The Rock Rats

CHAPTER 24

Lars Fuchs didn’t spend more than five minutes deciding what he was going to do. He called up the flight history data on Waltzing Matilda. Sure enough, Big George and his crewman had been working a fair-sized carbonaceous asteroid, according to the data they had telemetered back to the IAA. They had started mining it, then all communications from their ship had abruptly cut off. Efforts by the IAA controllers on Ceres to contact them had proved fruitless.

Evidence, Fuchs thought as he studied the flight data on his main comm screen. If I can locate Waltzing Matilda and find evidence that the ship was attacked, deliberately destroyed, then I can get the authorities Earthside to step in and do a thorough investigation of all these missing ships.

Sitting alone on the bridge of Starpower, he tapped the coordinates of the asteroid George had been working into his navigation computer. But his hand hovered over the key that would engage the program.

Do I want the IAA to know where I’m going? He asked himself. The answer was a clear no. Whoever is destroying the prospectors’ and miners’ ships must have exact information about their courses and positions. They can use the telemetry data that each ship sends out automatically to track the ships down.

I must run silently, Fuchs concluded. Not even Amanda will know where I am. The thought of the risk bothered him; the reason for sending out the telemetry signal was so the IAA would know where each ship was. But what good is that? Fuchs asked himself. When a ship gets in trouble, no one comes out to help. The Belt is too enormous. If I run into a problem I’m on my own. All the telemetry data will do is tell the IAA where I was when I died.

It took the better part of a day for Fuchs to take out Starpower’s telemetry transmitter and install it into the little emergency vehicle. Each ship carried at least one escape pod; six people could live in one for a month or more. An example of so-called safety regulations that looked important to the IAA and were in fact useless, ridiculous. An escape pod makes sense for spacecraft working the Earth/Moon region. A rescue ship can reach them in a few days, often in a matter of mere hours. But out here in the Belt, forget about rescue. The distances were too large and the possible rescue ships too few. The prospectors knew they were on their own as soon as they left Ceres.

Fuchs grinned to himself as he thought about all the other uses the emergency vehicles had been put to: extra storage capacity; extra crew quarters; micrograv love nest, when detached from the spinning ship so the pod could be weightless.

But you, he said silently as he installed the telemetry transmitter into Starpower’s escape pod, you will be a decoy. They will think you are me, while I head silently for George’s asteroid.

Once he returned to the bridge and sat in the command chair, he thought of Amanda. Should I tell her what I’m about to do? He wanted to, but feared that his message would be overheard by Humphries’s people. It’s obvious that they have infiltrated the IAA, Fuchs thought. Perhaps the flight controllers on Ceres are secretly taking money from him.

If something happens to the escape pod, Amanda will think I’ve been killed. How can I warn her, let her know what I’m doing?

Then he felt an icy hand grip his heart. What would Amanda do if she thought I was dead? Would she mourn me? Try to avenge me? Or would she run to Humphries? That’s what he wants. That’s why he wants me dead. Will Amanda give in to him if she thinks I’m out of the way?

He hated himself for even thinking such a thought. But he could not escape it. His face twisted into an angry frown, teeth clenched so hard it made his jaws ache, he banged out the keyboard commands that ejected the pod into a long, parabolic trajectory that would send it across the Belt. It took an effort of will, but he did not send a message back to his wife.

I’m alone now, Fuchs thought as he directed Starpower toward the asteroid where Big George had last been heard from.

Diane Verwoerd was reading her favorite Bible passage: the story of the crooked steward who cheated his boss and made himself a nice feather bed for his retirement.

Whenever she had qualms about what she was doing, she called up Luke 16:1-13. It reassured her. Very few people understood the real message of the story, she thought as she read the ancient words on the wallscreen of her apartment.

The steward was eventually fired when his boss found out about his cheating. But the key to the tale was that the steward’s thefts from his master’s accounts were not so huge that the master wanted vengeance. He just fired the guy. And all through the years that the steward had been working for this master, he had put away enough loot so he could live comfortably in retirement. A sort of golden parachute that the boss didn’t know about.

Verwoerd leaned back languidly in her recliner. It adjusted its shape to the curves of her body and massaged her gently, soothingly. It had originally belonged to Martin Humphries, but she had shown him an advertisement for a newer model, which he had immediately bought and then instructed her to get rid of this one. So she removed it from his office and installed it in her own quarters.

With a voice command she ordered the computer to show her personal investment account. The numbers instantly filled the wallscreen. Not bad for a girl from the slums of Amsterdam, she congratulated herself. Over the years you’ve avoided the usual pitfalls of prostitution and drug dependency and even steered clear of becoming some rich fart’s mistress. So far, so good.

She spoke to the computer again, and the list of asteroids that she personally owned the claims for appeared on the screen. Only a half dozen of the little rocks, but they were producing ores nicely and building up profits steeply. Taxes would take a sizeable chunk of the money, but Verwoerd reminded herself that no government can tax money that you don’t have. Pay the taxes and be glad you owe them, she told herself.

Of course, Martin thought that HSS owned the claims to those asteroids. But with so many others in his clutches, a mere half-dozen was down below his radar horizon. Besides, whenever he wanted to check on anything, he always asked his trusted assistant to do it. So he’ll never find out about this little pilfering until after I’ve left his employment.

She cleared the list from the screen, and the verses from Luke came up again.

I’ll be able to retire very comfortably in a couple of years, Verwoerd told herself. It will all work out fine, as long as I don’t get too greedy—and as long as I keep Martin at arm’s length. The moment I give in to him, my days as an HSS employee are numbered.

She looked at her reflection in the mirror across the room and smiled to herself. Maybe I’ll give him a little fling, once I’m ready to retire. Once he fires me, I’ll get severance pay. Or at least a nice little going-away present from Martin. He’s like that.

Turning from her own image back to the words from the Bible, she frowned slightly at the final verse:

Perhaps, thought Diane Verwoerd. But I’m not really serving Martin Humphries. I’m working for him. I’m getting rather wealthy off him. But I’m serving only myself, no one else.

Still, she cleared the wallscreen with a single sharp command to the computer. The Bible passage disappeared, replaced by a reproduction of a Mary Cassat painting of a mother and child.