The Rock Rats

CHAPTER 37

As they pulled up their convoy of four minitractors to the entrance of the Helvetia warehouse, Harbin saw that there were only two people on duty there, and one of them was a woman, gray-haired and grandmotherly, but with a hard, scowling face. She was stocky, stumpy, built like a weight-lifter.

“What do you guys want?” she demanded as Harbin got down from the lead tractor.

“Don’t give us a hard time, grandmother,” he said gently. “Just relax and do what you’re told.”

A face-to-face job like this was far different from shooting up spacecraft in the dark emptiness of the Belt. That was like a game; this was blood. Be still, he commanded silently. Don’t make me kill you. But he felt the old rage building up inside him: the manic fury that led to death.

“What are you doing here?” the woman repeated truculently. “Who the hell are you assholes?”

Working hard to keep his inner rage under control, Harbin waved his undisciplined team into the Helvetia warehouse. They all wore breathing masks, nothing unusual in the dusty tunnels of Ceres. They also wore formfitting shower caps that had been ferried in all the way from Earth; with the caps on, no one could see a man’s hair color or style. Harbin also made certain none of his crew had any name tags or other identification on themselves. If Tracy Buchanan had taken that simple precaution he would undoubtedly still be alive now, Harbin thought.

“What’s this goddam parade of tractors for?” the woman demanded.

She was wearing a breathing mask, too. So was the skinny kid standing a few paces down the shadowy aisle of tall shelves.

“We’re here to empty out your warehouse,” Santorini said, strutting up to her.

“What the hell do you mean?” the woman asked angrily, reaching for the phone console.

Santorini swatted her to the floor with a backhand smack. The kid back in the stacks threw up his hands in the universal sign of surrender.

“Come on,” Santorini said, waving to the rest of them.

Harbin nodded his approval. They started to move in. The kid stood absolutely still, frozen in terror from the look on his ashen face. Santorini kicked him in the stomach so hard he bounced off the shelving and collapsed groaning to the floor.

“How’s that for martial arts?” Santorini shouted over his shoulder as the others revved up the minitractors and trundled into the warehouse, raising billows of black dust.

Swaggering little snot, Harbin thought, looking at the woman Santorini had knocked down. Her lip was bloody, but the look in her eyes proclaimed pure malevolent fury. She struggled to her feet, then lurched toward the phone console.

Harbin grabbed her by one shoulder. “Be careful, grandmother. You could get hurt.”

The woman growled and swung her free fist into Harbin’s temple. The blow surprised more than hurt him, but it triggered his inner anger.

“Stop it,” he snarled, shaking her.

She aimed a kick at his groin. Harbin twisted sideways to catch it on his hip but it still hurt. Without thinking he slid the electro-dagger out of its sheath on his wrist and slit her throat.

The old woman gurgled blood and collapsed to the floor like a sack of wet cement.

Fuchs’s black mood of frustration and anger deepened into an even darker pit of raging fury as he and Nodon boarded the Astro Corporation ship Lubbock Lights bound for Ceres. They had said a lingering goodbye to George at the Pelican Bar the night before.

“I’ll be back at the Belt as soon’s me arm grows back,” George had promised several times, over many beers.

Pancho had bought all their rounds, drinking with them in gloomy comradeship.

Now, with a thundering headache and a towering hatred boiling inside him, Fuchs faced the four-day journey back to Ceres with the exasperation of a caged jungle beast.

When the message came in from Amanda he nearly went berserk.

He was in his privacy compartment, a cubicle barely large enough to hold a narrow cot, trying to sleep. Each time he closed his eyes, though, he saw Martin Humphries sneering at him. And why not? Fuchs raged at himself. He has gotten away with murder. And piracy. No one can stop him; no one will even stand up to him except me, and I’m powerless: a pitiful, impotent, useless fool.

For hours he tossed on the cot, clad only in a pair of shorts, sweating, his hair matted, his jaw stubbled with a two-day growth of beard. Stop this fruitless nonsense! he raged at himself. It’s useless to pound your head against a wall. Think! Prepare! If you want revenge on Humphries you must out-think him, you must make plans that are crystal clear, a strategy that will crush him once and for all. But each time he tried to think clearly, logically, his anger rose like a tide of red-hot lava, overwhelming him.

The phone buzzed. Fuchs sat up on the cot and told the computer to open the incoming message.

Amanda’s face filled the screen on the bulkhead at the foot of the cot. She looked tense, even though she tried to smile.

“Hello, dear,” she said, brushing at a stray lock of hair that had fallen across her forehead. “I’m fine, but they’ve looted the warehouse.”

“What? Looted?”

She couldn’t hear or see him, of course. She had sent the message a good fifteen minutes earlier.

“They killed Inga. Out of pure bloodthirsty spite, from what Oscar told me. You remember him, Oscar Jiminez. He’s the young boy I hired to help handle the stock.”

She’s terrified, Fuchs realized, watching the lines of strain on her face, listening to her ramble on.

“They came in during the night shift, when only Inga and Oscar were there, about nine or ten of them, according to Oscar. They beat him and slit Inga’s throat. The man who did it laughed about it. Then they emptied the warehouse. Every box, every carton, every bit of stock we had. It’s all gone. All of it.”

Fuchs’s teeth were grinding together so furiously his jaw began to ache. Amanda was trying hard to keep from crying.

“I’m perfectly fine,” she was saying. “This all happened late last night. The morning shift found Inga on the floor in a pool of blood and Oscar tied and gagged all the way in the rear of the warehouse. And—and that’s the whole story. I’m all right, no one’s bothered me at all. In fact, everyone seems to be very protective of me today.” She brushed at her hair again. “I suppose that’s all there is to say, just at this moment. Hurry home, darling. I love you.”

The screen went blank. Fuchs pounded a fist against the unyielding bulkhead and roared a wordless howl of frustration and rage.

He leaped off the cot and ripped open the flimsy sliding door of his cubicle. Still clad in nothing but his shorts he stormed up the ship’s passageway to the bridge.

“We must get to Ceres as fast as possible!” he shouted to the lone crewwoman sitting in the command chair.

Her eyes popped wide at the sight of him.

“Now! Speed up! I have to get to Ceres before they murder my wife!”

The woman looked at Fuchs as if he were a madman, but she summoned the captain, who came onto the bridge wrapped in a knee-length silk robe, rubbing sleep from his eyes.

“My wife is in danger!” Fuchs bellowed at the captain. “We must get to Ceres as quickly as possible!”

It was maddening. Fuchs babbled his fears to the captain, who finally understood enough to put in a call to IAA mission control for permission to increase the ship’s acceleration. It took nearly half an hour for a reply to come back from IAA headquarters on Earth. Half an hour while Fuchs paced up and down the bridge, muttering, swearing, wondering what was happening at Ceres. The captain suggested that they both put on some clothes, and went back to his quarters. Nodon appeared, then left without a word and returned minutes later carrying a pair of coveralls for Fuchs.

Tugging them on and sealing the Velcro closures, Fuchs asked the crewwoman to open a communications channel to Ceres. She did so without hesitation.

“Amanda,” he said, “I’m on the way. We are asking for permission to accelerate faster, so I might be able to reach you before our scheduled arrival time. I’ll let you know. Stay in your quarters. Ask some of the people who work for us to act as guards at your door. I’ll be there as soon as I can, darling. As soon as I can.”

By the time the captain returned to the bridge, face washed, hair combed, and wearing a crisp jumpsuit with his insignia of rank on the cuffs, the answer arrived from IAA control.

Permission denied. Lubbock Lights will remain at its current velocity vector and arrive at Ceres in three and a half more days, as scheduled.

Trembling, Fuchs turned from the robotlike IAA controller’s image on the screen to the uniformed captain.

“I’m sorry,” said the captain, with a sympathetic shrug of his shoulders. “There’s nothing I can do.”

Fuchs stared at the man’s bland, scrubbed face for half a moment, then smashed a thundering right fist into the captain’s jaw. His head snapped back and blood flew from his mouth as he buckled to the deck. Turning on the gape-mouthed crew woman, Fuchs ordered, “Maximum acceleration. Now!”

She glanced at the unconscious captain, then back at Fuchs. “But I can’t—”

He ripped an emergency hand torch from its clips on the bulkhead and brandished it like a club. “Get away from the controls!”

“But—”

“Get out of that chair!” Fuchs bellowed.

She jumped to her feet and stepped sideways, slipping along the curving control panel, away from him.

“Nodon!” Fuchs called.

The young Asian stepped through the open hatch. He glanced nervously at the captain lying on the deck, then at the frightened crewwoman.

“See that no one enters the bridge,” Fuchs said, tossing the hand torch to him. “Use that on anyone who tries to get in here.”

Nodon gestured the woman toward the hatch as Fuchs sat in the command chair and studied the control board. Not much different from Starpower or the other vessels he’d been on.

“What about the captain?” the crewwoman asked. He was groaning softly, his legs starting to move a little.

“Leave him here,” said Fuchs. “He’ll be all right.”

She left and Nodon swung the hatch shut behind her.

“Lock it,” Fuchs ordered.

The captain sat up, rubbed at the back of his neck, then looked up blearily at Fuchs sitting at the controls.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” the captain growled.

“I’m trying to save my wife’s life,” Fuchs answered, pushing the ship’s acceleration to its maximum of one-half normal Earth gravity.

“This is piracy!” the captain snapped.

Fuchs swung around in the command chair. “Yes,” he said tightly. “Piracy. There’s a lot of it going around, these days.”