Rock Killer (35 page)

“Control room, communications, they launched again.”

Damn it
, Chun thought,
we need a weapon, missiles, a laser, anything. The miners have some small lasers
, he thought. B
ut by the time they get them to the surface... should have thought of that before
, Alex chided himself.

“Nineteen sixty-one, this is
Kyushu
. They just passed us.”

The
Kyushu
has that laser to drill through rocks
, Chun thought. D
amn, I am getting stupid.

“
Kyushu
, use your laser, kill that ship!”

The control room bounced.

“Stabilizing attitude,” Bente said, her voice betraying her own emotion.

***

Captain Takashara hesitated. “Can we do it?” she asked no one in particular.

“I can yaw the ship,” the navigator reported, “and then I can aim the laser using pitch, yaw and roll controls.”

“Do it,” Takashara ordered. “And do it fast.”

***

Griffin stopped smiling. “Is there any way to aim the missiles? We’re just blowing out sections of rock.”

“I told you,” Cole said, “that it hits the center of the facing profile. I can’t do a damn thing about it.”

“The other ship,” Knecht said, “is turning.”

“So what?” Griffin barked. The pain in his arm was creeping up to his shoulder and down his side.

“Damn it,” Knecht barked angrily. “Last time you ignored me we almost got killed! Cole, launch a missile at that ship!”

Griffin opened his mouth but Cole cut him off.

“I have to get missile lock; it will take time.”

“Do it now!” Knecht screamed.

***

The navigator on the
Kyushu
yawed the ship as fast as he could. He slowed the turn just as the
Rock Skipper
was straight ahead between his ship and the asteroid. But both ships were accelerating.

“dV/dt equals acceleration,” he mumbled working with his skilled fingers on the computer. In school he never thought he’d do differential equations on a three-space vector problem that was a life or death situation. He solved for a time five seconds later. The computer displayed a coordinate prediction of where the
Rock Skipper
would be at that time and the Euler angle to be pointed in that direction. He placed the laser-aiming reticule on those coordinates. Three seconds.

“Fire the laser,” he said.

The laser fired its arm-thick beam. It missed the
Rock Skipper
and sliced harmlessly into the stone surface of the asteroid. Two seconds. The stolen ship was getting closer.

***

“I’ve got missile lock,” Cole reported loudly.

“Launch,” Knecht yelled. “They’re firing a laser!”

Cole reached for the panel.

She never made it. The ship passed through the waiting beam of the laser. It burned through the hull of the
Rock Killer
in the bridge, showering the interior with melted metal in a cone of blazing heat that burned everything flammable in the room: paper, plastic, cloth, flesh. The air expanded explosively, ripping the ship apart. In the airless drive section, the buckling of the deck tore open the fusion reactor and lithium plasma coolant exploded into the vacuum, damaging the reactor controls. The magnetic bottle failed, and the hot hydrogen plasma fuel, much, much too cool to fuse but still inconceivably hot, became a massive blow torch shooting the missile compartment. That ignited fuel and warheads. The
Rock Killer
became two convergent spheres of expanding, rapidly cooling debris.

Metal and plastic flotsam rained harmlessly upon the surface of the asteroid. Some wreckage hit the
Kyushu
causing minor breaches that were quickly and efficiently plugged by damage control teams that she’d left in place even after finding the
Rock Skipper
apparently dead. Just in case, Takashara had told herself.

***

“Nineteen sixty-one,” Takashara’s voice said via the intercom, “this is the
Kyushu
. The
Rock Skipper
is dead. We’ll have matched velocities in just a few minutes.”

Chun let out a long breath and then breathed in the thin air in the asteroid. “Tsuji.”

“Yes?” the miner asked.

“Unseal one of the tunnels to the surface, install an airlock, and get a miner on the outside. The
Kyushu
will match velocity soon. They’ll be sending over a telegraph line.”

“Roger.”

***

Helga Moeller regarded Charlie after greeting her politely. Moeller then greeted Rodriguez like an old friend.

“What can I do for you?” she asked, the pleasantries finished.

“You have in the Selene,” Rodriguez began, “a Roger Oaks, American. We have reason to believe he is Whaltham, a leader in the Gaia Alliance.”

“What reason?” Moeller asked.

“That’s the problem, Helga. We have nothing firm now. But Charlie knows Whaltham. If she can get a look at him...”

Moeller frowned. “Then go look. What’s the problem?”

“He hasn’t come out of his hotel room. He’s ordered out a lot but that’s it. About the only way we could get Charlie to see him is to put her in a pressure suit and lower down to the window.”

“That would break our privacy laws,” Moeller said, either not noticing or caring that it was a joke. “It’s obvious you have his room under surveillance that, without due cause, is also a violation of our laws and the agreement between SRI and NESA.”

“I know,” Rodriguez said. “May we present our evidence to see if it is enough that NESA will ask him out of his room?”

“Yes,” Moeller said.

It took about a half an hour for Rodriguez to go over the data Mitchel had sent him. At the end Moeller shook her head.

“No, this is not enough.”

“But he could be—” Rodriguez started.

“I know,” Moeller said interrupting him. “But we have very strict privacy laws here. We have to; this is too small and closed-in a society for it to be otherwise. The danger of despotism is greatest in such a place. We could, like the Russians on Mars, place cameras in strategic places and easily control the population. Especially since we control the air. But we don’t and we do pay a price for it. It is one reason why the ‘personal service’ section of the data bank has the most records. But, otherwise, we’d risk an oxygen dictatorship.”

“I understand, Helga,” Rodriguez said. “Is there nothing we can do?”

“No,” she said. “But I will overlook your surveillance of his room. If anyone else catches you, I know nothing about it.”

Rodriguez looked at the floor. “Well, thank you anyway.”

He stood.

“What about,” a voice said, “his visa?”

Everyone turned to the Japanese man that seemed so much part of Charlie’s chair no one paid any attention to him.

“Excuse me?” Moeller said.

“His visa,” the nurse said. “Was it legal?”

“Yes,” Charlie said. “Can you give his visa more than just a routine check with the evidence we’ve given you?”

“No,” Moeller said, smiling. “But we do give random visas thorough investigations. I think Mr. Oaks’ will be one.”

She turned to her computer and typed while narrating. “Okay, his number is not a duplicate, but that would have been checked on Earth. It was purchased at the Japanese consulate in San Francisco on May third of last year. Hum, that’s interesting.”

“What?” Charlie and Rodriguez asked simultaneously.

“Your data indicate that Mr. Oaks first used his credit account to purchase an airline ticket?”

“Yes.”

“Well, as you know, for a visa we require either a credit check or a large cash deposit. Enough to get you back to Earth if you go broke.”

“Right,” Rodriguez said.

“Well, according to this they did a credit check in San Francisco and it came up good. But if he’s never used credit (hard to believe in itself)... hang on. Let’s call up a credit check on Mr. Oaks. I can get his credit account number from the hotel and...”

There was a wait while the data were transmitted from Earth.

Moeller frowned. “It seems the credit services have never heard of our Mr. Oaks. So either the Japanese screwed up, which I find incredulous, or it’s a fake visa. Plus, he’s probably using an invalid credit account.” She looked at Rodriguez. “I have to investigate this. If you and Ms. Jones want to tag along, I can’t stop you.”

“All right,” Charlie said. “Let me at ‘im.”

“In your condition?” Moeller asked.

“I don’t care,” Charlie replied indignantly. She was tired of the invalid routine. She’d stand up and walk if it didn’t hurt so badly.

“Listen,” Rodriguez said to the women. “We just want her to finger him.”

“Lead me to him,” Charlie said.

In front of the Selene, Charlie recognized Smitty although he was in civilian clothes. He moved up to her and grabbed her hand.

“Charlie,” he exclaimed. “You look great.”

“You lie like a dog, Smitty,” Charlie said. They both laughed. Charlie laughed even though seeing him reminded her of when she and Smitty found Frank’s body.

“Has he come out?” Rodriguez asked Smitty.

“No. A lot of girls have gone in, though.”

“He’s not alone?” Moeller asked.

“I think now he is,” Smitty reported. “A bunch just left. They didn’t look too happy.”

“I can understand why,” Charlie said softly.

There was a short silence.

“Listen,” Moeller said. “I’m going to ring the bell and when he comes to the door ask him some question and then take his visa for authenticity tests.”

“You’re not going to arrest him?” Charlie asked.

“I can’t until I have proof it’s a fake visa. Besides, where would he go?”

“What if I finger him as Waltham?”

“Then I’ll arrest him on the spot.”

“Okay,” Charlie said. “Let’s go.”

Moeller looked perplexed for a moment. “Okay. You may come to the door with me.” She tapped the Glock nine millimeter at her hip. “If it’s not him I want you out of there fast, understand?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Moeller pressed the button for the bell. Charlie was beside her in the wheelchair. The nurse was across the hall.

“What is it?” a male voice called.

The hair on the back of Charlie’s neck came to attention.

She looked up at Moeller and nodded. Moeller unsnapped the strap holding her weapon in its holster and spoke softly into the radio on her cheek, “This is Moeller at the Selene. I need backup at room 3872.”

“I said who is it?” the voice said again, somewhat irritated.

“NESA Security, Mr. Oaks,” she said.

There was a long pause.

Finally: “Can you come back later?”

“No, sir. I can’t. Would you please open the door?”

Again there was a long wait. “Okay, just a minute. I’m getting dressed.”

More waiting. “He has ten seconds,” Moeller said, “then I’m going in.”

The door opened inward.

“Hi, Whaltham,” Charlie said to the familiar, corpulent form.

McConnell looked down at her and then at Moeller who was drawing her pistol.

McConnell hit the panic button.

It was located near the door. This automatically closed the emergency door that was flush with the wall of the corridor. It swung shut with unbelievable speed. Moeller jumped out of the way but the door slammed into the back of Charlie’s chair and propelled both into the room.

“Damn,” Rodriguez yelled and ran to the emergency door. “Open it,” he demanded.

“You know I can’t,” Moeller said.

“Oh, shit,” Rodriguez said softly. He knew the door was on a fail-safe. When McConnell hit the panic button, the room was sealed. All the ventilation was sealed and the central life-support computer had to make sure the pressure wasn’t dropping before its programming allowed the room to be opened. And that took time.

“How long?” Rodriguez asked.

“Minutes, as many as ten.”

***

Mitchel had a constant connection from his computer to the one in the Chun home. On the Boulder end a security man from the school monitored it.

Mitchel’s face appeared on the screen. “Let me speak to Mrs. Chun,” he said.

“Yes, sir,” the security man said. He walked to the front room where Kirsten was still holding vigil in front of the large screen showing news. She’d only slept occasionally and for a few minutes.

“Mrs. Chun, it’s Mr. Mitchel,” he called out.

“Computer, window on the large screen.”

Mitchel appeared in a box in the corner of the screen.

“Yes, Mitch?”

“The
Kyushu
should have rendezvoused with the asteroid 20 minutes ago. We should have word pretty soon. The radio travel time is making it difficult. But everyone should be safe.”

Kirsten sat. “Thanks, Mitch.” She let out a long sigh as if she’d been holding her breath for the past 44 hours.

***

Perez used the two emergency doors as an airlock. He entered the mass driver section. He could see the two holes punched in the shell of the asteroid. The equipment was a jumbled mess.