The Silent War

LUNAR CABLE CAR 502

Pancho had to grin as she walked up to the cable car along with the other passengers returning to Selene. Above the car’s front windows someone had stenciled the car’s route in blood-red letters: To Hell and Back. None of the other tourists or resident Lunatics seemed to pay any attention to the lettering. Pancho shook her head at their indifference to the unknown graffitist’s sense of humor.

Amanda had left the Hell Crater complex as she had arrived, as part of Douglas Stavenger’s small, private entourage. She had slipped a beige snood over her golden hair, and an equally bland, shapeless mid-calf coat over her dress. No one would see the parade of animated figures circling her waist. She blended in with the rest of Stavenger’s people. Unless someone was specifically searching for her, no one would notice her among the others who boarded Stavenger’s special cable car.

Pancho had decided not to go with them. The lantern-jawed face and tall, long-limbed figure of Astro Corporation’s board chairwoman were known well enough that there was a small but real chance that she might be recognized by news reporters—or snoops from Humphries Space Systems. No sense taking unnecessary risks, she decided. So Pancho spent the rest of the afternoon playing in the casinos, enjoying herself. For an hour or so she piled up a considerable score on one of the computer games, but eventually the law of averages caught up with her. When she sank back to break-even, Pancho called it a day and strolled over to one of the better restaurants for a solitary dinner. Gambling was fun, she thought, but losing wasn’t. And the longer you play, the better the odds favor the house.

She always ate too quickly when she was alone. Feeling full yet unsatisfied, Pancho made her way back to the cable car airlock. “To Hell and back,” she muttered to herself as she climbed through the cable car’s hatch and strapped herself into a seat up front. She looked forward to watching the lunar scenery whipping past, and besides, with her back to most of the other passengers there was less chance of her being recognized. I’ll get a good look at the Straight Wall, she thought.

The overweight Asian-American who settled into the seat beside her, though, stared at her for a few moments after he clicked his safety harness over his bulky shoulders. Then, as the car jerked into motion and glided past the airlock doors, he said, “Pardon me, but aren’t you Pancho Lane? I saw your picture in the financial news net a few days ago and…”

Pancho didn’t have to say a word. She couldn’t. The man prattled on nonstop about his own small company and his great admiration for an executive as lofty as Pancho and how he had come up to Selene from the big refugee center at SeaTac, in the States, to try to clinch a deal with Astro Corporation.

Pancho was almost grateful when the cable car suddenly lurched violently and then began to fall, slowly, with the inexorable horror of a nightmare, to crash nose-first into the dusty, cracked, crater-pocked ground.

Martin Humphries leaned back as his desk chair molded itself to the contours of his spine. He sat alone in his office, just off the master bedroom in his mansion, squinting at the string of numbers and accompanying text that hovered in midair above his wide, expansive desk. He steepled his fingers before his face as he studied the reports from his accounting department. Profits were down slightly, but he had expected that. Four ships had been lost in the past quarter, three of them automated ore freighters, one of them a logistics ship that had been seized, looted, and then gutted by Lars Fuchs. The crew had been set adrift in their escape pod. The attack had taken place close enough to Ceres for them to be rescued within forty-eight hours.

Humphries snapped his fingers and the report dissolved.

“Fuchs,” he muttered. The sonofabitch is still out there in the Belt, drifting around like some Flying Dutchman, getting his pitiful little jolts out of knocking off HSS vessels. And that damned greasemonkey Pancho is helping him.

Humphries smiled to himself. Well, enjoy yourself while you can, Fuchs. The end is near. And meanwhile, I’ve got your ex-wife pregnant.

Pancho is a different problem. Tougher nut to crack. But I’ll get her. I’ll bleed Astro white until their board of directors boots her ass out the door. Then I’ll offer them a merger deal that they can’t afford to refuse. I’ll take Astro Corporation; it’s only a matter of time.

Getting up from the chair and walking slowly around his desk, Humphries laughed out loud. As soon as Amanda gets home from her shopping or whatever the hell she’s doing today, I’ll pop her into bed. Just because she’s carrying my son doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy her.

“Holowindow,” he called out, “give me a view of the Asteroid Belt.”

The window on the left wall of the office immediately displayed a painting by Davis of a lumpy, potato-brown asteroid with a smaller chip of rock floating near it.

“No, a photo. Real-time telescopic view.”

The holowindow went blank for a second, then showed a stretch of star-flecked darkness. One of the pinpoints of light was noticeably brighter than any of the others. The single word ceres flashed briefly next to it.

“He’s out there somewhere,” Humphries muttered to himself. “But not for much longer.”

Humphries went back to his desk and called up the latest progress report from his special security detail in the Belt. The base on Vesta was complete, and twenty-four attack craft were on their way to take up stations around the Belt. All of HSS’s freighters were being equipped with military crews and weapons. The costs were draining the corporation’s profits, but sooner or later Fuchs would be found and destroyed.

In the meantime, Humphries thought, it’s time to make my move against Astro. Time to take Pancho down. That greasemonkey’s blocked my takeover of Astro long enough.

She doesn’t understand the first principles of economics, Humphries told himself. Supply and demand. Astro is cutting our throats, undercut-ting our price for raw materials from the asteroids. And that damned guttersnipe will keep on undercutting me until I wipe her off the board completely. There isn’t room for two players out in the Belt. The only way to make economic sense out there is to have just one corporation in charge of everything. And that one’s got to be Humphries Space Systems.

Yet his thoughts returned to Fuchs. I’ve given the sonofabitch eight years. I promised Amanda I wouldn’t harm him, and for eight years I’ve lived up to that promise. And what has Fuchs done? He sticks it to me every time he can. Instead of being grateful that I didn’t kill him, he kicks me in the balls every chance he gets. Well, eight years is long enough. It’s damned expensive trying to track him down, but I’m going to get that bastard, the sooner the better.

He’s smart, though. Clever enough to hide out in the Belt and let his fellow rock rats help him. And Pancho, too; she’s helping him all she can. I’ve got to get him out of hiding. Out into the open, where my people can destroy him.

Maybe the news that Amanda is pregnant will bring him out, goad him into making a mistake.

Looking at his own faint reflection in the holowindows, Humphries thought, I’d like to see the expression on his shitty face when he finds out Amanda’s carrying my son.