Kim palmed them in his left hand, then went across to the basin in the corner and filled a beaker with water. "Okay," he said over his shoulder. "You can go now."
The surgeon smiled at Kim's reflection in the mirror. "Not until I've seen you take them."
Kim put his left hand to his mouth then drained the water. He turned, showing the young medic his empty mouth, lifting his tongue. "There! See! Now let me be. And wake me in two hours or you're fired!"
"Okay."
The cabin door slammed closed. Kim waited a moment, then took the two tablets from his suit pocket where he'd slipped them and flushed them down the sink.
He was in shock. He could feel it. But that was secondary right now. What was most important was doing something for Jelka and Mileja. His own problems could wait.
He looked to the ceiling. "Machine?"
There was no answer for a moment. He could imagine his voice being switched from circuit to circuit about the colony until it reached the Machine where it rested in young Chuang's head. When the answer came, it was a soft presence in his back brain, like a gentle tickle that was also words.
What is it, Kim?
"Who would have an antidote?"
An antidote? To what?
"To the plague. Jelka has it. And Mileja."
Ahh. . . I didn't know. There was a moment's pause, a delay that revealed as much as anything the Machine's vast loss of powers, and then: The Americans. The New Enclaves. There was a message ...
"A message?"
From Old Man Egan. It came in half an hour back. You want me to play it for you?
Kim stared into space, amazed. "From Egan? You're sure?" But the Machine never lied. Not as far as he knew. "Okay," he said after a moment. "Patch it through next door."
He went through and sat before the comset, drumming his fingers on the edge of the desk as he waited. Whatever it was, it was relevant The Machine would not have mentioned it otherwise.
He hadn't long to wait. The screen flickered, then lit up. Egan's vigorous, sun-tanned face beamed out at him.
"Kim... if s been a long while. I hope you're well. I. . .look, I'll come straight to the point. I've heard your news. About Jelka and the girl. Mileja, is that right? I hear they've got the sickness."
Kim raised a hand. At once the image froze. He spoke to the air. "How did he know? How the fuck did he find out?"
The Machine spoke to him gently. Egan's been monitoring your private lines for years. Or was. I would imagine he's been tracking the transmissions from the Luoyang. If so, he'd have heard the news before you did.
Kim shivered. Long before, by the sound of it. At present Chung Kuo and Jupiter were in orbits on the same side of the sun, so a light-speed transmission between the two would have taken over forty minutes.
Forty two minutes eighteen seconds, the Machine confirmed. "Run it on," he said, sobered by the thought. "I'm sorry to hear that," Egan continued, his face a mask of earnestness. "Very sorry, indeed. I have children of my own and know how you must feel. But I'm also a businessman." Egan paused, giving a little apologetic shrug. "As I'm sure you'll understand, as a businessman if s not in my interest simply to give away something I've spent a small fortune developing. Thafs bad business. It takes food from my childrens' mouths. But though you're a rich man, Kim, if s not your money I'm after. I think we can do much better than that" Egan grinned. "I think we can do business."
Kim swallowed. Whatever this was, he already knew that it stank. He knew Egan of old. The bastard gave nothing away.
"Now, as I see it, Kim, you need a cure . . . and I've got one. Tried and tested. One hundred per cent effective."
Kim raised a hand, freezing the image. "A cure? He has a cure? Already?"
From what he'd heard, the plague had been traced to an accidental spillage in one of the old GenSyn facilities. If that was so, how was it Egan had a cure? Unless . . .
He let a long breath escape him, then spoke to the air once more. "Run the message."
Egan's smile seemed suddenly quite sinister. "Now I'd call that a seller's market, wouldn't you? You want something, I have it. Not only that, but you need it ... urgently. That simplifies things. But we have a problem, neh? Time. It'll take time for this message to get to you. Equally, if 11 take you time to give me your answer. And between times, your loved ones are languishing on the Luoyang. That's a shame, but that's how things are. So I tell you what, Kim Ward? I won't haggle. I'll name my price exactly. If you meet it, we do business. If you don't. . . well, I hope your gamble pays off. I hope they come through safely. You see, I don't wish you ill. It's just business."
Egan sat back. "So . . . what do I want? I'll tell you. I want time."
"But. . ." Kim began, then understood. It was the one thing the Old Men had always wanted. Time. Endless time.
"That's right," Egan said, as if he'd listened in on Kim's thoughts. "I want you to give me a reliable immortality treatment. One that works. One that stops the cells from ageing."
Egan smiled again, all teeth and insincerity. "You could do it, Kim. We know you could. Oh, I know it'll take time, but that's fine. Right now you have only to say yes. You're an honourable man, Kim. I know that. You give me your word, I'll send back details of the cure. But don't take too long thinking things through. Time's pressing. Your loved ones . . . Well, I'll say no more. Good luck, Kim. If s been nice talking to you. I hope we can do business."
Kim sat back, recalling the last time he had come to this point; seeing in his mind the circle of Old Men at Lever's Mansion, offering him the world if he would only find them a sure and certain cure for death. He shivered, then leaned against the console, his arms extended, his palms flat on the desk's surface, breathing deeply. If he was going to help Jelka and Mileja he ought to decide things now, but this was too big a decision to make just like that. Besides, hadn't he made it once already? If he changed his mind now . . .
Yes, but they 'U. die, he told himself. If I don't agree, they 11 die.
Maybe, but he would go and speak to Ebert first. Ten minutes, that's all it would take. Just ten minutes.
The Luoyang was silent. Or almost so, for there was still the faintest hum - a reverberation in the air and in every strut and panel of the ancient craft - that emanated from the engine core.
Silently it traversed space, on automatic now, speeding at nearly 190,000 ti an hour toward Jupiter. Overrides had switched in an hour back, when Captain Hamsun failed to make the latest of the routine four-hour checks. Now the ship flew itself, an unconscious mechanism, a computer-driven stone hurled between the planets.
At the controls, Torve Hamsun grinned the grin that would be fixed until his bones rotted, the skin stretched tight over his skull, hanging loose on his tall, gaunt frame. The Hollower had caught him unprepared and his flesh had been ravaged by malfunctioning enzymes, by massive conflagrations of pulsing, glowing, golden cells.
Conscientious to the last, he had died at his post, sending out a final Mayday message, a massive coronary sparing him the worst. Elsewhere his crew lay in their bunks, dead or dying, their groans unheard, their suffering untended.
In the isolation suite, Jelka lay on the broad bunk, her brow speckled with tiny golden droplets, the orbs of her eyes flickering frenetically beneath their thinly-fleshed coverings. Mileja lay beside her now, panting, her tiny hands spasming, her child's eyes - eyes which were like swollen golden coins -staring fixedly at the ceiling.