The Precipice

HUMPHRIES TRUST RESEARCH CENTER

Martin Humphries was awakened from a dream about Amanda by the insistent shrill of his personal phone.

It wasn’t a sexual dream. Strangely, when he dreamed of Amanda it was never sexual. They were on a yacht this time, sailing across a calm azure sea, standing up by the prow and watching dolphins leaping across the ship’s bow wave. He felt nervous on the water, unable to shake the fear of drowning even in this idyllic setting.

Amanda stood by the rail, wearing a lovely pale blue dress, the soft breeze tousling her hair. She gazed at him with sad eyes. “I’ll be leaving soon,” she said unhappily.

“You can’t leave me,” Humphries said to her. “I won’t let you leave.”

“I don’t want to, darling. But they’re forcing me to. I must go. I have no choice.”

“Who?” Humphries demanded. “Who’s forcing you?”

“You know who, dearest,” said Amanda. “You know. You’re even helping him.”

“It’s Randolph! He’s taking you away from me!”

“Yes,” Amanda said, her eyes pleading with him to help her. To save her.

And then the damned phone woke him up.

He sat up in his bed, blazingly angry. “Phone!” he called out. “On the art screen.” A reproduction of a Picasso cubist nude disappeared to reveal the somber face of his security chief.

“Sorry to wake you, sir,” the man said, “but you said you wanted to be personally informed of Ms. Cunningham’s movements.”

With a glance at the digital clock on the nightstand, Humphries demanded, “Where’s she going at four in the fricking morning?”

“She’s apparently asleep in her room, sir, but—”

“Then what are you bothering me for?” Humphries bellowed. The security man swallowed visibly. “Sir, her name has just appeared on a flight manifest.”

“Flight manifest?”

“Yessir. She and three other people are scheduled to go to the Star-power ship, up in orbit.”

“Now? Today?”

“Scheduled for eight this morning, sir.”

Four hours from now, Humphries realized. “And this flight manifest just came up on the launch schedule?”

“About an hour ago, sir.”

“Why are they going to Starpower 1?” Humphries wondered aloud.

“That vessel is scheduled for launch on a test flight at nine o’clock, sir.”

“I know that,” Humphries snapped. “It’s an unnamed long-duration flight.”

“Perhaps they’re going up for a last-minute checkout, before the ship is launched out of orbit.”

“Three other people going with her, you say? Who are they?” The security chief read off the names. “P. Lane, command pilot; L. Fuchs, mission scientist; and C. N. Barnard, flight surgeon.”

“I know Lane,” Humphries said. “Who are the other two?”

“Fuchs is a graduate student from Zurich Polytechnical Institute. He just arrived in Selene a few days ago. Barnard is apparently a medic of sort.”

“Apparently?”

Looking uncomfortable, the security chief replied, “He’s an Astro employee. We have no background data on Barnard, sir. No ID photo, either. All that we’ve been able to pull up from Astro’s files are his name, his position, and his fingerprints and retinal scan.”

“Dan Randolph,” Humphries growled. “It’s an alias for Randolph!”

“Sir?”

“Check those prints and retinal scan against Dan Randolph’s file.”

“Yessir.”

“And send a couple of men to Amanda Cunningham’s quarters. Bring her here, to me.”

“Right away, sir.”

The wall screen went blank for an instant, then the Picasso image reappeared. Humphries paid no attention. He leaped out of bed, snarling aloud, “That fucking Randolph thinks he’s going to zip off to the Belt and take Amanda with him. Like hell he will!”

Dan was already up and dressed in a white flight suit, the kind of coveralls worn by members of Selene’s medical staff. “C. N. Barnard” was one of the extra identities he had stored in Astro’s personnel files, a hangover from the days when he’d been up to his armpits in international skullduggery. He still had modest bank accounts scattered here and there on Earth under various aliases, just in case he ever needed to disappear for a while.

He grinned to himself as he started for the tunnel that led to the spaceport. I’m going to disappear for a while, all right. Completely out of the Earth — Moon system. Past Mars. Out to the Asteroid Belt. The IAA will go apeshit when they find out we’re on board Starpower 1. Humphries’ll have a fit. And Astro’s stock ought to shoot up when we claim mining rights to a nice, rich asteroid or three. The lawyers may squabble over the details, but a few billion dollars worth of high-grade ores will start a feeding frenzy among the brokers. And the publicity will help, too.

His grin disappeared as he reached the entrance to the tunnel. An electric cart sat waiting to take him to the spaceport, but neither Pancho nor Amanda was in sight. Dammitall to hell and back, Dan fumed. They were supposed to meet me here at five sharp. Women!

“Come on, Mandy,” Pancho urged. “Dan’s prob’ly waitin’ for us already!”

“One more minute,” Amanda said, from the lav. “I’ve just got to—” Somebody pounded impatiently on the door.

“Oh, hell!” Pancho said.

Amanda came out of the lavatory. “I’m ready, Pancho. Sorry to keep you waiting.”

Pancho opened the door. Instead of Dan Randolph, two strangers stood out in the corridor. Both were men, wearing identical dark gray business suits. One with long blond hair and a nice full moustache, the other a taller, darker man with a military crew cut. Both were big-shouldered and stone-faced. They looked like cops to Pancho.

Shit! Pancho thought. They know I hacked into the flight schedule.

But the blond said, “Amanda Cunningham? Come with us, please.” Pancho hiked a thumb over her shoulder. “That’s her. And she’s not goin’ anywhere with you. We’re late for work already.”

They pushed past Pancho and entered the room. “You’ll have to come with us, Ms. Cunningham,” the blond said.

“Why? On whose authority?”

“Mr. Humphries wants to see you,” the buzz cut said. His partner frowned at him.

Pancho said, “Now wait a minute—”

“Don’t interfere,” the blond said sharply. “Our orders are to bring Ms.

Cunningham to Mr. Humphries’s residence. That’s what we’re going to do.”

“Call security, Mandy,” Pancho said. “These guys are workin’ for Humphries.” Amanda started around the bed to the phone on the night table between their two beds, but the blond moved faster and blocked her way. “We don’t want to get physical,” he said to Amanda, “but we’ve got a job to do and we’re going to do it.”

“How rough we get depends on you,” said the darker man, grinning at Amanda.

She stared at them, wide eyed, somewhere between confusion and terror. The blond took another step toward Amanda. “Come along now, honey. We don’t want to hurt anybody.”

Mandy stumbled back, away from him. Pancho saw that both men were focused on her. She swiftly bent down and peeled Elly from her ankle. “Here, wiseass,” Pancho said as she hurled the bright blue snake at the blond. He turned just fast enough to see the krait sailing in lunar slow motion toward his face. Instinctively he raised his arm to shield himself.

“What the hell!”

Elly bounced off the guy’s arm and fell to the floor. She reared up, hissing angrily.

“Jesus Christ, what is it?”

The buzz cut was tugging at something inside his jacket. Pancho chopped at the back of his neck and he sagged to the floor. Elly slithered toward him. The blond seemed frozen with fright, staring at the snake.

Pancho gestured to Amanda, who stepped past the goggle-eyed blond and came to her side.

The guy on the floor pushed himself up on one elbow and saw the snake rearing a bare ten centimeters in front of his face, its beady eyes staring at him. “Aaaggh,” he moaned.

The blond pulled a small pistol from the holster beneath his jacket. Pancho saw that his hand was shaking badly.

“Loud noises annoy her,” she said. “Just be quiet and don’t move.” The blond glanced at her, then returned his stare to the snake. The buzz cut was sweating as Elly stood before him, her tongue flicking in and out. “D-do something,” he whispered hoarsely.

“Better drop your gun on the bed,” said Pancho to the blond. “If you shoot and miss her, she’ll bite him for sure.”

The blond tossed the gun onto the bed. “Get it out of here,” he pleaded. Pancho started to lean forward, slowly, carefully, bending toward Elly. But the buzz cut’s nerve broke. He swung blindly at the snake and tried to scramble to his feet. Elly sank her fangs into the meaty side of his hand. He screamed and sagged back to the floor, unconscious. Pancho bent over and scooped Elly up, careful to hold her so the krait couldn’t twist and bite her. “He’ll be dead in an hour ’less you get the antiserum into him,” Pancho said quickly.

The blond stared at his partner helplessly.

“Take him to the hospital!” Pancho shouted.

She headed for her travel bag, still on her bed, next to the blond’s discarded gun. Still holding Elly, she rummaged in the bag until she found the vial of antiserum and tossed it to the blond.

“Get him to the hospital! Now! Tell ’em what happened and give ’em this. It’s the antiserum.”

Then she grabbed her still-open travel bag and headed for the door. Amanda came right behind her, then rushed back in to get her own bag. As they hurried down the corridor together, Pancho glanced back over her shoulder and saw the blond lugging his unconscious partner in the other direction, toward the hospital. “Good girl, Elly,” she said. The krait had wrapped itself contentedly around Pancho’s wrist.

When they got to the spaceport tunnel Dan Randolph was pacing angrily.

“Where the hell have you been? We’re running late.”

“I’ll tell you all about it, boss,” Pancho said as they climbed aboard the cart.

“It’s Martin,” Amanda said, her voice low.

“Humphries?” asked Dan.

“He wants Mandy, and I think he knows we’re tryin’ to get out of here.”

“What the hell happened?” Dan demanded.

Pancho told him as the automated cart rode down the tunnel to the spaceport. Martin Humphries sat at his desk, staring coldly at the frightened, worried face of the blond security agent. The man was sweating and nervously brushing at his moustache with a fingertip.

“So you let her get away,” Humphries said, after the man had explained his failure for the third time.

“My partner was dying!” the blond said, his voice ragged. “That motherfucking snake bit him!”

“And you let Ms. Cunningham get away,” Humphries repeated, icily.

“I had to take him to the hospital. He would’ve died otherwise.”

“You didn’t phone me, or security, or anyone who might have prevented her leaving.”

“I’m phoning you now,” the blond said, with some heat. “They’re just about making their rendezvous with the Starpower ship. You can call the control center and have them abort the mission.”

“Can I?”

“There’s still time.”

Humphries clicked off the connection. Stupid clod, he thought. I send him to do one simple thing and he fucks it up completely.

“Abort the mission,” he said aloud. Then he shook his head. I should call the control center and tell them that Dan Randolph is hijacking my vessel and taking the woman I love alone with him. That would be a lovely item for the scandal nets. Everyone would laugh themselves sick at me.

He leaned back in his contoured chair, but its softly yielding padding failed to soothe him. Amanda’s running off with Randolph. He’s probably been hot for her all the time, just waiting to get her away from me. Well, now they can be together. She prefers him to me. So she can die with him.

His teeth hurt. With some surprise, Humphries realized that he’d clamped his jaw so tight it was making his whole head ache. His neck and shoulders were painfully stiff with tension. His fists were clenched so tightly he could feel his fingernails cutting into his palms.

Amanda’s gone off with him. I’ll acquire Astro, but I’ve lost her forever. They’ll die together. It’s not my fault. I didn’t want to kill anybody. They’re doing it to themselves. She’s killing herself.

He wished he could cry. Instead, he glanced at the list of major Astro stockholders that was displayed on his desktop screen. And he punched his right fist into the screen, exploding it in a shower of sparks and plastic shards.