank you very much.”

Justus hangs up, wondering if he's been wasting valuable time after all. Chief Buchanan's scorn for the possibility of robot involvement had only made him more suspicious initially, but now
it seems the missing android did indeed have a scientific purpose. So Justus decides to shelve the issue while he deals with other pressing matters. But he's only just finished arranging an autopsy on Grigory Kalganov when Leonardo Grey again shows up at the station.

“Mr. Brass,” the droid announces, “would like to see you, sir.”

Justus wonders if it's got something to do with his phone call. “And you've come here to escort me?”

“That is correct.”

“And Brass is currently in Sin?”

“That is correct.”

“In his palace? The Kasr?”

“Not quite, sir.”

“Then where?”

“You will find out shortly, sir.”

Justus doesn't argue. He joins Grey in the superbly fitted escort vehicle and they glide through the streets of Sin. Eventually the facade of the Kasr looms up and they weave between the fountains and greenery of Processional Park. But they don't head for the front entrance. At the door of a vehicle bay about two hundred meters east of the main entrance, their vehicle is scanned by a multitude of security devices.

“Your gun,” says an expressionless guard when Justus gets out.

“It's only an immobilization device.”

“Your gun,” the man says again, and Justus gets the message—he hands it over.

Grey leads him through a garage filled with antique motor vehicles: a Ferrari, an Aston Martin, two Jaguars, and a Mercedes-Benz. And Justus remembers reading something about Brass's determination to bring his vintage automobiles all the way to the Moon.

“Not so rust-free in here,” he says.

“I beg your pardon, sir?”

“With all the oxygen, I mean. Shouldn't they be in storage—in a vacuum?”

“These vehicles are being tested by Mr. Brass, sir.”

“He's not taking one to Mars, is he?”

“Of that I'm not certain, sir.”

Justus shakes his head, and Grey leads him into in a brass-and-chrome elevator.

“Brass is at the end of this?”

“He is, sir.”

When the elevator shudders to a halt—it feels like it's dropped ten stories—Justus braces himself for another withering display of shock and awe. Maybe something completely unhinged. But Brass—who's standing in the reception area, wearing a brass-striped serge suit, a brass-banded tie, and deerskin driving gloves—is overflowing with charm.

“Lieutenant Damien Justus.” Gone completely is the rocket-base aggression; he sounds like he's addressing a crucial stockholder. “You don't look a day older than when I last met you.”

A lame joke. But Justus offers an equally lame response. “Feels like a century.”

“Well, that's Purgatory. We live a lifetime in a day up here.” Brass thrusts out his softly gloved hand—to Justus it's like shaking hands with a chamois—and lets loose his famous sharklike grin.

“Spare a few minutes?”

“Why not?”

“Then please,” Brass says, “step this way.”

He extends a long, spindly arm—not touching Justus, exactly, but sort of urging him on with magnetic force—so that before
Justus knows it he's been steered into a cavernlike chamber that seems naturally hewn from the rock.

Justus suspects it's a lava tunnel. He remembers reading in one of the biographies that Brass has oxygenated and illuminated a few of them for the sole purpose of conducting underground sporting events: track and field, toboggan rides, golf tournaments, that sort of thing. But he can't imagine why he's here.

“Forgive me for losing my temper yesterday,” Brass says. “Testing procedures are incredibly grueling, and at my age they can make a man extra-irritable.”

“Think nothing of it.”

“I guess I was a little surprised, if truth be told, that you weren't showing me the sort of deference I'm used to. I'm spoiled by it, of course—all the fawning and servility I get from the two-faced scum around here. And when I didn't get the same from you I must admit I was a little disconcerted at first. Until later, when I thought about it. When I came to respect you for not being daunted. For being man enough not to bite your tongue. But then again, I shouldn't have been surprised. They told me what sort of operator you were. The straight talker. The man of principle. The dogged detective. It's the very reason I thought you'd be so good for Purgatory in the first place.”

“Excuse me, Mr. Brass,” says Justus, “but are you verifying that it was
you
who authorized my entry into Purgatory?”

“Of course it was me. I was given your details—by Otto Decker, in fact—but only because I'd been looking for someone exactly like you. Someone who could help me shake up the PPD. In fact, that's why I've had to keep it a secret from you so long—so you wouldn't become self-conscious. So you wouldn't let something slip inadvertently. And I'm sure I don't need to tell you that your
appointment has been rather effective so far—even if the PPD doesn't know it.”

He's leading Justus around a bend as they walk—the gallery is all the time curving and getting bigger—and Justus can't help getting the feeling that Brass is still feeding him half-truths. Obfuscation. With some curious purpose in mind.

“The problem, I suppose,” Brass goes on, “is that, having given you this responsibility, not to mention a refuge from your problems on Earth, I guess I expected some sort of gratitude. I guess I just assumed I'd never have to deal with you personally—that you'd go about your business without bothering me. I should have realized that that's not the way you operate. You don't work in the shadows and you don't make any distinctions—not even for me. Totally fearless. It's been a good lesson for me, in fact. Because I might have lost sight of where I came from. You've read the books about me, I assume?”

“Some of them.”

“Then you may know that my mother named me after Fletcher Christian. Well, not Fletcher Christian, exactly, but some movie star who played him in one of those
Mutiny on the Bounty
films. Someone she had a crush on. The irony, of course, and it took me a while to recognize it, is that after the mutiny Fletcher Christian went into voluntary exile in a place, Pitcairn Island, that was pretty much the far side of the Moon at the time. But the big difference is that Mr. Christian himself didn't live much longer—perhaps four years; no one is sure exactly how long—and the society he created survived but never really flourished. Too claustrophobic and incestuous, you see. A community made almost entirely of rebels and misfits, prone to all sorts of primitive power dynamics. A little self-contained universe, cut off from the
rest of the world, living by its own standards, corrupted from within.”