SELENE HOSPITAL
After a bland meal, Bracknell pushed his tray aside and got out of the hospital bed. The floor tiles felt comfortably warm to his bare feet. He seemed strong enough, no wobbles or shakes. The cubicle was barely large enough to hold his bed. Portable plastic partitions, he saw. No closet. Not even a lavatory. And this damned IV hooked into my arm.
He cracked the accordion door a centimeter and peeped out. The same nurse was striding down the corridor in his direction.
Bracknell hopped back into the bed and pulled the sheet over his naked body.
She pushed the door back and gave him an accusing look. “I saw you peeking out the door. Feeling better, huh?”
“Yes,” said Bracknell.
“Long as you’re taking solid food we can disconnect this drip,” she said, gripping his arm and gently pulling the IV tube out of him. Even so, Bracknell winced.
As she sprayed a bandage over his punctured arm, Nurse Norris said happily, “You’re going to have a pair of visitors, Mr. X.”
“Visitors?” He felt immediately alarmed.
“Yep. Psychotechnician to talk to you about your amnesia, and some suit from the corporate world. Don’t know what he wants.”
“Can I get some clothes?” Bracknell asked. “It’s kind of awkward like this.”
Norris looked at one of the monitors on the wall behind the bed and fiddled with her handheld remote. “The coveralls you came in with were pretty raw. I sent ’em to the laundry. I’ll see if I can find them for you. Otherwise it’s hospital issue.”
“Before the visitors arrive?”
She gave him that unhappy look again. “For a charity case you make a lot of demands.”
Before he could answer, though, she ducked back outside and slid the partition closed.
Once I get my clothes back I can make a run for it, Bracknell said to himself. I can’t let them scan me; I’ve got to get out of here before they find out who I am.
And go where? I’m in Selene, on the Moon. As soon as they find out who I am they’ll slap me into another ship and send me back to the Belt. Where can I hide?
He thought about escaping back to Earth, to Lara. But he knew that was ridiculous. How can I get to Earth from here? Besides, she’s Victor’s wife now. Even if she wanted to hide me, she wouldn’t be able to. Then he realized that he hadn’t the faintest idea of where on Earth Lara might be. Shaking his head morosely, he decided that going back to Earth would be impossible.
Toshikazu said he had a brother, he remembered. What was his name? Takeo. Takeo Koga. And he’s here, on the Moon. Somewhere in the Hell Crater complex. Maybe I can get to him. Maybe—
The partition slid open again and somebody, he couldn’t see who, tossed a flapping pair of gray coveralls at him. In the soft lunar gravity they arched languidly through the air and landed softly on his bed. By then the door had slid shut again. A new set of underwear was tucked into one of his coverall sleeves.
He was sealing the Velcro seam up his torso when someone rapped politely on his door frame. They can see me, Bracknell realized, looking up toward the ceiling. They must have a camera in here somewhere.
He sat on the bed and swung his legs up onto the sheet. “Come in,” he called. Then he realized that his feet were bare. They hadn’t brought any shoes.
Two men entered his cubicle as Bracknell touched the control stud that raised the bed to a sitting position. One of the men wore a white hospital smock over what looked like a sports shirt and corduroy slacks. He was round-faced and a little pudgy, but his eyes seemed aware and alert. The other was in a gray business suit and white turtle-neck, hawk-nosed, his baggy-eyed expression morose.
“I’m Dr. DaSilva,” said the medic. “I understand you’re having a little trouble remembering things.”
Bracknell nodded warily.
“My name is Pratt,” said the suit. “I represent United Life and Accident Assurance, Limited.” His accent sounded vaguely British.
“Insurance?” Bracknell asked.
DaSilva grinned. “Well, you remember insurance, at least.”
Bracknell fell back on a pretense of confusion. “I don’t understand …”
Pratt said, “We have an awkward situation here. Like many ship’s crews, the crew of Alhambra was covered by a shared-beneficiary accident policy.”
“Shared beneficiary?”
“It’s rather like an old-fashioned tontine. In case of a fatal accident, the policy’s principal is paid to the survivors among the crew—after the deceaseds’ beneficiaries have been paid, of course.”
“What does that mean?” Bracknell asked, feeling nervous at being under DaSilva’s penetrating gaze.
“It means, sir,” said Pratt, “that as the sole survivor of Alhambra’s fatal accident, you are the secondary beneficiary of each member of the crew; you stand to gain in excess of ten million New International Dollars.”
Bracknell gasped. “Ten million?”
“Yes,” Pratt replied, quite matter-of-factly. “Of course, we must pay out to the families of the deceased; they are the primary beneficiaries. But there will still be some ten million or so remaining in the policy’s fund.”
“And it goes to me?”
Pratt cleared his throat before answering, “It goes to you, providing you can identify yourself. The company has a regulation against paying to anonymous persons or John Does. International laws are involved, you know.”
“I… don’t remember … very much,” Bracknell temporized.
“Perhaps I can help,” said DaSilva.
“I hope so,” Bracknell said.
“Before we start scanning your brain to see if there’s any physical trauma, let me try a simple test.”
“What is it?”
DaSilva pulled a handheld from the breast pocket of his smock. Smiling cheerfully, he said, “This is what I call the ring-a-bell test. I’m going to read off the names of Alhambra’s crew and you tell me if any of them ring a bell.”
Bracknell nodded, thinking furiously. Ten million dollars! If I can get my hands on that money—
“Wallace Farad,” DaSilva called out.
Bracknell blinked at him. “The captain’s name was Farad.”
“Good! Your memory isn’t a total blank.”
“You couldn’t forget the captain,” said Bracknell fervently. Then he remembered that the captain was dead. And Addie. And all the rest of them. Dead. Killed by Yamagata.
“I’ll skip the women’s names,” DaSilva was saying. “I don’t think you had a sex-change procedure before they picked you up.”
Pratt chuckled politely. Bracknell thought of Addie and said nothing.
DaSilva read off several more names of the crew while Bracknell tried to figure out what he should do.
Finally DaSilva said, “… and Dante Alexios. That’s the last of them.”
Dante Alexios had been the vessel’s second mate, Bracknell knew. He didn’t know much about him except that he wasn’t a convict and he didn’t have a wife or children.
“Dante Alexios,” he repeated. “Dante Alexios.”
“Ring a bell?” DaSilva asked hopefully.
Bracknell looked up at the psychotechnician. “Dante Alexios! That’s who I am!”
Pratt looked less than pleased. “All well and good. But I’m afraid you’re going to have to prove your identity before I can allow the release of the policy’s payout.”
HELL CRATER
Catch-22, Bracknell thought as he sat on his bed. I can get ten million dollars if I can prove I’m Dante Alexios, so I need to let them scan my body. But as soon as they do they’ll find out I’m Mance Bracknell and ship me back out to the Belt as a convict.