The Silent War

ARMSTRONG SPACEPORT

As the cart trundled to a stop at the end of the tunnel that led back to Selene, Wanamaker noticed that the lower half of Pancho’s right leg was wrapped in a cast. She looked grim, almost angry, as she sat behind the cart’s wheel with her leg sticking out onto the fender.

Fuchs was standing beside Wanamaker, also far from happy. His three aides were already on their way to the little rocket shuttlecraft that would take them up to the vessel waiting in orbit above the Moon’s rugged, airless surface.

“Humphries is alive and well,” said Pancho, without getting down from the electric cart. “No thanks to you, Lars.”

His mouth a downcast slash, Fuchs answered, “Too bad. The world would be better off with him dead.”

“Maybe so, but all you did was kill a dozen or so of his people. Now he’s got a perfectly good excuse to go after your ass, ol’ buddy.”

Fuchs started to reply, thought better of it, and said nothing.

Turning to Wanamaker, Pancho asked, “What’ve you got for him?”

“The only available armed vessel is a new attack ship, Halsey.

Pancho nodded brusquely. “Okay, Lars. That’s your new ship. Officially, you’ve hijacked it while it was sitting in lunar orbit waiting for a crew to be assigned to it.”

“You’re giving it to me?” Fuchs asked, flabbergasted.

“You’re stealing it. We’ll add it to your long list of crimes.”

His broad, normally downcast face broke into a bitter smile. “Pancho … I… I don’t know what to say.”

She did not smile back at him. “Just get your butt up to the ship and get the hell out of here as fast as you can. Go back to the Belt and hide out with the rock rats. Humphries is going to come after you with everything he’s got.”

Fuchs nodded, understanding. “I’m only sorry that I didn’t kill him. He deserves to die.”

“So do we all, ol’ buddy,” said Pancho. “Now, git! Before a platoon of HSS security goons comes boiling down the tunnel.”

Fuchs grasped her hand and, bending slightly, kissed it. Pancho’s face turned red.

“Go on, git. There’s gonna be plenty hell to pay; I’ve got to get busy.” Almost laughing, Fuchs turned and started trotting down the corridor that led to the waiting shuttlecraft, a thickset, sturdy little badger of a man clad in black, his short arms pumping as he ran.

Wanamaker shook his head. “When Humphries finds out you’ve helped him escape…”

Pancho grinned at him. “Hell, Jake, he got away from you. You’re the one who sprang him out of the hospital. He got away from you and stole a brand-new Astro spacecraft. I might have to dock your pay or something.”

Wanamaker broke into a craggy smile. “You are some piece of work, Ms. Lane. Really some piece of work.”

“Come on,” Pancho said, patting the plastic of the seat beside her. “I’ll give you a ride back to town. We got a lot of work to do.”

“What do you mean, he’s disappeared?” Humphries demanded.

Grigor stood before him like a dark wraith, his eyes downcast. With a shrug, he repeated, “Fuchs is gone.”

They were in the sitting room of Humphries’s suite in the Hotel Luna. Tatiana Oparin had discreetly remained in the bedroom when Grigor had arrived, before Humphries’s breakfast order had come from room service.

“He can’t be gone!” Humphries shouted, pounding the pillows of the sofa on which he sat. Clad only in a silk hotel robe, his thin, almost hairless legs reminded Grigor of a chicken’s.

Standing before the sofa, to one side of the coffeetable, Grigor reported, “He was under Selene’s custody last night, in the hospital. This morning, when we went to interrogate him, he and his crew were gone.”

“Gone? How could he be gone? Where did he go? How could he get out?”

“An Astro Corporation security detail removed him from the hospital shortly after one A.M.,” Grigor replied, his voice as flat and even as a computer’s. “There is no trace of him after that.”

Leaping to his feet so hard that his robe flapped open, Humphries screamed, “Find him! Search every centimeter of the city and find him! Now! Use every man you’ve got.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Don’t stand there! Find him!”

As Grigor turned toward the door, the phone chimed. Scowling, Humphries saw that the wallscreen displayed the name of the caller: Pancho Lane.

“Phone answer,” he snapped.

Pancho’s angular, light tan features took shape on the wallscreen, slightly bigger than life.

“Martin, I have some unpleasant news for you.”

He glared at her image as he pulled the maroon robe tightly around himself.

“Lars Fuchs somehow stole our newest ship and lit out of lunar orbit a few hours ago. He’s prob’ly heading back to the Belt.”

“He stole one of your ships?” Humphries asked, his voice dripping sarcasm.

“Yup,” said Pancho. “Slipped away from a phony security detail that sprang him out of the hospital last night.”

Humphries’s innards felt like a lake of molten lava. “He had lots of help, then, didn’t he?”

Keeping her face immobile, Pancho admitted, “Well, he’s got some friends among my Astro people, yeah. We’re looking into it.”

“I’m sure you are.”

She almost smiled. “I just thought you’d want to know.”

“Thank you, Pancho.”

“Any time, Martin.” The screen went dark.

Humphries stepped to the small table at the end of the sofa, yanked up the lamp sitting atop it, and heaved it at the wallscreen. It bounced off and thudded to the carpeted floor.

“Guttersnipe bitch! She helped him get away. Now he’s running back to the Belt to hide out with his rock rat friends.”

Grigor said, “We could intercept him.”

Humphries glared at his security chief. “He’ll be running silent. You’d have to search the whole region between here and the Belt. There aren’t enough ships—”

“He’ll have to put in somewhere for supplies,” said Grigor. “The Chrysalis habitat at Ceres is the only place for that.”

Still glowering, Humphries said, “They won’t take him in. They exiled him, years ago.”

Nodding slightly, Grigor countered, “Perhaps. But he will contact a ship in the region for supplies.”

“Or capture one, the damned pirate.”

“Either way, Chrysalis is the key to his survival. If we control the habitat at Ceres, we will get him into our grasp, sooner or later.”

Humphries stared at his security chief for a long, silent moment. Then he said, “All right. Tell our people at Vesta to send a force to Ceres and take control of Chrysalis.”

An unhappy expression twisted Grigor’s normally dour face. “We seem to have lost contact with Vesta,” he said, the words coming out swiftly, all in a rush.

“What?”

“I’m sure it’s only temporary.”

“Lost contact?” Humphries’s voice rose a notch.

“It might be the solar storm,” said Grigor, almost to himself, “although the cloud is well past the Belt now.”

“Lost contact with the whole base?” Humphries shouted. “The entire base?”

“For more than twelve hours,” Grigor admitted, almost in a whisper.

Humphries wanted to scream. And he did, so loudly and with such fevered anger that Tatiana Oparin rushed into the sitting room. When she failed to calm him down she called the HSS medical department for Humphries’s personal physician.