“Big enough.” Mondrian glanced from the simulacrum he was holding to the other man’s battered body. “I’m amazed to see how much firepower one of these things can carry. Surely you don’t need to hit that hard, even for scorpions.”
“They were carrying the absolute top of the weapons line. It took two minisims to handle some of the guns.
That’s the sort of equipment that Adestis normally gives only to a group that they judge to be inexperienced and scared shitless. One shell from the big guns would do for a scorpion. It damned near did for me.”
“Last time we met you told me you thought you had located and destroyed every artefact that the Margrave left. Obviously, you were wrong.” Mondrian nodded his head to the heavy apartment door and its protective locks. “But if you thought you’d got them all, why did you bother with such an elaborate security system?”
“My guardian angel insisted.” Brachis pointed an index finger, its nail half blown away, at the near-nude Godiva. “You’re right, I thought I’d killed the lot. Now I have to start over.’
During the first few frantic minutes, Godiva had been totally absorbed in her work on Luther. She was still wearing only her thin panties and had not thought to put on more clothing. Her only worry was to patch new skin, carefully and completely, onto every one of his wounds. She had not seemed to notice the arrival of Esro Mondrian. But now, directly introduced into the conversation, she seemed to become aware of her own near-nude condition. She applied a final patch to Luther’s shoulder, stooped to kiss him quickly on the lips, and headed for the bathroom. “Ten minutes,” she said. “To put on a robe and dry my hair. Please don’t let him get into more trouble while I’m gone, Esro.”
Her departure created a gap in the conversation of the two men. Brachis, tough as he was, felt drained and distant. With Mondrian silent, he began to think again of the Artefacts. How many more were there? How could he hide from them, how could he destroy them?
His mind drifted back to the silent surface of Hyperion. As soon as he had arranged for delivery of the volatiles, the seven items had been delivered to him as promised from storage. The crew who brought them returned at once to the Deep Vault. They did not look back. They had no interest in knowing — or perhaps they suspected only too well — what Brachis intended to do with his purchase.
The logical thing was to flashfire the seven containers at once and leave the airless surface of Saturn’s moon with minimal delay. Only some dreadful driving streak of curiosity forced Brachis to open them, and thaw the contents.
The first four varied in appearance, but they were recognizably in the image of the Margrave. Brachis fired them at once. Two more were younger, clean-shaven, and fatter. It took the DNA match to prove that they too derived directly from Fujitsu. When the eight million degree flame passed over them, they too were gone in an eyeblink flash of purple light.
It was the seventh and final box, where identification in the Deep Vault had been the poorest, that would linger forever in Luther’s memory. The casket held a young girl in her early teens. Naked, clear-skinned, and fair of face, she was barely past puberty. Her countenance still had the purity and innocence of a child, but when those young breasts and slender hips matured into womanhood she would be like a younger Godiva Lomberd.
The container gave her complete identification, along with her DNA sequence. It differed from the Fujitsu line in every significant detail. She was the oldest daughter of a deposed royal, from a bend sinister line that was now long extinct. Whoever had committed her to the Deep Vault of Hyperion had purchased, for whatever reason, a perpetual endowment of the highest quality. For four hundred and forty years she had Iain in frozen silence, dreaming of whatever phantom shadows might flee through a brain held at the temperature of liquid helium. Left now on the surface, she would die — or, worse yet, waken and die — on the barren, airless wilderness of Hyperion.
Brachis had made no contingent plans for his purchases from the Deep Vault. Even if he were desperate to do so, it was impossible to save her. He groaned, cursed, and stared around him at the black-shadowed plain. It taunted him, with its emptiness and uselessness. At last he shuddered in his suit, breathed deep, and raised the fusion torch. Subnuclear fire reached out to caress the pale young body. As it consumed her bare breast, Brachis fancied that she sighed, opened dark-blue eyes, and stared up at his face …
“Luther!” Mondrian was leaning over him, snapping his fingers in front of his face. “Come on, pull out of that. I think we have to let the medics take a look at you, even if you don’t want it. Just how much blood did you lose in there? The water could have sluiced a couple of liters down the drain and we’d never know it.”
“I’ll be all right.” Brachis struggled to a sitting position. “But I’m wondering where we go from here. Just think what would have happened if Godiva had come with me into the study, instead of heading for the bathroom. She doesn’t have any of our training in survival. I don’t think I could have saved her. But I know I would have tried, and that would have been the end of both of us.”
“Want to send her back to Earth for a while, until we’re sure the Fujitsu Artefacts have been taken care of once and for all?’
“She won’t go. We’ve been through all that, half a dozen times. Anyway, I’m not sure that Earth would be safe. If our contract is known there, they could go through her to get to me.” Brachis rubbed at the thickened synthetic skin on the back of his right hand. That hand was still regrowing, and the delicate real skin was beginning to itch furiously as the chemical bond of the newly applied synthetic became complete. “It’s an impossible problem. She won’t leave me, and I can’t protect her. The next hit could come from anywhere. Poisoned food, assassins, sabotaged transport equipment, faulty airlocks, anything.”
“As you said once before, Luther, you found yourself a genius. Fujitsu has been two steps ahead all the way. But I have a suggestion for you.”
“No hidden agendas, Esro.” Brachis spoke wearily, as Godiva appeared from the bathroom. I’m not up to them at the moment. Just tell me how we are going to make her safe.”
Godiva had dried her blond hair and restyled it to an ancient form, so that it hung over her forehead and partly hid one eye. She drifted across to Brachis, inspected his wounds, and nodded in satisfaction. She sat down at his side without a word. Her short tunic left arms and legs bare, and her skin glowed from a vigorous toweling.
Mondrian studied the two of them closely. He was sure that he was missing something about their relationship, but in spite of all his efforts he could not begin to guess what.
“We all have hidden agendas, Luther. But this time I think that you and I have common interests.”
“Persuade me.”
Mondrian nodded in acknowledgement. It was one of his own favorite lines. “I’ll try. Let’s start with a question: What would be the safest place in the universe for you and Godiva? Not just the safest place in the solar system, but the safest place within the entire Perimeter.”
“I don’t know. Not here, that’s for sure, no matter how much protection we pile on for us.”
“And certainly not down on Earth, for either one of you. I agree with you, if Fujitsu’s Artefacts are there they might try next for Godiva. But there’s one place that even the Margrave won’t be able to get to: the Q-ship, in orbit around Travancore. The Link coordinates to that are known only to three people in the universe: you, me, and Kubo Flammarion.”