“Do you have Slingshots for passengers?” Rob moved forward right up to the desk.
“We built the first two, just a month ago. I could find out which cable your Goblins used easily enough, by checking the angular momentum of all of them. Each time we use a Slingshot we naturally increase or decrease its angular momentum.” Regulo stood up, his back to the wall. “We lose angular momentum when we throw a cargo in toward the Sun, and pick it up when we catch something thrown in from Mars or the Belt. Provided we move the same mass of materials in and out, the whole system balances — just like the beanstalk back on Earth. I would have given you details of the Slingshot as soon as we had Lutetia under control. You’ve got the idea, but you’ll be surprised when you see how much we can cut off transit times.
“Well, enough of that.” Regulo’s voice changed in timbre, becoming gruffer and more intense. “The Slingshot was used in a way I never expected. It killed two of the `Goblins,’ if you’re correct. But what about the rest of it? Joseph was secretly performing some kind of social experiment here, that’s what you’re telling us. If he had a self-sustaining colony they would have been through many generations in thirty years. It makes me wonder what type of social structure they could have evolved. Did Joseph tell you what he was trying to achieve in his colony, before Caliban got him?”
“Not a thing.” Rob stood up. “Morel didn’t intend to tell me anything. He was supremely logical, and logical people don’t bother to explain things to a dead man. I had one other factor to consider while I was locked in that lab. Morel wasn’t an anthropologist. He didn’t have the slightest interest in social structures. He never told me what he was doing. But you see, Regulo, I know it anyway.”
“Aye.” Regulo’s voice was as calm as ever. “I was afraid of that. The second that you came in here, I thought that the game might be over.”
He waved a thin hand at the control panel. “While you were talking, I gave the signal for the maintenance crews to make emergency departure from Atlantis. They’re clear now, wondering what the devil is going on. See the ship?”
On the display, a large freighter hovered beside Atlantis. Near it, filling the screen, the swollen balloon of Lutetia hung, its surface white-hot and smoking with escaping volatiles.
“I have to ask you one more thing,” Regulo went on, “though I think I know the answer. I suppose that it would be a waste of time to offer you part of Regulo Enterprises?”
Rob shook his head. The movement sent a flare of pain down his left arm.
“I thought not.” Regulo’s hands were behind him against the wall. A panel slid open to reveal a dimly lit corridor. “We respect money, you and I, but it has never been the main drive for either of us.” He sighed. “It’s a pity. We could have done great things as a team.”
“I know. Great things.” Rob’s voice was scarcely loud enough to hear. “To work with you, Regulo, for that I’d have given everything I own. But this is different. There are some rules that I can’t break.” He cleared his throat and spoke more loudly. “It’s over.”
“Not everything.” Regulo stepped back through the opening. Rob and Corrie did not move. “When you came in, I suspected that Atlantis was finished one way or another. So while were were talking I set the controls for collision with Lutetia. We have a few more minutes before impact.” He pointed again to the screen, to Lutetia’s swelling bulk. “After that, it’s no more Atlantis. No more Morel, no Goblins, no Caliban, no Sycorax. No evidence to support anything that you said. Follow me, both of you, or there will be no Rob Merlin and no Cornelia.”
The panel began to close.
“I’ll hold the ship for you.” There was a plea in Regulo’s bright eyes. “Hurry. I have to destroy Atlantis, but I can’t stand the thought of losing either of you.”
While the wall panel was still closing, Corrie ran rapidly around the desk and began to examine the settings on the controls. Rob dragged himself wearily across to join her.
“What’s the maximum drive setting for Atlantis?” He could feel pulses of pain running up his arm and through his whole body.
“About a thirtieth of a gee.” Without waiting to consult Rob, Corrie was throwing in new settings. “That’s not the point. The outer surface will fail at much less than that. I don’t think we dare try for more than a hundredth of a gee.”
“What happens if the outer membrane bursts?”
“The aquasphere would flood the drives. We’ll burn up in Lutetia.”
Rob moved to the display console and switched in a camera to show the exterior of Atlantis.
“Don’t use that drive unit, Corrie. It’s the best one for the direction of thrust that we need, but we’d fry Regulo. He’ll be coming out of that shaft. Take the next two drives and balance their thrusts. It will be close enough to tangential, we won’t lose more than a few percent effectiveness.”
He leaned across the desk, wincing as his left hand touched it. “Give us a fiftieth of a gee.”
“That’s too high. We’re only rated for half that.”
“Do it — and pray that Regulo over-engineered his products.”
There was a small but perceptible jolt as the two drives cut in. The image of Lutetia did not move on the screen.
“It’s not working, Rob.”
“Give it time. Accelerations take a while before you see the effects.” He was watching a second display, but it blurred as he stared at it. His eyes were refusing to focus. “Good thing we didn’t use that first drive, Corrie. Here comes Regulo, out of the shaft.”
A small, white-suited figure emerged from the exit tunnel closest to the waiting ship.
“He’ll go across to the ship, Rob.”
“Let him. We can’t stop him.”
“What happens if we can’t save Atlantis?”
Rob shrugged. “Tough on us, good for Regulo. He was right, without the Goblins or Caliban there will be no evidence. Even if we escaped, he still has all the money and influence. No one would ever believe me.”
Strain gauge readings from the skin of the aquasphere were well past the safety limits. Under the steady acceleration, a billion tons of water wanted to stay behind.
“It’s going to be close.” Corrie was looking at the fiery ball of Lutetia, now beginning to drift slightly sideways on the screen. “Awful close. The surface of Atlantis seems to be holding, but we have to get by Lutetia without boiling the aquasphere.”
“Look at the other screen.” The tone in Rob’s voice brought Corrie’s instant attention.
“What’s he doing, Rob?”
“I don’t know. Can you bring in his audio channel?”
“I’ll try.”
Regulo’s suit was visible as a tiny white speck on the screen in front of them. Instead of heading for the waiting ship he was moving in erratic bursts, backwards and forwards. Under the random thrusts of the suit jets he was still approaching the molten surface of Lutetia. The asteroid blazed before him with an intense white heat, filling the sky.
“I’ve got him on audio.”
Corrie’s words were lost in a hoarse, painful grunting. It was Regulo, muttering something to himself.
“Lutetia is blinding him,” Rob said suddenly. “It’s so bright, and so close. The photo-shield on that suit was never intended to handle that much intensity. Corrie, he’s lost his bearings.”
The erratic to-and-fro motion had ceased. Regulo was spinning aimlessly, jets firing at random. The white suit was moving closer to the surface of Lutetia.
“What’s he saying, Rob? Listen to him. He doesn’t seem to know what’s happening.”