Once we’ve built the mass driver you’ll be able to see it from orbit, he thought. Five kilometers long. We’ll see it, all right.
The door behind him slid open, spilling light from the passageway into the darkened compartment. Alexios’s heart constricted in his chest. He did not dare to turn around, but in the reflection off the glassteel bubble he saw that it was Lara.
He slowly turned toward her as she slid the door shut. The compartment became dim and shadowed again, but he could see her lovely face, see the curiosity in her eyes.
“You asked me to meet you here?” she said, her voice soft and low.
He realized he’d been holding his breath. He nodded, then managed to get out, “It’s one of the few places aboard ship where we can meet privately.”
“You have some further information about my husband?”
“No … not really…” It took all his self-control to keep from reaching out and clasping her in his arms. Surely she could hear his heart thundering.
“I don’t understand,” Lara said with a little frown. “You asked me to see you, to come alone, without Victor.”
“Lara, it’s me,” he blurted. “Mance.”
Her mouth dropped open.
“I know I look different,” he said, the words coming in a rush now. “I had to change my appearance, my background, I came here to Mercury but I had no idea you’d come out here too and now that you’re here I can’t keep up the masquerade any longer, I want to—”
“Mance?” she whispered, unbelieving.
“Yes, it’s me, darling.”
She staggered back several steps, dropped onto the bench running along the compartment’s rear bulkhead. “It can’t be,” she said, her voice hollow.
He went to her, knelt before her, grasped both her hands in his own. “Lara, I’ve gone through hell to find you again. I love you. I’ve always loved you.”
She was staring at him, searching for the Mance Bracknell she had known. He could see the play of starlight in her eyes and then the harsh glare reflected from Mercury casting her face into stark light and shadow.
“I know I don’t look the same, Lara. But it really is me, Mance. I have a new identity. I’m a free man now. The old Mance Bracknell is dead, as far as the officials are concerned. But we can begin our lives again, Lara, we can take up where we left off.”
She shuddered, like a woman coming out of a trance. “Begin our lives again?”
“Yes! I love you, dearest. I want to marry you and—”
“I’m already married. I have an eight-year-old son. Victor’s son.”
“You can divorce Victor. Nobody will blame you for leaving him.”
Recognition lit her eyes. “You did this to Victor! It wasn’t Elliott, it was you!”
“I did it for you,” he said.
“You destroyed my husband’s career and ruined Elliott.”
“Because I love you.”
“What kind of love is that?”
Alexios saw the disgust in her eyes. “You don’t understand,” he said. “They destroyed me. Victor deliberately lied at my trial. He wanted me out of the way so he could have you. He stole you from me. He stole my entire life!”
“And now you’ve stolen his.”
“Yes! And I want you back. You’re the reason I’ve done all this.”
“Oh, my god,” she moaned.
“You loved me, you know you did. You said you wanted to be with me. Well, now we can—”
“And Elliott, too? What do you have against him?”
Anger rising inside him, Alexios said, “He’s the one who started the scheme to destroy the skytower. Him and his New Morality hatred for nanotechnology or anything else that they can’t find in the Old Testament.”
“Destroy the skytower?”
“It was sabotaged. Deliberately knocked down. They didn’t care how many people they killed, they just wanted the tower destroyed. And me with it.”
She stared at him. “You’re saying that Victor helped to bring the tower down?”
“No, I don’t think so. I don’t know. But he lied at my trial. He was perfectly willing to lie so that the blame would all be dumped on me. So that I’d be sent off Earth and he’d have you to himself.”
Lara shook her head, just the slightest of movements, as she said, “I can’t believe that. I don’t believe any of this!”
“But it’s true! It’s all true! Victor is a lying thief and Danvers helped him.”
She sagged back on the padded bulkhead. Alexios climbed to his feet and sat beside her.
“I know it’s a lot to accept all at once. But I really am Mance Bracknell. At least I was, once. Now I’m Dante Alexios. I’m fairly prosperous; I can offer you a fine life back on Earth. Victor stole you from me. I want you back.”
“He’s my husband,” Lara repeated weakly.
He looked directly into her eyes. In the dim lighting of the compartment he could not see any tears in them.
“Lara, you can’t tell me that you love Victor the way you loved me.”
She said nothing.
“We were perfect for each other,” he said. “The minute I first saw you, back in that dull statistics class with the Chinese T.A. who could barely speak English, I fell hopelessly in love with you.”
For long moments she remained silent. Then, “You certainly didn’t show it.”
“I was too shy. It didn’t seem possible that anyone as wonderful as you would have the slightest interest in me.”
Lara smiled faintly.
“We belong together, Lara. They’ve separated us for so many years, but we can be together again now.”
Again that slight shake of her head. “So many years have gone by.”
“But we can start again,” he urged.
“It’s not that simple.”
“It can be, if you want it to be. Victor got what’s coming to him. He’s finished, out of the picture.”
“He’s my husband,” she said, still again.
“He stole you from me!”
She looked away for a moment, then turned back to him. “Look, Mance or Alexios or whoever you are. I am married to Victor Molina. He’s the father of my child. You’ve tried to ruin him—”
“Nothing less than he deserves,” Alexios growled, feeling his anger simmering inside him again. “In fact, he deserves a lot worse.”
“What you’ve told me might save him,” Lara said.
Alexios was thunderstruck. He felt a wave of nausea wash over him. “You’d take him over me?”
“Mance Bracknell is dead,” Lara said, her voice flat and cold. “So be it. We could never recapture what we had all those years ago. Do you think I could leave Victor and go with you, knowing what you’ve done to him?”
“But he deserves it!”
“No, he doesn’t. And even if he did, his wife should be by his side, protecting and supporting him. For the sake of our child, if for no other reason.”
“You belong with me!”
“No. My place is with my husband and son, no matter what happened in the past.”
“That’s…” Alexios ran out of words. This has gone all wrong, he said to himself. All wrong.
Lara got to her feet. “I’m going to tell Victor about this, and then McFergusen. I won’t mention Mance Bracknell. I’ll simply tell them that you confessed to me that you planted the false evidence.”
“They’ll find out who I am!” Alexios pleaded. “They’ll send me back to the Belt!”
“Not if you can prove that the skytower was sabotaged. Not if you can lead the authorities to the people who are really responsible for all those deaths.”
He stood up beside her, his knees unsteady, and watched as she abruptly turned away from him and left the observation lounge. He stood frozen, watching as the door slid closed. Then he felt the glare from Mercury’s surface blaze through the heavily tinted blister of glassteel. It felt like the hot breath of doom.