Voyagers III - Star Brothers (30 page)

Gazing up at Tomasso, Hsen stroked his chin thoughtfully. “You suspect a trap?”

“Could be.”

Hsen clasped his hands behind his back again and walked slowly across the carpeting of lunar imitation silk toward the holographic display of the Great Wall.

“What would Sun-tzu have done in a situation such as this?” he muttered.

“Sun-tzu?”

Hsen turned back toward Tomasso with a disdainful look on his face, almost a sneer. “A great general. The first of the great generals, twenty-five centuries ago.”

Tomasso shrugged.

For several minutes Hsen stood stock-still, head bowed. Then he looked up and smiled thinly.

“When facing a trap,” he said, “offer your enemy a piece of bait so that you may trap the trapper.”

Oriental bullshit, Vic said to himself.

“Since you are familiar with the location and layout of this secret Vanguard facility,” Hsen went on, his voice like a cobra’s hiss, “you will follow Ms. Camerata tomorrow. You will spring her trap.”

“Hey, wait a minute! She wants…”

“I will follow with a force large enough to destroy her. Have no fear, you will be perfectly safe at all times.”

Vic Tomasso looked into Hsen’s glittering eyes and knew there was no way to argue him out of his decision. He did not want to face Jo, of course, but he certainly had no way of saying no to Hsen.

BRASILIA

JOÃO de Sagres stood by the window of his office and looked out at the magnificent towers and sweeping curves of the buildings that comprised the capital of Brazil. In a few minutes the cabinet meeting would begin and he had to find an answer to the Horror that had begun its reign of terror in Latin America.

Once, many years ago, when he looked out this window he saw shacks made of hammered tin cans and cardboard huddling on the outskirts of the federal precinct. Now they were replaced by modern housing blocks, concrete, functional. The poor still existed, the problems of poverty and hunger still gnawed, but they were being solved—slowly, with patience. And with love.

De Sagres sighed heavily. Yes, love. It was impossible even to begin to approach the problems of the poor without love. That had been the great revelation: You must love your neighbor as yourself, and you must love yourself as you love your God. Otherwise you get bureaucrats and swindlers and opinion polls and computer-generated graphs in place of helping the needy. Cold impersonal bureaucracies do not solve problems. You must go out into the alleys, out among those old dilapidated shacks, among the poor and filthy and sick, just as did our Lord and Savior.

And now, as things were beginning to get better, just as de Sagres himself was finally understanding what had happened to him and what his true place in the world of his fellow human beings should be, now the Horror had reached its bloody fingers into the heart of Rio, São Paulo, Caracas.

It would reach Brasilia any day now. Unless he acted.

De Sagres squeezed his eyes shut and asked his star brother, What would Stoner do? The man had changed his life forever and then left him to face these crises alone, without help or guidance. What would Stoner do?

His star brother told him.

De Sagres’s eyes popped open and he grinned to himself, almost sheepishly. He could see Stoner staring at him silently. What would Stoner do? He would tell me to stand on my own two feet and stop looking for a crutch.

The president of Brazil squared his shoulders and sighed like a man ready to face an unpleasant duty. He walked across the tiled floor of his office and threw open the double doors that led into the cabinet meeting chamber.

The cabinet members rose to their feet. He took his chair at the head of the table and announced without preamble:

“We must quarantine those who have been close enough to a victim of the Horror to have caught the disease. And we must quarantine all incoming passengers at every international airport and seaport for twenty-four hours, just as they do at the space stations.”

That started a debate that took hours to settle. Cabinet ministers protested that such measures would cost too much, that there were not enough trained personnel to carry out such quarantines, that there were no facilities at the airports to hold incoming travelers for twenty-four hours, that the ports would be deserted and the economy would crash.

De Sagres heard them all, each minister, each objection, and invited them to use their wits to
solve
the problems they foresaw. Four and a half hours later they had hammered out a plan to contain the Horror. It would require a huge increase in paramedical personnel. It would require a massive rearrangement of the facilities at each of the international airports. It would require the cooperation of the media.

It would be done.

“This Horror comes from the pits of hell,” de Sagres said, his voice trembling with emotion. “But we will show that men of good will and good sense can stop it. We will serve as an example to the rest of the world. We cannot cure the unfortunate wretch who is struck by this Devil’s evil, but we can take the necessary steps to prevent its spread. With God’s help, we will prevail.”

Four of the cabinet members had training in medicine. Two of them had been practicing physicians and the other two research scientists before entering public service. None of them had thought to ask, that, though the incubation time for the disease was apparently less than twenty-four hours, could there be a dormant phase where the disease agent lay quietly within its human victim, waiting to spring up again at a later time?

STONER knew that the spacecraft was heading for Hell Crater and the Pacific Commerce facility there. Janos had been working for Li-Po Hsen all along.

The president of Hungary had been a figurehead, like so many politicians. In this case, the power behind him was the immense financial and political clout of Pacific Commerce Corporation. Li-Po Hsen. How many other governments did he control? Stoner wondered.

It had never been difficult to corrupt the average politician. Money and power are irresistible lures. And in an era where politics is played out on the media’s screens, the most successful politicians are those who could perform before the cameras, those who reveal their need for adulation, their absolute willingness to say anything that the crowd wants to hear in return for the applause, the approval, the worship of the masses.

No wonder most politicians are emotional cripples, Stoner thought. No wonder an egomaniac like Novotny could be seduced by a powerful international corporation’s money and influence. It took a rare person, a de Sagres or Nkona or Varahamihara, to rise above such lures.

Are they enough? he asked himself. His star brother replied, They might have been, if someone had not unleashed the Horror upon the world.

The sleepers were stirring. Stoner closed his eyes and saw their landing through the mind of the spacecraft’s captain, up in the cockpit surrounded by panels of complex instrument displays as the pinpoint of light set in the dark lunar wasteland grew into a ring of brilliance, domes outlined in colors, landing pad marked with flashing beacons that grew larger and larger as they descended…

Stoner’s mind suddenly filled with his last sight of his daughter floating in the lighted pool, her blood spreading across the crystal water as he was carried aloft by the kidnappers’ rocket pack, her dead young body dwindling, dwindling as he rose higher, higher into the dark night.

Zoltan Janos bears responsibility for Cathy’s death. More than him, though, is Li-Po Hsen. And then Stoner realized there was a third man involved: the traitor whose presence he had felt at his birthday party. Three men.

His star brother replied, At least three. There will undoubtedly be many more.

“How did you know I was here?” asked Cliff Baker. “I mean, you’ve got a big facility here and it seems to be jampacked.”

Jo sat tensely, straight upright in her powered chair. Her office at Archimedes was almost exactly like her offices at Hilo and elsewhere. The major difference was that, deep underground, this lunar office had video screens where windows would normally be. At the moment they showed camera views of the barren surface of Mare Imbrium.

She made herself smile at Baker. “I have a subroutine in my daily program that announces the arrival of VIPs.”

“I’m a VIP?” Baker’s blond eyebrows rose. He was sprawled on one of the small couches, arms spread across its back, slouched halfway down on his spine, booted legs crossed. Instead of the normal lunar coveralls he still wore a sports shirt and chino slacks.

“Don’t be coy with me, Cliff.” Jo was in metallic silver coveralls. Even the lowliest Vanguard employee at Archimedes could recognize her at a distance of a hundred meters.

“Alright, so I’m an important person. Good of you to let me have a suite at the hotel. I understand it’s filled to capacity.”

With a slightly nervous nod, Jo admitted, “Everybody who can afford the trip is trying to come here to get away from the Horror. That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?”

“Royt as rayn,” said Baker, emphasizing his outback accent. “The bloody plague is starting to wipe out whole cities down there.”

“No one’s found a way of stopping it yet?”

Baker shrugged. “National governments are starting to quarantine incoming people for twenty-four hours.”

“I know. It raises hell with commerce.”

“Sure. And it’s
beautiful
when somebody who’s quarantined at an airport comes down with the Horror. Talk about riots! Fuckin’ troops have had to fire live ammunition into the mob. They’re killing thousands every day, and not a peep of it gets into the media. Not even in the U.S.! States have declared martial law.”

“It’s…” Jo groped for a word. “…terrible.”

“Not for us, though,” said Baker cheerfully. “We can sit up here and watch the world tear itself apart, safe and sound. Just goes to prove that, rich or poor, it pays to have money.”

Jo felt her nerves tightening. “That’s my Cliff. Always ready with a snide remark.”

He hunched forward, leaning his arms on his thighs, and almost snarled at her, “So what’ve you done to help? Run away to the Moon, that’s what!”

“And you?”

“There’s not much I
can
do to help, is there? You and your kind won’t vote more money for the medics and you dash up here to avoid the consequences.”

The bastard knows that Keith’s been abducted, Jo said to herself. He knows Cathy was murdered and Hsen’s out to get me. But he doesn’t give a damn. He’s too busy playing his stupid rich-vs.-poor game to care about actual people.

“So—” Baker leaned back in the couch once more, spread his arms again, “—how long d’you intend to stay up here, luv?”

“I’ve got work to do here,” Jo said.

“Sure. Of course.”

Suddenly her temper flared out of control. “You think I don’t? You think all I’ve got to do is sit around here and wait for the plague to die down? You think I’m some kind of latter-day Nero?”

Baker grinned, a lopsided show of pleasure at Jo’s pain. “I don’t see any fiddle, but…”

Jo jumped to her feet. “Come on with me, Cliff. I’ll show you what I’ve got to do! I’ll show you things that’ll wipe that damned smug smile off your face!”

An hour later Baker was sitting beside Jo in a converted lunar bus as it lumbered across the desolate Imbrium plain. Originally capable of taking a dozen tourists out across the lunar surface on journeys of a week or more, the bus now carried only the two passengers plus its normal crew of three. Her security troops were all still at Archimedes, waiting for her signal to board ballistic rockets that would loft them across the airless Mare Imbrium and land them at the secret base within minutes.

Rickie stayed at Archimedes. Jo was offering herself as bait to trap Hsen, and she did not want Rickie to be involved in more violence. So she left him behind, surrounded by dozens of security men and women, as safe as he could be in a world where private armies and mercenary commandos worked at the behest of giant multinational corporations.

She was certain that Vic Tomasso was on his way to the base, leading an assault force for Hsen. Maybe Hsen himself would come to Delphi base. No, she told herself, that would be too much to hope for. Tomasso would be there. That’s enough. For now.

Briefly she wondered if it was smart to go to Delphi herself, to dangle herself as bait for the trap she wanted to spring on her enemies. There’s no other way, she concluded. Hsen can’t pass up the opportunity to get at me. Whether he suspects a trap or not he’ll send Vic to Delphi to take me. She smiled to herself. Besides, I want to be there to see the bastard’s face for myself.

The battle between her and Hsen was coming down to its final moves. There was no room in the solar system now for the two of them. Either he dies or I do, Jo told herself. And he knows that. It’s gone beyond a corporate power struggle, beyond the battle to control most of the world’s wealth and power. It’s a personal war between the two of us. A vendetta.

Turning those thoughts over and over in her mind, Jo rode in the plushly furnished, windowless van toward Delphi base. How Nunzio would have been shocked to see a woman involved in a vendetta. Women were not supposed to fight. They could goad their men to fury, they could nourish the generations-long hatreds that set grandson against grandson, they could recite with bitter tears who murdered whom, but they were not expected to do the actual fighting. They stayed at home while the men slaughtered each other, tending to the wounded, keening dirges at the funerals, nursing the acid poison of vengeance all their lives.

Nunzio was dead, though. Murdered. Like Cathy. Killed without mercy or reason because Hsen wants my power and Keith’s abilities. Is Keith dead too? She shook her head. Probably not. I just hope he keeps out of the picture until I’ve finished with Hsen. I don’t want him trying to make me forgive the murdering bastard.

She closed her eyes and said to herself, Stay out of my way, Keith. Don’t try to stop my revenge. If you force me to choose between you and Cathy, it’ll destroy everything we’ve had together.

As soon as their spacecraft landed, a new team of security people replaced the burlap hood over Stoner’s head with a sophisticated black blindfold and a pair of soundproof earphones. Stoner had a brief glimpse of the interior of a spaceport hangar and the solemn faces of strangers clustered around him and then the blindfold cut off all light from his eyes.

Blind and deaf, he was led to another vehicle, strong hands guiding him and then half-boosting him up a ladder and through a low hatch. Someone checked the handcuffs that still pinned his wrists behind his back; apparently satisfied that they were tight enough, the person pushed Stoner down onto a seat and fastened a safety harness across his lap and shoulders.

Stoner knew they were on the Moon. He recognized the gentle lunar gravity, and his star brother immediately helped him compensate his Earth-trained muscles to the lower pull. Then he felt the push of acceleration, like a rocket liftoff but much softer, almost ethereal. Before he could take a breath the acceleration died away and he felt weightless as the rocket craft soared across the airless lunar surface.

His physical senses cut off, Stoner probed with his mind to find out who else was in the rocket vehicle and where they were heading. He sensed Janos and Ilona, but they were the only ones among the eighteen people aboard whom he recognized. The others were all men, all strangers, except…

He felt the tingle of discovery: the same sensation he had felt at his birthday party. The same man was aboard this rocket, the traitor from Jo’s headquarters. Stoner concentrated on his mind and found that Vic Tomasso knew where they were going and why.

They were heading for Delphi base, out in the bleak and empty Mare Imbrium where he and Jo were constructing the starship. Jo was already on her way there and they meant to trap her there.

Why are they taking me there? Probing deeper, he found the answer in Tomasso’s mind. Li-Po Hsen planned to keep Stoner at the isolated base so that Janos could continue his experiments until he uncovered the secrets of Stoner’s abilities. Hsen wanted those abilities for himself. Above all, he wanted immortality.

Stoner felt his teeth clenching together so hard that his jaws hurt. Hsen wants immortality for himself and death for Jo. He sees himself as a new Genghis Khan, absolute ruler of all the world, immortal and all-powerful. He wants to be a god.