“I could use some coffee,” Pancho said, heading for the table.
The conference room was part of the suite of offices that Selene maintained in one of the twin towers that supported the expansive dome of the Grand Plaza. Gazing through the window down into the Plaza itself, Pancho saw the lovingly maintained lawn and flowering shrubbery, the fully-leafed trees dotting the landscape. There was the big swimming pool, built to attract tourists, and the outdoor theater with its gracefully curved shell of lunar concrete. Not many people on the walks this early in the morning, she noticed. Nobody in the pool.
Stavenger smiled at her. “Pancho, are you seriously going to try to hammer out your differences with Humphries, or is this conference going to be a waste of time?”
Pancho grinned back at him as she picked up a coffee cup and started to fill it with steaming black brew. “Astro is willing to agree to a reasonable division of the Belt. We never wanted a fight; it was Humphries who started the rough stuff.”
Stavenger pursed his lips. “I guess it all depends, then, on how you define the word ’reasonable.’”
“Hey, look,” Pancho said. “There’s enough raw materials in the Belt to satisfy ever’body. Plenty for all of us. It’s Humphries who wants to take it all.”
“Are you talking about me, Pancho?”
They turned and saw Humphries striding through the door, looking relaxed and confident in a dark blue business suit.
“Nothing I haven’t said to your face, Humpy, old buddy,” Pancho replied.
Humphries raised an eyebrow. “I’d appreciate it if you referred to me as Mr. Humphries when the other delegates get here.”
“Sensitive?”
“Yes. In return for your consideration I’ll try to refrain from using phrases such as ‘guttersnipe’ or ‘grease monkey.’ ”
Stavenger put a hand to his forehead. “This is going to be a lovely morning,” he groaned.
Actually, the conference went along much more smoothly than Stavenger had feared. The other delegates arrived, and Humphries turned his attention to Amanda, who smiled politely at him but said very little. He seemed almost to be a different person when Fuchs’s wife was near: polite, considerate, earnestly trying to win her admiration, or at least her respect.
Stavenger called the meeting to order, and everyone took seats along the polished oblong conference table. Pancho behaved like a proper corporate executive and Humphries was affable and cooperative. Each of them made an opening statement about how they wanted nothing more than peace and harmony in the Asteroid Belt. Willi Dieterling then said a few brief words about how important the resources of the Belt were to the people of Earth.
“With so many millions homeless and hungry, with so much of our global industrial capacity wiped out, we desperately need the resources from the Belt,” he pleaded. “This fighting is disrupting the supply of raw materials that we need to recover from the climate catastrophe that has brought civilization to its knees.”
Stavenger pointed out, “The people of Selene are ready to help as much as we can. We have industrial capacity here on the Moon, and we can help you to build factories and power-generation stations in Earth orbit.”
It was Big George who ended the platitudes.
“We all want peace and brotherhood,” he began, “but the painful truth is that people are killin’ each other out in the Belt.”
Dieterling immediately replied, “The world government is prepared to offer Peacekeeping troops to you to help you maintain order in the Belt.”
“No thanks!” George snapped. “We can maintain order for ourselves—” he turned to look squarely at Humphries “—if the corporations’ll stop sending killers to us.”
“Corporations, plural?” Pancho asked. “Astro hasn’t sent any killers to the Belt.”
“You’ve sent your share of goons, Pancho,” said George.
“To protect our property!”
Humphries made a hushing motion with both hands. “I presume you’re both referring to certain actions taken by employees of Humphries Space Systems.”
“Fookin’ right,” George blurted.
With all eyes on him, Humphries said calmly, “It’s perfectly true that some of the people my corporation sent to Ceres have been… well, roughnecks.”
“Murderers,” George muttered.
“One man committed a murder, true enough,” Humphries conceded. “But he acted on his own. And he was punished for it swiftly enough.”
“By Lars Fuchs, I understand,” said Dieterling.
Humphries nodded. “Now we’re getting down to the crux of the problem.”
“Wait a minute,” George interjected. “Let’s not start dumpin’ on Lars. Plenty of ships have been knocked off out in the Belt, and it was HSS that started it.”
“That’s not true,” Humphries said.
“Isn’t it? I was fookin’ attacked by one of your butcher boys. Took me arm off. Remember?”
“We went through an IAA hearing over that. No one was able to prove it was one of my ships that attacked you.”
“That doesn’t mean it wasn’t one of ’em, does it now?”
Stavenger broke into the budding argument. “Unless we have concrete evidence, there’s no use throwing accusations around.”
George glowered at him, but said nothing.
“We do have concrete evidence,” Humphries resumed, with a swift glance at Amanda, “that Lars Fuchs has attacked ships, killed men, stolen supplies, and now he’s wiped out a base we were building on Vesta in a totally unwarranted and premeditated attack. He’s killed several dozen people. He’s the reason for all this violence out in the Belt and until he’s caught and put away, the violence will continue.”
Absolute silence. Not one of the men or women seated around the conference table said a word in Fuchs’s defense. Not even Amanda, Humphries noted with unalloyed delight.
CHAPTER 51
The asteroid had no name. In the catalogue files it was merely 38-4002. Barely a kilometer long and half that at its widest, it was a dark carbonaceous body, a loose aggregation of pebble-sized chondrules, more like a beanbag than a solid rock. Fuchs had left one of his transceivers there weeks earlier; now he was returning to the asteroid to retrieve it and see what information Amanda had been able to beam to him.
She’s gone to Selene, he kept repeating in his mind. To a conference. To Humphries. Without telling me. Without mentioning a word of it. He saw St. Claire’s face again as the man told him the news, almost smirking. Your wife didn’t tell you? he heard St. Claire ask, again and again. She never even mentioned it to you? It’s probably in the messages waiting for me, Fuchs told himself. Amanda must have put it into the latest batch of messages just before she left for Selene. For Humphries’s home. His guts knotted like fists every time he thought of it.
Why didn’t she tell me beforehand? he raged silently. Why didn’t she discuss this with me before she decided to go? The answer seemed terribly clear: Because she didn’t want me to know she was going, didn’t want me to know she would be seeing Humphries.
He wanted to bellow his rage and frustration, wanted to order his crew to race to Selene, wanted to take Amanda off the ship that was carrying her to the Moon and keep her safely with him. Too late, he knew. Far too late. She’s gone. She’s there by now. She’s left me.
Nautilus’s propellant tanks were full. Fuchs felt a slight pang of conscience about taking the hydrogen and helium fuels from his onetime friend St. Claire, but he had no choice. He had left St. Claire on less than friendly terms, but nevertheless the Quebecois waited six full hours before putting in an emergency call for a tanker, as Fuchs had ordered him to do.