“I had that impression, too.” Rob shrugged. “I don’t know how Morel operates, but all I do is follow up on things that interest me, wherever they lead. Maybe that’s why I don’t care for Morel. We want to chase after different goals, whereas Regulo and I are interested in many of the same things.”
“You’ve seen his desk?” Senta asked Rob. He nodded. “He had that thirty years ago,” she went on. “He was just starting to put those strange sayings into the top of it. He said he was building in his philosophy. I’d like to see what he has there now, see if he’s changed at all in thirty years.”
She shook her head, looking back over the years again, this time without the power of the drug. “What was it? Rockets are wrong. He put that motto in there, the first one of all. He was just starting to build Atlantis. I didn’t realize then that he meant to make it into a private world, one that he could retire to and leave the rest of the System to do what it liked. And now you two have the beanstalk, his answer to rockets after all this time. Howard is right, Regulo doesn’t give up easily.” She was looking at Rob with a different expression, seeing something in him that had not been visible before. “Be careful, Rob. Don’t overdo it. It’s good to have goals for yourself, but it’s bad to let them become obsessions. Darius is an addict to something as strong as taliza: he can’t bear to lose. Don’t let that rub off on you.”
Rob frowned. Senta was striking very close to home. “I’ll try not to. I know what you’re telling me, but I’ve always done things as hard and as well as I could. Stopping that wouldn’t be easy.”
“I know.” She took Rob’s right hand in hers and ran her finger lightly over the surface. “Don’t over-compensate for these, Rob. You’ve proved that you’re as good as anyone with natural hands, long ago. I spoke to Cornelia yesterday, and she says you’ve been working continuously, ever since you first met Regulo. Don’t forget that work can be an addiction and a form of escape, too.”
“I won’t overdo it.” Rob noticed that a faint trembling had returned to Senta’s hands. They were hotter than his own. “Corrie and I are going to take a break from work tonight and go over to Naples for a day, before we have to head for Quito and Tether Control. I know that you respect Regulo, but now I see there are some things about him that you don’t approve of. How do you feel about Corrie working for him? Some of the jobs he gives her are pretty strange ones — like telling her to go and collect me and bring me out to meet him in orbit. She has a lot of responsibility for her age. Did you introduce her to Regulo in the first place?”
Senta stared at Rob wide-eyed. Rob reached over and poked Anson in the ribs. The other man sat up, took one look at Senta and reached at once into his pocket.
“Come on, dear,” he said. “Time for a sedative. Thanks, Rob.”
“I’m all right,” Senta said. She was still staring at Rob. “I don’t know what you and Cornelia have been doing in all the time you’ve spent together. But didn’t she tell you anything about herself?”
“What’s the problem?” said Anson. He had lifted Senta’s bare arm and was holding a tiny vapor-injector against it. “I wasn’t listening. What did Corrie tell Rob?”
“It’s what she apparently didn’t tell him that has me surprised.” Senta let Anson move her over to the bed. “Rob, you’re so wrapped up in your work you don’t notice some things at all. Regulo and I lived together for more than five years. What do you imagine that we were doing all that time, designing rockets? When you meet Cornelia tonight, take a good look at her. Look at her eyes, and the shape of her forehead. She’s my daughter, and she uses my name — but she’s Darius Regulo’s daughter, too. I raised her, but I couldn’t keep her on Earth. As soon as she was old enough, she went off to Atlantis. Didn’t she tell you any of that?”
Rob was gazing at her in amazement. “Not a word. Maybe she thought it was obvious enough without saying it. And it ought to have been, now that you’ve told me. Corrie said she had been looking at the signs on Regulo’s desk for years and years, the very first time we met. I thought that was odd, because she looked so young, but I never took it any further. And she told me she had never seen you using taliza. Howard said you had been addicted for twelve years. That meant Corrie would have been only fourteen years old. I couldn’t understand why she had never seen you, unless she had gone off to Atlantis before that — and she wouldn’t have gone there so young to work. But it makes sense if she went there to stay with her father. I’ve just been unbelievably dense, that’s all.”
Senta was nodding her head, but while Rob was speaking her eyes had begun to lose focus. As the injection took effect, Howard Anson eased her back gently onto the pillow.
“Some day, Rob.” he said grimly. “Some day soon. I’m looking for another thing in our casting back to the past. I want to find the bastards who made Senta into a taliza addict. I’ve never believed that she did it to herself, and now I think it’s somehow tied in to another attempt to wipe her memory. But it’s working in reverse. She recalls exactly what they’d like her to forget, it’s planted so deep in her. Let’s find who did it. Then you’ll realize that I have my obsessions, too.”
“You are going to try again, and see what Senta recalls?”
“I don’t know. It’s obvious we still don’t have everything, but we can’t use a dose this strong very often. The after-effects are fierce. I’ll keep digging away at Morel’s background, you look for evidence when you are out on Atlantis. But take Senta’s advice. Be careful how you dig. I’ve heard Senta talk about Joseph Morel, and she’s terrified of the man. Don’t ever let him suspect what you’re trying to do.”
“It may be a bit late for that.” Rob stood up. “He was already suspicious when I was looking around last time. I’ll be careful. But we have to go on. I’ll admit to my own obsessions, even if they’ve been put on hold for ten years. I want to know who killed my parents, and I want to know why they did it. There’s one other thing I’d like you to look into while I’m away. Do a search for other reports of anything that might be a Goblin, on Earth or off it.”
Howard Anson shook his head. “I’ll try, Rob, but I don’t know where to start. What is a Goblin? You have no idea how much there will be in the files on references to `little people.’ We don’t even know if the Goblins are small. I’ll have to sift my way through mountains of material about elves, and midgets, and leprechauns, and every other sort of real or imagined small human-like being.”
“I know. If I didn’t have extraordinary faith in your tracking powers, Howard, I would never suggest it. But I think we do know, now, that the Goblins are small. Senta said there were two Goblins in a medical supply box. That would usually be less than a meter long. I assume you already tried to find references to the Expies, the name you had heard used before?”
“Long ago. There wasn’t a trace. I’ll try again. But it will take a massive effort.”
“Don’t worry about money.”
“I wasn’t. I was thinking about time.”
“As soon as possible. For all our sakes.” Rob paused at the door, his gaze turning back to the silent form on the bed. “One other question, then I’ll go. You told me that Senta was terrified of poverty, and she came from a poor background. Now she seems to have all the money she can use. Do you know where she gets it? If it’s yours, that’s fine and I don’t want to pry. But if it isn’t…”
“It’s not, and I do know where she gets it.” Anson’s tone was unusually bitter. “She has never taken anything from me — never needed to, though I’d give it gladly. She has an unlimited credit of her own. I traced the charge code back through the files, and everything terminates at a single number. Everything that Senta spends is charged to the central account of Regulo Enterprises.”