Striding to the empty upholstered chair in front of the desk, Tómas answered, “Reverend Umber ordered Dacco to clear out.”
“Really?”
“Really,” Tómas replied. Hunching forward in his chair, he said, “Now let’s get down to work.”
With a nod, Abbott said, “You’ve put yourself into a lovely trap, my boy.”
“Trap?”
“Yes indeed. Vincente and I have been going over the available data, and it looks awfully slim.”
Zworkyn said, “The estimates of the moons ejected from orbits around Uranus are nothing more than that: estimates. They’re based on theoretical conjectures, not observational facts.”
Tómas nodded. “But they’re all we’ve got to go on.”
“Yes,” said Abbott. “And you want to use these guesses to—”
“They’re more than guesses,” Tómas objected. “They’re based on backtracking the orbits of Uranus’s existing moons.”
“Not much better than guesses,” Abbott said.
Zworkyn said nothing.
His back stiffening, Tómas said, “Well, it’s the best we’ve got. We’ll have to work with that.”
Smoothing his moustache with a finger, Abbott said, “I was afraid that would be your response.”
“It’s better than nothing,” Zworkyn offered.
“Not by much,” said Abbott.
Tómas asked, “How much time can we get on Big Eye?”
“That depends on when we want the time,” Abbott replied. “It varies from twelve to maybe twenty-four hours.”
“Hours?” Tómas gasped.
Abbott nodded. “Time is a precious commodity.”
“Hours,” said Zworkyn. “That means we’ll have to have a pretty damned precise estimate of the moon’s location before we ask the Big Eye people for some time.”
“Hours,” Tómas muttered. “Hours.”
Abbott commiserated. “It’s going to be like asking a blind man to find a penny in a dark alley.”
“Worse,” said Zworkyn.
Abbott shook his head. To Tómas he said, “You’re going to need an incredible amount of luck, my boy.”
“Luck, mi trasero,” Tómas growled. “We’re going to need to work our tails off. And then some.”
His healing leg propped up on the bed of his stateroom, Noel Dacco repeated to his visitor, “I don’t want any slip-ups.”
His visitor was wearing the sky-blue uniform of one of Haven’s security police, a sergeant’s chevrons on its sleeve, the name JACOBI lettered on an ID card pinned to his jacket’s chest. He nodded knowingly. “There won’t be any slip-ups. We’ve done this kind of thing before. Plenty times.”
“For what I’m paying you,” Dacco went on, his voice low and hard, “I want the job done right.”
Jacobi was slight of build, his face all bones and glittering eyes, his hair shaved down to a thin fuzz. “It’ll be done right. Just as you said.”
“Break his leg, fracture his skull. Maybe pop some ribs for good measure.”
“Look,” Sergeant Jacobi said, “my people know what they’re doing. We control our whole section of the habitat. Somebody gets out of line, we bring them back where they belong.”
Dacco stared at the man. “Make it look like an accident. But make sure he knows who did it to him.”
“He’ll know. I’ll tell him myself.”
“Good.”
The overhead speaker announced, “Departure in fifteen minutes. All visitors must return to the habitat.”
Jacobi got to his feet. “Gotta go.”
Dacco nodded. “His name is—”
“Tómas Gomez,” said Jacobi. “You already told me.”
“Let me know when it’s done.”
“Right.”
Jacobi left the narrow stateroom. Dacco stared at the closed door for long minutes. Give the snotty little bastard what he deserves, he told himself. Break him up real good.
NEEDLE IN A HAYSTACK
“These are estimates, Tómas,” said Zworkyn, his voice edging close to exasperation. “Not much better than guesses.”
The two men were sitting side by side in Zworkyn’s quarters, staring at a wall screen that showed the planet Uranus surrounded by dozens of tiny moons.
Without taking his eyes from the screen, Gomez muttered, “When you’re given a lemon, make lemonade.”
Zworkyn sighed dramatically. “I just don’t see how you’re going to get anything useful from these wild-ass guesses.”
Gomez turned in his chair to look at the engineer. “They’re more than guesses, Vincente. They’re based on backtracking the orbits of the moons now in orbit around Uranus.”
“With error bars on the estimates that are bigger than the orbits themselves.”
“That’s what we have to work with. We’ll have to project these estimates and see where they lead us.”
Zworkyn shook his head. “You have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat.”
Gomez smiled thinly. “Not much blood, but plenty of toil and sweat.”
Smiling back at the younger man, Zworkyn said, “I understand. You’re telling me to stop crabbing and get to work.”
“Sort of. The computers will do most of the actual work. All we have to do is to program them correctly.”
Zworkyn puffed out a sigh. “All right. Tell me what you need me to do.”
Sitting behind the boutique’s central counter, tapping out the command to close the shop’s blinds, Alicia asked Raven, “How’s Tómas?”
Raven was straightening up a rack of dresses that had been pawed through by several customers. She shrugged her slim shoulders. “I haven’t seen much of him this past week. He looks tired, but kind of happy.”
“Like I feel,” Alicia said, leaning back in her padded chair. It had been their busiest day ever; from the moment they’d opened that morning the shop had been filled with eager, chattering women fondling through the merchandise on display.
“How’d we do today?” Raven asked.
Pointing at her computer screen with a happy smile, Alicia said, “Best day ever. We’re going to need to restock our inventory sooner than we thought.”
“Wonderful!”
“But Tómas,” Alicia asked again. “How is he?”
“Like I said,” Raven replied. “Tired but happy.”
“Have you set a date for the wedding?”
Raven shook her head. “Not yet. He’s too busy with his astronomy work to even think about a wedding.”
“But you do plan to get married, don’t you?”
“He insists on it. Says we’re living in sin and he wants to make an honest woman of me.”
Alicia couldn’t help giggling. “He must have been raised Catholic.”
“What else?”
Suddenly Alicia’s expression changed. Her smile faded. Her eyes misted over.
Raven stared at her friend. “What’s the matter?”
Getting up from her chair, Alicia answered, “Nothing much. I’m jealous, that’s all.”
“Jealous?” Raven came away from the clothing rack, stepped around the counter and embraced her friend.
“Alicia, there must be at least three or four men to every woman in this habitat…”
“I know,” said Alicia. “But look at me. Skin and bones. A recovering drug addict. Who’d want me?”
Raven held her by both shoulders and stared into her eyes. “You’ve got good bones. And a pretty face. All you need is to put on a few kilos and you’ll be stunning.”
With a forlorn nod, Alicia said, “My parents never married. I don’t think their parents were married, either.” She shook her head. “But there it is. Wedding bells. I’m like a teenager.”